"THE FOND MANY."

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 273, 17 November 1910, Page 4

"THE FOND MANY."

, Occasionally when we read what Shakespeare has to say about the "fond •many," -the foolish multitude, we are apt.to congratulate ourselves that we no longer live in comparatively barbarous times.- -In spite of the invention of printing, and ■"■the -Renaissance, and the Reformation, we •renrem'ber with satisfaction that the sixteenth century was only the dawn, of civilisation; and we us-ually wind up such reflections with •the consoling thought that the march of intellect and the progress of mankindhave carried us almost out of sight of the ignorance and the superstition that dominated -even the most advanced communities in the Elizabethan Age. Thie is all very <well up to a certain point. No doubt the world is advancing, and civilisation is progressing, and man collectively is growing yearly more enlightened and rational. But we cannot afford ■to forget that even in Europe, and even in England, it is stall possible to find depressing proofs that progress bas not yet wholly dispelled the gloom of past agea, and if we need 1 illustrations of this painful truth, we can- find in our cable columns to-day two instances of ignorance and superstition that would not discredit mediaeval times.

One of oar illustrations ac to be found in the account of the cholera riots in Italy. Believing that cholera victims are being buried alive, an infuriated mob in an Italian town ihas attacked a funeral procession, 'wrecked the cholera hospital, set fire t<l the town hall, and otherwise demonstrated that the folly and fanaticism wMch we ridicule when ■Wβ find ite traces in the annals of the Diirk Ages 'hare not yet vanished from ithe earth. When the Indian authorrtaes first began to fight tbe plague in Bombay, they had to contend with precisely the same sort of opposition from the frenzied and the inference is certainly not flattering to the assumption Europeane are so fond of making that in all the essentials of true civilisation the West, even in its lower levels, is necessarily superior to the Eaet. But the lower classes in Italy are extremely illiterate and •unprogressive, and °we are inclined to think that the more disquieting of the two illustrations to which we 'have referred comes from Home. The etrike ■riots in Wales are in themselves a very depressing indication of our failure to deal satisfactorily ■with the indnetrial disputes •winch are an inevitable outcome of Anbdern. social development But itthe

-Occurrence of strikes is * triviality compared with the ominous significance of the methods that the Weteh strikers (have adopted. In "thei* determination to have their own way and their resentment againet their opponents, they have cast justice and reason to the ■winds, and have deliberately eet about the destruction of the mines from which itiheir own livelSiood .has beeu derived. Economists tell us that the wages of labour are paid out of the wealth that Labour helps to produce; and this is a euffieieni reaeon for deprecating any policy that tends in the long run to cripple tbe wealfch-prbducing power of the whole country. But it should need no acquaintance 'with economic theory to convince an ordinarily intelligent man that to 'burn doiwn the factory or to flood "the mine "that employs him is simply euicideli Until the workers understand this, there "will be little hope for their industrial future; and Tmtil the" world has progressed beyond the cholera riot and the strike iriot etage, >we will have little excuse for pluming ourselves on the assumed superiority of ihe twentieth century to the Dark Ages.