MILITARY TRAINING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20255, 15 May 1929, Page 14

MILITARY TRAINING.

A STUDENT'S OBJECTION. ATTITUDE OF PRESBYTERY. The question of compulsory military training and the position of conscientious objectors, which was so prominently hefore the Auckland Presbytery at various times last year, was again before it at its meeting last evening. U»e case of John McDougall, of Auckland, a student in training for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, was made an order of the day for eight o'clock. When invited by the moderator, the Rev. E. R. Harries, to state his case, the lad told the presbytery that he came up before the Court last year for refusing to go on with his military training. He applied for exemption on religious grounds but the magistrate refused it, apparently on the ground that he was a Presbyterian. At this stage the Rev. S. E. Hill intervened with a motion that presbytery go into committee, and this was carried. In May of last year the presbytery adopted a resolution claiming for its young men the same right to have conscientious objection to military training as is allowed to members of other communions, and at the same time enjoining conscientious objectors to prove their good faith by offering some form of alternative non-military service. It was agreed to reaffirm this resolution and to give a copy it to John McDougall.