---

Armed Forces Bill

Perhaps I may feed into this brief discussion in the context of Amendment No. 9 by saying that justice really does require that there should be a subjective element in the conduct complained of. A typical lawful command given by a superior officer might be, ““Go and take that hill””. Surely it is a good deal more just if the soldier who has failed to take the hill is able to say, ““I used my utmost exertions””, which means only that he left no effort unexerted, than he should be told, ““You have failed to take that hill; it was a lawful command and you are guilty””. I hope that that might be considered in the Minister’s reply. Finally, the phrase ““despondent or alarmed”” has a long and well documented history and I should have thought that there would not be much difficulty in understanding what those words mean.