UNAPPRECIATED GUESTS.

Waipa Post, Volume 42, Issue 3314, 25 June 1931, Page 4

UNAPPRECIATED GUESTS.

THE Attorney-General of British Columbia has, we read, issued an ultimatum to the Doukhobors to obey the laws of the province—or take the consequences, as other people must. The Doukhobors have been humoured ever since they sought asylum in Canada from persecution abroad. Their peculiar ideas have generally been respected. Seldom have the authorities molested them—when they had their clbthes on. The practice of staging nude parades has brought them into as much trouble as anything. The Doukhobors are a primitive and relatively harmless people when left to themselves, although latterly they have been tossing bombs around among, themselves. The elder Veregin, who had ruled the Doukhobors of western Canada with an iron hand, was blown up on a train some years ago; and last month his tomb in British Columbia was bombed. A radical faction in the colony is accused of this latest atrocity, as well as of other recent breaches of the peace. ''■ 'A self-respecting Government natxirally loses patience with that sort of thing. "We are taking our coats off now," says Attorney-General Pooley, " and going to it with a rough hand." The Sons of Freedom, as the Doukhobors are fond of calling themselves, are in for a bad time—for the hand of western Canada can be pretty rough when it is laid upon guests who do not. appreciate the hospitality extended i to tfcem; but they have only thfemsjsives to blame if the law comes tliem hard. All that, has been ffelOT of them in/return has been a reasonable .-■' conformity to civilised ideas of'decency. Wherein they have resembled "certain alien elements in other parte of the Empire, who have MOtT been- in the country long enough to take :ofT their hats £>efpre they set. app>ut; £syihg to re-shape .it-to suit jcfirefr /owx* whims. Caviada is .rio* sin j in tliat respect, as. Now ■ly,;liave, before; very-i»fl, 3 , . r aH *aa~