MILITARY SERVICE EXEMPTIONS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 10117, 26 October 1917, Page 4

MILITARY SERVICE EXEMPTIONS.

I'aim.iamknt has done the right tiling in exempting clergymen and ministers of religion, irrespective of freed or denomination, and school teachers from military service. The trouble is that the exemption has come just a little too late. Had it been made earlier much heartburning and angry discussion would have been saved, particularly in rogard to the applications for exemption made on behalf of the Roman Catholic clergy and the teaching brothers of the Marist Order. Certain churches decided that they would not apply for the exemption of such of their ministers as were called up by ballot, and. in some quarters it was held that, since they were loyally accepting orders for military service, all other denominations should follow suit. Added to this, there was a strongly defined feeling, on the part of a very large section ot the public who depend upon the State system of education for the instruction of their sons and daughters in the primary and secondary schools, that it would he an unfair thing to deplete the ranks of the male teachers, thus impairing the efficiency of the teaching staffs employed by the State, while applications for exemption were being seriously entertained by the Military Service Hoards, on behalf of the Marist Brothers, employed as teachers in schools that, to a certain extent, compete with those established by the State for the benefit of the whole community. A mistake was made in not exempting teachers when the Military Service Bill first came before Parliament. Had that been done, it would still have been open to any teacher, who wished to do so, to volunteer for service at the front, and the heated controversies that have since arisen over the calling up of the .Marist Brothers would not have occurred. The country is to be congratulated upon the happy ending of these controversies, as the result of the decision come to by Parliament yesterday, on Sir Joseph Ward's motion providing for the exemption, from military service, of '"any person who is a teacher in any public school under the Education Act, or any teacher, lecturer, ur professor in any secondary school, college or university, or teacher in anyprivate school not conducted for pecuniary profit." That exemption comes as a fitting corollary to Dr. Newman's motion, adopted on tlio voices, providing for the exemption of clergymen and ministers of religion of all denominations.