DEFAULTING CITIZENS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3189, 13 September 1917, Page 4

DEFAULTING CITIZENS

An important proposal, and one which has much to commend it, is embodied in that section of the Expeditionary Forces Amendment Bill which provides that persons convicted of desertion from the Expeditionary Force or of disobedience to lawful military orders shall be deprived of their civil rights for a period of ten years. This provision will not seem harsh to anyone who has a just conception of citizenship and of the duties and obligations it involves. Most members of the happily not very numerous body who attempt to evade military service are simply mean-spirited individuals, who arc intent upon enjoying tho benefits of citizenship without assisting to maintain them in the only way possible when tho Stato is imperilled. It is bare justice that such men should bo denied the privileges of voting and filling pubbc offices, which they arc manifestly unfit and unworthy to enjoy. Ilia only question open is whether any limit should be set to the period of their disqualification. Even when refusal to serve is backed by objections on religious or moral grounds

—outside tho limits which the law permits to such opinion—the objector is still essentially a citizen who puts his personal viows before tho welfare of tho State. Such men manifestly forfeit civic privileges by their own act. Thcy_ are defaulting parties to the social contract, and when a contract is flagrantly violated by one party that party has certainly no cause of complaint if the contract is terminated. Deprivation of civil rights is, of course, an addition to tho penalties already imposed on deserters and men who refuse service, but it is a very proper,addition. As it is drafted, the clause dealing with the matter seems to bo comprehensive. It provides, inter alia, that

For the purposes of this section, tho finding of "a Court of Inquiry, . . . whether in New Zealand or elsewhere, that any person hns been absent from tho Expeditionary Forces without lcavo' shall be deemed to bo a conviction, on a charge of desertion.

Presumably, this covers tho case, not only of ordinary deserters, but of men who default'when called in the ballot, and the proviso relating to disobedience to lawful military commands no doubt meets tho case of men who enter camp, but, having dono so, refuse to serve, Any doubt on these points, if it exists, should be resolved when the Bill is in Committee. What is heeded is an absolutely clear provision that all men who refuse when, called on to take their sharo in defonding tho Stato shall be deprived of citizen rights. The same disability might very well be extended to persons convicted of sedition. By attempting to substitute violent and inflammatory methods for orderly procedure, such individuals not only display indiffcrenco to public welfare, but conclusively demonstrate their unfitness to take any sharo in the government of the country. Tho interests of justice and tho wolfaro of the State would undoubtedly bo served by subjecting them to the same disability as it is proposod to inflict on deserters and men who refuse t.o servo their country in time of peril.