HAS THE WAR HELPED?

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17234, 9 August 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

HAS THE WAR HELPED?

THE SPIRIT OF UNREST.

ST PRANK MOBIOH.

f It wiH be a fad well within toot man. r nes that from the beginning and rigl through the period of the war we w« ' toe ever being told feat the fn nation. would emerge regenerate _ tram, the titanic struggle-that ©i ( liberties would be the better secure i and the more widely extended; tha - apart from the subjugation of German mil i tary ambition, great good would come m J of war, which in itself is an evil. , Has that hope been realised, that tw, , diction fulfilled ? la it likely to be? Are I really very different in essentials froi t what we were before the war» ] ( » early to apeak yet, but I a* , not at all convinced that w , ««■ I find everywhere the same pw judiees, the same compromises, the earn evasions. If comradeship in arms is t bring about a closer brotherhood of men where is it? Industrial revolt is bittere than it ever was, and more widespread The selfishness of a considerable section o the commercial and trading classes is mad' effective in a world-wide mania for pro Steering, which is the unprincipled ex pkwtatioQ by the few of the absolot necessities of the many. Even the reviva of religion that was so much talked o hasn't come; though for my part I hav« no faith in any revival that is not a re vival in the innermost hearts of men. I am basing this article on experienci gained in Australia, where I have beei nearly all the* time since the war brok. cut. I cannot see that the war has mad* any radical difference in any great respect There has been an enormous increase ii the cost of living, bat for every increase ii wages the workers have had to fight tooti and nail, in spite of the fact that nearij all big trading businesses have made unusually large profits during the war period. And professional salaries have not beer increased at all to meet the enormoush increased cost of Kving. Which is to say, there has been no increase in the earning* of the employed class, except in cases where strong industrial unions hare been able to enforce heir claim*. tTpdltniilabed Salfisbsess. I can speak quite honestly on these matters, because nobody is ever eilly enough to suspect me of being an extremist or a IJemoerat, or a Socialist, or .anything like that, ./. The point I am trying to make is that the war has not diminished selfishness, and that to that extent the enormous sacrifices made by the J Eating men and their families have'been to no purpose. Ido not believe in strikes. I think they are barbarous, destructive, Miotic. But I cannot deny that the claims' | made by Australian seamen, the claims on which this present abominable strike is cased, are daims in themselves apparently just and reasonable. I want above all things to be fair, and I admit that I have * swecial sympathy with sea-going men because I was before the mast myself.. I can conceiveof no real,ana reputable reason why #*&*&' should sue* be -well aocomiaofr*H3?^^? rß ?^.??»^B< , rai "Iragreavthat . m1 * 6 - *s<#' bad and nefarious mesas-of »**8...» tfisputeror forcing ah issue but I do apt. forget thiat sailors and firemen are, not all, wise and intelligent and altra. isfcw people riflse the heads of shrprane companies ; are supposedto be. ,Y , :.^J* It b tba basest folly t to cry peace,, peace, when there in no peace. It would be PS neßt dishoaaeofc stumdHy to pretendtnat Ute spirit of unrest is not growing- m Australia from day to day. * The trades unions are definitely bent on a radical change in the whole industrial system. No amendment «l present laws as they stand will rrer parify them again. R » easy enough to get statistics and to prove on paper thai the men of the unions are very -paid,:because statistics can be made to prove anything. But we know in fact that the %c?*«cs are in fact poorer, relative to the ocas of living, than they have ever Iweaiin Australia before. We know that amy increase made in their pay, any expemie* incurred by* providing better conditions of, work, wiS! be passed on to the public and is the end make things as bad for them as ever. That is the real underlying difficulty, and sooner or later it will have to be faced. The sooner the better for all of us.

We bare to realise, «co, that title mm, not associated with any union are worse 1 faff than the unionists. Bank clerks, doing skilled and rtsponaible work, carrying %r«n responsibilities, are far worse paid than bricklayers* labourers, and their unavoidable current expenses are far heavier; And they form only one class of the many classes that might bo cited. ,-.- Possible Eefonaa.

I suppose that in the end the reform will come by way of co-operation and some undreamt-of extension of the system of profit-sharing. Every worker will become a sort of shareholder in the enterprise with which he is connected as a wage-earner. There seems to be no other way. Once a man's earnings depend directly on the honesty and the quality of his work, the incentive to revolt will be largely removed. Associate a hundred men in any work in which all .are immediately interested, and they will all work their best and make things hot for any man who seems inclined to loaf on his job.

It comes to this, for a start. We all have to make up our minds to be less selfish in our money-getting. We have to content ourself with fair returns in place of large profits. We have to make up our minds that the people of the future will not tolerate any large leisured or merely parasitic class. It would seem rather like making the world over again, but the task will have to be undertaken. Liberty of the Subject. And class antagonisms will in some way have to be quieted. Cliques of all sorts are still determined to make the other fellows moral by compulsory legislative action, and the time is near at hand when ,the other follows will make up their minds to stand no more of it." We shall have to get back to first principles and agree that coercive law shall cease, except bi so far as coercion is plainly necessary to public safety and the protection of individual right. The prohibition propaganda, a propaganda entirely honest for the most part, is doing great harm in Australia, because it is causing great bitterness in the class it is,directed against, the big claa of moderate drinkers. And that, again, ia only one instance of the sort of tendency ordinary men find exasperating and intolerable. There have been serious riots in Melbourne during the peace celebrations (a queer thing enough) because of that. People who are desperately intent on minding other people's business are incensine the people whose affairs they interfere j with. I am perfectly willing to fight at a barricade to-morrow if a law is passed com pel ing me to eai cheese on Tuesdays 01 wear a green coat every second Monday, because I hold that in those matters and ' matters such as those the law has no right to interfere with me.

li the war does not eventually help us to a broader charity the war will have been worse than senseless. If it does not do that, Germany will triumph in the future as she never triumphed in the past. It in an unpopular thing to say, but, apart from the one matter of conscription, there was fuller personal liberty in Germany before the war than there is in Australia to-day. We eball not help the situation at all by burying our heads in the sand like silly ostriches and persuading ourselves that, outsids car buried heads, aetiasyj existed -