Pages tagged with: conscientious objection

There are always supporters and opponents of a country fighting a war. Over 2500 conscientious objectors lost their civil rights in New Zealand for refusing to serve in the First World War.

Interview with prominent conscientious objector, Archibald Barrington

The Military Service Act 1916 allowed limited exemption from service. Men who were exempted had to be prepared to provide alternative non-combatant service in New Zealand or overseas.

Many socialist and labour leaders criticised the First World War as an imperialist war and strongly opposed conscription. New Zealand workers, they argued, had no quarrel with German workers.

Merle Hyland and Archibald Charles Barrington stand beside the 'Peace Caravan', a car covered in anti-war slogans, c.1946. Barrington was a prominent peace campaigner and wartime conscientious objector.

Pacifists and Christian socialists opposed the war on moral or religious grounds.

Maori served in the First World War in the Native Contingent. At home, there was some strong Maori opposition to conscription.

Particularly in its early stages, New Zealand's involvement in the war enjoyed overwhelming public support in New Zealand. Opposition was confined to a small group of radical members of Parliament, religious leaders, and others who condemned the war as an aggressive act of imperialism designed to seize control of the Transvaal's gold mines.

Peter Fraser was prime minister of New Zealand during the Second World War and minister in charge of the Maori war effort from April 1943.

This photograph of Tainui–Waikato leader Te Kirihaehae Te Puea Herangi was taken about 1938.

This poster announces the requirement to enrol in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and the consequences of failure to do so.

Conscientious objectors, behind a barbed wire fence at Hautu Detention Camp, November 1943