‘Willing and Eager to Go in Their Turn’? Appeals for Exemption from Military Service in New Zealand and Great Britain,1916–1918

At Hawera Magistrates’ Court, New Zealand, on 18 May 1917, Charles Sneddon explained to a Military Service Board why he should be exempted from conscription into the army. In addition to owning an 897-acre bush farm, he was also working his father’s property 12 miles away, which carried 400 breeding ewes and 40 head of cattle. The proceeds from these two holdings provided for his mother and father, who were aged 80 and 71 respectively. In rejecting allegations of ‘shirking’, Sneddon argued that ‘it was only the way [he] was situated that prevented him from going to the front before the ballot’. ¹ After twice adjourning the case to gather additional evidence, the board determined that the hardship evinced in Sneddon’s appeal warranted the granting of a sine die (indefinite) period of exemption. ² Seven months earlier, Albert Walker, a blanket raiser, had appeared before the Dewsbury tribunal in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He claimed that he was the sole support of his father, who had been seriously injured in a mill accident, and a sister who looked after the home. Three of Walker’s brothers were already serving with the forces and two others had recently been called up. In view of his domestic situation and the sacrifices already made by his family, the tribunal granted Walker a conditional exemption from military service. ³

These two examples demonstrate a personal balancing of duties and responsibilities. In the first full-length study of British conscripts during the Great War, Ilana Bet-El maintains that, while volunteers took an active decision to join the colours, the enlistment of a conscript was a bureaucratic process ‘marked by the lack of choice or control of the individual over his own fate’. ⁴ In fact, in both New Zealand and Britain, the possibility of an appeal against conscription required every reservist, and his employer, to weigh up the circumstances and make a definite decision whether or not to appeal. ⁵ Large numbers of men in both countries took this opportunity, and as a result a substantial proportion of them were granted exemption from, or postponement of, military service. New Zealand and Britain both introduced conscription in 1916, and the grounds of appeal provided for in their respective Military Service Acts were broadly similar. Despite these commonalities, the evidence indicates that British men were substantially more likely to claim exemption than New Zealand men.

A transnational study in this area has not yet been undertaken. Nevertheless, there have been attempts to calculate the likelihood of appealing within a national framework. Paul Baker implies that around half of all balloted New Zealanders appealed, while Gwen Parsons identifies a figure of 49.5 per cent for a sample of Ashburton and Dunedin men drawn in the early ballots. ⁶ Similarly, Graham Hucker argues that Taranaki men ‘consistently availed themselves’ of the opportunity to claim exemption. ⁷ The historiography of the situation in Britain, including the first full-scale monograph on the tribunals by James McDermott, unanimously asserts that the volume of appeals was very high. ⁸ In more specific terms, Ivor Slocombe finds that nearly a third of the eligible population in the Wiltshire rural district of Calne appealed, a figure he describes as ‘striking’. ⁹ However, Adrian Gregory has suggested that Slocombe actually understates the situation by not taking into account that many men were in protected occupations, had been medically rejected, or had volunteered. He maintains that ‘a majority, and probably a substantial majority,’ of Calne men appealed, and that this course was the ‘automatic response to being called up’ in Huddersfield. ¹⁰ Gregory concludes that, if figures from further local tribunals are extrapolated onto a national level, ‘it must have been a rare individual who did not make a claim’. ¹¹

This paper questions Baker’s inference that around half of all balloted New Zealanders chose to appeal, arguing that the evidence points to a much lower proportion. It further suggests that British men were considerably more likely to appeal than their New Zealand counterparts. It appears unlikely that this disparity resulted from differing levels of satisfaction with the exemption process, a belief in New Zealand that appealing was not worthwhile, the higher rate of conscription in Britain, or the relative levels of pecuniary difficulties associated with joining the forces. Explanations with seemingly greater credibility are that the British system afforded a more comprehensive form of protection to many occupations, and that appealing in Britain carried less of a stigma than it did in New Zealand. While overt reluctance to perform military service was rare in both countries, it is impossible to quantify the impact that covert reluctance had on the likelihood of an appeal being made.

