§ Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for War if he will state the total number of conscientious objectors to military service who have been executed, who are now under sentence of execution, and who are now undergoing penal servitude, respectively, for having exercised their statutory right of conscientious objection; and if he will state the authority by which that statutory right has been abrogated?
§ Mr. FORSTERNo soldiers have been punished for exercising their statutory right of conscientious objection, for the reason that a soldier has no such statutory right. The hon. Member is, I think, confusing the legal remedies which a citizen, before he becomes a soldier, possesses derived from the statutory exemptions which may be granted under the Military Service Acts. Certain soldiers, however, have been tried by court-martial for offences of insubordination, such offences they allege being due to conscientious objection to military service. Of such soldiers none have been executed, none are under sentence of execution, and one is undergoing a sentence of penal servitude solely because he refuses to accept his release under the terms offered to him by the Brace Committee of work of national importance.