AN OUTSIDE VIEW.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1140, 30 May 1911, Page 5

AN OUTSIDE VIEW.

MAN AND CITIZEN. A FREE PLACE IN A SLAVE STATE,.. (By J.Q.X.). When tho politicians have been conlending most holly about their greatest questions, I sometimes like, especially when the week-end conies round, to pcrsuado myself that these matters which have so excited many of us aro not, after all, as important as we had supposed. I (ind myself, on such occasions, wishing (o behold our political scene from some airy viewpoint whence it shall appear but a little thing in a vast environment. But if I appeal to geography or compare tho. population of New Zealand with that of . the globe, I am still confronted with (he fact that tho principles about which wo contend uro not limited by tho sizo of our country. Now Zealand has been called'the world's political laboratory, and I' approve tho title, with tho proviso that it he not denied to any other Stato. Whether our population is a million or a hundred million, wo are, in however blundering a fashion, sorting a heap of theories into the rubbish of fallacy and the gold of principle. If, as tomo think, this is done more rapidly in New Zealand than anywhere else, our polities must bo the most important in tho world. , No. 1 cannot see New Zealand politirs isolated from tho rest of tho world, therefore, in this pragnmatic search for a not wholly unphilosophic calm, I seek another viewpoint and a different kind of telescope. I endeavour to joo all the politics of the age islanded in "rime. How long has man been a political aui-' mal? How long will he so remainP Theso arc questions that I like to ask, but.' I do not know tho answers. Only I huvo '• a notion, mingling with whatever Utopian dreams survive in me, that tho second is not to l;o answered, "I'or ever." 1 am not going to arguo about it. Instead, I turn the leaves of Thorcau's' "Essays" until I come to "Civil Disoho-, dieuce." Here I find much that I can '. gladly entertain. What amount of it I accept for truth is quite a different question, and may bo adjourned "sine die." Thoreaii begins by quoting tho saying, i "That government is best which goverus> least." "Carried out," ho says, "it finally amounts to this, which also I believe—'That government is best which ' governs nut at all'; and when men aro prepared for it, that will be. the kind ' of government they will have. Government is at best but' an expedient; but most Governments are usually, and all Governments are sometimes, moxpedi- \ cut." Ho observed that some men served ' the Stain with their bodies, some with(heir heads, and some "with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it '< for tho most part; and they are commonly i treated as enemies by it." He was, one • of theso Inst. The American Government, in the year 1849, seemed to him inexpediout. A man could not, without disgrace, he thought, bo associated with it. "I cannot for an instant recognise that political organisation as my Government which is the slave's Government also." Ho held (as his contemporary John Brown also held) (hat (he crisis of affairs was such that true men must assert the right ■ of revolution or resistance. Ho did not •, hesitate to say "that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at onco ' effectually withdraw their support both ' in person and property from the Government of Massachusetts, and not wait till, they constitute a majority of one before they suffer tho right to prevail through them." Ho apparently did not think tho abolition movement was his vocation, and ; so ho did not take up arms with John ' Brown, but when the tax-collector caino ' he quite consistently and simply refused to pay (ho tax. And ho went to prison; —"(ho only houso in a 6lavo Stato in ' which a free man can abide with honour." Ho only remained (hero ona night, but' that was long enough for Eomo high thinking.

As I stood considering tho walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot

thick, and tho iron grating which ; strained tho light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere llcsh and blood and bones to be locked up. ... 1 paw that if t hero was a wall of stone between mo and inv townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before tliey could get to 1)0 os free as 1 was. 1 did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waslo of stone and mortar. .... They plainly did not know liow to treat me, for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. 1 could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and wero really all that was dangerous. Ab they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at somo person against .whom they have a \ spite, will abuse his dog. Yet Thoreau declared liimsclf not quor- j relsome. Jle did not wish to split hairs, • to make iiuo distinctions, or set himself up as better than his neighbours. Ho rather sought, year by year, as tho tax- ■ gatherer came round, some excuso for conforming to tlio laws of tho land. • "Scon from a, lower point of view, tho Constitution, with all it; fault's, is very good; the law and the Courts are very respectable." Jle would rather leave tho Government alone. It did not concern him much. "It is not many moments that I live under a (.iovenimcitl, even in this world. If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free, ... unwise* rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him." But 'i'horenu undoubtedly held that tho. way to such freedom did not lie through iiulifl'ercncy. If we turn to thoughts liko ' his for an' escape from the obsession of ' statutes, judgments, and public meetings, wo may hud that we have but set our . feet (perhaps unworthily) upon a most; laborious path. "They who know of nc purer sources of truth," lie says again, "who have traced up its stream no,, higher, stand and wifely stand by thoBiblo and the Constitution; but they who ; behold where it comes trickling into this' lake or that pcol gird up their loins; once more, and continue their pilgrimage towards its fountsin head." I was wrong il 1 thought to find in Thoreau merely rest and change. To say,' not merely in his words, but in his, spirit, "1 was not born.to be forced; I will breathe after mv own fashion"—to claim ihe right, on due cause and occa- ■ sion, to go to gaol (which is the modern substitute far the right of insurrection)--is to shoulder a more weighty responsibility then any statesman bears. And the reward is but a dream. "I pleiisoi myself with imagining"—thus Thoreau,' put the dream into words—"a Stato at' last which can afford to bo just' to all; moil, and to treat the individual with, respect as a neighbour; which even would not think it inconsistent with its vc-' pose if a few were_ to live aloof from il, not meddling with it, nor caibraccd by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neigh- ' hours and fellowmen. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop nfr us fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also 1 have imagined, but not yet anywhere eccn."-