THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 59

THE SKETCHER.

THE FAULTS OF LABOUR. ITS FAILURES IN SELF-GOVERN-MENT, IN PARENTHOOD, IN INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR. No thoughtful person will eagerly assume the role of candid friend, nor is it always sound strategy to make a frontal attack upon the faults of one’s comrades. Yet there can be no forward movement of great or lasting value without a clear recognition of existing defects; and this is particularly the case where Labour is concerned, first because unbiased consideration tends to show that very many of Labour’s faults are, after all, no more than limitations imposed by unkind circumstance; and next because directly we ask, “What is the best thing that could happen to Labour?” we find the answer compels us to consideration of Labour’s faults. This is just another way of arriving at the conclusion, long 6ince accepted by sensible persons, that no section of the community can prosper at the expense of another. Injury inflicted upon the nation’s Labour is injury inflicted upon the nation. Labour has wasted many valuable years —years of hoping and scheming—so that: “There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny; the threehooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer.” Most emphatically it is not upon any such lines that Labour’s advancement will be achieved. We need a clear-cut indication of the really desirable goal. And that goal would have been plainly in the sight of all men for generations but for the dust and clamour created by the too sophisticated in their efforts to lead or to coerce a following toward the useless and the unattainable.

Sensible Labour, disgusted at the clamour and wasted effort, asks, “What really do we want ?” The answer is obvious and admits of no gainsaying. The best thing that could happen to Labour would be that Labour should be more highly respected. This, being a true benefit to Labour, answers the essential test; it would also be a benefit to the entire community. How is this changed condition, this increased respect, to be brought into being? Is the suggestion iust one of those useless proposals which clever people call “counsels of perfection” ? First, such counsels are not useless: the striving after a perfect ideal, even by the individual, cannot fail to be of some benefit to him and to others. But to so unfortunate a pass has the world come that for the present it seems wiser to leave this and similar reflections and pass on to matters generally deemed more practical. There is no spectacle much more horrible than that of the man who is content to “ape the gentleman. ' There is no spectacle more ennobling than that of the man who takes matters further and endeavours to be a gentleman-—for already he is one.

Money can be obtained sometimes, and even kept occasionally, without havingbeen ( earned. ‘ Respect must always be earned if it is to be retained. Neither a nation, a community, nor even a small section of a community, need hope to earn respect unless a certain measure of self-government has been established, and is put to practical use. Thus we are at grips with the first essential: Labour ideas of self-govern-ment need very thorough overhauling. Trade unionism undoubtedly has its greatmerits, yet it is lacking in two important essentials: self-government is practically unknown among the rank and file of trade unionists, w T hile definition of and adherence to policy are not insisted upon as they should be. Both these serious faults are here laid to the charge of working men generally, not because it is suggested that Trade Union leaders are impeccable, but because it is so clearly the duty of the majority to see that their advancement is being promoted by their accredited leaders, who are. after all, the very small majority of trades unionists. Sensible working men are perfectly well aware that they both desire and need advancement on certain lines. They know, too. that such advancement often has nothing to do with immediate gain, either in time or money. It is such aspirations which trade union leaders appear to neglect, and the fault lies with the constituents of such leaders, because clearly it is in the power of the constituents to impose their will upon representatives. Working men assert that their superiors —pot only black-coated workers, but even employers of labour—freouentlv follow the example of Labour. In this there is a certain amount of truth, hut there is one wav at least in which working men would be wise to copy those whom they assert copy them—-one way, that is, as regards general police-, for there are a thousand and one little ways in which Labour would do well to copy others differently occupied. Self-government.—

Working men do not concern themselves sufficiently in the management of their own affairs. It is in this direction that thev would do well to follow on the lines laid down by the Middle Class Union. It is of no use to'return a member of Parliament unless that member is made clearly to understand what the wishes of his constituents are, and that he is expected to do what he can towards the carrving out of those wishes. Similarly, when men are on strike, every one of the strikers who is endowed with ordinary common sense wishes nothing so much as to get hack to work as quickly as possible on readjusted conditions, or possibly on the old conditions which have been threatened. At such times, then, these sensible men should not permit themselves to be too deeply engrossed in their own individual concerns.

