THE NEW ERA.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 May 1918, Page 4

THE NEW ERA.

THE INTERNAL MENACE

(By X.)

In preceding articles I have endeavoured to show that the German menace to civilisation must be dispelled at all costs; that this at the moment is the duty overshadowing all others. The articles may be fittingly summarised in the saying of Goethe, “ The Prussian is naturally cruel; civilisation will intensify that cruelty and make him a savage.” As savagety is the antithesis of civilisation it is clear that no permanent civilisation .can be built up on it.

The first step in the formation of. a permanent civilisation is to provide that people may live in safety 1 and security. We may be successful in repelling an invader, and yet not have attained this end. Russia had been able to hold Germany at bay and at the same time carry through a revolution which converted the nation into a democracy —a new democracy welcomed and recognised by the civilised world. But before the first Provisional Government could sit, a band of marauders called the Bolshevist drove out the Provisional of whom three quarters were Socialists and Democrats, at the point of the bayonet, imprisoned the Provisional Government, sacked, the Winter Palace and lynched its defenders, slaughtering the women taken in arms with hideous brutality. The Bolsheviki, now calls itself the Russian Government. The Labor Party of the Russian Social Democrats asserts it to be “ nothing but a screen to mask the dual dictatorship ol Lenin and Trotsky, sustained by bayonets and surrounded by adventurers and criminals—a handful of adventurers exploiting the misery of the people for their own advantage—maintained only by shameless terrorisation. This is from the official manifesto of the Russian Socialist Labor Party.

One writer says : “ The Russian Revolution would have been all right, but it wouldn’t stop revolving.” No, Germany took good care of that. Realising from the first that this would be a war not between armies and navies alone but between nations, she cunningly and cleverly spread her propaganda, carefully selecting that which would be most effective in the various countries. This has unfortunately fallen as seed on fruitful soil. Knowing that her own people were secure under the iron heel of military despotism, and all classes, Socialists, Democrats,Labor Unionists and the rest of them could be promptly brought to heel at any time, she allowed them just sufficient freedom to serve his purpose—that of deluding her enemies. And how they have been deluded ! The war which is a clear cut issue between democracies and autocratic dynasties, between honor, truth and justice as against the Hollenzoliern, the Hapsburg and the Osmanli has been distorted into a “ capitalist war.” Fools, who are more dangerous than even rogues in these times have had catchwords about “exploiters” and “profiteers” thrown to them to play with. These, are working all right in the enemy’s interest. Then the exigencies of war have caused some.of the rights and privileges of the democratic countries to be temporarily curtailed, and consequent discontent and disunion have been fostered—in the interests of the enemy which caused the war. We are not used to war, and war conditions; it' is a new experience for us. We have not been trained for generations to prepare for war, and disciplined for it in the way the Germans have been. And well does the enemy know this, and know that the poisonous seeds of discord will under these circumstances germinate. Let the Churches pray as they never prayed before- that the people may be given wisdom and understanding to detect truth from falsehood so that we fail not in this our critical hour of trial. Read what the President of the American Federation of Labor says, and note the resolution adopted by a great labor gathering in New York. “We recognise that this great struggle is a war which is essentially Labor’s war—a war of the useful people ot the world against the agents and institutions of tyranny and oppression, and we are resolved to remain with the struggle to a victorious conclusion.” This is the opinion of the big men of the big labor party who are up against the biggest capitalistic organisation the world has ever seen. And yet we find those who would lead labor in New Zealand, who have not like their compatriots gone to the front, and verified with their own eyes what is taking place, and have not investigated at first hand the causes which brought about this armageddon, talking about a “capitalist” war. A capitalist war ! If Great Britain had wanted to make money out of the war, if she had studied the capitalist interests, she could have made hundreds of millions by standing tty and seeing Belgium and France destroyed. America was making money so fast that, as a cold and literal fact, she didn’t know what to do with it. She was melting down tons of minted gold and was fast becoming the richest nation on the earth. The Allies’ extremity was her opportunity. All her interest as a dollar making country was to keep out. And so strong and far-reaching were these interests, that it is one of the most miraculous and extraordinary events in the world's history that she should have entered the war. Strangled by the “ trusts,” permeated with German spies, her people engrossed with money-mak-ing and revelling in the prosperity which had come to them, yet this great nation ot the west, in defiance of all self-interest, saved her national soul by entering the grim struggle for right as against wrong. Let the working man remember that the capitalist class which he regards as his hereditary enemy—and with