The fundamentals of the British exemption system were established in the final months of 1915. By that stage it had become apparent that the existing method of voluntary recruiting was not producing the number of men required to meet the country’s increased military commitments. ¹² Although there was a growing clamour for conscription, fears that it would lead to unrest among the working classes prompted the decision to give volunteering one final opportunity. ¹³ Under what became known as the Derby Scheme, every male of military age was canvassed in an effort to persuade them to attest their willingness to serve. Those who attested were then placed into age ‘groups’, numbered 1 to 23 for the unmarried and 24 to 46 for the married, to be summoned in order. Upon a man being called up under this process, both he and his employer could lodge an appeal. Postponement to a later group could be claimed on the grounds of hardship, or it could be argued that the essential nature of the reservist’s occupation meant he should have been protected from military service altogether. To adjudicate on these appeals each Local Registration Authority (the urban and rural district councils and the borough councils) was required to establish a tribunal of up to five members, largely made up of local councillors, with more complex cases being referred to a central tribunal sitting in London. Attached to each tribunal was a military representative appointed by the War Office, who appeared at hearings with the power to object to claims. ¹⁴

Despite its voluntary nature and the provision made for appeals, the Derby Scheme failed to adequately stimulate recruiting. Only 840,000 of the 2.2 million eligible single men attested, along with 1.3 million out of 2.8 million married men. These figures were further circumscribed by removing those deemed to be unfit or employed in essential occupations, which produced a result that was far below what the army believed necessary. ¹⁵ This last failure of volunteering made the introduction of conscription inevitable. On 27 January 1916 the Military Service Act rendered every unmarried British male aged between 18 and 41 on 15 August 1915 eligible for call-up by age ‘class’.

The exemption system outlined in the Military Service Act retained many features of that under the Derby Scheme, but also made some significant modifications. In addition to the previous grounds of occupation and domestic or business hardship, each reservist could now appeal on the basis that he was being educated or trained for work that was in the ‘national interests’, that he suffered from ‘ill-health or infirmity’, or that he held a ‘conscientious objection to the undertaking of combatant service’. ¹⁶ Such claims would be heard alongside those of attested men by the existing network of local tribunals, with instructions suggesting that the appeal bodies should retain their current personnel. However, each tribunal could now be expanded up to a maximum of 25 members, and could grant temporary, conditional, or absolute exemption from military service, rather than just a postponement. ¹⁷ Furthermore, the Act led to the establishment of county-level appeal tribunals, to which the reservist or the military representative could take a claim if he were dissatisfied with a local tribunal’s initial decision. ¹⁸

The exemption process in New Zealand was somewhat different. Its counterpart to the Derby Scheme, the Recruiting Scheme, was launched in early 1916, and likewise consisted of a personal canvass of all eligible men as a response to falling recruiting figures. ¹⁹ However, in contrast to Britain, men who agreed to enlist were not allocated to groups to be summoned in order, but were allowed to choose when they wished to mobilize. ²⁰ Clearly this removed the need for a right to claim postponement. In fact, there would be no appeal hearings or appeal bodies at all. The only allowance concerned men engaged in essential industries, for whom employers could apply directly to the minister of munitions and supply for an exemption badge. ²¹ If the methodology of the Recruiting Scheme differed from its British forerunner, the result was the same, with recruitment remaining well below the required rate. ²² Therefore, New Zealand’s own Military Service Act was passed on 1 August 1916. Under its provisions each recruiting district was assigned a monthly quota to be met by volunteers, or by balloted conscripts if numbers were lacking. A First Division of the unmarried, widowers without children, and those married after 4 August 1914 was exhausted initially, followed by the married men of the Second Division. ²³ The statute also established Military Service Boards to hear appeals, but, rather than there being one of these bodies for every locality, only 10 were established for the whole country. Each board consisted of only three members, who were centrally appointed by the minister of defence and were invariably not engaged in local government. Furthermore, the decisions reached by these boards were final, as there were no higher bodies to which appellants or the military representatives could appeal.

