TO BE DETAINED AS DEFAULTERS

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 43, 14 November 1941, Page 9

TO BE DETAINED AS DEFAULTERS

Twenty Men Sentenced FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH LAWFUL ORDER

“This Court can’t go into the question of whether a man is a conscientous objector, but only whether he is a defaulter,” said Mr. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrates’ Court, Wellington, yesterday, during the hearing of charges against 20 members of the 2nd N.Z.E.F., at Trentham, of failing to render the service required of them in that they failed to comply with an order lawfully given. The men had had their chance of appeal and some of them had done so and had had their appeals dismissed, said the magistrate. All the men were convicted and sentenced to defaulters’ detention. They were:—Donald James Frank Armstrong, Nathan Sydney Beatus, Roy Neale Bidlake, Clarence Alfred Board, John Cameron, Hugh Houston Dempsey, Gordon Stuart Doig, Evan Morgan Evans, Raymond Firmston, Patrick James Hourigan, Hugh William Kelly, Robert Duncan William McCallum, John Thomas McGurk, Kenneth Aubrey Frank Mason, Ronald Calverley Meggett, James Olds, Harry Edgar Palmier, Bert Powell, John William Rogers and Hiram Gartside Sweeney. All pleaded guilty except Rogers, Kelly and McGurk, who refused to plead. Sub-Inspector D. J. Hewitt, who prosecuted, said that Powell had been prosecuted in Gisborne and fined £lO for failing to report, and Beatus, Firmston, Kelly, Armstrong, Cameron, Rogers, Mason and McCallum had served, a month’s imprisonment on a similar charge. Doig’s appeal had been dismissed, Hourigan, who had not appealed, had been arrested and taken to the camp. Bidlake’s appeal had been dismissed subject to non-combatant duties and the appeals of Board, Dempsey, Evans, Meggett, McGurk, Ohls, Palmer and Sweeney had been dismissed. Reasons For Refusal. The men were asked by the magistrate their reason for refusing to obey the order. Beatus said he believed it was wrong to indulged 'in warfare. Rogers said he felt it to be inconsistent with his previous attitude to submit to medical examination. Meggett said that as a Christian and one of Jehovah’s Witnesses he was unwilling to accept service in the army. “I can’t recognize the authority of anyone to commit what I feel is murder,” Armstrong said. Doig’s explanation wag that it would not be consistent with his previously held convictions. Mason said he was opposed to warfare and had held those views for a number of years. He had refused the order of the military that he might not be guilty before God, Board said. Evans said his reason was that he sought to obey God.