The Dominion. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1911. "THE NEW EVANGEL.'1

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1275, 2 November 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1911. "THE NEW EVANGEL.' 1

f That Mr. Fowlds dicl not feel quite satisfied with his first formal exposition of his nes? gospel is clear enpugh from his anticipation that he would be laughed at. We are not goinjj to laugh at him, however; our emotion is rather one of melancholy. Mb. Fowlds sees clcarly enough the difficulties of society, and the weaknesses that we all wish to see disappear, but he appears to fancy that he is singular in this respect. If he could but realise that every person of intelligence recognises these difficulties and weaknesses, we should probably find him saying something more to the.point than he said in Grey Lynn on Tuesday night. His great misfortune is his strange fancy that he is the first man to perceive that socicty is not as we would all wish it to be. It is astonishing that Mr. Fowlds should hold such remarkable opinions upon the distribution of wealth as those he expressed in his specch. He is a, Free-trader, and most Free-traders are Frcetiaders because they have learned how to grasp the ultimate principles of traffic and industry. Yet Mr. Fowlds declares, as "the result of calculations which no intelligent person of any political persuasion will be able to follow, that every married worker has to create by his labour an annual value of £81 before ho can begin to cover his back or stay his

hunger. These sums of £81, ho waulo his Grey Lynn friends to believe, lire eaten tip by the ncoplo who own land. There is really no liecosaitv to do more than record this curious idea. It is_ Mr. Fowi.ds'h way of accounting for the fact that "after many years of abounding national expansion and prosperity" the wage-earner's condition is worse than it was ten or fifteen years ago. It may satisfy Mtt. Fowlds's Single-Tax friends, but no one else. Ministerialists will simply deny that the wage-earner is not any better off after twenty years of "Liberalism." Sensible people will probably perceive, however, that a very much sounder explanation of tho fact that Mn. Fowlds tries t-o explain in his extraordinary way is the failure of the Government to allow _ prudence and careful administration a place in its financial policy. Twenty years of "Liberalism," twenty years of "advanced" legislation, twenty years of "vigorous land_ settlement," and twenty years of lavish borrowing—they ought to have made this eountry an economic Paradise. But they have not. Few people will refuse to accept Mr. Fowlds's statement of the actual _ conditions, but nearly 9verj;one will toss his explanation of it aside.

Although he is _ obviously very anxious to say nothing that will aid the Reform party, Mr. Fowlds is unable'to avoid doing so. He scorns Mp.. Millar's idea that tho railways should pay, he condemns the present constitution of the Legislative Council, he pours contempt upon tho "absurd" electoral system that he helped to establish. But he felt that he must try to counteract such aid as these opinions might give to tho Government's opponents. For he hopes, of course, to supersede both the "Liberals" and the Reform party with a party of his own. But he can bring against the Reform party nothing but invective. He can bring facts against the Government that he found it convenient to leave; and these facts only emphasise the more his inability to oppose the Reform party with anything more substantial than hard words. He says that the Opposition is "utterly bankrupt," without explaining how or why; he calls the opponcnts of the Government "Tory reactionaries," without attempting to show that they are Tories or to indicate to what political system they wish to return. He knows quite wcil that half, or more than half, the people of New Zealand arc on the side'of the Reform party; he'knows that they arc in every particular diametrically opposed to Toryism of every kind, and particularly to the Toryism of Executive autocracy and State paternalism. The fact is that poor Mr. Fowlds, while realising keenly that his late allies have made a mess of things, yet resents the idea that when they are thrown out of office he will not be Prime Minister. Frankly, we arc disappointed. We had hoped that, although Mr. Fowlds is opposed to many of the political principles that we consider vitally important to a healthy future for New Zealand, he would yet deal fairly and sincercly with facts, and would in his way assist to educate the public. Instead, he is preaching a "new evangel" that is a strange mixture of sound sense and perfect nonsense, and is all the time preoccupied with his hopes of leadership of a new party of Single-Tax theorists. It simply will not do.