SOCIALISTIC AGITATORS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 851, 24 June 1910, Page 4

SOCIALISTIC AGITATORS.

REMARKS BY BISHOP GRIMES. The Roman Catholic Bishop of ChristcVurch (Dr. Grimes), who returned to Christchurch on Wednesday night from a prolonged visitation to tho West Coast, expressed to an interviewer a very decided opinion regarding tho influence of a number of Socialistic agitators upon the more contented workmen on the coalfields of the West Coast and at tho Otira Tunnel (writes our correspondent). Although the men employed in. the construction of the Arthur's Pass Tunnel were a somewhat motley company they included many fine intelligent fellows, and -he had been pleased to find that several of them had been at work there since the contract was commenced. Generally, the men spoke in good terms of their work and of their employers, but there were a few agitators who were dissatisfied with'their own conditions, and sought to make others discontented by continually harping upon the cciuality of men and other points of their creed. The irony of tho whole thine; was that theso men had either been dismissed or had given up their employment because they were not suitable for the work, and could not earn a living at it. Now they were going about wearing good clothes and drawing good salaries for "spouting" Socialism among tho men. Ho had found a somewhat similar state of things on tho coalfields of the West Coast, wlrero Socialists were trying to form a religion of their own, and prevent others' from attending the churches of their particular crced. These men appeared to bo possessed of a degree of intelligence a little above tho average of those around them, and they were employing it to effect a good deal of harm.