Ashburton Guardian. MAGNA EST VERITAS ET PRÆVALEBIT. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1894. SOCIALISM.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XV, Issue 3419, 25 October 1894, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian. MAGNA EST VERITAS ET PRÆVALEBIT. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1894. SOCIALISM.

Long ago John Stuart Mill told us m effect that State Socialism and freedom were not kin. These were his words :— " If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint stock companies, the universities, and the public ciiarities were all of them branches of the Government; if, m addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves upon them, became departments of the central administration; if the employees of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the Government, and looked to the Government for every rise m life; not all the freedom of the Press and popular constitution of the Legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than m name.'* A very fair proportion of the items of Mill's list are m the hands of the New Zealand Government, and every department that reaches any degree of magnitude becomes m a democratic country a strong political power. The railway servants are a sirong body—sufficiently strong to have a trades union of their own, and there are few elections m the colony they are not able to very largely influence. No one can btame them if they decline to view politics from any other standpoint than that of railway servants, m the employ of the State, paid by the .State ; and, having a voice m the selection of the governing body of the StatP, bestow their votes m a direction that shall favor their interests as railway men. There may have been nothing m the charges brought by Sir Robert Stout as to a " black list" submitted by the Railway Servants' Union. The Union authorities were very emphatic m their denial or Sir Robert's statments, but m spite of the denial Sir Robert held to his statements. If the statements are true —we do not say they are, we are not m a position to judge of their truth or falsity—they would only bear out the truth of what Mill asserted > and even the bare possibility of their truth is m support of Mill. Education, too, gives another instance. A strong body of teachers are m the employ of Government m the same way that railway servants are, and they, too, are m combination m their own interests, as other bodies are, To them naturally the most important question m the political category niust be education as it affects themselves. | Whoever attempts to effect reform m our educational system has this body of teachers to deal with. If his reform only affects the teachers and not the /^ildren, nor the administrative bodies that are scattered all over the country, only the teachers will he have to encounter, but there are so many families interested m the teaching profession that that profession is }, political power of no mean jjrder. j^ut if the proposed reform — say m the di^ectfon of making the ;duca,tional system of the colony less jpatly tljaii it ia-rf ere to afept $c

whole machinery of the system, the political power that would have to be encountered would be something vast. Hence reduction of the cost is impossible, and any change likely to take place will be m the direction of increase. When that increase is demand the political forces on the side of education are too strong to be denied. One reform likely to be brought about soon is a much needed one—the establishment of a Court of Appeal for teachers, so that no teacher can be usad as a convenience by either Board or Committee. It is not an altogether unknown thing for a teacher to bn dismissed by a Board because he did not agree m every way with an arrogant Committee, and the Board m the interests of peace gave him notice to quit, although otherwise the teacher was an able instructor of the young. Then, under a state system there is a danger of aiming after an artificial uniformity, which can never be achieved any more than horse breeders can get their horses all of one height; and the further danger of the set standard being reached, no more will be attempted by the individual scholar. It is apt to be forgotten that the school does not finish but only begins a young man's education, only opens the door to him and guides him along the path a little way, the remainder of the road he must travel by himself, and he must find the path for himself too. The tendency towards State socialism is seen m no case more distinctly than m recent legislation. Take the licensing question for instance. The temperance party is very strong politically, and it has been devoting all its energies to pass measures restrictive of the liquor traffic. So long as all dependence is not placed upon legislation, but temperance effort is still directed with unflagging zeal to educate the popular mind up to a recognition of the great moral wrong of excess, restrictive measures may be useful; but there is just the tendency to sink the missionary part of temperance effort m the political, to forget that all real reform comes from within, and any reform affected from without is likely to revert when outside circumstances alter. So with the Shops and Shop Assistants Bill. One set of men favor: one particular day m the week for closing. It would suit them. Another set of men that day would not suit by perhaps half their living. But the Socialism that is strong enough politically to carry that day will not regard either the living of the trader or the convenience of the customer. And instances could be multiplied from the list of measures that have been before Parliament this session. II is a pet' axiom of democracy that the greatest good for the greatest number should be the object of all legislation, but this is apt to degenerate into placing the whole control of the political engine m the hands of those who can command the most votes, the result of which would mean rule for what that majority consider best for themselves. This reading of it has plaoed at the nod of the Government of the day a following who must do the bidding of that Government, think and vote with that Government, or suffer excommunication. As things at present are the tendency is towards something like a Dictatorship by an Executive, and the experience of the session just closed is the strongest plea that could have I been raised m favor of the Elective Executive proposals of the Hon. Major Steward—proposals which he made with the feelings of a warrior leading a forlorn hope, but m regard to which (evidence is not wanting that m the 'near future the forlorn hope will be-| come a strong if not a conquering I battalion.