LAW AND ORDER

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 41, 16 February 1918, Page 4

LAW AND ORDER

DEPUTATION TO MINISTER OF JUSTICE FEILDING ASSAULT CASE A deputation from the Protestant Political Association waited upon the Hon. T. M. Wilford, Minister of Justice, yesterday, in reference to an assault committed on the Rev. Messrs. Stockwell and Miller, at Feilding recently, when returning to thoir homes after a meeting held under the auspices of the Protestant Political Association. The deputation consisted of the Hon. W. Earnahaw, M.'L.C, Rev. 6. Knowles Smith, i Messrs. J. Aston, G. Petherick (members of the association) and H. S. Bilby (Dominion secretary). The Hon. W. Earnshaw said the subject matter to which they desired to draw the attention of the Minister was one of very great public gravity. Eev. G. Knowles Smith said they were not in any way animated by a feeling of sectarian bitterness or animosity. The Roman Catholic Federation was a very much older ' body than the Protestant Political Association, and there had yet to be chronicled any instance of disturbance at one of the Catholic Federation meetings, or any attempted assault upon any of their speakers. The members of the deputation had to call the Minister's attention to a most diabolical assault on two Protestant ministers returning to their homes from a meeting—an assault which might have resulted in murder. This was the second time that the country had been faced with the possibility of a Protestant minister being murdered in cold blood. The speaker referred to the assault in Auckland. on the Rev. Howard Elliott, organiser of the association. He condemned a remark made ,by Mr. Frazer, S.M., of Auckland, to the effect that Mr. Elliott'got what he deserved. That statement had evidently been viewed with alarm by the Chief Justice. Mr. Frazer's statement was practically an incitement to a. certain section of the community to do the kind of thing he had just alluded to. Members of the association felt very strongly that if such things continued the desire for reprisals would get very strong. The deputation asked the ''Minister to see that such a disastrous thing did not take place. "There were some members of the Police Force who, added the speaker, were not anxious to / call the assailants to justice. *

Mr. Wilford : I cannot listen to. that. Rev. G. Knowles: Smith:'l am saying it.

Mr. Wilford: There is no use taking up that attitude. _ Rev. G. Knowles Smith said the association could give the Minister chapter and verse in proof of the statement he had made.

Mi-. H. S. Bilby said that since the second assault the feeling amongst the members of the association had become much intensified.

Mr. J. Aston emphasised that the as» sociation took care to ensure that its meetings were conducted in a quiet and orderly manner. No section of the community had the right to take the law into its own hands.

The Hon. Mr. Earnshaw said'unless proper steps were taken to suppress such assaults it was inevitable that tumults would arise. ' . ,

The attention of the Minister was drawn to a resolution passed by the Advisory Board of the association expressing sympathy with' the Revs. Stockwell and Miller, and condemning 'ithe cowardly and brutal attack perpetrated- on them." ...

"As Minister of Justice, I know no religion and no sect," replied «Mr. "VVil-. ford. "I meet you to-day as a deputation, as citizens of New Zealand,. caring nothing in my administration of justice what your religion may be. Before you came to me 1 had already 'taken this matter in hand.' Before_ you asked for the deputation to be received, I .considered it my duty from the reports of what had taken place to immediately give instructions for steps to be taken for the discovery of the men who had committed the cowardly assault on these .two gentlemen." From. the statements he had read as to the injuries inflicted, the assailants, if caught, would be charged with an indictable offencej and be dealt with by the Supreme Court. His clear and plain duty—and it was one he would never, swerve from—was to preserve lay and order, and to allow any citizen of this country to go free and unmolested about his business without let or hindrance. The question of free speech had been referred to. Free speech was variously construed. . Free\speech must not be "painful a.nd free"; and there was a class of speech—especially in war time—that he would do his very beet to prevent. Police officers would not forget at any time to protect public speakers in public buildings from interruptions, so. that they might have- an opportunity of publicly making their views known, either to their own friends or to the public at large, as 4ong as they did not preach sedition :and revolt. (Hear, hear.) He did not know whether the instructions he had given would be effective, but all he could do as Minister of Justice wae immediately to put the law in motion, and that he had done. He. could not listen to anything said against members of the Police Force (alluding to a. remark made by a member of the deputation).: He must, as a. Minister of the Crown, hold his Department to be loyal and-honest, and, more than that, he believed it to be so; and until it was proved to him otherwise he would so believe. He looked upon them as so many members of the Justice Department, or the Police Force, and he did not look into the column which defined their religion. All that he could say to the deputation was that all that' could be done would be done. If the men who committed the assault were discovered there" was nothing more for him to do; the law would deal with the assailants. He could assure them they had a judiciary, in this country they could be proud of. They had a judiciary that each one of the peorcle of New Zealand might, have every confidence in.; and nobody knew that better than counsel who had been for over twenty yea.rs defending all sorts of criminal cases before every Judge in the country. He gave them his word that whether members of the Protestant Political Iyea-gue came to him. or whether Bomar^ Catholic came oo him, he was coing to preserve order in this country. He had nothing further to say. '