The Dominion. FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 1910. LIBERTY AND SOCIALISM.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 798, 22 April 1910, Page 6

The Dominion. FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 1910. LIBERTY AND SOCIALISM.

With a lecture on "Legal Librty" Dr. Findlay broke at Paloerston North laet night an unisually long silence. We have pace for only a ehort mm. aary of his obeeryations,' but he snf ers little injustioe from this con lensation, since his lecture differ rom previous lectures which he ha lelivered mainly in tho voluminou luotations which he brings forwan o support his theory that true pro ;ress consists of moving onward U , condition in which tho State wil >c the universal parent. The sub ect is one well worthy the atten ion of statesmen and philosophers Jthough Dr. Findlay does not sa; nuch that is of value, parti; hrough his unwillingness to do hi >wn thinking, and partly throug] lis concern to make out a give] :ase, namely, a. case for the Stafc Socialism. that has for years beei he policy of those with whom h s politically associated. To at empt to deal in a news japer article with a twenty-pag. jamphlet on a subject for the ful ■reatment of which such profoun( casters of thought and expressioi is Mill and Spencer found life imes insufficient is obviously a die a project as'-that of De. Find ,ay himself. The most that can o: ieed bo attempted is a brief notic if some of the most glaring weak lesses of those passages in which th. lttorney-General allowed himsel enough liberty of. thought to threai ogether his quotations. Let us tak or instance, his diecussion of th nanner in which naked individual sm succeeded to.the era of shari ■estrictions upon economic freedon -the era .when the bootmaker couli nake, but not mend, shoes, when tb ;uilds exercised a monopolistic tyr mny like that of the trades union mder the Arbitration Act, whei irbduction and prices were subjec o rigid legal restrictions. The re tctioii from the oppressions am mseries of_ this era, says Dn. Find jay, was individualism in its ex ;remest form. -, He does not realis ihat the State paternalism which b declares to be the only hope for so iiety will.mean merely the restora tion of the old tyranny—that, there fore, the advocates of an all-power ful State under which the individua must. be a withered' nothing, ar standing for a policy of alternatini tyrannies. ~'

Dit. Findlay is not unaware of the, warning, of such' writers as Bastiat, though he does not quote him, that it is asking man to:believe the incredible to affirm that the State can be wiser than the individuals that compose' it. But he tells us that he thinks less of this warning than he used to do, and he gives us no good reason for his change of view. He contents himself with the assertion that the "national character and temper of W nation may_be trusted to prcycnfc any serious limitation of the'area of liberty really essential to a self-re-specting manhood.".. Evon the crude fallacies of ignorant and muddleheaded sentimentalists, he thinks can be turned to account. Their well-meaning , but foolish inelina-. tions, he says, are like the low-grade ores that are saved by the cyanide process. Wiso leaders, he means, can save these low-grade sentiments and turn them to valuable uses. The metaphor is_ plausible,..but-like all false analogies it will , not bear examination, The assumption, it will be seen, is that these sentiments are golden. That is to beg the whole question. If wo say that they are simply leaden, what can the metaphor saym reply? Although Dit.' Eindlay is-careful to tell us that excess of social control upon the lndividua _ hf e . is as pernicious as excessive liberty," he yet advocates a policy that cannot stop short of that excess m the long issue. He is not the first nor the only politician, by thousands; who has cherished the idea that a halt can at any moment be ca led in the policy of restricting the liberties of the individual and enlarging the functions of, the btate. t Herbert SpenoeE'proved by reasoning from first principles,' that once begun this policy, develops' a momentum of its own and carries its. authors helpless far beyond the point at which they hoped to stop .Many, years later he was able to justify his Wi c by an appeal to recorded facts. The more the State trespasses on the freedom of the individual the weaker the individual becomes. As Lord Htjgh. Cecil, who has lately issued a-tract on "Liberty, . has . said: "Everything depends on individual character, and if every citizen-really'does his parb the btate becomes almost superfluous, while if individuals fail in their part, no machinery that State organisation can sot up will avail to save the nation from going down the slopes of decadence into disasIf • The "State paternalism"' that Dr. Findlay so complacently recommends/as the cure for all the maladies of society ie nothing more nor loss than Socialism. Thai Dk Findlay takes the Socialist view' will surprise many people, but there can only be one meaning for the following passage from his lecture: True "social progress can be attained- only by limiting greatly individual liberty and by eliminating the struggle for a bare existence by checking and removing the competition and other conditions which give rise to it." To find a responsible Minister asking at this time of day for the removal of individual competition, which everybody but the unpractical dreamers of a Socialist Utopia admits to be the very mainspring of progress and civilisation, is certainly an astonishing thing. Hardly less astonishing it is to find Dr.. Findlay saying that State paternalism makes for liberty, for, as Mill said fifty years ago, in words that arc eternally true: • "If the roads, the railways, the banks,- the insurance offices, the great joint stock companies, 'the universities, and the public charities were all of them branches of the Government; if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves on them, became departments of the contral administration ; if the employees of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the Government, and looked to the Government for every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the Legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than in name,"