CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23319, 3 May 1941, Page 10

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS

DOMINION R.S.A PROPOSAL

MATTERS REFERRED TO GOVERNMENT (P,A.) WELLINGTON, May 2. A recommendation to the Government that conscientious objectors whose appeals were allowed should be employed in alternative services in the Dominion was approved at a meeting of the Dominion executive of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association to-dr«y. The president (the Hon. W. Perry) said he had been informed that alterations to the National Service Regulations were being contemplated with a view to giving the right to conscientious objectors to have their appeals reconsidered. It was decided strenuously to object to the Attorney-General against any modification of these regulations in the direction indicated. The question of alien medical practitioners was considered, and it was decided that the services of those who had completed their three-year course in New Zealand could best be utilised on hospital medical staffs, thus obviating the problem of alien doctors setting up practice in towns where local practitioners were serving overseas.

Dissatisfaction was expressed at the attitude of the Government towards representations made for an increase in the. pate of subsistence allowance paid to men of the forces who are not quartered either in camp or barracks, and members were emphatic that the present position was most unfair to the men concerned. Representations made by the association for the total exemption' of those serving in the forces overseas from contributing to the compulsory war loan resulted in advice being received that any cases of hardship would receive sympathetic consideration, and the Minister for Finance intimated that in all cases of these men dealt with so far exemption had been granted. - A protest against the imposition of the penalty for late payment of income tax payable by members of the forces overseas brought a reply, from the Government that while it did not seem practicable to allow the payment in all cases to stand over without the imposition of additional tax until the soldiers return to civil life, in future the penalty would be collected only when it was clear that the tax could without any embarrassment have been paid by the soldier’s agent. . It was also stated that representations for increases in the rates of dependants’ allowances for members of the second New. Zealand Expeditionary Force, commensurate with the rise in the cost of living, were still under consideration by the Government, as also were, the recommendations for an increase in the rates of certain pensions.