The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. MONDAY, MARCH 24, 1881.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 4322, 24 March 1884, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

MONDAY, MARCH 24, 1881.

For the osnse that lacks assistance, For the wrong; that seeds resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that we can do.

The churches'are agitated over a city by-law which will como into force on the second of April, and which is said to be levelled against street preaching. Petitions were numerously signed at the several places of worship yesterday against the innovation, and we confess that we are wholly ignorant of any agitation in its favour. The by-law appears, indeed, to be a new outbreak of officialism, and a flagrant infringement of a time-honoured privilege enjoyed by the people. Wo are getting such a submissive and docile order of beings that the day is apparently not distant wlien wo shall look humbly to these clever gentlemen who are paid out of the public taxes to regulate the time of our taking dinner, and the hour when we should be stowed away comfortably in our little beds. In the interim, however, there will probably be one or two little rebellions, and the right of tho citizens to hold open-air mass meetings, either of a religious, trade, or any other kind, is a very good battleground to begin with. We admit that a bylaw should exist comprehensive enough to prevent obstruction to traffic or public disorder, but when it goes beyond that, as the law under notice unquestionably does, it is high time to ask what is the reason for its enactment. If it be, as we presume in the present instance, that the city authorities are desirous of depriving the orderly of a valued privilege merely because the police are powerless to restrain and punish the disorderly and larrikin element in the city, who are the real offenders against the public peace, then we maintain that it is the men who are charged with the preservation of public order, and not the law, that need amendment. But given the general imbecility of the authorities and tho unrestricted power of larrikinism, there are classes in the community who prefer their liberty, even though it may be attended with some personal danger through the weakness of the governing bodies, rathor than ask protection from a ruling body which professes to afford public protection, and consult public rights by abolishing a privilege which can be exercised with; out harm or disturbance. Working men, to whom this right specially belongs, must remember that it is not a mere religious

queauon^wcapon may apleS-duringeiec-1 tions, for instance, or trado disputes—when this abolition of tho right of open-air meetings will be used with destructive effect against the masses of the people by a few persons. At this moment, common sense stands on the side of unrestricted . liberty of speech so long as it is used in an orderly way. Out-door addresses are the primitive and natural method of reaching the popular ear; they are tolerated in tiie great towns of England; and it will be time »noiiirh to put them down here when they become a serious public nuisance. Of course, some power to regulate such gatherings, ahrl to punish obstructions to traffic, is necessary, and if that were all that tho Council meditate in the new by-la* we should sec no particular objection to it. Quacks selling their nostrums atid similar collectors of crowds might be beneficially removed. Bub the sweeping terms of the by-law,and the timoof itsenactnient, arouse cuspicions that its object is epcchl— that it is, in short, meant- to Inaugurate a war against tho bodies which are now ih tho habit oi countehancingstreet prcaehing; If 80, the Council and tho police arc entering upon a War in which they will inevitably be worsted, e\-en if they should fortify their position with fifty bylaws. Such lnws can only be carried out when they are backed by t'<e approval of a large part of tho nsOVJIO ; and wo believe that were i-he iense of tlie entire community taken to-morrow it would show ftn enoriUOus majority in favour of tho petition, which is printed in Another column.