TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. WEDNESDAY. 13th AUGUST, 1941 ALTERNATIVE SERVICE.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 63, Issue 4463, 13 August 1941, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. WEDNESDAY. 13th AUGUST, 1941 ALTERNATIVE SERVICE.

THE announcement which the actingPrime Minister made at the week-end respecting the intentions of the Government with reference to the treatment of conscientious objectors to the performance of military service and of those who defy the decisions of the Armed Forces Appeal Boards, will have been received with considerable satisfaction. The main principles upon which regulations dealing with the matter will be framed are of a kind that have been strongly advocated. One requires that the man who is relieved of the obligation to serve in the armed forces on th*> ground of his conscientious objection to war is not to be placed financially in a better position than the man on active service. Another principle that is to be expressed in the regulations is that the conscientious objector must be prepared to render alternative service, not necessarily in connection with the war, of such a description as will be valuable to the State. Both are principles to which the majority of the people of the Dominion will probably give a prompt endorsement But the enforcement of them may present serious difficulties, particularly in so far as it is designed to place the objector on a financial footing that will not be superior to that of the man in the forces. Each man’s position, Mr Nash states, will be examined, and his objections determined, by the exercise of “the highest judicial qualities of understanding, common sense and knowledge of the requirements of the community.” Such a scheme will impose on the Tribunals a very responsible task—especially so as it is proposed that the hearings will be conducted behind closed doors. It is well that the men chosen to carry this responsibility are of proven ability and integrity, who may be expected to command the confidence of the people. The fairness, justice and equity of the scheme will depend upon the quality of their judgment, exercised under regulations which confer full and independent power to employ the principles enunciated by Mr Nash. The wisdom of establishing defaulters’ camps, under the proposed Regulations, for men who flout the Tribunals, or refuse military service as directed by the Appeal Boards, is yet to be proved. It may be agreed, as Mr Nash has stated, that such men make unsatisfactory soldiers and are better out of the Army. It is also true that they are not “criminals in the ordinary sense of the term.” Nevertheless they will have disobeyed the law. Many persons who do that in civil life are not criminals in the sense of the word as Mr Nash employed it. But for their anti-social act they go to prison and it is proper that they should. The public will, as the Wellington Dominion observes, require fuller information as to the nature of the discipline and tasks planned for defaulters before the proposal to protect them, by Regulation, from the ordinary penalty of the law will be approved.