Allotment plot cultivation and so forth should be occasionally abandoned in order that meetings may be attended. Otherwise we shall have again and again repetitions of that sorry spectacle of men really wishing to return to work while their leaders, for political reasons of their own, are delaying that return because in so doing they seem to justify their existence, while they hinder the settlement by shouting ' such catch-phrases as “National pool.” A phrase like that appeals, to the extremists and less thoughtful. And it is those extremists who, attending meetings more regularly than their temperateminded fellows, give the leaders what can be made to appear as a very definite mandate from constituents. It is the duty of tlie individual trade unionist, just as it is the duty of every other member of the community, to see his duty and to do his duty. Quite recently ratepayers have been aroused to the necessity of recording their votes. As a consequence the threat oi more pay for idleness than for work has been removed. Let the trade union members follow this example, and the danger of their interests being neglected that the political ambitions of their so-called representatives may be advanced will also be removed. Labour at present is suffering mainly because it has permitted the great power of its unions to be wielded by men (forming quite a small group) who are content to ape their betters while making no serious attempt to become in any useful way like those betters. And these men are so much elated at newspaper notice that they do not trouble themselves to insist upon newspaper justice—even allowing a flagrant misinterpretation of the word “definitive” to pass without commentT Real Education.— We find an exactly similar condition of things if we look at Labour’s educational world. How is it that the workman’s children are said to get their education for nothing, and, having got that education, are still spoken of as the uneducated? Simply and solely because the workman has neglected his duty to his children. He has been content to admire false ideals, has been pleased and lulled to a sort of sleep by the showy and generally half-acquired accomplishments of his children, and has neglected to see that those children are given a solid educational foundation upon which it would be possible even for the children themselves to build.

The truly educated man or woman is always the child of parents who have themselves been in the habit of reading for amusement. Therefore it should be a part of trade union policv to insist that the “three r’s” are thoroughly taught in the schools, that there shall be no abandoning of the teaching of the alphabet, scrapping of parts of speech, or teaching of simpler spelling (which latter, being always wrong, will always mark the uneducated); even if to carry out these suggestions some time must be taken from that now devoted to dancing, paper-cutting, and sketching bananas.

We now come to the consideration of other duties of the rank and file. Neither the gentleman nor the good citizen has done his whole duty when he has seen to it that others do theirs. We need a still more intimate form of self-govern-ment. What standards of common decency does trade unionism impose upon its members?

Very few, unfortunately. Fighting or foreign policy seems to have required so much attention that there has been none to spare for home government. It is true that the man who presents himself drunk on the occasion of a strike narade is very soon bundled into the background. There the interest of trade unionists in the sobriety of members appears to begin and end. The man who drinks lo excess is all too often the hero of the workshop. Again, it is also true that the member who attempts to address the chair while wearing his hat at a meeting will probably be called to order ■ yet not mfreouently members who are obviously under the influence of drink attend such meetings and are sometimes permitted to harangue the assembly. When a strike is in progress, should a stranger appear upon the scene and blackleg, there will be no delay about following him to his home and at least remonstrating- with him. But should a workman disgust a tram-load of passengers, that will be no one’s concern, although such a man has given the reasonable claims of Labour to public respect a far more serious set-hack than many blacklegs could accomplish in a much longer time. Unfortunatelv quite a large number of working men who have undergone a certain amount of military service now think it heroic to bellow obscenities in public places. Should this be no concern of trade unionists who seek the respect of other sections of the community? . the community as a whole could say, speaking of Labour generally, “These men have sound common sense; they are seeing to it that their representatives represent them; they are putting a stop to that stupid political greed which attempts to bite off more than can be chewed; they think that reforms which may not be spectacular may yet be useful; they are determined, too, that their children shall be given sound rather than flash or freakish education, and that their own members shall maintain certain simple standards of decency”—then indeed a great advance would have been made. And Labour, being found worthy of more respect, would in many other wavs gain added consideration, which would be to the advantage not only of Labour, but of the • State generally. Looking hack over what has just been said, we are compelled to admit that the whole trouble seems to lie in this: Labour has been too precipitate, there is a well-marked tendencv to rest content with continued aping, rather than an honest striving' to be. We find the least well educated professing to think in conti-

