The Dominion WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 1911. POLITICS AND THE RISING GENERATION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1153, 14 June 1911, Page 6

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 1911. POLITICS AND THE RISING GENERATION.

There arc half a dozen large issues involved, for ruminative minds, in the interesting littla fact, reported in southern papers, that after listening to a scientific lecture on alcohol the pupils of the Waitaki High School "unanimously carried a resolution declaring that alcoholic liquors as beverages are hurtful, and expressing their belief that NoLicense and Prohibition are entirely for the benefit of the race." This resolution, of course, means nothing one way or the other so far as the liquor question is concerned; it can neither be used as proof that Prohibition is' bad because it appeals to youthful inexperience nr as evidence that the. ideals of the New Zealand Alliance, arc good because they appeal to young enthusiasm. One of the Diinedin papers, however, indignant at this "pseudovirtuous obedicnce to demagogic hints," proceeds to open up a very useful field of speculation by passing on to a general condemnation of the discussion, in State schoolrooms, of any controversial question. "At this rate"—so it dips into the future—"we shall be hearing that Mr. Massey or Mr. Jajies Allen has addressed the pupils of the Waitaki High School on current politics, and that a vote of confidence in. the Opposition leaders has been passed; and next, a few days later, that Mr. Fowlds or Mr. Thojias Mackenzie has visited the school for the purpose of replying, and has succceded in reversing the decision." The prospect fails to appal us, at any rate; in fact, we think there js something to be said for such an innovation. In the first place, we should like to see how Mr. Fowlds or Mr. Mackenzie would secure a favourable verdict from a meeting to which it would be useless to offer the usual stock-in-trade of a party bankrupt of principles. What could Mr. Fowlds say of the payments to the Chief Justice if he could not say they were "paltry sums"? What could Mr. Mackenzie say if he could not extol borrowing as the noblest occupation of a growing country, and how could he convince an honest boy that the "spoils to the victors" policy is anything but abominable 1 It is not until lie is grown up and his conscience is stilled by his personal ambitions .or needs that a boy prefers jobbery and roguery to honest principles—the principles of Tammany to the principles of reform. Children cannot grasp the large economic issues involved in the controversies over tariffs and tenures, or the large social issues involved in the liquor question, but they can grasp the elements of honesty: they can tell what is honourable from what is dishonourable in a public man. And the simple issue in our politics at this time is the struggle between reform and maladministration, between honesty and the established system of Tammany.

Not long ago the New York Post, dealing with the working of graphic moral teaching in the American schools, suggested that something could he done by going further tha;i the picturing of the hatefulness of cruelty, lying, dishonesty, and selfishness. Its idea was that the children might be given some simplo lessons in the moral and material damage that is done by the various methods of graft that still disfigure American politics. A child, it contended, might be made to grow up with a rooted horror of bribery and corruption in public life, with such an ingrained dread of and revulsion from baseness in a public man as would remain in him throughout his after-life. In New Zealand the great bulk of the population is under -10 years of age. What docs that mean 1 That the great bulk of the voters have grown up knowing of any other sort of government than the selfish greed and administrative abuses of the "Liberal" Administration. A Christ-church Ministerialist newspaper says that "at present the greatest peril to the country is the ignorance of the mass of the people in regard to the vital questions which immediately affect their welfare." This is a very valuable admission : it is the ignorancc of the mass of the people as to what, is going on and as to the obligations resting oa the Executive to place the

I public interest above all things, that lias kept the "Liberals" in office for so long. The Christchurch_ paper goes on to suggest that politicians might do worse than give come of their spare time to "the enlightenment of the younger generation." A syllabus at once suggests itso'f. Let the younger generation be enlightened upon the readiness of _ tha Government to change its opinions on any subject at any time, upon the miserable story of the "Liberal" land policy, upon the stuffing of the Upper House with dummies and party "heelers," upon the great growth of taxation, upon the policy of election bribes, upon the enormous and increasing borrowing, upon the development of nepotism to a fine art, upon the significance of the innumerable scandals of administration that have accumulated during the "Liberal" regime. We arc afraid that Mb. Fowlds, as Minister for Education, would not approve our contemporary's suggestion.