SEDITION CASES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1830, 23 May 1918, Page 3

SEDITION CASES.

THE CHRISTCHURCH TRIO,

TO BE RELEASED ON SURETIES.

The Government has decided to recommend the Governor-General to remit the sentences of imprisonment inflicted by a Magistrate at Christchurch recently on Hiram Hunter (three months), E. Langley (six months), and J. Flood (six months) for having made a seditious utterance at a public meeting, convened by the Christchurch Second Division League. Release is to be subject to sureties for loyal behaviour. The Acting-Prime Minister, Sir James Allen, gives Cabinet’s attitude in the following official statement :

The Government has given careful consideration to the petitions for remission of the sentences imposed on these men, and to the representations made on their behalf. “It is necessary in the first place to dispose of the suggestion that the sentences were excessive. The Government considers that the observations of the Magistrate when pronouncing judgment were entirely justified by the facts proved, and that, considering the nature and circumstances of the offence, the sentences were lenient.

“The matters now urged upon the Government may be appropriate to the exercise of clemency by the Crown, but are quite foreign,to the considerations by which the Magistrate was properly guided in his decision. The only circumstance which weighs with the Government in favour of the prayer for remission is that the seditions nature df the resolution drafted by Flood, proposed by Langley, and seconded by Hunter, was not obvious to the Mayor who presided, to the public men on the platform who abstained from protest, or to the large number of persons who voted in favour of the motion when put by 1 lift Mayor. If proof could have been obtained of active participation by other persons, the prosecution would have boon instituted against others as well as against the throe prisoners; but proof sufficient for a criminal case was only available against the three.

“The Government is willing to give credence to the statements that the three prisoners did not appreciate the full nature and effect of their actions, but the men have been justly sentenced, and it is most necessary that sedition should be sternly suppressed during the war, and.that no one should be led to suppose that such practices may be indulged in with impunity. For that reason the Government cannot advise His Excellency to exercise the Crown’s prerogative of clemency unconditionally. It must require a condition that each of the men shall enter into a bond, with two sufficient sureties each in the sum of £SO, to be of good behaviour for a period of twelve months, and especially during Iho period to abstain from all acts and utterances having any seditious tendency. Upon those conditions being accepted and the necessary bonds duly executed, the Government is prepared, under the special circumstances of the ease, and having regard to the representations made by citizens of Christchurch whose loyalty is beyond question, to advise the release of the three prisoners. It must be understood that this is not to constitute a precedent, and that in fnnre no excuse will be allowed in mitigation of the full punishment which must follow such incitement to any class of the community to refuse obedience to the law, or the commission by any person of any act which may tend to embarrass the Government and the country in the due prosecution of the war. These men are going to he released on their finding sureties, and not until they find the sureties. The carrying out of this may occupy a few days. I want it to he understood that if there should be delay it will not be because we are trying to create difficulties. It will be because the thing must he properly done, and the sureties must he satisfactory.” Sir James Allen said that the Government bad not dealt with the case of the man Chappie. That case was not in the same category as these others. Chappie would receive no consideration whatever at the hands of the Government. SURETIES FOUND FOR HUNTER* FLOOD AND LANGLEY. Christchurch, May 28. The required number of sureties for the release of Hiram Hunter, E. Langley, and J. Flood were obtained to-day. The sureties have yet to be approved by the authorities iu Wellington. Hunter will be nominated to-morrow for the vacancy on the City Council, brought about by his imprisonment.