The Press Friday, July 19, 1929. The Defence Act.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19675, 19 July 1929, Page 10

The Press Friday, July 19, 1929. The Defence Act.

i We print a telegram to-day from Duuedin giving what seems to bo the full text of a very outspoken letter by the Hon. G. M. Thomson on the attitude of Divinity students to the Defence Act. As Mr Thomson is himself a Presbyterian with, we should think, .something like half u century's service on Church Courts and committees, his letter will create a sensation —especially his remark that the two young men in Auckland on whose behalf the Church is now fighting are troubled as much by vanity and obduracy as by conscience, and enjoy their pose as public martyrs. How much of this is true it is for the Church and not for the newspapers to decide, but there is one remark that must be made. A Government that makes martyrs, except in a national crisis and for the most compelling reasons, is just about as foolish as a Government can be unless it is unjust as well. In the present case the Government has not been unjust, but it has certainly been very unwise. Whatever view it takes of the necessity of maintaining the Defence Act, it should have forestalled any attempt to have the compulsory clauses challenged on the score of justice and righteousness. That is to say, it should have done without pressure what it is now going to do under pressure, and what, in itself, is a right thing to do. When the community is in danger Governments may be justified in applying tests to conscience which at other times would be intolerable. In any case they have an excuse for such methods then even if they cannot justify them. But no Government in normal times should have anything at all to do with conscience except to protect it. To allow anyone to say (with even a suspicion of justice) that he is not free to think and act as his conscience dictates is simply to invite trouble of a very unpleasant kind, and the weakness of the Government's position in the case of these two students is that it has allowed them to martyr themselves with half the community behind them. It is not a question of the wisdom or folly of the Defence Act, or of its necessity or futility. What the Government should have remembered is that nearly half of the community dislike the Act for other reasons than those given by these two students, and are now leagued with them to destroy it.