MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT WILL SERVE PRISON TERM.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 184, 5 August 1931, Page 1

MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT WILL SERVE PRISON TERM .

Mr M’Govern to Continue his Campaign for Free Speech . (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received August 5, 11.15 a.m.) LONDON, August 4. Mr J. M’Govern. M.P., and eight others were each fined £3, in default twenty days’ imprisonment, for speaking without permits on Glasgow Green. Mr M’Govern exclaimed from the dock: “ I don’t want time to pay. I will go to prison.” As Mr M’Govern’s counsel asked that time be given, the Magistrate ordered that ten days be allowed in which to pay. Mr M’Govern declares his intention of persisting in his free speech campaign.

i Scenes unprecedented in the history ; of Scottish courts marked the opening of the trial of Mr M’Govern, who is Labour member for Shettlestone, Glasgow. Crowds entered the court, preceded by a preacher bearing a cross which he refused to remove. Hymn singing followed until the arrival of the magistrates. Upon their entry Mr M Govern and his comrades stood up and led boisterous singing of the hymn “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus.” An angry scene occurred in the House of Commons on July 2, when Mr M’Govern. demanded the release of a number of laymen who were imprisoned for preaching on Glasgow Green. He declined to resume his seat and was suspended. Mr M’Govern refused to leave the House and defied the Sergeant-at-Arms to remove him. He planted his feet on the bench in front and grasped the bench on which he was sitting. Four attendants grasped him, endeavouring to release his grip, and a fierce struggle ensued while the House locked on in shocked silence. The Speaker had to suspend the sitting as the struggling mass disappeared through the lobby door. On resuming the Speaker announced that Mr M’Gov-

I ern would be suspended for the remainder of the session. “ I will see the authorities in Hades before I apologise.” saicj Mr M’Govern* when addressing 10,000 persons on Glasgow Green three days later. He claimed that he had been illegally ejected from the House of Commons and should have been suspended befor© the attendants were allowed to cross the Bar and lay hands on a member. He was considering taking action against the Speaker and the Sergeant-at-Arms, he said. The police took Mr M’Govern’s name for speaking without a peitnit, and it is apparently on this charge that he has now been convicted. The next day the Labour Party Executive adopted a recommendation that Mr J. M’Govern be excluded from the Parliamentary Party and be ineligible for re-nomination. Mr J. M’Govern was previously suspended last November for using unparliamentary language during the debate on the School Age Bill, when he called a Conservative member a liar. He was only elected to the House of Commons in June, 1930, following the death of the Right Hon John Wheatley, member for Shettlestone, Glasgow. A