DO THE MASSES THINK?

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14453, 20 August 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

DO THE MASSES THINK?

BY FRANK MORTON".

Do the masses think? It. is a query that has much in common with the old—Have you left off beating your wife? Yes or no! If you say no, you provoke a, storm of contempt ; if you say yes, you may easily be taken for a fool. The matter is one to be approached delicate!}'. To me it seems that thought is the least common of all popular habits. The average man is scurvilv content to leave true thinking to the teachers and preachers, the philosophers and sages of the time. So utterly averse from thinking are the people as a whole, that they have lost all strict sense of the meaning of the word. A man says "I think so," when he means that he supposes so or has a more or lees definite idea that that may bo the case. "I think so," is, as a. rule, a limp or qualified affirmative, in no way connected with any set. process of thought. The world to-day is very full of talk, and all mere talk is thoughtless. No man can truly say what he thinks on any subject unless he takes time to turn the thing over in his mind from every rational point of view. All prejudice or preconception is the flat negation of thought. But if you take the stun of the mental attributes or tendencies of men in the bulk, you will find that prejudice stands for considerably more than half. In all sorts of public matters, men deliberately yield or abandon their privilege of thought: as when a man binds himself over the slave of a caucus or party, as when a man stands openly for his country right or wrong, as when a man subscribes without reserve to the aims and methods of any prominent or powerful class or clique. Thus, what you call an out-and-out supporter of the Government is a member of Parliament who has surrendered his power of thought, in all matters that the Government is interested to uphold, and in respect of all subterfuges to which the Government linds it convenient to resort.

