ECHO OF THE STRIKE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1, 22 April 1914, Page 6

ECHO OF THE STRIKE.

CONVICTIONS CONFIRMED. [Per Press Association.! * Wellington, April 21. The Court of Appeal delivered its reserved decision in the Crown case. Ilex v. Henry Holland, this afternoon. The Court affirmed the convictions in both indictments. With regard to the speech of November 2, 1913. the Court held that it was open to the jury to conclude that the accused recommended. the strikers to use violence for the purpose of securing their ends, and that'lie suggested also that the police in that event should refuse to do their duty, and should take the side of the strikers; and that the Navals, if ordered to fire on the strikers, should refuse to obey their orders; and .that the case came within the limits of- subsection 1 of clause D of section 118 of the Crimes Act. Dealing with the question of Whether the conviction for the speech'of October 26, 1913, should stand, the Court held that the plea of a pre : vious acquittal could not be established, as accused could not bring himself within section 403 of the Crimes Ant, 190 S, which set out the only cases in which a plea of previous acquittal can now be established. The Court also added that an .accused who desires to plead the plea of, previous acquittal, or a previous conviction, may lose his right to do so by pleading not guilty when arraigned on ar, indictment. HOLLAND ADDRESSES TrtE COURT. SENTENCED TO A YEAR WITHOUT HARD LABOR. Wellington, April 22. Henry Holland, who was convicted on two-counts of/iising seditious language in his speeches on '26th October and; 2nd November, was to-day sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, to be counted from'2nd February. i Holland delivered a long address to the Court. He gave a large number of reasons why sentence should not be pronounced, the principal ones being the alleged inaccuracy of the speeches on which the charges were based. The papers quoted in Court, be declared, invariably took up an attitude against the interests of the workers in connection with the strike, and nothing, was too base for them to utter. He characterised the reports of two speeches' as egregious jumbles, and complained that the prosecution, had not presented certain vital facts i to Court ip connection with the Basin Reserve speech. He had not put a witness in the box because his sense of manhood Would not allow him to clear himself at the, risk of jeopardising a comrade. He referred to two years' imprisonment for sedition uttered at Broken Hill, and made a lengthy statement as to the circumstances of hi: trial, and his release after serving five months, and of the subsequent defeat of the Wade Government, which he attributed in great part to the way in which it had dealt with him and others in connection with the incident. At the time of the Newtown .speech, he said he had known that constables had had 40 rounds of ammunition served out, and had orders to shoot straight, and men from H.M.S. Psyche had told him they had been instructed (if ordered to fire on strikers) to shoot to kill. All he (Holland) had done was to urge the men not to fire on men, women and children.

The Chief Justice, in passing sentence, said the law of sedition: was not made by judges, but by the Legislature, and no objections were raised to it at the time. The reports taken from the Maoriland Worker, which had been read by accused to show variance between those reports and the daily newspaper reports, would have brought him within the law of sedition. Accused" failed to recognise the necessity for peace and order, without which there could be no progress. If he invited, other pe&ple not to be peaceablo,and to resort to violenco, lie was really an enemy of the people. The brotherhood of man would never be achieved by violent means. Such brotherhood did not merely mean workers but the brotherhood of all classes. The capitalist had just as much right not to be assaulted as the worker. The Act allowed a sentence of four years, but accused would be dealt with leniently, and be sentenced to twelve months without hard labor. THE STRIKE SETTLED. TBy Eucotkio Tkj.koraph—Copyright i [United Sydney, April 21. . The chaff carters' strike has been settled, and the men returned to work this afternoon as a result of an interview with Mr Holman, wild promised to endeavor, when Parliament met, to have the Australian Workers' Union included in the schedule of the State Arbitration Act.