COMMONWEALTH AND STATE.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 December 1917, Page 4

COMMONWEALTH AND STATE.

QUEENSLAND “ HANSARD ” SEIZED BY MILITARY. A CONSCRIPT CONFLICT. Recently the anti-conscriptionists launched tlieir campaign in Brisbane. The speakers, including the Premier (Mr Ryan) complained on the following day that important portions of their remarks had been censored by the Brisbane censor: A debate took place in the Legislative Assembly on the question. The censor took certain action, but the Queensland Government refused LtT obey the commands of the censor.

A climax was reached one night about 10 o’clock, when BrigadierGeneral Irving (State Commandant) and a posse of military raided the Government Printing Office and seized some thousands of copies of “ Hansard.” It was understood that the formes' of type containing the letterpress were not taken. The Premier was not aware of the raid until it had been effected. Motorcars were used to carry away the printed matter. The following morning a meeting of the State Cabinet was held, "after which a Government “ Gazette Extraordinary ” was issued. This proclamation was read in the streets bypeople who -could not gain admission to Mr Hughes’s meeting in the in the Exhibition Hall.

The Government Printing Office was being guarded by six police constables and two non-commis-sioned officers, but there was no' 1 demonstration of any kind. It was stated that the report of Mr Ryan’s speech on the censorship was to have been distributed with two local Labour newspapers in supplement form.

Replying to a protest from Mr Ryan, the Prime Minister wrote at length, in the course of which he said•

“ It appears that your Government, acting at the direct request of the Queensland Anti-Conscrip-tion Campaign Committee, have sought to flood the country with the grossest misrepresentations of fact, under cover of Parliamentary privilege, and so evade the penalties which attach to such statements when made outside Parliament.

“ I have before pie a 4 letter sent to one E. Richter, a German, or person of German extraction, from this Queensland Anti-conscription Campaign Committee, which completely and in detail discloses the reasons which actuated you in holding this special debate, and preparing for tlie issue of this special ‘Hansard,’ deliberately designed to evade the law, mislead the electors, defeat the proposals of the Government, and leave our force at the front without adequate reinforcements. “ i have a copy of the so-called 1 Hansard ’ before me. J have had experience in Parliament extending over twenty-three years. I have consulted with men whose experience has been as long as my own. 1 have never seen a ‘ Hansard’ in the least degree resembling this. It is a ‘ Hansard ’ only in name. It is in effect a ‘ No-Conscription ’ pamphlet, teeming with the grossest misrepresentations, and containing statements calculated not only' to mislead the elector with regard to his vote on December 20th, but to seriously prejudice voluntary recruiting.

“ Every statement calculated to deceive the electors made by you and your Minister Theodore is set out itf black type, a circumstance absolutely unique in the history of 1 Hansard,” while the replies of the supporters of the Government’s proposals are buried in the small type in which ‘ Hansard ’ is usually printed.

“ Under the circumstances, therefore, when you speak of ‘ invasion of rights of a sovereign State,’ I would remipd you that in regard to war there is only one sovereign power, and that is the Commonwed th,' and that, vested as it is with full powers to deal with this war and all matters relating to it, given by the electors the greatest majority in the history of the Commonwealth, it will not permit that authority to be defied or undermined by any Individual or State, but will enforce the law and exercise with all rigour and dispatch that the grave circumstances in which the Commonwealth now finds itself demand.”