RELIGIOUS OBJECTORS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 93, 14 January 1919, Page 4

RELIGIOUS OBJECTORS

DEMOBILISATION BEING ARRANGED. ■■ \ • The demobilisation of the men whose religious objections were recognised by military service boards is to be undertaken shortly. These are the men who were called up by ballot and were able to secure. exemption from military service within the narrow limits imposed by the boards'.. They number about thirty. The Military Service Act provided that a reservist could be granted exemption , if he was, on August i, 1914, and since had been, a member of a religious body the doctrines of which declared the bearing of arms,to be contrary to Divine revelation, and if he himself held the conscientious religious belief that the bearing of arms was contrary to Divine revelatiou. The members of only three religious bodies—the Christadelphiane, the Quakers, and the Seventh Day Adventists—were'. able to - satisfy' the boards that they came within this definition. •

The, religious objectors were given equivalent service under civil control, and they are now employed, by the Agricultural Department on the State farm at, Levhi. They are to be demobilised in the near future, but an exact date has not yet been fixed. It . is possible that the objectors themselves, who have' beendoing very-useful' work on the State farm, will be consulted. '■ The Agricultural Department, with the harvest ahead, would like to retain them until the .end of Febru- j ary, but if that is done it will he by arrangement between the objeotors and the Department. • These men fulfilled all the obligations imposed upon them by the Military Service Act, and ' they are not regarded in any respeot as defaulters. . : .