WELLINGTON OASES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 168, 15 June 1940, Page 9

WELLINGTON OASES.

ONE '(CHARGE DISMISSED; Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, June 14. A public meeting''held in the Trades Hall, Wellington, on tlie night of Sun-! day, May 19, to protest against the imprisonment of Ormond Edward Burton and Halford Graham Lyttle led to the appearance before Mr Colliding, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court, ’Wellington, to-day, of Walker George ' Bishop who was charged under the Public Safety Emergency Regulations I 1940 with making a subversive statement, namely a speech in the Trades Hall. Bishop pleaded not guilty and after hearing the evidence the Magistrate reserved his decision. Peter ’Wilfred George McAra and Douglas Murdoch Martin,' similarly charged, also pleaded not guilty and elected trial by jury. They were remanded to appear again on June 19. The Magistrate delivered reserved judgment later in the day and dismissed the charge against Bishop. The meeting at which Bishop spoke was called, according to a pamphlet issued beforehand, to “demand the release of Burton and Lyttle,” whom the document referred to as “in prison for conscience sake.” It was stated j that Burton and Lyttle were tried for obstructing the police in the execution of their duty. Both had trial in the Magistrate’s Court and a rehearing in the Supreme Court. Bishop said he went to the last war with the rank of captain in the Rifle Brigade and was promoted to major, serving in Egypt and France. He offered his services again shortly after the outbreak of the present war, but was not accepted because of his age. Ho went to the meeting as a sympathiser of Burton, and did not intend anything he said to be subversive.

To counsel Bishop said that in his opinion Burton and Lyttle were convicted of-what he would call speaking the truth and he considered they were suffering an injustice. The objects of liis speech were solely to protest against what lie considered to be. an injustice.-