FREEDOM OF SPEECH

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8683, 17 March 1914, Page 4

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Complaints are heard everywhere about the suppression on Friday night of the right of free speech, and nowhere are they so imposing as in the columns of the “Reform” press. To read these latter is to be tempted to believe that there is nowhere any precedent for such conduct. One would think that a wild and barbaric horde had suddenly invaded us, trampling on the right of free speech in public discussion. This is, of course, absurd, for., regrettable as the practice is, and unfair as we haVfe pointed out, there are precedents for it. We instanced some of the more glaring ones yesterday; the very worst of which, the wildest find most barbaric, was perpetrated by adherents of the “Reform” party under circumstances in which every sentiment of justice, generosity, courtesy, and fair play required the extension of tho utmost freedom. But we did not exhaust the precedents. We will add to our list the precedent of last session. It was set not in an obscure hall, net in the open street, not in a by-way. If* was set in Parliament itself. The Speaker and the Chairman of Committees, for whom the “ Reform” iparty is responsible, Whose business it is to guard freedom of speech, which is the greatest of Parliamentary traditions, managed on a famous occasion between them to suppress free speech in the most highhanded manner; There is no guillotine in our Parliamentary machinery. That did not stop them. They made one out of the ruins of the Standing Orders, and applied it without reason, without justice, without remorse. In the face of Parliamentary, precedent, they enforced silence in a Parliamentary debate on the repeal of the second ballot without providing the promised substitute. But not one protest cam© from the “ Reform ” side. The members of that party shouted their applause, end .the press claquer outside clapped with all their pens. Obstruction was weakly set forth as an excuse for this high-handed violation of Parliamentary law of common justice, of the elements of fair play; but that which was called obstruction had. ceased, and a new subject of debate had been introduced. The grossness of the tyranny remained tmpalliated, and free speech went down in full Parliament just as it went down at Air Fisher’s meeting. Thus was u hideous ©Sample of domineering tyranny given in the highest place in the land, the “ highest court,” as many are fond of calling it. The example was more than hideous, it was demoralising. Can we wonder at finding public meetings infected? When they are, the responsibility lies with the tactics of ” Reform.” All the scolding in the world, will not alter the awkward fact.