ANTI-MILITARIST

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 687, 12 June 1929, Page 7

ANTI-MILITARIST

STUDENT REJECTS VIEW OF PRESBYTERY REFUSES ALL TRAINING Advised by the Auckland Presbytery to offer alternative nonmilitary service, John McDougall, who has refused military service on religious grounds, has now informed the presbytery that he will refuse ali service. ■\TORE about young students —prospective candidates for the ministry —who are refusing military service because of religious principles „ was heard at the Presbytery meeting yesterday. After discussion on the question was heard for a time, the Rev. D. C. Herron moved that Presbytery should meet in private and make a statement to the Press. A committee of three prepared a resolution, carried without dissent, stating that, while the Presbyterian Church did not encourage refusal to accept military training as long as it continued to be the law of the land, the Presbytery reasserted the claim made by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church that individual members who had bona fide conscientious objection to military training and service should be granted the exemption provided for under the Act. The Presbytery urged applicants to express their willingness to accept non-military service if prescribed by the Governor-in-Council. THREE BEFORE COURT One of the lads concerned in the question, A. M. Richards, stated his case to the Presbytery, which was told that he, and two others, J. McDougall and A. Miller, were to come before court again today for refusing military duty. Replying to the injunction of the Presbytery tp offer alternative nonmilitary service, McDougall said in a letter that he would refuse any service, “I will mot offer alternative non-military service. I deny that such an offering would prove good faith. It merely shows that the offerer is willing to cringe before public opinion to achieve exemption. I will not do that. “Anyway, I would not do any such compulsory non-military service if it were prescribed. Some cannot see how anyone can have religious objections to such service. According to my religious beliefs, the State has no right to specify the way in which its citizens shall serve it, any more than the Presbytery has a right to direct how its members shall serve it. I can only refuse to follow the unwarranted directions of the Presbytery.” On the motion of the Rev. W. Lawson Marsh, the letter was received. Mr. Marsh said that the question was an urgent one, and the three lads were coming before the magistiate the next day. As the letter had been read m public, a motion that it should he held as private was ruled out. The Rev. S. E. Hill expressed the view that if the Presbytery now met in private, it would appear that it was afraid to stand by the motion come to some time ago. The Presbytery stiould have nothing to hide, he said. By a large majority, the Presbytery decided to discuss the question in committee.