J. B. King Threatened.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 75, 16 August 1912, Page 1

J. B. King Threatened.

ALLEGED SEDITION.

A LECTURER AT WAIHI

Mr. A. Harris (Waitemata) asked the Prime Minister, without notioe, on Thursday of last week whether his attention had been called to an article printed that morning in a Wellington newspaper, stating that a lecturer at Waihi had advised his hearers at Sunday and other meetings to destroy machinery and other property of their employers. Mr. Harris suggested that it should bo possible to so amend the immigration laws that aliens who preached sedition might be deported. Also the member for Waitemata asked whether. the lecturer in question had not brought himself within the scope of the law.

Th© Prime Minister: I have seen the paragraph referred to, though I can hardly believe the statement contained in it to bo correct. I have" referred the paragraph to the Crown Law Officers for report, to see if the law will meet the case. If the case can be proved—l am referring to that part of the paragraph where a man is supposed to have incited others to destroy property—the law will be set in 'motion and enforced to the very letter. (Hear, hear.) If the law does not meet the case, Parliament will be asked 'ite amend it before the end of the sion."THE STATEMENT. Following |s the telegram- quoted' by Mr. Harris:—"A gentleman who has just returned itotn Waihi, in the course of a conversition with a 'Lyttelton Times' reporter, silted that there was at) present in Waihi American, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, who was conducting daily classes which he called 'Economic Classes.' The speaker stated that L$ had attended one of these classes, and had heard the most wicked lecture he ha! ever heard in his life. The lecturer advised: the' men ..one and all to jpork ing them; atict 'to take iti easy' at: all other timesi. Those who were working amongst machinery he advised to carry emery powder about with them and drop , it into the oiled bearings, with the object of grinding the parts of the machinery. He also advised them to drop a chisel into the machines as often as possible to rip the coge off the cogwheels. A plug of dynamite was a ueeful adjunct to their work, the lecturer stated, and it was to their interests to do as much damage as possible to their employers' property. This man was conducting a Sunday-school on these lines, teaching his devilish doctrine to little children, and 1 mixing it up with teaching as to where God dwelt. He had a fairly large following, and his classes, which were held daily for men and on Sundays for children, were well attended." GREATLY TICKLtO. Seen on Friday morning at Auckland with reference to remarks made by Mr. A. Harris, M.P., concerning an alleged. Socialists' Sunday-school in Waihi and other matters concerning the strike area, Messrs. Parry and Fraser expressed themselves as being greatly tickled at the "discovery" which Mr. Harris thought he had made. The reference to the "American" was, of course, to Mr. J. B. King, * well-known LW.W. advocate, and a very prominent open-air speaker about Auckland. As a matter of fact, Mr. King had never conducted a Sunday-school of any kind in Waihi; and (Mr. Fraser was very emphatic about this) Mr. King had never been connected in any way with the Socialist Party. Mr. King himself would be tlie first to repudiate the idea that the tactics he had described were such as had been effectively used in certain Continental countries and in America, in places where the restrictive legislation was such that unionists were driven to such methode as a last resource.