A COMMUNISTIC STUDENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 August 1921, Page 5

A COMMUNISTIC STUDENT.

YOUNG WOMAN FINED. Wellington, August 19. A young woman named Hedwig Weitzel, described as a student at Wellington Training College, was charged at the Magistrate’s Court to-day with selling on June 19 last a journal, “The Communist,” which encourages violence. Evidence was given concerning the sale to a constable at the Communist hall. Weitzel pleaded not guilty, declaring that she had no notification that this literature was banned. The Crown Prosecutor said the police report was to the effect that Weitzel was a B.A. of Victoria University College. She knew quite well the risks she was taking in dabbling in a matter of this kind. Her mother, a German, left for America six months ago, taking two of the family, and had not returned. Her father, also a German, died four or six months ago. Neither had been naturalised, and during the war they were decidedly antiBritish. During the war the family lived in Buller Street. The house was the rendezvous of anti-militarist revolutionaries of pronounced character, one of whom married the defendant’s sister. All these men were arrested and imprisoned for talking anti-conscription. It simply pleased the Weitzel family to encourage anything that would weaken Britain’s fighting power. Defendant must have known all this, although young at the time. She was constantly at the Copnmunist Hall, and was as much a Communist at heart as any of the party. The magistrate fined Weitzel .€lO, allowing her fourteen days to find the money.

At the same sitting of the court, for a similar offence, George Wilkinson was sentenced to terms of imprisonment amounting to two months, and William Blair was fined €25, in default two .swaths’