NEW ZEALANDER ACCUSED

Taranaki Daily News, 23 May 1934, Page 7

NEW ZEALANDER ACCUSED

COMMUNIST ACTS ALLEGED TEACHER’S AIRREST IN JAPAN 736 JAPANESE IN CUSTODY STORY TOLD BY THE POLICE By Telegraph—Press Assn.— Copyright. Tokio, May 21. - The police have permitted the publication of the number of arrests since last year. There were 736, including 134 jvomen, accused or suspected of Communist activities or sympathies. Of these 53 have thus far been indicted. All are Japanese except the New Zealand teacher, W. M. Bickerton, who was arrested on March 13. The charge against Bickerton is that he contributed 500 yen (about £5O) to Japanese Communists and assisted in the interchange of literature between English and Japanese Communists.

The police allege that before departing in April last year on leave of absence from the two Government high schools where he taught, Bickerton offered to contribute 300 yen from his travelling expenses (supplied by the schools) through a Communist friend who, however, was subsequently arrested. Bickerton, it is stated, proceeded to Moscow and was then several months in London, where he obtained and sent to Japanese Communists 60 copies of various European Communist magazines. He also translated and gave to English Communists articles published in the Japanese “Red Flag.” Returning to Japan in September, Bickerton gave 100 yen through a Communist named Matsumoto, whom he secretly interviewed on a beach near Bickerton’s residence at Chigasaki, near Kamakura. Thereafter Bickerton contributed 100 yen monthly from October to January through various intermediaries.

At Matsumoto’s suggestion Bickerton in October applied for membership of the interdicted Japanese Communist Party, but while debating whether to admit foreign organisations the leaders were arrested.

Bickerton’s contacts were arrested one by one until he himself was arrested on Marc.i 13 and charged on April 6. He is still out on bail for 200 yen. The date of the trial has not yet been fixed. The police say that the Communists were in financial difficulties and that Bickerton’s- contributions assisted them considerably. The Press is widely featuring columns about the Bickerton case, pointing out that it is the first active participation of a foreigner in the history of the Japanese Communist movement.

The newspapers, recalling the accused’s unhappy youth, state that Bickerton had four stepmothers at Christchurch. He imbibed Communism from his grandfather, who was a friend of the Russian Socialist Kropotkin, thereafter studying Communist literature. He agitated against military training when a student at Victoria College, Wellington. He has spent a decade in Japan, at first- studying at the Tokio Imperial University and later teaching English at first at a higher school and later at the Tokio Prefacturar Higher School. His monthly income was 600 yen.