CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS AND PERPETUAL HARD LABOUR
Shaw, G. Bernard
The Manchester Guardian August 14th, 1918
Transcript :

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS AND PERPETUAL HARD LABOUR

to the Editor of the Manchester Guardian.
Sir, - I am loath to trouble you with another vain communication concerning the treatment of conscientious objectors but I find that some people, knowing that one or two conspicuous objectors have been released to save them from dying or going mad on the hands of the authorities have concluded that the unprecedented punishment of perpetual hard labour has been discontinued. This is a mistake. Mr. Emrys Hughes, who has already suffered two years and three months hard labour, has now been sentenced to two years more.

His case has a feature worth recording. Like many people who find themselves unable honestly to accept either the Thirty-nine Articles or the Westminster Confession, he does not belong to any officially recognised denomination. If he were a soldier, this would class him as a member of the Church of England. But as an objector to military service he is classed as a person without religion. From this it is argued that having no religion he can have no conscience, and having no conscience he cannot be a conscientious objector within the meaning of the Act or of the schemes of alternative service established under it.

But this leads to the conclusion that he is, under the Act, a soldier. As such, and as an undenominated soldier, he is a member of the Church of England. Now, a member of the Church of England has a religion. Therefore, according to War Office logic, he has a conscience. Therefore he can be a conscientious objector and claim the benefit of the Act.

Thus Mr. Emrys Hughes is in the remarkable position of being a soldier and no soldier, a denominationalist and an undenominationalist, a conscientious objector and a man without a conscience. The point is a Platonic one, because before he has completed his four years and three months hard labour and entered upon another two years he will probably be nothing at all. However, it is interesting to learn that the War Office includes casuistry among its other military activities, and holds that, though a man without a denomination cannot have a conscience he can be a martyr.
Yours &c.,
G. BERNARD SHAW

Contributed by Dorothy Bintley