New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1932. SOURCES OF DISORDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21159, 16 April 1932, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1932. SOURCES OF DISORDER.

Every hour that passes since the shameful outbreak of lawlessness in the city on Thursday evening deepens the conviction that it was the outcome of evil propaganda. That shocking exhibition of mob violence, with its equally revealing sequel of last evening, was not the automatic result of distress occasioned by economic hardship. A review of what happened, from the outset of the disturbance, through all the details of the wanton destruction, to the scandalous looting that followed, discloses a premeditated purpose. Many participating in the outrage were doubtless moved by discreditable instincts aroused only distantly by the propaganda, but there would have been neither opportunity nor prompting for their conduct without that. The immediate blame lies on those who, in various ways, deliberately organised the trouble. All conversant with what has been going on for a long time, and particularly during recent weeks, know that there has been a studied attempt to arouse resentment against constituted authority. Incendiary speech, some of it in Parliament, a great deal of it at meetings of unemployed, has been frequent. As often as not, this hf.s been punctuated with disclaimers of violent intention. But what have these disclaimers been worth ? It is impossible to blunt the suspicion that, in the main, they have been adroit attempts to add weight to the charges against the authorities and to fasten blamo on them for the violence when it occurred. What is thus true of inflammatory utterance applies equally to much that has been printed and published with the. same pernicious purpose.

For the scandal of Thursday evening the Postal and Telegraph Employees' Association must be held partly responsible. The trouble began with its meeting in the Town Hall, preceded as it was by a procession through Queen Street with the manifest intention of producing a general excitement of sympathy. As the meeting continued after the hall was cleared of the invading crowd organised by the Unemployed Workers' Association, those in charge of the meeting can be freely exonerated from complicity with the mob that clashed with the police in the vicinity of the hall and afterwards committed sabotage and robbery in Queen Street. Apparently, however, they took no steps to hinder the joining of their procession by a section of the one organised by the other association. Even if they had, this would not have wholly saved them from blame. The fact remains that at a time of evident tension, when even indiscretion was to be avoided, they planned and carried through an arrangement bound to have an explosive effect. There might have been as shocking an experience for the. city without their procession and meeting, but that is no better than a guess. What they did fired the train that night, and if does not help them that they did not lay the train or that others might have fired it. It was foolish, to say the least, especially when it is remembered that their association is composed of those possessing some measure of education, and therefore aide to foresee the probable outcome of an action of this sort. But it was otherwise blameworthy. Civil servants arc expected, by virtue of their employment by the State, to care for its order and good government. That; binding obligation they ignored. They have peculiarly good and privileged opportunity of discussing arid presenting any grievance. Why engage the Town Hall, three times as large, as events prove, for their purpose, to hold a public meeting, and precede it by a public procession, if they did not mean to excite public feeling at a critical time? This is not the sort of thing expected from pledged custodians of he welfare of the State; and their responsibility is all the heavier because of the printed propaganda of their association.

'J here has been, on the part of both associations and others, a lamentable abuse of free speech and related rights. An end should summarily be put to all risk of such abuse. It is well that a beginning has been made by banning processions and mass meetings. If it he held that prohibitions of this sort are an infringement of the liberty of the subject, the unpalatable re-

minder in that word "subject" must, bo bluntly impressed by legal process. It must he further emphasised, in the same way, that the Tight of free, speech is always necessarily limited. It does not include any right to seditious speech, or speech of any sort calculated to provoke a breach of the peace. The right confers a liberty, not an unrestrained licence, and when it is abused there is good reason for taking care that it shall not be abused again by those proved unfit to be entrusted with it. "Every right," said Mazzini, the Italian liberator, "rests upon a duty fulfilled." Those responsible for this shameful disorder have failed to fulfil the duty, and therefore forfeited the right. They have put themselves out of court. To take drastic steps to defend the common weal from senseless and criminal assaults such as they have made is an urgent though regrettable necessity.