“FREEDOM OF SPEECH.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 6872, 16 July 1909, Page 7

“FREEDOM OF SPEECH.”

(To the Editor "N.Z. Times.")

Sir, —I notice tiiat a certain class of people lay great stress on "freedom of speech," and when anyone suggests that meetings at the Queen's statue should be prohibited raise tho ancient and oftippeated' erv about "Russian methods," and "murderous autocracy." While a passionate supporter of freedom of speech in the true sense of the word. I should like to be permitted to protest against the grave abuse of that sacred freedom perpetrated almost every day at the statue. From the speeches I have listened to I can onlv conclude that many persons interpret freedom as the grossest license. I have heard religion ‘ and all its professors abused in the most insulting, and sometimes blasphemous, terms, I have heard many public men referred to as "political liars," cowards, traitors, and worse.

I have heard things that the majority of men hold sacred reviled and. heaped with eo.ita nely. I have heard bitter incitements to class hatreds, and one person suggest that a revolution "with violence" was his own personal wish. Among the class I chieflv refer to I have never yet heard toleration or resnect for the feelings or convictions *of other fellow-beings advocated. I, have been ' pained to think that under the sacred protection of freedom a man should be allowed to pour insult and abuse upon the majority who confer such freedom; that men should be allowed to make statements and quote statistics that the v know ■to be misleading. and therefore false. Finally, under no condition in life can I imagine less freedom than would prevail under a Socialist regime as propounded by the hot-blooded, uncontrolled orators who frequent the Queen’s statue. The abolition of individual enterprise means nothing if not the abolition of individual freedom.—l am, etc. TRUE FREEDOM. '* Northland, July 14.