CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIVI, Issue 17700, 29 January 1918, Page 7

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,—Allow mo to add my voice to that of “ A Picador ” in last Saturday’s issue. Like “ A Picador,” I cannot accept the doctrine of non-resistanco as a possible solution of our international problems to-day, much less those of tho Littlo Peoples, whoso only earthly hope is in our continued championship. I cannot understand so determined an effort to treat tho terrible wounds of the twentieth century with twenty-second century surgory, nor why intelligent persons can fail to see that our men at the ffont are dying in order to make a world in which oil men can afford to bo conscientious objectors to war. But it is strange that any _ honest soul can fail to appreciate the sincerity, the single-heartedness, of these few twenty-second century people, while those of us who havo grasped the sacredness of life and life's purpose must needs hold the taking of life the last sacrifice, tho most dread duty, that can ho laid upon man, That Christ enjoined a law of love is undeniable. Had every Christian lived up to that law, we should long ago have made war impossible. As it is, we havo to pay in this, ns in all' other things, fen tho sins of our fathers.. We know wo bay© to fight or to see mercy, civilisation, Teligion itself wiped out. Wo even know that wo outsolvos were marked out for the hideous fate of Belgium and Serbia, while yet Germany was speaking us fair. But even that does not excuse us for doing Hminish things ourselves. Are we honest in heaping shame, ignominy and persecution on those people? Are we honest in forcing them to violate a dictate cf conscience wo do not hear? Ho, we are not commonly honest, much less Britonjike, least of all Christian-like, in our cruelty to men who arc in almost every rase industrious, well-living, quiet and neighbourly—men whose convictions liavo not been hidden in peace time. We are not honest; this cutcry against men who have a conscience and obev it, is mainly angry cant. ■ Here is the proof It is posssiblo to imagine a national crisis fo grave that every- man refusing to rally to defence might be civieally considered a traitor. It is possible wo arc at such a crisis now, but we are not acting accordingly. Vi'e could well wish that tho men who have willingly unfitted themselves to servo Hew Zcaland during the last three and a ha t years, and those who made them unfit, both for no conscientious reasons whatever, could be counted only in hundreds. This handful of clean-living religious men (the genuine shirker never stands up against our present persuasions) ask only for tho saroo fair play that the sot and the man who made him so receive from us and our institutions. \\ hatever tho glory of tho peace wo hope to make this year, this national shame will remain to us, that they asked for as much fair play as that, and did not get it—l am, etc., JESSIE NACKAY. TO Tin: EDITOR. Sir,—l think I am voicing the opinions of a largo body of people who deplore tho undorhand methods employed by the military authorities ill deporting fourteen conscientious objectors as reported in the "Lyttelton Times” of January ‘25. I enter an emphatic protest against such action, and also against the, suggestion that tho remaining objectors should bo so dealt with. "Whatever views we hold, we must concede tho same right to ethers. We must respect the rights of conscience, and tho possibility that their viewpoint is rightfoe them. There are somo people who cannot surrender their right to moral judgment, and wo must beware that we do not substitute martial tyranny, or bureaucratic tyranny, for Papal tyranny. The conscientious objector is not always a despicable shuffler and an arrant coward, and mayshow a firm and noble devotion to the ideals ho does possess. Many will heroicallyrisk their own lives, but they will in any way endanger the lives of others. This is," perhaps, a point of view which should bo recognised. . , , _\'o nation which allows men to bo tricked to* tho trenches by underhand methods can bo justified in asking tho blessing of the Almighty in a wav of liberty against oppression. If objectors nro to bo so dealt with let it be dono publicly and openly. Tho people of Hew Zealand nre becoming restless and if bureaucratic methods boconio much more restrictive there can be nothing but trouble ahead for the Government — 1 am ’ < " C '’ ,T. D. ROBERTSOH. ' TO THE EDITOR Sir,—lt seems to me that Sir J. Allan's little experiment, with the conscientious o>icctora was a very foolish blunder. _ All through tho ages men who stood for ngatcousness have been persecuted and lllused and misunderstood. Christ Himself was hurried to the gallows because His policy did not suit the ruling classes of His day. AVe have in our prisons men of nigh integrity. who, because they refuse to do injury to° another, are accounted as unfit to be at j nr .re, a danger to society, while our Govermnent is heaping trouble on the women and children of the prisoners. The mien will not be punished in the sense the Government expects. It is the' helpless women and children tho system is hitting.