EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 61, 6 December 1918, Page 5

EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

$- ■ AN AMENDING BILL STERN TREATMENT OF DEFAULTERS The Expeditionary Forces Amendment Bill now before Parliament contains many of tho clauses which were in tho Bill dropped last year, and a number of others. As the law stands at present, the term for which soldiers .may be held in the Army ends six months after tho termination of the war. As it will not be possible to demobilise all tho men within that period, the six ' months' extension is increased to twelve months. Members of the Expeditionary Force in time of peace are to be subject until discharged to military law, just as the men in camps and abroad have been subject to military law while the war has been going on. There is provision for declaring by proclamation any institution or part of an institution to be a military hospital available for the treatment of soldiers discharged and undischarged. A military superintendent may be appointed to the command of such an institution, and tho patients while there are to be subject to military law, even if they are discharged men. The Minister of Defence is empowered to pay a bonus to all officers and men of the Expeditionary Force who have been honourably discharged from tho Force after service beyond the seas. The bonus is not to be lecoverable by uny person as a right, but is to be deemed to bo a free gift from the State in recognition of honourable service, and the payment may in 'any case lie withheld or subjected to conditions as the Minister, having regard to the interests and deserts of the recipient, may think just and proper. If a soldier has died abroad after.service, the Minister may authoriso tho payment of the bonus to a dependant, as he thinks fit. Tho Minister explained in tho House that tho allowance was to be a fixed amount for every year of service.

There is to ho prepared a military defaulters' list, which is to be published in the Gazette, and the list is to conItiiti the names of all men who, since the beginning of the war hove been convicted by court-martial of an offence of such a nature as to indicate, in the opinion of tho Minister of Defence, an intent permanently to evade obligations lo military service; or who have deserted from the Force; or who have evaded enrolment in tho reserve. If «. man has refused, service on account of bona-fido religious objections he is not to bo accounted a defaulter. If a man considers that his name has been entered on the list in error he may appeal to a Magistrate to have his name expunged, and (he Magistrate may hear and determine tho appeal. A military defaulter who is not in New Zealand, a man, for instance, who has fled the country in ordei to escape service, is not to bo allowed to return to New Zealand for a period of ten years) after tho passing of tho Act, If ho does so he may bo arrested by any constable, and he will be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not .exceeding twelve months, and at the expiry of his sentence he will bo deported from Now Zealand. There is no option about this deportation. It is a mandatory clause. No military defaulter is to be allowed to sit in either House of Parliament, or as a member of any local body, or to hold oilico or employment uuler the Crown or any local authority, or to vote in any election for members of Parliament or members of n local body. A military defaulter who changes his name is to be liable to imprisonment for one year. The deprivation of civil righls is to stand for ten year 6.-

Tho full ordinary time-table of the Eastbourne ferry service will be reverted to to-morrow. Pull particulars are advertised.