LAW PARAMOUNT

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 30, 3 August 1940, Page 8

LAW PARAMOUNT

THE PUBLIC SAFETY

SENTENCE FOR SUBVERSION

(By Telegraph—Pres9 Association.)

AUCKLAND, August 2,

A prohibition against addressing public meetings or taking any part in public movements associated with the Communist political organisation was part of the sentence imposed by Mr. Justice Fair in the Supreme Court on Alexander Drennan, waterside worker, who was found guilty by a jury of having made subversive: statements in contravention of the Public Safety Emergency Regulations at a street meeting in the course of the Auckland West by-election in May last.

. Asked what he had to say, Drennan said he had always based politics; on the "best interests of the working class and-what he considered the best interests of the people of New. Zealand/-' He called Edward A. Girven, ■secretary of the Waterside- Workers' TJnion, , : to testify to his. honesty and working ability. 'The Judge remarked that the prisoner had been previously sentenced for procuring lawlessness and inciting. disorder; also that he had been convicted for assault and obstructing the police, also obstructing a public place. Girven said he was not. aware of these convictions.

In passing sentence the Judge said the jury had made a strong recommendation to mercy on grounds that the statements were made in the heat of an election campaign. No single individual was entitled to set up his,, own individual opinion against that of the community as expressed, by the law. That was what the -ipriscmeir had! repeatedly^' tried to do. *h<* prisoner's past record, however; he hact decided to treat him in the same way: as a fellow-Communist. He would be: released on probation for three years on the usual statutory conditions and also ordered to pay £25 towards the costs of the prosecution.