Manawatu Herald SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1918. FREE SPEECH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1796, 2 March 1918, Page 2

Manawatu Herald SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1918. FREE SPEECH.

COMMENTING editorially on the tactics of the Red Feds, to stifle free speech during the recent Wellington North by-election, the Dominion says: —“It may be hoped that loyal and fair-minded citizens concerned for the orderly conduct of public affairs and the rights of citizenship will have profited by tho experience of this election to discriminate between the line-sounding professions of the militant Socialists and their practices. Mr Holland and his friends claim liberty of speech and talk of waving the (lag of freedom over New Zealand, but. what sort of liberty and freedom do they extend to those who oppose them? They are allowed to hold their meetings without interruption or disturbance, but when they think it will serve their ends, systematically organised disturbances aro carried through at the meetings of their opponents, who are howled down and counted out by gangs of rowdies who make a mock of the name of liberty. Mr Holland, when addressing the electors after the declaration of the poll last evening, with a smug egoism characteristic of demagogues of his type, boasted of lifting the light to an intellectual plane. His friends in the crowd a few minutes later made it quite clear what sort of plane they really tight on by howling down the Prime Minister when he attempted to speak, and supplementing their vocal efforts with inissiles of various kinds. What the sane ajid-orderly section'of the people should not-for-get is that these excesses, unless they are checked and discouraged, are only the beginning of worse dis-. orders.”