EVANGELS OF PEACE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 75, 5 May 1914, Page 7

EVANGELS OF PEACE.

A MILITANT DEPUTATION. WAITS ON SIR J. G. WARD. SOME REPBOACHES. A militant deputation of anti-militai'-ists waited on Sir J. G. Ward to-day, and occupied two hours .of liis valuable time in condemning the Defence Aefc, and listening to his explanation of his connection with it. The deputation consisted of members of the National Peace Society of the Anti-militarist League. It was introduced by Mr T. H. Davey, M.P., who requested the speakers (there were nine on the list) to put their speeches into the compass . of five minutes. This request was cheer- : fully disregarded. LOOKING AHEAD. Mr Atkinson said that the deputation felt that Sir Joseph Ward and Mr Mas- \ sey were the leaders of the dominant parties, and a good dear depended on ? what they were going to do before the next election took place. Sir -Joseph was the man who was responsible for bringing in the Act, and forcing it through the House. Sir Joseph had previously opposed compulsory military training, as he then held that the people % would not sanction it. In those prior views, expressed in 1908, they felt that the true man spoke, and that he would eventually revert to those principles. The main feature of the Act was that every man between 14 and 30 years was to form the potential and actual sol-' diery of the country. It was a horrible thought that they were going to have an armed country of that sort. It would take seven years to bring the scheme to its completion, but the whole political aspect of the country was going to be changed from what it had been. The Act would interfere with people in every walk of life. RECORD BOOKS. Applicants for places in the Govern- • ment service had to produce their record books, showing that they had com- : / plied with the Act. That would eventually extend to private service. They could not afford that. It was a wicked • thing, and a, wicked power to hold. " They knew that the military people * . could not be held in bounds. Hun- . dreds, or thousands, of boys had been prosecuted, and many of them liad been . [prosecuted illegally. The Act of 1912 was no longer an Act to be used ex- V elusively in time of war. It might be v used to call out the Territorial or any part thereof, without any proviso as to what they were to be used for. The power to punish under the Act included imprisonment from the.ages of, 14 to 25, and boys already liad experienced 90 days' detention, and some 35 days and 47 days. The Magistrate still: ' . . had the right, to order imprisonment if the fines were not paid. NO MODIFICATION. " They were not there to ask for a modification of the, "penalties, but that ' the compulsory clauses of the Act be swept away. Modifications' had been suggested by> Mr Isitt, but they could not make the Act live. It was only a 'matter of time when the Act would have to go. The position of compulsory militarism in New Zealand was absolutely untenable.' THE SUN, not an anti-militarist paper, had said that to talk of invasion was quite ridiculous. The deputation considered that New ■ • Zealand was being used as the cat'spaws of the military party in England in order that they .might get their' way A BIG POWER. Whilst they had an army here they had placed a power in the hands of the Government which no Government should have power to wield. They eould plunge New Zealand into war without consulting the people at all. It might not be the intention to send conscripts abroad who had not volunteered for service abroad, but they would not be" able to resist the war-inflamed demand that they should go. They had the whole machinery in Parliament to compel them to go when ordered. (Hear, hear.) The deputation hoped that Sir Joseph would get back to the position he previously held prior to the Act being passed. THE MOTHERS DETERMINED. Mrs Wells said that the Act affected the children. If it concerned men alone, the women would probably not have taken any action. The Act gave their children* 1 no choice as to the line of life they were going to follow. Militarism killed individuality, which education was designed to foster. Education demanded a Minister of Peace, who would show how a country could be defended by j peace. The mothers were determined _ that their uhildreu should not be made the battleground for the differences betweeu past methods, when Empires were built on force, and present facts:. The position was that many of their brightest boys were debarred from the most desirable positions in the service of their country unless they could produce their records showing that they had complied with the Act. The Act was not a democratic one. Military drill did not develop the body and they read the other day of a cadet dropping dead on the parade ground from an aneurism; possibly the drill produced the aneurism. Their