The Star. MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1908. THE "AMBASSADOR."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9192, 23 March 1908, Page 2

The Star. MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1908. THE " AMBASSADOR."

Mr Pritchard's own party having described him as an " ambassador," we shall probably escape tue implication of being ." audacious liars " if we use the word ourselves. Judging by last night's meoting he is certainly a better ambassador than he is an advocate. He has also at ready command a more picturesque flow of Billingsgate than any speaker who has been heard in Christchurch for many years. He promised the people great things at his meeting last night in the Opera House, but hie promise quite failed of its fulfilment. There was a very large attendance, including a quite inordinate proportion of irresponsible youths, and Mr Pritchard was greeted with tremendous applause and with enthusiastic punctuations, and had the gratification of carrying a practically unanimous resolution sympathising with the miners of Blackball in their ill-guided action. Then the collection was counted, and it was found that this magnificent audience had expressed its practical sympathy to the extent of £16 6s, which could only have amounted to a few beggarly pence per head. We are afraid when Mr Pritchard' s expenses have been paid that he will have only the sacred gift of a little halfhearted pity to lay at the feet of the Blackball miners. Outside its brilliant wealth of sustained obloquy and . its frank personal reference to himself as a champion among mudslingers, the principal characteristic of Mr Pritchard's speech was^ its deliberate Sisingenuoußnesß. He fenced all the time with the "main** issue, and never even reached the essential point. He has not yet even attempted to ."justify the strike. He has given plenty of reasons for it, some of them very cogent, but lie has not explained upon what principle of the Socialistic creed he can support a system of anarchy against a system of law. Until he does that he I cannot look for the support of the saner portion of the community, but j will have to depend upon the ! hot-headed and immature judgment of the young and the self-seeking ! enthusiasm of such agitators as Mr James Thorn, who, it wae made abun- ! dantly clear last night, was not repre_euting the Trades and Labour Council and the level-headed among the workers, but was appearing mainly in support of Mr James Thorn's candidature at the general election. Mr Pritchard has set himself up as a judge of the Judge of the Arbitration Court, and his whole theory of justification of the miners' action is of a comic opera class that would be humorous if it did ; not reflect so pathetically upon its victims. But he has disclosed himself. He J is the only gentleman and the only truth - teller among those who have been engaged publicly in fighting the battle of the Black- I ball strike. As evidence ' of his gentlemanliness, it is only necessary to refer to his description of the newspaper press of th© colony as " the gutterrags of boodledom " ; as an evidence of his jealous accuracy, to his statement that the newspapers have been describing the Arbitration Act as " a sort of divinely-inspired institution, and the Court that administered it as a sort of heaven-born tribunal." On the whole, his shrieking has been neither convincing nor impressive. He has failed to secure the support of the representative Labour institutions, and the time has arrived when Mir Pritchard may very well be left to his own doubtful devices, and organised labour throughout th© dominion. may make some attempt upon its own part to bring the miners to a sense of their responsibility. At present, they are striking at the root of law and order, are setting back trades unionism for years, and are seriously prejudicing the cause of labour throughout the whole country.