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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 243, 13 April 1912, Page 4

MILITANT SOCIALISM. "Whoop! Bow your heads and spread, for the pet Child of Calamity's a-comin'." Mark Twain may well have had his twin monosyllabic celebrity, Tom Mann, in his mind when he wrote his picturesque warning. There was a time when this notorious ultra-Socialist embodied a certain amount of sanity in his utterances, but his' comparative failure in politics has warped his judgment until he has become simply a stump orator of a singularly flighty and inept character. According to a cablegram received yesterday, this frothy orator intends to "destroy Parliament" and "rebel against society." One has become used now to Mr. Mann weaving a glittering streak of exaggeration through all his garrulous fabrics that is refreshing to a spirit weary of the dull neutralities of undecoratcd speech. But his latest effort is highly-colored shoddy of the poorest type. His tireless commmts upon everything are always bombastic and often disloyal, whilst his misrepresentation of facts has served to damage his reputation. Still, were these qualities to be removed he would probably disappear from political life altogether, and he is shrewd enough to realise that it is simply because he is just a mint of ''' whoop-jamboree" notions that he secures a hearing from the workers at all. His intention to destroy Parliament and rebel against society is a brilliant picturesque platform for the street corner, but it would be interesting to learn exactly how he intends to proceed in this vigorous campaign. Personally the public will, to use a happy Americanism, be disposed to believe that he has "bitten off more than he can chew," and hit adoption of the pose of a socialist Samson pulling down the pillars of the temple of Parliament will only provoke goodtempered contempt. Perhaps he has been the victim of a very fallible cable service, and what he did say was that Parliament must destroy him and that society had rebelled against him. It is easy for a prisoner in the confinement of a cell to declare that he is going to lock himself in, just as it is for a teetotaller to swear off whisky. This is somewhat the position in which Mr. Mann is placed. Meantime we shall not expect to see Parliament fleeing to the hills for safety, or society entrenching itself in its mansions behind bomb-proof baricades. If this extraordinary socialist were to put a bridle on his tongue he might still be of some use to a party for which, it must be admitted, he has done good work in the past. In the meantime his egotistical superiority to criticism has simply served to obscure his judgment, and he stands alone now in the counsels of Labor as a political pariah—a party of one "Mann." ' ■»'