Put Sons Into Sheltered Occupations

Northern Advocate, 21 June 1941, Page 4

Put Sons Into Sheltered Occupations

TSpecial to “Northern Advocate”] HAMILTON, This Day. The No. 2 Armed Forces Appeal Board has given reserved judgment in connection with an application for the rehearing of an appeal of a reservist, a farm worker, on the grounds of public interest and undue hardship. ' The judgment was in connection with an appeal made by,, the Director of National Service on behalf of A D. Monteith, farm worker, of Otorehanga. It was supported by the reservist and his brother, E. E. Monteith. His father. Mr A. L. Monteith, a member of the Arbitration Court, later applied to be joined as a co-appellant. The board said that in cases where there were a number of sons, some cf whom were eligible for service, it was contrary to public interest that all or even most of ’those eligible for service should be retained in sheltered occupations. Wealthy, Influential People To do so would rouse public resentment and militate against national unity particularly in .the. case of wealthy or influential parents, and in those cases in which the .sons had been taken into such sheltered occupations since the outbreak of war. The appellant was engaged in an essential industry, production, when called up, but this was not his usual and principal occupation. He had been employed in it for about eight month. He had been previously employed in a Wellington warehouse. There were six sons in the family. Two were married, one was under age, and one was serving overseas. One was the appellant, and one reservist had been a glass-beveller until December, 1940, w T hen he went to a farm owned by his father. An appeal for his exemption had been lodged.

Viewed With Suspicion To say the least of it, the circumstances led the board to view the whole situation with suspicion. In February, 1940, Mr A. L. Monteith bought an additional farm, and in June, 1940, the Emergency Regulations were gazetted. In the same month the reservist was taken from his city employment on to one of the farms. A second son had been called up and had appealed. ,Mr Monteith said he was not supporting this appeal, but the board said it found it difficult to believe he did not know of it. Dealing with the question of undue hardship, the board held that an appellant was not entitled to invoke, as a ground of undue hardship, a state of affairs which he had created with the full knowledge that at the time he was liable to be called up. Loopholes If this were not so any man possessed of sufficient means could, after he became liable for service, purchase a one-man business, or a father could take ‘a son from a non-shel-tered occupation and put him in a sheltered occupation. In the present case, Mr A. L. Monteith, at the time he took the reservist from his employment in Wellington and put him on the farm, must have known that he was or would become liable for service. It followed that any hardship caused by the calling up of the reservist arose from Mr Monteith’s own act.

In the board’s view no useful purpose could be served by granting a rehearing. The application was dismissed.