The Chronicle LEVIN. SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1917. SOME REGENT HAPPENINGS.

Levin Daily Chronicle, 31 March 1917, Page 2

The Chronicle LEVIN. SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1917. SOME REGENT HAPPENINGS.

it is meet and urgent that continuous piotesb should bo made against tlie bureaucratic methods of Government that are prevalent to-day in New Zealand. Wo ifiglit by proxy to-day—we at' the 'older generation—to maintain British ideals cf justice and fair-deal-ing amongst nations. Without the basic foundation of liberty upon which J3ritisli justice lias been built lip, up, where would our nation have been to-day ? Far behind the proud posii inn that she has reached. She stood !ii a!! the last ccntury for freedom of pcech, freedom of action; and every nation's stormy petrels sought and found safety 011 her shores. But today there are to be found in this Britain of the South men who fain would and shelter in other lands. In writing this we make no defence of these men's utterances; we deplore them-in the main; but we do make again our ■periodical protest against that ,govoinmental dcpiivation of free speech' that should brand for all time the p; esent Administration in New Zealand as the greatest aggregation of political reactionaries ever bound to aether by the common ties of honoraria. They have little else in common. to our judgment of their case. Against their administration of the dominion's public affairs we have small complaint; 'but they have failed- so s.'bvionsly to realize the constructive ideals of the British liberty which they and all of U6 now should be concerned (o jealously defend that they must be peken of in for' future times with the obkquy fit for that mental strabisnms that prevented them from truly I' c'iismg the needs of the epochal times in which they administered -New Zealand's affairs. The men who wp-o hardest hit by the Governmen.tmade regulations were a negligible quantity and quality; if they had blown off their hot air for a twelvemonth, and on seven days per week tliov would have failed to evoke even Fialstaffian army to support their peculiar views. But at least they would have had no cause to complain about deprivation of liberty, and the muzzling of their public mouth in defiance of British traditions. We have an ingrained idea that the Government's resolution and law-backed "regulations" were primarily inspired bv the then temporary and now permanent difficulty experienced in raising the unjustifiably high guarantee of 'New Zealand Reinforcements that was given at the beginning of the war by Sir James Allen in his capacity as Minister of 3>efence. Maybe the Government realized that each and every individual who might be dissuaded from 1 doing his duty would be a unit that could he ill-spared. If they did consider this, they considered truly. But they paid too high a price for the preventive of regulationmade sedition when to effect a remedy they grappled with and maimed the true Liberty principle of British freedom and justice. That is what their action amounted to, and soon or late the day will come wherein a large majority of the people of New Zealand will take that view. Meanwhile we say, uncompromisingly, that the fact of the nation being at war to-day alters the incidence and gravity of the Governmental derogation of liberty rights no whit. If it did, scoffers would rise up to enquire what, principle of liberty were we fighting to maintain against German aggression. "WE WANT WALT. MASON!" When newspapers from U.S.A. comenot to this domin., we search in vain, day after day, for pungent, pointed Mason lay to make our readers grin. Oh, Mr Mail-Man overseas, speed-up those Yankee papers please; "Walt Mason" is our cry; his lays 011 farm or horse or health are more to us than garnered wealth; mail out a new supply.