The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1900. THE MODERN REVOLT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 31, 6 February 1900, Page 2

The Daily News. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1900. THE MODERN REVOLT.

i In connection with the rush of volunteers for service in South Africa certain...considerations suggest themselves which, while perhaps not particularly pleasing to our self-esteem, yet deserve to be taken notice of. It is a pleasing fiction to say that patriotism, pure and simple, is the cause and explanation of this eagerness to get at | the Boers; and wo recognise the fiction as such when the blaze and color of arms and accoutrements and uniforms have faded out of sight, and the bands have ceased their martial strains, and we for a time are giving our throats a spell from the shouting of "Rule Britannia," "Soldiers of the Queen," etc., etc. Moreover, it is just as much a fiction to say that patriotism is moving the Boers to such a strenuous resistance to the British forces. In our opinion something other than this is the prime factor in the strife between Briton and Boer, and strange to say it applies equally in both cases—it is simply a revolt against civilisation, a reversion to old ways and habits, generally spoken of by philosophers as " Atavism." It is a rebellion against conventionalities, a breaking out of the old fighting and blood-shedding instinct, a survival of the apa and tiger passions that civilisation has not eliminated from the human race, and I is not likely to, seeing that so much of our civilisation itself is only a prooees of starching, veneering, and conformity to selfish expediency. A member of the Fourth Estate, writing in a Home journal, has put the case very well. Commenting on the inconveniences of civilisation, he says:— " Civilisation, you appreciate, is a convertible phrase. When we talk of civilisation we usually mean steamboats and underground railways, and Maxim guns and Dum-Dum bullets, and wireless telegraphy, and improvements in the cinematograph. The University don views civilisation as simply mental culture. The man in Chicago finds evidence of civilisation in the great packing houses, and the millions of hogs sliced up and soldered in tins. But then, thousands of years back, when there were no pork packers,

or cinematographs, or underground railways, or even books, there was a civilisation. So I may define my own idea of civilisation, which is the general acceptance, as a crushing of the individual under white staich—call it respectability if you will—for what is supposed to be the general good. What I say is that civilisation is ruining us. Its levelling influence is disastrous. Though it be rank heresy to write it, we read newspapers too much. Though I may be expelled from my club for saying so, we raad too many books. Though I run all risk of proclaiming myself a pariah, an outcast, I do bblieve there is infinite risk to our humanity by simply corroborating other people's opinions rather than developing our own ideas. Oh, that there was a literary and journalistic close time! What a fine world this would be in two hundred years if never another book were written 1 How bright and original would the personality of the individual be! Much is due to heredity. Nature intended me for a vagrant on the hills; circumstance has made me a petty scribbler for newspapers and magazines and reviews. My ancestors were largely moss-troopers in the wilds of Scotland. And here is an experience. Before I took to vagabondage, I confess I was as other men. I appreciated what are called the ndvantages of civilisation. When a newsboy gave mo the ' extra special' of an evening paper whm it wis timo to receive the 'second special,' I Mr, fh.i rows was oM, and that I wan hiihind Mm '.:tn-p. Then I went away to nti tii g... corners of the earth. Nn railways, no evening newspapers, no penny 'buses, no hotel*, no civilisation -.-nothing but gaunt hills and swamps, and storms raging over the mountains. My beard grew ragged, my flannel sbirt was ever open at the throat, I lay on the ground, and cooked my own meals. And I never wanted a paper or a book; I had no desire to ever see Piccadilly again. The starched shirt was at home, and I was free and natural. Then did I understand that civilisation was an encumbrance, P wa» only wh';n one got rid of it, when a man was honestly hirw-'o'f, that trui happiness came. And in t!;o f»ct waa food for thought. I draw, then, a moral from a stanched shirt, Wo \v>ar rit.arcbed shirt;? when wo wast to Inimposing. When we wa;>t to !>« eusy ai.d comfortable, we wear flannel s'lirls When a man leavoa civilisation, he itl'u leavas sturched shirts. Only th>i iri'ii who has experienced it knows the rklights of getting back io savagedoro. Now and then, however, tho psrsintent s'.arched-sbirt advocate wears soujothit!" more; comfortable, and goas ou' to 14' i a fox.. Morass he shows tli--old A da in.- v Jfn tho present ease it i<-sM-.iiO.thi.og )vr;io %.'U' :-.i fox tjiat is it. dar.;.pr. Briton aud Boer are ju-| if.uipar.'.t for one accth<Vu Ijfe-bL-0.1. | uni each in hie own way eots ij,bjut; I ' *

| getting it. Our colonial volunteers are eager for the fray, not for patriotism—that is a secondary consideration, though it pleases most of us to speak and write otherwise. They represent, of course, the extreme phase of the case, but are by no means the only ones infected; everywhere through the civilised world there are signs of restlessness and impatience with the present order of things, and the pendulum bids fair to swing backward for a spell. It is in all probability a phase of the march of progress—the march that will ultimately bring us to a truer and healthier condition of life, minus many of the things that, while nominally credited as civilising agents, are really at enmity with the perfect order and progress of mankind, and with the accession of many things that now are despised or overlooked, bat which eventually will gain their rightful place i in the front rank of universal approbation and esteem,