DEFIANT RESERVIST.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 December 1917, Page 7

DEFIANT RESERVIST.

AT A COURT-MARTIAL. REGARDS TRIAL AS PRIVILEGE. ' A court-martini was held at Auckland on Friday to try three reservists, George Ernest Hillings, Joseph. Sidney Billings, and Colin Robert Robertson,, on a charge of wilful disobedience of an order to parade for medical examination. The .court was presided over by LieutenantI Colonel C.-H. Turner, with Captain H. I Peacock and Captain W. L. Titchencr as members. The accused declined to give evidence, arid the testimony for the prosecution was of a formal character regarding the giving of the order and the refusal of the accused to obey. • • All three were found guilty. ■ A statement was read by George Ernest Billings, but the whole statement was finally disallowed. The accused commenced hy staiing that it came, to a question of choosing between weak and inconsistent "human law and divine law, but Major Pullen, who acted for the prosecution, objected to this, and the accused was directed to speak only of things that might be considered to go towards mitigating punishment. When the accused again commenced to road the statement, with some further references to military authority of an uncomplimentary sort, Major Pullen objected again. The accused (to Major Pullen): You have been ill-mannered enough to interrupt me. I am not looking for this to do me any gooj}. I don't care-if I get ten years for it. The president again warned the accused that if he again made statements reflecting on the law of the land, he wouW be prevented from making a statement at all. Major Pullen said that if the statement which the accused was making were read in the street, the reader would be promptly arrested. It could be allowed in a court-martial least of all. The accused said that he did not thinlt there was anything further in the statement that much exception could he taken ,tc lie went on to read that he did not consider all the glory and honor claimed by the nation's. engaged in the war was worth one single human life. The court again o&jected to this statement, hut the accused refused to delete it from his statement, and concluded by saying that as a member of the Brotherhood of Reconciliation he regarded it as a privilege to appear at the court-martial on the present charge. He then handed in the statement with the remark that the "Court could do as it liked with it." The statement wis refused admission. The sentence will be announced confirmation.