FOR THE COMMON GOOD.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10830, 24 November 1906, Page 4

FOR THE COMMON GOOD.

NEW ZEALAND AS THE WORLDS EXAMPLE. COLONIAL AND AMERICAN CONDITIONS COMPARED. "While all the rest of the world resounds with the clamor of con flict, New Zealand is the one country that has achieved peace." — Mr Russel m "Soldiers of the Common Good."

Early m the present year New Zealand was visited by one of America's bestknown writers, Mr Charles Edward Russell, author of "The Greatest Trust m m the World." Mr Russell had made an extended tour of the world on behall of Everybody's Magazine, gathering material concerning municipal and national government m the best interests of the mass of people of the different countries. The results of his investigations have been appearing m the magazine under the title "Soldiers of the Common Good." In the November issue of Everybody's Magazine, Mr Russell reaches the twenty- fourth chapter of his narrative — and New Zealand. ,

The three chapters upon New 1 Zealand are introduced with the following editorial note': — "New Zealand, the remote territory m the South Pacific wherein labor and capital have assumed a peaceful relation and where government by and for the people has become the fact rather than a hope, is to-day the world's economical laboratory. Here revolution-! ary theories have been enacted into the laws of the land with consequences so interesting and so important that the attention of all the world's thinkers and workers is focussed on the minor British colony where the problems that are .gnawing at the northern hemisphere's vitals are being tranquilly and adequately solved The story of the development of this modern Utopia, and of the men who have organised it, makes a narrative of the greatest possible value to American readers."

By the comparisons which ho offers between his modern Utopia and his own country, Mr Russell presents a strong indictment of the social conditions and the corrupt institutions and methods of America. The title of his first chapter on New Zealand bears the heading, "Advent of a Government that Cares Most for the Least Fortunate," which he opens with the following list of items full of suggestions ofr American readers : —

"Elsewhere society is disturbed from time to time with strikes, lockouts, labor wars, long and costly interruptions of industry, street riots, and sinister outbreaks of violence. Here is a country without strikes, without labor disturbances, without walking delegates, pickets, Pinkerton riots, dead-lines, injunctions, strike-beaters, armed guards, special strike deputies, or militia called out to shoot citizens and defend property.

"Elsewhere class lines become more sharply diawn, the bitterness grows between emplojer and employed, thoughtful men have the gloomiest forebodings of struggle between class aud class. Iv this country alone the antagonism between labor and capital has become chiefly a reminiscence, and employer and workmen begin to look upon their interests as essentially one. "Elsewhere poverty increases, the slums spread, millionaires multiply, accumulation becomes an imminent threat, wealth and power gravitate into the hands of a few, greed preys upon need, feudalism m a new guise seems to gain upon free institutions. In this country alone men look upon these things as upon passed problems not again to bar the way of progress." "In New Zealand is no threat of accumulating millions, no trusts, no money mania, no corrupted legislatures, no extremes of condition, no surfeit, no poverty (as elsewhere we understand poverty), no destitution, no palaces, no slums, no unemployed, no epidemics, no overcrowding, no pestholes, no noisome back streets, no heaps of unsanitary dwellings, no spots where people live without light, fresh air, and sunshine, no tramps, no idlers, no life insurance scandals, no tax-dodging corporations, no boodling, no free-pass bribery, no watered stock, no fraudulent bonds, no rebates, no discriminations, no railroad combinations, no private graft for railroad presidents and managers, no refrigerator car swindles, no immunity baths, no Beef Trusts, no pirate crews, no Morgans, no Rockefellers, no Armours, no smug Cassatts and Depews, no 'Systems,' and no government afraid to enforce the law upon the rich and the powerful.

"In New Zealand slum conditions are so utterly, unknown that the death-rate is the smallest among all the nations.; the cause of the Common Good has been carried so far that the distribution of wealth is the most even and the average state of the inhabitants the best.

"In New Zealand, therefore, most of the questions we began by asking seem to have been answerd ; and, judging by results, not by theories. Here is the utmost present achievement of modern constructive statesmanship." Yet is was not thought so, says Mr Russell, and he thought it strange that so great a change and so much good should come out of a strike (the maritime strike of 1900), of which he tells

the story. Then he goes on to tell the tale of the inception of our labor legislation, and warmly praises the Truck Act, concerning whicli he writes : — "In New Zealand, when they pluck up an old villainy, they fetch away roots and all. They didn't nambypamby with negligible laws prohibiting company stores, but made company stores impossible by providing that all wages must be paid m cash, and nothing but cash, and without deductions for indebted-

ness.' Chapter twenty-seven deals with "The Breaking of the Land Monopoly." "In music' said Schumann, 'nothing is wrong that sounds right.' The advance movement m New Zealand has been founded upon a similarly revolutionary doctrine. To the plain men that now controlled affairs nothing m legislation was bad if it furthered the welfare, health, liberty, happiness, or opportunities of the masses . of the people. While they were radi- , cally changing conditions for the work- ' ingmen they were also busily knocking i to pieces a land system that had all the bulwarks of old custom and all the sanctity of formula. As m Australia, the land question really overtopped everything else. It was to these countries as the trust question is to us ; on it depended whether the nation should go forward or backward. For years befora the advent of the reformers New Zealand, under the control of her landowners, and bent upon a general and filial imitation of England, had made as much progress as imitators usually make.'' Then conies the story of the changes effected by the compulsory acquisition of estates, and Cheviot is quoted as an example. Mr Russell enjoys the story. "High-minded and arbitrary all this was, no doubt," he says, "and subversive of the blessed precedents ; but it saved. New Zealand. It tore to shreds one of the favorite postulates of the learned writers, for it recognised and paid for the unearned increment ; the families that held lands for speculation got for their holdings the full market value and more."