WHY NOT AN OPEN TRIAL?

New Zealand Tablet, 5 August 1920, Page 13

WHY NOT AN OPEN TRIAL?

The refusal of the Commonwealth Government to grant Father Jerger an open trial certainly suggests that it dare not face having to disclose the reasons for which it interned, him, or allow the public to learn why it is trying to send him away (says Stead’s Review'). The strong agitation against his deportation is based solely on the fact that he is being expelled from the country without being given a fair trial. If the evidence produced at such a trial showed that he had been guilty of action which really imperilled the Commonwealth, no voice would- be raised against his being banished from the land. All the Government needs to do is to grant such a trial. Instead, it is doing everything in its power to get him surreptitiously out of the country. Father Jerger is almost the last man the Government is deporting, or trying to deport. All the others have been hustled away without the slightest regard being paid to their protests. Father Jerger, however, has powerful friends, and his deportation, long ago decided on, has been prevented thus fax. He lias been put on board ship to be taken away before now, but has had to be taken off again at the last moment. He is becoming a sort of a white elephant to the Government, although the whole trouble could be immediately ended by the granting of a proper trial. One can, however, understand the refusal of the Government. If it gives way in this case, admits the need of explaining and justifying its arbitrary action, it will be forced to listen to men who have been interned, who demand an open examination of the reasons for which they were placed behind barbed wire. It might prove its case against Father Jeiger, but it is well known that it could not possibly justify the interment of many of the men who were shut up for years in prison camps on trumped-up evidence. 1