The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1900. THE BURDENED MILLIONAIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 67, 20 March 1900, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1900. THE BURDENED MILLIONAIRE.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the -wrong that needs resistance, For the futuro in the distance, And tho good that wa can do.

We have been perfect fools in the past, and in spite of higher life teaching we have not yet grown wise. _\ c have expended our pity on the wrong people. Upon the brave British army, for example in Africa marching by day and night over bare veldt and burning sand, ere entering upon fierce conflict with a desperate foe; or upon still more brave and long-suffering heroes starving in besieged iowns in Africa; upon our own New Zealand sons of toil and business and professions, fighting at home almost, as Irving a battle of life, against heartless rivals and rascals. Above all, our special sympathy for the poor and needy has gone far astray. It is the woe-begone millionaires of earth, crushed with the awful burden of growing wealth, that should have ap-

pealed to our tender hearts. True enough a mission to this class is not yet urgently required in Auckland, but that simply proves our city to be far behind the rest of the world. A profound authority upon all things under the sun assures us of this. A mission, not to the heathen, but to these lapsed masses, found among the world's millionaires, is the greatest task before, our modern civilisation. The pea'ishiixg millionaire and the perishing millions of men and money of the present hour demand this mission. Apart even from Christianity, civilization must lift by the helpful hand of love, and even by the stern hand of law, the awful load of millions from the bent and broken backs of the millionaires.

['lie special preacher of this new

gospel of wealth is not listened to j with much respect by a perverse | generation. He is actually regarded

is preparing- himself again for prison

by his wild charges against our most upright British statemeti, and specially against our vigorous and successful Colonial Secretary, Mr Chamberlain. Yet our most erratic journalist, Mr W. T. Stead, comes again with prophetic utterance into public view. The madness sometimes associated with fanciful prophets of the past may lend a charm to his warning words. How strange it seems. The man most impressed with the evils of growing wealth in the hands of a few makes choice of. a millionaire as a modern hero. A millionaire, too, who has never felt in the slightest degree tho alarming burden of riches; who has enjoyed splendid health, an excellent digestion, endless sources of enjoyment, and who is even reckless enough to speak of finding on earth a life superior to anything pictured in heaveu—in spite of the overwhelming burden of forty millions of pounds!

Mr Andrew Carnegie, the latest hero of Stead, will not thank him warmly for the somewhat- powerful Scottish and American lion—of a rampant agnostic and .Republican kind—sketched to the world in a recent pamphlet. Perhaps he may feel this money-grub-bing production at least a shilling too dear, and that he has paid a larger price, in the loss of some g*ood people's esteem, for the extraordinary advice urged upon him as to the best means of spending his many millions. Like many men, Mr Andrew Carnegie has modified bis opinions in life. His very repulsive type of Republicanism, that led him openly to despise our British institutions and British

Royalty, lias passed away. His vulgar agnosticism, more hateful to Scotland than Sir Robert Stout's to New Zealand in days past, is never beard of now. Indeed, we always suspected a good deal of the old, resxiectable. Tory some regard as one with the old Adam-existed in our great American ironmaster. Bis faith in industrial giants and in colossal fortunes, and even in the submission of highly-paid workmen at the point of the bayonet, gave weight to this suspicion. We actually fear he may even modify his opinions, and not dispose, as he intended, of his huge pile of money . before he dies. This would be .a calamity to the world and to Mv i Carnegie. The darkest possible shame I of dying a rich man would settle upon | his name and tomb. We sincerely trust after his brave and generous professions of being a steward" of immense wealth for the good of 'human- j ity, that he will not disappoint us in i any way. Of course it must be very j hard for the Laird of Skibo Castle, j on the beautiful Dornoch Firth of \ Scotland, to stand firm to his grand promises. He is said to regard in a playful or profane way his fine estate in Scotland as more beautiful than any heaven of his thoughts. The green lawns and glades superior to the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. Because of this he may find it hard to give up his great fortune for a still mare shadowy heaven! o_ the future of humanity, as pictured by tiie most refined materialism. Nevertheless, we must do AndreAV Carnegie justice. He has given a splendid example to men of wealth. His gifts for libraries chiefly are simply muni-

fieent in America and Scotland. He holds the fifth place on the list of the large-hearted millionaires of America, and that means of this world. This list should be _-emembered as a. proof of the more than princely liberality of American men of wealth toward educational institutions—an example to men of wealth in all lands: — Leland Stanford, Stanford ■ University - £3,500,000 Stephen Gerard. Gerard College £..000,000 J D. Rockefoller. Chicago University £1,600,000 John Hopkins, J.H. University, and others £1,600,000 George Teabodv. various educational £1.000,000 Andrew Carnegie.libraries. etc £1,000,000

Some nineteen names follow- as donors of above half a million to a hundred thousand pounds. All this casts the British millionaire into tbe shade. The Guinesses almost stand alone for magnificent endowments to scientific research and for the housing of the poor. Peabody also set a splendid example in. London. But there is abundant room in Great Britain and her colonies for the expenditure of the vast fortune of AndrewCarnegie. Among tbe many fanciful openings for the useful expenditure of wealth, and the many excellent ones pointed out to this millionaire, we would regard the endowment of medical research and the housing of the poor as the most urgent everywhere. For how shameful it is in the closing year of the nineteenth century to find our wisest medical men ignorant of the cause or cure of the simplest maladies that afflict humanity. Thousands suffer and perish for this lack of know-ledge. Yet apart from generous endowment of research, our physicians cannot give years to special studies. And it is quite as shameful to find in every Christan city, during threatened plague and fever, thousands of homes specially adapted to become nests of the most deadly germs. Our City Council, must not delay in the work of purification, in hope of future improvements. But every city should encourage gifts' for the improvement of the dwellings of the poor, and gladly help to remedy a great mistake by taking the crushing burdens of wealth from the millionaires, in francs, or in dollars, or in pounds.