LIABLE TO SERVE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 177, 29 July 1942, Page 5

LIABLE TO SERVE

BRITONS ABROAD

Legislation To Equalise Obligations British Official Wireless Rec. 2 p.m. RUGBY, July 28. Moving the second reading of the National Service (Foreign Countries) Bill, the Minister of National Service, Mr, Bevin, explained that this measure, which enabled the British subject abroad to be called up, was necessary not because there had been a bad response from British subjects abroad but because the time had come to extend to them similar obligations to those obtaining at home. It was not purely a matter of manpower, but of demonstrating beyond doubt Britain's determination to use every resource available. The bill would be applied first to Egypt, where the British forces were now at grips with the enemy, and where the danger was most acute. It was not proposed to interfere with the present arrangements with the States by which British subjects of military age in that country joined the United States Army if they did not enter the military or other services provided by the British Government. Nor would the bill apply in the Dominions, India, Burma, Newfoundland, Southern Rhodesia, or in the colonies, protectorates and mandated territories. In those countries conscription could be effected by local legislation. "We feel that all citizens of the United Nations should be brought within the ambit of the respective laws of their countries and that we ought to do all we can to utilise every man and woman who is a citizen in this great struggle," concluded Mr. Bevin.

In the House of Lords Viscount Simon introduced a bill to give effect to an agreement recorded in Notes exchanged between the United Kingdom and the United States relating to jurisdiction over members of the military and naval forces of the United States. The bill provides for criminal jurisdiction over American troops in Great Britain and Northern Ireland not exercised by American military courts sitting here and not by British criminal courts.