THE NEW EVANGEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8273, 4 June 1890, Page 6

THE NEW EVANGEL.

No. Vlll.—Part I. ! OUR TROUBLES. THE CAUSES, AND THE REMEDY. Your sin fallows steadily behind, as th© cart which follows the draught bullocks."—Buddhist ProTerb. At the farewell banquet given by the Labour Delegates at Berlin recently, M. Jules Simon said " I drink to all who suffer." Animated by the same spirit, 1 now write to all who suffer. Not only is it true that few think, and very few think correctly; but it is also tj*ue that it is exceedingly difficult even for a sturdy wind, hough disciplined by travel, superior intercourse, reading, and writing, to arrive at sound conclusions. For instance, try to

analyse the strike question ; or t;ike illusions generally. They are no doubt, pleasing companions; but how few realise, at the time, that- they are false friends. Anil it is ever thus: whether the illusion be farcical — such as saying of that otfice-clingiug politician — Atkinson—that •' his single-windedness and his sterling patriotism will be held in remembrance for ever" (I) (see I\'kw Zealand Herald, 2nd May, 1S90) ; or whether it be calamitous—such as Protection ; or the compulsion of Reman Catholics and others to pay for education which they cannot- conscientiously approve; or our most unfair and, otherwise, imprudent, system of charitable aid and relief works C-): or the property lax £500 exemption clause ; or our absurd bankruptcy laws ; or land nationalisation, siugle tax, or land tax ; or unjust, or, otherwise, unwise strikes ; or any unfair advantage to be obtained for, or conferred on, any particular class in a community, at the expense of the other classes, or of any other class; or, indeed, any prospective benefit, with no prospective suffering. But we have now arrived at a crisis when to think correctly— to -trace accurately, the causes of our troubles, and to prescribe a specific—is vital, Ivot us, therefore, try. First, the causes.

To transgress natural law, means to incur the inevitable penalty which transgression—sin—always brings—retribution. So that, on the principle of the necessary connection of cause and effect, injustice, inevitably, results in retribution—all folly in disaster (3). Pay the bill you must. Thus, unless the bases of our legislation and of our Government (including administration generally), be in accordance with God's laws—the natural laws which govern the facts around us— (a) equal and exact justice for all alike, and also, otherwise, (b) wisdom— i.e., discrimination—disastrous consequences are certain ; inasmuch as, although fate is the friend of tho good, and the guide of the wise, she is the enemy of he bad, anil the tyrant of the foolish— whilst '"the path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." It is forgotten that the Laws of God— the Laws oi Fact—as contrasted with the Devil's Laws—the Laws of Shamape in every phase of life supreme— His Laws are already everpchert—that they are transcendent, and everlasting, and demand, and, inevitably, command, obedience and from ail that no majorities can alter tfm.mthat wise statesmen and prudent administrators seek to discover and truly interpret them, and legislate, and administer, only in accordance with, and subordinated to themand that such statesmen and oilier administrators must be a power beyond all other political powers, because a viceregent divine power. "He that bath waited in .My statutes, and hath kept My judgments to deal truly, he i-x just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God." As in physics, so in politics—to control the forces of nature, you must obey them. Just as the by-laws of a corporation, or company, can only be enacted in accordance with, and subordinate to, the statute creating that corporation, or commany, so we, puny mortals, can only make our paltry by-laws for the regulation of our petty existences, in accordance with, and subordinated to, our Creator's heaven-born —unalterable decrees : and if we overstep in any way, or otherwise misuse, the powers with which we ;<re temporarily endowed, we, naturally, incur the penalty of transgression—punishment. Viewed in this light—the only light possible—is it wonderful that we have to pay the price for injustice and folly, in misery'.' .And yet we, year after year, persist in returning men to Parliament —to power—a very large majority of whom we know »■■</ from their [xilitical incapacity, and political dishonesty, will not interpret God's laws, or act in accordance with them, even it they rightly interpret them, and, therefore, will inevitably render us liable to pay the penalty of contravention. Thus, to depute wild doctrinaires, like Stout and Ballance, «-< our r'.prwirUaJiw, fur our benefit to interpret (iod's laws decreed for the government of States, or to permit the continuance in ofiiee of men like Atkinson—who has shown himself to be politically incapable, and politically unreliable—(4), to play tho fool with our lives and fortunes, and above all our futures, seems to me the height of madness. Hence the shocking injustices and follies which have been, and arc, in the name of government, perpetrated, for which we have—and deservedlyto suffer.

