The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. THURSDAY, JUNE 28 1894.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 351, 28 June 1894, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. THURSDAY, JUNE 28 1894.

" ROCKS AHEAD."

« — As the closing pages of the record of the century are reached, and before the la.*t leaf, to use a figure of speech, is finally turned down, it is more ininstructive than cheering, we fear, to take <i backward glance down the years that have rolled and note the lessons they have left. We cannot fail to observe and be struck with the general advance which has been made along the line of civilisation, nor can we fail to note also that there are dark and threatening clouds npon the horizon. Recent events in Europe and the United States of America direct our view to what is unquestionably, the most fateful scene unfolded during the last score or so of years. We refer particularly to the Anarchist movement. The assassination of President Carnot is but another thunderbolt — fearfully frequent are they striking now— from the fast gathering storm. There is much surely in the question, "Is civilisation a failure?" It would certainly appear to be so if the growth of Anarchism is not to be checked, and the hope for such a culmination seems but slender, so long as the multiplying social problems lemain unsolved. Our so called civilisation is breeding the class known as Socialists at an alarming rate, and with many of these it is but a sLort step from Socialism to Anarchism The aim of the former may be a laud- > able one ; but the propagation of his peculiar doctrine which is virtually a declaration of war upon the present social system, acts as a poison in cor tain minds, with the result that a breed of human hyenas is being jro > pagated wl-ijh seeks not to securo • social reform by peaceful, legal means, : but by the annihilation of the chief representatives of law and order, with the destruction of every monument i and emblem of civilisation and ' social order. Karl Marx addressing the Paris Commune in 1871 eaid : T — •• We are as yet bat three millions at most In 20 years we shall be fifty, or one hundred million perhaps. Then » the world will belong to us, for it will be not only Paris, Lyons, and Marb seilles which will rise against odious capital, but Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Vienna, London, Liverpool, Maoches ter^Bnzsselti, St K Petersburg, New , York, — in short the whole worio, Autf before this new insurrection, such as i history has not yet known, the past i will disappear like a hideous nightmare, for the popular conflagration 1 kindled at a hundred points at once, like an immense dawn, will destroy even its memory." And to-day these ' social destructors are not confined, as Marx predicted, to the old nationalities, where, it might be expected, tho pent up abuaes and reprefsions of ages must find vent in some unpleasant form, but they are being manufactnred in the young democracies -in fact wherever our so called civilisation has raised its structure. To-day these social firebrands are stalking by thousands in the streets of New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, just as they throng at this moment the Boulevards of Paris, the palace courtyards of Berlin, or the pra--1 dos of 'old Madrid.' We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that there are multiplying ills in the track of civilisation that help to fan the flame which threatens its destruction. The discontent bred of poverty is a dangerous element when exposed to the inflamruatDry influence^of the anarchist propaganda. These fiends are manufacturing an explosive class in every community, for, apart from their teachings, there are always those who regard any of their number who come to grief as social martyrs. Carnot's assassin will not be without his sympathisers and his imitators. Unless the present rapid production of these social combustibles can be checked, the Cresars Column picture will be more likely to be realised than that of Bellamy's in Looking Backward.