MILITARY OBJECTORS

Grey River Argus, 29 June 1945, Page 2

MILITARY OBJECTORS

JEHOVAH WITNESSES PALMERSTON N., June 28. • An applicant before the No. 2 Revision Authority dealing with defaulters’ appeals said he was a Christian Pacifist and several times referred' to the “military machine.” Mr W. H. Woodward, S.M., said the Army was not a machine. “It is made up of human beings who hate war. just as much as you and I do, but it is no machine. The term has become popular with pacifists but the. Army is not such.” At another stage in the proceedings Mr Woodward said appellants had to be sure they had clearly examined their own motives. This was difficult to do-. The attitude of Jehovah’s Witnesses toward the war was presented by Mr R. E. Pope, solicitor, of Wellington, who said' he had been engaged by the Watchtower Bible Tract Society, the governing body of the organisation. ■He would later submit the same representations to the No. 1 Authority in Auckland. He submitted there was a difference between the regula-

tions under which Armed F’orces Appeal Boards heard appeals and those under which the Revision Authorities were set up. The intial regulations governed the scope of the inquiry as to whether applicant was a pacifist Mr Woodward said he was con-

cerned in these cases with the sincerity of the belief of appellants. oi' not. The scope of the later regulations included persons other than pacifists. ■ Members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses were, prima facie conscientious objectors. There had been a

The cases of Jehovah’s Witnesses were proceeded with. great change i throughout the Empire in the attitude toward the organisation. New Zealand was apparently the last to lift bans against Jehovah’s Witnesses. -