CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 February 1941, Page 2

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS

SERGEANT’S APPEAL DISMISSED [per press association.] AUCKLAND, February 18. “I have no objection whatever to fighting for New Zealand in New Zealand, but I can conscientiously say that I do not wish to serve as a soldier in any other country than my own, Sergeant Moore Hooker Bowden, a pay-sergeant in the Ist Auckland Battalion (Territorials), when he appeared before the Armed Forces Appeal Board, this morning, to appeal against his calling up lor service overseas. “This is the land of my birth, and I feel bound to it by strong ties of loyalty. I am prepared to defend it to the last ditch against any aggressor. I have no objection to military service as far as it is confined to this country. The taking of life and the smashing of property in other parts of the world is not my job,” added Bowden. In answer to a question, Bowden said that he would fight to the death in New Zealand.

The chairman (Mr. Orr Walker, S.M.) said that, in some circumstances, aggression was the better form of defence. If the enemy was able to take parts of the British Empire, piece by piece, it would be little use fighting here. Mr. Walker added that the appeal did not come under the heading of conscientious objection, and would therefore have to be dismissed.

WANGANUI CASES

WANGANUI, February 18

Several conscientious objectors, whose appeals for exemption from military service were dismissed by the Armed Forces Appeal Board, failed to answer a summons to attend at the Drill Hall for medical examination, to-day. An Army authority stated he had no instructions concerning the further procedure to be taken to deal with such men. In previous cases, where men failed to report for medical examination, a second notice was sent by registered mail, and in the event of no appearance being made in response to the second notice, a report on each case was sent to headquarters at Wellington.