A LIGHT PENALTY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 64, 10 December 1918, Page 4

A LIGHT PENALTY

In the headlong rush of the present session Parliament has done some work that will need revision at a later date, but no doubt can be felt that_ it took a step in the right direction in disfranchising military defaulters for a period of .ten years. As Sir Jajies Allen said during the debate on tie Bill in which this provision was embodied thp only question is whether these defaulters ought not to be disfranchised for the w ; hole of thenlives. On its merits the question admits only one answer. Religions objectors are exempted from the penalty—a provision that may bo necessary, but obviously is liable to abuse—and it thereforo applies only to defiant objectors who refused on other than religious grounds to render military service. The right penalty for most of these men would be not disfranchisement, either for a limited perio'd or for life, but deportation, and this penalty might well be considered but for the practical difficulty of .finding a country that would consent to receive them._ A .little ooterie 'of Labour-Socialist extremists in the House of Representatives was not ashamed to' appeal for ■ toleration for defaulters and to urge on their behalf that voting privileges ought to be regarded as the sacred right of every citizen. In the House this suggestion met with the contempt if deserved', and it is' not likely to get a better reception in the _ country, Soldiers and the families of soldiers will know how to deal with attempts to. make a martyr of the defaulter who saved his skin while better men were risking death or mutilation on tEfe field of battle. Far from having a grievance the disfranchised defaulters are getting off much more lightly than they deserve. In refusing the duty it is incumbent on every citizen of military age to render they deliberately repudiated citizenship and in common justice ought to be permanently deprived of ita benefits. So long as the merits of the case are kept in view they certainly will secure no reduction of the distinctly inadequate penalty tc which they are now subjected. Their one hope is in the proverbial shortness of the public memory, but short as the public memory undoubtedly is in some things it seems hardly possible that the way in which defiant defaulters betrayed their country by refusing to take part in defending it when its existence was threatened can ever be forgotten.