DUNEDIN SENTENCES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21163, 21 April 1932, Page 12

DUNEDIN SENTENCES.

EIGHT MEN I MFR ISONED. LAWLESSNESS INCITED. FIRMNESS OF MAGISTRATE. [BY TfcLEGIIAFH. —riIESS ASSOCIATION.] DUNEDIN, Wednesday. As a sequel to the recent unemployed demonstrations and a baton charge by the police on April 11, charges of inciting lawlessness were heard against eight men in the Police Court to-day-William Ronald Winton, aged 26, a New Zealander, Robert John Eady, aged 26, a New Zealander, and William Foote., aged 30, an Australian, were charged with inciting lawlessness. Arthur Waters, aged 28, a New Zealander, was charged with inciting lawlessness and with wilfully breaking a pane, of glass valued at 17s. Four charges were preferred against Leonard Dalton Hunter, aged 29, a New Zealander. Three were of inciting lawlessness, an<l the fourth was of encouraging disorder. Dairy McDonald, aged 30, an Englishman, Michael 0 Rorke, aged 28, a Scotsman, and Arthur Eric Proctor, aged 29. au Englishman, wer o also charged with inciting lawlessness. Evidence was given by several members of the police force of tho occurrences leading up to the baton charge. "When the Court resumed in the afternoon, counsel for the defence intimated that all the accused, with the exception of Waters, decided to plead guilty. The magistrate said the charges arose out of events entirely unprecedented in thp historv of (he. city. There had been manifestations of disorder and lawlessness extending over three days, culminating in a direct outbreak of mob violence, which, if not promptly checked, would have developed into something much more serious. In it resided all tho elements of an incipient, riot of tho most alarming proportions. Had it not been for the steadfastness and promptness of (ho police in saving the situation, anything might have happened. There was only one penalty that could bo imposed in such cases, and that was imprisonment. All tho accused, on the charges of inciting lawlessness, were sentenced to three months' imprisonment. Hunter was sentenced to one month's imprisonment on each of the two additional (barges, the sentences to be concurrent. On the fourth charge, however, which concerned his speech on the day following the clash with the police, he was sentenced to an additional three months, cumulative to his other sentences, and making the total term six months' imprisonment. Waters was sentenced to an additional one month's imprisonment on tlie charge of breaking tiie window, the sentences to be concurrent.