PROFANITY OR DISLOYALTY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, 16 February 1917, Page 7

PROFANITY OR DISLOYALTY.

}A GUM DIGGER’S UTTERANCE. J — £ Auckland, Feb. 15. 3 Golder. -..Baldwin (35) was brought j before Mr. Cutten, S.M., this moru- | ing on a charge that he published a J statement indicating disloyalty, j Baldwin entered a plea of guilty. ■j Constable McMahon stated that ' Baldwin made no response to a teleij gram from the Defence Department informing him he had been drawn in the ballot and calling on him to ’submit himselffor medical examina- | tivn. Consequently the constable ] went to his camp to bring him in for examination and Baldwin made use of disloyal language, stating that he { “would be a fool to go to the front” i and “they were all fools that went • to the front.’’ Accused had a brother (at the front and was himself a single ( inau. He had been living a lonely life on the gumfields for years. Baldwin said he was angry at the time but, immediately afterwards was sorry for what be had said. I His Worship stated that the case I was different from the usual charge lof the kind in that there was no ‘ question of an endeavour to influence other people. The language might be looked on more as a form of profanity than a real expression of disloyalty. The punishment would not be made more than sufficient to act as a warning. Baldwin was fined £’s. ,