Untitled

Hokitika Guardian, 24 January 1918, Page 2

“Germany, driven before the gathering shadows of defeat to subterranean and subaqueous war, has been gradually compelled to carry ou her civil campaign against the Allies and civilisation, more and more underground.” 'Phis is the opening sentence of an article by Mr W. Morris Colics in the “Nineteenth Century,” and he proceeds to give sfuoe instances of this underground engineering. The Gorman machinery ho says, has bee®, at work all over the world on lines on all four with\ the pattern used in America. “Take what country you will, and there is the same system, mutatis mutandis, j in working order. With amazing pre- ■ vision she seems to have provided in adI ranee for the maintenance of her maj ehinery in spite, of her isolation in the outer world. The Allied control of the | cables and the mails seems, too, to have i made little difference to her own power ! of obtaining information or sending her : instructions. . . . German schools German missions, German business houses, wheresoever were the organic i foci of ‘the machine.’ . . • Casement- was not- the only Tr.isli ‘patriot' corrupted by German gold. John Trivov stands pilloried before the world as one of Bernstorff’s dupes. We are promised the names of Irishmen who have dragged the name' of their country to the

mire by handling enemy money . Tt ■ passes human patience that our invertebrate methods should jeopardise the chances of an Irish settlement, (never, perhaps, too roseate), and bring us at the crisis of this mammoth conflict face to face with civil war. Fbr the mctaien't it is enough tli e Sinn Fein stands out as the first crowning triumph of Germany’s secret civil campaign civil campaign. She has sown the tares' in the fair field of Irish hopes ‘while men slept.’ . • • The' absolutelj^un-En-glisli inspiration which underlies' many of our labour troubles is, in itself, quite enough to convince most people that agents’ provocations have been busy, carefully covering up their tracks the while, and leaving agitators to carry on the glorious work of wrecking things.”

Despite tho weight of the war the national unrest in most of the countries affected, is remarkakblc . Some sinister influence is at work with’more or loss success, poisoning mjinds. and creating the agents to spread the propa ganda of unrest, and even disloyalty, further. The reference to the matter in the article just quoted from the'“Ninteonth Century,” can be will under stood in the light of events. ''The underground efforts of the enemy are being exposed palpably from time to time, but nations ar slow to realise the aoLual position. Tho discontent which leads to disruption is manifest on all sides. What are euphemistically called democratic moves, are a mere delusion. Thcv are sugar coated with high sounding probabilities, but in point of fact they arc extreme ideas of the; worst character. The present situation in Russia is a case in point. The country is torn asunder by factions professing democratic learnings hut in point of fact being extremists of the most advanced type. The lesson is that-it not wise to confer unlimited freedom upon democracy unless the people are educated to an intelligent use of the privilege. If they have not the . knowledge of how to use their new born freedom intelligently and fortbe national go-xl abuse results, and tho last stage is worse than tlie first. That is Russia s position to-day. Our own Dominion-is not free from the doctrines of tho extremists who talk largely and loudly to inflame the public unduly. At a‘ the present the nation to succeed must enjoy sane leadership, and that can eoipe only with a people who realise not, only their own rights hut also what is due from themselves to thejr country. Any less knowledge creates a selfishness which practiced will load t» national disaster.