“IS THAT JUSTICE?”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 146, 10 September 1927, Page 9

“IS THAT JUSTICE?”

REPLY TO MR. COATES Press Association. WELLINGTON, To-day. Messrs. Findlay, Hoggard, Cousins and Wrigh: reply to Mr. Coates’s last letter as follows: Opening your reply to our last letter is an amazing pronouncement, violating as it does the fundamental principles of British liberty. Every subject of His Majesty has the right to petition Parliament and have that petition heard and reported on. The Samoans’ petitioned and set out their grievances. That petition was presented to the House of Representatives and referred to a joint committee of both Houses, appointed by the Government on party lines. The committee sat, excluded the Press, and thereby made it penal to reveal evidence given. The inquiry commenced and proceeded. Petitioners desired the committee to hear witnesses from Samoa, but after Mr. Nelson’s evidence was given, and he was cross-examined by counsel for the Crown by certain members of the committee for no less than live days, and after you had announced in the House that a Royal Commission had been applied for, not by petitioners, but by the Administrator, and would therefore be set up, and after Mr. Nelson’s evidence was concluded, the committee notilied petitioners that no further evidence would be heard. Is that consistent with a British subject's fundamental right to have his petition heard?