DUNEDIN UNEMPLOYED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 120, 21 April 1932, Page 3

DUNEDIN UNEMPLOYED

SEQUEL IN COURT. Per Press Association. DUNEDIN, April 20. As an aftermath of the recent unemployed demonstrations and baton charge by the police in St. Andrew Street on April 11, charges of inciting lawlessness were heard against eight men in the Police Court to-day, while two men were charged with encouraging disorder. Mr Bartholomew was on the bench, and Sub-Inspector D. Cameron prosecuted. The eight accused were represented by counsel. William Konald Winton, aged 26, a New Zealander, was charged with inciting lawlessness on April 11; Arthur Waters, aged 28, a New Zealander, was charged with inciting lawlessness on April 8 and with wilfully, breaking a pane of glass valued at 17s in the window of the New Zealand Government building in St. Andrew Street; Robert. John Eady, aged 26, a New Zealander, was charged with inciting lawlessness on April 11; and William Foote, aged 30. an Australian, was similarly charged. Four charges were preferred against Leonard Dalton Hunter; three were for inciting lawlessness on April 8, 11 and 12, and the fourth was for encouraging disorder on April 9. Ho was described as a New Zealander, 26 years of age. Harry MacDonald, aged 30, an Englishman, was charged with inciting lawlessness on April 11; Michael O’Rorke. aged 28, a Scotsman, was charged with inciting lawlessness on April 11 and with encouraging disorder on April 8 and 9; and Arthur Eric Proctor, aged 29, an Englishman, was charged with inciting lawlessness on April 11. Evidence was given by several members of the police force of occurrences leading up to the baton charge, and when the Court resumed this _ afternoon counsel for the defence intimated that all the accused with the exception of Waters had decided to alter their pleas to guilty. Consequently, the remaining police evidence led, was directed against Waters only. The Magistrate said that the charges arose out of events entirely unprecedented in the history of the’ city. There had been manifestations of disorder and lawlessness extending over three days, culminating on Monday, April 11, in a direct outbreak of mob violence which, if not promptly checked, would have developed into something more serious. In it resided all the elements of an incipient riot of the most alarming proportions, and had it not been for the steadfastness and promptness of the police in saving the situation, anything might have happened. There was only one penalty that could be imposed in such cases and that was imprisonment. All tire accused on charges of inciting lawlessness would be sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. Hunter would be sentenced to a month’s imprisonment each on two additional charges, the sentences to be concurrent. On the fourth charge, however, which concerned his speech in the gardens on the day. following the clash with the police, he would be sentenced to an additional three months, cumulative with his other sentences, making a total term of six months’ imprisonment. Waters was sentenced to an additional month’s imprisonment on a charge of breaking a window, the sentences to bo concurrent. O’Rorke also received additional concurrent penalties of one month on each charge preferred against him.

WELLINGTON SITUATION

Per Press Association

WELLINGTON, April 20. Although a meeting of relief workers to have been held in the Trades Hall this evening was postponed by the conveners because the numbers expected were too large to be accommodated, about 500 men assembled. The situation for a time was delicate, but a strong party of police under Inspector Lander cleared and closed the hall. The leaders of the crowd urged that a street procession be formed, but this too was abandoned on the advice of the police, and the crowd dispersed quietly.