VOLUNTEER AND CONSCRIPT

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23401, 7 August 1941, Page 8

VOLUNTEER AND CONSCRIPT

•BEQUEST THAT DISTINCTION BE ABOLISHED fPJU . WELLINGTON. August 6. •: A request that. distinction between volunteer and conscript be abolished in all official references to the Empire’s fighting forces was made py Mr F. L. Frost (Government, New Plymouth) to the Acting-Prime Minister (the Hon. W. Nash) in the House tp-day. Mr Frost raised the point in notice of a question, asking if Mr Nash had seen the reported statements d£ Captain Margesson, Secretary of State for War in Great Britain, and Mr Malcolm Mac Donald, United Kingdom High Commissioner, to Canada, in which they lauded Canadian soldiers as being "every man a volunteer. ’ . Was 'Mr Nash aware that such ’distinction between volunteers and conscripts had lapsed much resentment’in New Zealand, where opportunity for volunteering for military service, except in certain specified branches, had been taken-,away from New Zealand men by act of Parliament. “Will the Act-ing-Prime Minister represent to the British Government that in New Zealand we-, regard the ballottee and the volunteer, with equal honour, bestow upon-them "equal praise, and will see that their, rewafd -is Just and equal? risked :Mr Frost.