COUNCIL AND OPEN-AIR MEETINGS.

Evening Star, Issue 21091, 2 May 1932, Page 2

COUNCIL AND OPEN-AIR MEETINGS.

TO TUB EDITOK.

Sir, —The Otago Labour Representation Committee and the Otago Labour Council desire mo to make a protest against the Dunedin City Council’s puerile attempt to prevent the holding of those open-air meetings in public parks and reserves at which the Government’s stupid, business-bursting, wages-reducing policy is criticised. Personally, 1 think the bodies I represent should have protested not so much against what the City Council is attempting to do to but against what it is doing to itself, for no one cares to bo represented by a body that is making a laughing-stock of itself from one end of the country to the other. Some years ago (in 1922 I think it was) the Dunedin City Council, acting under the authority conferred upon it by tho Municipal Corporations Act, saw fit to prohibit speakers from addressing meetings at the Fountain. We did not question its authority to do this, but wo did question its wisdom, and do still. However, permits were granted to hold meetings at certain times and from time to time in certain streets and reserves, tho Queen’s Gardens being tho principal place selected for this purpose. This permission has not been abused at any time, and at no time lias anything objectionable, or even questionable, taken place at any of these meetings. At the Labour Party’s Annual Conference this year it was decided to hold meetings all over tho country in order to bring public pressure to bear upon the Government to force it to resign. There was surely nothing unconstitutional or revolutionary about that, and nothing to which the Dunedin City Council could reasonably take exception. On Sunday, April 3, several Labour members of Parliament addressed meetings in several reserves in Dunedin, and again on Sunday, April 10, another public meeting was held in the Queen’s Gardens with the permission of the City Council, and nothing was said or done at those meetings that could not have been said and done in Parliament itself. Again, on April 17, subsequently to the Auckland trouble, permission was granted for the holding of two meetings—one by the Unemployed Workers’ Organisation, and the other by the Labour Party and the Otago Labour Council, and again nothing untoward happened. But suddenly, and for no apparent reason (certainly for no reason that tho City Council would care to give), the council changed its policy regarding these meetings. It is significant that the change was coincidental with Mr Forbes’s complaint that the members of the Labour Party were going around the country criticising tho Government, but refraining from putting tho case from the Government’s point of view. We conld understand and appreciate Mr Forbes’s complaint, because, notwithstanding the fact that ho has twice as many supporters in Parliament as the Labour Party has, they are for the most part mere voting machines who could not be sent out to convince anyone about the Government’s case, assuming it bad a case that anyone other than an overseas moneylender could support. Under these circumstances Mr Forbes no doubt felt hipped because the Labour members would mot attempt to do what his own members wore incapable of doing; but wo do not know yet what the Dunedin City Council has to do with this. However, an application was made by Mr Neilson and myself for permission to enable the Labour Party and tho Labour Council to hold a meeting in the Queen’s Gardens on Sunday, April 24. This application was refused, but late on the Saturday evening Mr F. Jones, M.P., succeeded in securing from His Worship the Mayor, permission to hold the meeting on tho Oval, The meeting was held, and, as usual, was orderly throughout. Qn Friday last, under instructions from the same two bodies, I applied for permission to hold a meeting on the Oval on Sunday, May 1, the said meeting to commence at 2.30 p.m., and in doing so I gave the names of five persons who had been appointed to speak at the meeting. The City Council granted the permit, but under conditions that would have made an attempt to hold a meeting farcical in the extreme. Following are the conditions:— “ 1. That the speakers named above shall take up their stand at or about the centre or the ground—namely, the Oval. 2. That no obstruction to the footways by the overflow of those present be allowed as the consequence of the gathering. 3. That this permit shall not be construed as a permit to engage in a procession through the streets to or from tho place of meeting. I might add that a permit tor the Oval for the same day at 3 p.m., to which similar conditions aro attached, has already been issued. It would therefore follow that this permit is restricted to tho half-hour—2.3o p.m. to 3 p.m.” In the last paragraph the City Council shows its hand. The Oval is an area of at least twenty acres—an area on which a dozen meetings could bo accommodated comfortably. There are no residences so close that it. could reasonably be inferred that the occupants ■might suffer annoyance from the speakers or from tho presence of a crowd of people. Why, then, we are entitled to ask, do our city fathers insist upon the meetings—and only one at a time —being hold in the centre of this twenty-acre space? Why did the City Council suddenly determine to prohibit meetings in the Queen’s Gardens when nothing objectionable bad • ever occurred at any meetings previously held there? When an established custom is abrogated there is usually a reason for it. What, then, is the City Council’s reason? Did good order, public safety, or the rights of residents demand the abrogation of the prevailing custom? The suggestion is absurd. The only credible reason is that the Dunedin" City Council has constituted itself the municipal wing of the Coalition Party, and that it is using tho authority'vested in it under the Municipal Corporations Act to protect the Coalition from Labour Party criticism in Dunedin. Its elephantine attempt

to be subtle by seeming to grant a permission which is in effect a refusal will not deceive anyone. Tho meetings were relegated to the Oval because the latter is not a central place, such as the Queen's Gardens is. It is also a largo unsheltered space, and tho meetings aro confined to tho centre of the ground because tho public, particularly during tho winter months, being unable to find shelter from tho wind and rain, will not care to stand long at meetings held there. Dunedin is thus tho only centre at which open-air meetings aro prohibited, and Mr Forbes may be congratulated upon having at least ono complaisant municipality that is willing to shelter him from tho withering blast of criticism by tho application of the closure. The City Council must not believe, however, that its purpose is going to'bo served so easily, for arbitrary suppression usually achieves tho end it was intended to defeat.—l am, J. Robinson, Secretary Otago Labour Council and Otago' Labour Representation Committee.