The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1918. THE BOLSHEVIK MENACE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 10085, 26 September 1918, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1918. THE BOLSHEVIK MENACE

"Recent events in Russia reveal Bolshevik tyranny as a desperate mania, threatening the stability of the entire civilisation... of- the world, almost as ominously as the German ambitions, unless promptly and definitely crushed by the Allies' forces of democracy throughout the world." So declare the British Ministry of Information in the closing paragraph of their official weekly review of the war situation published in Tuesday's "Times." And that they have good grounds for so declaring, who that has carefully studied the position in Russia as it has developed from month to month since t!ie beginning of the Lenin-Trotsky regime can deny? "Bolshevik" is the Russian for majority; and, if the Bolsheviks really had the majority of the Russian people behind them, Bolshevik rule would be, what by its name it claims to be, majority rule. Bub very early in their career the Bolshevik rulers showed their utter disregard for democratic principles, by suppressing by force of arms the Constituent Assembly. And they thus for the time-being, at all events, Russia's one hope of securing a soundly-based constitutional form of government, which alone could have enabled her to bring forth order out of the chaos into which her affairs had drifted, and again make head against the restless, unscrupulous foe on her western frontier. The Constituent Assembly was suppressed; Lenin and Trotsky wildly babbled of 'democratic principles', endeavouring the while, by false pretences, to bring the whole of the Entente Powers into the net that had ensnared Russia; and, failing in that attempt, they, by the so-called Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, betrayed Russia, practically bound hand and foot, to the Central Powers. Recent revelations show that from the' first they wore in the pay of Germany; and, even apart from those revelations, the faot that Bolshevik terrorism in full spate spares Germans, and Germans alone, is in itself a very sufficient indication of the pro-German bias of Bolshevism.

As a matter of fact. Bolshevik rule speedily resolved itself into sheer anarchy, showing utter disregard for the laws of God and man, governing wherever it did Kovern at all, by absolute brute force and terrorism. And this sort of thine is not without its admirers here in "New Zealand—admrers who declare that Russia is tho brightest star in the firmament of the world today, and that even if the Russian revolution (meaning thereby Bolshevism) goes down in a sea of blood it is more than justified. It is. indeed, tho Bolshevik spirit in New Zealand politics—a spirit ntterlv alien to true democracy—that seeks to deny to its opponents, as in the Wellington North byelection and in the present by-elec-tion, British fair plav and a fair hearing. This spirit—this "will to power," as the Prussians phrase it, by the use I of sheer brute force —must be com-

bated by true Democrats whenever and wherever it shows itself, whether on the battlefield, in the industrial field, or in tho political field. On the battlefield force must be met by force. The Prussian "will to power" and the Prussian war-machine must bo utterly broken ; and tho German people must be made to realise, as in fact recent cablegrams ko to show thev are beginning to realise, that so long as tfney stand by Kaiserism the Entente Powers cannot, for their very safety's sake, afford to make peaca with them. As for Bolshevism in the industrial field, in New Zealand, at any rate, the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act provides the true, the iust and democratic alternative to force in that field, and there, o&n be little doubt that after tho war New Zealand's lend in this respect will bo followed bv all the Allied democracies. Faults in the Act and in tho administration of the Act, of course, there may be. We are not concerned to deny it. But whatever faults may exist, there exists also a democratic and a constitutional method of remedying them, and that method should be adopted. Bolshevism in the political field, again, should be rebuked, and sternlv rebuked, at the bal-lot-box. That duty now devolves upon the electors of Wellington Central, as lit previously did upon the electors of Wellington North; and we. trust that Bolshevism will be as handsomely rebuked in the one case as in the other. The only trouble is that the ballot, under the "first-past-tho-post" system, 13 by no means tho effective weapon that it ought to bo. Under the pre-fo-ential Toting system, we aro convinced that there could be no doubt whatever as to the result: Bolshevism would be nowhere. And the same applies to the result of a general election under proportional representation.; Tho dyed-in-the-wool extremists, it is very certain, are few in number. They are a very noisy but not very numerous section of the community; and pioportional representation would automatically reduce them to their true political proportions, while giving to the more moderate and far more numerous section of tho workers, and to all other sections of the community, their due weight and influence. It has been well said that half a. dozen bull-frogs in a paddock will make more noise than a thousand bullocks, but the bullocks carry far more weight; and it is to be regretted that our present electoral methods give an undue advantage to the more noisy section, and tend to handicap solid common sense. The need is all the greater, therefore, for the electors to size the position up carefully, and see to it that they do not by an ill-considered vote play into tho hands of tho extremists. That is the immediate duty of the doctors of Wellington Central, so far as the present by-election is concerned. But a further and far more important duty devolves upon the electors throughout New Zealand, and that is to insist upon it, by urgent representations to their Parliamentary representatives, and, through them, to the National Government, that the next general election shall he held on the proportional representation system, thereby securing the due representation in Parliament of all Bohools of political thought, and doing away with the laßt possible Bhred of excuse, so far as this" Dominion is _ concerned, for the advocacy of extremist courses. Thus, and thus alone, can we do the best possible for our own country, and nhow by* our example how best the democracies of the world, having pulverised Prussianism abroad, can rid themselves of the almost _ equally dangerou s menace of Bolshevism at home.