THE WORKING OF THE PERIOD.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 289, 25 April 1879, Page 2

THE WORKING OF THE PERIOD.

(Examiner.)

: It. is now more than 11 years since we first began to;make an idol of the " working man." At the first Paris Exhibition of 1867 he made his debut under this name, and appeared, much to his own astonishment, mounted on a pedestal suddenly raised for him by new-found

"" I „■■■■ patrons and admirers. The worship oj of the workman—to use an older and more vulgar, but perhaps less affected, term—was not confined to England, the land of strange enthusiasms. Napoleon 111, with a generosity that look magnanimous, received the coming hero of the hour with open arms ; and the whole band of humanitarians, progressists, friends of the " people," and leaders of " civilization," both in France and in this country, combined to burn incenße at the shrine of the modern fetish. It is easy to recall to mind the pretty picture* sketched out for the working men of the future. The golden age that was to rise for him was to be one of moral as well as material progress. Thenceforth the artisan—sober, intelligent, and industrious—was to become an ornament to the society of which he was the prop and the mainstay. His intelligence,* developed by technical training, enlarged by visits to Industrial Exhibitions, and promoted by the wise encouragement of employers, was to make of him a new being, worthy.of himself,'of his country, and of humanity, worthy of the political franchise, and why not of a seat in Parliament itself ? His increased - earnings would be deposited partly in the Savings' Banks, partly in treasuries of Friendly Societies, which would : of course, receive a new and salutary impulse; -and his spare hours would be profitably and delightfully whiled away in the readingrooms of institutes and the galleries of art and science museums. Such was the sketch which hope and fancy drew out for the British workman in 1867. Nor was it a sketch which the incredulous or . cynical were allowed to- criticise. A distinguished statesman, far removed from any suspicion of Toryism, got into dire hot water, and almost into disgrace, for describing in uncomplimentary but all too truthful terms the conduct and character of the wage-earning population. Such insulting language was intolerable ; such sceptics were not to be endured ; and we adjoined, bon gremal gre, in the chorus of honor to the working man.

The time which has elapsed between the two great Paris Exhibitions has given us a full opportunity to test the merits of our modern hero. The fetish has been glorified; it has ever been petted and pampered to the very top of its bent, or rather to the utmost limit of the goodwill which its worshippers professed for it. We have arrived.at a . moment when we are amply competent to judge how far the reality has justified the fancy pictures drawn ten or twelve years ago. Need we affect any mystery M to the result? Need we make ajshow of argument at all about the matter, or pretend to suppose that any one of the enthusiasts of 1867 retains the flattering delusions of that period T If there! is any faith in trade returns, in the history of strikes, in the annals of Mechanics' Institutes and the registers of Friendly Societies, we may admit without further parley that our anticipations were mistaken,, and that, by reason of certain caUges which do none of us much credit, the silk purse of which we dreamed has not yet been made out of the homely materials that were ready to our hand. The failure is humiliating; but it is one to which most enthusiasts must submit, who expect suddenly, to develop. a special class of their' tellow-creatures into patterns of special excellence, and forget that such short cuts to virtue are beyond the lot of common humanity. The " working man " was and is a fair type of ordinary humanity—not a great deal better nor a great deal worse than any other class of Englishman.