The Dominion. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1908. THE PEOPLE AND THE STATE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 306, 19 September 1908, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1908.

THE PEOPLE AND THE STATE.

If one liad to " state briefly," as the examiners say, the leading characteristic of Australasian public opinion, one could make no safer reply than that it is a remarkable tolerance of " State Socialism " —an inclination, amongst those who would repel. any suggestion that they held Socialistic views, to repudiate the theories of thinking men in older countries upon the proper relations of the individual to tho State. This trait of Australasian life has been lately much under discussion as the result of certain observations addressed to the people of Australia by Loud Nortjicote in his farewell speeches. Tho keynote of Load Nortiicote's speeches was a warning to Australia very similar t to, the wliming iccentlx uttered b£ Laiux,

llosebeuy in the spcccli in which he discussed the dangers to individual energy in I tho growing paternalism of British Governments. " It was very necessary," said the retiring Governor-General, " that tho people should not be taught to consider the Government a kind of universal provider, to solve overy difficulty without any assistance from tho people themselves. There was in these days a risk of people looking exclusively to the Government to do everything for them. That was inconsistent with tho old traditions of the British Empire, and inconsistent with those ideas of self-help and reliance which were such valuablo assets in the building up of national character." These words apply with far greater force to New Zealand than oven to Australia. Not only has the State extended its functions more widely in this country than in any other part of tho Empire, but the inclination to lean on the State is infinitely stronger here than in any other modern country. From tho daily papers for a year one could collect such facts as would make it appear that the public has lost all capacity to get anything done excepting through tho assistance of the State. The present position in Australasia is well known. But few people have troubled to inquiro how that position has arisen. Such an inquiry has been attempted for Australia by a special correspondent of tho London Times, one of whose articles on " Austrajian Ideals " wo recently discussed. The Times writer points out that' in the early days of Australia tho Government was unable to exercise with much profit any but its military functions, and that the way was clear for the firm establishment of the •" squatter " community as the dominant class. Thus originated the " Pastoral Age," with its " vigorous individualism " and its " ruling motive, material development." To this age succeeded in tho middle of tho nineteenth century the " Age of Gold," which, apart from its stimulus to population and development, left its mark on Australian ■history in two decisive ways. In the first place, " it leavened a now fairly conservative and steady-going population with large numbers of a type to which tho established order of social and political ideas was either hateful or meaningless. Thus the movement, while it accentuated the materialism of the Australian temperament, strongly antagonised the historical sentiment which clung to English models and might otherwise have set the course of Australian progress." The second result of the gold rush was its intensification of the rivalry between the " big man " and the " little man." The young country differed vitally from America in that country's early history. Americans never showed any tendency to lean upon the State; on the contrary, they insisted always on the freest cxercise of individual,energy. In Australia, on the other hand, a very materialistic and unsentimental conception of tho raison d'etre of government prevailed from tho beginning, and this conception bred the present attitude of dependence upon the Government. " The State embodied no political theory or historical tradition to ,lift it above tho ephemeral conflict between interest and interest or class and class. . . Australians becamo inured to a habit of regarding their own State as a material power outside themselves, which held the keys of failure or success, and which- each interest must capture or conciliate for its own purposes lest others should capture it for theirs." In other words, Australia decided, like New Zealand, to proceed—and to go astray—without regard to any permanent principles of government. This is a phenomenon that we have often discussed in theso columns. " They proceed," says the Times writer, " from no reasoned conviction in tho efficacy of State Socialism as a political scheme, but simply from the pressure of circumstances upon a political system which has no raison d'etre in tho public mind, beyond the service of such interests as happen to command a majority." This is a point that should bo noted by those supporters of State Socialism who proudly declare themselves the slaves of no theory, but the friends of the policy of doing what is required regardless of the principle underlying it. This empiricism that they extol is empiricism of a bad kind: it does not aim at effecting what the present and future needs of the nation require, but only at effecting what the majority of the moment seem to wish for. The origins in New Zealand differ materially from the Australian origins. The absence from New Zealand public opinion of any strong or widespread understanding of the relations between the individual and tho State is not duo to any particular influences in the early stages of New Zealand history. It took root in the preoccupation of the past two generations with their practical work of carving homes out of the raw land. When, tho Seddon regime began the public was politically uneducated. That there were economic principles or principles of government was a fact unknown to a great mass of the electors, and State Socialism was hailed as a practical translation into law of tho average ignorant person's conception of the correct method of settling tho problems of the day. It would bo too long a business to examine all tho forces that have made tho way of tho political experimenter so easy in late years. One of those forces may bo noted for its singularity. This is tho vanity engendered by tho 'interest which tho world is supposed to have taken in our "experimental legislation." It is this vanity, in its shape of a reluctance to confess that New Zealand lias made mistakes, that, as much as anything else, restrains the Government from frankly admitting that compulsory industrial arbitration is a failure. Neither in Australia nor in. New Zealand have there been wanting powerful opponents of Socialistic experiment. What Sip. Henry Parkes said fifty years ago has been often repeated, and repeated in vain: " I have over boon opposed to experimental legislation, and believe that tho Parliament of a new country' has no graver duty to perform than guarding against tho accumulation of spccial enactments which, introduced upon paltry grounds to meet particular cases, are often at variance with tho maxims of common law. . . Acting upon this conviction, I shall subject ail measures, from whatever quarter they may proceed, to those indisputable principles established by a long course of political reasoning, and those great practical truths deduced from legislative experience, which the statesmen of England and America acccpt as their common landmarks." They are but few amongst our public men who adopt this wise attitude to-day, but it ia incrcdiblo tlmt the Socialistic.

drift in Australasia can continue much longer. It is possible to treat as a reasonable hope what the Times correspondent longs for —" the emergence of some new spirit which will place the Stato above the ephemeral experiments'of this party or that class, and lift its whole political life into higher and clearer air."