PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 1906. A NEW "HUMANIST."

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 159, 11 July 1906, Page 2

PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 1906. A NEW "HUMANIST."

One result of Mr Seddon's fateful visit to Australia must rouse that genial giant to Homeric laughter in his place in the Elysian Fields. This is the conversion of the elephantine Commonwealth politician Sir William Lyne to the doctrine of " Humanism." We all know pretty well what our late Premier meant when he called himself a " Humanist," and it will be interesting to ascertain what Sir William Lyne means by it. According to a cable in last issue, the Federal Minister of Customs opened the electoral campaign at Wagga on Monday, and declared himself a "Humanist and State Socialist." Probably fearing that his language was a trifle above the intelligence, of his audience, Sir William hastened to explain that "State Socialism" (inclusive of " Humanism," it is to be presumed) meant " Freetrade defeated." It thus appears that "Humanism," which with Mr Seddon was a very positive quality, is with Sir William just a simple negation. It is interesting to reflect that this "death to free-trade" idea is also called " Hnmanism," or something like it, by Mr Joseph Chamberlain, though Fvee-trade in Britain is essentially and confessedly a thing entirely different from Free-trade in these Australasian Colonies. Anti-Free-trade " Humanism " in England, for instance, means dear food for the people, and a bonus to the agriculturist, whereas in the Commowealth it implies the stiff taxation of the farmers and other producers of raw material in order that an imaginary gain may be placed to the credit of the "trades unions. Mr Chamberlain hopes to square matters by creating a dearer market at Home for colonial wheat, the colonies in return providing a dear market for the British manufacturer. The same end would be attained much more easily by adopting Free-trade at each' end, and this arrangement would have the trifling additional recommendation of conserving the interests of the consumer, who is so apt to be lost sight oi

In England, fortunately, the consumer is able to look after himself. In the colonies it is often otherwise, as we have seen. Here, for one thing, the food supply of the people is not affected. For many a generation to come'we shall always be able to supply ourselves with the raw material of food, and as the value is fixed by the ruling prices in the London market, less freight, insurance, commission and other expenses, the cost of the four-pound loaf can never climb out of the reach of the poorest person in employment. Thus Protection, or "anti-Free-trade," not being directed at the cupboards of the people, passes, in the estimation of Sir William Lyne and his friends, for "Humanism." It would be inhuman, besides being unnecessary, to tax food, but it is meritorious to tax the farmer's plough or his clothes, or his boots, or anything that is his. Mr Chamberlain declares that his system, which would tax food, would so raise the rate of wages that the working class would be able to give more for its food, and in this he is certainly more "humanist" in seeming than Sir William, who can offer nothing to the colonial farmer by way of recompense for the extra, price he has to pay for his waggons, his reaping machines, his wire fencing, and his cream separator. Wheat and wool, mutton and beef, gold and silver, remain as of old at the rate fixed by competition and the needs of over-sea consumers. There is one sort of Freetrade that people of the Lyne stamp do not want to see "defeated," and that is the Free-trade of Britain. Not that an import duty on wheat, say; charged in London or Liverpool, would make any appreciable difference in the price now received by the colonial grower, for a time at any rate, but the effect would speedily be seen in decreased consumption, and consequent loss to the colonial producer, who is, after all, worth considering, because lie is the milch-cow of the " Humanist," at least of the Lyno variety.