The Waikato Argus GEORGE EDGECUMBE, Proprietor. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1898.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 340, 13 September 1898, Page 2

The Waikato Argus GEORGE EDGECUMBE, Proprietor. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1898.

It is now a considerable time since we have had to record an anarchist outrage. This morning we announce the assassination of the Empress of Austria. To the ordinarily constituted mind the opinions and doings of anarchists are as insensate as they are wicked. Periodical attempts to assassinate a sovereign or a leading statesman are always on their order paper, and occasionally they have terrified populations by the throwing of bombs and the wholesale slaughter of persons of whose political opinions they must of necessity have been entirely ignorant. The sophism that the end justifies the means, allowing that the ends aimed at, are righteous, cannot apply to the doings of these fiends. The killing of a King does not alter the form of Government or remedy evils. In all countries under monarchical Government the King never dies, one is no sooner dead than another arises from his ashes, and the Government is carried on in his name by the same body of men backed by the same forces. There has often been justification for revolution and no doubt there will be again ; this is because it brings about a change of policy. In some cases revolution has relieved nations from the power of an autocrat, in others it has relieved them from a worse despotism —that of the unthinking and selfish led by unscrupulous demagogues. It appears that this latest murderer was one of the men told off at an anarchical meeting to murder a King or an Emperor, the King of Italy for choice. Circumstances appear not to have been favourable, and his brother fiends taunted him with cowardice. The unfortunate Empress came in his way, and has been the victim of his dagger and his devilish pride. The meetings of these people should, by every possible means, be prevented, and the whole tribe exterminated, as have been the wolves in the land of our ancestors. It appears a French detective was present, and, in consequence, King Humbert was warned. Why were not the names of all present at the meeting taken, and every possible step taken to arrest them. Being parties to inciting to murder would have been a sufficient crime in every civilised country, if not to secure their hanging, at least, that they should be incarcerated for a lengthy term and thus kept out of mischief. The aged Emperor will have the sympathies of the civilised world in the loss he has sustained ; he has curs.