secondary schools were being turned into military colleges, and education was becoming secondary to militarism. The camps, whitewash them how they would, were doing untold iujury to their boys and sowing the seeds of lifelong disease amongst them. The Act was not good for the morality of the boys—they were corrupted at the source of their life. The target set up in the drillshed showed the position of heart, brain, and liver of the human body, and their boys were trained to shoot at these. That was not merely unmoral, it was immoral. It was a horrible crime that was being committed against their children. She could , not feel that Sir Joseph realised what he was doing when he put this thing on the Statute Book. ' 4 We shall never, never submit to this Act," Mrs Wells added vehemently. "We are absolutely determined to light this military conscription Act until it dies or we die." A RESISTER. Mrs Nuttall said that Sir Joseph knew what the boys had suffered, and her boy was amongst them. Her son, who had always been a good lad, was two years ago put into Lyttelton gaol. . He had made up his mind that he would not confonm.to the Act. He was fined, and he was put in gaol. It was a great indignity tliat should be. done,

when they were trying to instil into the minds of their boys the brotherhood of the people of the world. Later the boy * was fined £5, and his civil rights taken away for three years. He resisted an attempt to garnishee his wages by leaving his employment. He was put into a dirty filthy cell in Christchurch, and next day was escorted to Lyttelton by soldiers with fixed bayonets. He was put on Ripa Island, where he suffered terribly, and his mind almost became unhinged. They hoped next election to send men to Parliament who would oppose this Act. THE PROSECUTIONS. Mrs Atkinson said that she had watched nearly every prosecution for three years, sometimes when there were no reporters present. The wrong that was done by those boys being dragged into the police court could never be undone. On one occasion a boy was prosecuted for tickling another boy. The boys had sometimes had to listen to the most disgraceful kind of cases that came before the court. Now the cases were taken first, but the boys did not understand that they could leave the court when they had been dealt with. The Act was a most dangerous one, and it gave the Government power to take its opponents' votes away. She herself knew of 43 young men who had been disfranchised, and many of them would never have voted for the Massey Government. She had never seen a member of Parliament in either the Christchurch or the Lyttelton court to see the scenes which took place there. The society could not get information from the court as to the number of prosecutions, though they were willing to pay for the necessary typing and work. Mothers had told her that they did not know where their boys were, and did not want to know, because the police were after them. Mr Bailey, the magistrate, was willing to give all the jockeys exemption on the grounds of hardship, but there were other cases of more hardship. Mr Hannam said that he was a Staunch supporter of the Liberal Government since the maritime strike, but those who opposed the Act could not be blamed if they voted for the men who would give them the most practical sympathy. Mr Hiram Hunter said that the SocialDemocratic Party was in favour of providing for a Volunteer defence system, and those who served could be paid the standard rate of wages. They found that Territorials had received letters from their officers inviting them to act as specials during the strike, so that Territorials were actually being used, and commanded by Territorial officers, in time of industrial strife. . Mr Reg. Williams referred at length to the enquiry into the Ripa Island complaints, and to the evidence given by Colonel Heard. He said that some of the lads suffered solitary confinement on half rations. Neither this nor de portation would break the spirit of the lads who were opposed to militarism. 3» Mr E. Howard*put forward the statement that the late strike would not have taken place if it had not been that a military camp was to take place in the near future. The strike was manoeuvred by the military caste for purposes of their own. They would never make soldiers by compulsion; An attempt had been made locally to'Ttninimise the disturbance which took place at the-camp just outside of Wellington. The military principle behind the scheme was nothing but an attempt to x break c'own the democracy, and to belt the democracy. The Territorials, if they were called together, would protest against what had taken place at the Kowai camp, notwithstanding what had appeared in the newspapers. SIR JOSEPH'S REPLY. Sir Joseph said that he was only too glad to have the opportunity of hearing tho deputation's views. He was quite satisfied of the earnestness