nents; and men whose fellows seem unable to manage the affairs of farthing loan clubs clamouring that their chosen representatives are capable of undertaking the duties of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We find, too, that the accomplishments of the educated are being imitated, though no real effort i& being made to secure for the rising generation anv eulch educational foundation, as shall render their children or their children’s children really educated. And we find that standards of ordinary decency are of small account, save where some immediate advantage is to be gained by their observance. Let Labour abandon mere specious imitation and become more truly statesmanlike, dealing with those things which are of real importance and which are really within its powers. Let Labour insist upon education, rather than allowing its children to be subject to tho fads and freaks of persons who, aiming at cheap notoriety, are careless of the awful mischief they do in its attainment. And let the minority who would brand their fellows as men of objectionable habits—and therefore not worth serious consideration — be compelled to alter their ways. Let us cease to ape and strive to become. —The World’s Work.

THE BLACK MAN’S PLACE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Mr Peter Nielsen has written a very thoughtful and judicial essay on the future of the black races in South Africa. He is not particularly hopeful, because he recognises that all settlements of social difficulties between black and white are hound to fall short of perfection. He accepts as an unarguable fact that miscegenation is undesirable and that, therefore, there can never be any true mingling of the races. The right aim, he thinks, is t-o give the black people their place in the sun while ensuring that there shall nothe any such contact in the ordinary way of life as would seem to imply an ultimate fusion. He believes this policy to be as much in the interests of the black as of the white. But he is eminently fair to the black people. He has lived among them and has studied them carefully and very sympathetically. He pronounces in favour of their segregation, not because he thinks there is an intellectual gulf between black and white which cannot be bridged, but because he regards white prejudice against miscegenation as perfectly well founded. The declared policy of the Union is, of course, already- one of segregation. Mr Nielsen admits, however, that most careful precautions must be taken against inflicting hardships on the natives when they are removed in the mass from one district to another.

He gives some deeply interesting examples of native argumentation, which certainly seem to show that the mind oi the black man functions very much like that of the white man. One day- he was discussing with Borne elderly Matabele natives the subject of miscegenation, and the following conversation ensued with one of the old men . “ ‘White people,’ said the native, ‘do what they r like, they take what they like, and when they like certain girls they take them, and what can we say? And, after all, why should they not do so ? Every--thing belongs to them, we are their people, our girls belong to them, the white j>eople only take what is theirs to take.’ ‘But, - I interpolated, ‘white men do not take the girls away- from you, it is the girls themselves who leave their own kind and go to the white men.’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘I say they take the girls because they know' as well as we do that women —all women —will always go where they cam live with ease and have plenty and be without work, and this they can do when theygo to the white man, whereas with us thev must work. Wherefore I say that the white men take the girls away from us, but I do not say that they do wrong so long as they only play with them ancl have no children by- them, for it is the manner of all the world that men and women come together ancl no law can be made to stop them-from doing so, but the white men do wrong when they allow the black women to have children by them because such children grow up without proper homes, and that is very sad and wrong.’ ” If Mr Nielsen has carefully reported the old man’s statement it is surely wonderfully judicial. Mr Nielsen’s summing-up of his argument for segregation is as follows: “The policy of territorial separation, which is part of the law of the Union of South Airica, is the only policy that will make possible a home existence for the Natives in their own homeland, for we know that, however educated and however worthy the civilised Native may become, he cannot hope to find a home, or to feel at home, among the whites. Rightly or wrongly-, the whites have hanged, bolted, and barred their doors against the blacks, and neither moral worth nor educational qualifications will serve to open them. But in their own areas the Natives will have their own homes and their own home-life, without which human existence is indeed miserable. Those among them who long for the privilege of private ownership will be aole to acquire land in freehold in localities set aside therefor, while those who cling to the old ways will be allowed to continue as before under their old system of communal land tenure. With freedom of movement and action under a minimum of European supervision and control the Natives will, in their areas, have full opportunity and scope for the development of a home-civilisation of their own along lines similar to, if not identical with, those by which the Europeans follow their separate ways. It is an heroic plan, and ft will demand great sacrifice from both peoples, but who can doubt that the end will be worth the effort ? The Natives may in some places have to leave the land where their ancestors are buried, and the whites will, in many places have to accept the price of expropriation for land and houses hallowed and made precious by effort and memories, but the great general gain at the end will undoubtedly be wort-i all that must be surrendered now. This policy is the only one that holds out hope