From this point of view, it must at once be plain to you that the masses do not think. If they did think we should have the heads off a lot of ugly and venomous abuses before next sundown. If they did think, tho whole farce of politics, as wo know it, would bo shattered in a day. If they did think all men would have to bring great matters of conduct and belief to the test of individual conscience. If they did think the wholo queer jumble of wise rules and crass absurdities that we know as social usage would have to bo amended to a most extraordinary degree. If they did think there would be no more war, no more class hatred, no more ignominious compromise in matters of broad human appeal. If they did think, in short, wo should have attained to tomething approaching perfection in all our corelations : and that time is not yet, nor is it probable that it will ever be. The grave outstanding defect of all our systems of education and morality lies in t he fact that they do not compel or stimulat-e courageous individual thought. The child is set in a desolate place stuck all over with harsh rules ajul precedents, and lie is taught that, to clo unquestioning rcverence to these is to be respectable and wise. As lie grows older, ho is introduced to certain convenient theories that have hardened into what we call principles, and there is hammered into him the fact that all these he must conform with if he would live godly and without reproach. In the teaching of the child, as in the handling of the man, no account is made of individual variance. All our laws and most of our customs are framed on the assumption that- tho average man is one arid indivisable, and that his n.'Miie is John Smith. However conditions may varv it is demanded of John Smith that he shall behave in precisely the same way to exactly the same ends in every circumstance of life. He must accept in all good faith and humble duty the fetishes that immemorial custom has set up for him. No political freedom so-called can remedy or substantially ameliorate (his attitude or state of John Smith. Iho kingdom of Cod is within you. So long as .John Smith abstains from illuminating thought he must be kept in leadingstrings. It is though!., and not legislation, that will make men free. It is necessarily true, then, that in vital and permanent matters the few thinkers have always been tho masters and leaders of men : just as it is true that the greatest and freest thinkers—John Smith's tolerance of thought being strictly limited—have been the martyrs of tlie race, (banned, yet living and derided dead. Socrates they poisoned. Jesus of Nazareth they crucified. And so one might go on ; for John Smith, having no power oi thought, has always flung bis most independent thinkers to the dogs. Independent thought he naturally hates, for his gospel is of the things that be. and his morality is the enthronement of the usual. Admitting occasional exceptions, if mav lie taken as a rule that the greatest thinkers have always lived during those periods, when individual freedom was most- fully extended. We should have philosophers as great as any that lived in ancient Oreece or ancient Rome, it we could restore the ancientconditions. J hat is, perhaps, a. truism, but you'll catch iru point. We have no great tliinkers in New Zealand; because in New Zealand, as the times go. great thought cannot Hourish. In tho political arena we cannot expect, to have great, thinkers, because ! in that atmosphere of personal extinction no great thinker could live. We have carried i so-colled "democratic" principles, with | blind haste, farther than they have been i carried in any other country in the world ; I with the natural result thai our Parliament; is, relatively to our conditions and ad van- i tages, tho least intellectual on earth. In- 1 tellect being vitally connected with the pro- ! cess of thought. .John Smith (who does not i think) is porketly .satisfied that our I'arlia- i ment should be the least intellectual ; so ! that there is really no hope of improvement ! until John Smith begins to think for him- j self. It is quite possible that, this world, as a habitable globe, may last, several million j years yet- ; and there is no reason whv John | Smith, however slowly he moves, mav not j escape from tho suffocation and the cu'rxo of ' socialism before the finish. In the mean- j time, it. can be said of us more trulv than of i any other civilised people in the world that wo aro not. governed by the brains of the ' community. To that J add that Herbert) Spencer, probably the greatest Hritish ! thinker of modern times, was a, passionate I individualist. Wo still prattle about him I whenever wo are in the mood to affect cul- [ ture, but the assumption he accepted as f he I very basis of his system we have flung dc- j liberatcly overboard. It may be that (be j ship of state is a. little lighter for that, ; but i she has an ominous roll at times, and a <rood ' many sensible passengers are already puffin" ' on their lifebelts. The. fact being, of course, that. John Smith ! has very limited powers of concentration in ' the province of mind. His faculty or habit ' of thought only serves for the management | of his private concerns. It is only the fact ! that, the private concerns of the people are managed with a. certain shrewdness that ■ makes tho thoughtless folly of our politics ! possible. Wo are a comparatively small ! body of people, living under admirable | climatic conditions in a country of exceptional resources. Tho most thriftless man will not starve, if you put him by a sprint in an orchard, and provide him will) bread j and cheese. Only, if such an one declared | that his immunity from starvation was due j to the purity of his politics and the t.lior- ' oughness of bis democracy, yon would mock j him for a fool. Hut- would you, now? If the masses in New Zealand began lo j think, what could they say of the last 20 ! years of our history. We have run riot in ! tho most dubious legislative experiments, j We have Hung our women—or such of them j as would be flung—into the scullle and i squalor of politics. Wo havo laboured ■ fatuously to make men moral by Act of Par- j liament. And the result? Our piivate and j national indebtedness has increased enormously. Tho cost of living, is far higher than it was. The birth-rate has fallen, and is falling. There has been no diminution of crime. Our public expenditure has been in many ways grotesque and wasteful, and certain of our public departments have been j grossly mismanaged. All sorts of costly I

sops have been thrown to the petted constituencies of certain ministerialists. Numberless state appointments have been made as a matter of political favour. Such glaring evils have arisen that even John Smith is commencing to talk of Tammanyism. The State owns huge tracts of land, which it has neither the wit nor the enterprise to develop. The magnificent water-power of the country, monopolised by the State, is running wickedly to waste. There is a railway station at Dunedin that would make a pretty picture on a chocolate box ; but there is a bad break in the middle of the Main Trunk railway system. Meantime, private enterprise (which is only another name for the freedom of the individual) is on every hand hindered, thwarted, and discouraged, and such wealth as the country possesses is turning to foreign investments for security. Every year the public debt is increased, every year the cost of living goes up. and every year the public drink bill gets bigger and bigger. If John Smith began to think, what could lie have to say of these things? If John Smith in New Zealand began to think, lie would be forced to ask himself certain questions. How would this political system serve if we had a population of twenty millions, and the Empire was at war.' AY hat would become of our industrial house of cards—of these tinkering laws that only prevent strife and strikes on paper—if a strong wind of adversity struck it and a million men were clamouring for work? How would it be of this so-much belauded system of absolute any-majority dominance \icro extended to control every field of individual liberty? What should we do if new and starring conditions suddenly made w ls-e government essential to our safety as a people ! 1 hero is a tag I wrote a thousand times one sunny day in June, for an imposition. Ex pede, Herculem.