MILITARY DEFAULTERS

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 137, 6 December 1918, Page 6

MILITARY DEFAULTERS

The wild speed at which tJie Government has been endeavouring to rush, its measures through received a salutary check yesterday in tbe case of the Expeditionary Force* Amendment Bill. In the main the Bill commends itself to a majority" of the House, and it will doubtless be approved in the main by the country, but no intelligent appreciation of a measure is possible before it has beemi read, and some members complained yesterday that they had not had that opportunity. The provision for the disfranchißjmant of military defaulters is the most important point in the Bill, aad, as tho Minister of Defence urged, it is mot a new one. But, though the prinoiple ie not new and was long since accepted both by Parliament and by the ■ country, a neiw application of the principle is proposed, and those who object to the proposal are entitled to be heard. . If before the war the disfranchisement ,of tfi"e man who refused to submit to military training was regarded as reasonable, .there is no reason to .suppose that.after the \y>ar the. man who shirked his obligations in the Empire's 'hour of need will receive any more sympathy than. Ke deserves. Mr. Ell's inability to understand how. any member of (Parliament could plead the cause of ifche shirker is shared by am overwhelming majority of the people. If a man Tefuses without legal excuse to fight for his ■.■ouniry, it-is high time,, as Mr. Isitt said, that he should be told that he has no right to a share m the government !>f hie !s£HHit.ry, The ttpf*ttlt«tf «hould l>«i

terms, but some members who cordially supported the principle thought that the Bill gave the Minister too wide a discretion and left the alleged defaulter too narrow a right of appeal. The adjournment will allow this point j and others to b"e more fully considered than would have been possible if the measure had been '.rushed through yesterday.