Sedition by Example VI: Hatty Weitzel

(Part of an ongoing series aiming to excite disaffection against our law against sedition and thereby incite change...)

Excerpt from a story appearing under the headline "Banned Literature", reporting on the appearances before Mr F. Hunt, S.M., of three people on charges of selling seditious material (The Evening Post, Friday, August 18, 1921):

A University Student

The next case taken was that of a young woman named Hedwig Weitzel, described as a student at the Training College, who was charged with selling on 19th June last, "The Communist," which encourages violence. Weitzel pleaded not guilty.

Constable McKay said he purchased the Communist paper from Miss Weitzel at the Communist Hall on the evening of 19th June.

To the Defendant: He first went to the hall on 11th June. He denied having sympathised with the movement, but said that he had signed a nomination paper.

Miss Weitzel made a lengthy statement. She said that it was a student's duty to make herself conversant with every school of thought. She did not know that the papers were banned; and, in fact, did not receive a notification to that effect until 5th August. Defendant produced a letter from the Customs Department, which, she said, stated that the books had only just been banned.

Mr Hunt: "This is only a notification of seizure."

Defendant: "Then we have not received any notification at all that the papers are prohibited." She did not consider the charge against her specific enough.

The Magistrate: "Here's an extract: 'Members must be prepared at any time to change their activities from legal to illegal.' That is plain enough, surely. I am going to convict you. What is the police report?"

An Unfavourable Report

Mr Macassey [the prosecutor] said that the police report was to the effect that Miss Weitzel was a B.A. of Victoria University College. She knew quite well the risks that she was taking in dabbling in matter of this kind. Her mother, a German, left for America some six months ago, taking two of her family with her, and had not since returned. Her father, also a German, died some four or five months ago. Neither had been naturalised, and during the war they were decidedly anti-British. During the war the family lived in Buller street, and the house was the rendezvous for anti-militarists and revolutionaries of a pronounced character, one of whom was married to defendant's sister. All these men were arrested and imprisoned for talking anti-conscription. It simply pleased the Weitzel family to encourage anything which would weaken Britain's fighting power. The defendant must have known all this, although she was young at the time. She was constantly at the Communist Hall, and was as much a Communist at heart as any of the party.

Weitzel's case was not unique, but was one of a great many prosecutions for sedition of those distributing communist literature (two others were tried on the same day and reported on in the same story). She was convicted, fined ten pounds, and given fourteen days to pay. The fine was paid by a group of female students who had accompanied her to court, and this sparked a furore in the media and in Parliament, and led to the passage of what is now s. 162 of the Education Act 1964, which requires all teachers to swear an oath of allegiance to the crown. The Act is still in force, and to this day teachers must swear to "be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her heirs and successors, according to law" - exactly as police and soldiers do.

(Sources: Evening Post, August 18, 1921; "'A Spirit of Bolshevism': The Weitzel Case of 1921 and its Impact on the New Zealand Educational System", by Roger Openshaw, Political Science, 33, 127 - 139)