A Free Land.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 76, 23 August 1912, Page 4

A Free Land.

The history of tho present Defence Act, short as it is, has some lessons for those who love free speech and liberty of conscience. That militarism in the form o£ conscription should attempt to undermine these was inevitable, and it began well last November in tho closure of the National Peace Council's stall on the Christchurch show grounds at General Godlcy's instigation and in the eviction of a prominent peace-worker by the police. Twice imprisoning a lad before he was IS was als3 a happy start in enforcement of the Act, and showed its range of possibilities. Since then, many youths of good character, who but for its provisions would never have appeared before a magistrate, have filed through our courts and done their convict tasks within our jails. The military authorities have defied Parliament by imposing an oath which is a. drastic variation of the one embodied in the Act, and which has now been twice declared illegal. The commandant of the junior cadets ('Captain Stevens), unmilitary enough to wish to retain both his position and bis right to criticise, was punished by the. Defence Department for open comment upon his superiors. Nor in this cursory survey must be forgotten Mr. Myers' AWllington assurance that our new "citizen" force would be used in industrial disputes. Graham in his instructive book. "Evolution and Empire," points out that it is in economic conflicts that the army obtrudes most fatally into ci\ life. In France and in Germany it is the great support of the masters. The strike of 101.0, on the French railways, was broken by tho Government mobolisinc the strikers as soldiers under the miliary oath, and in fear of eourtniimial. and setting them to serve their economic masters end ruin their whole nio>. eircivt. How great is the effect of this lorreri.Mn <:f v.orkir/yn on economic freedom ran easily be realised. In Germany, 1111----r'.nr a. ilriiigent press law, anyone who "undermines military training or order, by word, writing, print or picture, to a member of the active army or navy." is liable to imprisonment. Any criticism of the army may, without difficulty, be punished under this law. One editor was prosecuted for inserting an advertisement of a pamphlet dealing with the ill-treatment of conscripts. The New Zealand press lias already player! its part, as an agent, of militarism. It remains for the Hen. T. Miackonzio, that valuable recruit to the work of the National Service League in England, to assure n prominent, Christchurch Geriiiauophobe that he will try and get English newspapers to allow him to nn-rliiok all defemv communications. H m>, can the country v. liieh pays his salary depend iir-on him to edit and correct such lying rabies as that sent Home by the. 'Wellington militarist correspondent of the "London Times" as regards the Choral Hall meeting in Christchurch.

If censorship is to he adopted, we demand an impartial basis. Whatever exaggeration there has been on the one side, it has certainly been more marked on the other, but of this, of course, we have heard nothing from the. London correspondent of our militarist, newspapers. Only a fe.v weeks ago. Mr. Pearce, across the sea, was responsible for the statement that a total of 10,000 hoys liable for prosecution under the Defence Act was a "gross exaggeration." Today we learn that Australia's little task is the prosecution of 32,000 lads and children, in face of which the Government becomes "lenient," though mercy under these circumstances may appear even more compulsory than military training. Such is official reliability and accuracy .- "Cowardice is the mother of cruelty" runs the old saying, and certainly it is the foster-parent of censorship. There is nothing to be feared for an Act broadbased upon the people's will from open criticism in an open press. It is only when governments have been traitorous to the democracies they profess to represent that official interference liecomes necessary. English traditions would fie defiled by such an arrost of free speech as that proposed by the new High Commissioner, but its very sut£.a;estio)i shows flint he is specially fitted to represent that normal mid attitude of militarism towards the liberty of the subject which wo arc now anxiously watching in Nov; Zealand.