—l am, etc., •AV.J.D. TO THE EDITOR q; r j[ av I express my cordial agreement with’“A Pleader,” both" as regards liis disavowal of anti-militarism on the on© hand, and on tho other his pica for a sane and rational treatment of the honest C.O. Our present decree, “Ho church, no conscience, is working out as foolishly as might have been foreseen by anyone aware of modern ethical and spiritual conditions. May I give two instances of which I have some persona! knowledge? A, a lad of twenty, whose family circle has always been ardently antimilitarist, was lately drawn in the ballot. Considerations were suggested by which he misfit have hoped to got off, but A decided, that, being a C. 0., he ought to face the music as one (Was that tho act of a shirker?) so ho appealed. Ho belonged, however, to no church, and so this extra-conscientious boy has been declared to havo no conscience worth considering by Parliament, and the best use tho community can make of so worthy a citizen is to send him to gaol. As to B. a Bachelor of Divinity, his conscience is so inconveniently active that when ho found his fellow- anti-militarists were duo to have a bad time in Hew Zealand, lie returned hero from his studies in n neutral country (where ho could have remained in complete "comfort from ©very other point ’ of view), in order to take his share of tlio jam —or skilly, rather. Drawn in the ballot, bo appealed," adding that in case of adverse judgment lio would gladly be sent to the front rather than lo prison (provided always that he were not expected to take life), as ,

he realised that prison meant less danger and more, comfort than tho trenches. Can most of us consistently call such a man. a shirker or a coward? He does not, however, belong, I bolievo to any church; so that he, 'too, was relegated to tho ranks of tho unworthy—according to our present Parliament—and has been quite a while in gaol already. Could anything ho more ridiculous from ono point of view, or more serious _ from another? In view of these and similar anomalies, one fcols as if it would bo more honest and almost more sensiblo to make no pretence whatever of considering principles. Tho real shirker, I believe, often finds. it best to join without demur and do his shirking later. In any cases, it would bo about as rational to rnako membership of an athletic organisation tho sole medical test as it is to mako church membership a test of conscience. As a practical suggestion, why cannot the evidence of witnesses as to a man’s known convictions for a given length of time bo tnken as sufficient? One more point. AYe have heard recently that of certain C.O.’s sent Home with Reinforcements all but two have recanted. If this happened because they really altered their judgment, I for ono rejoice most heartily, for it is precisely tho judgment 01 the C.O. that seems to me fallacious. His sincerity, and his strength of principle on the other hand, are so admirable, and so far above our average, that one would like to he sure these have been Tespected; and, in the light of what has previously happened in England in such cases, unfortunately one cannot bo sure. One cannot, for example, forget that most unhappy lad, who wrote to his friends that he had given in because he simply could not stand what thoy were doing to his body, but’ added that his convictions were really unchanged, that ho knew ho had dona wrong, and that he was most utterly wretched. Anyone who values in the least his own inner life will sympathise with that poor wretch. And so I want to know what was done to mako our New Zealand C.O.’s recant? "Was their judgment persuaded, or were their consciences coerced? If the first, capital: if tho second, abominable. What, after all, did tho Inquisition do except try to effect recantation through torments, physical, mental or moral? One would like soiiio assurance that the spirit, and tho method, of the Inquisition have had no counterpart in our military treatment of tlieso men.—l am, etc., B. E. B AUG HAN. Clifton, January 29.