The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, April, 7, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1230, 7 April 1914, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, April, 7, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Mr. Robertson’s address last night was in the main a criticism of the Hon. Mr Fisher’s speech delivered last week —and a fine example of the lion being judged by the puppy dog. The criticism of the Minister and the Massey Party by Mr Robertson was, to say the least, decidedly flat, stale, and unprofitable. There was absolutely nothing constructive in the Labour Member’s criticism of the Government, which was purely negative. Mr Robertson would have cut a better figure last night had he not attempted the impossible, but rather adopted the familiar soap • box socialistic twaddle with which he is so familiar. He was decidedly out of his element last night.

Wk wonder whether the ratepayers and householders realise the amount of time and careful thought the Mayor and Councillors are devoting to details in connection with the proposed water and drainage scheme for the borough ? True, they were elected for that purpose, but there is much they might pass on to the engineer to work out, but they believe in leav* ing nothing to the engineer upon which they have not individual knowledge, and it will be through no fault of the Councillors il the ratepayers are not fully primed with all particulars of the scheme before the loan proposals are submitted to them. Once the area question is disposed of, and this will be settled at next Tuesday’s meeting, no time will be lost in submitting the loan proposals to the ratepayers. Before this is done, however, the Mayor will convene a public meeting at which the scheme in all its details will be discussed.

At Wellington on Saturday, a man named John King, charged before Magistrate Cooper with being guilty of disorderly conduct in the Town Hall, Wellington, during the Hon. Mr Fisher’s address was fined £2 and 8s expenses with the alternative of fourteen days’imprisonment. The Police Inspector said a certain section, including the man charged, went to the meeting with the deliberate intention of disturbing and interfering with those who were there for the purpose of listening to the honourable gentleman’s speech. We believe the time has arrived when the authorities must deal more severely with such people, to whom law and order is as nothing. Their conduct is a disgrace to any Britisher, The Wellington Post, commenting on the blackguardly behaviour of this “new democracy” as it styles them, says: "In the Red creed, apparently, there is no right of free speech lor those outside the Socialist fold. These latest apostles of liberty, equality, and fraternity have new meanings for the old words. They have tried to destroy the right to work and the right to speak, except on terms dictated by themselves. Some of these demonstrators have shown that they have as little respect for the rules of British fair play as they have for the British flag, which some of the would-be ‘Republicans’ insulted at Waihi in 1912.” Our contemporary goes on to ask, “What will happen at the next public meeting addressed by Mr Fisher or any other Minister of the Crown ? The history of the past two years shows that some of the Red Federal ‘irreconcilables’ are deaf to all moral suasion and contemptuous of the canons of decency. Our belief is that more than enough warnings have been uttered already. It is well-known that deliberate noisy interference with a public meeting is an offence against statute law, and it is time that transgressors were taught a. memorable lesson. We feel confident that if half a dozen delinquents had to appear at Court, pay fines (or suffer imprisonment as an alternative), and have their names published in the press, the business of the ‘new democrats’—the disorder and uproar at public meetings—would soon lack practitioners. Let the Justice Department try the experiment at the next meeting. If the Government seriously wishes to put an end to the intolerable tactics of persons who go to meetings for the set purpose of making a hostile demonstration, there is an easy method. The anti-speech factions

may believe, by queer reasoning, that they are hurling either Mr Fisher or the Government, or both, but the un British behaviour of the Reds or other extremists will benefit both Mr Fisher aud the Government. The howlers and hooters are doing their best to return Mr Fisher for Wellington Central. Also the latest exhibition of ‘new democracy’ further discredits Red Federalism. If the ‘Direct Actiouisls’ had anything to lose in public estimation after the StoneAge scheme of the strike, they must have lost it during recent weeks.”