Nevertheless, the exemption systems of Britain and New Zealand shared some crucial similarities. Firstly, all balloted New Zealanders, and employers on their behalf, possessed the right to appeal for exemption. ²⁴ Secondly, the grounds on which these claims could be based were broadly similar to those available for British men, namely ‘that by reason of his occupation his calling-up for military service is contrary to public interest, or because there are domestic circumstances or other reasons why his calling-up will be the cause of undue hardship to himself or to others’. ²⁵ Although New Zealanders could not appeal on the basis of a conscientious objection, they could argue that they belonged to a religious body whose tenets declared military service to be ‘contrary to divine revelation’. ²⁶

Baker’s figures on the rate of appealing in New Zealand are gathered from two sources. The first is a return prepared by the adjutant general in April 1917, from which Baker calculates that 48.28 per cent of first-ballot men appealed, before a gradual decline saw the proportion reach 34.72 per cent by the fifth ballot. ²⁷ Thereafter, Baker utilizes a return on the work of the boards between 2 June 1917 and 7 September 1918 to claim that the appealing rate then ‘increased again, to average 51 per cent’ during these months. ²⁸ Baker, therefore, implies that just under half of the 134,632 balloted men, or approximately 60,000, appealed overall. ²⁹

Yet several pieces of evidence indicate that Baker’s figures are too high. Correspondence from the commander of home forces points to 4000 men being drawn in the first ballot, with around 1700 choosing to appeal. ³⁰ While the adjutant general’s return cited by Baker gives a similar total of appellants, it relates this to the number of reservists who were ‘available and under disposal’, rather than the number balloted. As only 3554 men were ‘available and under disposal’, the apparent rate of appealing is inflated. This also applies to the adjutant general’s returns for ballots two to five. ³¹ Doubts over a 51 per cent appealing rate between 2 June 1917 and 7 September 1918 arise from the return that Baker uses to reach this conclusion. Certainly, the return states that 87,781 men were medically examined during this period and that ‘the total number of appeals … disposed of … was 45,535’. However, it draws a distinction between the number of ‘appeals’ (45,535) and the number of ‘appellants’ (only 14,547). ³² This suggests that 45,535 ‘appeals’ actually refers to every occasion that the boards delivered a verdict, even if it was for a case that had already been adjourned, or where an application for a rehearing had been made. Indeed, the final reports produced by several of the board chairmen indicate a total number of ‘appeals’ considered by their body, but also note that these figures were based on verdicts delivered, rather than on the number of individuals who had appeared before them. ³³

The strongest evidence against Baker’s implication that 60,000 men appealed is a report produced in March 1919 by the director of recruiting, which identifies 32,445 appellants over the whole period of conscription. ³⁴ This could be regarded as definitive, because its author would have had time to collate the relevant data. Nevertheless, the report is unclear as to whether it takes every appellant into account. In the early months of conscription it emerged that time was being wasted on appellants appearing before the boards after being classed as medically unfit. To alleviate this difficulty, these men were ‘asked to withdraw their appeals’ before a hearing took place. ³⁵ Although withdrawals undoubtedly occurred, the report’s figure of 32,445 appellants is only broken down into the final outcomes of allowed, dismissed, adjourned sine die, and not determined. ³⁶ This makes it impossible to ascertain whether withdrawn appeals are included.

The Numerical List of Reservists does not completely resolve this issue, but it does permit a conclusion on the rate of appealing. Produced by the Defence Department after the war, this resource gives details on every balloted man, including the outcome of any appeal. To determine what the figure of 32,445 appellants includes, each reservist was categorized according to his final medical classification and whether the final outcome of his appeal was a verdict or withdrawal. This methodology demonstrates that the director of recruiting did omit appellants from his report, with the total in the list being 43,544 rather than 32,445. However, it is impossible to determine precisely which appellants were excluded, as the 4264 withdrawals in the list do not make up the difference. This discrepancy can almost certainly be attributed to the varied ways that the boards reported appeal outcomes. In the list, hundreds of unfit reservists at a time are shown as having their appeals dismissed or adjourned sine die. As it is inconceivable that all of these men would have failed to withdraw their appeals, it seems that the First Canterbury Board was not alone in reporting a verdict being delivered even though no hearing had taken place. ³⁷ What can be stated definitely is that 43,544 is the maximum number of appellants: as the list was produced after the war and details every balloted reservist, there is virtually no possibility of appellants being omitted. This renders Baker’s inference that nearly half of all balloted men appealed unsustainable. The actual rate was much lower: of 134,632 men, 43,544 or 32.34 per cent appealed.

