FREE SPEECH AND CRITICISM

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3052, 13 April 1917, Page 8

FREE SPEECH AND CRITICISM

AND BREAKING THE LAW. •- 'A - .complaint against the alleged sup- ' pression of'free speech was made by - a deputation of the Timber Workers' ' " Conference which waited on the Acting- ■ Prime Minister yesterday. A domand . was made also that the men now in ; (prison for breaches of the War .Regulations forbidding seditious utterances (should be released. J "I want to disabuse your minds on \ /this question of the suppression of 1 tfree speech. We are not suppressing free- speech, and we are not suppress- . sng criticism of the Government or any- , -body elfce. You may criticise the Government or you may criticise me —and • I have had my share of criticism—as ■ much as you like. All we say is that ' nobody must break the law or the regular . tions. TEe Government is bound to uphold both the law and the regulations. These men to'whom you refer indulged ■ ir something more than criticism, and 'the Court has adjudgetf them guilty of or of having made use of seditious utterances. I don't say whe- ;■ ther the Court was right or wrong. I .'say we must uphold the law. I say to | .you that it is in your'interest as much j ■ as' jt is in anybody's that we should i win this war, and one of the things that are necessary for the winning of tho. war is/that we should keep tho . T>eaoe industrially and otherwise in this itountry.' Our one aim in framing these (regulations was to keep this country going peacefully until the war is over. | That is the object of the regulations, •i Unfortunately these man have broken j the regulations and they arc in gaol, ■ and no one is more sorrv for that than : I am." ■ -' j. Mr. O'Byrne: Let them out. then, f ' Sir .Tames Allen: We can't let them | .tout.' That would be a' sign of weak\f ,'Jicss, and we can't show the white flap [ I like that. j i f Mr. W. Read: It's a rotten law, and |.. ; & rotten system of government, t f-.,®' 1, J BTt, es Allen: Tho man who savs j " I that, refuses to differentiate between [criticism and breaking the law.