SERVICE IN ARMY

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 109, 1 February 1941, Page 13

SERVICE IN ARMY

Appeal By Quaker Upheld CASES HEARD YESTERDAY

'Four of the six appeals by conscientious objectors against overseas service heard by the Wellington Armed Forces Appeal Board yesterday were dismissed. The one allowed was that of a member of the Society of Friends. Tlie remaining appeal was withdrawn, the appellant being a young man who had just finished his three months’ territorial training.

Mr. W. F. Stilwell, S.M. (chairman), Mr. A. Parlane and Mr. I’. Coyle comprise the board. Mr. C. O. Bell is Crown representative and Mr. D. Roundhill secretary.

Eugene Sansum, school teacher, appealed on the ground of conscientious objection. He said he was a member of the Wellington meeting of the Society of Friends and he was prepared to do nou-combatant service under nonmilitary authority. John Henry Howell, clerk of the Wellington meeting, testified that Sansum had been a member of the society for more than 12 years and was firm in his convictions against combatant service. Those convictions were held by all members of the society. The chairman said that the regulations applied and the appeal would be allowed.

Patrick Gordon Little, labourer, who had just completed his three months’ territorial training, appealed on conscientious grounds, but withdrew his appeal. He told the board he did not mind defending New Zealand in the country itself but objected to going overseas.

The chairman: The trouble is that as far as you are concerned there is no distinction. You have to be a “whole-hogger”; there is uo halfway. Your service as a territorial embarrasses your appeal on conscientious grounds. Appellant: Then the board had better forget about it, After hearing evidence from the Air Inspection Department regarding the work on which Ronald Clifton Gibbons, chemist, was engaged the appeal of British Australian Lead Manufacturers, Limited, in respect of him was adjourned sine die.