THE ANTI-MILITARISTS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1962, 20 January 1914, Page 9

THE ANTI-MILITARISTS.

& MISREPRESENTATION IN ENGLAND.' Certain English journals arc still being plied with correspondence relating to tho working of the systems of compulsory military service in Australia and New Zealand. One such letter which has recently been brought under the notice of-the Minister'of- Defence (the Hon. J. Allen) appeared in a provincial paper in tho South of England in November. The letter is a flagrant example of tho misre-oresentation being used by enemies of compulsory service in their rndcavom' to show that the working ;>f tho Acts in Australia and N<>w Zealand has involved hardship. Tho misrepresentation in this letter as against New Zealand is misleading in that it is made to appear- that at least some of tho instances mentioned of young men having been sent to gaol for failure to render service had occurred in Now Zealand. Only one case among a number mentioned, that of Cuthbert Bearv, was a New Zenland one, and the punishment for his offence (the- eighth) was a fine. The others, in which it was alleged that several .other men ]iad been pent to gaol for terms of as long as two nnd even three years, certainly did not occur lierc. Under the New Zealand law as it now stands there is no such punlsTiment as imprisonment in a common gaol for defaulters under the Defence' Act', and even under the Act as it stood originally, when imprisonment, was possible', 'W term of longer than a few weeks was over imposed.