ARMY SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 29, 4 February 1941, Page 9

ARMY SERVICE

APPEALS HEARD

SEVENTH DAY ADVENTISTS

POSITION STATED

Further evidence on the religious convictions of Seventh Day Adventists in regard to war was given before the Armed- Forces Appeal Board this morning when the appeal of Ivan James Henry Snelgar was again considered. Pastor H. G. Moulds, president of the North New Zealand Conference, made it clear that members of the society were prepared to engage in any form of non-combatant service.

.Pastor Moulds produced a copy of the constitution of the society, Article 15 of which set out that the society was non-combatant. He also produced documents procured from America during the last war to prove that the society had always been non-com-batant. .He put.in a letter from the Minister of Defence in office in 1928, in which it was stated that Seventh Day Adventists were to be treated in the same way as the Society of Friends. WOULD SERVE AS NONCOMBATANTS. The Seventh Day Adventists were not conscientious objectors according to the Regulations, Pastor Moulds said, because they were prepared to give service in the present conflict in any non-combatant capacity. In reply to the chairman (Mr. W. F. Stilwell, S.M.), he said they had never taken the stand that they would render service only outside of a military body. Mr. Stilwell pointed put that, the board was not in a position to do anything about an appellant who was prepared to serve in the ambulance or the Army Service Corps under military control.

Pastor Moulds said they felt that they could engage in work which would help, to improve the well-being of the troops, or produce food _or manufacture equipment. At no time would they object to rendering acts of mercy. They were not prepared to serve on the seventh day except for acts of necessity and mercy. A man serving in the Medical Corps would be able to work on any day because he would be engaged in work of mercy. Decision was reserved. Reginald Colin Painter, a tailor's! presser, also appealed as a Seventh Day Adventist. To Mr. Bell, he said he was not now a member of the church and did not attend regularly. He occasionally engaged in work on the seventh day, but having been brought up in the church he could see no reason for altering his non-combatant views. He was not opposed to non-combatant service, but was not prepared to take the oath without further advice on the matter. The appeal was dismissed. appeAls dismissed. Henry Saint, a carpenter, appealed on the grounds of undue hardship to his Widowed mother and for conscientious reasons. He had come to New Zealand three years ago, he said, because he believed he would be surer of work here than in England. His mother was sixty-six and was not eligible "for a pension in England. He was sending, her as much money as he could send out of the country. He was a conscientious objector to war because he believed that all war was mass murder and must cause hardship and suffering to ' the working classes.

To the Crown representative (Mr. C. O. Bell), he said that he admitted that just as much money would be remitted to his mother if he entered the New Zealand Forces, but he was conscientiously opposed to doing so.

The appeal was dismissed. William Bramwell Jones, a studentelect in the New Zealand Baptist College, appealed on the ground that he was training for the ministry. He had been studying for some years and was to be admitted to the college in March. The appeal was dismissed. Herbert Roy Button, an insurance agent, who appeared in Salvation Army uniform, said that he was a local officer and bandsman and objected to military service because of religious convictions. He had been offered a position in the Salvation Army Institute, at Waiouru Camp and wished to go to that work. When Questioned by Mr. Bell, he said that there was not a general objection to combatant service in the Salvation Army; that was left to the individual conscience.

'The appeal was dismissed. The appeal of Stanley James Ireland, baker's labourer, who appeared yesterday and claimed exemption on conscientious grounds as an Open Brethren, having joined that organisation in 1939, was dismissed.