A RUSSIAN CRITIC.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 18 February 1907, Page 1

A RUSSIAN CRITIC.

NEW ZEALAND'S WEAKNESS. "HOW BAD YOU LIVE." A representatve of the Lyttcltoi "Times" had an interview with M. Ze nohus Peschkoff, a young Russian wh( has been travelling through New Zea , land for the past two months with j , I companion, studying the conditions oi , the colonia! working man. Ai. Peschkofl , has been away from Russia for aboul I two years and a haf, during which per- '" ■ iod he has visited Canada, tho Unit°led States, and other parts of the 7. world. He belongs to a literary circle in Russia, is, of course,' an advanced Socialist, and has the quick sympa- * thy and keen consciousness of human " unhappiness that are to be found in ir/sst "Russian wr ( ings. His impres- "' sions of New .Zealand and of the other ' | countries he has -'visited are at once 1 1 original and highly interesting. li It came as something as a shock to l find that M. Peschkoff did not regard New Zealand as a paradise for -the working man. He has lived close to the workers of the colony during the [ past two months. He and his eompa--1 nion landed at Auckland and walked to Napier, for the purpose of gathering first-hand impressions from the workers they met. Then they found their way gradually south, everywhere staying in the cheapest lodginghouses and mixing with the poorest grades of workers, M.Peschko ffhas arrived at the inclusion that the New Zealand working man is little if any better' off than the worker of any other country where "wage slavery" and an inverted social system exist. "I am not a materialist,' 'he said, with a deprecatory shrug of his shoulders and a whimsical twist of expressive lips. "You must excuse me — but I want to take your people and say to them : 'How bad you live !' I find your people poor spiritually. Horses, football . Oh, yes! But the spiritual life? No. I do not know whether • I express it. They do not read. They work hard, your manual labourers, harder than the labourers in Canada or America. I have seen and I know that. Then they go home to their rooms. Have ;vou seen those bedrooms ? There is a bed and a litttle bit of candle. They must go out. and where, where shall they go 1 Your libraries " and another expressivo shrug finished the sentence. "We have been along the road travelling from Auckland to -.apier." continued the Russian visitor. "The farm labourers work hard all day, and is cijt off from all companionship. He , sljould have a home, but we found that he has a little whare, you call it. Sometimes the whare looks so bad, so very, very, bad. Tour's is a young ( country, and the men look forward and are content to live low in the present. They live so poor spiritually. I know about the whares, because I have been in them .and they are not homes." : "Are the European workers better i off?" asked the reporter. "They are far more j.lvanced," said M. Peschkoff. "These countries have io art, literature. In Europe the workers read and think. Freedom ? They have all the freedom they want in Europe. Of course conditions are unsettled in Germany at present, and in a Few years there will be some changes there. There are too many parties there. You have high wages here, but ' orices are high, and the worker gains nothing. Your homes are not better han the homes of Canada and Ameri*a. In Toronto and Ottawa I saw no slums like the slums I saw iv Wellington and Auckland. " r . What should we do ?" Queried the I reporter. "We have a free Parlia- . nent, a universal franchise, a free iress, a national system of education, State control of public services, and yet we have not solved the problem of 1 'he distribution of wealth." "But still, your Government — it is lot Radical," said the visitor. You •mist excuse me, but I must say what I think. Your working-man goes to his home, and it is poor and miserable. He goes abroad and he sees the nice ' chair and the beautifuL»icture, and he desires to get them. He desires simply to get the chair and picture, and he does not live or think. Men should not spend their lives wanting the material;^ things. Oh, how bad you' live ! The ? distribution of education in New Zealand is not equal. If lam a workinf man and have four children, they cai 30 to the public school, and when the; are 15 or 16 they must go to work. ) have seen children of 13 working it New Zealand. Other children can staj at school, so you see the distributioi of education is not equal. You shoulc force New Zealanders to be educated and to take an interest in the whoh life. But a man cannot take an in terest in something outside his bread and butter when he has to think aboul that bread and butter all day. Toui children should be educated until they are 21 certainly. It should be compulsory." "But if all the people become college students, who will do the manual I work ' ? queried the reporter, with a mental apology. "In the near future hard work will be machine work," was the reply, "but fveryone will enjoy hard work when it is not the badge of servitude. ' After a few hours mental work you would enjoy going out and paving a street or digging a ditch. If we all shared the hard work would be light. We give it •all to a few men. and they are looked down on and called workers.' " Then the conversation fumed to th-> oroblem of the crinunl, and the young Russian declared .-uMiist t».« prison and its ways. "I don't like the prisons," he -.atl. In A:-vrica they showed me a 1 „»,, am . -„ the room was an electric char. 'I t-...y told me that in that chair 26 men had died. And they showed me the two men who were waiting to die. Outside the window of -the chair-room was a little yard where thee mad prisoners walked. Is it not all horrible when you think about it ? What should we do with the criminals? We should not breed them. If we have produced them we should try to improve them. But how can a prison improve a criminal ? Certainly, we are all barbarians, nothing else." Touching uoon Russian matters. M Peschkoff said that hs did not think the internal conditions cf his n=five 9? un ' r y could be said to bo improving. He had ,of course, missed the terrible happen lm? s of the past year or two, but he had been in constant communication with Russian friend's. The Duma had failed to realise the expectations cf the Russian people. Its first act had been to demand au amnesty for political prisoners, and it had failed to secure that. The initial failure had been followed by ethers, and the promise for freedom for Russia had disappeared. What was needed was a Duma that would say what, it wanted and insist upon getting it, thus asserting the supreme authority cf the people. Perhaps some future Duma night carry out that programme, but .11 the meantime it seemed that the Rus;ian people would have to face a ter- I •ible struggle. ■ I