DOMINION'S PART.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 February 1918, Page 5

DOMINION'S PART.

ANTI-MILITARISTS. VINDICATION OF TREATMENT. Wellington, Feb. 25. In a statement to the press the Minister of Defence enters upon a lengthy vindication of the department's treatment of anti-militarists. He corrects the impression general in the public mind that all objectors are "conscientious" objectors, and points out that the only objector recognised by the law is the ''religious objector," whose appeal will be allowed if he prove that in August, 1914, he was a member of a religious body whose doctrines declare that the bearing of arms and the performance of combatant service is contrary to Divine revelation. After explaining and justifying the treatment of the objectors sent abroad the Minister, concluding, said: The question of the treatment of anti-militarists presents a clear-cut jssue for the people of this country to consider: (a) Whether laws solemnly and deliberately enacted by Parliament are to be obeyed? or (b) Whether defiance of the law is to be permitted, and those persons who know no rule but their own inclinations are to be practically exempt from military service, while citizens and sons of citizens who recognise and obey the law are to serve, and possibly suffer wounds and death, in the interests of Jhe nation? The military authorities are responsible for administering the Military Service Act, and what they have done has been legally done. It is not conceivable that the people of this country would approve a course permitting persons who set the law at defiance to be absolved from the law and to be governed by their own inclinations. If the responsible authority is to knuckle under to insubordination the whole fatoric of the British Empire will crumble into chaos-