THE STRIKE AND ECONOMICS.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14842, 6 December 1913, Page 12

THE STRIKE AND ECONOMICS.

A PROFESSOR'S OPINIONS AND SUGGESTIONS, Professor Macmillari Brown, who is a close observer of all social and economic movements, with a world-wide outlook, -spoke interestingly to a representative of VThe Press" . w-ho called on him yesterday with regard to the present industrial trouble, which he regarded as a sure sign of white decadence, because it was a .strike against the organised transference of capacity and talent, and the stored up power in wealth, to posterity in growing volume. "It is," he remarked, "the effort on the part'of people who are practically political and social brigands to check that transference of power. They want the power themselves, and their efforts to get it are made without any regard to the law or the Ten Commandments.

This strike is merely a phase or symptom of social degeneracy, and though it is easy to talk of degeneracy, mental and physical, it is more profitable to speculate upon the causes, as from an examination of them wo may light upon possible remedies. It does not need an excessive penetration to observe the main cause—the excessive urbanisation of the west. It ie true there were great cities in the past, but the great cities of the past were cities and country combined within their walls, whereas the modern city is merely an aggregation of buildings, congested with human beings. It is this congestion,- the direct result of industrialism that is the greatest menace of the white race, for here we have the primitive savage conditions, without the great free areas around, which relieves the tension and the savagery, of primitive communities. And into these congested areas sink the defectives and failures of civilisation breeding like bacteria. Often the only off-set and complement to the poor areas is the wasteful luxuriance of a a spectacle that is always before the eyes of the submerged, stirring up their bitterest and most wratliful feelings. "The present upheaval has been compared by some with the French Revolution, but I cannot see the likeness, and I cannot see much danger of another great upheaval like that m tho near future. In France thcro was but a small nucleus of educated thought, and that was concentrated in Paris, and mixed with the frivolity and irresponsible extravagance of the nobles and courtiers. They took up with the illusory social theories of Rousseau, and applauded when the starving mob crept from the slums and threatened. Now education is too widespread for a civilized community to lose its head and allow the lawless to overthrow the social fabric. Every citizen has the vote and the open appeal to law. Now with tho secrecy of the ballot the most timid have the power to right a wrong without resort to violence. And it is the great majority, the silent workers, who need most the protection of the law; they it is who have most to fear when anyone of the Ten Commandments is flouted.

"What we most need is the dissolution or diminution of our great cities. I cherish the hope that in New Zealand, at least, the attractions of the country will counteract the magnetism of the cities. Roads, light railways, and schools right into the back blocks should bo the first consideration of a Government that values the health of the body politic. It is in contact with MotheT Earth'that wholesome work becomes a national Instinct, and that the fertility of a nation is kept up, and its reservoir of talent reinforced. I take it that from our natural conditions we shall nevsr be a great manufacturing country, we shall never be able to compete with the great reservoirs of cheap labour that border the Pacific. Wβ shall have to recognise that our role is that of a primary producer. Most of our energy and talentVill have to go on the 'and, and that is a guarantee of New Zealand's fnture; the cities will have to take a subordinate

place, aaS however much onesided and unwholesome fads may seem to thrive in our great centra'they will never get their roots deep down into the community. There is another base lor optimism as to the future of our community, and that is the transference of the sources of power from coal to water, i .Electric power is cloariv going to ousi steam power, ou land at least, and' when this is an accomplished fact the mountainous countries of the world will come into their own. ily hope is that along tho line of transit, from our mountains to the sea, will spring up industrial villages. This has happened in otuer countries, and though we may never bo a, strictly manufacturing country we shall always need some manufactures, and I nope that the new power will revive tie old cottage industries that used to be such a marked feature of life in the Old Country. ' Thirteen years ago I remember visiting Chaux-de-Fonds, away upon the Swiss mountains, and admiring the open spaces and tho neat cottages of the workmen, each in its own garden in this new industrial city. It was harnessed water power that had brought into being this large watch-making centre, but instead of huge factories as in America, one could see the wire from the power-house carrying the energy needed for the machinery into every workman's coUago. I nope that in New Zealand the cheap transmission of power will lead to the dissolution of the factory system which is so pernicious to a healthy family life. If industrial villages round factories are to be a necessity, then I hope our legislators will take a lesson and rigidly control town planning after the lines of the owners of Bournvillo and Port Sunlight. Why, even away, on the coast of Borneo the coloured workmen of the great oil company at Balik Papan were housed in isolated well sanitated houses and were supplied with free picture shows every night! "But environment is not all that makes a nation healthy and happy. If you put a pig into a palace he will make it a pigsty in a very short time. There may be poisonous fountains away in tho past that still pollute the natural stream of life. There are certain diseases, mental, as well as physical, that tend to re-appear through the generations and, if _ unchecked, will taint wider and wider areas. Something ', should be done to make these die out, for the sake of not only the community but the individual. Legislation of all kinds has been tried ad nauseam. In fact, we have made such woeful blunders in legislation that it is time to cry a halt to Stato interference. In curing one we'have evidently been . creating others. We in New Zealand have been patting ourselves on the back as leaders of the world in Labour legislation; wo have been for twenty years at the task of regulating wages and conditions, and it is becoming evident every year that we are in a hopeless muddle. The much vaunted legislative cure of strikes has increased them tenfold, while the vast legal, departmental, and inspectorial macninery has become.a grievous burden for us to bear/and it is acknowledged in every country that has been passing laws for tho regulation of Labour that the conditions of industry, are worse than they were, worse both for the country and the individual, and the j moral of this is that we should have less State interference and not more. x "Our orgy of legislation that has. been proceeding in these colonies for more than a quarter of a century has not only deprived us of full- individual and local initiative, which was such a marked feature of the pioneer, but our attempts to sweep out the old devil or two have brought into our household sevenfold more and worse. The task of meddling with the condi- j tions iind functions of Nature is infin- | ite and practically demands omniscience and no one would charge our legisla- j tors with anything approaching omniscience 1 Even if we could, absolutely depend upon an Assembly of the very ablest and wisest of the community to make the laws, I am afraid that: the accumulated wisdom would leak away in the, compromise that would be essen- I tial for bringing a debate to a. conclusion. ■'• "■■••■' • ' "'

