A WARNING.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6489, 8 April 1908, Page 2

A WARNING.

THE FATE OF ROME. Sir Edward Fry, in his presidental address at the Central Poor Law Conference at the Guildhall in February, (reports the "Westminster Gazette/') said it was obvious that all systems of Socialistic or Communistic nature wane greater demands on the intcgr'ty >nd good faith of the community than Individualism, aucl it was doubtful whether the community at large was capable of responding to such increased demands. There were at the present time two lines of thought. Ono dwelt on the facts of the social inequalities existing amongst men. It demanded for ail alike an equality of opportunity, an ''quality of enjoyment, an equally in the things <f li*e. Then there 1 arose the question whether the efficiency of the State as they knew it now in the various departments of inspired them with a confidence that it could satisfactorily perform such vast labours. (Cheers.)' The other line of thought was that of those who dwelt upon the importance of the individual, on tho nobility of those qualities which were evolved by tho struggle, and the contests of life, on tho dignity of family life and of tho duties that nrooo from tho relations o£ parent and child, on tho duty of thrift, and who said that those things wore precious and were imperilled by some of the schemas of Socialism and Communism.

Viewed from a merely money point of view the thrift of our industrial classes was a rapidly increasing aswt of no small annual value. But who should daro to put a money value on the manly independence, on the seme cf duty performed, which came with the exercise this virtue? The State had alreadv undertaken in part one of highest duties of fatherhood, the education of the child. It was now proposed that it should undertake another of these duties, the feeding of the child. It was further proposed to give to all old men, without contribution and without regard to merit or demerit, a certain provision for cld-age, and thus, in part, relieve men from another of the plain duties of life. Many ways the nearest counterpart to the British Empire was the Roman Empire. Not all the fleets and armies could save Rome when once the manhood of its reople had disappeared;! when its heart had gone rotten under two influences—the degradation c f the lower populace by being fed by the State, and the destruction of the mid-dle-classes by the taxation question of the State. He did not suggest that the fall of Rome would necessarily bo our fate, but he thought these things were written for our admonition.