A LONG SUFFERING PEOPLE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 74, 18 November 1931, Page 4

A LONG SUFFERING PEOPLE

Although strictly contrary to the laws which at tinies protect even their violators, many people will regard very sympathetically the direct action methods towards the Communist irritation adopted in the Australian towns of Bourke and Mildura. One of the most notable of British characteristics is the racial tolerance, and a sense of humour which enables an average British crowd to regard soap-box frenzy as a side-show rather than a menace. But there are limits beyond Which even tolerance and a sense of humour can be stretched, and popular anger, slow to be aroused in matters such as these, manifests itself in an upheaval of feeling such as has taken place in several parts of the Empire within the last week. At Bourke and Mildura, avowed Communists who for some time past had been disturbing the pastoral peace of these Victorian and N.S.W. districts, were treated very harshly. They were, according to Sydney messages, "dumped in the river" and we know of nothing more likely to dampen, or perhaps altogether extinguish, the ardour of the professional Communist, than that salutary process. The American district of Pontiac went one better, however, and according to a Montreal message, took out several of the advocates of direct action and gave them a little of their own gospel with a whip. In the meanwhile the Canadian forces of law and order, moving through legitimate channels, rounded up a few of the more vociferous of the gentlemen, and politely but firmly intimated that a move to distant climes would be to their mutual benefit. In New Zealand we havO fortunately riot been troubled to any -extent by the mouthings and insidious activities of these unbalanced advocates of half-baked ideas, and on the whole they have done little more than add a spice of variety to the dullness which 'so inevitably besets some of our public gatherings. In a people whose inherent dislike of selfdisplay is perhaps its strongest national characteristic, there is always something of humour in the spectacle of a deluded fellow mortal making a fool of himself, and anything, even a Communist, which provides a spice of humour in these days of election speeches and depression wailing, is to a certain extent, welcome. It is true that consternation has been caused in political circles by the sudden materialisation of a number of Communist candidates for Parliament, gentlemen unfortunately whose chief claim to consideration appears to be tho fact that they know the first verse of the Red Flag. This, in itself, of course, is an achievement, and any man who can sing the Red Flag seriously must surely be credited with a strength of purpose which would be an asset in a politician. Other larger countries, however, have year by year been subjected to an increasing number of irritations which have been directly traceable to Communist sourees. An increasing number of outrages against public men have also marked the insidious campaign of upheaval and unrest which had its first seed in thO brain of that gigantic ffanatic Leriin twenty years ago: Lenin, whatever may justly be said against him, had a magnificent singleness of purpose which has, fortunately, not been b'equeathed to the great majority of the dupes who, the world over, are propagatiqg his doctrines. The late Dictator of Soviet Eussia believed that only by a complete upsetting coitld the final icleal of Communist- progress be achieved and that only by tearing up every convention and every settled tenet of mankind could the social strata be reorganised. To that end, he set on f bot the gigantic engine of propaganda, perhaps the greatest and most terrible force the world has ever seen. Lenin lived only to see the beginning of his work, but the seeds of- violence and unrest have found many new places of germination since he was laid to rest in his sarcophagus in the Red Square of Moscow. The Communist menace, in some political quarters, has become something of a shibboleth to frighten naughty boys and voters who refuse to accept everything they are told, but, for all that, remote as we may be from its more subversive influehces, in this Dominion, it is something which looms dark on a cloudbanked horizon. The common sense and the sense of humour which have' proved two of the strbngest bulwarks of the British nation in the past, have proved by far the most successful Tesistant elements to this undermining influence up .to the presfeiit, but sighs and portents are not wanting that in various irritation spots the patience of a long suffering people is very nearly exhausted.