CHARGE OF SUBVERSION

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1940, Page 8

CHARGE OF SUBVERSION

By Telegraph—Press Association.

BARBER BEFORE COURT SOCIETY STILL ACTIVE?

Wellington, Last Night. A charge of being in possession, on August 31, of 127 copies of a pamphlet with a view to facilitating the publication of a subversive statement, was made in the court to-day against James Kelman, aged 37 years. a barber employed at the railway station. The pamphlet contained an attack on three Crown Ministers in connection with the deportation of a Communist. The magistrate, Mr. J. L. Stout, reserved his decision. Senior-Detective Doyle said that as the result of complaints a detective interviewed Kelman, who was thesole occupier of a bach at the back of a house. There the detective found a fairly extensive collection of books from the Left Book Club. Kelman told the detective he was a member of the Esperanto Society. A suitcase was found to contain Esperanto correspondence arid a bundle of pamphlets, which were the subject of the charge. Kelman expressed great amazement at these, saying he had never seen them before. They were not in the case when he looked in it a few days before. Once Suppressed Council. In the breast pocket of a coat there was a letter from the organiser of the Wellington branch of the Communist Party. In reference to these accused said: "That's a different matter. That's a different story." Senior-Detective Doyle indicated that similar pamphlets had been posted throughout the city. Each pamphlet stated it was issued by the national committee of the Peace and Anti-Conscrip-tion Council. The police had stopped meetings of that body and on the surface it had been defunct so far as the police knew. Defending counsel said that Kelman, with several hundred others who attended a meeting of the Peace and Anti-Conscription Council at the Trades Hall, signed on as a member. Members were asked to distribute notices of meetings and such notices were dumped regularly in Kelman's room, the door of which was always unlocked. He had no reason to believe there was anything in the room when the police searched it.