WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 April 1921, Page 5

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

inn BUK&uir. BANNED LITERATURE. (Special Correspondent.} Wellington, April 25. The correspondence between Sir Francis Bell, the Acting-Prime Minister, and Mr. H. E. Holland, the Leader of the Social Democrats in the House of •Representatives, which is published in the local papers this morning, should go* far to remove much misapprehension inregard to the intention and the administration of the law against the publication and the distribution of a certain class of literature. Moved by a sentence of three months’ imprisonment imposed upon a member of the Wel'lington Socialist Party for having sold copies of “The Communist Programme” and other similar pamphlets at a recent public meeting, Mr. Holland wrote to the Acting-Prime Minister urging the release of the imprisoned man, and asking for “a definite statement” concerning the scope and enforcement of the law. Incidentally the Leader of the Social Democrats stated that - he knew numbers of people, including many returned soldiers, who were determined to continue distributing the banned literature, whatever the consequences might be, and that they felt, as he did, there could be neither political nor industrial freedom unless the people were given the widest possible access to every avenue of thought and source of knowledge,

THE MINISTER IN REPLY.

Sir Francis Bell’s reply is fe very model of gentle courtesy and analytic precision, reading like one of those delightful speeches with which he is wont to overwhelm his hasty critics in the Legislative Council. “I entirely agree with your insistence that there can be no full intellectual progress unless we are permitted to read (and thus to know) every viewpoint,” he says, “and I do not contest your conclusion that the pamphlet entitled ‘The Communist Programme’ contains a valuable present** tion of the case for constructive industrialism.” These fair words must have encouraged Mr. Holland to hope for fe complete capitulation. “But,” Sir Francis adds with the very next breath, “surely you roust see that neither of these contentions of' yours has any bearing on the question whether the person charged committed a flagrant offence against the law of New Zealand. Each of the documents which the offender was proved to have distributed advocated in the plainest manner, bloodshed and violence as the method by which its propaganda was to be carried into effect.” It is here, of course, that the Minister joins issue with the Leader of the Social Democrats and brings him down from the sky to the earth. MORE IN SORROW THAN IN ANGER.

But Sir Francis does not forget fpf a moment his knightly obligations. “I do not suggest,” he writes, “that you are one of those who instigated and approved the distribution and circulation of literature advocating such methods, but your words can onh- mean that it is not criminal to advocate murder as a method of attaining social or political conditions or social change. That is the issue between th£ Government of a civilised country and offenders of the class for whom you ask that the prerogative of pardon should be exercised.” From this the Minister proceeds to show that there is no ban in New Zealand against the publication or distribution of literature advocating any change, however revolutionary, in the constitution or in the form of government. It is neither unlawful uor seditious to advocate the wildest form of socialism or communnism, but it is both unlawful and seditious to advocate muder and violence as legitimate means of reaching political cuds. That, in a nutshell, is (he whole law ou the subject, and it restricts neither the speech nor the pen of anyone who wishes well for his country REPRESENTATION.

The Acting-Prime Ministei digresses •from his main theme for a moment to remind Mr. Holland that a country in the enjoyment of universal suffrage, . has no shadow of excuse for employing other than constitutional means in seeking reforms. Then he remembers. “Pray do not meet this,” he implores, “with the usual futile argument that so long as| more 4han two parties exist, power may be held by a party which has no* a full majority over the other two combined. The argument is good platform stuff, but appeals no more to your reason than it does to mine.” Sir Francis has in his mind, of course, the fact that the Government of which he is the temporary head represents only a minority of the votes polled at the last general election, but Mr. Holland should be tht last person in the world to quibble over this point It is largely due to his tactics that the Libeial and Labor Parties were divided at. the polk, and a “minority” Government returned to the Treasury Beneby. Sir Francis, on the other /Consistent advocate of majority KyfsenUtion.