While the situation in Britain is less clear-cut, the evidence suggests that appealing was considerably more common than in New Zealand. There is no definitive list to give an overall rate, but it can be discerned that of the approximately 1.2 million men called to the colours between January and July 1916, nearly 750,000 appealed. ³⁸ In one of these months, March 1916, 25,941 unattested men were taken into the army. Yet at the same time 58,947 were exempted, and another 18,079 had cases outstanding. ³⁹ In other words, 74.8 per cent of these men were appellants, in addition to the enlistees who had their pleas turned down.

Examining the situation in individual towns and cities produces similar results. As British men were called up by age group or class rather than by ballot, it is problematic to relate the number of appeals to the number of men who were summoned. An alternative is to calculate the number of appellants as a proportion of the approximate eligible population. For New Zealand this produces an appeal rate of 17.8 per cent, whereas the figure for Leeds is 21.8, Bristol 23.4, and Birmingham 28.5 per cent. ⁴⁰ If the Leeds and Bristol rates are not significantly higher than the New Zealand figure, it must be noted that they relate only to men who appealed to the tribunals. In Britain each government department was responsible for issuing exemptions to ‘men, or classes or bodies of men’ in its employment. ⁴¹ Government departments were also permitted to direct that badge certificates, which accompanied each war service badge issued to employees to shelter them from the attentions of recruiting officers under the voluntary system, should now be treated as certificates of exemption from conscription. ⁴² This meant that individuals who were protected by either of these provisions did not have to appear before the tribunals, whereas in New Zealand the only way to gain relief was through a board. So wide-ranging was the scope of the British provisions that government departments had granted over 1.5 million exemptions by 1 October 1916, compared to 1.1 million issued by the tribunals. ⁴³ By 30 April 1917 this situation had become even more pronounced, with around 780,000 tribunal exemptions against nearly 1.8 million from other sources. ⁴⁴ Given that Leeds, Bristol, and Birmingham were major industrial and administrative centres, large numbers of men there would have been employed in essential war industries. Therefore, the proportion of exemption claims in those cities would have been significantly greater than the above figures indicate. High rates of appealing also occurred in smaller British towns. The Huddersfield tribunal received 12,865 claims in 1916 alone, with the 1911 population of males aged 10 to 44 being only 29,651. ⁴⁵ Appealing was also common in Calne, where 29.1 per cent of the men of military age appealed. ⁴⁶ The combined weight of this evidence strongly suggests that British men were considerably more likely to appeal than their New Zealand counterparts.

It seems unlikely that this disparity arose from greater satisfaction with the British appeals process. In both countries the system came under sustained criticism from two distinct directions. On one side were those who claimed that exemptions were being granted too liberally. The opinion of the War Office in Britain, and the Defence Department in New Zealand, was that the needs of the army were not being met because of the over-sentimentality of the board and tribunal members. After watching 22 men consecutively avoid service, the military representative attached to the First Auckland Board exclaimed, ‘I like to see men getting exemption when the family has done well, but it is going too far, and it is getting hard to obtain men.’ ⁴⁷ This complaint would have been echoed by Major Tanner, who appeared in the same capacity at the Golcar tribunal in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Frustrated that there had only been one refusal all day, he endeavoured to remind the tribunal members that the object of their sitting was to obtain recruits. ⁴⁸

Throughout their operations the tribunals received a constant stream of instructions asking them to apply stricter standards, particularly to those men who were younger, single, and in higher medical categories: one chairman remarked that ‘we are being urged every week to get more men for the Army’. ⁴⁹ By March 1918 the new minister of national service had become so frustrated by the tribunals’ perceived tardiness that he submitted draft legislation that would have abolished the existing system of exemptions and replaced the local appeal bodies with more pliable county advisory committees. ⁵⁰ Families who had lost several members, along with those who believed that the nation’s duty to send every fit man was going unfulfilled, also directed their anger towards the exemption process. ⁵¹ This came to a head in New Zealand during the early months of 1918, with the imminent mobilization of the married men of the Second Division. Outraged that there was a prospect of individuals with family responsibilities being sent while many singles remained at home, numerous local and sectional bodies called for medical unfitness to become the only ground for exemption other than being engaged in essential war work. ⁵²

