PACIFISTS' COURAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 22, 26 July 1945, Page 6

PACIFISTS' COURAGE

QUESTION TO DEFAULTERS A common question put to "military defaulters .asking for release on .parole from detention, is whether they have had occasion to test their physical courage. Many have not had such an opportunity beyond playing football and other games involving possibility of injury, but occasionally there comes to light a man who has faced such a situation. ■'■

One applicant, for instance, said he had sailed. across the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia three/ times in yachts and had also been in the lion's cage at a circus in company with the ; lion tamer but unarmed.

Another applicant declared that a gang of Public Works employees had wanted to hang him because of the pacifist views he held. He had" been advised to "hit the bush," but remained, as running' away would have proved that he was "'yellow." Then there was another applicant who said that when going to England as a member of the crew of a cargo vessel in 1937 at the time of the Spanish civil war, they were warned that submarines were sinking ships regardless of nationality. "There were 50 of us focs'le hands," he said, "and when I looked round I saw that many of them were afraid—-quite jittery, in fact. But I wasn't frightened. I had nothing to be afraid of. I was only a new chum and the others were all old sailors." ■-.".'.•■•