ALLEGED SEDITION

Evening Star, Issue 16335, 30 January 1917, Page 8

ALLEGED SEDITION

[Special to the ‘Stab.’] CHRISTCHURCH, January 29. The first charge against Peter Scott Ramsay, president of the Christchurch AntiConscription League, who was formally before the Police Court to-day, and a. couscriptionist under the first ballot, read : As more men are put again and again —[to wit, imprisoned for the publication of seditious utterances relative to the (Military Service Act, 1917] —more will como forward on every occasion, simply to demonstrate that with the working class freedom must be fought for throughout the present crisis. We, some of us who are in the ballot—[to wit, called up for service under the Military Service Aot]—cannot give advice legally to those who are now in the second and third ballots as to what we should tike them to do; and in any case we are not going to advise any young man to stop away from going into the fight if he thinks he is justified in doing so. But we can say what we intend to do ourselves. Me are not going to go. They cannot make us go. We arc prepared to take all the penalties of the law and all the punishment they can fix on us rather than break our principles, for which we have stood up for so many years. The second charge read : To hell with, the Conscription Aot—[to wit, tho Military Service Act of 1916] and I suppose that some of you may say : “ Oh, you are not quite safe in saying that.” ... I recognise that some seven weeks ago, when the first ballot—[to wit, the ballot for Compulsory Service under the Military Service Act, 1916] was taken I was drawn along with these men. I recognise just now that there is a portion of these men —I know many of them who did not want to go to Trentham—[to wit, a military camp of the New Zealand (Expeditionary Force]—and had not the backbone and kick to stand. I admit there are many in Trentham drilling, while I! here possess my freedom as far as 1 can under tho laws of this country as a citizen. I say that as long as possible I am going to possess that freedom. I say I am not going to drill. I am not going to Trentham. They may take mo there, but when they get me I guarantee they will never make a soldier of me. I have the courage of my convictions. I have been a member of tho Peace Movement since I was fourteen and a-half, and I am not going to give up the principles for which I have fought for so many years for the class to which I don't belong. I ask you to-day; Is the man who goes, believing he is doing wrong, or with no desire to go to the war, or is the man who takes a stand right against the Government, a man who says he will not go, and takes up the same stand—which of the two is the greater shirker? I know quite well that the statements which I make here to-day may be construed as being seditious.