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Press, Volume LII, Issue 15776, 18 December 1916, Page 6

The wisdom of the sentence passed on Robert Seniple appears to us to be emphasised by the terms ii\ which tao local Engine-men's Union has pro-

tested against it. The Union thinks that "a lighter punishment with a warning would have mot the case, as it would bo impossible to transgress against the Jaw- again without boing caught and dealt with in a heavier way." Accordingly it protests against "the severity of the sentence imposed on R. Scrapie for a first offence." If Semplo, the "first offender," had been fined 10s—this, -we suppose, is what the Union would approve—he would perhaps have been more sharply punished —he might even have been fined £-3 — for the second offence, which a light penalty would assuredly have encouraged him to commit forthwith. All the other men of seditious inclinations would liave hastened to avail themselves also of the lenicncy due to "first offenders" against the law. Sedition -would have been too cheap and easy for these people to resist having. 10s -worth.

Nobody need think that the Enginemen's Union has any sympathy wiut sedition. It's protest'is obviously due mainly to an inability to realise how serious a crime sedition really is. Under the Crimes Act, certain seditious offences arc punishable by two years' imprisonment, and this for seditious offences in time of peace. Such activities as vScmple's, in a time like the present, are really far more wicked than some of the seditious offences for which, men wero punished befoifc *he war, and he was exceedingly fortunate, on the whole, in. escaping with a year's imprisonment. When a Union composed' of presumably intelligent working men can so seriously misapprehend tho gravity of seditious offences, it is plainly necessary that their seriousness must bo pointed out to them. The sentence passed on Semple -will have a salutary effect in checking wrongdoers and opening the eyes of ignorant people.

In the meantime two Red Fed speakers are busy on the West Coast stirring up an agitation, against the Military Service Act, and yesterday one of the professional "orators" of the Red Fed organisation addressed some "anti-conscription" meetings in this city. W© must repeat that the Government are neglecting their duty in such, activities at all. It may be contended that these meetings serve the useful purpose of enabling the "antis" harmlessly to blow off steam which, if bottled up, might produce an explosion. But this is entirely to misunderstand the facts. The agitators are not the steam-whistles of a boiling democracy at all. They are not the means through which a powerful and deep-seated resentment of the Act expresses itself, but parasites on the body of Labour. of the heady counsel of such men, tradeunionism would be as healthy and lawabiding as the average individual ■unionist certainly is. These agitators are not blowing off steam; they a re trying to make a fire where, without them, no fire would be. If the Government had any intention of allowing the Act to be repealed before the necessity for it is ended, their countenance of these meetings would be intelligible. But the Act is not to be repealed, and the agitation against it, which cannot be conducted without seditious speech, is from beginning to end, and in all its forms, an infringement of the law. It should be forbidden expressly, as it is forbidden implicitly in the war regulations.

On Saturday wo printed a statement by the Minister for Education defending his oonduct in refusing to accede to applications, by servants of the Department he controls, for concessions in the way of extra holidays, etc. Mr Hanan gave some very good reasons why such concessions could not properly be granted, and these we need not repeat, as they will in any case occur to anyone who thinks about the subject. What w© do wish to say is that most people will have been astounded that the Minister should have such a matter on his hands. The average public servant's work is easy and mechanical, involving little mental and no bodily fatigue. The frequent holidays he receives throughout the year are in most cases sufficient for all recuperative purposes. He requires annual leave almost less than anybody. It is not at all pleasant, accordingly, to find him asking for extra holidays.. One would have supposed that the war bonus of £400,000 distributed amongst the public servants would be considered by them a qufte sufficient concession. * It is impossible not to sympathise in the fullest measure with the spirit of Major Redmond's reference to the unity of the Irishmen in the trenches. Unhappily, it is difficult to feel hopeful that the brotherhood uniting the Unionist and Nationalist soldiers will *.cc.d tj the ending of "the Irish problem-Such hopes have arisen in the past, and have been disappointed. In a note to one of the chapters of his "Westward Ho,'' Kingsley said : — The Irishman, when he is brought as a soldier under the regenerative influence of law, discipline, self-respect, j.ml loyalty, can prove himself a worthy riv&l of tlio more stern .Norse-Saxon warrior. God grant that the military brotherhood between Irish nnd English, which is the special glory of the present [Crimean] war, may be the germ of a brotherhood industrial, political, and hereafter perhaps religious also; and that not merely the corpses of heroes, but the feuds >and wrongs which have parted them for renturies, may lie buried, once and for evor, in the noble graves of Alma and of Inkerman.