CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24194, 9 February 1942, Page 2

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS

Sir, —I have been greatly interested in the comments on my letter in your paper regarding conscientious osjectors. It is in no spirit of vindictiveness that I write again to draw public attention to the inequality of the relative positions of these men who stay at home in idleness and even some luxury and the lot of the men overseas who, in intense cold, or extreme heat, are paid very little for endangering their lives. If these men conscientiously object to killing their fellow-men, I can understand that. But it is not the fact that they do not wish to kill their fellow-men that forms the objection to these very peaceful conscientious objectors; it is that they are willing to let their brothers be killed in the effort to keep the world safe for them. If their objection to killing is so strong, we could at least respect them if they offered their services to protect the women and children of these threatened lands by doing coastal defence work, or the preparing of safety zones and trenches. My objection is that they will neither fight nor work. I agree with Adelaide Hindmarsh that these young men who adopt a "militant" attitude in refusing to defend their country in the time of its dire need are not entitled to the privileges of a country's protection, nor are they entitled to civil rights, or any voice in the administration of that country. I think that the R.S.A., and especially the women's sections of that essentially fighting forces organisation, should move solidly in the direction of depriving these men who refuse to fight for their country of any of its privileges. I would deprive them of the right to vote in Parliamentary elec-. tions, or to any say in the nation s destiny. It should be made very certain that they cannot vote for at least 10 years after hostilities cease, and that they should not occupy any position in Government administration. The women of this country, the wives and the mothers, who have made their sacrifices and endured their sorrows, when their dear ones went overseas, can hardly be expected to sympathise with those "conscientious objectors who lurk in the safety assured for them by our fighting forces A. Ward