TASK OF GOVERNING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19947, 16 May 1928, Page 12

TASK OF GOVERNING.

CHALLENGE TO YOUNG MEN TAKING PART IN PUBLIC LIFE. DEFICIENCY CAUSED BY WAR.

"If we have been critical of Mr. Stewart, I want him to know that we are not unfriendly, and it is as a friend that we Kieet him to-day," said Mr. H. T. Merritt, president of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, in welcoming the Hon. W. Downie Stewart, Minister of Finance and Customs, at the special luncheon at the Town Hall yesterday. "All we ask is that he will tell us all we want to know."

Responding' to tho welcome, the Minister said he feared he had earned the sad and unenviable reputation of one who had alienated the sympathy of the commercial community because of the income-tax revision of last session. It appeared to him he should meet tho members of the chamber, not as a guest, but as a prisoner at tho bar. He remembered the words of the psalmist: "My sin is ever before me, and my sins and transgressions are greater than can be numbered." While the revised scale of income taxation had raised half-a-gale from the rest ol the Dominion, Mr. Stewart said he appeared to get a hurricane from Auckland. Education and Public Life. Speaking in more serious veiu, however, the Minister said it was helpful to get criticism from bodies as representative as chambers of commerce. In th<s case of manufacturers' associations, farmers' unions, importers' associations and the like, a particular point of view was often advanced, but the views put forward by chambers of commerce were generally more balanced, comprehensive and composite. He appreciated the work done by the chambers of commerce. As one writer had expressed it, there was an invisible hand which led men to work for the community while ostensibly working for themselves. New Zealand was a young community. There were not the same accumulations of capital and not so great a leisured class as were to be found in the Old World, so that it was not easy for commercial men to take an active part in politics. In passing, Mr. Stewart directed attention to a section of the community which, he' averred, was not. taking the part it should in public life. Particularly he referred to the sons of well-to-do people who had had the advantage of a liberal education —many had been to Oxford, Cambridge and other universities of the Old World—and had no great business ties. They were free in their criticism, but were unwilling to take their share in public life. "They do nothing," said the Minister, "except to see that they get across to tho Sydney races every winter."

"1 assure you 1 pay attention to the criticism of chambers of commerce," added Mr. Stewart, "and if 1 believe 1 have made a mistake, I endeavour to set myself right. Some say if you alter your mind, you are weak. Others declare you are obstinate if you refuse to change. You see, then, that it is sometimes difficult to steer the true course." Cause ol Present Discontent.

The theme of his opening remarks was resumed by Mr. Stewart in closing. He realised there was a spirit of considerable discontent abroad. Broadly, iio believed, that discontent arose from the fact that politics as an art was not so ablo to cope with the rapidly-changing conditions of industry and commerce as other departments, notably that of science, were doing. It was very difficult to adapt the political machine to industrial changes. Large parts of Europe had abandoned democracy and had gone over to dictatorships and autocracies. If democracy. should anywhere be successful, it should be in a country like New Zealand, with a homogeneous and well-edu-cated people. "But, if we are to bo helped in carrying on the system, it is imperative that those who can help should do so," declared Mr. Stewart. "In New Zealand we have no aristocracy of birth or of wealth, but we can build up an aristocracy of character and brains. The war made a gap in our ranks. It swept away tho flower of our race—the men who would have been the leaders to-day in our political and our commercial life. W r e have lost not only those men, but also their unbegotten sons and daughters, who would have been the leaders of to-mor-row. Those of us who are left should help to make good tho deficiency."