Yet there were also claims that exemptions were being unduly withheld. Agricultural interests in both countries subscribed to this view, usually in relation to the necessity of retaining the ‘last man’ on the farm. ⁵³ Particular indignation was voiced over cases where the sole remaining son of a widow had been taken for service: the Dannevirke Evening News described a board’s decision to send the last of five boys in the Best family as a ‘manifest inequality of sacrifice’, while in Britain the MP for Islington West likened the tribunals to ‘recruiting sergeants’ and ‘the old press gangs’. ⁵⁴ Being subjected to this two-sided censure was a constant source of exasperation to the appeal bodies and their administrators. ⁵⁵ When a mother complained before the Second Auckland Board at the number of cases that had been refused, the chairman wryly remarked that ‘some people consider we grant too many’. ⁵⁶ Similarly, the chairman of the Castleford tribunal sought to reassure his colleagues against the ‘flood of abuse’ they had been subjected to from individuals who apparently believed that they were ‘lacking in intelligence and full of partiality and prejudice, instead of being public business men who were sacrificing their time and energy in the conscientious performance of a somewhat unpleasant public duty’. ⁵⁷ In the face of this persistent criticism, Walter Long, president of the Local Government Board and the man initially responsible for instructing the tribunals, maintained that he was simply at a loss over how to satisfy the many detractors who claimed the system was too harsh, while simultaneously appeasing those who claimed it was too liberal. ⁵⁸ With there being so little confidence in the exemption process in both countries, it seems that perceptions of its quality cannot account for the difference in the appeal rate.

Another issue that probably had a limited impact is the likelihood of gaining exemption. A potential line of reasoning is that if a large proportion of New Zealand appellants had their claims rejected, this might have led other reservists to conclude that an appeal was not worth the effort. However, the success rate in the Wellington Provincial District was very high. Appellants who were medically fit and whose cases were not withdrawn had a 54.4 per cent chance of obtaining a positive ‘concrete verdict’ on each occasion that they came before the boards. ⁵⁹ Furthermore, even a dismissal was usually accompanied by a few months’ grace before the reservist was required at camp. Ultimately, nearly 90 per cent of the ‘concrete verdicts’ afforded some period of exemption. ⁶⁰ If the national figure in this regard was slightly lower, 82.4 per cent over a 14-month period, this seems far more likely to have been an incentive to appeal, rather than a dissuading factor. ⁶¹ The situation in Britain varied enormously, which is hardly surprising given that it had over 2000 appeal bodies to New Zealand’s 10. ⁶² Among the most generous must surely have been the Calne and Stratford-upon-Avon tribunals, which returned an outright dismissal only 8.5 and 14.8 per cent of the time, respectively. ⁶³ In contrast the Audenshaw tribunal in Lancashire was much less willing to grant exemption. It refused 22.3 per cent of the cases in a three-month sample, while the Huddersfield body rejected 25 per cent of the appeals before it in 1916. ⁶⁴ These differing returns make an overall comparison problematic. Yet it does seem reasonable to conclude that British men were not substantially more likely to be granted exemption than their New Zealand counterparts. The likelihood of success has little to recommend it as an explanation for the relative appeal rates.

