SALUTE IN COURT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 145, 20 June 1940, Page 21

SALUTE IN COURT.

CLENCHED FISTS RAISED. S.M. ACCEPTS EXPLANATION. (Special—By Air Mail.) SYDNEY, June 12. Three men and a woman who raised clenched hands in the Polite Court at Perth on Monday, after a Communist leader had been sentenced to four months' hard labour, were promptly grabbed by police an.", brought before the magistrate for alleged contempt of Court. One of the men said that it was not the Communist salute which they : had given but an anti-Fascist salute which originated in the Spanish Civil "Wfar. It was a gesture to a person to be of fprtitude and courage. The Magistrate gave them the benefit of the doubt. The man sentenced was Arthur William Rudkin, formerly editqr of the "Worker's Star," now banned. He had been appointed senior head warden in the Victoria Park (Perth) A.R.P. organisation. He was charged with "having in a manner likely to prejudice the efficient prosecution of the war published information purporting to be information with respect to matters which might be useful to the enemy" Sowever, as far as the contents of what he had published were disclosed, they consisted in pointing out that party members, not known as such, who joined the A.R.P. organisation in suburbs where it was short of officers would be almost sure of' immediate promotion to positions, that would enable them to secure confidential information. In the same Court Patrick Laurence Tr0y,,32; was sentenced to three months' hard labour for having handed a man a copy of a paper called "The Spark" which had no printer's name or address on it. . Regulations Held Valid. In Brisbane a solicitor unsuccessfully «rgued in a similar case that it-had not been proved that a pamphlet without a printer's name on it had been printed after the National Security Regulations had been issued. He was also unsuccessful in his plea that the regulations were ultra viree the Commonwealth Constitution and National Security Act The man charged in this case, Eugene Vance Marshall, was convicted and ordered to enter into his own bond of £oO to comply with the National hecunty Regulations for 12 months, in default six inonthe , imprisonment. The magistrate accepted the prosecution's view that the regulations were valid and that it did not matter when the pamphlet, which contained war comment, had' been printed.