NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1390, 25 March 1912, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY.

One of the really bad results of the long dominance of the "Liberal" party has been, as most people must recognise, the deterioration of the public conscience. It is a result that must' follow anywhere the continuance of any party in power for twenty years without interruption. How sadly the old standards have suffered has been made very clear by the recent attempt to persuade the PitniE Minister to break his pledge to quit office, and by some of the comments upon his decision. The Dunedin Star, a leading "Liberal" paper, rightly admits that the deputation that waited on Sir Joseph Ward "were asking him to adopt a distinctly improper line of conduct." How bad a pass "Liberal" politics have come to is clear from the fact that the Olaf/o Daily Times and other journals regard the Prime Minister's adherence to his solemn word as an extremely praiseworthy tiling, as if there would have been nothing remarkable had he broken faith. When the most commonplace item of correct behaviour has come to be regarded as a heroic act, something must be seriously wrong with the atmosphere created by twenty years of "Liberal" rule. It is left for the Christchurch organ of the Government to say that "if Sir Joseph AYard chose to disregard the pledge he gave to the Labour members there are plenty of people who would bo ready to condone his inconsistency." No doubt there would be plenty of people who would defend such "inconsistency"—just as there are plenty of people defending Mr. Payne's and Mr. Robertson's "inconsistency"—and is that not a very deplorable and significant fact'! We believe that so many people would have arisen in the Prime Minister's defence in such a case that it really was—what it ought not to be, and what it would not be in healthy conditions —a positive merit in Sir Joseph Ward that he did not do what his friends suggested.

Some of the well-intentioned people who want to State-regulate us all for our good might profitably consider the note of warning sounded by Mr. Havelock Ellis in his book on The Pfoblcm of Race Regeneration. He suggests that the ideas of eugenics, as hitherto developed, should only be drawn upon very cautiously :

For we have to bo on our guard—and that is our final problem, perhaps tho most difficult and complex of all—lest our efforts for tho regeneration of the raco lead us to a mechanical and materialistic conception of life, to the conception of a life regulated by codes and statutes, and adjudicated in Law Courts. Jietter an unregenerate life than such a regeneration! For freedom is the breath of life, joy is the prime tonic of life, and no regeneration is worth striving for which fails to increase the total sum of freedom and of joy. . . . This is why it is necessary, in connection with racial regeneration, to deal with literature, with art, with religion, for it is. only in so far as these things, and such as these, tiro rendered larger and freer and more joyous that a regenerated life will have its heightened value.

We are sometimes told that protests against encroachments upon individual liberty are old-fashioned,. but that is a taunt which, nobody who knows anything of his scientific works and Utopian speculations can level against Mr. Havelock Ellis. The danger is, however, greater in one respect than he has indicated in the above passage. The modern craze for regulating other people's lives feels by a sort of blind instinct that statutes and Law Courts arc too closely allied to the liberties of the subject to serve its turn. .It runs instead to executive autocracies and irresponsible officialdom.

The public will, we do not doubt, feel a good deal of sympathy with tho Hox. J. A. _ Millar in the disappointment which he has to endure in not being chosen to lead his party. He has been looking forward for years to the Premiership. After tho 190S election, he was acclaimed by his own constituents and olhers as the next Prime Minister, and ho deemed it necessary to say then that though he had a natural ambition to climb to the top of the politic."l ladder, he v/ould content himself with a Gubordin.it'.' position so long ns Sir Joseph Ward was in office. His repetition of 11w.15 sentiments during the l.it? election is fresh in tlio public memory, but it would be idle to deny (liar, during the last three years Jin. v.l'.u.u: has not sustained the place hi formerly hi'ld in public estimation. \X\vm h<. , openly abandoned tho traditional "Liboral'' railway policy and expressed his determination to nir.k? tho railways pay, the country applauded, and even tho people to '.vhorn concessions were refused, respected him the more. How ill he has succeeded in his effort towards sounder railway finance it is unnecessary just no , '.- to recall, but in this, as in nobody knows how many other inatteri:, his own good resolutions must have l.ven weakened bv Jissopinlion with nth-.-r members of ihe Cabinet. There liave been pplpalil" instancr l ! v,h?rc \k w;is right and they were wrong. But of late yra.rs, Mn. Mu.Lvn seems to hnve givn up the strucrsle n.irainst. the policy o£ all-round concession, and

to have despaired of the endeavour to keep iho Government true- to any political principles. It is said there has been trouble from time to time in the Cabinet room, but outside it Ministers have generally appeared to be in harmony. Mr. Miu.au has been overruled, and has lost the place he once occupied in the public mind. His experience has been akin to that of Mil. Hogg, Mn. Fowlds, Mr. M'Nab, and Sin John Findi.ay, nil of whom have suffered in their public life through their association with the now expiring Administration. It seems that the same may bo said of most of their remaining'colleaguos, for it is stated that only Mu. T. Mackenzie and Mr. Ngat'a ard regarded by their own party as worthy of a place in the reconstructed Cabinet.