Another factor that appears to have limited scope in terms of explaining the differing appeal rates is the scale of conscription in the two countries. Although the first British Military Service Act of 1916 covered only single men aged between 18 and 41, a second Act applying to married men was passed that May. All the single and married groups and classes were called up well before the end of the year, with subsequent legislation and instructions extending the age of eligibility to 50 and providing for the ‘combing out’ of many of those who had previously been protected by their occupation or rejected because of their medical category. Conscription in New Zealand not only started later, but also proceeded at a much slower pace. The first appeals came before the boards in November 1916, and, while all single men had been subject to the ballot by the close of hostilities, the calling up of the married men of the Second Division, which was carried out in sequence according to number of children, had only reached Class C (those with at least two children). This meant that an estimated 16.4 per cent of all eligible men were never balloted. ⁶⁵ Had these individuals been required, the number of New Zealand appellants as a proportion of the eligible population would have increased, and the difference with the relative British figures would not be as great. Yet it is highly likely that a substantial disparity would still exist. Despite James Belich’s claim that married New Zealanders were particularly keen to avoid conscription, an analysis of the list supports observations made at the time that the calling of the early classes of married men did not herald a significant rise in appealing. ⁶⁶ In fact, the overall rate for the ballots that were largely made up of the Second Division is very similar to that for the ballots that included only unmarried First Division reservists: 31.89 and 31.14 per cent respectively. ⁶⁷ This situation might well have altered had conscription reached the later classes, as individuals with a higher number of children would probably have been more likely to have regard to the ties of their domestic situation than would men with fewer or no children. Nevertheless, any increase in the appeal rate would surely not have been so large as to account for the vast difference between the New Zealand and British figures.

A final apparently unsatisfactory explanation for the differing appeal rates is the relative financial costs associated with joining the army. New Zealand soldiers were paid considerably more than their British counterparts, four or five times as much for the lower ranks. ⁶⁸ Furthermore, the Dominion also offered a higher level of separation allowances, paid to the wives and dependents of servicemen, and from January 1917 allowed men to apply for a grant under the ‘very liberal’ Financial Assistance Scheme, to cover commitments such as rents and mortgages. ⁶⁹ If the losses faced by New Zealand men were lower, it might be anticipated that this would make them more amenable to being conscripted. Certainly the tribunals did hear many accounts of financial hardship. Yet there are several reasons for rejecting this as a significant factor in determining the likelihood of appealing. The first is that cases based on pecuniary difficulties were heard in New Zealand as well, particularly in regard to the support of parents, siblings, wives, and children. Edward Coffey argued that both of his brothers were serving and that he contributed an essential £1 per week from his wages to support his elderly parents and three sisters. ⁷⁰ Similarly, Alfred Hitchcock stated that he was the sole support of both his wife and his widowed mother, who was in poor health, and objected that he would not be able to support them on military pay. ⁷¹

A second consideration is that, while the number of financially based claims was not insignificant, they were considerably outweighed by appeals based on occupation or business circumstances. Indeed, an examination of the newspaper reports suggests that the proportion of claims made on these other grounds was actually greater in Britain than in New Zealand. The final reason for downplaying the importance of financially based appeals in Britain is that they were among the least likely to succeed. Tribunals regularly argued that soldiers’ allowances and allotments meant a man would actually be able to contribute more to his dependents if he enlisted, while one individual who claimed that he gave his invalid mother 25s. a week was told by the Barnsley Borough Tribunal that she would be better off if he joined, not having him to keep. ⁷² Another of the appeal bodies’ frequent ripostes was that relatives or patriotic organizations would be able to take up the strain. The plea of a Cleckheaton belt weaver that he was the main support of a widow was dismissed after it was pointed out that ‘your brother pays one pound a week, and you have a sister who works as well’. ⁷³ Owing to the limited prospects of success, if any ground for an appeal was less likely to be pursued by British appellants it was an appeal based on financial circumstances.

A more compelling reason for the differing appeal rates is the level of protection that the British system afforded to certain industries. While the ability of government departments to grant their own exemptions has already been discussed, the List of Certified Occupations was of equal importance. ⁷⁴ Produced by the Ministry of Munitions, Admiralty, Home Office, Department of Agriculture, and an interdepartmental Reserved Occupations Committee sitting at the Board of Trade, this document came under frequent attack from the army and the War Office over its considerable scope. ⁷⁵ In any appeal where the occupation of the reservist appeared on the list, the tribunals were obliged to regard him as having prima facie grounds for exemption. Such a case could be refused only if the military representative raised an objection and the tribunal subsequently found that it was not necessary in the national interest to retain the man in civil employment. ⁷⁶ On the one hand, this would have encouraged certain appeals on the basis that their success was highly likely. By 15 October 1916, 473,000 men employed in certified occupations had received exemption from the tribunals alone. ⁷⁷ Furthermore, the certified list effectively told the individuals it covered that their duty was to remain at home. At a time when many others had to weigh up their responsibilities and obligations, these men were supplied with an answer as to whether they should appeal. Throughout the conscription period, efforts were made to apply age limits to some of the certified occupations, or to remove certain callings from the list entirely. ⁷⁸ Nevertheless, in October 1918 the Ministry of National Service calculated that fully 2,574,860 men were still eligible for some form of protection by their occupation. ⁷⁹

