Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6 THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16578, 6 November 1924, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6 THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER.

Three hundred and nineteen years age Guy Fawkes and his fellow-conspirator. 1 proposed to set fire to the barrels of gunpowder which they had 1 placed undei the vaults of Westminster, and in tiiis way to exalt King James the First and lis Parliament prematurely into the higher heavens. As is well known, someone relented. A warning was sent. The conspirators were executed. In spite ot ■.he rain, the youth of Gisborne managed *o keep their powder dry and to get a good. deal, of noise and fun under sodden circumstances. We would hardly have mentioned) Guy Fawkes Day—the serious ness of its occasion, and the necessity o) its remembrance’ being now, happily, things of the long past—were it not for the rather remarkable events which were happening yesterday, and making tlnu day notable. Mr. Coolidge was being elected in triumph as President of America—this time upon proved merit. . lit Great Britain Mr. Baldwin was announced to the Empire, and indeed an interested world, as Prime Minister, with -a greater support of the nation, behind the King’s appointment, than has probably over happened before in ' the constitutional hiktory of the • country. Yesterday the selected Governor-General for New Zealand was sending his carpet .bag and sundries on to the s.s. Ruahine, preparatory to his leaving to-day to take up the difficult task of following on in the steps of Lord J ell i coo, the most popular Governor-General New Zealand has ever known. Coming closer home, at Wellington, the Government yesterday was closing up, with the Appropriation Bill, one of the weariest, dreariest,.and most, unsatisfactory sessions ever held in a New Zealand Pailiunient—a veritable, cave of Aditllnm where everyone that was in distress f and every one That was discontented, gathered themselves togetliei in unconscious rebellion against minority rule, in itself a grotesque paradox. Coming closer home still, yesterday marked in ft conspicuous manner the do cad on eo in Cook County of mud, slush broken plant, tyres, ears, carts, and shattered hopes. The district decided yesterday for progress, and accepted its cost, cheerfully’. . November 5, 1924, L certainly a. day to he remembered.* Cates by and bis friends paid will) their 'ives for their play. They failed. Their bffort. was based upon fanaticism, and its ibjcct was destruction. The success ot President Coolidge and Mr. Baldwin was national recognition of the worth »* tried personal integrity and business capacity, as contrasted with fireworks. PUBLIC OPINION. Public opinion is just—public opinion It is indefinable. It .'s the politician’s lolich. Ho claims to personally appropriate it, and bo wholly possessed ul ft. In result, too often, (lie claim is as outrageous as it is unverified. Extravagance. in insistence upon a particu,ar view, or measure of reform . is excused upon the ground that the claim mado is not made personally, but by the speaker, as the mouthpiece of public opinion. If public opinion could' at any time be crushed within the compass oi a mathematical formula, the residue ing in itself axiomatically true, the path of the public man, who sincere!v desires to escape tlie charge of egotism, would be happier. Unfortunately this cannot be. Public opinion is always in flux. It can. not at any given time bo caught, candled and examined. Tli© statesman can contribute towards it, by the measure of vocal masterfulness be is capable of attaching to his vision; but be can never bo quite sure, that he is not .vindling tlvo fires of opposition, and destroying the chances of that which lie is seeking to advance. Ever) the ballotbox is indecisive. It may bo and often happens, that an election may be influenced by panic, a sudden wave of pis sion. or by misrepresentation. The ballot-box is but a very rough and ready means of ascertaining what social reforms the people really desire. The general election just concluded in Great Britain, while emphatic enough as to what party is to rule, leaves, as quite an unknown quantity, what public opinion lvas to say upon any particular reform. There has been no voice given ■>n such debateable. questions as the referendum, proportional representation, licensing reform, or other particular and listiirhing matter which happens to he under discussion at the present day. Nor would a referendum taken upon any such question, he finally decisive, unless the poll of (lie people were to be taken at a limo when public opinion was fully formed upon the particular matter referred for decision. Such a. poll would always be educative, but if taken prematurely it could never be conclusive. As an educative measure, only, it is open to the*charge that it would be too expensive in* proportion to the result. Was there ever such an inscrutable tiling—if it be a thing—as this public opinion? It is the autocrat of Democracy. -Every Jack counts in its formation. Every Jill contributes to its making. It may be good. It may be hopelessly bad. * Tt defies method, and utterly puts to the rout all the copy book maxims which nxfol exactitude and

precision, as the only true paths to discovery. Public opinion. riin.il awakened by the sacrifice of some one. nas always lojerated evil. For generations it supported the traffic in slaves. 11 tolerated Hi,;, dogma, of “parish settlement" and tile "right” to the workhouse with all t-he attendant evils of the poor-laws. It still permits, and in the teeth of seientiiic protest, ignores, the annual destruction, by disease stimulated by quite eon iroilabln conditions, of more persons—men, women, and children—annually, in the great cities of the world than the numbers killed in the greatest of wars. Local public opinion is inclined to be cruel. If jumps to conclusions which seldom err on the «id!d of charity. if a, man would act wisely be would at the cutset of life determine never to seek eo guide his life by local or social public opinion. The man. who seeks suoii public opinion for his guide will never /nuke progress. Lord Dewar said at Berth “public* opinion was paradoxical at every turn from the cradle to the grave.’’ Elaborating his idea lie pur it in this way: “If a man did not succeed in his calling, lie was pronounced { n failure. If iie made money lie. was called ft profiteer. If lie went to church on Sunday ho was an hypocrite; if he didn’t he was a sinner. If he gave it was for advertisement; if he didn’t he was stingy. If lie rode in a RollsRoyce he was extravagant and encouraging socialism ; if ho rode in a Ford he was a joke. If be was a pessimist he wore a belt n,s well as braces; if bo was an optimist- he, wore neither.” Public opinion at its best is the amorphous ex pimsion of the greatest number at the .mniicnf of expression. Of such stuff ii is impossible to make a fetich worth possessing. or h deity worth worshipping. Public opinion, afloat in the air. and in 'apablc of encirclement in any moral ci spirit itual aerodrome, is necesenri!) moulded upon individual desire. It represents the capitalisation of selfishness. There is, and there must be growth in rational public opinion. W< have no light to denounce, disparage, oi decry public opinion, because its growth is slow. Looking back over the past years there has been growth. ' What was tolerated yest erday would he scoutea to day. Democracy, which claims to stgmj for the div’neiy implanted right o : every person to express what is in him upon tiio world, is under handicap, iyheh its rulers have, as best they can, to find out, in perplexity, and much darkness, what public opinion desires and will stand to. What, too, it will suffer. Where statute law goes off the line of public opinion it fails. Gaming is ad mittedly undesirable; statute jaw seek, to restrain its abuses; yet juries refuse to convict for acts made offences unde the law. Statute law cannot lead pub lie opinion ; it must be'content to follow it. Public opinion on its part, to oo morally progressive, must pay respect to equality of individual rights, the decalogue. and the la.w of charity. So doing, it may retrieve its character, and be a- safe guide for statesmen and people. There is room for advancement. The blind are sometimes found to be leading the blind. The ditch in front in such case is fathomless.