AUCKLAND TRAGEDY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 200, 16 April 1932, Page 4

AUCKLAND TRAGEDY

Contemplation of the terrib'le seones eiiacted in Auckland on Thursday night arouses feelingg of a very mixed description, sympathy, shame and disgust predominating. Such an exhibition of wUntolily vicio'us lawlessness can only be descfibed as a tragedy. It can serve no legitimate purpose; do no possible good; ease no individual or collective bufderis. Indeed, such a surrendel' to violerit and subversive passio'ns can only do irrebarable harm, both to those who must bear the responsibility and to their innocent victims, who include not only the traders; whose property was looted or destroyed, and the police and o'thers irijured in defence of law and order, but alSo many o'f those whb actiially partibipated. Iii order justly to appreciate thb significaiice of the btitb'fOak ahd tb recogilise it for the tragedy it really is, it is necessary to avoid hasty conclusions aiid gerieralisatioils. In the first place, a consideration of the facts as described by those on the spoL suggests that to blame the unexhployed as a class, as the Prime Mihister did in his too hasty statenient in Parliament, is unjust. iDoubtless a large number of normally decent citizens whb toirte within that categofy were drawn into the disgraceful orgy once it had been started, by the excitement of the morneht, but tKere appears to be no shadow of doubt that those immediately respohsible had deliberately prepared for something of the kind should the opportunity arise, in the hope of personal gain. In times of public distress such ghouls are to be fourid ih every land and New Zeaiand apparently is no exception. Ever ready to make or take advantage of opportunities for rapine, these human beasts of prey know only too well how to seize the advantage of the momeiit arid, having achieved their purpose, how to vanish from tlie Scene leaVing to their dupes and victims the suffering and the peilaitles. But e^ori these, heav^ though their resp'onsibillty, bfe hbt alohb to blame. Every thoughtless windbag, both in and out of Parliament who liris tiibrithed threats or Warnings of "insurrectiori" or spoken peSsimistically of conditions; every soap-box economist ahcl would-be protector of the masses, must bear his share. A distressing aspect in this connection is that the more ho'hest and well-merining ritnb'ng these gentry nitist bear , the heaviest biame. Self-deluded by that little learning which is notoriously so dangerous, they unwittirigly play with fire, little realising the dangerous nature of the materials they essay to handle. Their obvious sincerity wins the attentiOn and respect of ttie equally hoiie'st and uiliristructed amo'ng their audiences, and when the cohflagration occurs; ritirie is more sdrpri8ed arid shocked thail they. For those though not meriihers b'f the rabble who attempt to use public distress to gain party or personal advantages, there is nothiiig to be said. They are in all esseritials I a& bad as the hoodlums they disown with horrbr; because, safe themselves, they stand rbady tb proftt by the mistakes and sufferings of the masses they claim to lead. In Auckland yesterday hundreds o'f those who the night before had surrendered to the lust toj destroy and lbo't will have experienced pangs of shame and seltdisgust. What, in the excitemerit o'f the mo'irient, had seemed like a gallant protest against injustice or a high adventrire, wiil be seen, in the cold light' of day, for the hideous thing it really was; both by those who actually participated and by those upori whbm any part of the responsibility rests. Arid so o'lit bf evil rhay coitte good, provided only that authority acts with the requisite tact and discririiinatibn placirig the resp'onsihility where it rightly lies, and dealing firmly but with eve'ri-hatided jiistiob With thbse whbse criminai intehtibris were the prime cause of the tragedy.