STATEMENT BY MR. HOCAN

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 21, 25 July 1945, Page 8

STATEMENT BY MR. HOCAN

In the course of a statement issued after the decision had been given, Mr. Hogan said: "The question is, does the Department intend to continue its efforts to prevent me from carrying on my own paper and business, especially in view of the changed conditions prevailing? I am still the only newspaper editor and publisher in New Zealand who has been directed to other employment, and the only person who has been prosecuted for failing to comply with a direction to the Wellington Woollen Mills. '

"Three years ago my paper was banned for criticism of the Government. The Government was not prepared to sustain its case in Court and the ban was lifted. Four months .afterwards, nearly two years ago now, I was 'noticed' by the National Service Department. For the whole of that two years they have endeavoured without success, to get me out of my job as an editor and publisher. I have been prosecuted four times, acquitted twice and convicted twice. I have spent about two weeks in Court and one in prison, and finally been fined. The Magistrate commented on my willingness to serve in the Air Force in 1942, and on the unsuitability of the employment to which I have been directed, apart from my rights and obligations as an employer and the father of a family. I am now employing two ex-servicemen and offering opportunities to others. Thousands of New Zealanders, watching with amazement the persistence shown in pursuing me, have asked what we have been fighting for. They remember the expedition with which the Minister intervened in the case of the Auckland gasworkers who did not obey a direction, and wonder at the contrast."