The Daily News. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1912. THE WAIHI CASES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 101, 14 September 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1912. THE WAIHI CASES.

The decision given by the Magistrate in the Waihi eases will meet with gen-, eral approbation and will establish a precedent that ought to secure the free labor that has been introduced into the mining township from further 'interference. It would be impossible to imagine a more vain and futile defence than that put forward by Mr. Parry, the preI sident of the Miners' Union. This ingenuous gentleman said that. any man had a right to speak to any other man on the public footpath and that it was quite legitimate to make a school of education of the roadway with forty or fifty teachers employed in the gentle art of educating half-a-dozen pupils how to spell ''"scab" and how to make offensive gestures with their hands and noses. Probably if Mr. Parry's wife and daughters were followed along the street bv a band of ribald factory girls who openly sought to educate them by discussing tlieir clothes and their manners and methods he would be the first to seek police intervention, and the comparison is a perfectly fair one. Naturally enough, the Magistrate declined to have dust of this sort thrown in his eyes and pertinently enquired why if Mr. Parry's men were out on a purely educative mission a few of their select number could not be detailed to meet the free labor leaders in conference. Mr. Parry's reply was as childish as it was supremely inane. There were "various reasons," he said, of which the Bench would not be aware, for special tactics on the part of strikers. There were reasons also, why it was not discreet "to go to the places of persons. Traps might be laid. It had been done in all parts of the world, and they had to guard against that sort, o? thing." But inasmuch as this quiet and unassuming witness did not condescend to disclose the nature of these cryptic "various reasons," or to explain what deeply and darkly mysterious "traps" he was expecting the community to lay for him. the Magistrate very properly declined to allow any weight to attach to his allusions. As a matter of fact, the whole ease for the defence was as flimsy and puerile as it is possible to conceive, and Mr. Parry's one mistake was in imagining that the Magistrate would listen as easily to his vaporing* | rts did the unfortunate men whom lie lins led into such distressful straits. Of | course, the whole position in a decent and well-organised community was simply impn.->il>le, and it only required the nl'glite-l. <park to ian into the (lames of r:or, a not altogether disorderly crowd. The, strikers had at their disposal legitimate means of settling any grievances they may have, and it is not in the interests of the community generally that any body of men should take the law into their own hands, however discreetly. Mr. Eraser took, if anything, a very lenient view of the offences, bin in binding the men over in a surety of

dElO'/to keep the peace he has uttered a significant warning to the Labor Party generally. Possibly, too, the decision may have some effect in bringing to a close one of the most foolish and disastrous labor disputes in the history of the Dominion. i REFUSING A DUTY. We print elsewhere a letter from the father of a couple of lads who were recently convicted at Patea for having | failed .to attend -drills. These .youths were very aggressive during the Court -proceedings, their conduct moving the -Magistrate to administer some fatherly advice to them, advice which, howevar, will probably be wasted, judging by the spirit displayed by their father, who, it is clear, is responsible for the boys taking up the unreasonable altitude they do. The father, in his letter, says that he and his family are evidently not wanted here, and, are biting driven back to the Old Country. Jf he and his boys are disinclined to undertake the responsibilities attached'to citizenship here, and to obey the laws, the best thing they can do .is to get out <>t' the country at the very earliest moment. It is not their sort that are wanted, that will build up the country and protect it in the hour of need. . The position was put clearly and strongly by the llev. ilr. Colvile, in his sernlon to, men at St. Mary's Church last Sunday, which is reported elsewhere in'this issue. "Jt irks me," he said, ''to see young men refusing .to bear their country's burden, shirking the discipline of service, and putting forward the antimilitant sentiment as their excuse. Personally, I hate •'militarism' in the jingo sense of the word—the aggressive spirit of boasting' and brag, and the glorification of brute force as the only iinAl and convincing argument—but the love of one's own country and one's own people, expressed in a quiet, strong resolution to piake any sacrifice that country demands, is a, very different thing, and it is ■on these- lines. T .believe, that we shall arrive at length at the peace the whole world desires." These words should be taken to heart by the aggrieved parent, and; if they are. we have little doubt but that- he will look at his own responsibilities -and his boys' obligations in an entirely different-light to what he has beeij doing, and change his mind about leaving a country that offers him and his hulsj greater opportunities for getting on than exist' in .any' other country in the world.