Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star THURSDAY. APRIL 5 1917 THE VALIDITY OF THE MILITARY SERVICE ACT.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 April 1917, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star THURSDAY. APRIL 5 1917 THE VALIDITY OF THE MILITARY SERVICE ACT.

It seemed clear to moat people all along that the Military Service Ao,t was a valid piece of legislation. The Government would have fortified itself as to its powers prior to patting the legislation before Parliament. Every phase affecting national service would have been probed, beoanse from the very outset the constitutional question had been raised. Nevertheless, there were those who raised even openly the question of validity. Along the West Coast it has been whispered very loudly that tbs Act was ultra vires, and that the conscripted need not serve. Collectors are said to have been out in various parts of the district raising a fund to defend any action under the Act, and presumably the money so raised has been used in fightirig the present abortive appeal oases which have now been dismissed. But any doubt &9 to the trend of the deoisiou of the Appeal Court was set at rest by the report of the argument of the case. For ths Crcwo, dnring the proceedings in the Appeal Court, the Solicitor-General said that it was under Section 177, of the Imperial Army Act, 1881, that the Expeditionary Forces Act, 1914, was passed, and it was nuder that Act, and not under the Military Service Act, that the present force was raised. Mr Hutchison had offered no objection to the Expeditionary Forces Act, The Military Service Act did not create a new force, bat simply provided new machinery for recruiting. Men automatically became members of the forces when their uames were*gazetted. In the latter Act only two sections,

16 and 17, referred to eorvice overpea, and they defined desertion. The only point raised by his learned friend was that section 177 of the Army Act referred to volunteers. The SolicitorGeneral conld find nothing to justify such a contention. He rplied on the Army Act, but at the same time did not admit that it was unconstitutional for the Parliament of New Zealand to pass the Military Service Act, The Chief Justice said he was perfectly satisfied as to the constitutional powers It was ridiculous to say that New Zealand go beyond the three-mile limit in order to defend the country. The Solicitor-General; That is exactly my contention. There was nothing to bar any colonial Government from taking any steps for the “peace, order, and good Government of the colony,” and, that being so, a Government was perfectly within its rights in going to aoy length to provide for the defence of its territory. He quoted Mr Justice Barton as saying that the defence Pf the Empire involved the defence of the colony. The

Chief Justice: If Parliament has power to defend New Zealand-and that

1 will not be denied- surely it can go beyond the S-mila limit for that purpose. Passing from the Constitutional question, the Solioitor-Generel next dealt with the contention that the War Regulations were invalid, in that they referred to matters outside the colony. Although the Regulations referred to matters outside the colony, they only provided for offences committed within the colony, and as they undoubtedly came within the scope of “ peace, order and good government,” they were valid. The Solicitor-Genera’, touch - ing on another point, said ha could not understand Mr Hntcb'sou’a argument as to the creation of a new offence, namely, seditions intention. It was an offence quite separate to sedition as provided for in the Crimes Act. One could not be taken to invalidate the other, The next point, that the information included more than one offence, had been abandoned, and he would say nothing about it. The next contention was that the men had been wrongly deprived of trial by jury. bu‘, section 6 (c) of the War Regulations Act provided expressly that there should be no trial for any offence uoder it by indictment. As to the last point, that the speeches were not seditions, the SolicitorGeneral said ho would not waste tbs Court's time analysing what had been said. The Chief Justice : We have on ! y to decide whether there wa3 a prima facie case on v which the Mag strate could have convicted. We cannot go into the merits of the Magistrate’s decision. The Solicitor-Gene-ral stated that, Sample was prosecuted in two instances under the old regulations, which we;e much narrower than the regulations of 24th December last. However, they wera wide e r ougu to bring Sample’s speech within their scope. The utterances were purely an incitement to disorder and civil war, aod the Orowu would have been justified in indicting Simple under the Crimes Act for sedition. As to the epeecbes by the other men, they amounted to a serious menace to tbo peace and order ot the Dominion, especially in a time of war. This has now beau upheld by tbo Full Court, and with all doubts at rest it is hoped

the law will ba more readily observed for the future.