The Daily News. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1914. NATIONAL HYPOCRISY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 188, 7 February 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1914. NATIONAL HYPOCRISY.

When imtions or individuals set out to teach others their duty, they must be prepared to have their motives questioned and to have the accusation of hypocrisy hurled at them. Yet the principle of non-interference with others may be carried to an extreme of cynical indifference to'public morality, peace and prosperity. Intervention in other people's affairs is justifiable whenever the people fall flagrantly short of complying with the code of civilisation 01 the dictates of common humanity. If Europe were right in stepping in to stop frightful massacres in the Balkans, is not America justified in attempting to stop fratricidal strife in Mexico and in insisting upon theestablishment of peaceful government in a legal manner? Oi course she is; nay, more, in the opinior of most people it is her duty to inter vene even more actively than she. na; yet done. Yet, President Huert. seems to have got good ground for ac cusing the United States of hypocrisy "What kind of a government have yo> in New York';" Huerta asked an Amo rican recently. '"I sec your governo is impeached for perjury and larceny They tell me your police' officers sten and murder citizens on the street* What do you come down here for, any how, to preach to us about clean govern ment?" Huerta went on to tell how h once travelled on American railwa all "

•ains all the way from El Paso to St. iouw without paying his fare simply ip keeping the conductors supplied with ;ood cigars. He might have gone furher and enquired of what right thj "resident of the United States called he Mexican elections irregular, whent was a notorious fact that in some if the American States the negroes vere forcibly prevented from voting, vhilc at other elections the use of bal-ot-boxes with false bottoms enabled ;he party in po.wcr to destroy the votng papers of their opponents. : But the fact that there has been a criminal Governor of New York, and gangs of :orrupt policemen and politicians iu various States, does not absolve the American Government from doing its iuty in relation to Mexico. Nor is it fair to bring an accusation of hypocrisy. The moral status of a nation or community is not to be gauged by that of its lowest elements; it is arrived at by striking an average; and, even then, tha morality upon which the Government bases its policy ought to be ahead of the average. In every county, in greater or Jesser degree, there is political corruption, there is lawlessness, there is a base and criminal element; but the Government of any country is not necessarily hypocritical if it intervenes with influence, persuasion or threat to check greater evils in another country. (? every individual or rfttion waited until it was perfect before it attempted to uplift another, no progress would ever be made. The man who interposes between an infuriated drayman and the horse he is cruelly beating need not be a saint; lie is as fallible as the drayman, and may on occasion require to have the curb placed on his temper, it is only by the assertion of the higher moral sense that progress n» civilisation is possible. And if it be hypocrisy to expose and denounce an evil iu others before we have got rid of the evil in ourselves, then hypocrisy is one of tin' greatest forces for good that exist in this imperfect world. But of course the term is completely misapplied when used in reference to intervention iu protest against cruelty or Itigrant niisgovernmenl. British or Anglo-Saxon people have ever been foremost in contending for a higher national and international morality. In return for this, the British have beea called a nation of hypocrites. In some respects they undoubtedly are. But when one nation rebukes another for barbarity, it is not evidence of hypocrisy, but of devotion to a high idem, mul shows a desire to confer upon all nun the blessings of freedom and civilisation. It is pleasing to find our American brethren animated by this ' spirit, and. with the consciousness of , sincerity and good intention they need i not heed the shallow accusation of hypo- ' iT\*y. Their inlervention in 'Mexico is ino-l commendable, anil it is to lie hoped !]•:'', i', v.-ii! lead '<> a cessation of the ,

civil war now raging. A declaration of war at present would, however, bo uujustiliable. The situation is critical, for there are many hot-bloods in America calling for armed intervention. The better-informed people are well aware, however, that Mexico would prove a veritable hornets' nest. They know that Brother Jonathan failed ou a former occasion, when he thought '*That he the Mexicans could thrash Right into brotherly kindness," and,'they will .therefore only sanction warlike measures as a last resort and only to the extent of protecting the interests and the lives of the citizens of the United States.