Evening Post. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8,1914.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 138, 8 December 1914, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1914.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH! A year ago this country was engaged in such a struggle with the organised forces of disorder as it had never witnessed before. -For a few days, both in Wellington aad in Auckland, the King's writ ceased to run on the waterside, and the edicts of an irresponsible body, acting in arrogant defiance of the law of the land, dictated the limits within which the normal business of these ports should be carried on. It was nothing short of a revolution with which the country was confronted, as even the most thoughtless could see when law and order were trampled under foot and compelled to straggle for their lives. That the forces of civilisation triumphed after a sharp contest, but without bloodshed, is a result for which the country has to thank the courage and coolness of the present Government and especially of the Attorney-General. It is therefore appropriate that the forces v of disorder „ which h*va, k«a.jjajD£.uUx fcgnpt>«U2Sft

during the present campaign should have made a special mark of Mr Herdman. It does not take much lung-power or much organisation to ruin what might otherwise have been the most brilliant of speeches and the most successful of meetings. To the credit of the thousands of Government supporters in this city not a dozen of them were found to attempt this experiment when the Leader of the Opposition spoke in the Town Hall last week. We wish that we could say as much of the treatment given to Mr. Herdman by the Liberals and their allies when he attempted to reply to Sir Joseph Ward last night. Unfortunately, however, the Attorney-GeheraJ's interrupters were to be counted not by dozens but by hundreds, and it was only by the same quiet tenacity with which he fought the strike that he was able to get any sort of a hearing. " Cheers for Mr. Fletcher and Sir Joseph Ward and groans for Mr. Fisher made a break of some minutes, and Mr. Herdman had to shout to get a word ih." " ' Tipperary' began again from the whistling chorus, and Mr Herdman had to shout a. concluding' injunction to the electors not to let the party which said ' To hell with agreements' rule tho country." These are sample sentences from the report of the meeting in our Opposition contemporary, which may safely be taken not to have set down aught in malice against its own partisans. The report is complacently headed • "No Confidence Again— Mr. Herdman Hockled at tho Town Hall." Sadly indeed is the word "heckle" being degraded to fit a degrading practice. "To put a Parliamentary candidate, or the like, through a series of embarrassing questions," "to catechise severely "—these are the definitions of the word in the first two dictionaries available. But cat-calls do not make a catechism, and singing or whistling choruses saves a man from the embarrassing questions which he might otherwise have to face. It is ridiculous to honour the irrelevant and often inarticulate interruptions whicfi were flying about the Town Hall last night with the honoured name of "heckling." Nor is Mr Herdman the only Minister who has been thus treated A few months ago organised rowdyism succeeded in entirely denying Mr Fisher a hearing, and it was only a skilful counter-organisation and a strong force of police that averted a similar fate at his Town Hall meeting the other day. At Ponsonby yesterday a speecli by Mr Massey was made the occasion of a still more disgraceful display He had to make his way to the meeting through a howling mob, of which some member or members succeeded in putting his motor-car out of action. The meeting itself went well until a failure of the lighting apparatus, believed to have been deliberately induced, caused a clearance of the hall which nearly produced a panic Outside the hall there were violent scenes of disorder, in which the police were roughly handled and a young woman nearly lost her life. Nothing that Ministers could say or do will help them more than these outrageous tactics on tho part of their opponents Nobody would accuse Sir Joseph Ward of' instigating or countenancing such disgraceful proceedings, but the electors cannot ignore the fact that he and his friends are not treated in ihe same way. They may be speaking by the cai-d when they say that there is no alliance between their party and the Red Federation, but it is beyond denial that the same disorderly elements with which the country was at grips a year ago aro imperilling' the rights of free and lawful agitation now, that the Opposition has their sympathy and dares not repudiate their support, and that the defence Act and a dozen other precious things' might be imperilled if a party wel'o returned to power which depended upon their favour for its supremacy Mob rule is antagonistic alike to free speech, to the authority of law, and to a sound system of defence Sir Joseph Ward is not a reckless demagogue, nor is he the enemy of any of these causes. But the lamentable weakening of his Defence administration and the general reddening of his politics which occurred when he was angling for the support of three or four Labour members just after the last General Election are sufficient evidence of the danger that would threaten the country if he returned to office in a position of still more pronounced dependence oil the Red Federation.