COMMUNIST PAPERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 139, 14 June 1932, Page 5

COMMUNIST PAPERS.

"APPEAL TO RESIST LAW." PUBLISHERS IMPRISONED. SENTENCE OF THREE YEARS. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Monday. For parts they played in tlie dissemination of Communist literature which, in the opinion of the Bench, was calculated to do a great amount of harm, Richard Francis Griffin, Alexander Galbraith and John Joseph Robinson were each sentenced to reformative detention for a period not exceeding three years by Mr. E. . Page, S.M., in the Police Court to-day. Tho magistrate said the substantial defence raised by Griffin was that, not being the registered printer and publisher of the documents in question, be should not he convicted of printing ind publishing them. That was not the correct interpretation of the law. "Taking his evidence alone, it seems clear that Griffin has been shown to be a party to the issuing of the paper, which I have already held to be seditious," the magistrate said. "With opinions, political or otherwise, this Court has no concern. Every man is entitled to hold what opinions he chooses and, within certain well-defined limi:s. express those opinions, both orally ;.nd in writing, but he is not at liberty in the course of such expression to incite others to lawlessness and violence. These papers, as I read them, contain from end to end an appeal and incitement to resist the law by militant mass action and bring about the overthrow of tho State and Constitution by revolutionary violence. "The dissemination of this type of literature is calculated to do a great deal of harm. I think it not unlikely that the wanton destruction of property that recently occurred in Wellington was traceable to this source," the magistrate added. Those who lived in this country must obey its laws. The publication of papers that were seditious or incited lawlessness and disorder must cease.