RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 3 December 1925, Page 5

RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH.

PROSECUTION OF COMMUNISTS. GOVERNMENT EXPLAINS ITS ATTITUDE. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHI LONDON. Dec. 1. In the House of Commons, Captain YV. AVedgewood Benn (Liberal) moved a private Bill providing that no person slxaill be convicted for expressing an opinion. The Bill w.as read a first time. The Leader of the Labour Party (Mr Ramsay MacDonald) moved a censure motion upon the institution of the recent prosecution of Communists, describing iit as a violation of the lights of freedom of speech. His party, lie said, were not Communists, but were actively opposed to the Communists. It was not a question of soundness or unsoundness of the Communist doctrines, but whether the prosecution was a service or a disservice of the State. Man had the right to express the belief that a revolution was inevitable for the transformation of society, but if he sought to create a .revolution then let him take the consequences.

The Secretary for Home Affairs (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks), replying, said there must be some limits to liberty if liberty was to be 'maintained. There was as much freedom in England today as before the war. The Communists were not prosecuted for advocating an alteration in the constitution, hut for attempting an alteration by violence and unconstitutional means. Communists knew that there was no hope of altering the constitution by means of thq ballot box and sought by means of disorder to produce revolution and civil war. No member of the Government interfer.red with the prosecution one iota. *

The Attorney-General (Sir Douglas Hogg), replying, accepted sole respousibilty for the prosecution. The. evidence showed a criminal conspiracy against the .State, and the penalty for the same offence in Moscow would have been death. Everyone in the country wa.q entitled to free speech, hut it was against the law to attempt to stir iip one’s fellow citizens to revolt. The motion was defeated by 351 Votes to 127.