CHIDED BY A JUDGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26197, 6 July 1946, Page 7

CHIDED BY A JUDGE

FEDERAL PRIME MINISTER SLIGHTING REMARKS SYDNEY, July 5. Mr Justice Brennan’s statement in the Criminal Court on Wednesday that defiance of the Arbitration! Court and direct action meant nothing but bloody revolution, drew fire from the Prime Minister, Mr J. B. Chifley, during question time in the House of Representatives. Mr Chifley said that Mr Justice Brennan, of whom he knew something, occasionally made rather exaggerated statements. If he had made such a statement, he (Mr Chifley) did not agree with it and knew of no action Mr Justice Brennan could take other than that which was the prerogative of the court. “ When I made those utterances I had in mind my judicial position and had full knowledge of my responsibility as a judicial officer,” commented Mr Justice Brennan. “This is not the time for a personal attack. I want Mr Chifley to appreciate that I am an Australian. I want him to appreciate that there are millions like myself in Australia who want to make Australia a great nation. It ill becomes the Prime Minister to deprecate the conduct of a judge who is attempting to get back to honest ideals when he knows that the present position is a frame-up by 2 per cent, of imported foreigners who are not only attempting to wreck Australia, but are guilty of sedition. He must divorce politics from industrial ideals and see that arbitration and conciliation are properly conducted and not allow Communistic intrusion to make 90 per cent, of us the slaves of 10 per cent. Lawlessness and the word ‘ scab ’ must go. and then we will have cleaned up the industrial movement, because, like the maggot in the apple, only a small percentage is the cause of the trouble.”