FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 February 1931, Page 6

FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

The unsavoury stoiry of a riot at a public meeting in the city of Sydney is a sorry cdnimehUty Upon nearly a century of democratic rule. Nowhere in the World is there a system of government more thoroughly based Upon the principle that all men in the eyes of the State are equal insofar as the election of Parliamentary representatives is concerned than in Australia. Nor is there any country where electors have enjoyed for a lodger period thin in New South Wales the benefits of a free, compulsory and secular system of education. At least two generations of voters have grown up in vhis. atmosphere, and development in such conditions would be expected to be upon lines of tolerance, with fit least some respect for differing opinions. On the contrary recent years have seen one of the largest sections of the electorate held in bondage to fte leaders by what is known as “caucus” rule, tn one respect this servitude has added to the effectiveness of the Labour Party as a political fighting machine. Ite adherent?. sphak With one voica and ’act as directed Ly their leaders. Organisation With them is never ending and propaganda is maintained fiy the rank and file subtly directed by those in charge of the movement. On the other hand, liberty of action and of thought has'suffered. When an elector is taught that for the sake of a. “movement” 'he must stifle his honest convictions and vote blindly for a person or a policy in which he has no faith, the next stage in his development is to stifle criticism from others by any methods, constitutional or otherwise. Politics becomes class warfare, and the result is that freedom of speech is no longer permitted. Whatever the opinions in regard to the Sydney meeting, its convenors were open

about its purport and as free citizens of the State had a perfect right to put their views and the reasons for them before their fellow, countrymen. This right they were denied, and if mob rule is to decide Australian politics in fulure the outlook for the Commonwealth is not very cheering.