FIN-DU-SIECLE FADS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2111, 9 August 1894, Page 47

FIN-DU-SIECLE FADS.

By Fabian Bell,

THE FAD POLITICAL.

I had intended to go further afield for my paper this week,- but our own internal political history presents at this moment such an interesting Btudy of the phenomena of fads that ib seems a pity to leave it without a passing nctice.

Journalists make copy out of everything — 'tis their trade. How grateful, therefore, should they be to those faddists and others who supply them with materials. This is one way of looking at things, and a decidedly optimistic one, and snould surely go fur to disarm the anger of the Hon. John M'Kenzie, who unkindly declares "That journalists have more cheek than brains." OUR HONOURABLE LEGISLATORS 1 How much we poor students of human idiosyncrasies have to thank them for. "We have not come here to amuse ourselves," said the Colonial Treasurer on one recent and memorable occasion ; but his colleagues appeared to be of quite a different opinion — i.e., " That all work and. no play makes Dick a dull boy " ; and to demonstrate that the boy is father to the man, they metaphorically played football with Dr Newman's bill, to the no small delight of the elderly larrikins. " Women in Parliament 1 Ah lAh 1 was there ever such an absurd idea ? What will they wantnext?" V7hat, indeed 1 They might poßsibly expect that " grave and reverend seniors" should act in a manner becoming their age and pesition. Dr Newman, like Sir John Hall and a few other champions of the weaker (?) sex, is undoubtedly a faddist. But he hr:s the courage of his opinions, and desires to see his fad carried to its iogicdl conclusion. Women voters will naturally in tho end claim to be represented by members of their own sex. Why not give them the permission at once without haggling over it? Why, indeed 1 Probably because as soon as they get that they will want something else, and so on ad infinitum, and in that respect, if in no other, they will follow the example of the members of the present Liberal Government, who are nothing if not aggressive, and whose liberality largely consists in giving away that Which is not theirs to give. The whole arena of politics is THE LEGITIMATE FIELD OF THE FADDIST. From the United States Senator to the New Zealand Dictator, they are all tarred with the same brush. "The land for the people and the people for the land." Beautiful unanimity 1 touching philanthropy 1 But somehow it works by an iuverse ratio, and as the people stretch out their hands, the land recedes like a desert mirage.

Is it a fad or a phantom ? It looks like the latter. So think the unhappy settlors who find themselves "dumped" down in a village settlement far from a market or a railway, with a garden of cabbages or a few acres of oats with which to feed ard clothe their families. So think the no less unhappy squatters, who may lose the best part of their holdings at any moment, and are fatal 1 expected to pay rent for the remainder, and have besides the inestimable advantage of paying double taxes for the same whenever the Colonial Treasurer happens to be hard-

up, Some persons might call this robbery, and a few have ventured to go so far, but dispaesionate observers — who are not taxpayers — look upon it as a fad run mad.

Such political fads are naturally expensive, though at the same time inntiuctive. I« io not iv " Pjnafore " tbat we aru told ihat " two and two make three or five, according to circumstances"? This, then, is

THE POLICY OF THE POLITICAL FADDISTS—

three or five, accord iDg to circumstances ! A pledged policy of " no borrowing," which still contrives to " filch six millions or so frcm the pockets oc confiding taxpayers, sweetly assuring them all the time that to be thus fleeced is entirely for their own good; that the unshorn shoep Buffers so much from the weight of- its fleece that to remove it ia an act of real philanthropy. " To borrow in the country is not borrowing,' they say — it is merely making the best of what we have and keeping the money in the country, though in practice it becomes a new rendering of the marital dogma, '-What's yours is mine, and what's mine is my own." Who but a faddist could borrow milliorrs with the left hand and write down a small surplus of thousands wit.h the right ? Tis the thimble trick over again. " Look, gentlemen 1 here are the peas, safe and sound— no deception this time— under this thimble. No, under that. Lift them, and satisfy yourselves."

We are pledged to a policy of no borrowing, but then we can't get along without money, and, as the unemployed say, "we must live " — though some prosaic person, like Rocbfaucault, may answer that he does " not see the necessity." But grant that axiom as a working hypothesis and all the reet follows. Money •we must have for publia works and for private ends. The natives must be propitiated ; the farmers — the backbone of the country — must bo assisted ; the Otago Central must be carried on, or the Otago members will become unbearable ; and the honorariums must be paid (honour among thieves, you know) ; and Ministers must have their little trips in the Hinemoa and the Stella as a necessary relief from the toils of office. These things can't be done without money, and the Treasury is empty. What then ? Why, borrow, of course, and pay when and how we can. But we are pledged not to borrow. What is to be done then ? Why, then, the Budget, and the triumphant exposition of the theory that " two and two make five."

THE LIVING WAGE

attracts us. It is an admirable cry ; but there is a note of mockery in it when advo : cated by men whose own " living wage " is represented by £20 paid punctually on the first of each month. Most of us could live on that, though in a recent magazine a kind economist has found it necessary to show middle-class paupers how to live on a pittance of £700 per annum and leave " a margin." One is reminded of Dr Abernethy's famous advice to a dyspeptic patient — " Live on 6d a day and earn it." The "living wage" of one man. means starvation to another, and we sigh for the realisation of the fads of that prince of faddists, Edward Bellamy, whose elaborate schemes promised work and wages for all, and who is still urging the feasibility of his views on the United Stateß Senate, and entreating that august assembly to pass .a Self Denying Ordinance, by Jwhich it will practically cut its own throat and put an end to rings, corners, and pools, for ever. Truly, great is the faith of the typical faddist and limited his knowledge of his fellow men.

"The greatest good of the -greatest number," " the universal brotherhood of man," " co-operation without competition "• are beautiful fads. May the day come when their undaunted champions may succeed in carrying them out of the region of fads into that of accomplished facts.