The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1919. P.C. WEBB'S RELEASE.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1919, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1919. P.C. WEBB'S RELEASE.

It was hardly to be expected that Mr. P. C. Webb, sometimes M.P., then a conscientious objector to military service and subsequently sent to prison as an offender under the Military Service Act, should, on his release,, be lamb-like on regaining his liberty. What he said at the welcome accorded to him by his fellow extremists at Wellington the other night is exactly what might have been forecasted, and the formal motion of welcome was couched in terms that harmonised with the distorted views of the released Socialist. Naturally it had to be highly spiced to suit the palates of those present, so that the reference to the "tyranny of militarism in the face of popular prejudice and ignorance, and all the tortures of political and military spite and persecution" to which the so-called conscientious objectors were subjected, was quite in accord with the occasion. These frothy ravings may have the same use as the safety valve on a boiler, and judging from the wealth of vituperative verbiage in the motion, it would be charitable to assume that the vials of wrath have been emptied out so as to prevent a mental explosion that would necessitate enlarging our institutions for the care of unhinged humanity. With a cue like that contained in the motion, Mr Webb was provided with ample scope for denunciations, and he used his opportunity to the full. Unintentionally, his remarks on prison life stand out as a serious warning to law-breakers, and should be of some service as a. deterrent, but his accusations against the administration of the prison may be but another means of stating that his life there was like the lot of a policeman—not a happy one. That is a telling argument against setting the law at defiance, and Mr Webb's punishment was no greater than that of others, nor is there any reason why it should have been less, for all men are equal in the eye of the law. Apparently it was a bitter experience, and it is possible that his sneer at the patriotism of the Premier aud Sir Joseph Ward originated in the fact that while they were being royally treated for their patriotic work, Mr. .Webb was having an unpleasant sojourn in prison for breaking the law which patriotism necessitated. Though he rails against his treatment, he appears to have been in company of congenial spirits, some of whom he says were "better men than he'had met in Parliament." No one will grudge him this consolation, unless, possibly, those members of the House who belong to the same party as Mr Webb. It surely must have caused him a wrench to part company with his fellow prisoners, whom it may be assumed were not being kept at, the coun-try's-expense on account of their good behaviour. The recital of his offer to serve in the Tunnelling Corps to entrench Paris and France in order to make a draw is

the legend of King Canute com-' mahding the waves to go "thus far and no further.'' Equally perverted was his appeal to the returned soldiers, to whom the ap- | peal should have a similar effect I to that of waving a flag in front of an infuriated bull. Par better would it have been for Mr Webb to play the game—if he knows how—instead of resorting to abuse and calumny. He broke the law and was punished, and had he on his release acted the part of a real man he might have gone a good way to reinstate himself, but he remains the same as of old, and probably will do so to the end of the chapter. One need only ask, What would have become of our liberty—not to speak of our possessions—if the rest of the ablebodied and eligible British behaved like Mr Webb and his ilk before the brutal behaviour of the Germans? The answer is obvious—our liberty, the most cherished possession of a people—would ' have been lost and we would have been subject slaves of the Huns, morally and physically, for generations and generations. If this fate had been ours, the Webbs and I the Semples and the Hollands would not have been able to rant and rail at anything and everything as they now do. The most pathetic feature of their behaviour is their entire lack of sense of the ludicrous, also that they can get anybody to listen to their rabid vaporings.