SUBVERSION CHARGE
POSSESSION OF PAMPHLET ■ r DECISION RESERVED Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Sept. 12. A charge of being in possession on August 31 of 127 copies of a pamphlet with a view to facilitating the publication of a subversive statement was made in Court against James Ivelman, Railway Station. Tlie pamphlet contained 'an attack on three Ministers of the Crown in connection with the deportation of a Communist. Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., reserved his decision. Senior-Detective Doyle said that as a result of complaints received a detective interviewed accused, who was the sole occupier of a bach at the back of a house. There the detective found a fairly extensive collection of books from the Left Book Club. Accused told the detective lie was a member of the Esperanto Society. A suitcase was found to contain Esperanto correspondence and the bundle of pamphlets which were the subject of the charge. Accused expressed great amazement at these, saying he had never seen them before; they were not in the case when lie looked in it a few days before. In tlie breast pocket of a coat there was a letter from the organiser of the Wellington branch of the Communist Party. . With reference to this, accused said: “That’s a different matter. That is a different story.” Air Doyle indicated that similar pamphlets had been posted throughout the city. Each pamphlet stated it was issued by the National Committee of the Peace and Anti-Conscription Council. The police had stopped the meetings of that body, and on the surface it had been defunct so far as the police knew.
Defending counsel said that accused, with several hundred others who attended a meeting of the and Anti-Conscription Council at the Trades Hall, signed on as .a member. Members were asked to distribute notices of meetings, and such notices were dumped regularly in accused’s room, the door of which was always unlocked. He saw no reason to believe there was anything in the room when the police searched it.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MS19400913.2.44
Bibliographic details
Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 245, 13 September 1940, Page 6
Word Count
335SUBVERSION CHARGE Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 245, 13 September 1940, Page 6
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