UNREGISTERED PRESS.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 May 1921, Page 4

UNREGISTERED PRESS.

THREE NEW ARRIVALS HNED. REVELATIONS OF A RAID. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. John A. Bevan, Michael Angelo Bevai and Gordon Bevan, recent arrivals i> New Zealand, were fined in the Police Court, to-day, £5 for possessing an unregistered printing press. Detectives paid a domiciliary visit tc the defendants’ house in Mill Road where they found two power-driven printing presses set up, as well as type and other incidentals to a small printing business.

Chief-Detective McMahon stated that/ among the printed literature on the premises were two or three pamphlets of American origin within the scope of Socialistic literature of an inflammatory type, which are forbidden sale and publication within New Zealand. Some leaflet work not of a harmful nature, which was on one printing press at the time of the raid, bore no imprint. Counsel for the defendants stated his clients were in the printing trade in England for thirty years, and brought the presses with them. In England the law did not require the registration of printing presses, being satisfied with the registration of newspapers, and in struggling to gain a business footing in New Zealand the defendants blindly accepted a statement in the immigration guide book that the administration of justice in New Zealand was the same as in England.

The Magistrate expressed scepticism about the absolute freedom of printing presses in England, in view of the fact that that left the way open to the pub* lication of poisonous literature. In any case the administration of justice was obviously a thing apart from the making of laws, as every country must have different laws adapted to varying legal conditions. It was obvious that th* avenue for literature urging lawlessness) class distinction and animosity must be under control.