LIBERTY SCORES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 709, 8 October 1903, Page 22

LIBERTY SCORES.

The result of the poll taken to determine whether the electric cars should, or should not, run on Sunday, is an emphatic victory for the party of freedom and progress. The minority embraces virtually all the members of the party of intolerance who are on the City roll, and had they stood alone they would have been as ludicrously as they are hopelessly out of the running. But they were supported by others, some of whom are merely selfish and therefore human, and some that it is difficult to range under any category. Those who were guided by self-interest are the ’bus owners and cab drivers, and on their behalf it was urged, by persons who would resent the imputation of ignorance, that as the Tramway Company did a good business all the week, it should let the cabbies have a “ cut in ”on the Sunday. By parity of reasoning it might be argued that as the Gas Company made a handsome profit during six days, the candlemakers ought to get a “ show ”on the seventh. However, there;was a reason for the opposition of the ’bus and cab owners, and they were perfectly justified in attempting to block by lawful means the progress of an institution which certainly does threaten to destroy their interests. But there were others who were swayed by such absurd considerations as, for instance, that the Company would make too much money, and that the citizens would be fleeced to provide fat dividends ; that the manager of the Company is a fore gner.” Such contentions, of course, require no answer, though it is certain that they accounted for a good many votes. They were invented by men who knew that they were false and ridiculous, by men who professed to be guided in their opposition to Sunday trams by motives of high morality, by men who for weeks past have been filling the daily papers with Biblical texts. It is humiliating to reflect upon the gross misuse of religion throughout the campaign. The assumption by the fanatical element that all who differ from them on the question of Sunday observance are irreligious would be offensive if it were not so grotesquely amusing. Nevertheless there is a danger in the tendency, laughable at it is. It constitutes a serious anomaly that, in a country boasting of the separation of religion from State polity, and the absolute freedom of conscience, the ultra Sabbatarian sects should yet have it in their power to assail the practical exercise of moderate beliefs. There is a serious menace here, evident not only in such matters as the scope and nature of Sunday traffic, but in other affairs affecting the personal inclinations of the people. The principle of rule by the majority is established, and we do not at r ack it; nor do we

think that any serious injustice is likely to spring from it so long as it is exercised with intelligence. The mass of the people, though they may suffer from temporary aberrations, are generally governed by considerations of fair play and common sense In the long run they will realise that the danger that has to be guarded against is the persistent attempt that is being made, under a multitude of different shapes, to control their liberty as individuals and as a community. To-day the enemy poses as prohibitionists; to-morrow as protector of the “ Sabbath,” and so on, but it is always the same old enemy, that made a sacrifice of somebody else for the glory of God and the satisfaction of its own sins This enemy has been checked in various directions; from some it has been permanently turned ; but it is still active, and demands as much vigilance on the part of those it attacks as ever.