"PERNICIOUS PAPERS."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20965, 31 August 1931, Page 12

"PERNICIOUS PAPERS."

DISTRIBUTORS FINED. NAME OF PRINTER OMITTED. "The matter in some of these papers is libellous and seditious, and is a pernicious thing to circulate," said the magistrate, Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., in the Police Court on Saturday, in delivering his reserved decision in the case in which three men, James Henry Edwards, R. L. Lucas and Henry Smith, were charged with dispersing papers without the name of the printer thereon. The charges wcro brought under the Printers and Newspapers Registration Act, 1908. Mr. Schramm represented the thrie defendants.

The magistrate saiii ho had read a judgment, of Mr. Justice Cooper, in which he said the Act was passed to prevent tho publication of libellous, obsceno or seditious matter, and there was no doubt that some of tho documents were libellous and seditious; Even though the papers were not printed on a press, but doue with a typewriter, the name of the printer should have been included. It was in his power to fine tho defendants £5 for each copy up to 25 copies. Air. Schramm said the judgment of Mr. Justice Cooper did not cover the present case.

The Magistrate: It provides an interpretation of the Act under which these charges wcro brought. Mr. Schramm: There is a hiatus in tho Act.

The Magistrate: Well, I have filled it for you.

Edwards, against whom there were two charges, was fined £lO, and each of the other two defendants was fined £5.