SUBVERSIVE PAMPHLET

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24405, 17 September 1940, Page 6

SUBVERSIVE PAMPHLET

HAIRDRESSER CONVICTED TWELVE MONTHS IN GAOL (Per United Press Association) WELLINGTON, Sept. 16. The possession of pamphlets, which were described by Mr J. L. Stout, 5.M., : as being of a scurrilous nature, resulted in the conviction in the magistrate’s reserved, judgment of James Kelman, aged 37, a hairdresser, who was charged last Thursday with having in his possession 127 copies of a pamphlet entitled “Murder,” with a view to facilitating the publication of a subversive statement. The accused was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment with hard, labour.

The magistrate said he did not think it could seriously be contended that the pamphlets did not contain a subversive statement. The accused had given no evidence to explain his possession of them, and the magistrate thought it would properly be inferred that the only reason for his having them in his possession was to facilitate their publication.

At the hearing of the case. Senior Sergeant Doyle said that as the result of complaints received, a detective interviewed the 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. The accused told the detective that he was a member of the Esperanto Society, but the detective did not find literature of the kind the police were seeking. A suitcase was found to contain Esperanto correspondence and the bundle of pamphlets which were the subject of the charge. The accused expressed great amazement at these, saying he had never seen them before. They were not in the suitcase when he looked in it a few days before. In the breast oocket of a coat there was a letter from the organiser of the Wellington branch of the Communist Party. With reference to this the accused said: "That is a different matter. That’s a different story." Mr Doyle indicated that similar pamphlets had been nosted throughout the city. Each pamphlet stated that it was issued by the National Committee of the Peace and Anti-conscription Council. The police had stopped meetings of that body, and on the su’face it had been defunct so far as tire police knew.