SEDITIOUS UTTERANCES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume V, Issue 1329, 17 May 1918, Page 9

SEDITIOUS UTTERANCES.

A PREACHER CHARGED. ECHO OF GREYMOUTH MEETING. Tlic Magistrate"s Court was a centre of interest tliis afternoon, when the Rev. James Henry G. Chappie, of Christchurch, lecturer, appeared, on remand, charged with having, at Greymouth, on March 26, "unlawfully published seditious utterances contrary to Regulation No. 1 of the Regulations gazetted on December 4, 1916, made under the War Regulations Act and the amendments thereof." The utterances were:— (1) Russia wanted war. England wanted war. The upper class in New Zealand wanted war. Never has there been such a wonderful five days (meaning the days of the Russian Revolution). The old Russia has gone out, and the new Russia has come in. I hope before I die to see a similar movement in New Zealand. I hope the day will come in New Zealand when the?e war loans will be repudiated. I hope not a penny of the war loan will ever be repaid. You did not authorise them. (2) You are under the heel of the war lords. We have not enough population for our own country, yet we are lusting after the annexation of Samoa. The patriotic poison is in our schools. Children are taught to salute the flag and taught to sing the 1 National Anthem. I tell my children when they come home not to sing the National Anthem. I am hoping with a fervent hope that in this war there will be no victor. To pray about a war is blasphemy. A woman goes down the Valley of Dea f h to bring a child into this world. She nurses it, seipls it to school, sees it through the Sixth Standard. Then comes a call to arms, and it goes away to war. What for? To die for its country! No! To die for the profiteer

The accused, for whom Mr Twyneham. appeared, had previously pleaded not guiltv. Mr T. A. B. Bailey, S.M., was on the bench this afternoou, and the court was well filled.

Mr Raymond, K.C. (Crown Prosector), opening for the prosecution, (raoted the regulation under which the information was laid. The words had been used at a public lecture held in the Opera House, Greymoifth, on March 29. Mr Thomas West, miner, of Greymouth, was chairman of the meeting, which was held under the auspices of the Labo.ir Representation Council. The title of the lecture was "Julius Cfrsar, or Jesus Christ." If the utterance of the words could be proved, there could be little doubt of their effect. The words were not uttered under momentary excitement, but were those of a lecturer especially brought over to the Coast, and one who must have deliberated o\pr his address. The prosecution relied on police evidence. Senior-Sergeant Simpson, of Greymouth, said that he had been at the lecture. It lasted about an hour and ahalf, and the lecturer's remarks were well received. He went there to take a note of what was said. He was not a shorthand writer, but he wrote fairly fast longhand. One remark of the lecturer's had been: "If Jesus Christ were now on earth. He would be tried for sedition." Then followed on the utterances of the "informations. Accused also declared that the Church was only a recruiting agent, that the parsons were known as the "black militia." He appealed to the people to follow Jesus and not Caesar.

To Mr Twynehani: Accused spoke fairly quickly. He could not say at what rate per minute. He did not suggest that his notes were taken verbatim. The} - were extracted throughout the lecture. Each sentence as he had it was complete as the lecturer had spoken it. There might have been something said between the sentences. He believed that the lecturer added to "I tell my children not to sing 'God Save the King' " the words "I tell them to sing 'God Save the People.'" (Applause from the body of the court.) Witness continued that the accused had enlarged on some of the remarks noted. He could not swear that they had not been qualified. Witness understood from the lecture as a whole that accused only advocated bringing about the reforms of which he spoke by constitutional means. Re-examined by Mr Raymond: He was sure that he had the remarks as Chappie had spoken them. Detective-Sergeant Ward said that he had attended the lecture for the purpose of taking notes. He did not write shorthand. He had been sitting apart from the previous witness. He read his notes, in corroboration of those of tie senior-sergeant. (They did not differ in substance.) The words were all in keeping with the general trend of the lecture; to witness's mind there was no qualification which modified them. To Mr Twynehani: The words had been uttered right throughout the lecture. The breaks were indicated in his notes. His notes did not altogether correspond with the senior-sergeant's. Each ha<l something which the other had not, but they both had most of the remarks. Witness did not hear the lecturer refer to the ballot-box, or state that he advocated constitutional reforms only.

This was the case for the prosecution

Mr Twynehani called no evidence. He did not dispute that the words as reported amounted to sedition. But it had been clearly established that the remarks were not uttered as they were taken. If the words were not uttered in the order reported, it made a material difference. In these eases it was not the words, but their context which counted. The words complained of were sentences and blanks. They were extracts from a ninety-minute address. Then it had come out in the evidence that the accused hail expressly stressed his advocacy of only constitutional means to accomplish these reforms. There had been qualifications of the remarks as reported, anil it was for the police to show what those were. It was impossible for a longhand writer to take a verbatim note of a fifty-word sentence, as claimed. His Worship said that he had no doubt that the offence had been committed. There had been no qualification of the remarks proved. There was nothing against singing "God Save the People," but it was wrong to counsel not to sing "God Save the King." The offence had been committed and the defendant would lie convicted. He would deal with the penalty later. A SHt'OXD CHARGE. The second charge was then taken. (Proceeding.)