Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1920. CHEAPER COAL.

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 September 1920, Page 4

Greymouth Evening Star. AND BRUNNERTON ADVOCATE. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1920. CHEAPER COAL.

lx common with, the general public, we are still awaiting some further developments in connection with, the great scheme which was revealed by (Jr Smith at a meeting of the < Greymouth Borough Council some weeks ago*, with tne object of enabling the people of Greymouth to obtain their household coal supplies at a lower price. A most optimistic prospect was opened up at the said meeting, and there was much talk of motor lorries for delivery purposes, and so' on. Finally, a sub-committee was set up, with Cr Smith as its chairman, to “inquire into ways and means of supplying coal direct to the public of Greymouth/ 5 a report to be presented to the Council as soon as possible. The point, was also stressed that the people were unable to procure supplies of coal for domestic purposes, ah though at the same time the bins were full. However, nothing has yet been heard as to the result of the sub-committee’s inquiries, and the town’s coal supplies are still very uncertain, to say the least. ISTotv that the “go-slow” policy is understood to be?in operation, the position in all probability will become, much y’orsq, and what coal '.is available,slipuld be distributed in the fairest and',most economical s

maimer possible. The sub-com-mittee’s report on tbe matter is therefore being* awaited with ' a considerable amount of interest, and its early presentation will be welcomed. Ko doubt such an inquiry, if prosecuted in the right quarters, will have valuable results, and it is to' be sincerely hoped that the idea, like several others which had as their objective the welfare of the town, will not be allowed to fall through from the lack of interest manifested therein.

A MISTAKEN - IDEA. ' The International League of Trade Unions lias just issued a manifesto l to workers throughout the world asserting that “the Russian Revolution is attacked and threatened,” and appealing* to them to do everything in their power to prevent assistance in any form being* supplied to the opponents of the Bolsheviks. We are not in a position to say precisely what this extraordinary documentmeans to those responsible for its composition, hut to people in general^it must suggest that any opposition to Lenin and Trotsky and the Soviets is an attempt to undo the work of the Russian Revolution and to deprive the Russians of the rights and liberties that the Revolution won for them. Now, we desire to point out in this connection that such an inference as this is entirely baseless and misleading. For in the first place the Bolsheviks did not bring about the Russian Revolution, which was the outcome of agitation and organisation maintained for a hundred years by the intellectual section of \tlie Russian upper and middle classes, tbe very classes that tbe Bolsheviks have done their best .to extirpate. When Lenin seized power and overthrew Kerensky he boasted that he had only 200,000 followers, and that he would “impose the proletarian will” of this handful upon the hundred and eighty millions of the Russian people. To suggest or imply that the Bolsheviks were responsible for the Russian Revolution is therefore to pervert deliberately the plain facts of history. Next, as to the suggestion or insinuation that antagonism to the Bolsheviks involves an attempt to deprive Russia of the fruits of the Revolution, we may point out that the promoters of the Revolution had always fought for democratic principies, and that after deposing the Czar they set about summoning a representative National Assembly which was to decide upon the form of Government to be adopted, and the rights and liberties that the people were to enjoy. But when Lenin and Trotsky seized power by force they refused to summon a Constituent Assembly, they denounced Democracy, they rejected with scorn the “bourgeois” demands for freedom of speech, a free Press, and, free right of assembly, and they proceeded to set up on" their own responsibility a tyranny more rigorous and despotic than even Russia had ever known before. * It follows from this that the triumph of Bolshevism in Russia has been the destruction of all tbe privileges and rights and liberties that the Revolution, as first conceived and carried into effect, conferred upon the Russian people. To support Bolsevism is not to strike a blow for Liberty—it is to reject Democracy and repudiate Freedom, and to declare instead for Tyranny naked and unashamed. For those who are prepared to sacrifice everything’else in life in the cause of the “class*war,” no doubt Bolshevism is and must remain sacred and inviolable. But let no one imagine either that the Bolsheviks brought about the Russian Revolution, or that they have done anything to promote or to secure the great objects and purposes whidh so l many generations of the best and bravest.of Russia’s children gave tbeir blood and their lives to achieve.