A Rowdy Meeting

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 16, 22 April 1909, Page 621

A Rowdy Meeting

Last week an organised and festive Britisher section of a big Navy League meeting vented their views on the offer of a warship, by the Dominion 3 in ways that were frequent and free. They tore down the British, flag, trampled it under foot,- and turned the gathering iuto a whirling pandemonium. Had New Zealand, like Ireland, a ' carrion crow ' fraternity — to' whom an ' outrage,,' real or bogus, is a valuable party political asset — every submarine cable from the Dominion would be tingling with wildly -exaggerated versions of the Christchurch meeting. But we have, happily, no crusted Orange-Tory monopoly of place and pelf in New Zealand. So the 'good name of Ohristchurch is safer ,than that of Cork or fiallymagruddery would be if a ten-year-old- * rebel ' ' smiled in a threatening mariner ' at a six-foot" p'leeceman.