NO CONSCRIPTION

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3270, 23 February 1937, Page 5

NO CONSCRIPTION

GOVERNMENT opposed

PRIME. MINISTER EMPHATIC

A definite assurance that the Labour Government is opposed to conscription in all forms was given by the Prime Minister, Mr Savage, when a deputation from the National Peace Council waited on him in Christchurch. The depuation asked that the compulsory clauses in the Defence Act be repealed.

Mr Savage sjtid there were a lot of Acts on the Statute Book for which the Government Was not responsible and which Would not be there much longer. Compulsory military service was one of those. The Government was opposed to conscription in all forms. Although military training in New Zealand has been conducted on a voluntary.basis; since 19?0, the com-, pulsory .. service, provisions in the Defence; Act,,‘J 909, have not . been repealed. The Act provides for compulsory military service in /peacetime by boys from 14 to 18 years of age in the cadet division and by youths and men from 18 to 25 in the Territorial Force. Compulsory military training was abandoned as an economy measure in 1930, and in lit following year the Territorial Force was reorganised on, a volunr tary basis. As the law stands at present; the former scheme of compulsory service copld be reintroduced at any time by the direction of the Government.