“POISONOUS” CIRCULARS

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 February 1942, Page 6

“POISONOUS” CIRCULARS

MR. SEMPLE’S COMPLAINT

CHRISTCHURCH, Feoruary 16. "Some 26,000 poisonous circulars, making personal attacks on me, and some containing treasonable stuff, have been distributed to all men in the recent call-up of married men without children,” said the Minister of National Service (Mr. Sempie), this morning. Mr. Semple said he was not in the least worried about the attack on himself, but he was worried about the treasonable stuff, and at the fact that he was being used as a scapegoat for the distribution of poisonous and treasonable literature that endangered the country. Each envelope sent out with a circular in it bore a two-penny stamp, and ’it was estimated that the cost of the distribution of the circulars would be not less than £6OOO. They had obviously been sent out by an organisation, .and had been posted from all parts of the Dominion. The treasonable portions of the circular, added Mr. Semple, contained an appeal favourable to the Japanese and against New Zealand. They virtually urged the people not to resist any Japanese invasion, and were calculated to impede the Dominion’s war effort. The circulars attempted to give the people an imoression that he was a conscientious objector in the last war. He was not a conscientious obiector in the last war, and actually had never been called on to serve, as he had a wife and five young children.