THE ATTACK ON POPULAR LIBERTY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 309, 23 September 1908, Page 6

THE ATTACK ON POPULAR LIBERTY.

The uncdifying progress of tho Second Ballot Bill had its climax in tho Legislative • Council yesterday. As on previous occasions, an overwhelming case was made out against the clause introduced to suppress freedom of speech and to take away , tho liberty of public meet-

ing, and, as before, the AttorneyGeneral replied with such sophistries as would not deceive a schoolboy. In order to give the Council a final opportunity to save itself from contempt, the Hon. J. lligg moved the recommittal of the objectionable clause. In passing, we must protest against Mr. Pugg's suggestion that the newspapers did not sufficiently .condemn the prohibition of public meetings between ballots. Nothing could have been stronger than the press denunciations of this iniquitous proposal. But Mr. Rigg will now probably agree with us that the Government's dummies in the Council would hold to their purpose in defiance of all the newspapers and all reason. The Attorney-General declared that the carrying of Me. Rigg's motion would kill the Bill. Absurd on the face of it, this suggestion was, doubly absurd for its implication that the whole Bill hinged on a clause that was not in the measure as it was presented to the House, but that was added as an afterthought at the end of the discussion in Committee. Me. Rigg's motion, after a. valiant defence of public liberty by the men who still retain their independence, was defeated by one vote. It is with much regret that we feel constrained to refer to that vote, the vote of the Hon. R. A. Loughnan. Throughout the earlier debates in'the Council, Me. Loughnan vehemently opposed the obnoxious clause, and he explained on the motion for the third reading that as his efforts had been fruitless he would swallow the clause and vote for the, third reading for the sake of the general provisions of the Bill. Presented immediately after with a final opportunity of registering his disapproval of the clause that he condemned—and an.opportunity of quite an exceptional kind, since his vote would have secured the victory to the side which he had been championing—he coolly voted for the 'enemy. Journalists everywhere will feel pained that a gentleman whose elevation to the Council was welcomed as an honour conferred on their profession should have so acted in face of an exceptional opportunity to justify the expectations' of his friends. The Bill will now go to the. House for ratification. The House .cannot, unless it violates the established procedure of Parliament, excise the notorious clause-19 except by dropping the whole Bill. Arc there not enough guardians of popular liberty in the House 'to insist upon this method of keeping the Statute Book free from a measure that is .a blot upon the of the Dominion 1