CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 251, 23 October 1944, Page 4

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS

"Staunch Still's" further onslaught on the above men leaves me cold, - as it is difficult to draw the line . between the various grades of the/i - species. The trades and professions shelter plenty of them. Take my . own, the building trade, for example. Anyone familiar with it knows per- . fectly well that scores of young fel- - lows—"sugar-bag" carpenters—who. had hardly driven a nail before the war, muscled in on the urgent jobs,, avoided military service, received full pay for what you might call their apprenticeship, and are now well dug in for the future And-as a . military man "Staunch Still" must know that the Services have their quota; lambs is lion's skins, dug into a safe soft job for duration. During the last war to end war I recall, watching at Le Havre base camp, together with a crowd going back from Blighty leave, a number of C.O.'s being man-handled under the orders of a sadistic military police • sergeant. One man was being dragged through the mud with a length of wire round him into a barbed wire enclosure. The verdict of the onlookers—mostly front-line men—seemed to be that the poor devils had a lot'more guts than they had. I heard no condemnation. J.BENFIELD.