SEDITION?

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 13, 6 April 1927, Page 1

SEDITION?

A Communist Document “PATH TO POWER” SELLER CHARGED. “The Path to Power.” —Have you read it? Most likely not, but Mr. S. L. Patterson spent quite a long time this morning in quoting extracts from it for the benefit of the court, when Walter Hodgson appeared, after numerous remands, charged with selling “a document which encourages violence or lawlessness contrary to the War Regulations Act.” Mr. Patterson explained that Detective Robertson had bought the pamphlet from the accused at a Communist meeting in Quay Street on October 31 last year. The book, he said, expressed seditious intentions, a tendency to stir up revolutionary methods, violence, discontent and disaffection and glorified the Russian Revolution. It was arranged under several headings such t>-- “Force and the Labour Party,” “Par- • mo'-reev on Trial,” and “From Propaganda to Practice.” “The working class is justified in using force against the State to achieve its own ends,” ran one. sentence. Mr. L P. Leary, who appeared for Hodgson, intimated that he also proposed to read some extracts from the book. “The devil can quote scripture for his own ends,” said Mr. Patterson. “But it is still scripture,” retorted Mr. Leary, pointedly. Cross-examining Detective Robertson, Mr. Leary elucidated the fact that the accused knew that the witness was a police officer when he sold him the book. “I submit that this book is not of an inflammatory or seditious nature such as might lead to violence and anger between classes of His Majesty’s subjects,” said counsel in the course of a long oration to the bench. “It does not contain more than a legitimate expression of any subject’s views,” he said, and quoted from Macaulay’s History of England and from the book to back up his argument. “The real power of the working classes consists of organised power to strike.” “The book does not advocate open violence in the streets, leading to rapine and murder,” continued Mr. Leary. “I defy my friend to poUn: out anywhere where the book goes beyond advocating an industrial struggle backed by a strike. It merely refers to economic crises, which must, sooner or later occur.” “Discussion along these lines was never contemplated by the Acts.” “If Yolii- Worship suppresses this mild right of free discussion these books will be circulated in secret,” concluded Mr. Leary. Mr. McKean, S.M., reserved his i judgment.