The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2 1919. LIEUT. CRAMPTON'S ACQUITTAL

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11763, 25 February 1919, Page 4

The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2 1919. LIEUT. CRAMPTON'S ACQUITTAL

IT would, no doubt, be far too wide a generalisation to say that everybody is .pleased at the judgment of the Court-Martial on the Crampton case. A large number of people had their reasons for-deainng an entirely different conclusion of the trial. These were the proGermans, the defeatists, the pacificists, the I.W.W.’s, the squashy sentimentalists, whose pities are always oblique in direction, and splenetic politicians who cared nothing for the justice of the case, but hoped to utilise Lieut. Crampton as a stick to beat the Government. In fact, wa do not remember a single civil or criminal case in the Dominion, ranging from debt to the murder of a whole family, which caused such an outcry against the accused as that which followed the publication ot tbe letter from one of the gullen shirkers at the Barracks, accusing Lient Ciampton"of brutality. In spite of the tainted nature of the communication they did not wait for an inquiry to substantiate the cbargae, aad when the Magistrate gave bis judgment against the Lieut the cry broke out afresh. There will probably now be an endeavour on the pert of the irreconciiables to pit tbe Magistrate’s decision against that of the ConrtMartial and claim that either the Magisterial decision was more in accordance with the facts, or that ths two cancel each other.

It seems to us, however, that the two inquiries had different objectives. Mr Hewitt’s had a more civilian purpose than the other. It was intended to elucidate whether what might have bten called cad treatment bad been used, without much reference to tbe necessity of it And it was. To put a rope around a man’s waist and drag bim about the yard when he would much prefer to lie around

and smoke, would, under some circumstances, be a most reprehensible act. To put a heavy pack on his back, lash a rifle to him and posh him along at tho regulation marching speed, when he has very strong conscientious objections to any form of exercise, would be a com. plete legal excuse for the lurid language used by seme of the shirkera in protest. That is, of course, under some circumstances. ’But not all. An ass might very properly imitate Baalaru’s, and talk back, if the thing was being done to him for fun. But after all, the men who dragged and pushed were more to be commisserated than the shirker. Lying well hick, and to the full measure of his conscientiousness, a heavy shirker would need a horse power to move him along at regulation speed, But force was used. That cannot be gainsaid. Tbe act would be quite justifiably characterised as brutal if certain men were to apply it to any reputable and blameless citizen in the street. But the Court-Martial bad not only to take into account the spectacle of a man who refused to fight, or walk, or carry, aud defied all military lav; to make him do either, offering a swinish resistance, hut to ask themselves what would be the consequence if this grossly mutinous conduct were tolerated. Discipline was necessary. It was a case of a shirker setting himself up against the New Zealand army, and tho lesser was compelled to submit. It may, however, help to diy the tears of Dr. Thacker and others who mourned over the bruises of their pets, which disappeared under scrutiny, that the sufferings which the whole eleven incurred in their breaking in were not comparable to those of one of our brave men for one night in a frozen trench in Flanders, or those of one torn by a German shell while fightiing for our liberties, or of one of those bereaved by the death of a soldier boy.

It was only a type of idiocy and ot polticel spleen that caused Lieut. Crampton to be put on his defence for doing his duty. But it would have heightened the injustice if be had been allowed to remain under the stigma of the Magisterial findings. For what must have struck every impartial reader of the evidence given during the second inquiry’, was the very great selfrestraint exercised by Lieut. Crampton and his men in their treatment of the obj ectors. Vfhat force was applied was only just enougn to overcome resistance, and applied good-humouredly as to beings of less than normal mentality. And tbe second inquiry swept away the carefully built fabric of falsehoods and inuendos of the first. The examination was sucre searching and it was soon found that shirker guile was not equal to shirker ability for invention. The State now owes to both parties in the dispute some consideration, if only in the way cf poetical justice. Lieut. Crampton should receive promotion and the shirsers a consideralle amount of pack drill.