WOMAN GAOLED

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21418, 12 May 1941, Page 8

WOMAN GAOLED

CHRISTIAN PACIFIST PROHIBITED MEETING (By Telegraph.—Pres? Association) WELLINGTON, Monday Stating that he did not intend to consider the sex of accused and that she must be treated as any other person who set herself above the law, Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., sentenced Constance May Jones, aged 22, clerk, to three months’ imprisonment on a charge of obstructing Superintendent Lopdell in the lawful execution of his duty at a Christian Pacifist meeting in Manners Street on Friday night. Superintendent Lopdell. said that A. C. Barrington, secretary of the Christian Pacifist Society, made the boast jn the Supreme Court the other day that the next speaker would be a woman, and consequently on Friday night quite an expectant crowd gathered, some apparently out for “a bit of fun.” Jones commenced to speak. He prohibited the meeting, but she refused to cease and was arrested. The reason for the prohibition in the first instance was because of an intimation he received from Barrington setting forth as one of the purposes that New Zealand should withdraw from the war at once, and that the assistance of all people should be enlisted to that end. As that purpose was to his mind subversive, and he feared subversive propaganda at meetings and that public disorder would result, he decided that a meeting under the auspices of the society should be prohibited.

Jones pointed out that eight men previously before the court were all charged with conducting or attempting to conduct a prohibited meeting. Superintendent Lopdell said they had decided to be as considerate io her as they possibly could. The charge was a matter for himself and the authorities.