Freedom of speech in New Zealand: dnzb.govt.nz Worth dying for? < The day after the Second World War was declared in September 1939, Burton and two others condemned it before a crowd of 200 outside Parliament. Under emergency regulations only hours old, expressing such views was unlawful and all three were arrested. Burton was visited in gaol by the deputy prime minister, Peter Fraser, who was worried that Burton, a returned soldier and a charismatic speaker, might attract the nucleus of a large and embarrassing anti-war movement. Burton rejected Fraser’s plea to desist and resumed speaking in Allen Street. He was arrested and fined three times in the next four months, and after a large meeting in February 1940 at Pigeon Park, was sentenced to a month’s hard labour. On his release he went straight back to the speaking podium and was imprisoned for a further three months. When he was in prison Nell Burton spoke from a soap box at the Basin Reserve and carried on their work in the parish.
By June, Burton’s permit to speak at the Basin Reserve was cancelled, poster parades were banned, and street speakers were forced indoors. Subsequently, Burton and 10 other CPS members spoke briefly at Pigeon Park before being arrested. On this occasion Burton was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment.
Burton was more worried about his survival in the Methodist church. In February 1940 the church had determined that the pulpit should not be used to encourage either recruitment or resistance to military service. Burton, in prison, regarded the manifesto as a slap in the face and wrote A testament of peace , an implicitly pacifist doctrine of worship on which he announced he would base his future ministerings. At the 1942 Methodist Church of New Zealand conference Burton was charged with refusing to accept the discipline of the church. He appealed to the delegates, but after a long and acrimonious debate they voted 70 to 45 to expel him. Significantly, over 100 delegates abstained.
Burton was devastated. He found work with a frozen products firm and in June became editor of the CPS’s bulletin. In his first issue he commented on the recent sedition trial and acquittal of A. C. Barrington and printed a mild anti-war poem. The controller of censorship, who intercepted the newsletter, considered it subversive. Burton faced three charges of editing, publishing and attempting to publish a subversive document. At his Supreme Court trial on 23 October 1942, Burton argued for his democratic right to think and speak as conscience dictated. Justice Archibald Blair disagreed, telling the jury it was a time when the mouths of ‘cranks’ would have to shut. The jury found Burton guilty, but recommended mercy. Under the emergency regulations the maximum sentence was 12 months’ imprisonment, but Blair invoked a rarely used provision in the 1910 Crimes Amendment Act and sentenced Burton to 2½ years. He was offered immediate freedom if he agreed to refrain from writing or speaking on pacifism, but he rejected the offer.
International appeals from pacifists and theologians failed. Burton served his full term, less 11 months’ remission for good behaviour, mostly in Napier prison away from his family. He spent his time gardening and writing. During his absence Nell Burton took a leadership role in the CPS as well as bringing up their two children >
Should orders of people purveying such "freedom" be obeyed?
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