SIR ROBERT STOUT.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 779, 28 July 1909, Page 2

SIR ROBERT STOUT.

VIEWS UN ENGLAND. "SLACK IN MANY WAYS." Sir Robert Stoat, New Zealand's Chief Justine, is tlio subject of a character sketch in the Review of Reviews, by the pea of that wellknown journalist, Mr W. T. Stead. Sir Robert is paying what is practically his first visit Co London, for he went out from the Shetland Isles to New Zealand as a lad of nineteen, and lie has never revisited the Old Country uutil he arrived a month or so ago. His first impressions of Eng-land-as gathered during his few weeks iu London-are the reverse of favourable. He thinks that the English are rather slack as compared with the New Z*alanders, Asked how the slackness manifested itself, Sir Robert replied: "In many ways. You are not keen enough to bo logical, for one thing. Look at your education controversy. Can anything bo more illogical than the position of the Nonconformists? They want to disestablish the Church, and at the same time they have established religion in every elementary soliool. What is wrong for the parish churoh canuot be right in the public school. There is ouly one'logical solutionsecular educatiou. But your Nonconformists will not hear of it." "Apart from roligious controversy do you find us slack?" asked Mr Stead,

"You arc slack all round," said this uncompromising censor.. "The strenuous life seems to have gone out of fashion, You are given over to amusement aud when you are not playingjou can hardly be said to be working. Look at the labourers in the street, aud watch the leisurely way iu which they put in time on their job. Just now I saw a pav-ing-stone being chipped. Iu Now Zealand it would have been done by one man. Here it ocoupied three. Puss in gloves catches no mice, and workmen who wear top coats don't hustle through their jobs. As in towu, so it is iu country. Your ploughmen don't plough as our New Zealanders plough. Your farms are not as well cultivated. Everywhere is slackness, inefficiency, lack of drive, lack of snap, lank of intelligence," Sir Robert Stout blames the English education for the slackness. Said lie—"lt is the fault of your educatiou. Your country schools teach anything and everthing but agriculture. There ought to be a garden attached to every country soliool, and children should be taught to know the land and the crops and their parasites, as they know their arithmetic. In north-west France, where a vigorous effort has been made to teach the soholars the fundamental principles of agrioultore, the produce of the farms has inoreased twentyfive per cent. Iu Now Zealand we are pressing steadily forward along this line. So far as I oan see the need for the school garden has not penetrated the heads of ten per cent, of your educatioual authorities." | "Is that all?" "Oh, dear no," said Sir Robert, genially, "Your Government takes next to no pains to help the farmer. You have hardly any experimental farms, - few agricultural colleges, next to no expert advisers available anywhere. You are pottering along in the same hugger-mugger fashion of your grandfathers. And iu trade you are nearly as bad." "What ails us in our trade?" "Slaokness is the national failing; laok of enterprise, lack of energy, lack of care. The British manufacturer is so satisfied that he is producing the best article that he merely smiles contemptuously when asked to produce what his oustomor wants." On the drink question, Sir Robert spoke with unoompromising direotnbss. "What is wanted," he said, "is a root aud branch reform of the oustoms of the people. It is al) nonsense saying that you cannot have social intercourse without wiue," He went on to suggest that the House of Lads should give the people a load iu this reform. "Why," he domauded, "why do they not place themselves at the head of the greatest of all saoial reforms, aud make a determined onslaught upon the drug habit that is poisoning the people, by emptyiug the contents of their cellars into the gutter and swearing off the wine, ale, aud spirits for. ever, for themsolves, their families, thefr servants and the stranger who is within their gates?" "Your impressions seem to be rather gloomy," remarked Mr Stead, after some further criticism, equally outspoken. "Yes, for the moment," replied the candid frieud. "You may wake np; tlio stock is sound, and if you could but roalise tho peril of the slackness into which you have fallen you might retrieve the position. But what with labourers iu top-coats, illogical Nonconformists, triumphant publicans, an I other unpleasant phenomena, I hae ma doots." Mr Stead cousoled himself with the reflection that Sir Robert is 'not, by any means nu advanced colouialpolitician," aud that in 1897 Sir Robert had delivered an equally severe diatribe against many distiuctively New Zealand institutions. Ho might have added tlio further reflection that after all Sir Kobort has not had time to see much of England outside Loudon since his arrival. By Hie way, Sir Robert declared that "if Britain gies uudor, Greater Britain goos over at once to the United Statos if America," "Do not make auy mistake about it," ho said. "If by any disaster auy foreign Power were to dictate a peaco in London whioh tiausferred New Zealand to the conqueror, the next day wo should hoist the Stars and Stripes, the only other Hag $■ vo the Uniou Jaek under which N.tf Zealaudors oould live."