THE DRURY CASE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 11250, 15 April 1908, Page 3

THE DRURY CASE.

MR DIXON AND THE MINISTER. EXPLAIN. (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. Interviewed in Mt. Eden Gaol yesterday by a Herald .reporter, Dixon explained iri connection with tlie Drury ca_.o tliat when the matter came before the Arbitration Court he contended that the * employe' was an apprentice only,, and that as such he (Dixon) had paid fiim more than he should be re : ceiving. The Arbitration Court, he complains, did not give him a fair hearing, disposing of the case in five minutes. He docs not. so much complain of the Magistrate's decision, in the Lower Court, as he says Mi- Northcroft acted on the ruling of the Arbitration Court. Asked as to what the ruling was, Dixon stated tliat the Arbitration Court fined him for employing a journeyman at an under rate wage, thus making the employe a full journeyman. "What he seeks by his present attitude is to compel the Minister for Justice to take action in the matter with a view of rehearing the case before the Arbitration Court, oi;, if this is prohibited by the Act, to get an amendment passed in -order "that such cases may be reheard in the future. A Star representative approached the Hon. J. McGowan, Minister for Justice, on the question of the Dixon case, and asked what the Department intended, doing in response to the petition that Mr Dixon should be liberated on the grounds that ho had be6n' unjustly imprisoned. Mr McGowan replied that there had been a good deal of controversy over the matter, and he was at a loss to understand why the imprisonment of Dixon had been cited as an analogy to the contretemps which arose at Blackball. The circumstances surrounding the ultimate arrest and imprisonment of tho man arose out of a simple civil action,, in which Dixon was sued by -a private individual for the recovery of certain money due. The Magistrate gave a decision in favor of the complainant and against Dixon, whereon tho latter announced that he would go to gaol rather than pay the amount of the judgment given.' "1 have ,not yet received the Magistrate's report bearing on the case," added the Minister, "but it is clearly a matter in which the Government has not the power to interfere. It was a simple civil action and Djxon preferred imprisonment to paying the amount of the judgment' given against him."