A RUDE AWAKENING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 258, 29 October 1907, Page 6

A RUDE AWAKENING.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Like a bolt from the blue, Ben Tillett has, by his advent in Auckland, caused a cyclonic flutter in the dovecots of this complacent and self-satisfied i community. Heretofore we were content to accept the conditions of life in God's Own Country in a placid manner, 'only growling occasionally at the erratic, condition of the weather. Now we find we have been living in a fool's paradise! in fact, we are impostors. Mr. Tillett's ethics plainly denounce the efforts of any man to raise himself from the condition wherein he was born or bred. The state of the prosperous section of the people who have, by force of character and clean living, emerged from humble origin, is, in Mr. Tillett's philosophy, untenable, and equally so tbat of those who, reared in the lap of comfort, and who, through various reasons and circumstances, have come down in tbe world. Sir, why should we not keep faith with our environment? What is inherent in our nature that should change our lives: though living in the same community and experiencing the same daily routine? : Is it human nature, or pure cussedness? Mr. Tillett may be able to explain this | mystery. Such old-time thinkers as Socrates and Plato worried themselves over j this matter, but failed to offer a solu-1 tion. Even our own immortal Shakespeare discounted environment. In the time of Henry tbe Bth, Sir Thomas More wrote a work on Utopia, and down to the present day the world has been longing for that condition of existence in vain. We, in this Dominion fondly hoped we had almost reached that ideal; but Ben came along and cruelly disillusionised us. Apparently our environment isn't quite right yet; and, when you come to think of it, "with potatoes at £8 10/- per ton and bread od per loaf, we have hardly arrived at the Utopian style of existence. —I am etc., SUPPLEJACK.