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Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 882, 7 December 1916, Page 6

The promoters of the anti-con-scription meeting convened for this evening, will no doubt be able to plead that their manifesto, referred to elsewhere, was issued before the new war regulations were gazetted, but the meeting itself is clearly illegal and should be abandoned. There may be a few misguided spirits who want to make martyrs of themselves, and if that is so we direct their attention to the report of the court proceedings at Lyttelton yesterday, where the Magistrate administered a very sharp lesson to a man who made statements calculated to discourage recruiting. The present is no time for trifling with any enemies within the gates. Conscription is absolutely necessary to "comb out" all those who are really in a position to go to the war and whose services are not absolutely essential to the maintenance of indispensable industries. The Military Service Boards have shown that they can be trusted to

give due consideration to cases of exceptional hardships, and even those who still cling to the notion that the individual should be privileged to refuse to light for his country must be realising the justice of treating everyone alike, and placing on each man who is called up the onus of proving that he has a valid claim to exemption. The opponents o" military service had the opportunity, and they made full use of it, before com- . pulsory training for home defence | came into vogue at all. Any agitation at this stage cannot hope to be uccessful. It is merely mischievous and unsettling, and the authorities should take whatever steps may be necessary to show 7 anti-conscrip-Itionists that their propaganda will no tonaer be tolerated in New Zealand.