The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1917. SNOWDEN'S SENTIMENTS

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13488, 19 May 1917, Page 4

The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1917. SNOWDEN'S SENTIMENTS

A recent issue of an English paper characterised Mr Philip Snowden, the Socialist member for Blackburn, as "a genuine philanthropist," as he "appears to get up early in the mornings and sit up late at nights in order to benefit his country by seeking out and exposing her weaknesses. His genial zeal for fault-finding is in no wise discouraged by the fact that his motherland has been driven by a covetous, cruel and unscrupulous-enemy to the most desperate struggle she has ever had to fight for the defence of her honour and the rights and liberties of her weaker neighbours. On the contrary, this fine old English patriot's nice gift of nagging seems actually to feed and thrive and swell on the blood and tears drawn by the savage aggressor frorr> the hearts of his country's men and women. The greater the national stress and suffering the more ready his irritating chuckle, the more bitter his celebrated sneer." It certainly does seem that, in Mr Snowden's opinion, Britain can do nothing right, whilst other countries can do nothing wrong. The decisive defeat of his peace motion in the House of Commons should be sufficient to convince even such an obtuse politician that he is hopelessly out of sympathy with the views of the democracy of his Own country, which is in no mood to listen to his plausible sophistries; while the gloomy messages from the Petrograd correspondent of the Morning Post are a sufficient answer to his laudation of the policy of the Russian democracy, and his assertion "that the Government ought to regard the Socialist conference at Stockholm as a heaven born means of extricating them from an awful position." Mr Snowden would apparently have Britain even as Russia, and if m :i of his ilk and sentiments were at the helm there is little doubt but that the country would soon be- , come "as a jellyfish, at the mercy of the winds and waves." The Socialistic doctrine as enunciated by some of its exponents is a very nice theory, but it, cannot be reduced to the practical at one swoop. It is invariably found ; that men who have spent their lives 1 in political agitation against any existing form of Government have, when afforded the opportunity, proved incapable of governing themselves. And the reason is not far to seek—they have, ! by the very nature of their agitation, ; undermined that respect for eonstitut- | ed authority and that regard for discip- : line and order which are absolutely i essential to successful government. They set forces in motion which they cannot control, and thus we have anarchy pure and simple—a state of society in which all that is base comes to the surface and the many display, in a much more aggravated form, the self-same vices for which they so vigorously lampoon the few. The lamentable state of affairs in Russia should certainly be sufficient to stop the mouth of even Mr Philip Snowden during such a crisis as that through which we are now passing. Surely he must know (Mr Ramsay Macdonald, a man after his own heart, evidently does) that the tight of the Allies is in the interests of that democracy which he so loudly acclaims, and that the future of that democracy is inextricably associated .with the success of the Allies' cause. The originators of the Russian revolution realised this fact, and it was to assist the cause of the Allies that they launched their great adventure. It must, however, have dawned upon them ere this that if that cause were a good one their methods of assisting it were bad, for by impeaching constituted authority they removed restraint and they are impotent to control the forces which they have unleashed. Having sowed, the wind they are reaping the whirlwind, and the last state of Russia is even worse than the first. Mr Snowden and those who think with him must be hopelessly prejudiced if they cannot discern these things.