Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1928. TO LEAN OR TO PUSH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16628, 23 April 1928, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1928. TO LEAN OR TO PUSH

Sir Ernest: Bonn', whose work "The Confessions of a Capitalist" attracted much attention not long ago'because of the frankness and forcefulness of its economic arguments, is.loading a new crusade in Britain tho principles of which are worthy of enunciation cvon in this distant part of the Empire. Briefly stated the doctrine he propounds is the gospel of self help. The revival of individualism, he claims; will be the outstanding characteristic of our time. First of all that inexorable arbiter of human affairs called a pendulum will sweep us back from all the Socialism and collectivism of the past two or three decades, .this swing being helped and accelerated by the proven weakness of tho other course. Individualism, which has been adopted as a title by a little group of thinkers, is a protest against the modern way of looking at things social and political. It doubts tho divine wisdom of the mass: it questions the acceptance of tho,herd instinct as a safe guide to political perfection; it denies the doctrine of the infallibility of the committee. Union is undoubtedly strength when warlike purposes are afoot, but the application of .the proverb to every peaceful purpose is now questioned. Individualists view with alarm a state of affairs in which no man may do an act or think a .thought until it has the sanction or tho backing of some conference, council, committee, union, association, society, or soviet.. Tho principle of individualism'is chosen as a weapon against forces anil influences making for disruption and disintegration in national life. "War," says Sir Ernest, "perforce mado us all Socialists. In modern war thero is no place for individualism, which is essentially the gospel of pence. War arises from tho undue glorification of the State. Tho State, when it is the servant of the individual, does not go to war. The State which, like the Kaiserridden Germany, claims the soul of the individual cannot.avoid war. So perhaps we have some excuse for the Colleetivist distemper which still clings to us and holds us back. The challenge of individualism is making people think, and when the next general election comes a, very large proportion of the voters will have reached tho mental stago in which they can clearly see the two alternatives which face us. Are we to continue the pitiful attempt to erect a State wjiosc sole object is to act as wet-nurse to the people, sparing them tho painful necessity of doing anything for .themselves, or are we to develop a people who can support and look after themselves as well as the State?" Mr.-Stanley Baldwin is quoted in support of the new idea. "Wo are unlearning,"'said

the Prime Minister at Bowdley, "the war-time habit of looking to the Government to do everything for us. The Government can lead, guide, help, with, the finances, maintain the defences,' but it cannot do the work that tho individual has to do for ..himself to work out his own salvation, and if I have helped in any way, however feeble,,to get that into people's beads I shall not have lived in vain, because it is that creed, burnt into the bones of Englishmen, {hat made this country - what it has been, and it is only that creed in practice that will enable us in the future to get the country where we all want to keep it, namely, at the top and on the front." The hope of the promoters of the movement is to get politics back to questions of principle. There never was such widespread interest in citizenship as exists to-day, yet there never was a time when the principles of citizenship were less discussed and less understood. We fail to sec the wood for the trees. We must step back from all the details of rival policies and strive to think about those great underlying principles upon which alone a successful society and the good life can be established. "We are such poor guardians of ,the democratic institutions secured for us at the cost of immense effort and sacrifice by our forefathers," writes Sir Ernest Bonn, "that the chief use we make of the power to govern ourselves is, day by day, to pass larger and larger slices of that power over to an ever-increas-ing and ever more oppressive bureaucracy. If the matter were not so serious there would be a funny side to it. Think of society as a crowd standing on the pavement of Fleet street looking at the Lord Mayor's Show. One bright individual hits upon the idea of getting a soap box and standing'on it. Thus he can sec better than the rest of the .crowd. That is a good and sensible notion from his point of view. But presently everybody gets a soap box—and each box is labelled 'work or maintenance,' 'right to live,' 'insurance,' 'grant in aid, '**subsidy,' /safeguard,' 'tariff,' 'dole,' 'pension,' 'or 'guarantee'; and tho only result is that the whole crowd of which society is composed, instead of standing upon the firm foundation of Mother Earth, is balancing upon a flimsy basis of soap-boxes which must in time collapse. Wo pour out tho national income to carry out what I may call the soap-box policy until wo arrive at an expenditure of £3 per week per family —that being the sum that week by week comes out of the public purse." What then is the remedy? How is it possible to restore purity to democratic government and free the individual from bureaucratic oppression f Sir Ernest believes it is time to .think matters over again, to examine carefully the policy of Individualism, tho policy which, once put Britain and the British in a position rather higher than .that of any other country or any other people during the time that it was in operation. "The United States of America is a stronghold of Individualism, in the economic sphere; and America has produced a standard of living far ahead of anything that wo have been able to do here. Examination must load to tho conclusion that the whole force of public opinion in this country is directed to teaching our people to lean, whereas on the other sido of tho Atlantic the whole force of public opinion is directed to encouraging tho people to push. That is, in a single sentence, the difference between the Individualist and the collcctivist conceptions of the State, and from our point of viewit is a very dangerous difference. We plead for a return to the Individualist point, of view. Wo should concentrate our thoughts on men and women as individuals, realising that each one of thehi represents a piece of God's best work, and that the task before us is to give them a chance to do their" own best work in the world."