The Sun TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1919. OPTIMISM AND ROWDYISM.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1810, 2 December 1919, Page 6

The Sun TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1919. OPTIMISM AND ROWDYISM.

If optimism, and optimism only, could decide the issue, then Mr T. J. Ryan is already Commonwealth Prime Minister, Mr Hiram Hunter, member for Christchurch East, and Sir Joseph Ward the greatest economic authority under heaven. With such people optimism is nothing more than burying one's head in the sand, ostrich fashion, in order to be able to deny the appearance of the storniclouds of defeat above the horizon. This fatalistic nonsense is made to serve as a bulwark against the sternest of realities. The Queensland intruder in Commonwealth politics, after a very cursory survey of the battlefield, comforts his soul and the spirits of his followers with the prediction that the Coalition Ministry is certain to fall, with Mr Hughes overwhelmed in the ruins. It is a case of the wish being father to the thought, so far as the evidence available informs us. Mr Aryan's fortunes, or misfortunes, in the Federal light have a peculiar interest for New Zealand at this stage. The nominees of the Dominion Labour Party are desperately busy endeavouring to justify their claims to political preferment on what Mr Ryan did for the masses in Queensland. "What Slate Socialism achieved in that State," they cry, "can be achieved in New Zealand if only we are giv y en the opportunity." It is not necessary to quote chapter and verse in order to shatter the extremists' arguments; that ground has previously been covered in this column. It suffices to say that under the Ryan regime Queensland has literally gone to the dogs, or is well on the way. Mr Ryan's experiments have landed the State in a financial morass neck-deep, and, to avoid the wrath to come, the experimentalist has fled over the border, leaving to his former colleagues the hopeless task of explaining away a long series of egregious and expensive blunders. If such an adventurer as Mr Ryan should confound the prophets and capture office, then we shall have to begin and be sorry for Australia. Just what Mr Tudor thinks of the latest development it would be decidedly interesting to know. He \\i\s Leader of the Australian Reds until the Queensland humbug arrived on the scene and manoeuvred his way into Mr Tudor's position. This is scarcely surprising, for Mr Tudor, compared with his new master, is meek and unassertive to the point of obsequiousness. He is not so spectacular a man as Mr Ryan, but his all-round record on behalf of Labour throws his rival's into insignificance. The Commonwealth Reds found Mr Tudor too pallid and mild. They wante* more bombast and resounding rhetoric, and the newcomer had plenty to spare of both. Not unexpectedly, the tactics of the Ryan-Tudor following bear a striking similarity to those adopted by the pseudo-Rolsheviks of this country. With or without the instigation of their candidates, these liberty-loving, freedom-of-spcech champions have been guilty of organised interruption of their opponents' meetings. In Wellington non-Labour candidates have had a difficulty in obtaining a hearing at all. Down in Dunedin last evening the Independent Labour representative in Dunedin South could make no headway against the hostile element. At the Richmond (Victoria) Town Hall recently when a number of Nationalists were present to address a meeting of electors, they were insulted and shouted down. "From beginning to end (says the "Age" report), from 8 o'clock until 11.15, there was nothing but uproar—wild, sustained, and deafening uproar. ... At intervals the 'Red Flag' and 'Solidarity' were sung, and cheers given for Mr Tudor." At the conclusion of this bedlam otoe of the candidates was followed to the tram by a large crowd and loudly hooted. It couldn't have been for anything he had said that night: at no time was he allowed to say a dozen consecutive words. It would be a difficult business to prove that Mr Ryan was responsible for such an exhibition; we don't suggest anything of the sort.

And how he is to prevent a repetition we are quite unable to say. Nevertheless, as leader of the party guilty of this, tyranny, Mr Ryan will be held to share the culpability. He stands for what the Richmond hoodlums stand: their political objective is, in the main, his objective. He cannot dissociate himself from this example of mob rule any more than the local Rose-Pinks can fairly dissociate themselves from flaring Reds like Messrs Holland, Scmple and Fraser. And this moral must not be overlooked: Mob rule at election meetings is as likely as not to develop into mob rule in Parliament should the Socialists carry the day. This is not a hasty generalisation founded on prejudice. As experience has shown, Labour Governments are not their own masters. Wherever Labour has succeeded in reaching the Treasury benches, its Ministers have had to do what the Trades Hall junta told them. They were never free agents; the caucus saw to that. Administration was controlled by a self-elected external body responsible to none but itself. \yere Mr Ryan to replace the Hughes-Cook combination he, too, would be compelled to defer to the same sinister influence. His good intentions would avail him nothing. When the caucus pulled the strings, Mr Ryan would either have to play the marionette or make way for somebody more subservient. Australia deserves a better fate; New Zealand too.

A LONG TIME A-DYING. Few and short are the prayers that will be said over the grave of the municipal venture in coal. During the fuel-famine the depot served a useful purpose, both positively and negatively. It checked profiteering. There may have been two <?r three weeks also—we have our doubts—when the direct action of the municipality brought a little more coal from the West Coast to the East than would have arrived under private enterprise. And with the reading of those brief but welcome lessons the venture came to the end of its usefulness. It is not too harsh to say that it has been dead now for fully three months. What the council buried last night was less a corpse than a skeleton. It has been plain now to everyone for weeks and weeks that the householder had ceased thinking of the depot when the coal-bin got empty, and that if he had renewed his orders the council could not have supplied them. We believe indeed that only a very small proportion of the householders of the city ever knew where the depot was situated. It is highly absurd, too, for the fanatical supporters of the scheme to complain that private suppliers formed a ring against them. Whether a public body goes into the open market to sell coal or hawk fish it surely does not suppose that the firms into whose enterprise it is cutting will welcome it with open arms. They will treat it, and must treat it, precisely as they do any other competitor, and it is childish of the municipalisers now to go about pulling a long face about the wiles of private capital. We said at the outset that if the council really meant business it should municipalise our coal supply lock, stock and barrel. Piece-meal pottering was" doomed from the beginning, but of course such a drastic innovation as would have been necessary for success could have been introduced only on an unmistakable mandate from the community. As for the lack of assistance rendered by those members of the council who were all along stout individualists, to complain of that is merely fudge. Councillors are human—Labour councillors very human —and when the opposition in any public body begins" lending all its weight to bolster up a tottering majority it will be time to ask Providence for a Don Quixote to preside at the meetings.