The situation in New Zealand was somewhat different. Its Military Service Act made no provision for the exemption of men by government departments, with the minister of defence insisting that the boards would determine each case on its merits. ⁸⁰ Certainly, the government contradicted this principle before sittings had even begun by instructing that miners, slaughtermen, and merchant seamen should have their appeals allowed, and by issuing certificates to essential individuals whom the boards were then required to exempt unless they saw ‘good reason to the contrary’. ⁸¹ However, these provisions safeguarded a far lower number of occupations, and a far lower proportion of men, than the British system. In 1917 the New Zealand government sent out further directions regarding the exemption of the ‘last man’ on the farm, with official approval also being given to a Classification of Industries, Professions and Occupations. Yet the onus of proof remained on the appellant or his employer in the majority of cases. The ‘last man’ was tightly defined as only someone ‘doing the whole of the work on his own farm, or the last son on the farm of parents who are … unable to do the work themselves’, while the Classification of Industries emphasized that no claim should be accepted unless the individual was absolutely essential. ⁸² Without the near certainty of success, or the same degree of official sanction, that many British men enjoyed, New Zealanders might well have been less likely to appeal on occupational grounds.

Another variable that appears to have some significance is the social acceptability of appealing. Matthew Wright’s assertion that conscientious objectors ‘were the only ones targeted’ in New Zealand for choosing to claim exemption is contradicted by a wealth of evidence. ⁸³ Even before hearings had begun, the minister of internal affairs pleaded for the automatic exemption of farmers and industrial workers so that they could avoid the ‘humiliation’ of appealing, while a prospective appellant hoped he would not branded as a ‘shirker’ when he had crucial obligations at home. ⁸⁴ These fears were to prove well founded. The New Zealand Herald took to reporting cases under the heading ‘Reservists’ Excuses’, a label that would have been endorsed by the Hawke’s Bay Tribune, which lamented that ‘a great many of the appellants have no ground of appeal at all’. ⁸⁵ A lack of sympathy was also evident among the public, members of whom thronged the galleries at many early sittings. ⁸⁶ Board members and military representatives frequently cited both letters they had received questioning appellants’ testimony and the ‘feeling in the district’ that had mobilized against the exemption of certain individuals. ⁸⁷ Correspondents to local newspapers could be particularly vitriolic: one described any unmarried individual who appealed as ‘not worthy of the name of a man’, while another lambasted those who were ‘selfish and mean enough to offer paltry excuses to the Appeal Board to evade military obligations and take no part in defending our women and children’. ⁸⁸ In response to this current of feeling, one board chairman advised appellants to withdraw their claims on the grounds that ‘it would be better to … not have it recorded against him that he has appealed’. ⁸⁹ Some men even considered it unbecoming to have their name associated with appeals. When writing to correct an Auckland Star report that listed him as claiming for an employee, C. Laurie implied that the very notion was a stain on his patriotism. He argued that he ‘would not appeal for anybody’ and considered ‘every fit man in my employ should go’, and stressed the fact his son was presently returning home wounded from the front. ⁹⁰

