The Star [Published Daily.] WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16,1896. SOCIAL DIFFICULTIES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3425, 16 December 1896, Page 2

The Star [Published Daily.] WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16,1896. SOCIAL DIFFICULTIES.

It may be generally said with truth that the man who is " cook-sure " of having found a remedy for social difficulties is wrong— that he is either an enthusiast who has allowed his sympathy or his zeal to outrun his judgment, or a charlatan who seeks to impose on the credulous. No difficulties more complex than these meet the statesman who finds at every turn evils arising from the inequitable distribution of the products of human labor and the unequal payment for the expenditure of human life force. 1 This inequitable distribution and its associated or resulting evils arises from so many causes. Unenlightened laws are a cause, want of equal opportunity to all men and women is another, unavoidable misfortune another, but beyond and in most cases eclipsing these are other causes such as are purely personal, lack of energy, of thrift, of physical strength, moral strength. All these make the problem complex, and the discovery of a remedy or remedies for the evils which" undoubtedly exist is a matter not only of difficulty but of long and patient work. In this colony we have seen efforts to find remedies. Every effort of the kind is worthy of the greatest praise, and will always receive praise if one is convinced that the effort is a genuine honest attempt and not a device to obtain or retain political power and emolument. People of course decide this point of approbation and disapprobation by their confidence or want of confidence in public men ; but results must also speak strongly. Time was when it was held that the question of unemployed could be easily settled by increasing protective duties and creating employment. This proved a ghastly failure. Particular forms of direct taxation were blazoned forth as remedies, but these, too, have failed. And so on. But f.bsolute or partial failure must not tJid will nci discourage work. The several land settlement schemes of tbe late Hon. Mr Ballance and the Hon. Mr McKenzie, the cooperative system of the Premier, and the labour policy of the Hon. Mr Reeves have all been efforts, partly wise md pß,rtly unwise, doing good in some di rectior. 3 and evil in others, but still efforts to find remedies , though in tho aggregate showing little tangible result, and helping to demonstrate the difficulty of the task which public men have set themiselves. Generally we find the men who ere positive are wrong, und it will only bo gradually thab headway can be made. The Hon. Mr Rolleston put forward this view admirably during the recent election, when asked to give his opinions on unemployed question, and we quote his remarks not to show that he has made any great discovery or that he has any panacea, but to show that as a thoughtful man, an advanced Liberal, he has no great confidence in any process bui that which involves time and labor and patience. He said :—: —

Tho treatment of the question of the 41 unemployed " is itself but one incident

in the dealing with the larger problems of more efficient production, more equitable distribution of wealth, and that large range of social subjects connected with sickness, charitable aid, poverty, and old age which will require the best abilities and the largest sympathy of our public men, and which may then, perhaps, admit of only partial solution in our time.

I may premise that in earlier days, when the immigration scheme of Sir Julius Vogel was -being carried on, it fell to my let to deal with the difficulty in a modified form. It was then only in a modified form, because Crown lands were still available for settlement, there was a general onward movement, and the absorption of the unemployed into the general ranks of industry was more easy than is now the case. I recognised then, as I recognise now, that settlement of the people on the land is the first and readiest way of dealing with the unemployed.* We then, 187576, instituted the village settlements system, which have been more or less of a success, according to the judgment with which they have been located and administered. Modifications of this scheme have since been adopted, and further improvements can no doubt be engrafted upon it, but it is obvious that it is not of universal application, and though it will alleviate it cannot be taken as an absolute and final solution of the unemployed difficulty. The securing of homes is a universal necessity — the cultivation of land is, of course, only one channel of industry. State farms are suggested and deserve a trial as a means toward the same end. They, again, can only be a part of a larger system of dealing with the question on broad principles, and of a aeries of measures that will be preventive rather than curative of the ills of poverty. The first of these underlying principles, to my mind, is that we should seek to promote the absorption of the unemployed into the industrial ranks ; that poverty should not be congregated, but distributed, so as to be "improved off the face off the earth " by association with those who have been more fortunate in the struggle of life, and wbo should learn to feel that they are, to some extent at least, their brother's keepers.

To illustrate what I mean. It is now generally recognised that the congregation of orphans in an indiscriminate manner — in what have been not inaptly called " monster " institutions —is wrong in principle. Here and in older countries it is recognised that distribution, not aggregation, is the principle to be acted upon, and that orphanages should be rather depots than permanent homes.

Similarly with regard to State farms, there will always be a residuum, especially of those who are incapacitated by age or accident, or ill-health, who will remain to be dealt with permanently by the State, and for whom the State farms will be required. But all ablebodied men should have the opportunity of moving on and improving their position by association in the ranks of the great industrial army. Nothing will justify any system which leads to the loss of self-respect, or shuts out hope of bettering themselves, or encourages a feeling of dependence in the minds of workmen. The object of any legislation should be to secure fair play to all and equality of opportunity. Mr Burt, who will be admitted to be an authority on labor questions, says that we have more to look for from selfhelp and mutual co-operation of workmen than from legislation, and he points to a possible system of partnership and profit sharing as a future development of the pioblem. That is a side of the question which I feel less competent to deal with than with the remedy afforded by land settlement. There is, however, no universal panacea for existing evils ; there is no immediate remedy for longseated maladies ; they have to be approached from different points of view and in different ways.