UNEMPLOYED FUNDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 190, 13 August 1928, Page 5

UNEMPLOYED FUNDS.

STOLEN BY FORMER LEADER.

S.M. ORDERS A REFUND.

NEEDY MEN DEPRIVED OF £50.

(Bj- Telegraph.—Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, this day.

Arthur Leonard Fisher, lately a leader of the unemployed in Christchurch, pleaded guilty this morning to the theft of £16 15/, the property of the Christchurch organisation of unemployed. He was fined £10 and ordered to refund the amount stolen, in default six weeks' imprisonment.

The police said the money had been obtained by tickets sold by accused for a concert held on behalf of the unemployed in July. Owing to lack of subsidies on the amount stolen Fisher has deprived the unemployed of practically £.">O. Mr. Burns, for accused, said that this was not a case of deliberate theft. It was more a case of muddle. There was practically no system of recording the tickets issued or of checking the money. At present accused had work to go to. Counsel gave the assurance that the money would he repaid. There were men of standing in the community who did not wish to see Fisher go to gaol. "With the genuine unemployed one must sympathise sincerely," said the magistrate, Mr. E. D. Mosley, "but with men of this type I cannot have any sympathy at all. Xo doubt the public estimate in their own minds the type of man who has been leading the unemployed. Undoubtedly that causes a good deal of want of sympathy with the unemployed to-day. One extends all one's sympathy and help to any man who is genuinely out of employment and who is genuinely trying to provide for himself and for his family, if he has one. With the type of man who is before the Court now I cannot have much sympathy." After the penalty had been announced the chief detective asked in what period the money must be paid. The Magistrate: Forthwith.