The Dominion. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1912. LEGISLATION AND SOCIETY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1568, 11 October 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1912. LEGISLATION AND SOCIETY.

SUMMARY AND FORECAST; Present indications <iro for storipy weather shortly, osper.ially on the West Coast southward of KnAvliia, and over tho South Island. Northerly winds increasing, strong to cnle, warm and humid conditions will provail, raui follow intr generally, The barometer ia likely to fall very low in the south for a westerly storm area, duo to pass in the south-about Saturday or Sunday morninc. Fair to cloudy weather, with rain 311 some parte have been reported to-day. Tho baromotor has risen in the FotiLh and fallon in the north, and tho winds have been variable. D. 0. BATES. Meteorological Office, Wellington, October 10, 1912. DISTRICT REPORTS. \ fFrnm Our Special Onrrespondeiits.) reildin&, October 10.—Vine, warm, calm day; cool, cnlm night. Shannon, October and warm. Otaki. October 10.—Glorious fiunphine—an ideal day. Feathorat-on, Ootobcr 10. —Bright summer day. Greytown, October 10.—A beautiful day. Hastings, October 10. —The weather to-day has been dull and close.

• The Prime Minister gave voice to what most modern Radicals will regard as a heresy when ho suggested on Wednesday that legislation is not the, best of ajl things. His actual statement, which was made in reply to a rather curious by Mn. Robertson to be told when the Government is going to , /carry out its promise to give Labour a "square deal," was, that while measures of "labour legislation" were being prepared, yet "the well-being of the workers depends even more upon the prosperity of the Dominion than upon legislation." This is a truth which will have to be realised in time by everybody. Within certain limits, of course, hgislation can produce direct benefits for the worker, but no legislation has ever really benefited the worker which has not been truly beneficial to the nation as a whole and which has not had its justification in wider than "worker considerations." Neither Mr. Massey nor any other political leader'is likely ever to call a halt in legislation specifically designed to cure the grievances or improve the conditions of workingmenj tjufc there is a wide gulf between the standpoint of Mr. Massey's maxim and the standpoint of those restless and hasty Radicals who believe that legislation is the sovereign specific for the ills of society and who are constantly holding out to the people the hope that by 'passing a greater or less body of legislation all or most of the ills of society can be banished. \ When Gladstone was old, he told the Right Hon. G.. W. E. Russell that he looked with perplexity at the future, and could teel sure only that it is not by the action of tho State that the woes that darken the world can be effectually dealt with. He held, as all true political philosophers have held, that it is not to specific legislation; but to the growth of the human spirit, that men must look for all true social improvements. In the_ field of labour legislation the futility of empirical statutory devices has been demonstrated with especial clearness. Wherever any considerable body of special labour legislation has been enacted, there have appeared tendencies towards a deterioration of the average workman's performances. Act after Act is passed with tho intention of lightening the workman's burden, hut today Labour is not only more discontented, but more firmly coiwtac'-d that it is no.better, if not worse off, than was tho case before'the legislation was passed. Never was there a greater number of politicians with cure-alls than to-day; never ha 3 fheio been so widespread a disposition amongst politicians to regard the well-proved truth that legislation by itself cannot better society excepting in a small and indirect degree. So far as tho worker is concerned, he cannot hope permanently to benefit from arbitrary/, enactments in his favour unless 4 those enactments, by some happy accident, somehow hene-' fit the whole of society. It is. quite feasible, for example, to decree by Act of Parliament .that £l a day shall be the minimum wage in any trade, or that no man shall be employed more than three days a week. But would the workingman bo unv better off? Anyone can see that the effect of such enactments would be in the end to make'him much worse off. The sensiblo workman who is receiving a reasonable wage would not hesitate,, if offered his choice between a thriving and prosperous condition of society, and a mass of drastic labour legislation, in choosing the former. ■ Mr. Massey was only stating a simple and almost self-evident truth; but he will make no impression upon the Radical doctrinaires of all sorts and those who think (or, rather, refrain from clear thinking) with them. Nothing, for example, will induce the single-taxcrs, and the land-nationalisers, and the advocates of penal taxation on farmers, to believe that abundance and prosperity will be better for the community, and, therefore, for the workers, than their special nostrums. It is idle to complain of this, for every ago has its foolish believers in the tahsmanio virtue of an Act of Parliament. Tho present Government intends, no doubt, to pass whatever labour legislation is desirable, but one thing is quite certain, that neither the present Government, nor any other Government, can produce through legislative innovations one fraction of the good results, reacting on all classes, which can be achieved by good and prudent administration.