Now, it cannot be too often reiterated that the State is the whole people ; that the State is specially constituted to execute justice to all- — the machinery expressly appointed to enforce the performance of fluty—and that for the State, in contravention of natural justice, to legalise class-robbers- or class-oppression, means that a majority purporting to represent, and assuming the power of, the whole people, legalise the robbery, or oppression, of one. section of the people for the benefit of the other section, or other sections, of the people ; which, if persisted in, not only, by natural sequence, means, meantime, disaster for all classes, but ultimately civil war and anarchy, with 110 permanent benefit to the plunderers, inasmuch as the dishonest, the lazy, the indiscreet, of whom the plunderers would consist, would in the natural course of events, speedily fall behind and need periodic plunder to keep abreast. Moreover, the plunderers must, ia the long run, discover that neither wish nor need is the measure of right, and that they will ultimately suffer even more than the plundered. And yet, vii nihilc dicta, class-robbers persist. Times of reform are prolific of political quacks ; and they, whether Atkinsons, (4), Stouts, (4), Bui Lances, (-4), or any other political incapable*, political charlatans, or political faddists, or whether merely silvertongued, but impractical, theorists, or Don Quixotes, colonial or local, will ever, as in the past, arise freighted, often with swift, but certainly with ultimate destruction, for their followers and for themselves ; and will, meant me, deceive many. And, in outcast., alas ! what a goodly vessel we have permitted them to wreck. For it was for us to have guarded, and it is still for us to guard, against such natural-sequence events.

The world does not require so much to be informed, as to )>e reminded ; aud it is forgotten that, even when men are not evidently inopables, charlatans, faddists, theorists, or Don Quixotes, it is always preferable to place our trust in measures —rather than in men (">). For, although there is much in good administration of oven a bail measure, yet it is always easier to change men than measures. Thus, in respect of measures, the attempts to repeal " The Contagious Diseases Act, 1809," and the repeal of ' : The Sharebrokers Act, 1871," and "The Sharebrokers Act Amendment

(1) In this connection, it. is curious to notice (see The Auckland livening Star, July 26, 1889) that Mr. Moss taunted the Premier v, it.li acting upon a principle which lie once had 1 lid down, t hat " the first duty of a Government was to take care of itself; and thus kept himself in office for many years." (2) " X fail to dim-over any it priori rights of labour in virtue of which man may insist on being employed if they are not wanted."—Professor iiuxley on "Capital, tile .Mother of labour," in The Nineteenth Century Ito view for March last, p. 520. (3) The articles "On Justice," by Herbert Spencer, in 'Hie Nineteenth Century Review for March and April last, should not be overlooked by those who feel interested in this subject. (4) Let anyone inclining to doubt, or wishing to study, the political incapacity, or political charlatanism of Atkinstm, Stout, or HiUlance, anil of their public associates, peruse '"Die New Kvangel," New. 111. to VII. inclusive, in the New Zr-u,and Herald of 30th August, 4th September, loth September, and litth November, 18S8, and 20th June, 3rd July, and Bth July, 1889 ; and also "The Political Situation —ail article relating to the Stout-Vogel Admin istratio«, published in THE New Z i:\la ID IIERAM) of 16th September, 18S7. (6) I venture to iteuiurto the sentiments contained in Pope's " Essay on Mm." Books. "For forms of Government let fools contest, W&fit Veris best administered ivbsst."