"The fact of the matter is that we" haye. begun to forget that legislation is only a corrective or medicine, and not a food. It is only meant to check the appearance or growth of some disease in the body politic. As it is we imagine we have all kinds of diseases and we rush to the legislature in a violent state of excitement and demand a cur© for every one of them. The result is an almost complete stoppage "of the national functions of. life in a young community that should be healthy and vigorous with such a climate and such boundless resources. .It seems the strangest of. anomalies that" wo should have a perpetual and passionate appeal to legislation along with a scornful and often violent disregard of its results. Paradoxical as it - may sound, it "Is the orgy of legislation that has induced lawlessness. No sooner has some evil, imaginary or real, been pointed out, than there is a rush to have it remedied without the slightest consideration, whether ■ the remedy' may not be w.ors© than the. disease. And no" sooner is the law placed on the Statute Book than those, who feel it has introduced new griev- , ances arise and curse it and teach any audience they can gather with, wild, irresponsible oratory to flout all laws. Dozens of Jaws passed are dead letters - because they are not based on the commonsense of the community, and if they are enforced with all the paraphernalia of Government and justice, they breed the feeling that all laws aro unjust, andj what is worse, negligible. If wo are to euro our people of this dangerous attitude and indifference to law, we must give up trying to use it as a 'food, , and use it as wo ought as .an occasional corrective., It is tho abuse of legislation and its applicationto spheres that it can never manage, that widens the now tendency to believe in revolution. Scheming, ambi-r tious and glib-tongued men see a ready, opportunity to seize power in tho general scorn of-law that is the result of over-legislation. They persuade tho young bloods and the idealists that society is rotten to the core, and that they are tho men to set it right. They use the open vote and intimidation to start the avalanche that is to overwhelm the legitimate Government, arid they hope, in the debacle, to become dictators of tho community. Now even a successful revolution is never final; it breeds revolution; it is based on lawlessness, and can never suppress lawlessness. The first brigands aro hurled from power by another band more lawless than themselves, and each* new band, in order to prevent its fall, has to use more and more sanguinary and tyrannical methods until a supreme tyrant, a Napoleon, may arise. If 110 such Napoleon arises, government by revolution becomes the order of the day, as in the South American Republics, and bloodshed and anarchy become chronic. It is, as I have said, too late in the day for such revolutions to occur in an enlightened community like New Zealand. But all attempts to foment revolutionary -ideas aro butmaking surer of the decadence of the white race. Legislation will not effect a cure; the real euro is better education, so that reason, instead of passion, shall be tho pilot of our ship. Wβ want our community, to think wholesomely and to __ obtain a distrust of political and social panaceas, which are all quack medicines, which Will induct* more disease than they profess to cure. There _can be no* sudden, euro; man has risen by slow evolution, and must so work out his salvation.

"It is a fine spectacle, to see the artisan of New Zealand organised, quite apart from tb e Stat©; it is the healthiest of signs in the white race, and I hope that it will continue and broaden. But I should like to see the success of "the movement rise by the

use of reason and less by violence and intolerance. Treedom' should be their watchword: freedom to think, to act, to epeak, *o move, whether it will be the ideal that will best foster the truo interests of labour. Concentration of power in the hands of a few is what all coed unionists are fighting against. But too many have forgotten that the greater the concentration the greater the tyranny and the less the possibility of freedom.

'The best cure for the modern evils is education; legacy duties will get back come of the unearned increment of wealth; I would suggest that for every ™M attending school regularly there should be a rebate to the parent of, not only national taxation, but local rates also, which would surely be encouraging practical eugenics. The best hope for the white race is tho renewal of the old family life, together with the love of work, and a high sense of duty." In conclusion, Professor MacmilfanBrown heartily supported the idea of tho formation of Community Chibs, to which employers and employees should all belong, and where they "could meet each other as man to man on an equal footing, unfettered and unhampered by any officialism or so-called social inequality.