Public Opinion

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 67, 22 March 1943, Page 4

Public Opinion

MILITARY APPEALS Sir,—Your view of the question of military appeals is not the only one possible. As I see it, the matter stands thus: Whatever you or 1 may think, the Government has seen fit to grant exemption from military service on certain grounds. As the law stands, one of those legitimate grounds is conscientious objection to war service. The question whether such objection is reasonable is too big for discussion here. It has puzzled, and is still puzzling, some of the ablest religious and ethical thinkers. The Government was right in trying to wash its hands clean of the possible "Injustice of conscience-coercion; but in doing so it has, unwisely as some of us think, made the Appeal Board the judge as to the bona Udes of any appeal on grounds of conscience. The members of the board have not, in private life, been trained to be expert in such matters. The result is that in some notable instances glaring injustices have been done. The Carmen case is only one. Men of known honesty and conspicuous integrity, men who everybody knows have held such convictions for years past, and before the war began, have been, as a result of the action of these Appeal Boards, treated little better than criminals.

It is surely a matter crying out for speedy public redress when these Appeal Boards, after the fashion of the Star Chamber of 17th. century fame, are allowed thus to render nugatory the law of our country. The law says that such men shall have exemption; these boards say no, they shall not. It is time the Government discharged these boards from the performance of a duty for which they have proved themselves unsuited. In the meantime. some of us are asking: Who rules the country—Parliament or the Appeal Boards?—l am. etc., “JUSTITIA."