The New Zealand Times THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1926. SPLASHES OF RED ON THE COAST

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12404, 25 March 1926, Page 6

The New Zealand Times THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1926. SPLASHES OF RED ON THE COAST

In certain “advanced” districts of the West Coast, the King is never toasted, the National Anthem goes unsung, and the Red Flag has supplanted the Union Jack. These are distressing portents for th’ose who remember the Coast before the Communists began to spatter it with red splotches. In those spacious days the Coast had a tremendous reputation for loyalty to the Motherland, a hospitality prodigal and vehement almost, and a sturdy manliness all its own. In that time the Reds would have had as short shrift as the Russian intelligentsia enjoyed under Lenin. The miners were downright fellows Who despised “little” men, and your average Red is a “little” man, however you measure him up. , But here and there the Coast has changed. It has become what the Socialists call international. That is to say, there are communities beyond the Southern Alps who show allegiance to no country. They pursue instead the ideal of which the Red Flag is the symbol. They go to their graves—or some of them do—with that crude banner of revolt flying over them. We can imagine them muttering in their beards at the bare mention of the King’s name. We do not suppose that Sovereign would worry even if he knew that the loyal toast was not honoured in such places and the Flag ignored. - George V. knows* as we who are not scatterbrained know, that England and the Empire will be looking into the sun when- the last of the most ferocious Reds on the Coast has Rassed to his final account. It is the old parable of the fly on the drivingwheel.

It is a curious and twisted mentality which thus spits on the hand which has provided it with bed and board. The beneficent might of Britain as represented by the Union Jack made the Coast and all New Zealand habitable for those within their confines. The Red Flag has made no country habitable for anybody outside Russia, and Russia is not exactly a land flowing with milk and honey. Good Marxians who impulsively emigrated there have usually found the fare too Spartan for their sensitive stomachs.

The New Zealand Bolshevik is only a poor imitation of the real article. He throws mud at the Flag, but is careful not to forsake its shelter. He realises when he is well off. Not for him the bloodstained snow-track to the Kremlin or the grinding regime of Moscow. There is too much freedom and comparative comfort in the' house against which he unceasingly rails, and as consistency is net in him he remains where he is, sowing unrest among the disaffected credulous, and making of himself a mild nuisance. It is all rather pathetic and puzzling. The best cure we can think of is a resurrection of the old miner spirit, which could be trusted to clean out this nest in its own hearty and unconventional way.