Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1895. "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 4256, 10 July 1895, Page 2

Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1895. " MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Mb Kelly, the Labor member for Invercargill, committed himself to a very strong statement in the House during the debate on the Debt Abolition Bill. " A considerable section of the working classes," he said, "do not regard their debts as debts of honor, but try in many cases to evade payment of their just liabilities." The statement Is a foolish, a wanton, and a wholly unnecessary one. There was no excuse whatever for making it : it was not relevant to the debate nor in the least likely to affect the issues. It showed, besides, a gross want of good taste, of good sense, and of that experience of life and the world which supplies to a man of even fairly reflective temperament powers of perception and judgment of a higher and more reliable kind than mere education can ever do. Mr Kelly, of course, believes that such a statement, coming from a Labor member, must stamp him in the eyes of the country as a man of independent speech who prefers to put the truth, even when it is unpalatable, before his own personal convenience. The trick is not an uncommon one with politicians of a certain order, but it is not all of them who can discern the opportune momentfor such bursts of simulated candour. It may also be that like a few more Labor members, so-called, Mr Kelly feels that the tide that washed, him up into his present eminence is receding, that he is no longer likely to float on the crest of the democratic wave which ran so high a few years ago, and he is now mating the only kind of provision for the future known to men of inelastic mind and limited capacity. But it is absolutely unjust and unwarrantable that workingmen should be selected for the discreditable distinction of illustrating the prevalent dishonesty of the day. We are not given to unreasonable praise or unmerited laudation of the workingman : that we leave to the politicians; but we think on this occasion he has been undeservedly slandered and unjustly accused without proof. Human nature is very much the same in all stations of life ; though, of course, men's habits and morals undergo transition and development, the distinction being very largely influenced by their associations and mode of life. People can supply the illustrations for argument themselves if they please. We may say, however, that we could without any difficulty name half-a-dozen other classes who must, by the nature of their avocation and the influences of which they are daily the subjects, be much leas finer in their moral sensibilities than the members of the working classes. It would not be easy to say which class furnish the largest number of dishonest or fraudulent bankrupts or defaulting creditors ; but there need be no hesitation in saying that the working classes furnish the least number in proportion to their numerical strength. No doubt it may be true that " they try in many cases to evade payment of their liabilities." Of what class may not the 1 same be said ? But the morals of the working classes do not certainly justify the slander which one of their representatives in Parliament has attempted to fasten on them.

The rejection of the Debt Abolition Bill in the House of Representatives for the second time in two successive sessions is a clear indication that the country is not yst prepared for the acceptance of such a measure. The deduction is made, of course, on the supposition that ths opinion of the vote given on the measure correctly expresses the feeling of the country. Last year Mr Seddon introduced a similar measure ; bub this session he delegated to the member for

Oavorsham the task oP testing the feeling of the House on the question. It is not quite consistent with a clear or correct comprehension of the ultimate effect of such a measure, were it to become law, to make it the subject of unmixed condemnation and dismiss it with a contemptuous waive of the hand. It has been described as another blow struck at the workingman by the friends of the workingmen. This is an entirely wrong and, perhaps, a prejudiced description of the Bill. It is evidently based on the presumption that because the power of committing men to prison for debt no longer existed the working classes and people generally of uncertain means would not receive credit from tradesmen. Bub, as everybody knows, tradesmen are never influenced by the knowledge that they can, in extreme cases, compel payment by the operation of the law regulating imprisonment for debt. The suspicion that such a course might be necessary would infallibly be the surest means of forbidding credit being given. No doubt; the existence of the present law does imperceptibly decide the disposition of storekeepers to trust people of whose ability to pay they have no special knowledge and of whose honesty they have had no means of informing themselves. It also helps to correct any tendency to dishonesty on the part of those who may have been accommodated by the storekeeper, and thus indirectly encourage him to take the risk of trusting those of whom he knows but little. In such cases, which are not the most numerous, the workingman might occasionally find himself discommoded. But, perhaps, in the end he would be all the bett9r of that. The inconvenience might not be without its value to him. It might teach him caution and the necessity of prudence and self-restraint. It must not be forgotten also that the credit system has reached most immoderate lengths, and in the interests of the workingman, even more so than that of the storekeeper, its discontinuance would be- a blessing. When the constable is outraced, and the " coat is not cub according "to the oloth," it is generally because people have not to reckon with the cost at once ; because time is given them to pay, and they are encouraged to compound with their, conscience. There is much that may bo said for and against the measure; but it is altogether wrong to assume that the argument is all on one side.