MEN FOR THE FRONT

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 65, 14 September 1917, Page 7

MEN FOR THE FRONT

POSITION OF THE SECOND

DIVISION

SUBJECT FURTHER DEBATED

SHOULD MAEIST BROTHERS BE

EXEMPTED?

The Expeditionary Forces Amendment Bill reached it« second reading stage in

the House of Representatives last night. The Minister of Defence (Sir James Allen) said the main point of the Bill was to take the clergy out of the, Reserve, on the lines of the Imperial Act, the terms of which he read. , Mr. Isitt: Do you know what interpretation is put upon "Holy Orders" ? The Minister: No';"" I'm afraid I don't. A member: What about the Marist Brothers? A member: "What about the Salvation Army? . TO APPLY TO OFFICIATING , CLERGYMEN. The Minister said that the Bill would apply to everyone who was gazetted as an officiating clergyman. Since the Bill was drafted he had received a letter from the Seventh Day Adventiets, and if they could prove. that they were entitled to be included in the' schedule they would be so included. The same remark applied to the Salvation Army. Experience had shown the difficulty of exempting the clergy, who had done excellent and splendid work, but he realised the neceseity of retaining among our civilian population sufficient clergy to carry on the activities of their religion.,.. „ A member: Do you propose to exempt any others? / The Minister: Not without good cause being shown. As to boys of 19 years of age, he did not see why a boy of 19 should not be conscripted, but it*was now proposed that a boy of 19 who was medically fit could enlist voluntarily and be accepted. Clause 6 gave the Government power to take the whole of the rest of the First Division without taking a ballot. . Mr. Poland expressed regret that the Minister had not told the House what was going to be done for the members of the Second Division. i - . . Mr. Massey : It's coming down in the next Bill. . Mr.. Poland again urged that the full particulars should be given to the House. Mr. Massey : It will come down in the War Pensions -Bill. ;• HEART-BURNING." Mr. Poland said that under the pension regulations there had been nothing but hearfc-burning on the part of married men in the First Division, and there was no guarantee that anything better would be done for the Second Division. Jt was v'tiine the House realised its responsibility. He was going to move an amendment to the Bill that the allowances to officers, n.c,o.'sj and men shall be in accordance with a scale to be from time to time fixed by resolution of the House of Representatives. The people were not satisfied to leave this matter to regulations. Mr, Poland urged that the separation al- i lowance'to a soldier's wife should,be 6s a day. A second lieutenant received 12s a day, and 3s a day extra when he was in the field.' , Was the pay to" be graduated according to rank or aocording to the responsibility of the man who was going to the front ? Why should these men be asked to leave their wives and families behind in a worse position than those who were not allowed'to go to the front ?; A man who had a flat floot, for instance, stayed at home. The man -who, had not got a flat foot went away and risked his life. It would be an extraordinary thing if the men of the Second Division consented to 1 be balloted without knowing what their position was to be. He complained that no arrangements were being made to put returned soldiers into pre-war conditions when they .retu'rlied, and that was what was troubling members of the Second Division. New Zealand Jjad any amount of money to pay whatever was considered reasonable, and it was, prepared to pay, it, No one should be making money out of the war. Anyone whose home was being defended should say to the Government, " take all I have got." Hb was not going to leave the House without insisting on the Government doing something in the direction he had indicated. ' . \ " Mr. Isitt said he believed that Mr. Poland had voiced the sentiment of nearly every member qf the House. " Members: (Hear, hear.) Mr. Isitt: And of a great majority of the people. '...■■ Members: (Hear, hear.) Mr. Isitt expressed surprise at the fact that the Government had not given them full details, though the Prime Minister had proniised them those details., Tho Prime Minister : That promise will be kept. ' ■, '\ • "NOT UNDERSTOOD.' 1 Mr. Isitt then touched on sectarianism. The Catholics ot hie constituency, he said, might make de_mands in an educational tiireotion which, in his opinion, would disintegrate and destroy the national system of education', but at the same time he would oppose to the limit the present Bill so far as it proposed to conscript the Marist Brothers!. The Catholics were building and paying for Ihp.ir own schools, thereby, freeing the Government from a large responsibility,' tt,nd it wns only reasonable that the Mftris't Brothers should be allowed to carry on their avocation. The Marist Brother was a clcrici in every sense but name, and he Sloped the Government would pause before it pursued^ a line of action which must result in intense re-

ligiouß bittern«H and eerious resentment, If they exempted! the clergy of the' churches and took the Marist Brothers he would not allow the House to do anything so unjust and narrow and ecctarian. He warned the country against the danger of raising the horrible spirit.of sectarianism. Sixty per cent, of the first men who had left this country fof Samoa were Catholics, and he was very corry that some of tho Catholic members had. taken his remarks in a directly opposite way to,-that which he intended. PRIME MINISTER IN REPLY. The Prime Minister, replying, atatod thai in the speeches he had heard that day there had been more sectarian bitterness Ahan he had heard in the 23 yeara that lie had been in Parliament. Members were all there as citizens of the Empire, and they must do all they, could to avoid sectarian bitterness. He assured the House that the Government would do its duty in looking after the wives and families of the members of the Second Division. ■Mr. Witty: Why not before this Bill came down? . • . The Prime Minister, in stressing the large amount of business that had to be (transacted by Parliament, said that he had pointed out to a deputation which had recently waited on him that, after the Finance Bill, the Licensing Bill would have to be dealt with. When he andj the Finance Minister had arrived back they had found a lot of business, as they had expected. A facetious member interjected, "Why can't you do it all in one'day?"/ Mr. Massey: You have never been .in the' Cabinet room, otherwise you ■would not talk of such a thing. . The Prime Minister. added that New Zealand was possibly on the eve of industrial trouble, but whether it was a fact he was not prepared to say. Still, emphasising the strenuous time the' Government was passing through at present, Mr. Massey said that in one day he had received no less than 31 cables, and everyone of them too-k time to deal with. During the last twenty years he had worked hard, but he had not had to work so hard as he had durin .the past year. , . Mr. Massey added tha.t at the very earliest opportunity it was intended to deal with the allowances for the. wives and children of the Second Division and the matter of pensions. It was hoped! that the proposals would be laid before^ the House next weelc. .. .. A member : What about a round the table conference ? : . ■ ■ Mr. Massey retorted that he did not exactly know the meaning of a round the table conference. A member : Whisky and soda. (Laughter.) ■_■.-. The Prime Minister stated that ■ the matter was not one for joking with. Ho said that the promises made to the Second Division would be kept. It had been stated that the Second Division would be balloted for next month. He did not pretend to know the business of the Defence Minister, but he didl not think the ballot would be taken until the end of the month, or at the commencement of the following month.

" Proper provision will be made for the Second. Division," concluded Mr. Massey. ." The sacrifice ma^de by the single men is not to be compared with the sacrifice made by the men of the Second Division."

At 11.-32' p.m.,. on the motion of Mr. G. J. Anderson, the debate was adjourned. . \