THE PREMIER AND THE PROSPERITY OF NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12856, 3 May 1905, Page 7

THE PREMIER AND THE PROSPERITY OF NEW ZEALAND.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —As an object-lesson of bold, unscrupulous prcpagandism, the Premier's political campaign demands the attention of every elector throughout the colony. "Wo (the great Imperial ' Ego') do not say that we have produced the. prosperity of the colony (that would be to o'erstep the modesty of nature), but we do say that we have placed you, the people of New Zealand, in those favourable circumstances that have enabled you to produce and acquire that prosperity, and, .therefore, in all equity and by the bonds of just obligation and gratitude, we claim jour loyalty and continued support!" This appeal proclaims the man, his ruling passion. The prosperity 4 of a nation, like that of the individual, depends more vitally upon moral than upon material conditions, upon moral power more than upon "the almighty dollar," upon moral worth more than upon mines of wealth, upon character more than upon cash. Do you estimate the man himself by the clothes ho wears, or by his mansion assess his manhood? And yet, as you' trudge through the weary speeches of die Premier and the threadbare comparison between the condition of the colony under former Governments and what it is now, you find 1:0 attempt at estimating moral values; you find no boast of decreasing drunkenness, and gambling, and immorality, of crime and harmful self-indulg-ence. The totalizator still pays its governmental toll; filial neglect of aged, parents* still taxes the public revenue; the love of pleasure, of ease ami lightly-earned independence still increases, and in the expressive words of the prophet denouncing a nation's fatal luxury: " Jeshurun waxed J fat and kicked," because rich but lawless, prosperous but morally callous. Yet if there bo any truth in history, no material prosperity, no magnificent surplus, no wealth of liquid assets, will save, a morally corrupt colony from the fate of the great nations of antiquity. "No! you may have all this prosperity) and yet be poor; your riches may be corrupted, and your garments moth-eaten; your gold and your silver may be rusted,, and their rust be a testimony against you." The Premier boasts of "the favouiable circumstances in which we (the Imperial 'Ego') have placed you'." What are the circumstances? .Subjection to an ambitious and plebian autocracy; conflict with a constantly en-' croaching self-exalting socialism, embodied in '.lie great many-headed "Ego!" Prime Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Defence, of Government Insurance and Public Trust Office, of Education and Immigration ; defying the ruling of the Auditor-General; assuming precedence of the Chief Justice; virtually the " Governor-in-Couiicil" ; reducing His Excellency to a perfunctory figurehead, what remains to make New Zealand the isles of Heddon, and its 800,000 settlers his obsequious officials and menial serfs? Are these "favourable circumstances?" Is it favourable" to the common weal to dress any man in the brief but absolute authority of manifold offices, the functions of any one of which demand. his whole time and energy? la it wise, is it safe, to entrust to any man greater despotic powers than, are held by King, or Tsar, or Kaiser? Is it "favourable" to the full development of this colony to. invade the personal rights of self-ownership, of individual enterprise, of commercial and political freedom? Is it "favourable" to weight the colony with an enormous and over-increasing national debt amounting to 55 millions? to drag a hard-working community into the swamp of insolvency, and to deprive it of all real control over public expenditure? Is it " favourable" to intimidate capital? to blight the joy of willing service? to make goodwill and affection between employers _ and employees (upon which John Buskin so strenuously insists) almost impossible? Is it favourable to the moral honesty of the colony to claim for the Seddon policy that prosperity which is due to its exceptional natural resources and; conditions, to the "inbred spirit" of its pioneers, and the intelligent and persistent enterprise of its present-day city and rural population? The "separator" and the "freezer," as honest Mr. Kirkbride and the Ik>lcl Leader of the Opposition have put it, , have made the prosperity of New Zealand and nothing else! And, may I ask, is the i example of political unreliability, of unscruI pulous electioneering tactics, and broken promises of political partisanship set by the Imperial "we" favourable to the moral character of the colony, and to the . stability of its progress? Not far from where; I write the goodly Waikato River glides impetuously over its serpentine and deeplyworn bed. At a distance, in the sheen' of the declining sun, it looks a smooth and radiant stream, but draw near and look down from its woody embankment, and, lo! it is a gliding torrent of struggling eddies; if is agitated with deep internal conflicts, and is full of peril! The very water dog shrinks instinctively away! So, likewise, the Seddon policy! Gazed at from a distant, bourne, it looks peaceful and beneficent as "the quality of mercy," but to those who, with fearless and uneorrupt hearts, draw near enough to explore and investigate, it looks like the troubled sea, of "the wicked, for it. cannot rest, and its waters ens' up mire and dirt."—l am, etc., Cambridge, April 10. EDWIN Cox.