and sincerity of the speakers. He did not intend to deal with the matter from a political standpoint. He had never brought into operation a system which had been very strongly advocated by prominent people before the Act was passed. He did not bring in conscription; in fact, his scheme was a limited one in comparison with what had been advocated. THE REASON. The reason of the change was that the volunteer system had failed—it had broken down completely. It was quite . erroneous to suppose that there was any ** intention to have an army in New Zealand. It was intended to have a system under which they would be able to defend New Zealand from aggression by raids from other countries, in the event of trouble arising in the Old World in which Britain was involved. THE COLOUR PERIL. There was such a thing as the colour peril. With one of the Eastern nations there was a treaty, which he hoped would last. The other great Eastern nation had a teeming population of 500,000,000, which some- responsible people thought would want an outlet. The control of the destinies of New Zealand in regard to warfare was not in their hands. In the event of war between another country and Britain they would be dragged into it whether they wanted it or not, and even without firjug a shot. New Zealand had enormous "benefits by being attached to Britain, and they wanted to see the best traditions of their fathers maintained in these seas. A RAID. If the Old Country became seriously involved, it was believed that an attempt would be made to raid the oversea dominions. They were within ten days or a fortnight's sail of the Eastern nations. The reason for the existence of the system was that there was a strong impression that they would have to be prepared for a raid. They had to remember also that the countries in the East were not the only ijp countries with which Britain might be involved. Great Continental nations were adding to their ships, and there was a strong belief that this was being done for the purpose of trying conclusions with Britain. REGRETTABLE FEATURES. There were regrettable features about the operation of the Act. It had not been contemplated that boys would he put in prison, and it was not done by the Defence Act, but by the civil law. He urged, when an amendment of the Act was before the House, that provision should be made to prevent the stigma of imprisonment being put on the young people. He was responsible for "the Act, which was not copied from any other Act. ANOTHER IDEA. Sir Joseph suggested that the deputation should wait on the Prime Minister, and lay their views before him. He thought that all sensible men should work with'a view to meeting the absolute necessities and requirements of the country in the matter of defence. They ~~! were bound to have an effective inter- '•• nal defence in New Zealand. He was as anxious to see peace preserved as was any member of the deputation. He

would be very glad to consider the various aspects of the cas"e which had been presented to him. He was anxious to see a scheme which would not have attached to it the thousands of cases which they had seen in their courts. THE VOLUNTEERS. A member of the deputation asked if a volunteer force would not have been sufficient. Sir Joseph replied that it would have been criminal to have relied on the volunteers, in the position in which A'olunteering was. He was an old volunteer himself, and he knew that on most occasions they were regarded as decorative rather than useful. A voice: Same as the Territorials. Mr Howard: The contingenters gave a good account of themselves. Mrs Wells asked if Sir Joseph would favour limiting the scheme to men of 21 and upwards, and leaving out the boys? Sir Joseph said that he would like time to consider that. The defence scheme was only a few years old, and they had to decide whether they had it on the best basis possible. They wanted to avoid the difficulties and troubles which had arisen. The point raised by by Mrs Wells was a very important one. *Mr Christie said that Liberalism in New Zealand, after leading the world for 20 years, was voted down, on account of the Defence Act and the Dreadnought. Now they had the Tories, and no one liked them. They wanted to see the old flag of Liberalism flying again, and would Sir Joseph Ward, if he were returned to power, approve of the appointment of a Peace Commission? Mr E. Howard objected to mixing up politics with the question, and Sir Joseph said that he agreed with Mr Howard. There were more speeches and more questions, which rather strained the patience of Sir Joseph, though he was too good-natured to get angry. Finally Mr Atkinson "put a stop to the flow of eloquence by moving a vote of thanks. He said that Sir Joseph had not given them much satisfaction, but they knew where he stopd. The seconder* of the motion fired off a speech, and the motion was finally carried.