FIVE MEN SENTENCED

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 15, 19 January 1932, Page 8

FIVE MEN SENTENCED

(By Te!egraph,-Press Association.)

DUNEDIN, This Day.

The case against the leaders of "the unemployed demonstration on Saturday week concluded this morning, when Mr. Hi W. Bundle, S.M., sentenced Erie Wharton Braithwaite to three months' imprisonment, and four men, Francis O'Rorke, Norman Lee, William Foote. and William Ballantyne, to* one month each. Lawrence O'Eorke and George Jones were convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called on within twelve months. .. .'.;

When the case for the prosecution was completed evidence was given by accused,' who; contended that they were merely acting as representatives of the hungry unemployed, and had at no time attempted to incite the crowd to violence. They maintained, on the contiary, that had it not been for their efforts a much more serious state of Jiffairs might have developed. . : The Magistrate said the defendants' account^ was directly opposed to that of the police.. It was always unpleasant to deal with cases arising from the misfortunes'of the unemployed. It was unnecessary, to say. that there must.be sympathy for the largo body ;of men whose position was due to'no fault of their own, but to the economic conditions, but he must also consider that there was a definite law to be preserved, and he found the defendants to have been guilty not of an isolated act but of a concerted attempt to use amass of men suffering under a sense of grievance for the purpose of breaking the law. They did it definitely and intentionally, and it would be entirely subversive to all law and order if the acts of the accused were allowed to go un.punished. '