BY-ELECTION SEQUEL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23829, 8 June 1939, Page 9

BY-ELECTION SEQUEL

TWO MEN FINED INCIDENT AT A MEETING (Per United Press Association) CHRISTCHURCH, June 7. "Something more than a mere interjection is needed to create a disturbance at a political meeting,” said Mr K G. Archer, in the Magistrate’s Court this morning, when defending two men who were charged with disturbing a public meeting on May 25. He entered pleas of guilty. The defendants. John McGuire, a labourer, and Henry Richard Woodham, a labourer, were fined 30s and costs by Mr H. A. Young, S.M. “These men, who had no active interest in the election, coming from districts outside the electorate, persisted in asking impossible questions,” said Sub-inspector Packer. “They were asked to refrain by the chairman, but the questioning continued, and later McGuire called the speaker (Mr Lyons) a liar. The men were ordered out by the police at the request of the chairman, and when they left several others left also.”

He could not agree with the subinspector’s contention that the defendants were not interested parties because they were not electors, said Mr Archer. Several gentlemen had come from all parts of New Zealand for the election, and the whole Dominion was watching it with interest. Something more than a mere interjection was needed to create a disturbance. The men only interjected, leaving the hall quietly when requested, The candidate had repeated a canard which had previously caused a great deal of heat, said Mr Archer, and. believing the candidate guilty of a terminological inexactitude in repeating it. McGuire called him a liar.