TROUBLE OVER EVICTION

Taranaki Daily News, 16 October 1931, Page 7

TROUBLE OVER EVICTION

FIFTEEN AUCKLAND ARRESTS.

ADJOURNMENT OF HEARING.

By Telegraph.—Press Association.

Auckland, Oct. 15.

Fifteen men were charged at the Police Court to-day, as a sequel to the eviction of a woman from a house in Norfolk Street, with assaulting a bailiff and procuring lawlessness. All pleaded not guilty. The bailiff in evidence said that as he started to force a way in a voice inside said: “Come on boys; we will give them a fight for it.” . Witness added that inside the passage he saw about a dozen men armed with cudgelp. He called the police, who demanded that the men put their cudgels down.- One said: “It’s no good, boys; they are too many for/us.” The bailiff then entered unopposed. The doors were all barricaded and the windows nailed.

Cross-examined, witness said the fact that his warrant was against a woman with five young children had nothing to do with him. '

Mr. Dickson (for defendants): “I am going to suggest that the whole thing was more or less a political agitation.” To enable counsel t° consult legal references in respect of one of the charges all the charges were adjourned till to-morrow.

PROTEST TO THE MINISTER.

ALLEGED UNJUST SENTENCE.

Wellington, Last Night.

Protesting against the conviction and sentencing of James Henry Edwards at Auckland for inciting to lawlessness, a deputation representing the unemployed workers’ movement waited upon the Minister of Justice, the Hon. J. G. Cobbe, this afternoon. In the workers’ opinion, the speakers stated, the conviction and sentence of one month’s imprisonment passed by Mr. Hunt was a miscarriage of justice. Edwards and 16 fellow workers had decided that the family were not to be evicted. Their sole reason for so doing was that the man was on relief works and did not earn enough to pay rent and keep the family. 1 Mr. J. Turner, chairman of the deputation of three, appealed to the Minister to look into the matter.

•In reply the Minister said that if the unemployed would cease agitating there would be no workers put in gaol. Mr. Turner said the discontent which was among the workers to-day was caused by conditions with which they had to contend. It was absurd that they should quit agitation. The Minister promised to look into the matter, but said he could do practically nothing, as the magistrate had done his duty and he would not be biassed in any way. ■