DEPORTATION

Grey River Argus, 29 July 1925, Page 7

DEPORTATION

PROTEST MEETING IN CHRISTCHURCH. On Sunday evening July 19th, a meeting originally summoned to protest against the imprisonment of Mr Lyons was held in spite of Mr. Lyons 7 release through agreeing to leave tne countrv, to protest against deportation by regulation and dem.tnd free speech and free thought. Mr Bloomfield took the chair, and briefly referring to re-

cent events said we were treated liki children. He then called on tin speakers, Mr Chapple being the first. Mr Chapple said: “We are here L

advocate the principle of free speech and free thought. Every man has a divine right to free speech, lor as Huxley said: “it is better to go wrong in freedom than to go right in chains. Initiative is what the world wants. It is initiative that censorship on free speech crushes. It is from lack of nonconformity that the world is suffering. Christchurch is “full of human granio])hones,” but we do net ■want “human moles but human skylarks.” All revolutionary advance has come

through rebels. Galileo, Darwin, \ oltaire, Paine showed the way. The most sacred part of man was his personality a.id the strongest man was “lie who stands most alone.”

Mr Bell who followed emphasised the need to get down to causes and not stops at effects. Why was Lyons imprisoned ? Because of a war regulation. If we did not get that war regulation off the statute book, we were i.iever safe. And what was the cause of censors, Proximate causes were the desires of those who hold political (because economic') power in the country to maintain their own position; also the love of acting the dominating father and telling others what is good for them. The real cause however, was that we had no real system of education but something that for all practical purposes was simply propaganda for the present order of society. Till we had free education aiming at individual development a.id a free press whose main desire was to give all the new ideas current with a policy looking to the future rather than to the past and present, there was not much hope of ad va nee.

Air Fournier spoke from the point of view of class struggle. Lyons was imprisoned, not so mi ch because he was a rebel but because he was a leader of “job fighters.” In the working class

there were two elements, one a majority element, lethargic, lacking courage and not given to thinking: the other the militant element, distinguished for just these qualities.” It is on the relation of these two elements in the working class itself that the future of the Avorkers depends,” he said. “It is right that the militant should be controlled by the mass, but not in such a way as to destroy the militant’s initiative. It is the militant who takes the first step. “It is the first step that counts” as the French say; and it is just this first step that demands the courage that the militant usually possesses. Lyons in demanding the “ham and eggs,” in acting right on tl’.e job, doing the dangerous work and suffering for it, exemplifies the militant.” The speaker concluded with a poem whose refrain was: “Yon may not travel, but you make the road. ’ ’

Mr Macfarlane was the last speaker. He thought that Lyons bad been released through the action taken by the political side of the movement, but such action was not, in his opinion, for the benefit of the industrial side. This ease might have been made a test ease of the War Regulations in general. While these regulations were still unrepealed, they could be used at any time to the detriment of the industri 1! workers. The “ham and eggs” reference in the I’ress showed the real nature of the objection to Lyons It was on the job where the worker is robbed, and. anyone who works on the job to do away with that robbery naturally came into conflict with the capitalist class. The speaker then pointed to the important position that New Zealand seemed likely to occupy in the near future in the Pacific. What too was the working class going to do in the face of Fascism if it came? The people of New Zealand were treated like children. AGAINST DEMOCRACY. MELBOURNE, July 8. A meeting of protest against the proposed Immigration Act was held last night. Prominent trades union officials spoke on the question, Mr Robert Ross said the people of the Commonwealth had not yet realised the full importance of the proposed Act. They should realise that if it was passed this country would lose all that was implied in demo craey. During the war a regime of Government by regulation was imposed on the people, ami, if this Act was allowed, to go through a regime of Government by deportation would be initiated. Mr O’Neill, assistant secretary of the Seamen’s Union, stated that there could be no doubt t’iit the hill was directed against Messrs Walsh and Johnson. The workers of the Com monwealth should not allow them to be deported. It would be better if the whole industrial system was smashed and something better built up in its place. These men were not criminals but were good citizens in every sense of the world. Mr Bruce condemned them as a menace. It was true in one way that they were, as they were a distinct menace to the exploiting activities of th e employing classes. Mr Bruce might succeed in deporting Messrs Walsh and Johnson, but he would never succeed in breaking the spirit of the seamen of Australia. A motion was carried demanding the prompt protest of all defenders of democracy, and that no stone be left ■unturned to force the Bruce-Page Government before the country on the issue.