THE WEAK LINK

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3196, 21 September 1917, Page 6

THE WEAK LINK

Sir,—The :Cargo of foodstuffs now providing food'for fishes at the entrance to Cook Straits provides also food for thought. Whether or no the Port Kembla was loaded by free labour during the strike which affected the shipping at Sydney and Melbourne so disastrously is not as yet clear. Nor is it perfectly certain that 6he carried an infernal machine in her holds. But the incident reveals 'the fact' that there is a weak link somewhere in the chain of Empire, it I may be rusty or chafed or improperly 1 forged. No cable is quite as good as it appears to bo to the casual observer. We - have taken it for granted that the strength of every link in that chain which is now strained to its utmost is equal to.tbe strength of every other link. Yet a few minutes' work with file or saw or chisel will destroy the tensile capacity of the best cable on earth. Is it not time for a thorough overhaul, link by link to be tested and examined? There are those whose duty it is ! to do this. You and I, sir, and your other readers must insist on it being done. We can but guess at which link is the weak one.. We know, tlose-.of us who are outside the House, as well as those who are within it, that tho enemy alien is yet in our midst. Whether "he is strong or not numerically does not matter so much, but his cunning enables him to take advantage of shortcomings on .mr part every time. If. for instance, one party among us, by making some comparatively trivial matter a bone of contenaon, divides the community into hostile camps, or if the regular supply,of efficient labour at a Shipping port is dislocated, or if a suggestion that the interests ot one class are at variance with those of another, is allowed to obtain: in any one of these instances the alien—no matter how completely he may have tan mto-alised-finds congenial soil and for sowing and planting his lies and haltlies, with even a bomb or tv.-ohereand there. As soon as he sees men s aroused he knows that common sense and good judgment are displaced, and he ciui fay and do things which it would be folly on. his part either to say or to go if we on our part were firm and and, thoroughly united in l £ hearted and one-mmded ettort allien .fc S our vital strength. Not the nHen himself is our. real Sanger Our •* >i S?;™ trs a,; ?''{• J l '™" Pahiatua, September 19.