some justification as I shall show later on—has suffered in this war as it never betore suffered. Its very foundations have been undermined. Given that this war is fought out to a victorious conclusion the capitalist class will never be the power tor good or for evil that it has been in the past—and it knows it. Something greater has arisen before which the power and prestige of gold is melting away. The mad Kaiser said to the Ambassador that he would stand no nonsense from America. He should be satisfied ; there is no nonsense about America \ now. America has learned that there is something mightier than the “almighty dollar.” and more powerful than the millionaire “trusts,” or she would not have been in the war. Great Britain showed she was great indeed when for a “ scrap of paper ” she plunged, all unprepared, into the vortex of a terrible struggle which she could have kept clear of without losing anything—except her honor. She must emerge a Greater Britain even though her aristocracy is decimated and her wealthy classes bled of their wealth as never before.

No, the poison gas emanating from Germany did not work well in America—the country was too virile, its people too wide awake. In Great Britain too, its effects where they showed themselves have been pretty effectually counteracted by the loyalty and commonsense of the workers. In France a different brand—costly to the Germans—had to be used. Stale political economic fallacies were not powerful enough. Nothing but sheer treachery could destroy France—wholesale and costly bribery and corruption. Hence Boloism which would have worked havoc but for its detection by the veteran Clemenceau. In Italy a forged issue of the Giornale d’ltalia of Rome telling of revolutions -and riots in Naples and Florence with English and French soldiers shooting down the people—a few spies scattered tlirougU the army—cost the Italians a 400 mile line, 300,000 prisoners, 2,500 cannon, nearly the whole of the huge province of Venice and a billion dollars worth of food stores, munitions, bridges and railways. Ana so in every part of the Allied territory poisonous baits have been spread. Let us remember, coming nearer home, when the great and disastrous strike was op in Australia how the news was spread there that there was revolution in New Zealand, that hundreds of people’ had been shot down in the streets in Auckland and that the country had risen against conscription —a feeble and clumsy attempt to imitate the German master-stroke in Italy. But then, of course, the interests were not so vital and did not justify the employment of the higher class of talent.

It was in Russia that the great disaster was achieved, and if space permitted I would like to refer more fully to the colossal crime perpetrated by the Bolsheviki at German instigation. Had it not been for this crime Russia would have been to-day the proud, democratic poWer of Eastern Europe, instead of having crumbled to pieces, and the pieces being crushed under the heel of Germany.

But .my more immediate purpose is to warn New Zealand of its internal menace—the dangerous forces working in our midst. These forces are the more dangerous because the present civilisation not only of New Zealand, but. of the world, is imperfect. Our Government—a coalition one —is weak in all but its loyal determination to see the war through and loyally help our Mother Country. Many things have to be altered. But reforms cannot come from Parliament now. The war itself is working out reforms on a larger and grander scale. The nations of the world are being chastened aqd the \yliQle social and economic structure is boun d to be reorganised—is reorganising itself before our eyes. We can see the old civilisation as it were in the melting pot. But knowing that no better civilisation can come out of Germany, let us follow the example of America. Let us assure the Kaiser that the “indolent pleasureloving people ” as a German paper called us, who “ were to be made work,” when Germany won the war, are going to work now as never before to win the war and to watch out for rogues and fools in German pay. Let there be no nonsense about New Zealand. The Germans know to their cost wliat the New Zealanders are like on the battlefield. Let every one of us back up our boys by demonstrating that the New Zealanders at home are made of the same stuff and are as determined to “ win the war.”