Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1941. TREATMENT OF OBJECTORS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 August 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1941. TREATMENT OF OBJECTORS.

WHETHER- the regulations which have been gazetted to govern, the treatment of conscientious and other objectors to military service are to serve their declared purpose evidently must depend largely upon the manner in which they are administered. The broad effect of the regulations, as has been explained by the Acting-Prime Minister (Mr Nash), is. that conscientious objectors whose appeals are allowed will be subject only to a pecuniary sacrifice, intended Io place them economically on a level with the soldier, though precisely how ■far that adjustment is to be carried has not yet been made clear in detail. Objectors whose appeals are dismissed will be placed in a detention camp, under discipline, and will be required to do useful work. If they are recalcitrant they will be liable, as thev are now, to ordinary imprisonment.

Obviously objectors in both main classes will continue to enjoy some material advantage as compared with men who render war service. They will be spared the. dangers to lite, integrity of body and health to which members of the fighting forces are exposed. Even in a detention camp the good conduct objector will have an easier time, though not perhaps as happy a time, as a soldier.

Probably there is no completely satisfactory solution of the problem here involved, but it does not follow that the problem should be left as it now stands. Some very definite employment and other preferences, for example, certainly should operate, in war and after-war days, in favour of the returned soldier. It is a question, too, whether a man who refuses to share with his contemporaries the duty of defending his country should be allowed, even where he establishes genuine grounds of conscientious objection, to exercise in. that country citizen rights like that of voting.

Freedom of conscience is one of the greatest things Britain and her allies are now fighting to establish, but the attitude of the conscientious objector implies that, as an individual, he admits no obligation to undertake his share of the burden and clanger of defending the State. This is an anomalous attitude, because it is one of at least negative enmity to the State in which the objector is content to enjoy the benefits of citizenship. It is perfectly clear in the present emergency that if a majority, instead of a very small minority, of our men of fighting age were conscientious objectors, we should be doomed to enslavement of the vilest kind.

Enforcement of the law, by force if necessary, is a condition of the maintenance of order and security in an individual country. The defeat of Nazi criminality is essential if our own nation and others are to continue to exist in conditions that make life worth living. In light of these simple facts it is certainly reasonable that the right of the conscientious objector to military service to enjoy and exercise at all events the active rights of citizenship should be brought under review.

There are at the same time detail aspects of the administration of the regulations now gazetted, which should receive attention as time goes on. Although privacy may be justified in dealing with individual cases, the standards to be enforced in controlling the economic position of objectors should be made known in all reasonable detail. Assuming that the broad principle to be observed is that of establishing as nearly as possible equality of sacrifice with the soldier, some points of difficulty are likely to arise. Where salaries and wages are concerned, a close approach to economic equality no doubt will be fairly easy, but where incomes*.from other sources than personal exertion are concerned —there are, of course, soldiers as well as other people in receipt of such incomes—adjustment may not be simple. There are possibilities or dangers here of raising distinctions which might be regarded as invidious.

The aim of the tribunals no doubt will be to deal with the whole question dispassionately from a standpoint of justice and equity. When the regulations are in working operation, clear accounts should be given from time to time of the standards established and of what is being done to ensure their application.