A New Year Resolution

Press, Issue 22599, 3 January 1939, Page 8

A New Year Resolution

It is a pleasant custom at the beginning of a new year to make good resolutions, most of which, unfortunately, human nature being what it is. are resolutely forgotten or irresolutely broken. All New Zealanders could profitably resolve for the coming year to study more closely the political and economic history of their country and to note whither they are drifting. They could thus discover for themselves the regrettable tendency that has been increasingly evident since the earliest days of autonomous government to rely less and less on their own unaided efforts and to lean more and more heavily on the State. It is a tendency that is not strictly confined to individuals nor to one class more than another. In groups, in associations, in businesses, in almost every social and economic activity; New Zealanders have come to rely on the Government to help them out of their difficulties; and they are indeed paving the way—though they may not appreciate it—to the completely socialised State. While there are many who may look upon the socialised State as a desirable objective and who voted for Socialism with their eyes open at the last election, it is inconceivable that the great majority of New Zealanders, coming from the stock they do, will be content to barter*their freedom and independence for

a mess of socialised pottage. Vet that is the way that, as the most casual study of their country’s political and economic history must convince them, they are drifting. And it is not a working class movement; it is almost as much encouraged by the employer as by the employee, as much by the landed proprietor and the businessman through their respective organisations, as by the men and women they employ. No one who can read can be blind to the constant appeals that are made to successive governments for aid to many and varied industries; and few governments have been able to resist what amounts to an invitation to interfere in business and industry. One of the curious results is that when governments do interfere many of those who have been most urgent are the first to complain when the State begins to take a more active interest than the appellants intended. But the most unhappy result from a national point of view is that in New Zealand we are in grave danger of losing as individuals and as a community the traditional British spirit of self-reliance and personal independence which is our most valuable heritage from our pioneering forebears. New Zealanders all could stop this stultifying drift if their minds were set on it, and we can think' of no better new year resolution than that they should try.