STATE AS PARENT.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18158, 24 October 1930, Page 3

STATE AS PARENT.

LORD DAWSON’S WARNING. CHECK ON HUMAN PROGRESS. (By Harold Cox in Sunday Times.) Lord Dawson of Penn has been delivering- an address at Ottawa on “Medicine and Statesmanship.” It presents a most interesting analysis of the common features of the human body and of human society. Both are dependent on individuality-—the body, on the individuality of its . different cells; the community, on the different individualities of the human beings composing if. In the last century, as Lord Dawson points out, our politicians recognised the value of individuality in national life. The fight then was for freedom of conscience, for equality of opportunity, and for selfgovernment. To-day the situation has almost completely changed—largely as the result of the alteration in the franchise. It was mainly the middle-class voter who governed the country in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and he had learnt by his own experience of life that freedom was essential for progress. To-day power has passed to the masses of the people, brought up in poverty and with few opportunities of escaping from the routine conditions which circumscribe the life of most manual workers. The noorer classes naturally hope that the State will improve their pecuniary posl.tion, and they do not look beyond that hope. But the State in practice can onlv act on routine methods, and the extension of its control inevitably means a decline in individual freedom of action and in the spirit of enterprise, which are the essentials of human progress.

Inequality Universal.

This is the line of argument emphasised by Lord Dawson in his protest against the growing* “parental role of the State.” The present political'tendency is to treat every member of the nation as a child of the State and to treat them all on the basis of equality. Yet to the physiologist nothing Is more obvious than the inequality of individuals. ■ No two individuals are absolutely identical. As Lord Dawson happily says: “Parade a thousand men and each one will be distinctive—the Individuality of his finger-prints 1 will even secure an identification accurate enough for his undoing.” He goes on to say that it is this inherent difference between individuals whch makes diagnosis of disease so difficult. The doctor must take into consideration not only all he knows about disease, but all he can find out about the personality of the individual sufferer. These warnings are'very useful at a time when not only is Parliament itself moving almost every week in the directions ot further paternalism, but when in addition we have outside Parliament a well-organised body like the f.L.P. demanding still more rapid progress towards State Socialism. Mr James Maxton, one of the most prominent members of the 1.L.P., has just issued a statement modifying the old popular slogan "Socialism In Our Time,” and substituting “Socialism in Twenty-five Years,” which, as he ex-

plains, may mean “our time,” even for men now of middle age. He definitely insists that the new social order which he and his fellow Socialists are demanding must contain “no fear of insecurity.” That indeed is the essence of the Socialist creed, and it naturally appeals to men whose lives are spent in the fear that at any moment they may be discharged from employment. That the world would gain in happiness if this fear could be diminished, no one for a moment denies; but in planning its diminution we have to bear in mind the dangers on thesother side.

Mischievous Medicines. Exactly the same consideration arise® in the mind of every skilled physician, who has not/merely to consider whether he can get rid of a particuar disease by a particular remedy, but who must also ask himself whether that remedy may not do even worse mischief than the disease it remedies. But, as Lord Dawson points out, "democracy Is impatient for treatment.” It is not -wiling to wait while someone thinks out remedies for present disease which will avoid future disaster: democracy demands that something should be done at once; it does not pause to think what,, the consequences may be. The politicians, dependent for their public life upon a regular vote, try to do something at once, and generally make the disease worse than it was before. To the eiffhteenth century and in the earlier years of the nineteenth century we had experience of the mischief that resulted from Governmental efforts to cure the disease of poverty by the medicine of the old Poor Law. That medicine encouraged idleness and dishonesty, and left the roots of the disease even more powerful than before. In snite of this experience, our politicians in the twentieth century are spending millions of public money on a similar medicine. They call it by new names—unemployment insurance, widows’ pensions, free meals for school children, and so on—but the drug is essentially the same, and the same results ensue. ■ Our industries are handicapped by the heavy burden of taxation for social services, and our workpeople, instead of boldly facing world conditions in order to conquer world markets, prefer to draw the dole. A Reformed Electorate.

Lord Dawson suggests that we shall not recover from these difficulties until

we have altered our present system of government, and that the State should 'elegate the care of essential services o special bodies, which would be in’npendent of political exigencies. The 'rouble, however, is that these special bodies would all be finally responsible to the Government of the day, which m turn would be responsible to a democratic electorate. Gradually, perhaps, the country will come to recognise the truth that our previous ministries have moved too fast in extending the suffrage, and that by creat!ng a vast irresponsible electorate they have fatally, weakened the machinery of government.

To go back is always difficult, but nf, least it is worth considering whether it would not be possible slightly to paoijjfy our present. electoral system (a) *by raising the age at which voting power begins to a minimum of 25 years; '(b) by insisting that every elector must make some direct contribuexpenses of the State. In addition, what is badly needed is a definite campaign throughout the country, not merely to attack Socialism, but to educate the nation to the dangers of semi-Socialism. At present all our political parties, including those who are busy denouncing Socialism, are supporting schemes of semi-Soc-ialism which will have very much the same effect on the future of the nation. We.have to realise that individuality is ' essential to progress, and that individuality will disappear if we are all to be shepherded by the State from the cradle to the grave.