CORRESPONDENCE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVII, Issue LXXVII, 23 May 1919, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE

WHO ARE THE BOLSHEVISTS?

(To the Editor.) Sir,-—I have made "63" angry. But anger is a short madness—ira furor brevis est—and so it happens that the first sentence of his letter is an insult, and the second a libel. For this I thank him, since by the contrast it sheds an additional light upon th c uncontroverted and incontrovertible fact s and reasoning therefrom contained in my letters. His third sentence gives an assurance which I frankly and gladly accept, that he has been a lifelong toiier. I would ask him to be henceforth more loyal to hi* co-toilers than his first letter would prove him to be. His remarks on the toiler in his second letter are admirable. He sees, as 1 have frequently pointed out, that the workers are in grave danger of being led astray by false guides; but those who write after his first manner only iiritate the workers and can never commend themselves to them as 6afer guides, and it is safer and more truly sympathetic guides the workers' need.' I applaud also his hope that lawlessness will be uprooted, and that greed and profiteering will be sternly dealt with in the immediate future; but 1 would ask him to consider seriously if the fiendish conduct which I have condemned is not the most fruitful cause iof the industrial unrest which thread ens, more than the international difficulty. ~the peace of the world. He thinks the scandals exposed at the English Coal Commission do not practically concern us, 'but if he will only call to mind th e figure made by me at the great meeting in the Winter Show building on the day New Zealand entered into j the war, he will see how much he is at ' fault. I described a great living body stretched across a great part of the J world, having its nerve centre in EngT j land and its limbs in Egypt, Africa, India, Australasia, North America, etc. , It is the British Empire; whatever disturbs or troubles any part reacts upon the whole body and is felt in every part. To think as "63" suggests would be to carry Sinn Fein, or self-reliance, to foolish extremes that nobody in New Zealand dreams of. I had read and have read again Lord French's encomium of the English Premier in Tuesday's Star. This encomium by the -brilliant but muchabused general was very beautiful and very just, but it had no reference whatsoever to the facts or the reasoning ' thereon contained in my letters, but to a vastly different ~ matter which, indeed, as I disinctly stated, wa6 of comparatively minor importance in my judgment. When 1 pass encomiums upon a man's athletic achievements nobody concludes that I am commending him as a singer or oratcr. General French_was careful not to risk his reputation by extolling the foolish economic statement of Mr George Or his iniquitous threat .of starving the , wretched miners whose faces are ground into the earth by the profiteering and pleasure-seeking mine-owners of Eng- i land. Apart from these few correc- ' tions. there is much in the second letter of "63" of which I heartily approve, but he must remember in future J that abuse and libel, though en regie in Hawera, may never take the place of aj-gument. Finally, had he entered the field of battle as humbly as he has fled from ii, he might have left it as proudly as he entered upon it. He entered upon it with arrogant and truculent phrase, hoping to evoke as antagonist some poor uneducated water- | 6ider; but beholding a different an- ; tagonist he fled in discomfiture, hum-; bly crying "I have no desire to enter into a futile controversy with P J. Power." "Who struck the Derryman? Who struck the Derryman?" cried a pugilistic individual seeking fight at an Irish fair. "I struck him," eaid a giant from Kerry. "By jove," said the ibully, "you gave him a great blow"; and he hid in the crowd.—l am, etc.,

P. J. POWER