“ILLEGAL DETENTION”

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 July 1941, Page 7

“ILLEGAL DETENTION”

AGITATION IN AUSTRALIA. SYDNEY, July 16. The cases of two men, Max Thomas and Horace Ratliff who have been hunger-striking as a protest against their alleged “illegal detention, ■ under the National Security Regulations. has been, creating considerable comment in Labour circles. The case has reached a stage when the Federal Government has been compelled to take cognisance of the situation. These men had served a sentence pi six months for the possession of illegal literature. They were rearrested upon their release. They claimed that having served a. sentence, their further detention without trial was unjust and illegal. A number of unions ana womens organisations have actively sought their release. The War Advisory Council took the matter up to-day, and, while about to enter the meeting, the Prime Minister, Mr. Menzies, was heckled by a troop of women sympathisers of the hunger-strikers. During the weekend, the two men were transferred from gaol to Yaralla Hospital. RELEASEREFUSED. SYDNEY, July 16. Announcing the Government’s intention not to release Thomas and Ratliff, Mr. Menzies, in the course oi a statement, after the War Council meeting to-day, said Thomas and Ratliff originally were arrested for subversive activities. They were entitled to. and had exercised, the right of appeal against their further detention before the Advisory Committee provided under the National Security Regulations. Instead of proceeding with this appeal, they had electe.d to hunger strike. That fact was noth regrettable and irrelevant. Such expedients could not be allowed to alter the ordinary course of justice. No case had been made out that it gave them a mode of trial different from that which applied to other people similarly detained. It was wrong to assume that the subversive activities and propaganda had ceased, because Russia had come into the war. Mr. Menzies remarked: “We welcome Russia’s fight; but Australians fight is dependent upon an unimpeded war effort. Thus, Thomas and Ratliff should have recourse to the appropriate tribunal provided for them.”