TAKE OUT THE GAG!

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6624, 14 September 1908, Page 5

TAKE OUT THE GAG!

THE SiLEXOED VOTED. There was never any question in Iho mind of any impartial citizen that j’arliumcnt was not only utterly wrong in proposing to suppress the right o. speech during the week prior to tho Second Ballot, but that the unanimous fooling of the country would bo against any such interference with electoral rights (remarks tho ’■Auckland Herald”). It is absolutely impossible to Justify any suc-h proposal, which is either a clumsy error perpetrated in tho haste and confusion of modern I’m liainciitary business, or a deliberate and contemptuous denial of the inalienable rights of free and sovereign electors. If a mistake has been made—and we sincerely trust that this is tho explanation—wo shall soon know' ; because the Government can easily recede from tho position it took up by proposing an amendment while the Bill is before tho Legislative Council. But if a deliberate attack is being made upon political rights and liberties simply to convenience a few theorists who think more of Continental fads than they do of British liberties, it is time that Parliament was taught a lesson. Nor is there tho slightest doubt that the lesson will bo forthcoming. For it is inconceivable that there will not bo found in any Now Zealand electorate which requires a Second Ballot at tho forthcoming election, some Colonial Hampden to call a public meeting and to speak out as an elector to his fellow electors. Since this is certain to occur, involving tho law and the Government in a struggle which will reflect no credit upon them, and which can only end in their -defeat, however much men are fined or imprisoned, wc would urge Sir Joseph Ward to reconsider tho matter, and to leave tho electors an unchallenged right to discuss tho merits of the candidates who may como before them, whether in tho First or tho Second or tho Seventieth Ballot. "ILLOGICAL AND UNTENABLE.” It is rather late'in tho day, especially in so democratic a country as this, to bo called upon to plead for freedom of speech (says the “Auckland Star”). Tho past history of the British nation shows plainly enough how highly this privilege has always been esteemed, and what efforts and sacrifices have been cheerfully mado to secure it. In New Zealand, at least, as much as anywhere else in the world, we hare been taught to regard free speech as cno of those indefeasible lights or which our social and political constitution is based, and without which “Government by the people through tho people” would become a mockery and a delusion. Nor does tho Premier venture to suggest any sort of interference with freedom of public speech, or tho freedom of the Press, up to the time when the first elections are hold. We can faintly imagine the outcry that would be raised if such an enactment as this were meant to apply to all elections, and to every phase of public and political life. But if it is just and right that men should speak their minds freely, and that newspapers should critise without reserve up to the day when the first ballot is hold, what conceivable reason can there bo for denying these privileges as soon as the poll is declared? Tho situation that Sir Joseph Ward’s amending clause has created is altogether illogical and untenable. Tho idea that free speech or free criticism during tbo week or fortnight that elapses between tho polls will be dangerous and demoralising, while before the first vAes arc cast it is beneficial and necessary, is too preposterous to need discussion. We symx>athise strongly with the agitation against this obnoxious clause, and wo repeat our regrets that the Premier's ■ usually sound judgment should have failed him so completely as to allow him to imagine that such an enactment would he tolerated in a democratic country by a free people. THAT £SO GRANT. Concluding an article on the Second Ballot Bill tho “Otago Daily Times” remarks:—We are hopeful that just as public indignation operated to cause tho failure of tho previous attempts it will operate to cause a failure of tho latest attempt to interfere with tho liberty of the community. The present proposal is tho more outrageous in that, while it seeks to destroy the fight of public speech and to rob the press of its freedom, and while it ostensibly aims at the prevention of any expenditure by candidates during tho period of waiting for the Second, Ballot, it provides that each of these candidate shall bo assisted in tho payment of their election expenses to "tho extent of £SO out of the State revenues—out of the pockets, that is, of the gagged public I