Salient. Victoria University Students' Newspaper. Volume Number 39, Issue 5. March 29 [1976]
Underhand Conscription Battle
Underhand Conscription Battle
There were several areas in which the Labour Government systematically violated civil liberties. The first involved military mobilisation and the highly contentious issue of conscription.
Conscription was a particularly bitter and divisive issue amongst the Labour Government and Labour movement in general. Many of the Cabinet had been involved in the movement against conscription in WWI and had been gaoled for it - Peter Fraser, the Prime Minister, and Bob Semple, the Minister of Public Works, had been gaoled for sedition, Wally Nash. Minister of Finance (and later Prime Minister) had been gaoled for refusing to join up.
John A. Lee said in 'Simple on a Soapbox' - The Hon. Mark Fagan had smuggled conscription resisters in timber and coal vessels out of N.Z. into anti-conscription Australia. Tim Armstrong had gone to court to seek exemption for his sons from conscription and Paddy Webb had gone from Parliament to gaol when called in the ballot.'
In November 1915 the 'Maoriland Worker' quoted Bob Semple as saying "Conscription is the negation of human liberty. It means the destruction of every principle that is held sacred to the working class. It means the destruction of the democracy of the home. It is the blackest industrial hell.'
In February 1940 the Labour Party and FOL (headed by Angus McLagan and Fintan Patrick Walsh both former Communists, with McLagan destined for Cabinet rank) made a joint statement declaring There will be no conscription while Labour is in power.' Yet that very same month the Government established a manpower register based on Social Security returns.
A campaign against conscriptions was mounted, made up of pacifists, left-wing groups, unions, students and women's groups. But Fraser had made up his mind. By June 1940, 60,000 men had volunteered for the armed forces and the N.Z. Expeditionary Force was already in action in the Middle East. But Fraser wanted conscription. By that month he had secured the backing of both the Labour Party and FOL, and conscription regulations were gazetted in June and the first ballot was drawn in October. (Bob Semple drew the first marble).
Fraser told the FOL Conference 'We can have no consideration for any person who sets about manufacturing a conscience to suit the occasion.' (The anti-conscription forces within the Government had been greatly weakened by the expulsion of John A. Lee from the Labour Party, and accompanying resignations, including that of the Speaker of the House.)