JOHN HOGAN’S DIRECTION

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 July 1945, Page 3

JOHN HOGAN’S DIRECTION

PROTEST STATEMENT. ’ WELLINGTON, July 25. In the course of a statement issued to-day after the decision given by the Magistrate (Mr. Goulding), John HogarT said: “The question is: Does the Department intend to continue its efforts to prevent me from carrying on mv own paper and business, especially" m view of the changed conditions nr evailing? I am still the only newspaper editor and publisher in New Zealand who has been directed to other employment, and the only person who has been prosecuted for failing to comply with a direction to the Wellington Woollen Mills. Three years ago mv paper was banned for criticism of the”Governmenl. The Government was not prepared to sustain its case in Court and the ban was lifted. Four months afterwards, nearly two years ago, I was ‘noticed’ by the National Service Department. “For the whole of that two years they have endeavoured without success to get me out of my job as an editor and publisher. I have been prosecuted four times, acquitted twice, and convicted twice. I have spent about two weeks in Court and one in prison, and finally have been ■ fined. The Magistrate commented on mv willingness to serve in the Air Force in 1942, and on the unsuitability of the employment to which I have been directed, apart from my rights and obligations as an employer and a father of a family. I am now employing two ex-servicemen and offering opportunities to others. Thousands of New Zealanders watching with amazement the persistence shown in pursuing me, have asked: What have we been fighting for? They remember the expedition with which the Minister intervened in the case of the Auckland gasworkers who did not obey a direction and wonder at the contrast.'