The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1891.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXV, Issue 9428, 1 June 1891, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1891.

“The Seamy Side of Australia” is the name of an article in the Nineteenth Century, referred to in the cable messages of nearly two months ago in a tone of respectful alarm. It turns out, the mail having brought copies of the magazine in question, that there was cause neither for respect nor for alarm. The only alarm, if any, should be on the aide of the writer’s friends. Mr Fortesoue is the writer, late of Government House, Wellington, in the days of Sir William Jervois. In the article he has written under the striking title which resounded so far, he has given some proofs of good sense and ability. The article is by no means vox et prceterea nihil. There are fairly good criticisms on certain points of Australian finance, and the development of Australian life. The perpetual deficits of Sydney and Queensland, the circumstances by which the long series of Victorian surpluses were converted into admitted and terrible deficiencies justifying the issue of large loans, the discrepancy between the financial results of the later and the earlier railways of the various Colonies, the increase of the Colonial indebtedness at a rate greater than the increase of population or revenue or production, the abnormal development of town life with an increase by no means commensurate in the rural populations—these and many other subjects Mr Fortesoue treats with frankness, comprehensiveness, and on the whole with trenchancy. It is eminently right that they should be spoken of. We admire the boldness with which he stands forward and rebukes Lord s Caa:ri^t<»Li©r.Laving^t^the.OeloKißl

Institute, in the presence of Royalty and a distinguished audience, repeated only the usual cant phrases by which the usual couleur de rose through which enthusiasts look at things Australasian, is put into words. There is a seamy side to most things in tla»a world, and as most people have been. content to ignore that side of Australasia, we may well accord our admiration to one of the first critics, ho in later days (there were plenty them at one time) has had the courage to speak plainly.

Had Mr Portescue spoken with a sense of impartiality fortified by knowledge, as well as a feeling of courage, he might have done some good. His article not having done good, harms himself rather than anybody else. It shows him in the light of a monomaniac ; a man with a mania against the “ working man.” According to Mr Portescue everything that is bad in Australia and Hew Zealand is due to the working man. His simple formula for the diagnosis of every disease in the body politic is “ mob .rule,” He reminds us of what was said of Mr Kinglake when the first book of his famous history appeared with its virulent and persistently recurring denunciation of Louis Napoleon. The historian was compared to the painter who, having painted a beautiful picture, spoilt it by introducing caricatures of the devil into every part of it. So it is with the “ mob rule ” of Mr Portescue’s brain. The late unfortunate strike, which nobody deplores so much as the working man, gives Mr Portescue a sort of handle. But if he had possessed the clearness of vision required for impartiality of judgment, he would have seen that the federal combination of Australasian labour was caused by the federal combination of Australasian maritime capital. Eliminate the incidents for whatever they are worth, and you have the two interests face to face, one by combination provoking the other to combine. The disturbances in Queensland enable Mr Portescue to give another touch of grotesque colour to his caricature; but the worst outrage of which we have yet heard in that country occurred on the Bench of Justice. The perpetrator was a person holding the commission of a Queen’s Judge. Hardly had the voice of the usher ceased the invocation to God to bless “Her Majesty the Queen and his Honor the Queen’s Judge,” when the voice of the latter was heard mocking that solemn appeal by roundly abusing the police for not having committed wholesale murder on a crowd of excited men. There have been outrages on the labour side in Queensland; we deplore the fact; we accept the evidence of the recent conspiracy trials ; but we cannot reserve our condemnatory regret for the side of labour alone. However, these things have served Mr Portescue’s turn as the painter of the devil of mob-rule. They will not enable him to convince impartial men who see strikes everywhere else in the world, and know their causes, that the strikes of Australia ought to be credited with any specially evil significance. In a country in which public opinion has applauded Sir John Gorst’s Labour Commission, the article on mob-rule must have fallen as. fiat as it is possible even for so crude a production to fall.

Let us turn to New Zealand, to which Mr Fortescue has condescended to extend his view, for answer to his remarks. Mr Fortesoue holds this Colony up as the awful example of the evils of “mob-rule.” “Mobrule,” after having exhausted our credit, has brought us to the sad necessity of industrious labour, and having finally been defeated in a great strike, returns (like the Bourbons who never learn anything and never forget anything) to Parliament with twenty labour members determined to have revenge first, and “circuses,” in the shape of unlimited expenditure of borrowed money on public works, after. This is really too delicious. Mob-rule, after years of crashing mastery, has but “ twenty labour members” in a House of seventyfour ! Nevertheless we have the whole tirade of critical inconsequence. Who plunged us into debt? The working man. Who prevents our railways from having profitable rates of freight ? The working man. Why do people congregate in the towns? Because the working man likes amusements and luxury. Why is the country not populated as it ought to be? Because the working man will not work. Now, let us take these assertions seriously .for a moment as well as seriatim . Who plunged us into debt ? The <£so freeholder and the .£lO householder, ten years before universal suffrage gave the working man a political voice. Who prevents the railway rates from rising? The country population, where the “ working man” of our friend’s caricature is not to be found.’ Why do people congregate in the towns? Because in the time of the £6O freeholder and the £lO householder and the Unlimited Plural Vote, the land was monopolised in large areas. Why is the country not populated as it ought to be? First, because the best land is held in large blocks; secondly, because most of the holders of these large blocks are either unable or unwilling to employ labour in remunerative work, being, in fact, the hopeless slaves of absentee mortgagees; thirdly, because protection to native industry was refused for many years by the people who monopolised the country lands ; fourthly, because in 1887 the liberal land arrangements of a Liberal o‘overn* ment were upset and destroyed by the representatives of the great Conservative interest. Finally, let us remark that universal suffrage became the law in 1879, and that it was not till 1891 that labour succeeded in getting itself represented in the proportion which, though it has frightened poor Mr Fortescue out of his wits, is very much less than its due. Such is the answer to our young friend. As he has courage and sincerity, and a fair degree of intelligence, we can only hope that he may live to learn that there never was such a thing as “ mob-rule ” in any part of Australasia, and to confess that in the year of grace, 1891, when he penned that poor little article of his, , -jhe-nnivereal suffrage o£ an .intellit-

gent, industrious, honest, orderly, people was struggling hard to remedy the mischief done by the oligarchies which had so long ruled the land rather for their own benefit than the development of the public interests.