of peace and happiness for both races. If the fears and objections that are being raised by- a few Natives and by individual Europeans here and there are allowed to frustrate this, the only practical plan so far devised, the future generations of both white and black in South Africa will assuredly curse the day their fathers wavered and failed to make the only just and fair provision that could be made.” The spirit in which the Union must work has been finely- described in a book by Sir Frederick Lugard, which we reviewed some time ago. “There should be,” wrote Sir Frederick, “complete uniformity in ideals, absolute equality in the paths of knowledge and culture, equal opportunity- for those who strive, equal admiration for those who achieve; in matters social and racial a separate path, each pursuing his own inherited traditions, preserving his own race-purity and race-pride; equality- in things spiritual, agreed divergence in the physical and material.”

HIDDEN WEALTH.

IN LEAVES OF OLD MUSIC. “A literary find has been the subject of much discussion in legal circles recently,” says the Daily News. “Early in the summer a London bookseller purchased a pile of papers and music from a well-known firm of auctioneers for £l. These were re-sold for £lO to the owner of an old bookshop in the provinces, and he discovered, hidden between the leaves of the music a 16-page pamphlet of the early works of Shelley, “Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson,” Oxford, 1810. “He submitted it to a London expert, and learned that only five other copies were known to be in existence. Then he sent it to the auctioneers from whom the first purchaser had 'bought his Bundle of papers, and the pamphlet realised £l2lO. “The point in which the interest of booksellers and collectors centres is whether the original owners of the papers have any legal claim either againset the bookseller who made £I2OO profit on his lucky purchase or against the auctioneers. “The music and papers in which the Shelley pamphlet ■vyas hidden were, it is stated, part of the library of a well-known collector, and were placed in the hands of the auctioneers for sale.” —Fortune in an Old Chest.—

“It was reported in Cobliam that the oil paintings bearing the signature of John Hoppner, the eigthteenth century artist, which were discovered accidentally in an old chest of drawers in the possession of Mr H. Rogers, labourer, of Albert Cottages, Tartar Hill, have been sold, together with one or two other pictures, for several thousand pounds,’ says the DailyNews. “Rogers declared that he received a dealer’s offer by telegram of over £3OOO for certain of the treasures, but this telegram he ignored. “The treasures include a Hoppner landscape, the portrait of a cavalier by the same artist, and an oil painting said to he by the Dutch artist, Van der Neer, which w'as knocking about in the coal cellar for years. “The dramatic note about the whole discovery is that Mr Rogers, who has been out of work, and he and his large familyin receipt of Poor Law relief, was on the point of selling the old chest of drawers for 10s to pay the rent. We were almost starving at the time I made the discovery-,’ he said. “Mr Rogers explained that the chest of drawers came originally- from Cornwall. His grandfather was a farmer in the St. Aiustell neighbourhood, and the father of John Opie, the painter, was a carpenter and wheelwright. When he died the chest, which was made for John Opie when he went to London, seems to have passed into the Rogers’s family.”