READING THE “ACT”

Northern Advocate, 16 April 1932, Page 11

READING THE “ACT”

OCCASIONS IN DOMINION

NO OFFICIAL RECORD

(From Our Parliamentary Special.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Xo official record has been kept in New Zealand of the occasions on which if has been necessary to read the Riot Act, although the recollection of those concerned.. in the administration of justice is that more than, three such emergencies could not be traced. Police officials this morning could recall no instances, but some, thought the Act was read during the 1913 waterside strike in Wellington, when special contingents of mounted farmers came to the city to load their own produce on overseas ships. This, however, was not the case, according to Mr. W. G. Riddell, formerly Senior Stipendiary Magistrate in Wellington, who is regarded as the best authority on matters affecting crime and the maintenance of public order. Mr. Riddell said that he was positive the Riot Act was not Tea'd in Wellington during the disturbance referred to. “I should know,” he said, ‘‘because I carried the Riot Act proclamation in my pocket during the whole of the trouble. I thought on one or two .occasions I would have to read it, but I was requested by the Government not to do so. Mr. Riddell added that, as far as he could remember, the only , instance on which recourse had -been made to this legislation was in Christchurch over 30 years ago, when the proclamation was. read, by Mr. 11.. W. Bishop, S.M. He had forgotten all..the circumstances, but he could recall that a great commotion hail takeu place in. connection with a church conducted by a man named Worthhigt.on. There was rioting, and the Riot Act was read. There may have been other instances when the Act was read in New Zealand, but he certainly did not know of them, A high police official said he had the impression, though he was not positive, that the Act was road during the Waihi strike. It is understood that although- no record has been kept in the past of the reading of the Riot Act, Magistrate’s Court officers will in future be required to keep a record of the circumstances. So it will be seen that three constitute a crowd, if the intention of the three is unlawful. The next section lays it down that a riot is "an unlawful assembly, that has begun to disturb the peace" from which it will be gathered that the inception of a disturbance is strictly illegal apart altogether from subsequent consequences. Every rioter is liable to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour. Every sheriff and every justice of the peace is empowered to read the proclamation in the Riot Act. The circumstances under which this may be done are clearly explained in Paragraph 103, which reads: "It is the duty of every sheriff, and justice who has noticed that there are within his jurisdiction person? to thenumber of 12 unlawfully riotously, and tumultously assembled together to the disturbance of the public peace, to resort to the place where Such unlawful, riotous, and tumultous assembly, and, among the rioters, or as near to them as he can safely come, with a loud voice, to make, or cause to be made, a proclamation in these words, or to a like effect "Our Sovereign Lord the King charges.and.commands all persons being assembled immediately to disperse and peacefully to depart. .to their habitations or to their lawful business upon the pain of being guilty of an offence on conviction of which they may be sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for life. GOD SAVE THE KING."

PROVISIONS DETAILED, THREE CONSTITUTE A CROWD. (Special to “Northern Advocate.”) AUCKLAND, This Day. The Mayor, of Auckland, Mr. G. W. Hutchison, stated last night that the law's of New' Zealand are, of course, based on the laws of England. Paragraph 101 of the Crimes Act deals with “unlawful assembles, riots, and breaches of the peace, , wherein it is laid down that an unhnvful assembly is “an assembly of three or more persons wdio, with intent to carry out any common purpose, assemble in such i maimer or so conduct themselves when assembled as to cause persons in the neighbourhood of such an assembly to fear, on , reasonable grounds, that the persons so assembled will disturb the peace tumultuously, or will, by such as- 1 sombly, needlessly and -without any reasonable occasion, provoke other persons to disturb the peace tumultuously; ’ '