REFORM AND ITS PROBLEMS

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1247, 2 October 1911, Page 6

REFORM AND ITS PROBLEMS

Many honest people have doubtless asked themselves: "Hotv will the success of the Reform party solve all these difficulties that trouble us? How will the success of Mr. Massey, or the strengthening of the political reformers in the House, make New Zealand.a country of economic and moral freedom and independence ?, At present our great disadvantage is: that life—honest life—is. more difficult than ever, while we dare not possess our souls so fully as to be able in any company, or in any circumstances, to _ proclaim and act upon our opinions upon public and political questions. How will the advent of a Reform Government—or the election of so strong a Reform minority that the Government will need to mend its ways—supply our material or moral needs by providing a system of government under which our children will be able to thrive under conditions that do not exact, as the price of material happiness, the surrender of their social and political independence !" During the next couple of months we shall have to give our answers to these questions,'but to-day our purpose is not. specifically related to the [politics of our country. These ques-

tions, which' troubletGe minds 'of n' : considerable section of the public, are I the branches of a great root- problem 'that is always present wherever there arc national abuses that patriots resent, and long to remedy. Just as there is a readiness in New Zealand to acclaim as a success, and .'.'a solution of tho problem," a legislative measure upon which the ink is hardly dry—the Arbitration Act was proclaimed a final success years before it begun really to show itself a hop,eless failure—so when the day of re-formed-government comes wo "shall havo the enemies of reform/crying out against the Reform party because its advent to power failed' t-o secure an immediate alleviation of I'ill the, ills of twenty years of "Liberalism." ' ' Tins trouble which awaits the Reform Government "is at present worrying a little tho reformers both in' Federal and _ local politics in ■America. The city of lies Moines, the pioneer of ' the "commission" system of city government, _ has lately bcon troubled with strikes, and the opponents'of ' "government 'by commission"- have endeavoured to uso the strikes as evidence of the un-. wisdom of the "commission" system. One of these critics grudgingly conceded that "of course'it cannot, exactly be said that' the situation in Des Moines shows' that_ there is no merit at all'in the'eommission plan," and the New York Post seized upon this criticism to enunciate some too-often-forgotten facts about political reform in general. "Reforms," it ironically admitted, "have an embarrassing way. of leaving things undone." Luther, for, "example, has some repijtc lis the author of a reform that was a revolution greater than any the -world has ever experi-, enced, but did JjUTHEß*contribute to a solution of the problem of poverty 1 St. Francis of Assist is not'without a reputation for purifying the religious atmosphere of his time; but did lie sweep away the evils of the 1 feudal system 1 Of course he did not; let him then be crossed off the list, the same as Luther. Socrates in his time did a little—here and there one will tell you that his ball is still r,oiling—but Socrates . contributed nothing to tJv; art of warfare. The American Abolitionists arc honoured; but what did they do towards stopping the opium trade between India and China? "There is .apparently not a single' reformer or reform that has hot left undone far more than he or it has done." Pursued to thenlogical end, the' truths involved in these facts, which our New York contemporary turns so well against the anti-rcformcr who _qustes the' unimproved climate against the reformer who has triumphed over him, appear to disprove any usefulness in the idea of reform at all. In every ago the dawn has been at band, the millennium merely, awaiting tho success of the reformer. But the dawn never comcs, the millennium remains on the horizon: Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps o'er Alps arise. _ .But the only alternative to reform is stagnation: and a political party left undisturbed long enough becomes tho champion of essential stagnation, however many times, or in however large a type and-bright a colour, it may write "Progress" on"its banners and its broad-sheets. In one of his "Table' Talk" essays— ,wc think it is '.'Paradox and Commonplace"—Hazlitt mentions a poor fellow who was imprisoned in a dark cell so long that when he walked into a- mcadow he drew back and shuddered at every step, fancying he would walk over a precipice; and says that Canning was politically in the same ease: overmastered, by a dread of change. So they are who have grown accustomed to the dominance of one set of politicians. Without examining themselves for reasons, they fear that change will mean ruin—and they fail to reflect that they aro the Government, and that to change a faded,''tattered, and disreput-ablo Government for a dcccnt one need hurt them no mpre than discarding a faded, tattered, and disreputable coat. The longer, moreover, that the Government they are used to has been in power, the more strongly is' this foolish fancy - likely to grasp their spirits. We may return at this point to the New York Postfs curious and suggestive article by quoting some passages which hatfc a close application to the political "situation in New Zealand to-day, and which are worth the careful consideration of every honest* citizen of no matter what political camp. To the foes of change "the ccrtain destruction of all things is visibly impending." "They feel that long rind painful adjustment will be necessary, while the lesson* slowly sinks in of the unwisdom of ' such upheavals. Surely [they think] there cannot be another .of them. .' . . Reformers'' themselves are inclined to regard each new alteration as the last. •. . . People in the mass do not feel it worth while to t-ako a step which does not promise. to absolve them from the necessity of taking another shortly." • The conclusion of the Post is that "fortunately for the believer in progress, the'gradual dissipation of such a superstition as that of the dominance of political aqtion over economic conditions gives promise of a more candid consideration 01 the probable results of suggested changes." This is not a balm that the political reformers in New Zea-. land' can enjoy; but they have thin far greater consolation: that, /supremo over theorising and. detailed exposition of the need for change, aro the blunt and brutal facts of misgovcrnment. And it is Fact that tells in the end. Canadian reformers had to wait many years for the public to realise that the "Liberal''' Government should be swept away in the interest of true national progress. American reformers had to wait over twenty-five years for the explosion of the idea that it was the Republicans who caused the rain to fall and the graGS.to grow. The great Democratic triumpn in the United < States last year, and _ the great I triumph of the Canadian Liberals over the sham' "Liberals" last week are testimonies to the fundamental opposition of honest _ democracy to the essential stagnation of a longestablished political party. They arc beacon-lights to reformers all over the earth.