SUBVERSION CHARGE

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21217, 13 September 1940, Page 7

SUBVERSION CHARGE

PAMPHLET DISTRIBUTION ANTI-CONSCRIPTION COUNCIL SEARCH OF MAN’S ROOM (By Telegraph.—Press Association) WELLINGTON, Thursday A charge of being in possession on August 31 of 127 copies of a pamphlet with a view to facilitating the publication of a subversive statement, was made in the Police Court against James Kelman, aged 37, a barber employed at the railway station. The pamphlet contained an attack on three Ministers of the Crown in connection with the deportation of a Communist. The magistrate, Mr J. L. Stout, reserved his decision. Senior-Detective P. Doyle said that as a result of complaints a detective interviewed accused, who was the sole occupier of a bach at the back of a house. There the detective found a fairly extensive collection of books from the Left Book Club. Accused told the detective he was a member of the Esperanto Society, but the detective did not find any literature of the kind the police were seeking. A suitcase was found to contain Esperanto correspondence and a bundle of pamphlets which were the subject of the charge. The accused expressed great amazement at these, saying he had never seen them before. They were not in the case when he looked in it a few days before. Peace Organisation In the breast pocket of a coat there was a letter from the organiser of the Wellington branch of the Communist Party. With reference to this accused said: “That’s a different matter; that is a different story.” Senior-Detective Doyle indicated that similar pamphlets had been posted throughout the city. Each pamphlet stated that it was issued by the National Committee of the Peace and Anti-Conscription Council. The police had stopped meetings of that body, and on the surface it had been defunct so far as the police knew. Room Used As Dump Defending counsel said that accused, with several hundred others who attended a meeting of the Peace and Anti-Conscription Council at the Trades’ Hall, signed on as a member. Members were asked to distribute notices of meetings, and such notices were dumped regularly in accused’s room, the door of which was always unlocked. He had no reason to believe there was anything in the room when the police searched.