BISHOP ON TRIAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 May 1922, Page 5

BISHOP ON TRIAL.

iJSTON CASE OPENS. ALLEGED SEDITIOUS UTTERANCE. SPEECH ON IRISH QUESTION. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, May 16. At the Supreme Court to-day James M. Liston, Roman Catholic Coadjutor Bishop of Auckland, was charged with making seditious utterances in a speech at a function on St. Patrick’s Day. When the case against Bishop Liston was called, accused slipped smartly from one of the side doors in the court and took his stand in the dock with bowed head and hands clasped behind him while the indictment was read. Sixteen jurors were challenged by the Crown, and five by counsel for the defence. At counsel’s request, accused ’was permitted to take a seat, at the barristers’ table. Mr. Meredith (Crown Prosecutor), in opening the case, said it was for the jury to consider whether the words alleged to have been used came within the categories described by law. If so, accused was guilty of the charge preferred. There was a further provision that no one could be deemed guilty in this connection if it could be shown that there was merely an endeavor in good faith to point out that His Majesty had been mistaken or misled, or if there were pointed out defects in the constitution or Government, which subjects were urged to have changed by lawful

Mr. Meredith went on to explain what was a seditious utterance. If such utterances were made it was imperative that the tranquility of the State should be preserved, and . that the people responsible for civil government should see that such utterances were not repeated.

The first witness was Gordon Stanbrooke, reporter. Answering Mr j Justice Stringer, he said that what he wrote for the paper was practically a verbatim copy of part of his notes, changed from the first person into the third person. His Honor asked: “Are you sure of the expression ‘murdered by foreign trhops’ ?” In reply to M Meredith, witness said he did not take the whole of the speech, but nothing else that was said would have altered the tenor of his report. To His Honor: The expressions were not qualified in any way. There was no doubt about the use of the words “murdered by foreign troops”, referring to “the glorious Easter of 1916”, and of “men and women willing to die.”

Mr. Meredith: “What did \ r ou mean when you said you took only what you wanted ?

Witness: “What I considered of public interest. I did not take a shorthand note.’’ Counsel: “Is it not risky to say part of the speech. is verbatim, when you took it in longhand?” Witness: “It is possible to remember some passages.” He admitted that some of his evidence differed from that given in the lower court. He had to rely almost entirely on hie memory. Counsel: “Do you still think the people referred to by the bishop died at Easter, 1916?” Witness: “On consideration, I think the reference also concerned the people who had died after Easter, 1916 ?” Counsel: “Do you say the bishop said that women during Easter week were murdered by foreign troops?” Witness: “Yes, he had the list in his hand.” CASE FOR THE DEFENCE. THE BISHOP GIVES EVIDENCE. INTERPRETATION OF SPEECH. Auckland, Last Night. The Liston case was continued in the Supreme Court this afternoon. For the defence, Mr. O'Regan said the jury must have been satisfied that the report on which the charge was based, which was admittedly brief, was also inaccurate. Bishop Liston had preserved notes of his speech, and they would be put in. The jury would have no difficulty in deciding, after hearing the bishop, that he had no seditious intention, and that the words, properly reported, were not capable of that interpretation. The words had to be taken in their setting, and it was altogether unfair to do as had been done by the Press throughout New Zealand—to publish what the bishop had said in one paragraph isolated from its context, and to make drastic comment upon it as a result. He had no hesitation in saying that this was the class of case which put the jury system to the severest test. Giving evidence, Bishop Liston said he had never been a member of the SelfDetermination League. He was a native of Dunedin, where his parents arrived in J. 863 or 1864. They were born in 1847 and 1849 respectively. He admitted the report of his speech regarding their being driven from Ireland, and “snobs of the Empire”, was substantially correct. He was referring to the eviction of his parents and the three and three-quarter million evicted with them. He was recalling what eviction in Ireland meant. The passage about “the glorious Easter of 1916” did not accurately represent what he said. The document from which he read that portion of his speech had come to him through the mail the afternoon just before the concert. His words were: “I have here a list, of men and women who were proud to die for Ireland during and since 1916. Of these, 10 were executed by shooting in 1916, 52 killed while fighting during Easter of 1916, including Terence McSweeney, Lord Mayor of Cork, who died of hunger-strike. Eight were executed by hanging, twelve were executed by shooting, and 57, including three priests, were murdered by foreign troops.” “Those,” said Bishop Liston, “were the exact words I used.” Only those in the last category were meant to be described as murdered by foreign troops. He did not speak of the Easter week people as being murdered at all, and he did not refer to any women as being killed in Easter week. Nothing would be further from his thoughts than to refer to those killed in Easter week as murdered. The. word “murdered” referred only to those killed in 1920 by the “black and tans”, when the policy of' reprisals was in full swihg. It would have been better to have mentioned “black and tans” instead of using the word “troops”, but he took it his audience knew. The word “murdered” was used because leading statesmen and politicians, in England employed it in referring to the “black and tan” reprisals. The words “glorious Easter”, he thought, were used parenthetically. It was a common phrase applied to that insurrection. At the time it occurred many people in Dublin thought it a mad enterprise, but with the lapse of time it was felt those who bad died had passed beyond crUd*

cism. The “first instalment of freedom referred to the treaty, in his opinion the gift of God, because it gave political freedom to Ireland. By “determined to have the whole of it” he meant that though relations had been adjusted by the treaty’ between England and Ireland, there was still a great deal to be done—for instance, the union of the two Parliaments. This could be achieved by friendly agreement and without any force. He had not mentioned force, and he failed to see how his words could infer the use of force. He had in his mind the parallel between New Zealand and Ireland. The report about there being plenty to fight and die for Ireland did not accurately represent his statement. Quoting from his notes, he declared his words to have been: “God has made Ireland a nation, and while grass grows and water runs there will be men in Ireland, and women, to fight, and even die, that God’s desires may be realised.” He had no intention to infer that physical force should be used. The case was adjourned until to-morrow.