MAN CHARGED

Hokitika Guardian, 13 September 1940, Page 7

MAN CHARGED

QUESTION OF DEPORTATION.

(Per Press Association—Copyright)

WELLINGTON, September 12

A charge of being in possession on August 31st, of 127 copies of a pamphlet with a view to facilitating -the publication of a subversive statement, was .made in Court against James Kelman, aged 37, a barber employed at the Railway Station.

The pamphlet contained an attack on three of the Crown Ministers in connection with the deportation of a Communist.

The Magistrate, Mr J. L. Stout, reserved Iris decision. Senior Detective Doyle said Amt as the result of complaints received, ; detective interviewed the accused who was the sole occupier of a bach at the hack of a house. There the detective found a fairly extensive collection ol hooks from the Left Book Club. The accused told the detective that luv was a member . of the Esperanto Society, hut the detective did not find any literature of that kind. The police, upon seeking a suitcase, found it to contain esperanto correspondence, and found also the bundle of pamphlets which were the subject of the charge. The accused expressed great amaze ment at these pamphlets saying that lie had never soon them before and that they were not in t*he case when lie looked in it a few days before. In the breast, pocket of the accused's coat there was a letter from the organiser of the Wellington Branch of the Communist Party. In reference to this, accused said; “That's a different matter. That’s a different story!” Sen ior-Do'tec tine Doyle indicated that similar pamphlet.* had been posted throughout the city. Each pamplib 1 stated that it was issued by the National Committee of the Peace and Anti Conscription Council. The police ha' 1 stopped the meetings of that body, and on the surface it had been defunct s far as the police knew. The defending counsel said that tin accused, with several hundred others w-ho attended a. meeting of the Pea- " and Anti-Conscription Council at tin Trades’ Hall had signed on as a member. The members wore asked to distribute notices of meetings and sue” notices were dumped regularly in aeons ed’s room, the door of which was always unlocked. He had no reason L 1" hove that there was anything in th-' mom when the police searched it.