HARSHLY TREATED?

Grey River Argus, 20 March 1945, Page 4

HARSHLY TREATED?

MEN in N.z. DEFAULTERS' CAMPS MAN AT DEATH’S DOOR P.A. AUCKLAND, March 19 A congregation of a thousand people at the Baptist Tabernacle, last night unanimously carried a resolution calling urgently for a thorough inquiry by an impartial tribunal into New Zealand prison system and demanding an investigation into’ the harsh treatment of otherwise well behaved pet -oners who are honestly adhering rr principle. Rev. Dr. Alexander Hodge said that as an old soldier, he could speak with feeling of the malingerer, who hid behind a temporary conscience; but there were others, and in individual instances their treatment should be deplored by the whole nation. He denounced the present system of prisions as hopelessly out of date and senselessly- cruel. Solitary confinement should be reduced to a minimum. In most cases it was senseless inhumanity. Dr Hodge : said he was appalled at the Christian apathy in the matter of a military defaulter, Grade 3, at the point of death through hunger striking, not as a gesture of defiance, but as a protest against injustice. He Avas given a maximum of 30 days’ close confinement and robbed even of his matress. On the 17th day of his hunger strike, he had haemorrhage, and now alternated between solitary confinement, and hospital. Brutality never) redeemed anybody.