"FREE SPEECH FIGHT."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 18

"FREE SPEECH FIGHT."

SOCIALISTS INDIGNANT.

FEELrNG IN CHRISTCHURCH.

Although the Socialist party has not yet held a meeting to consider what action it will take as a result of the decision of the by-laws committee of the Christchurch City Council to withdraw its permit to hold public meetings in Cathedral Square on Sunday afternoons, there is talk of a "free speech fight" being organised.

Some of the members of the Socialist party have expressed strong resentment against the action of the City Council, which, they declare, is due entirely to the selection of Socialist candidates for the coming city elections. They state that the Labour party was quite content to allow Socialist meetings to be held so long as there was no talk of opposing Labour candidates, but now that the Socialist party is taking a definite part in municipal affairs it is treated differently.

A bitter controversy over the question of holding political meetings in Cathedral Square took place many years ago, when the City Council decided to exclude all public gatherings from the Square. The Salvation Army, which was amqng the organisations coming under that ban, successfully resisted it, but for a long time political bodies were kept out of the Square.

It is stated that there is a possibility of the Socialists taking the extreme step of defying the council, and that it might adopt the expedient of chaining its speakers to the rails around the Godley plot so as to prevent their removal by the police.