EQUALITY IN SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 114, 16 May 1941, Page 6

EQUALITY IN SERVICE

The new regulations dealing wilh conscientious objection to military service and the provision of alternative service may help to solve a difficult problem. It is not desired to force into military service men whose whole manner of life hitherto attests the sincerity of their objections. At the same time, objection which is based only on an attempt to avoid the sacrifice, danger, and hardship faced by the soldier cannot be accepted as a ground for exemption. Tf it were there would be every reason for the strongest protest by the men and their relatives who loyally accept their obligations. The compulsory service law would, indeed, become a mockery, far worse than voluntaryism, since it would provide an easy way of escape on grounds of conscience for those who have no conscience in truth and national duty. So far it has rested with appeal boards to separate the sincere from the shirking objectors. The new regulations will, perhaps, help the boards by authorising them to attach conditions to exemption. They may grant exemption on condition that the appellant undertakes alternative service under civil control, or they may direct that an appellant's service with the armed forces may be restricted to non-com-batant duties. The alternative service may be at rates of pay and under conditions that may constitute material sacrifice. An appellant's willingness to make this material sacrifice may provide a partial test of sincerity. It is certainly the least that can be asked.

In applying the new regulations, however, the greatest care will still have to be exercised. It would be wholly wrong if every objector on a mere statement of conscientious objection and acceptance of alternative service (involving less hardship and no peril) were to be allowed to escape a soldier's duty. We assume that there is no intention of permitling this, as the Minister of National Service stresses the need for adducing corroborative evidence. Even wilh alternative service the measure of sacrifice as between the soldier and objector will not be equal, and there should be every effort to limit the scope of this inequality. Distinction must also be made between those who ask thai they shall be allowed to' follow personally a way of life that they have followed in the past, and those who, under cover of conscientious or religious objection, are bent upon subverting others and disrupting the nation in its war effort. To the latter a nation facing a )ife-and-death struggle can give no lali-

tucle.

Because the regulations now made change the conditions under which appeals have previously been heard, appellants whose cases have been dismissed are to be given a right to apply for a rehearing. This is fair, but it should not be allowed lo afford a way of evasion by procrastination. A final date has been set for receipt of applications for rehearing, and no time should be lost thereafter in disposing of the second appeals and enforcing the decisions of the appeal boards.