Grey River Argus and Blackball News FRIDAY, JULY 14, 1922. GULLING THE PEOPLE.

Grey River Argus, 14 July 1922, Page 4

Grey River Argus and Blackball News

FRIDAY, JULY 14, 1922. GULLING THE PEOPLE.

Delivered ev*ry mo. Ding In G:. ,utfc J Holntika i>b Walfeend. Tart.-, m.e. Nfcahtic cn'-Ali Nelson Creek, Brunner, Tr Kingha kvlomanu. Poerua, Inchbonnie. P<tara Ruru, Kau.Ltia, Kotuku- Mcana. Aratika, Bunanga Dunoir.c. Cobden, Baxters, Kokiri, Ahatira, Ikamatua Btulwater. Waiuta. Reefton, Ross. Ruatapua, Mana nut, H.iri Han. Waiho Gorge, Weheka, RewanuL Otira, IniJigahua Junction, Westport, Waimangaroa, Denniston, Granity. Millerton. Ngakawau. HectorCape Foulwind, and Karam*?

The capitalist politicians now ruling : New Zealand are firm believers in the • utility of a policy of fooling the peo; ■ pie. They are more hypocritical by ; far then their prototypes in other parts lof rhe Empire. A man was prosecut- ■ ed the other day for a speech upon 1 the subject of the downfall of capi- ! talism, and it is obvious that the Government designed this prosecution to appeal to the gullible element in the community, by persuading them the Government’s only concern in the matI ter is to prevent a violent uprising, ; possible at any moment, and calculated merely to create disorder. Does it never strike these capitalist politicians that they are the real prompters of a | resort to violence, with their encouragement of militarism, navy leagues, exploiters, and Jingoism? For the proletariat to consider the contingency of an eventual resort to force is held to be a crime against the capitalist State but to compel the average youth to train for war is held up as a virtue. The obvious truth is that democracy is taboo in this country, and the limits of free speech are far narrower than in the Old Country or, indeed, any other part of the Empire. The people are not trusted by those whom they themselves from time to time have clothed in a little brief authority. There assuredly must be something rotten in the state of Denmark when the free discussion of any question is forbidden. It would be legal, we are told, to advocate a republic for New Zealand, but wo fancy any opponent of the Government who dared do so, would be prosecuted, for the purely political ends of the party in power. It is not surprising, therefore, when a system of electing Parliament cal-

culated to kill the domination of a wealthy minority is dubbed “political cannibalism,” and “idiotic” by the political spokesmen of that minority. They do not wish the working class to have any say or power, but are not one whit scrupulous over the means they adopt to squelch opposition. Thoy are very short-sighted, though, if they would only trouble to look abroad. In • America for several years past, the iron heel of massed capital has throttled the free expression of opinion in a manner utterly unprecedented in the

1 past history of that ,republic. What consequence do we find to-day? Ham Gompcrs, one of the “stool pigeons” iof the capitalist is losing his ' grip of such proletarians as he has dominated in the American Labour Federation for no less a period than forty long The cables tell us the most intellectual of his affiliated Unions have left the Federation in order to link up with the Communist Party. Gompers has been one of those who upheld the U.S.A, capitalist Government in stifling free speech, and his chickens are coining,home to roost as surely as will those also of William Ferguson Massey and Co. It used to be said, until lately, that Ameeriean Labour’s, only means of getting rid of Gompers was to wait till he died. Home people may even feel the same to-day about New Zealand’s hopes of getting rid of Mr Massey, though, if so, it would be as bad an advertisement for New Zohland as Gompers has been fur American Labour. The latter is as antiquated in his ideas as the Prime Minister of this country; and has proved a Labour reactionary of the worst type, standing, not for a co-operative commonwealth, but for the exploitation of Labour eternally; for making the workers of his country the prey of plutocracy. It is thus a hopeful sign when the term of his domination seems to bo approaching. Ho saw the rise of an organisation that wielded supreme power among th? workers of his country for a quarter of a century, and he now sees its impending dissolution. Great movements are invariably of slow progress, but the government or the leader who deliberately retards them ignores the truth that evolutionary processes are often characterised by earthquakes. Thus a volcanic eruption is br.sti-qtml by a blocked crater. The Gov< rnQjk.ent’i of tb|s country, 'ignorng the lessons around it, not only resorts to autocracy in trying to throttle opposition. It deliberately renders its misrule more tyrannical by open class discrimination. Violence in vituperating against the working class is rewarded as a virtue in its backers, but retaliation by Labourites is not re-

warded with an 0.8. E., but by fines or imprisonment. The only cult with a free scope is that of unalloyed jingoism. The present regime may imagine it can continue driving discontent underground, into apparent impotence; but it is only making more certain in its own ease a reckoning day that has nearly arrived in America already. Each resort to tyranny means a further step in the same direction, until the process inevitably begets a great popular re-action. Russia is the writing on the wall!