A HORNET'S NEST.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 24 April 1919, Page 3

A HORNET'S NEST.

Ever sinoe the Rev, Knowles

Kempton preached his notorious sermon on the Bolshevioks he been busy in replying to his MJcritics who fail utterly to agree ■nT^'-with the Rev. gentleman in

regarding Lenin »and Trotzky as " honest indealists." Mr Kempton's contention is that the miscreants in question mean well, but have gene the wrong way to ■work. I am quite at one with him in thinking ft'hey have gone the wrong way. But as to their mesitiing well, that is a another matter. "By their fruits ye shall known them." How can men "mean well" who seek to accomplish their ends ■by deeds of bloodthirstiness, violence, and ■cruelty almost unparalled ? Mr Kempton, it is true, does not sympathise with the methods employed by! these Bolshevik leaders to bring about social

reforms. But while he condemns their methods he admires their ideas. Well, I don't. So far at I can see Lenin and Trotsky are anarchists, pure and simple, filled with the lust of power and influence, and utterly indifferent to the quantity of blood they shed, that is the number of murders they oommit or sanction, the havoc they occasion, or the develish cruelty they perpetrate so long as they get their own way. In his anxiety t« create a favourable impression regarding these Bolsheviks, Mr Kenipton declares that the cabled accounts °f the atrocities committed by these wretches are open to question being "often unreliable." The other Bolshevick apologist^ R. Semple, M.P., says the same thing. But how do these gentlemen know that the cables are unreliable? Until Lenin and Trotsky can satisfy the world that they are all that Mr Semple and Mr Kempton evidently believe them to be the world may may be excused for refusing to believe in the honesty of their motives