TOPICS WEEK.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue V, 30 July 1898, Page 130

TOPICS WEEK.

A CANDID PREMIER,. Ct lIARLES LAMB divided mankind / into two great divisions—those that borrow and those that lend. All other distinctions of raee or character he regarded as quite subordinate to these, and he did not hesitate to award the palm for .superiority to the borrowers, whom he designated, ‘The great race.’ Evidently the Premier of West Australia holds in all seriousness the views the humorist of India House so frolicsomely and insinuatingly promulgated. Speaking the other day, he declared that he did not believe the colony he ruled over had come to the end of its borrowing pow-

ers, and if he considered it had he would feel that his career of usefulness bad come to a full stop. 1 don’t think we have ever had from the lips of any premier in Australasia a more open confession of the faith which in their hearts all honest Australasian premiers must surely keep hid. Most premiers do their best to make us believe that to their own intrinsic merit we owe what measure of legislative, or commercial, or social success we enjoy: and endeavour to convince us that when they are summoned to ‘another place' we shall be in the pitiable plight of helpless orphans. And some of them have been trying so hard to convice this that they have in a way comejo believe it themselves. I am sure it’must be very difficult for Mr Seddon to conceive of this country going on at all after he has gone oft'. When he tries to think of it an awful picture rises before his mental vision of a distracted people, anarchy and chaos come again. At any rate, he would certainly never admit, like the Premier of West Australia. that his usefulness was entirely dependent on the credit of the Colony, and that when we ceased to lie able to raise a loan in London or elsewhere, then he would cense likewise to be of any advantage to the Colony. Yet, when one thinks the matter out, Sir John Forrest’s candid limitation of his own sphere of usefulness is applicable

in a very large degree to colonial premierships generally. Has not the main business of Government in these colonies been the raising ol loans and the spending of them? Run over in your minds all the administrations that have existed in this part of the globe and consider how very little of any moment they have effected beyond borrowing and spending. Indeed, the whole duty of most of our past Colonial Governments might be expressed in these two words; in which view your premier appears merely as a chief borrower and spender. This conception of the high office of premiership may not be a very noble one, but it cannot be altogether false when we find one of our premiers candidly expressing it as his own. If we admit it as correct, it suggests some curious, reflections on the future of preimierships when the borrowing is a lost art. What will our premiers do then? Their occupation will be gone? By no means. So long as the world exists there will be politicians, and they will not be wanting in excuses for keeping the legislative machinery going. See how, at the present time, Mr Seddon contrives, like I’enelojie with her web, to do and undo the web of legislation so that the work of weaving it. may last indefinitely, filling in the time till the next loan comes to make things hum and give the premier a new sphere of usefulness.

THE GOVERNMENT LAW BUREAU. Mil HUTCHESON, the member for Wellington, has an idea for the establishment of a Government Law Bureau, which he has embodied in a big Parliamentary Bill. Whether the Bill in turn ever gets embodied in our statute-books, of course depends entirely on how the House regards it. Naturally, the legal element in the Chamber will, on this occasion, be united, irrespective of party considerations, into one compact opposition; for lawyers everywhere must resent a measure that proposes to take the very bread out of their mouths. On the other hand, there is the non-legal element in Parliament to be reckoned with, composed of those who regard lawyers in much the same way that the sparrow may be supposed to regard the sparrow-hawk; or, at least, are in strong sympathy with that popular conception of the legal fraternity. It has never been quite settled which of the two parties —the legal or the lay—was in the ascendancy in Parliament, but this Bill, if it does nothing else, will be valuable as a test of the relative influence of the two. Whatever may be said against the measure, Mr Hutcheson may very justly plead that it has the merit of being not inconsistent with the existing order of things here. Is it not reasonable that a Government which is and has been so prodigal in the making of laws should make some provision for their being easily under standed of the people? and when these laws are so multiplied and complex as ours are, surely it becomes the duty of the framers to supply us with a cheap interpretation. As we are circumstanced in New Zealand, it is every day becoming a harder matter to be a law-abiding citizen. The statutory finger has been inserted in so many pies, commercial, industrial, and social, and there are so many things that one must do and must not do, that it is simply an impossibility to walk without stumbling in the paths of legal rectitude. The best of us must be constantly offending in some point or another every day of our lives. Now, to u conscientious soul this sense of shortcoming must be very perplexing; and yet, how is he to avoid it? To consult a lawyer whenever one was in doubt would be to court financial ruin in a very short time, so the only thing is to close one's ears to the promptings of conscience and harden one’s heart. That is nt present; but if Mr Hutcheson’s Bill becomes law the strange anomalies which exist under the present system will be done away with. Then we shall be able to take all our trouble and perplexity to the fountain head, where cheap advice will be on tap, as it were, gratis or at a nominal cost. The Government will manage the. whole thing on a comprehensive scale, just as they do the post office or the railways: that is Mr Hutcheson’s idea; and just in the same way as you now go and buy a stamp or money order you will be able to get every knotty little problem solved for a few l>enee. If you have a quarrel with your neighbour over the backyard

fence, or a disagreement with your wife, or are worried by an ungrateful son and heir, you seldom care to take your trouble to a lawyer; you pocket the insult, the injustice, the grief, and retire within yourself. But when the Government law Bureau is working you will be able to lay your weary head on that- paternal bosom and unburden your soul in the sure hojie of being comforted and counselled. You will pour your sorrows into the sympathetic, astute, and non-mereenary ear of the Government agent, and he will take up your case and fight your battles for you.

