AUCKLAND SENTENCES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 120, 21 April 1932, Page 2

AUCKLAND SENTENCES

Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, April 20. baid by detectives to be well-known Communists and agitators. William John Budd, aged 35, u seaman, and Roderick Kenneth Rowlands, aged 34, were sentenced to-day to three months’ gaol for being idle and disorderly. Budd was remanded on a further charge of taking part in an unlawful assembly. The detectives said that the men rarely worked. Rowlands’ parents lived in Auckland, but he had been living at the home of J. H. Edwards, a well-known Communist leader. He spent the whole of his time associating with Communists and speaking from their platforms. Budd was a very active Communist. When told that he had been going round the union secretaries in Auckland trying to get the unions to strike he asked the detectives if the union secretaries had given him away. A few days ago he was agitating in Huntly. Neither accused gave evidence, but Rowlands’ father said that his son was unable to work as he was paralysed down one side. The Magistrate commented that neither man had ever explained his means of livelihood. Richard James Schofield, aged 67 another Communist, was remanded for sentence- on a charge of indecent language and disorderly behaviour.