MANUKA TROUBLE

Feilding Star, Volume 3, Issue 575, 29 May 1925, Page 6

MANUKA TROUBLE

DEPORTATION-OF LYONS rIK )T EST FROM ILOG LAN D SHARPLY SET ASIDE (Per Press Association.) Wellington, May 28. The Attorney-General (the lion. Sir Francis Pell) has forwarded a sharply-worded reply to the Leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party (Mr 11. E. Holland), who has telegraphed protesting against the deportation of Lyons in connection with, the trouble on the Manuka. Yesterday Sir Francis Pell received the following telegram from Mr Holland : “I desire respectfully to make the strongest possible protest against the deportation of Lyons. I do not agree with his views, and it does not follow that I endorse his actions by making this protest. As a matter of fact, those who think with him are bitterly opposed to the political Labour movement. Put I would point out that if anyone breaks the laws of New Zealand, lie can be dealt with by the ordinary legal processes. The denial of the right of trial is a repudiation of Magna Chart,a itself, and in any case the deportation method without trial savours so much of Prussia in the worst days of Kaiscrdom that it ought, never to be adopted in a eouutrv like New Zealand.”

To-day Sir Francis Pell telegraphed the following reply: Your telegram protesting against the order requiring Lyons to leave New Zealand revives the controversy which arose between you and myself in the year 1921. when I was acting for Mr Massey during his. absence in England. I refer you to our then correspondence to define my position and yours. .Lyons openly expresses contempt for constitutional methods, and advocates what he designates direct action to provide a social revolution and distributes literature, the mere possession of which for publication is a criminal offence. You know, as I do, that direct, fiction includes murder, and you ,therefore- rightly oppose it. The Attorney-Gen-eral is bound by law and public duty to prevent it.