HARD TIMES PHILOSOPHY. EXCEPT in name I can’t pretend to know anything of the ‘Hard Times’ Club that has recently been formed at New Brighton. 1 imagine it is one of two things —either a society of individuals at present iff fair circumstances who have resolved to make united provision against a rainy day, or an assembly of unfortunates who have already fallen on evil times and are determined to make the best of a bad job by mutually aiding and comforting each other. The second conception is probably the correct one, for when the sun of prosperity is shining never so faintly people seldom think of building a common shelter against the time that the bleak winds of adversity may be blowing. Some provision forthemselves and families they may and do make; but they are scarcely likely to join an organisation with so suggestive a title as the ‘Hard Times’ Club. It is when they are quite down on their luck and have become careless of appearances, and are in need of assistance and sympathy, that they naturally draw together. And why should they not gratify this desire for union by forming- themselves into some regular association ? The rich and well-to-do have their clubs and societies, which those with common aims and tastes frequent, and what should hinder the men with common wants and disappointments doing the same? They have the more reason on their side. It is when fortune frowns one most wants the' comfort)-of a neighbourly voice, a neighbourly smile. And that is what my ideal of a ‘Hard Times’ Club would afford among other things. As I conceive such an organisation, the members would cultivate Mark Tapley’s philosophy. They might at times of course sit down like the melancholy Jaques, and ‘rail against their mistress, the world, and all their misery,’ for there is a grim satisfaction in doing that in chorus; but as a rule they would strive to look upon the sunny side of things. It would also be their aim to introduce a simpler ideal, a more economic standard of living than they had hitherto cherished. Instead of pining for the former flesh pots, as people who have fallen into reduced circumstances generally do, they would find the manna wonderfully appetising and grateful to the palate; while the old coat and the patched shoe and the last season’s hat, and the dyed gown would have in their eyes a charm that not all the tailors and milliners in creation could supply from their entire stock-in-trade. Sweet are the uses of adversity, and if a course of ‘hard times’ can produce in a community a circle of philosophers with these ideals, then I for one will welcome in almost every town of the colony the visitations of poverty. For our present ideals, the summit of which appears to be in too many cases to go clad in fine apparel ami fare sumptuously, could well be improved upon. THE LATEST. YET another use for Boards of Conciliation has been suggested. The Workers’ Union of Wellington has proposed to the Premier that such a body should be constituted to deal with small debt cases so as to avoid the expense, vexation, and hardship which are inseparable from the employment of lawyers in these matters. With his usual astuteness Mr Seddon received the suggestion with apparent favour, and said, in conclusion, that he would go as far as publie opinion would carry him to prevent people being sent to gaol for debt. There apixirently spoke the true heavy father, but that reference to public opinion rather nullifies any practical efficiency the paternal solicitude might promise. Mr Seddon might almost nt once say that he would be in favour of giving every man a pension of £2OO

a year if public opinion would permit it; for it is pretty safe to calculate that public opinion is never likely to sanction such a step. In the same way there is precious little fear of public opinion allowing matters to lx? made too light for the debtor. There are instances, I am well aware, where justice must be greatly tempered with leniency, but it would be criminal on the part of any government to legislate in such a general way that the wasteful and extravagant man could escape the punishment of his actions while the innocent lender suffered for him. Even as it is, there is too much of that sort of thing going on among us now. The idea of a Board of Conciliation to adjudicate between debtors and creditors will no doubt commend itself to those who are more frequently in the rank of the former. A number of amiable old gentlemen of philanthropic tendencies, easily moved by a false tale of woe, would be a much more agreeable tribunal before which to appear in forma pauperis than the stern magistrate. Even if they did not see their way to remit the debt, they might be moved to pay it out of their own pockets. At all events, the debtor would probably have a better chance of getting a good helping of mercy thrown in with the justice than he has now. Of course, on the other hand, the creditor might suffer correspondingly. But who cares about creditors? Unfeeling wretches! It is well for them in this free country that they are allowed to exist at all. Our Government is essentially a government of the debtor, — for are we not as a people all in debt to the British bond-holder?—and naturally all its sympathies are on the side of the poor debtor. And who. after all, is the creditor that we should be mindful of him? The very fact that he has anything to lend is against him: it proves that he is more or less of a capitalist, and has it not been said ‘the capitalist is a robber’?

