DISTURBED PATRIOTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15736, 12 April 1913, Page 8

DISTURBED PATRIOTS.

We publish this morning the terms of a resolution which, we are informed, was passed at a largely-attended meeting of the Ihinedin United Furniture Trades Union two nights ago on tie subject of the visit of H.JLS. New Zealand. We are sometimes disposed to be sceptical concerning tie largeness of the attendance at meetings which . representatives of the press are not invited to attend, and it is probable that there are not a few people in the community who would like some exact information with respect to the attendance at this particular meeting. The resolution that was adopted was passed, it seems, at the request of the Dunedin branch of the National Peace Councilranother organisation as to the strength, or weakness, of which some enlightenment would'be welcomed, by the public. The resolution itself is as awesome as its syntax is shaky. It aims at binding the members of tho union not only to withhold their own patronage from the " jingo, istie celebrations " that are to be " tendered to the visiting human-slaughtering-machine" but also to prevent'their children from obtaining the enjoyment which, the visit of the battle-cruiser promises to the boys and girls of the country and to induce their friends and relatives—" their sisters and their cousins and their aunts " —to present a cold shoulder to the vessel. It does not seem, however, to matter very much whether H.M.S. New Zealand herself, emotional creature of flesh and blood though she is perhaps assumed to be, will be deeply wounded at the refusal of the members of the Dunedin United Furniture Trades' Union, and of those who may be coerced or influenced by them, to participate in the celebrations which they anticipate will be tendered to her. The community in general will b* more largely concerned .about the welcome which will be extended to the officers and crew of the warship, whom the United Furniture Trades Union considerately excludes from the application, of its resolution. And it is hardly likely that the spirit of hospitality which most of the people of the dominion will bo anxious to display towards the men on H.M.S. New Zealand will be greatly affected by the passage of wild, shrieking resolutions by bodies of individuals who, while they profess their horror of "international war and the awful carnage of the armies of innocent • workers "—among them, those on board the visiting battle-cruiser,—are so blind as not to recognise that the existence of H.M.S. New Zealand and of vessels like her constitutes a safeguard against war.