SPIRITUALIST SUED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 196, 20 August 1934, Page 11

SPIRITUALIST SUED

MONEY LENT BY WOMEN DE.AD HUSBAND’S “CONSENT" JNUDGE ORDERS REPAYMENT. A widow who said she lent money to a spirtuulist because she was told she had her dead husband’s permission to do so claimed the return of the money ■n a London Court recently. She was Mrs. Signe Josephine Kirkwan, and she sued Mr. Percival B. Beddow. The defence was that the money was paid so that Mr. Beddow might carry on spiritualist propaganda, especially through a paper called Spiritual Truth. Counsel for Mrs. Kirkwan said that after the death of her husband in 1924 she sought consolation by attending spiritualist seances at Gipsy Hall, in South East London, where there was a medium named Marie Elf ram. who was supposed to be “controlled” by a spirit known as “Edmund.” At one seance Mrs. Kirkwan w told that she had her husband's per mission to lend Mr. Beddow money, and on that occasion lent him £lOO. Later she advanced him further sums of £2OO, £5OO and £lOO, believing that she was meeting the wishes of her husband. Mr. Beddow, in evidence, said he mentioned to Mrs. Kirkwan the difficulty of carrying on the work of spiritualism, and she said she was willing to help. He regarded the sums he received from her as gifts. Mr. Justice Goddard: Do you think it right to take £1650 from a woman labouring under the distress of losing her husband, and whose income was only £9OO a vear? Witness: I know nothing about her income. Marie Elfram, who was warned by the Judge that she was not bound to answer any question which might incriminate her. said she did not know Mr. Beddow was in business difficulties. Mr. Justice Goddard, in giving judgment for Mrs. Kirkwan for £9OO with costs, said: “I have no doubt that Mr. Beddow may believe in spiritualism, but that he has set himself to work to get all the money ho can out of this woman I equally have no doubt. I say nothing more about the position of the middle-aged woman Elf ram. “The case has been put as a con spiracy. All I can say is that the facts which have been proved may well merit the attention of the Director of Public Prosecutions, or the police, or both. ’ ’ world’s investors, we meant the City of London. (Laughter.) There was an open avowal that the aim in view was not so much the good of the Indian people as the good opinion of tho investors of the City of London. Empire and Debt. Without arguing whether it was wise or foolish, he would point out that if we were going to run India on that principle we must back ourselves up with military authority. We could not put Mr. Gandhi in gaol and keep him there without trial if we were not prepared to do what Mr. .MacDonald had been contending for at Geneva—namely, to bomb outlying regions from the air. Could they not see the economic nexus? Under our system of Imperial preference ho had to buy apples from Australia and not California, because Australia was in debt to the City of London and California to Wall Street. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain used to say that Empire was commerce. It would be more accurate to say that Empire was debt. He would suggest, then, that it was not so much political structure that was decisive in the question of peace and war as economic structure. Economic structure evolved political structures. If they wanted to lay the foundations of peace they must understand the economic structure of present-day society. He believed the ultimate root I of war lay in the profit-making motive of our present industrial system, which treated labour as a cost to be cut to the minimum, which needed external markets that had to be conquered or fenced off against well-equipped rivals. We needed a far-reaching change in our economic structure which would change the ownership of the means of life. People said the next war would destroy civilisation. “No,” said Mr. Brailsford, “it will not be tho next war that will destroy civilisation, but the intellectual cowardice which refuses to go down to the real causes of war.”