This is not to suggest that appeals met with universal approval in Britain: the charges of ‘shirking’ made in one anonymous letter were so serious that the accused tracked down its author and forced him to apologize under threat of prosecution. ⁹¹ However, there does seem to have been a greater tolerance of appealing overall. To prevent their identification, the majority of newspapers in the West Riding of Yorkshire did not print the names or addresses of appellants. ⁹² Indeed, the Colne Valley Guardian refused to report on tribunal hearings altogether, so that men who had simply exercised their legal right to appeal would not be ‘pilloried in the press and made the butt of idle and mischievous gossip’. ⁹³ In contrast, New Zealand publications invariably gave full names and addresses in their coverage of the boards’ operations. Another difference in the coverage was that New Zealand newspapers endeavoured to report the majority of cases that came before the boards, whereas their British counterparts often limited themselves to detailing a handful of the more ‘interesting’ or informative appeals. The West Riding public seems to have been less concerned to monitor appeals anyway, with a number of sittings attracting very few onlookers, or even none at all. ⁹⁴

Debates around the appeals process also tended to be orientated differently. Those New Zealanders who believed that exemption was being granted too freely tended to blame the duplicity of appellants, while British opinion was more likely to target protected occupations or the tribunals. Furthermore, if one excludes the War Office, it is relatively uncommon to find such an argument being voiced in Britain. ⁹⁵ Instead, editorials, correspondence columns, and parliamentary debates were full of complaints about the harsh treatment of appellants, with Walter Long and his successors having to continually defend the tribunals’ actions. ⁹⁶ Each of these observations is very much a matter of degree rather than a dichotomy. Nevertheless, there is evidence that indicates the lower rate of appealing in New Zealand could be attributable to the manner in which these claims were perceived.

It is difficult to assess how many appeals resulted from a reluctance to perform military service. In both nations the fact that the historiography has overwhelmingly focused on those men who cited conscientious objections has obscured their comparatively small numbers. ⁹⁷ In New Zealand only 4.2 per cent of Wellington Provincial District appellants cited conscientious grounds. ⁹⁸ Yet this is actually higher than the 1.8 per cent Slocombe identifies for Wiltshire, the 0.8 per cent noted by Spinks for Stratford-upon-Avon, and the 1.6 per cent found by McDermott in his analysis of the cases before the Northamptonshire Appeal Tribunal. ⁹⁹ Grieves in regard to Leek, Housden in regard to Kingston, Mitchinson in regard to Saddleworth, Peacock in regard to York, and Cranstoun in regard to East Lothian have also claimed that cases involving objectors were only a tiny fraction of the tribunals’ workload. ¹⁰⁰ Most strikingly, John Rae finds that the approximately 16,500 objectors constituted only 0.33 per cent of the total number of British men recruited during the war, while even Cyril Pearce, who describes Huddersfield as ‘a virtual citadel for the anti-war cause’, admits that under 1 per cent of the cases before the local tribunal were based on conscientious scruples. ¹⁰¹ Clearly an unwillingness to serve would have extended beyond those who held a moral objection, but such resistance was rarely expressed at exemption hearings in either country. Most appellants voiced similar sentiments to William Lambert, who told the Third Wellington Board ‘I want to go to the war, and would have enlisted long ago had it not been for my parents,’ or the rag grinder who testified before the Batley tribunal that the only thing holding him back was the need to support his mother and 11-year-old niece. ¹⁰² Nevertheless, as Baker has pointed out, it might well be that some appellants pragmatically concealed a reluctance to serve. ¹⁰³ Both the boards and tribunals were vigilant in their efforts to root out ‘shirkers’, with any suspected culprit being immediately ordered to camp. In the light of this, some appellants could well have hidden their true motivations to give themselves a chance of exemption. Ultimately, however, there can only be speculation on the extent of this practice, as it is generally impossible to discover what men chose to leave unsaid.

A degree of uncertainty must, therefore, exist over why some men chose to appeal against being conscripted. What can be stated with confidence is that only 32.3 per cent of balloted New Zealanders did so, far fewer than has previously been claimed. A strong body of evidence further indicates that New Zealanders were considerably less likely to appeal than their counterparts in Britain. Degrees of confidence in the national appeal machinery, the likelihood of gaining exemption, the differing rates of conscription, and the financial hardships of being conscripted seem to offer limited potential as explanations. Of apparently much greater importance is the protection that the British system afforded to many occupations, and the hostile reception that appealing generated in New Zealand.