DEFENCE ACT OFFENCES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 17 June 1913, Page 4

DEFENCE ACT OFFENCES.

Extreme anti-militarists are again making a laughing-stock of Christchureh, though they-are in the merest minority. This makes ■it all the harder for the sensible people of that city, though perhaps .they, too, join in the laughter. No doubt they would be better pleased if the extreme antimilitarists amongst them were less demonstrative with the exhibitions of their eccentricity. But that has never been the way with Christchurch's eccentrics, who, whatever the cause may be, beat all other eccentrics in the Dominion for the persistency and oddness of their exhibitions. The latest instance is connected with the Defence Act, and the committal of. four youths to Fort Jervois, on Ripa Island, for twentyeight days of military detention, in consequence of their having failed to pay fines for their refusal to register under the Defence Act. Three of the youths had- been imprisoned several times previously for the same offence, persistency m which is punishable by military detention under the Defence Amendment Act of 1912. The lads were sent to Ripa Island on Thursday last, and since then there have been hot-headed letters on the in the Christchureh newspapers, and these have been capped by the treasurer of the Passive Resisters' Union sending the following telegram to the Government: "Unless the boys are released from Ripa Island within 4S hours a serious position will arise. "We are making preparation for 500 men possibly to take possession of the military barracks." Really, this is the summit -of absurdity, and though, at bedrock, there is nothing in it, it is the kind of-tMngp that, spreads-far and wide,- and which is seized by interested persons in the Old Country as evidence that New- Zealand is palpitating on the verge of civil war m consequence of the unpopularity- of the . defence scheme. Of course all ■ thoughtful steady-going . people in the Dominion know that nothing, is further from fact thafl this. But silly news, like bad news, is apt to fly far and fast, and the effects may, for a time at any rate, prejudice the Dominion even in the serious realms of trade and finance in the Old Country. The president and vice-president of the Passive Resisters' Union^ have, to their credit, repudiated'their treasurer's threat, but that had a start which' may enable it to reach the Old World sooner than the contradiction, and so harm may be done by the threat, utterly silly though it be. In such a case, the best that can be done is for the sensible people of the Dominion to suffer the foolish with patience, if not gladly, and to trust that it cannot be long ere the majority in the Motherland' knows that all New Zealanders. barring a few eccentrics, regard the Defence Act as a measure indispensable to our young nation's welfare, and that compliance with it is all but universally regarded as being as necessary as obedience to those sanitary laws which are indispensable to the public health. Indeed, the Defence Act and.the Public Health Act are, in relation to the eenerpl V°lf are , on substantially the same footing, and resisters in the one eas3 r5; r ..j evon3 offenders as they would be in the other.