Greymouth Evening Star, AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1901. “A RIGHTEOUS PATRIOT."

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 6 March 1901, Page 2

Greymouth Evening Star, AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1901. “A RIGHTEOUS PATRIOT."

The liberty enjoyed in England is unparralled. Is it possible to allow that liberty too much license. Freedom of speech—free and unfettered—is claimed by the Commons at the swearing in of each new parliament, and by tacit consent is extended to the people. If, however, one man slanders or libels another, the law provides a remedy, and there is a remedy for slandering and libelling a State. But that law is rarely put in force, elso surely Mr. Stead would long ore now have been a State prisoner. When there was friction between England, and Russia, 'twas Stead espoused the cause of Britain's enemy, when relations between England and Franco were seriously strained'twas Mr .Stead that again maintained that Britain was wrong. Since the outbreak cf the Boer War his conduct has been more than disloyal. Recently Mr. Stead visited Kruger at Amsterdam, and the report of the interview was :—" It is not only for us that you have battled, said Mr Kruger, but also, and that no doubt is the secret of your courage, for justice. ' Say rather,' replied Mr. Stead, ' for justice and England. I know thero is a God and that ho punishes implacably collective faults. Ever since the outset of the invasion I beg him every day to let us be beaten oven if we are to lose our African Empire. Defeat would not be a chastisement. It is, on the contrary, historically certain that our greatest humiliations the victories of Jeanne d'Acre and Washington, were for centuries the starting point of our reawakening, The punishment for us is a triumph which will destroy our ' national probity—that is to say, the [ raison d'etre of a people before God." ! Mr. Stead is not only a " Patriot " ' but an exceeding " Pious Man " who prays to his God, 'T's a pity that the ;

Great Supreme does not take such righteous soul away. But, perhaps, like a plague he is allowed to remain ; as Kipling rightly remarks “ Lest we forget.”