"NIBBLING ANARCHY."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3081, 31 December 1908, Page 4

"NIBBLING ANARCHY."

Mr G. K. Chesterton writes in characteristic style in a London paper on brawling in politics, which has been very rife of late. In his opinion there is no excuse for any disorder which is not rebellion. At times one is justified in smashing the State with the intention of building a better structure, but one is nt)fc justified in chipping bits off it, as the suffragists do. If a man were so strongly convinced that the inhabitants of the Battersea flats had to pay too much income tax that he learned to shoot, with a view to assassinating all the authorities, and replacing them by others, he might be considered a highly respectable person. But if he subjected the authorities continually to small annoyances —kept them waiting long, left insecure chairs for them to sit on, and fresh paint for them to lean against, removed their umbrellas when they called—then he would be in the wrong. With the proceedings of the suffragists Mr Chesterton has no patience, "nibbling anarchy" he calls them. Mr Chesterton sees nothing in the future but "a vista of use-

less riots and no revolution." When a section of the public cannot get what.they want they will, emulating the suffragists, interrupt public meetings, and cause other disturbances. Miss Pankhurst will continue to shout "Votes for women!" until, out of dreary good nature, the public give her a vote and a seat in the House of Commons. Then, when she rises to speak in tne House, someone will put his head through a window and shout, "Votes for rabbits!" and render her speech quite inaudible. There is no end to the process; not even by giving votes to rabbits. It does not come to a head as real revolution does. It does not give us first real war and then real peace, as the genuine revolution does. The people who manage these things have neither the courage to fight, nor the strength to sit still.