THE FREER CASE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22580, 19 November 1936, Page 11

THE FREER CASE

MES. DEWAR'S PKOBLISI HUSBAND'S AFFECTIONS A LETTER FROM INDIA By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received November 18, 10.45 p.m.) MELBOURNE, Nov. In In a special interview on the Freer case to-day, Mrs. Devvar, wife of Lieutenant I?. Dewar, said the first step taken was when she showed the military authorities a letter from her husband in India in which he said he would not return alone from India as he had found complete happiness. Mrs. Dewar fielded: "f understand that the authorities niacin inquiries about Mrs. Freer and apparently had very pood reason lor excluding her. I do not wish to make plausible or pathetic attempts to gain public sympathy and i would have preferred that we should have been lelt alone to solve our problems, which did not exist until Mrs. Freer met my husband." Continuing, Mrs. Dewar said: "My husband, after his return to Australia asked me for a divorce, but 1 was not anxious to make it easier for Mrs. Freer if she did wriggle into this country. I felt that my husband's infatuation would abate when he settled down in his former environment and that possibly he would realise ho had made a mistake." At present Mrs. Dewar and her two-year-old daughter are residing with Mrs Dewar's parents at Caulfield. NO MISTAKE MADE QUESTION OF IDENTITY STATEMENT BY MINISTER CANBERRA. Nov. 18 Questioned in the House* oi Representatives on a report from Sydney that the wrong Mrs. Ficer possibly had been excluded from Australia, the Minister of the interior, Mr. T. Paterson, said there was no question of the identity of Mrs. Freer or that the immigration officers had made any mistake. Mr. Paterson's statement was in answer to a letter written to him by I Lieutenant Dewar in defence of Mrs. Freer, in which the writer suggested that there- might have beun a mistake and pointed out that there were two Mrs. Freers in Bombay. Lieutenant Dewar, in his letter said: '"There was no scandal in my friendship with Mrs. Freer in India. The marriage you so strongly defend was i>ot a success for various reasons. The marriage would have been ended suddenlv in any case. The banning of Mrs. Freer has in no way holped the situation, in fact it has had the opposite effect." Mr. Paterson said he proposed to recommend to the Cabinet that future decisions in regard to the exclusion of British subjects should be made by the Cabinet. This would relieve the Minister of the sole responsibility as in Mrs. Freer's case.