Murder a WW1 loose end

An echo of the war which principally affects Dunedin has now reached finality.

The matter is that of the murder of Private Cyril Cromar, of the 1st Otago Infantry Battalion, by a German on the banks of the Rhine in 1919. Mr W.O. Clark, of Dunedin was in company with the deceased and two young women, Clark being on one seat with his friend and Cromar some 100 yards away on another seat with his friend. Suddenly several German larrikins came on the scene and surrounded Cromar and behaved in a threatening manner. At that moment Clark ran up and, just before he reached Cromar, a shot was fired, and the latter fell dead. The German police assisted the military police and five of the assailants were arrested and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. One man escaped, and it was not until early last year while alighting from the Berlin express at Cologne that a German detective recognised the man. He was arrested and brought before the court and remanded. As the Army Council decided that Mr Clark’s evidence was essential, the New Zealand Government was communicated with and, as a result, Mr Clark was requested to go to Cologne as a witness at the trial of Fram Swaboda, which will take place when Mr Clark reaches Cologne. It is understood that Swaboda is to be represented at the trial by Dr Steiner, a leading German counsel. Mr Clark would depart aboard the Corinthic at Wellington on June 11 and would therefore leave Dunedin on Tuesday next.

It’s a hard life

Have you ever, or never, sat uncomfortably in church, with a sensation that the posterior bones and the naked wood of the pew were too closely combined? Have you shifted uneasily, trying hard to keep mind and ear attentive to prayer and praise and discourse? Well, if the answer is in the affirmative, as conscientiously it surely must be, think of Heaven. You sing of Jerusalem the Golden, and of the special place reserved for you — and you dream with lazy religiosity of harps and jasper pavements and golden crowns and cushy seats.

— by ‘Wayfarer’

Throwing a wobbly

It is not clear why Mr Holland, as leader of the official Labour Party, thought it necessary or politic to champion the cause of the revolutionary firebrand against whom the Attorney-General, exercising statutory powers, has thought right to issue an order of deportation. He cannot be in agreement with the wild doctrines expounded by the undesirable visitor in the interests of IWW propagandism. From him, however, the seamen’s and waterside workers’ organisations in Wellington have apparently taken their cue, and they have passed resolutions of protest against the issue of an order of deportation. "The constitution I believe in is that of the IWW, and if we study it a bit more and allow some of these so-called foreigners to come in and help us, we shall probably make this country a little better than it is to-day"; such is the mildest profession of faith of the man who is to be deported, and it was preceded by more extravagant utterances. Sir Francis Bell has pointed out that it is not unlawful or seditious to advocate the wildest forms of Socialism or Communism; "what is unlawful and seditious is to advocate murder and violence as legitimate methods for the attainment of political ends."

— editorial

Not on a Sunday

At a meeting of the Dunedin Presbytery yesterday morning the Rev J. McCosh (East Taieri) reported that, as there were rumours that a Sunday train service would be instituted from Dunedin to Mosgiel, a petition was being circulated and was receiving strong support from all the Protestant churches in Mosgiel and the surrounding country. A very large number of residents of the district had signed the petition urging the Railway Department not to commence services on Sundays and, if it had no effect locally, it was intended to send a deputation to place the petition before the Minister of Railways in Wellington. The Moderator (the Rev W. Simpson) said that the matter was already before the Public Questions Committee. He had been informed that the Port Chalmers railwaymen did not like working on Sundays. The Presbytery approved of the action of the Mosgiel churches.

— ODT, 3.6.1925 (Compiled by Peter Dowden)