The district council of the Royal Canadian Legion (equivalent to the American Legion in the United States) adopted a resolution today calling on the Federal Government to bar the dissemination of “scurrilous and treasonous utterances and publications.”
The council, representing 12,000 members in 72 branches, acted after receiving word that National Socialist pamphlets were being circulated in London, Ontario, where the municipality’s City Council had failed to pass a proposed ordinance banning hate literature. The London City Council argued that it had no authority to adopt such legislation unless the distribution was performed for business purposes.
The London situation has aroused concern here because Nazi leaflets have been distributed there a number of times in the last few weeks by John Beattie, the national leader of the Canadian National Socialists, and a local man, Martin Weiche, a German-born, naturalized citizen of Canada. Word was received here from Ottawa, Canada’s capital, to the effect that Federal authorities find themselves powerless to act against hate material distributors.
Distribution of the Nazi pamphlets was continued in London last week at the very time the City Council there was discussing the possibility of passing an ordinance forbidding such activity. At the same time, eight swastikas and the word “Jew” were found smeared on a local Moslem mosque. The small Moslem house of worship has members who are Albanian, Turkish, Iraqi and Persian, but has no links with Arab nationalism or anti-Israel agitation.
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