OPPOSING SERVICE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 882, 7 December 1916, Page 10

OPPOSING SERVICE.

REPEAL LEAGUE ACTIVE.

MEETING OF BALLOTED MEN CALLED. AN EXTRAORDINARY MANIFESTO. Within two days of tin* gazetting of the new and stringent war regulations which were published in The Sun yesterday, I lie Conscription Repeal League is affording the authorities an opportunity to put those regulations into effect. Each man in the Christchurch j area group who has been called up! for service as a result ot the first ballot held under the Military Service Act has received from the Conscription Repeal League an invitation to attend a meeting in the Alex- • andra Hall this evening, at 8 o clock, “for the purpose of discussing the altitude balloted men should lake regarding Conscription.’’ A postscript to the invitation reads: “Tins invitation only will admit you to the meeting” Accompanying the invitation is a manifesto from the League. The meeting must have been arranged, and the invitations issued, before the new war regulations became known. Rut the gazetting of the regulations has not caused the league to abandon its project. On the contrary, an anti-conscriptionist told a Sun representative, this morning that Ihe meeting will be held in spite of regulations or anything else. He added that this would he a lest of the position, and he hinted, darkly, that the effect of the meeting, or of any interference with it, would be prompt and widespread throughout Australasia. A copy of the manifesto which accompanied the invitation to the balloted men was shown to a Sun representative. Drafted in bad English, it contains some curious arguments in its 12 clauses. It bears no individual signatures, hut simply the signature “Manifesto Committee, Conscription Repeal League.” The imprint is “Repeal Print, Christchurch,” but there is reason to believe that the imprint is a fictitious one. A significant feature of the printing of the manifesto is the fact that it bears clear evidence that the type has been set up by a linotype machine. “The unpopular and, we think, unnecessary law, enabling the administrators of this Dominion to enforce the conscription of flesh and blood, thereby indiscriminately breaking domestic and social ties, is now in operation,” begins (he manifesto. It goes on to complain that the people of New Zealand have had no opportunity to express their opinions for ■or against the compulsion measure. It urges Ihe people to compel the Government to repeal the Military Service Act. Twelve “reasons” for this 1 arc set out. There is the old sneer about “cheap soldiering.” There is also a contention that industrial compulsion will follow. The next few “reasons” raise the usual cry of “class distinction,” commiserate with conscientious and religious objectors—who are described as some of the community’s “fairest citizens”—and introduce the Irish question. The manifesto concludes with an appeal to New Zealanders to repeal the Act.