Act, 1872"ft repeal only-effected after many attempts—may be referred to as instances ; and may also be cited to illustrate bow hard it is to remedy error ; which could, with comparative ease, have been prevented. It behoves us, therefore, to see that there be applied to each proposed measure as it is brought forward—whether colonial, or local, whether relating to parliamentary bill?, or to by-laws, or regulations, relating, say, to strikes—infallible teste —touchstones, which cannot err—God's laws—justice and wisdom.

What then does all this teach us? Let me repeatthat it behoves that the basis of our programmes —of all our actions—bo the observance of God's laws, justice and wisdomthat we can only prudently legislate and administrate in accordance with and subordinacy to them—that if we 1 transgress natural law—God's lawin any way, we naturally, and of necessity, incur the penalty of transgression—punishment —that it is therefore indispensable that we send men to Parliament— wisest men— who are especially fit, capable, and honest —to interpret God's laws, and to act in accordance with them—that one of the canons of such interpretation must be that there be no class-robbery, no class-oppres-sion—and that our representatives must not trust to men, but apply to each measure as it is brought forward, the infallible test of justice and wisdom. The Turks have a proverb that " Those who know most are oftenest cheated and the working man, the wage-earner, who certainly takes a more active interest in public here than any other class, has, in this colony—with that, nature moutonine-rc which is common to all of us—been grievously deceived by pretended friends, who have preached to him, as gospel, that most delusive of nil creeds—the creed of selfishness. For, instead of having been told that it is hi.< interest to work cordially with capital (l)), he has been deluded to believe that his chief enemy is the propertypossessorthat irrespective of consideration for any other than his own class, or, indeed, for any other than the special trade, society, or union, of that class to which he belongs, legislation and administration in all things should be effected, primarily for his benefit—and that, it matters not whether such legislation or administration be in accordance with God's laws, exactly just and equal, to all, or otherwise, prudent, so long as it is, apparently, specially advantageous to him. In other words, curiously enough, he invokes, as his saviour, the very fetish that has been his cruel demon—a demon that should always be punished with dishonour— Sklfishvkss. Disastrous illusion ! But humbug and credulity are twins ; and therefore humbug, and especially fluent humbug, well ordered, is marketable humbug. It is thus the working mail has been, and is, humbugged out of his votes, and his hurrahs. And it is, by reason of having been so deluded, that he still persists in ignoring that, in hi.< interest, labour and capital should be wedded—not divorced as now. The result, necessarily, has been disastrous ; and will, eventually, if the same 'course be persisted in, {novo to be ruinous for him.

Ouida says that it is the folly of life that lends charm to it. Hut, tolly—like other charms—has to be paid for ; and the working man, if he persists in such a creed, can only expect what will happen, that sorrow will be in his bones, and desolation in his heart ; for

" When sorrows oouio, they come not single spies, Jiut in battalions.'* And the only consolation which will be left for him is to reflect on the Arab proverb, " All sunshine makes the desert," and that, however much Camot's defined elements of happiness are, under present circumstances, unattainable, yet that Tolstoi's are still within the reach of the despairing. Alas ! alas ! what leseous we have learned, and are learning, and at what a price ! In his property-class-hatuig leaders, the working-man has, indeed, had, and will yet have, I fear, special opportunities of relloctine on the contrast between poople as they seem, and people as they are—on the fact how very much the best part of some men is their clothes, and—above all, on Touchstone's saying, that " The fool doth think lie is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." It is difficult to unlearn error; but the working-man is finding out that the price of false success is happiness ; and that he way of transgressors is hard. And let us hope that he is also realising—that the man who stumbles twice upon the same stone is a. fool—that remorse is a poison with but one antidote—repentanceand that conviction is not conversion ; for a man may carry his convictions along with him into hull. 11. LAISHLtV. [Part 11. will appear in an airly issue.] ('i) The definition of, and lucid remarks on " «'apifcil" by fVounsor Huxley, in " CapitAl, Tht> .Mother of Labour," should be studied, «ipra.