RELIGIOUS OBJECTORS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 94, 15 January 1919, Page 4

RELIGIOUS OBJECTORS

INQUIRY BOARD SET UP

PERSONNEL AND FUNCTIONS

The board which is to advise the Minister of Defence in the exercise of his discretionary power relative to the removal'of the names of bona-fido religious objectors' names from the defaulters' list has been set up. This list ia to contain the' names of all shirkers and evaders of military service, but there are_ men who have been punished for disobedience of the law relating to.compulsory service who, it is considered, niay have had religious reasons for their objections, although those reasons did not suffice to obtain exemption for them. It will be the duty of the board to examine these cases,'-as well as those of such others as may ask for relief, and to make recommendations to the Minister of Defence. The members of the board will be: —

The Rev. J. H. Burgin, chaplain to the Forces, who has seen considerable service with the troops at the front. The Rev. J. G. Chapman, minister in charge of tbs Taranaki Street Methodist Church, Wellington. Mr. Chapman will represent the Nonconformist churches on the board.

Mr. M. J. Mack, general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, and lately a member of the Third AVellington Military Servire Board. Mr. Mack is on the board as a representative of Labour. Mr. C. E. Matthews, Inspector, of Prisons.

The board will be commencing work almost at once. Already . a rough sorting of the cases to be considered has been made. The heads in New Zealand of the various sects whose i members are concerned are being communicated with, and they are being asked to submit to the board lists of those of 'their members who are serving military detention as military defaulters or objectors. It is, considered that if tne heads of these religious bodies can say that any of their members in prison at present have bonafide religious objections to service, the work of the board will be simplified a great deal. It is not to be taken for granted that the certificate of the head of, a seofc will in all cases be taken as sufficient evidence *b warrant the striking of the man's name from the defaulters' list. Some of the men may have to be interrogated. There are among ihe objectors a number of men professing religious scruples who do not belong to any organised group. The cases of these men will have to be taken individually. Under tho Military Service Actj in order to secure exemption on religious grounds a man had to show that he had belonged on August 4, 1914, and since that time continuously, to a sect which held 'the doctrine that the bearing of arms was contrary to Divine ' revelation. Some religious objectors could not establish this case, but they may yet be able to satisfy this board' that they have genuine reli-' gious objections. The board .will concern itself only with religious reasons for objecting to serve. No scruples based .on any other ground than that of religion can under the Act be considered. tfo atheist can profess religious scruples, and the agnostic who wishes to establish them may have an interesting case to present. However strict the moral code followed by auy objeowr, and however faithful he has besn in the observance of it, unless that part of the code which guided him, in his objection to military servicewas based on religion, the board, it is contended, will not be within its rights in recommending his removal from the list. This would put right out of court all those men who say that they refused to servo because in their opinion Ireland ought to havo self-irovernment and all those who say that they refused to hear arms because they do not believe in the existing social order, which, they declare, is the cause, of all wars, and all Socialists and all Sinn Fein sympathisers would have to stay on the list and remain subject to disfranchisement.