THE SUPERIOR PERSONS.

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 800, 29 October 1915, Page 8

THE SUPERIOR PERSONS.

The Von Zedlitz Case Once Again.

IT is a pity that the newspaper dis- | cussion on the Von 'Zedlitz case cannot be allowed to drop. The letters which the Professor's legal advocates keep pouring into the daily papers neither _ illuminate the subject nor improve their protege's position. To a large degree the correspondence has degenerated into an interchange of personal banter—rather elephantine in its efforts to be smart —and of personal recrimination eked out with, copious quotations from all sorts of sources. Some

of the writers talfe up the role of Superior Person, but it is a very awkward fit.

There is little doubt that Parliament ' by its recent legislation, gave effect to the popular will on this question of Professor Von Zedlitz. The attempb to differentiate his case from that of the humbler aliens who have been dismissed from their public employment, and to plead a claim for exceptional treatment, has been a signal failure. Mr. Chas. Wilson, who was the first to raise the question on the Victoria College Council of determining Professor Von Zedlitz's appointment, met with the strongest opposition, but, all the same, he correctly gauged public opinion, and his action has been justified by results.

Let the special pleaders for Professor Von Zedlitz expend some of their superabundant pity upon the case of Nurse Cavell. If they, want' instances of German brutality and high-handed intolerance to vent their indignant ink upon, the instances are innumerable. It is idle to rail against the New - Zealand Parliament for giving effect 7 to the determination of the New Zealand people to no. longer employ Germans an public positions. Until Messrs. Hislop, Morison, and Atkinson can convince the people of New Zealand that it is a right and proper thing to, retain Germans in the public service while their nation is using every means to destroy the British Empire, they are but trying to sweep back the flowing tide with futile brooms.. ■'■ >