OUR OWN HOUSE.

Taihape Daily Times, 15 October 1919, Page 5

OUR OWN HOUSE.

~ -——o——- . SERIOUS ALI.EUAT‘-’H.\'S. CRUELTY AND TERRORISM. A question to the Minister for Defence given notice of in the House of Representatives "by Mr H. E_ Holland (Grey) is: ”“(1) VVhethel' he has seen the statement of Pribate Sutton, p;l'Dlished in the Australian Press; -and,‘ if so, Whether he will take steps to :,:s_cel-taiin athen ame of the New Zealand soldier referred to by Private Sutton as having been executed for refusing to Work in prison? (2) Whether he will have the fullest inquiries made concerning this execution?

' One paragraph in Private Sutton,’£i ‘statement, said Mr Holland, reads as ifollows:—“You people at home, whilst Ireading of our victories and feats of arms on the field" could not have thought it -possible that some of your own countrymen, perhaps even your own flesh and blood, were being tortured in the military prisons of Franc and England. I have seen men die If1'om« the scandalous treatment they Ereceibed, and I can also give the [names of two.men who purposely deistro)§_ed their own eyesight to escape the horrible torture, which was driving them insane. . . In the month; of August, 1917, 35 Australians aha one New Zealand soldier asked to see an Australian oflicer in high command, who was Visiting the prison, with -a. view to having the treatment exposed. The interview was ‘refused and the run dcided to do no more work. This was called mutiny. They were all placed in different cells, and 16 n.c.o’s of ‘the M.P.S.C. most brutally flogged them, and they Were sentencedto‘3s days’ bread and water. The so-.~ called ' ringleaders were-' court—ma.r-‘ tialled. field,‘..-Mitcheii,«La-Leuor, and Little, were sentenced to life terms, and the‘ New Zealanderand a Scots soldier‘: Were sentenced to’ dea;th',~"which sen-—_ tence was duly carried out.”