SEDITION SENTENCES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16848, 13 May 1918, Page 4

SEDITION SENTENCES.

APPEAL FOR REMISSION. , DECISION GIVEN TO-DAY. [BY. TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON. Sunday. The Minister for Justice has received many communications requesting the remission of the sentences of imprisonment passed at Christchurch on Hiram Hunter, Ernest Edward Langley, and John Flood, on charges of making seditious utterances at a public meeting. The matter was again brought before the Hon. T. M. Wilford yesterday by a deputation from the Advisory Board of the Transport Workers' Federation. Mr. L. Grover, president of the Watersiders' Federation, said that the purpose of the prosecuWn appeared to be a direct hit at Labour, while Mr. J. Roberts, j secretary of the federation, said he had! been at Christchurch on this matter, and : had found that feeling was running very high against the sentences. The onlv intention of the convicted men had been to emphasise the point that the Government should give adequate consideration to the requests of the Second Division League, j The general feeling was that the men | should not have been sentenced, and that! the penalty should have been much less j severe. Mr. Young, secretary of the Sea- I men's Union, stressed the point that Mi". I H. Holland, Mayor of Christchurch, with long experience in the conduct of \ public meetings, was not aware of any! seditious tendency in the motion, which j he had put to the meeting in question. I How then could it be expected that the! convicted men should have been aware of any such tendency ? Another important i fact was that though the War Regulations I provided for fines as an alternative form ' of penalty, he knew of no case in which a Labour man had been fined. Punishment was always by imprisonment. The Minister congratulated the deputation on the moderate and reasonable : way in which it had stated its case. The; position was that the War Regulations' were under the Attorney-General and j Crown Law officers until sentence was im- i posed. It was only after the men were sent to prison that he was concerned with the question. He had inquired exhaustively into the cases, and the evidence, with his recommendations, would be placed before Cabinet on Monday morning. He expected that the Government's decision would be announced by mid-day.