NO EQUALITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 December 1939, Page 5

NO EQUALITY

SO-CALLED VOLUNTARY SYSTEM MR DOWNIE STEWART URGES CONSCRIPTION. CRITICISM OF MR BARNARD’S VIEWS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN. December 21. Some questions were asked by Mr W. Downie Stewart, when in an interview today he replied to what he described as the “astonishing-” statement. issued by the Speaker of the House of Reprcsenta-• fives, i\li- W. E. Barnard, on the subject of conscription. "Mr Barnard says that if it comes to a question of conscription we should get a mandate by referendum before adopting it," said Mr Stewart. "But on the major issue as to whether we should go to war no referendum was taken, and quite rightly. If it was unnecessary to consult the people about going to war,” Mr Stewart added, “why consult them on the lesser issue as to how to fight the war?

"In fact the Government did not even consult Parliament before agreeing to help Britain, though in the past they have always said that would be imperative. I was glad they acted promptly and ignored their past views, but it looks like swallowing a camel and straining at a gnat to say you will commit New Zealand to war without a referendum, but you will not conscript without a referendum. "Mr Barnard says that, having no son. he is not prepared to compel other people's sons to go to war,” Mr Stewart continued. "Does this mean that, if a referendum on conscription is taken, all spinsters and bachelors should be disfranchised? If this rule is to apply in wartime, why should people without children be allowed tr. compel other people’s children to go to school, in peace time? Why should Members of Parliament without children vote for laws to compel parents to maintain their children? "Mr Barnard thinks,” Mr Stewart concluded, "that if the so-called voluntary system produces enough recruits, thereby the system justifies itself, but surely this proves the fact that the system is grossly unfair and unjust. The question Mr Barnard should answer is this: One family with four sons of fighting age sends all four to the war; another family with four sons of fighting age sends none of them to the war. What equality of sacrifice is there in such a case? Yet that is what actually happens at present under the so-called voluntary system.”