MILITARY SERVICE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 63, Issue 4462, 11 August 1941, Page 4

MILITARY SERVICE

CONSCIENTIOUS AND OTHER OBJECTORS. GOVERNMENT’S POLICY. ♦ Announcing the Government’s policy regarding conscientious objectors, the acting-Prime Minister, the Hon. W. Nash, said in the House of Representatives on Friday that two principles must apply: In the first place, no man of this class must be placed in a better financial position than one who, probably on equally conscientious grounds, has entered camp and trained to fight for his and our liberties. Secondly, as a citizen he should be prepared to serve the community in the place where he can be of greatest value, not necessarily in work connected with the war effort if that is genuinely against his conscience. Mr Nash said that regulations would be gazetted at an early date embodying these principles. Three leading barristers, Mr A. H. Johnstone, K.C., Mr H. F. O’Leary, K.C., and Mr A. T. Donnelly, would be appointed as individual tribunals with headquarters at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch respectively, to determine the questions raised under the regulations, hearings being in camera. Proceedings would be informal and applicants would be entitled to adequate representation. CAMP FOR DEFAULTERS. The regulations will also cover cases of men whose appeals have been dismissed and who refuse to perform ordinary military service. “It is clear,” said the Minister, “that the community cannot allow these men to defy the law. It is equally clear that none of us want to have them dealt with as criminals in the ordinary gaols or thrust into camp as unsatisfactory soldiers.” These men, expfained Mr Nash, will be detained in a special defaulters’ camp, where under strict discipline they will perform useful service to the community in accordance with their particular abilities. Offenders against camp discipline will forfeit the differential treatment and will be liable to imprisonment in the ordinary gaols.