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Hokitika Guardian, 23 June 1925, Page 2

WnrriNC of the malign influence of the Communistic propaganda in Great Britain, a writer in an English newspaper quotes the following: “An educated man is one who knows when a thing is proved and when it is not. An uneducated man does not know.’’ These words of the late Lord Motley deserve to he taken to heart as never tiefore, for this apjtears to he the age in which “half-baked” people who think they are educated because they can read and write, hut who are totally lacking in the deeper balance of education, are quite prepared to convince themselves that what they want to believe is the truth without paying the slightest attention let the real evidence of the case. For instance, says the writer, whenever some Communist outrage takes place you will always find people to declare, ignoring the proven facts of the case altogether, that it was a Capitalist plot or something equally fatuous. Needless to say. such a yarn has been started about the shameful outrage in Sofia Cathedral. The kind of person who wants to convince us that Communists are harmless doves will always find foolish and sentimental cranks who will swallow his dope' and believe anything he tells them. A\ hy Capitalists and other wicked people should want to blow themselves up is not explained, but that matters not at all to persons who are resolved to believe that Communists would not hurt

a fly. All the terrorist policy and vile actions of the Bolsheviks are “explained away ” by such people with the utmost ease. The only thing that is not explained away is the. excessive and apparent raving lunacy of people who are not Communists and Bolsheviks. The truth is, that a lot of persons have not only not the least capacity for weighing evidence hut not the least intention oi trying to weigh it. There is nobody so gullible its the man whose mind is already made up and nobody so silly ns the man who is cunningly unscrupulous. Every sane man who follows the facts is fully aware that Communism is a creed of violence and cruelly, and that its knowledged acts are ferocious and abominable, and yet whenever Communists, following out logically their own theories, do some atrocious deed, a lot of jackasses will always ho at- hand to assure the public that Communists are incapable of such actions, and that it is wicked reactionaries who are at work. It is enough to make one weep to read such piffle : it is enough to make one feel that the very springs of right thinking have been perverted. Are some people always going to argue that black is white; are some sections of the public utterly unable to discover a mare’s nest:-' Lord Motley was right. Education teaches people to weigh evidence, hilt unfortunately many people are onlv sufficiently educated to arouse their “class-consciousness” without giving them any real power ol judgment whatsoever. They believe what thev want to believe; they swallow what their leaders tell them to swallow. It is the curse of the present age.

The 1 .alior organ on the Coast does not appreciate criticism of l.ahor proposals. In the course of some comment on tilt l recent speech of the member tor Westland here v.e referred to the haltbaked laud policy of the I.alior Party which -Mr O'Brien only brought out in reply to a question. According to the “Argus” we did not understand the proposal, though the “Argus” in its usual political way id answering eritifism. tlixtuissos <dii' i»*.isintc»rpretnl.ion iif it were such) in other language. As lar as we can glean ol the Labor policy it is a " usehold ” tenure. J liat is. if a land owner of occupier does not use the land he holds, he must perlorco have it taken from him. ll the Labor policy means anything else we wait lor the correction from some authorised source. In connection with this highhanded procedure, which is confiscation in another guise, it is conceivable that a farmer in struggling circumstances may he anxious to and perhaps does acquire land which liis resources will not permit him to use. It is natural that a man on the laud will seek to build up bis holding as he ran. It a neigh-

bor. for instance, were moving away and the area could be purchased by the adjoining settler lie would make a special effort to do so. even by borrowing. I' ll L he ma\ exhaust his resources in that churl. and yet il he could not use tin- land, it could not be retained hc-oau-e i; was not occupied under the Usehold principle. There are many variations "I tins condition of holding land which eurne to the mind and under which a -tniggling settler who was Irving to build up a home lor biinsell ami family would lim! the position hedged on every sj<|e. Ihe till illy and hardworking man building up without rv.uK capital would be indeed in a ililfii ult and not to say impossible position. I’rohablv, as is often the ease a poach

and four might be driven through the I,alior land policy, by subterfuge or trickery, but manv would not be prepared to resort to such tactics and so I lie people would be on all unequal looting. Again, it is conceivable that the administration of the law might b" done with varying ellcet. so that altogether the man on the land would never lie sure of his position. The Labor land policy is worse than dangerous, It could be mischievously uncertain. and as such would lie a disastrous menace to land settlement and tie future productivity of the country, the main spring of its prosperity.