DISOBEDIENT RESERVIST

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4536, 13 February 1942, Page 4

DISOBEDIENT RESERVIST

A Wellington volunteer reservist, 52 years of-age, who had trained with his unit from some time in 1940 to December 9, 1941, disobeyed the mobilisation order for December 10, persisted jtl.his disobedience when warned, Appealed to the Manpower Committee" against the order, and still defied it when his appeal was dismissed, These facts were not denied, when, he was charged with failing”®® pafade and pleaded guilty in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court. The representative of the military authorities said with perfect fairness that they considered his defiance “a serious matter,” sihfce he had “constituted Einiself a judge of what he was going taTdo and when he was going to do it”yet his,position was “no differferent”.from, that of many other men who had rgadily“closed their businesses and were serving on a soldier’s pay.” TftTL. Stout, S.M., imposed

a sentence of 14 days’ imprisonment with hard labour, and declined to lengthen the term to a month and a day to facilitate an appeal to the Supreme Court. It would obviously be absurd to suggest that the sentence was an improper one. It will seem to many, however, that it was by far too harsh. The reservist’s counsel urged that his client was a veteran of the last war, in which he had been grievously wounded; that he had not considered, when he enlisted in the reserve, the possibility of being called for full-time service; that he managed a business of some national importance; that he had offered alternatives to full-time duty; that his appeal had been off-handedly dealt with; that he realised the error of “his idea of standing up for a principle”; and that he was now ready to obey. If these pleas were added up, they do not make a very large total. They certainly do not offset or condone the offence. But they do show in what sort of spirit the offence was committed, by an opinionative and headstrong man; and they do suggest that his notions could have been corrected and his temper cooled by a much less drastic remedy than 14 days’ hard labour. Though he defied military authority, it cannot be gravely endangered by a defiance which has only to be exposed in public to look, as it was, both futile and ridiculous. In such circumstances, a heavy penalty is out of proportion; and before inflicting it the Magistrate might well have bethought himself of the admirable care of the courts martial, during the last two years, to err on the side of leniency and to let a man’s motives, his record, and his future weigh against his offence.