SUBVERSION

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 16, 18 July 1940, Page 13

SUBVERSION

' [TWO MEN SENTENCED

YEAR'S HARD LABOUR

PRISONERS' COMMENT

Holding that the offences of making subversive statements had been deliberately intended to prejudice re- , cruiting and interfere with the r national war effort by disruption of the morale of the civil population, ;,;the Chief Justice (Sir Michael ...Myers) today sentenced Douglas "Murdoch Martin, sociologist and 1 clerk, aged 36, and Alexander Gal--braith, aged 57, chairman of the Wellington provincial committee of ' ;the New Zealand Communist Party, V-to twelve months' imprisonment with tjiard labour. Martin had been found guilty by a jury of two offences at meetings in May, and Galbraith of offence in March. Before he was 3entenced Martin said that if he were -.made a martyr and sent to prison he : wpuld be proud and honoured to "V?s«ffer for the cause of real demorrfcracy; and Galbraith said that his imvcprisonment would be a torchlight to \ -";sie people in understanding that ;,;democracy was being murdered in "the name of democracy. " v . XijVlartin was sentenced to six months' ■•„ imprisonment on each charge, the sen--"■':tehees to be cumulative. "';. Mt am a New Zealander born and up in this country of pure British stock," said Martin, "and I was up to be proud of my county: m the orthodox way and to bei lieve implicitly in the leadership, the wisdom, and the justice of the leaders of my. country. But, Sir, I had the ■, .misfortune to become a student of history, and economics, and ."-these things widened my horizon, and ••" f found it was incumbent upon me as - a public duty to teU other people the truth I had discovered. You will find, " Sir, that in the past I have held posi""tioris in the community containing a ' ■ ■ certain amount of prestige and honour. :- His Honour: I can assure you that that makes my position all the more "difficult. . ' -"• "1 am trying, Sir, to clarify my own to you," continued Martin. I gave up these positions one by one voluntarily and took the track that has brought me to this dock, with my 'eyes wide open, because I considered it my public duty to tell men and women the truth which I felt was hidden from them. Some men consider it a public duty to defend their ' own privileges. I have given them up in' order that the poorer section of the people, the working people, should have their privileges extended by knowing and understanding the truth that has been hidden, from them. NO CHANGE OF OPINION.

"If you send me to prison you won't convince me that the opinions 1 have are not true. If you make me a martyr you won't be helping the cause you have at heart, the cause of British Imperialism and imperialist domination of subject races. By " makmg'V martyr of me you will be assisting my. cause," he told his Honour. "Hitler in Germany in the last eight or nine years has been trying to suppress the truth with his concentration camps, but the more men and women he throws into prison the more the truth grows. The National Socialist Party in New Zealand is trying to do the same thing. If you send me to prison I shall be proud and honoured to feel I am suffering for the cause of real democracy and real freedom and Socialism." His Honour: I don't want to get into an argument with you, of course, and I don't intend to. What you do not understand is that you are not here because you think certain thoughts or hold certain opinions. Anyone may have his own thoughts and hold his own opinions, and in normal times, subject to the law relating to libel and slander—the law of defamation—and subject to our law as to ..sedition, a person may express his .thoughts and his opinions. They may be subversive in the sense that is used in the regulations, but the regulations are merely war regulations, and what the regulations require is what rany~ loyal person might require, .. .namely* that, a person who holds sub- ■ "Vetsive- opinions should put a re•""'Straint upon his tongue and not ex'/press them publicly during the time .;jthe country is in peril. eC- "SUBVERSIVE STATUTE." ""■■••■■Galbraith said he considered the par-•-^'tieular Act under which he was --^charged was a subversive Act because

- -if prevented freedom of expression in - the Dominion and circumscribed the *:'-liberty of the working people under the *" excuse of the war danger. He con-""""Sidered-that the Act was meant to pro-"-r-tect the Government from legitimate criticism. It gave to the Attorney- -'- General the dictatorial power to pro-

■- - tect his colleagues in the Government. :.: Emphatically he would say that that ?.': power had been used. The Act had -"^""also"been used to prevent the working -1 class giving free expression to its criti- " cism, and he described it as a SocialFascist measure to prepare New Zealand for Fascism. ' Efforts were being made to lower the standard of living of i-the working class, to make them work longer hours. Despite the promises about conscription, that measure had ~.been placed on the Statute Book, and "Other promises had also been broken. The Communist Party had warned the ... people of those things, and Galbraith '-"said lie had left the Labour Party in because he knew what would .'..1.-happen. ;.: "I know what my mission is as a ~ member of the Communist Party," said Galbraith, "and I can tak . the sentence . you are likely to put upon me with equanimity, knowing that it will be a torchlight to the people in understanding that in the name of democracy, de- ., - • mocracy is being murdered by those . who are supposed to be upholding it." To his. Honour Galbraith admitted that he had been fined £25 in 1922 for inciting to violence, that in 1932 he had - - been ordered to come up for sentence ■ if called upon. within three years for " printing or publishing a seditious document, and that in 1932 h>. was sentenced to twelve months' reformative . detention for publishing seditious lifeerature. ENEMY WITHIN GATES. "If a person is convicted of what . may be called ordinary criminality, such as theft or housebreaking or assault, and the case is deemed to be one for punishment, the punishment imposed is imprisonment with hard! labour," said his Honour, addressing the prisoners. "Your offences, in my mind, are very much more serious than cases of ordinary criminality. Your - conduct, the conduct of which you have been found guilty, attacks the safety of the people at its very root. The conduct of which you have been found guilty is the conduct of an enemy within the gates. The offences were

not; committed inadvertently. In each case the meeting had one or more definite objects, and those objects were of a subversive character, or at least some of them were. The speeches were made deliberately and were calculated, if not actually intended, to have one or more of the effects which, by the definition of subversive' statement in the regulations, place the speeches in that category. "In your case, Galbraith, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the intention was, upon your own assumed basis of class distinctions, to intensify those distinctions and set class against class. That is interfering with the national effort by disrupting the morale of the civil population and to advocate opposition to the war, thus tending to prejudice recruiting.

"Your case, Martin, is that of a more highly educated man than Galbraith, which makes the matter so much the worse. You avowedly advocated opposition to the war and all the war stands for. You claim in your speeches that the war is a war not for democracy but against it, and that the people are being sold and betrayed as to the objects of the war so far as the British Empire is concerned, and you advocated organised opposition to conscription. "Your speeches certainly justified the conclusion that they were actually intended—though such an intention is not an essential ingredient of the offence — to prejudice recruiting and interfere with the national effort by disruption of the morale of the civil population.

"It is impossible to treat these cases as other than cases of an extremely serious nature. There is certainly no justification for treating you . more favourably in regard to the nature of punishment than persons convicted of ordinary crimes, which, in their nature and possible consequences to the State, are much less serious than those on which you have been convicted. Indeed, to discriminate in your favour in regard to treatment in prison might well be calculated to create a public scandal."

Sentence was then passed.