MILITARY DEFAULTERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 March 1943, Page 3

MILITARY DEFAULTERS

OBLIGATIONS IN CAMP. USEFUL SERVICE PERFORMED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A statement that defaulters were generally responding’ well to their obligations in the camps and that much useful service had been and still was being performed was made by the Minister of Justice, Mr Mason, in the House of Representatives yesterday, when replying to an urgent question by Mr Lowry (Government, Otaki) concerning a reference by the Duke of Bedford in the House of Lords to the number of conscientious objectors in New Zealand. Mr Lowry asked the Minister if he had given consideration to the advisability of utilising .the services of conscientious objectors for fire-watching and war-work generally. “The position in New Zealand is that an appeal system has been established in which any reservist refusing military service on the grounds of conscientious objection may place his case before a competent tribunal,” said Mr Mason. “Many conscientious t objectors have succeeded in their appeals and have been released from military obligations or are engaged in non-combatant duties. Approximately 650 persons have failed to convince the appeal boards of the genuineness of their conscientious objections, and others have not taken the trouble to appear before the boards. They have since defaulted in their military obligations and by magisterial direction have been placed in detention for the duration of the war or for such time as they continue their refusal to serve.” The Minister said that' defaulters in the camps were required to undertake useful work and were at present engaged in general farming pursuits, flax and vegetable cultivation and production, forest thinning and pruning and the breaking in of the land. The question of utilising the services of defaulters on outside work had been considered but deemed to be inadvisable.