THE BOLSHEVIK MENACE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVII, Issue LXXVII, 24 May 1919, Page 4

THE BOLSHEVIK MENACE.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I am not angry with P. J. Power, although he has tapered off with the self-satisfied feeling that he has figuratively pulverised me. 1 am, on the other hand, endowed with a sense of humor which enables me to imagine the frame of imind he is in, and when the "wigs on the green" come so prominently into view in the picture, one feels rather sorry for his casuistry • and lame attempt to face both ways. The saving grace is in the hoary old story at the end of his letter, which recalls to my mind the very funny comedy picture entitled "One Round O'Brien," which was screened •some time ago in the 'Dominion. P. J. Power ought, however, to be very grateful to me for giving hna an opening in any first letter, <Jr rather in the very small portion of it he used, to go off at a itangent and work in matters which were entirely outside the "order of reference" I will leave your readers to judge for themselves the object he apparently had in his mind. For the life of me I cannot see anything in Mr Lloyd George's speech as quoted by P. J. Power, to build up his extraordinary deductions, and that is one reason why I made no attempt to controvert in detail what was set forth. In any case the speech was made under special circumstances, and it was a case of heroic treatment for a desperate disease. If Royalty to the toilers implies disloyalty to the State in regard to my sympathies, then I make known the fact with no uncertain sound that lam for the State. There is one W ord in my first letter which if. J. Power is rather fond of quoting and that is "truculent." Let me quote from th c paper which repri- i manded the watersiders, in.connection i with the Ministers of the Crown agree- j ing to address a mass meeting of the Watersiders at an early date: "This journal hopes for the credit of them- j 6elves and iri the interest of the good name of the labor movement generally that the waterside workers who roll up to ithe meeting -will do so in a less 'truculent* and pugnacious frame of mind." That is straight talk from their champion. The reference to the poor uneducated watersider is pure bathos. It is not that class of man who is capable of creating trouble, but rather the partly or wholly educated ■' and unscrupulous man. In any case there is no reason in this Dominion for men being without education. . However, P. J. Power has succeeded in | side-tracking so adroitly and obtaining the full power of the limelight that 11 am rather surprised at the finish to find how close he is in agreement with me on many points, and apparently it was only because he was "agin' the Government" that he entered the field. As for me, I ©till stick to my guns, and do not recede one point. I will continue to hide in the crowd and still be known as "63." (To the Editor.) Sir,—l have no desire to intrude in the controversy on the above except to point out that the real toiler here is the small,, or yeoman, farmer; the man who'works with his hands for the good of the land in particular and of the world in general, and who can most, 'be depended upon to stand firm against Bolshevism, Capitalism, Sinn Feimsm, and all the other "isms" which tend to break up the unity "of the Empire and estrange man from man.—l aan, etc., W.A.Q.