BREACHES OF WAR REGULATIONS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1593, 3 August 1916, Page 4

BREACHES OF WAR REGULATIONS.

S EDITIOUS 1 ’l’Hid CA TK )N,

NEWSPAPER FINED £!

At (he Palmerston Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday Mr J. G. L. Hewitt, S.M., delivered judgment in the charge of a breach of the War Regulations Act tu-eferred against P. C. Erect h.

IT is Worship 1 * judgment was as follows: The defendant is charged with li:i\incommitted a broach of Regnlation 4 of (ho Regulations, da lod the li'lli day id' duly, 1!) I Ts, made by Ibo (lOvernur-m-Council under Ibo provisions of Ibo War Regulations AH, Kill, Ilia I ho did. on 271 b day of May, l!)T(i, publish in Iho Manawalu Daily Times, a newspaper circulating in Palmerston X. a oorlain loiter purporting' to have boon contributed by some person under the signature of “Shirker,” which contained matter likely to interfere with the recruiting of His Majesty 1 * Forces. The material part of the regulation referred to, so far as il concerns Ibis case, reads as follows; “No person shall publish or cause or permit to he published any statement or matter likely to interfere with the recruiting, (raining, discipline, or administration of His Majesty’s forces, whether by sea or laud.” The defendant admits that, if (he publication of the letter amounts to a breach of the regulation, he is the party responsible for such breach, but lie contends, first, that il does not infringe the regulation, and secondly, if it is held by the Court that it does, then that it was inserted by him for the express purpose that he might deal with it editorially in a future issue of his newspaper, and Ilia I,.as he had no seditious inlent, he is not liable (o conviction. It was very properly pointed out by counsel for (he prosecution (hat it was not intended to impute to the defendant or the newspaper that he represented any disloyalty, and il is only fair to him and his newspaper to put it on record that, not only is it quite apparent from a perusal of a large number of articles written and published before and after the date of the publication of the letter referred to, that no such imputation could possibly he made, but that, on the contrary, the whole tone of (he articles referred to is highly loyal and patriotic. The question of intent, however, dot's not, in my opinion, in a prosecution under this regulation, have any bearing upon the matter except in so far as it may go to an increase or lessening of the penalty. If the matter complained of is a breach of the regulation, then the defendant is liable, whatever may have been his motive or intention. The Act is a special one, authorising the making of regulations ofan extraordinary nature in extraordinary times, and the prohibition, in my opinion, is an absolute one. The only question, then, is whether the letter re-