OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 224, 20 November 1888, Page 3

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

SALVATIONISTS TRIUMPHANT ALL ALONG THE LINE, (from oub own correspondent.') Sydney, October 31. Everything comes to him who waits. At Wollongong the tide seems to have turned in favor of the long-suffering licensed victualed All over the colony he is threatened with the operation of a remorseless local Option law, which is not only intended to limit his output of manufactured products, but to take away his very means of subsistence. Of course I need hardly explain that in the eyes of the teetotallers, the *• manufactured pro duct ” of the publican is the confirmed drunkard. Without stopping to discuss that question, I may state that in the pleasant little township aforesaid, the rum selling interest is strongly represented in the Borough Council, and it has been doing a little “ locai option ” on its own account. It has secured the passing of a by-law which enacts that in Wollongong, any persons marching through the streets as a musical procession shall be liable to fine and imprisonment. Nothing to them that this right was freely conceded in every other town in the colony, even in the crowded streets of Sydney. They had their local powers, and they meant to use them according to their own interpretation of them. For my own part I must say that I think Abey have strained them to an altogether pitch. I find it very hard to oeh’eve that it was ever contemplated to allow municipal magnates, who in many cases are ignorant of the first principles of jurisprudence, to pass laws affecting the liberty of their fellow citizens, even when they disapproved of their religious belief or proceedings. Still less can I imagine that it was ever intended that the whole paraphernalia of national justice, our police force, our warders and our gaols, should complaisantly be placed at the disposal of any form of local bigotry which happened for the moment to be paramount. Perhaps lam hardly a reliable guide in this matter, for I must plead guilty to a very firm belief that if the imprisonment of any section of society is a panacea for our woes, we should suffer much less from the permanent incarceration of “Brother Bung’’and his best customers than from that of the Salvation Army, grotesque and mistaken on many points of practice as I believe them to be. A«, however, I have very little faith in the virtues of imprisonment in any case, perhaps this confession of faith is irrevalent. Anyhow, the Borough Council strained its powers to pass the by-law and it was ably seconded by the civic Solons. Repeated prosecutions brought down the strength of the recalcitrant Salvationists to two individuals, all the other effective male members being lodged in gaol at the public expense Of these two one inarched up the street playing a cornet Then there was only one. The performer was promptly summoned. He thought he had circumvented the obnoxious law as he triumphantly pleaded that one man could not possibly be a procession of men, and as a Salvationist was never, or at least, hardly ever, .known to be musical the presumption was that he could not be a “musical procession.” But the Bench promptly overruled him. He was “proceeding,” therefore, said the local luminary, he was a procession. He was playing a cornet, therefore he was a “ music .1 procession ’’—two astounding d eta which might well make the ghost of Lindley Murray turn uneasily in his grave—that is to say if the worthy grammarian is still there, which I don’t believe for a moment. What can be

the intellectual atmosphere of a place where such things are poss.ble is entirely beyond my comprehension, still ur>re so is the mental and moral condition of a Government which can permit them. November 7. My readers will by this time no doubt hive read with gratification the announcement that the Minister for Justice has decided to rebate the Wollongong Salvationists. They Wei© i nprisoned for walking in procession in the streets contrary to a by law of the Manic pal C >uncil. It remains to be seen whethir local bodies of this kind have the right to restrict the liberty of their fe low subjects in matters of this kind. Common law rights, it seems to me, should be defined by tha common law and not left to the mercy OX aldermen, or even of ratepayers, who may ba lad by strong local feeling to perpetrate great injustice. On ■ point has been made very clear by the Wollongong incident. When unjust laws are passed, laws that is to say which havj no sanction in the moral sense, and whi:h send the conscientious to gaol, as well as fie unconscientious, they are always liable to down by their own weight. The Salv itionists, for instance, could find a victim for this law every day for ten years if necessary. Every fresh conviction would cause fresh disquietude in the public mind, until at 1 kSt the situation would become intolerable. Moreover, in a very short time the gaols would be filled, so that there would be no roo n for the culprits who would present the nselves for punishment. And they would be filled, not by the enemies of society, but by some of the best elements of society. For af:er all, it is conscientiousness that is the bl le bond of society, and any civilization w lich declares war against it is doing its |h£e st to cut its own throat. Even where a ise of duty takes a mistaken direction, as I believe it has done in the case of the SMvatf n Army, it is absolutely ruinous and ins me to attempt to crush it by force. Far be ter tolerate the inconvenience in view of th; indirect benefits conferred. But where wi e ad moderate counsels are rejected th?re always remains the actual struggle. In the case of laws passed against theft, rape, m trder or the like the public indignation ri es with every fresh infraction, and it would ba impossib e for any combination of men openly to set them at defiance, for they wou d oe regarded as public enemies and would, if necessary, be shot down like wild beasts. But where conscience is on the si le of the lawbreakers rather than the lawmakers, the result is diametricdly opposite. An illustration of this principle has been lately witnessed at Leicester, in England, where the people have revolted against the iniquitous vaccination laws. The consequence is that the number of recusants has increased much mere rapidly than courts can deal with them. There are now some 6000 cases in arrear and the law is virtually reduced to a dead letter. Of course in this instance the trouble arises from the inveterate tendency to call in the policeman. Are our lands infested with rabbits or with weeds, our orchards with insect pests ? Have a law passed and call in the poli-eman. It is much easier than doing the work one’s self. The worst of it is that the policeman never does the work—in the nature of the case he cannot do it. But he has to be paid all the same. It is not yet understood that the remedy for all removable annoyances is to be found in liberty instructed, not in liberty destroyed. By an.d by the absurdity of calling in the policeman to club people into acting according to our aesthetic ideas of right and wrong will have suffi-

ciently demonstrated its own absurdity, and one great obstacle to the progress of humanity will be removed. Sometimes the superstitious reliance on the policeman takes a peculiarly revolting form. There are, for instance, in Sydney, to its fehame be it said, a number of neglected children, Being neglected, they have become vicious, and being vicious their conduct is sometimes horribly revolting. But what ought to be the result? Ought society to awake to its responsibilities in the matter. When we see adults in misery and poverty we often find that it has been of their seeking and that no one can leally help them if they will not help themselves. But with children the case is far otherwise. Kind and judicious parents know well that nothing is easier or more delightful than to train the natural innocence of childhood into decent morality. A vicious child is invariably a child who has been more sinned against than sinning. And as such, it ought to excite the tenderest pity, and the most strenuous efforts to place it in more favorable conditions. Yet some of our would-be philanthropists are imploring the aid of the policeman’s baton against these unfortunates, as though they, and not the heartlesaness which allowed them to reach tbeir present condition, were to blame. If pur legislators could spare a little time from squaobliog oyer and intriguing for tbs loaves

and fidics th -y could clear the street of these neglected children, giv* t r’m .-ome such training as iliat which is now imparled with much success ctj board the Vernon, and give them a (air chance to become useful citizens instead f a standing menace to our civilisation. The evil ia growing to such a pitch that un ess we look after the lawless portion of society in a much more intelligent and effective way than has yet been the case, they will soon assume threatening proportions.