The "Anti-Conscription" Conspiracy.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15767, 7 December 1916, Page 6

The "Anti-Conscription" Conspiracy.

We direct the attention of the police and of the Government to the news article on this page in which we give some particulars concerning a meeting to be field in this city to-night. The local anti-war and anti-conscription agitators who have formed themselves into a body called the Conscription Repeal League have issued to the local men drawn in the first ballot under tho Military Service Act a manifesto against tho Act and an invitation to attend the meeting "for the purpose

"of discussing the attitude balloted " me*n should take regarding conscrip- " tion." Now, the Military Service Act is the law of the land, and it contains full directions as to the attitude ■which balloted men must take up. These directions amount to this: that these men must obey the Act, as. indeed, all but a few mean to do. Every man affected knows precisely the attitude which is alone permissible, and he stands in no need of advice from anybody concerning it. It is not to bo presumed that the "Conscription Re- " peal League" is summoning these men to a meeting simply in order to help them to obey the Act ■without making mistakes. Wo do not know precisely what "attitude" will be recommended to them, but it is obvious that it will not be the attitude required by the Act. That is to sny. the League is calling a meeting of members of the Expeditionary Force with the object of impeding the working of the law. It would be ba'd enough to call a meeting to protest against the Act and demand its repeal, for we knowhow such a meeting would bo conducted and the object its conductors would have in view. But it is infinitely more grave to call a meeting of members of the Expeditionary Force, who are now under the control of the Government, to discuss ways and means of giving effect to the noxious and unlawful doctrines of the Conscription Repeal League. Even to address circulars such as that we describe to members of the Force strikes us as a serious offence. We suggest that the League has brought itself within the scope of the new for tho public safety which wo printed yesterday. It is laid d.own in those regulations that "no •' person shall publish (i.e.., communi- " catc to any person orally or othcr- " wise) .... any seditious utterance," a "seditious uttcranco" being one " which has a seditious tendency." A "seditious tendency" means "a ten- " dency .... to interfere with tho rc"cruiting, training, or discipline .... "of his Majesty's forces/' and also "a " tendency .... to excite or encourage "opposition to tho enforcement or ad- '' ministration of tho laws in force " .... relative to compulsory military " training or service." The League's action also probably contravenes tho regulations in other respects than this, but this is quite sufficient, and we trust that the authorities will take immediate action, whether the meeting called for to-night takes place or not. It cannot be permitted that any band of disloyalists shall stand in tho way of the nation's duty or affront tho law of, the land, whether by seditious disorder of a general character or by 6uch specifically seditious acts as attempts to tamper with members of the Expeditionary Force. The Acting Prime Minister has made a statement in which he "asks for tho united support of all " the people of New Zealand to assist " the Government in carrying ont the " provisions of the Act." The people ask, in return, that Colonel Allen, having caused the necessary regulations to be gazetted, will see that they are strictly enforced. The occasion for enforcing them is at hand, if it has not actually arrived, and the Government will have the support of all loyal people in the action which it should take. I