MILITARY DEFAULTERS.

Evening Star, Issue 25523, 29 June 1945, Page 4

MILITARY DEFAULTERS.

The amendment moved by Mr Holland in the House yesterday to revoke the regulations allowing military defaulters to apply for release from detention while soldiers are still serving overseas was ineffective, except as a protest, as it was bound to be. It was a protest, however, which the Government would have preferred very much not to have ventilated, as was shown by the Hon. Mr Nash's naive attempt to prevent its hearing, on the ground that even such a general discussion of the question might affect the judgment of those hearing the appeals. The appellate tribunals are not so unworthy of confidence as to give the least force to that objection. Two strong points were made by Mr Holland when ho said that there was no appeal for soldiers, sailors, or airmen, but only for defaulters, and that the decision was arrived at, not after discussion in the House, but by discussion inside the Government caucus. The issue was not naturally one of party politics at

all, and it would have been much better if tho Government had submitted the question of appeal to a resolution of the House, with a provision that party tics would not be involved in it.

As it was the discussion was confused, | almost inevitably, by the use of the terms " defaulters," in the sense of shirkers without any excuse, and " conscientious objectors," whom no one desires to penalise when the objections are truly such, as if they were synonymous. The camps are defaulters' camps. The best effort was made by the first tribunals to keep conscientious objectors out of them, hut the main tests applied, again almost inevitably, were inadequate, and some may have suffered injustice. Now the only way of remedying, or attempting to remedy that mistake is bv allowing all who have been committed to camps to apply for a reheariug, except where they are serving a. sentence of imprisonment or are absent without leave or have escaped. So it will be sought again to distinguish tho sheep from the goats, and, when tho distinction' lies in conscience, it is yet to be learned how ono tribunal will bo more competent to find it than another, or how a tribunal of one man. set up for that purpose, will be more competent than a tribunal of three. ' At the worst the misjudged objector suffers nothing in comparison with the soldier; What the serviceman can go through no one knows except those who nave listened to some returned men, with more than three years' service and endurancej in the rare times when they can be induced to be communicative. Mr Morton, who seconded the amendment before tho House, explained that he had visited the defaulters' camps and could not imagine any body of law-breakers being treated with more consideration than thoso received. Tho argument has been too much prejudiced by talk of " indeterminate " sentences. The soldier who joins up joins " for the duration," and after he has returned to " civvies " may be called up again if tho need requires. The best that can be said about the Government's regulations is that the procedure they provide foils much better than as it was first reported. There will be a representative of tho Crown present, and th» hearings will be open to the. Press and public. Mr Holland believed that if public opinion could be tested"it would vote overwhelmingly against the Government's decision. His amendment has had its value, because the whelp matter has now been canvassed and public opinion will pronuunee upon it, along with other matters, at a coming time.