SOMETHING OF A SERMON. ONE of the banes of colonial social life, and, indeed, one of the least promising features of our whole colonial civilisation, is that spirit of incessant and superficial criticism which, born in the younger generation, infects —by a peculiar reversal of the natural law manifested here—the riper judgment and truer taste of their elders. A man remarked in my hearing yesterday ‘How much the critical faculty is developed in the colonial youth’; and those he addressed endorsed his opinion with a readiness that commended his discrimination. And I know that his is an opinion that is very widespread. But 1 must enter a protest against a proposition that seems to me far from correct if we use the term criticism correctly, and which, if true in the sense in which I take it to be used here, supplies little reason for congratulating ourselves. It is undeniable that among our youngsters there is early developed a quickness to see something more than the outward aspect of a matter. Every boy and girl becomes a critic at an age when the children at Home would be observers only. Parents are naturally pleased with these evidences of precocity, and do all they can to encourage it, under the impression that they are educating the child’s talent, for in their minds to be critical is to be' clever. To be truly critical is indeed to be elever, for the faculty of true criticism dwells only with the highest wisdom. But every fool and dotard can lie a so-call-ed critic; and the trouble' is that few people know how to distinguish the true from the false. How often have we not listened to some glib tonguester or some prosy bore contentedly passing his little opinion on a matter of which he knew nothing and was entirely incapable of knowing anything? Yet, let him but adopt that so easily-acquired tone of contempt and ridicule and fault-finding generally, and ten to one he passes as a man of deep insight among his fellows. And that .is the tone which our youngsters are encouraged to acquire , end which passes as criticism with the herd. The first essential of a live critic is that he should understand his subject, but that is not in the very least necessary for the pseudo-critic. Towards what he does not comprehend he assumes that invulnerable nil admirari manner, and the faults which he has trained his little eyes to discover he transfixes with the arrows of his feeble wit. Nothing is easier in an imperfect, world like this than to find out imperfections, and to reveal

them to others; but there is no enterprise that so utterly sterilises all the I letter instincts of the soul. I have seen -it evidenced in countless eases in New Zealand. The youngster who is encouraged in that attitude of ironical contemplation, that ghastly repression of enthusiasm, that blind indifference to all that is best and highest, grows up a miserable type of humanity; no real pleasure to himself or anyone else. You meet them every day, these men who have irretrievably closed their ears and hardened their hearts to the voice of wisdom; petrified intelligences that can never expand. And they seemed quick and smart enough in their young days; and perhaps in a kind of way they have fulfilled that promise. But only in a kind of way—a very poor kind of way. They choose to cultivate the meandr side of life, to make love to indifference, to stifle the enthusiasms; and they have their reward. ‘Criticism become a habit, a fashion, and a system,’ says Amiel, ‘means the destruction of moral energy, of faith, and of all spiritual force.’ This kind of temj>er is very dangerous among us, for it flattens all the worst instincts of men—indiscipline, irreverence, selfish individualism—and it ends in social atomism. Woe to the society where negation rules, for life is an affirmation; and a society, a country, a nation, is a living whole capable of death.’ These words have a direct application to us; for, while with most communities that temper does not l>egin to make itself apparent except among grown-up people, our children"begin to cultivate that barren pseudo-critical faculty almost before they are out of long clothes, and its malign, corroding influence spreads all through the social body. For heaven’s sake, let us have a little less of that sort of thing, and a. little more general appreciation of ‘the things that are more excellent’ in life. Let the youngsters be taught to believe, what is the case, that it is infinitely cleverer, infinitely nobler to understand the good than the ill, and that for their own sakes and the sake of the whole world it is better to cultivate enthusiasm than indifference. For the one sown in youth will yield you a thousandfold harvest, while if you cultivate indifference you will reap nothing but thorns. ‘To be an enthusiast,’ says Wieland, ‘is to be the worthiest of affection, the noblest, and the best that a mortal can be.’ Here is a lengthy sermon into which I have betrayed my readers, but perhaps they will pardon me: and they can always skip it.

THE BEAL LIVE DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT.

MR BEN TILLETT is something like the unsaleable article at the auction mart. He has been ‘going, going, going’ from the colonies for some time now, and is not ‘gone’ yet. At least he was not eiway last week, but was lecturing the Wellingtoniaus on the general apathy of the workingman in New Zealand and the other colonies. 1 suspect this second visit of Ben has been made in the hope that New Zealand will, even at the eleventh hour, listen to his voice and live. In his own opinion he undoubtedly possesses the only true recipe for life, and when he came to New Zealand first he was certainly under the impression that he would find a people able and willing to obey his precepts, and walk in the ways he indicated. He preached to us a. mixture of strong socialism and weak nihilism, but all to no purpose. The New Zealanders apparently did not want his gospel or him either. When he found this out he took to abusing them, and left for the other side. Now he has come back to abuse them again, and to tell us that we are not a whit better off than other Australasian Colonies, that we are not democratic in the real sense at all, and that it is all our own fault that we are as we are. ably all that is true enough, but still to be told it does not in the least reconcile us to Mr Tillett’s way of looking at things. Our democracy is good enough for us, and we have. no particular hankering after Ben’s ‘real live democratic movement’ which he failed to discover in the whole of Australasia. We can pretty well guess from his utterances what sortcf a thing his idea of ‘a. real live democratic movement’ would be: something with dynamite in it, perhaps; and we don't want it here. It would seem that even the London dockers did not want it either;

and probably Ben will have to interview the anarchists liefore he finds disciples to propagate the gosj>el he came out to the colonies to preach.