DETENTION CAMPS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 69, 19 September 1944, Page 6

DETENTION CAMPS

SURVEY OF INMATES

O.C. AUCKLAND, This Day. With a view, it is understood, to considering the release of some of the men, surveys of inmates of military detention camps have recently been carried out. The surveys were conducted by a committee operating under the National Service Department and the civil occupations of a number of the men were inquired into. It was stated yesterday that inquiries had already been made concerning some of the men at the Strathmore detention camp in the Rotorua district.

No official information has been given about the surveys and nothing has been stated concerning the purpose for which they could have been made. It is known that some of the inmates formerly followed occupations for which men have been in demand in civil life and that, in the main, they are fit men who could be used on heavy work.

When an assurance was sought in the House of Representatives recently that military objectors would hot be released until all servicemen had been rehabilitated, the Minister of Justice (Mr. Mason) said an assuranc? could not be given in terms open to so much variation of interpretation. Any decisions in the matter would be made in the light of the relevant circumstances existing when the decisions were made and would be so directed as to safeguard the rehabilitation interests of servicemen. ' v