BALLOTS OR BULLETS?

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 38, 15 February 1919, Page 4

BALLOTS OR BULLETS?

Colonel John Ward's warning against revolution coincides with an utterance, somewhat similar in tone, by another Labour leader in South Africa, Colonel Cresswell. "Let us," writes ,Colonel Ward from Asiatic Russia, " never more .talk of the glories of Revolution; lam in it here." At the same time Colonel Cresswell declares that the South African independent movement, if pushed to its logical conclusion, "will infallibly endanger the peace of the country, and result in the continued neglect of domestic concerns, with disastrous consequences to the future well-being of'the country. .. . The permanent welfare of the people demands the unremitting attention of Parliament to domestic, social, and economic problems." This is the advice of a Labour man who still has faith in the representative system, in Parliaments, and in a democracy which is not aggressively class-conscious. He sees more practical good in ballots than in bullets, and he does not wish to have Parliamentary benefits turned aside either by ■Boer nationalism or by anti-nationalistic Bolshevism.

That the best road to reform is still through the ballot-box there can be no possible doubt; but it must be admitted that Parliaments have done a good deal towards impairing their own prestige because of the class of politician found in them. The British Labour leader who declared that "many British workers have lost confidence in politicians, and" demand direct action," is affirming a tendency that is -to be deplored, but which is certainly hot without some measure, of justification or of provocation. Politics must purify itself; electors must raise the' standard of their Parliamentarians ; and Parliaments must improve the quality-of their work. In New Zealand, as elsewhere, there are in this respect many shortcomings. Only by sincere Parliamentary attention to socialeconomic progress will the direct action propaganda be counteracted. The future of democracy depends on the sincerity of its exponents.

A highly-instructive and valuable report on the work of the Eastbourne Committee during the influenza epidemic has been prepared by Mr.'F. Martyn Renner, group captain. It gives the fullest details of the organisation which was so successfully adopted and should prove a vajuftWe reecu's. .9_-,u56 in'ewe sf .utt»*#