MOVEMENTS OF SHIP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 April 1941, Page 6

MOVEMENTS OF SHIP

INFORMATION DISCLOSED

TWO MEN FINED HEAVILY IN WELLINGTON. MAGISTRATE TAKES SERIOUS VIEW. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. One of the worst disasters" experienced in the last war came through ,the dissemination of information through casual conversation, said Mr Goulding, S.M., pointing out the seriousness of a charge admitted by James Lorraine Rogers, clerk, and Charles Cockburn Miles, company secretary. Both pleaded guilty to communicating, in a manner likely to prejudice the public safety, information in respect to the movements of one of his Majesty’s ships. Heavy fines wei;e imposed. Rogers was ordered to pay £3O and Miles £2O. An application was made for the suppression of names. Mr Goulding pointed out that in the last war, if an officer made a serious mistake of a similar kind, he had to pay the penalty. He was not prepared to suppress the names. It was not a case of the communication of something in the nature of rumours and one of the weapons used by the enemy to create’doubt and disaffection among the public, but the type of offence here was the communication of what he would call actual information concerning the movements of shipping. It was a case in which responsible men had spoken with knowledge of the movement of shipping. He thought that a very serious matter.

The public were excluded during the hearing of the case.