The Dominion SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1911. LIBERALISM.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1234, 16 September 1911, Page 4

The Dominion SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1911. LIBERALISM.

Befoue the general election comes round we shall doubtless have ample occasion, to 'disagree with Mb. but in the meantime we feel very strongly that ho has done a real service in compelling attention to the public meaning of Liberalism, or-to be quite exact, to the absurdity of applying that terra to the policy and methods of the present Government. Ho raised tho issue very sharply in this" passage of his statement in Auckland:

A party cannot live on traditions and name-labels alone. There is always a danger of a party, after long years of prosperity and dominance, losing sight of its fundamental principles. It naturally attracts to its banner all sorts of people who hopo to gain something from the party in power. Tho adhesion of people who aro attracted by a, hope of gain instead of by tho love of its principles has always a paralysing effect on a jiartv. Parries may even adhere to names while they entirely reverse their principles..

This is precisely what we have been saying for some years past. The present Government persists in using the label of Liberalism, and has constantly represented itself as faithful to the principles proclaimed by Ballance. It knows that the label is a great asset, and it has stuck to it. And all the time it' violates Liberal principles in almost every direction —in its heavy borrowing and extravagance- in expenditure, in its curtailment of municipal and individual liberty, in its supersession of Parliament by Executive authority, in its piling up of taxation, and in its punishment of independence and freedom of opinion. Fiscally, socially, and economically it is the direct opposite of true Liberal principles. "But," it may be said, "why quarrel about a name? Supposing the Government's policy and methods are as you say, what does it matter ? A rose by any other name, etc. ' But it does matter. In the first placo Liberalism is a definite term, standing for a definite policy. And in the second place thousands of honest people look no further than the name,_ and support, because they think it is Liberal, a Government which they would have long ago abandoned if they had realised that the label it has placed upon itself is the. most complete misdescriptibn possible of its policy. The ordinary citizen is very often the slave of labels, and ho can suffer as much real harm-from this'misdescription as he would suffer if the powder that was sold to him as "quinine" were really corrosive sublimate. As Ben- i tiiam, says: "Improper terms are the chains which bind men to unreasonable practices.' Error is never so difficult to be destroyed as when it has its root in language. Every improper term contains the germ of fallacious propositions." The question which Mr. Fowlds has made one of immediate'interest for New Zealandcrs has been attracting attention in Great Britain. So far have the nominal British Liborals drifted from true Liberal principles that some of their most able leaders have found it necessary to attempt a sort of reconciliation between the true and the modern Liberal practice. One of the fruits of this necessity has been the appearance of that clear and absorbing little book, which no doubt many of our readers have lately purchased, Professor Leonard Hobhouse's Liberalism. The task that this gifted writer sets himself is the demonstration that present-day "Liberalism" is not a, reversal, as it would appear, of the authentic Liberalism of last century, but a healthy and normal development of it. Wherever the practice of present-day "Liberals" runs contrary to the practice and the simple rules of the Victorian Liberals, so he contends, the charge of inconsistency is disposed of by the fact that the earlier Liberals were wrong in their clear generalisations. The modern "Liberal* reserves the right to reject ; true Liberal teaching while still maintaining his claim to the old label. Of course, there is ample room for anybody who chooses to assert his "private interpretation • against the old authentic text, but the modern "Liberals" should get a new name for themselves. One reviewer of Professor Hobhouse's littlo book stated some facts which it takes more than the "retrospective interpretation" of clover writers to get over:

Only a few years ago economy was tho watchword of all good Liberals. To-day a Liberal Government is tho most extravagunt that has ever held office, and thero aro no foreseen limits to the further extravagance nromiseti. If this inijfhty change was inherent in the Liberalism of tho last generation il is a wonder that no oiir predicted it. We cannot heli> mistrusting tho retrospective interpretations ot bociahstic Liberalism. Mr. Hobhouse approves of a definite expenditure o£ money by tho State to correct the difference- between such wages as tho average worker can command and the wages which Mr. Hobhouso thinks ho ought to have in order to live decently. Mr. Hob--1101120 assumes that there aro large classes of workors who, help themselves as they may by thrift, must always fall Mow tho standard of comfort desiderated by Liberalism. He defends doles from the State by disguising them, as it teems to us, in form and intent;-but doles they will remain, and they will have the "lethal influence of all other doles in history. If grinding poverty could bo removed by tho expedients Mr. Hobhouso recommends wo imagine that (very man in tho kingdom with any conscience commission, or education would embrace them instantly nnd think them very cheap at the price. But unfortunately tho truth, as we see it, is that tho Socialistic Liberal expedients would without exception check tho creation of capital, and as capital means wages the distress of the workers would bo increased. Let Labour wring whatever concessions it can from capital, for wo know that struggle between them is compensated by internal chocks and balances which keep capital alive; but when tho State intervenes as deus ex mnchina natural economic law is suspended and untold mischief may bo done before tho enormity of tho disease is rocognised.

Professor. Hoktiouse admits that he has been led towards identifying Liberalism with "a Socialistic organisation of industry. 1. We can only wonder what Gladstone, Cobden, Bentiiam, or Mnx would have said of such a profanation of the name. In New Zealand the title of Liberals is claimed by those who. lvavc not merely cast away the leading Liberal principles and adopted State Socialism, but who have cast away also the express policy of the statesman to- whom they still refer as their perpetual inspiration. Parliamentary control has been replaced by the Governor-in-Council's edicts; the liberty of the press has been assailed and almost—but not quitedestroyed directly and indirectly, directly by Cacsarist legislation, indirectly by Ministerial blackmail; liberty of opinion is attacked, in respect of individuals and of communities, the individual holding the right opinion being favoured by the Government, ond tho .community .holding disagrccablo vicwa being

penalised in the distribution of public works expenditure; taxation, that it was the traditional function of Liberalism to keep low, has been increased to almost unexampled dimensions; economy, one of the central doctrines of Liberalism, has been replaced by a system of extravagance on a scale that few countries in any age have _ ever dreamed could be possible. It is not unnatural that this complete metamorphosis should have taken place; Mr. Fowlds was merely stating a universally recognised truth wlicn he said that long-continued predominance is certain to carrupt the ruling party. The practical issue, of course, has to do with facts, and not with names: The question is: Is or is not the present Government sincere, prudent, and just'! On that question most people can make up their own minds; and Mr. FovyLds's words will carry much weight in the decision. But there are, as we have said, many people who have hitherto left unexamincd the claim of the Government to the title of Liberal, and these certainly include many thousands who will have nothing consciously to do with either dishonesty or Socialistic ideas. No doubt the Government would be hard put to it to find a name that would really fit its policy and methods, and so we do not ask, any more than Mr. Fowlds did, that Sir Joseph Ward should label his party truly. We only ask, as Mr. Fowlds in substance asked, that the people who mistakenly vote for the Government out of a high and deserved regard for the name of Liberalism, shall begin to reflect upon the contents that, the label covers. We may use of almost any Ministerialist profession of Liberal principles the words of Locke, and say that "if anyone will be at the pains to strip it of the flourish of doubtful expressions, and endeavour to reduce the words to direct positive intelligible propositions, he will quickly be satisfied that there was never so much glib nonsense put together in well-sounding English." In presenting themselves as Liberals, the Government are, as Mr. Fowlds might have said had he chosen to sharpen his words a trifle, in a political sense, "like the passers of bad .money, to whom it is indifferent how soon the , fraud is discovered, so that they escape with their dishonest gains."