The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING GISBORNE OCT 3, 1906.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1875, 3 October 1906, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING GISBORNE OCT 3, 1906.

Mr. Lloyd George spoke a few instructive words at Llanelly when he said “ reform was impossible ” when

extremists insisted upon getting what they could not get, and would not be satisfied with anything else. It is the old story over again of the little boy who put his hand in tho jar of nuts and could not withdraw it because all tho nuts wore in his hand and the nock was too narrow, so there he stuck and whined for nuts which ho might have been eating while he wasted his time whining. He was an extremist who wanted all or nothing, and who had not tho sense to see that he could I have got his nuts two or three at a time without any trouble. In politics, not only in England but in New Zealand, there are many extremists of the same typo who want reforms in large bundles and who will not be satisfied with anything less than what they ask for, and must have all that they ask for or nothing at all. Some want to transform a nation of gamblers into anti-gamblers at one fell swoop by Act of Parliament, and never stop to think of the impossibility of the thing.

dura want to create new cinditions

of living and new relationships in business, in modes 'of employment, in social customs, and in a hundred other

tl : ngs by virtue of legislative enact* ruents, and all these people are in a

hurry to realise the drown of tho inillouniuin before their short spun of lil'o is ended by a good many years Tho popular mode for bringing about all tliOHo rapid reformations is tho legislative machino, tho Act of Parliament. Tiioy all look to the future with moro than conlidont hope, and anything that tonds to cheek or rotard tho fulfilment of that hopo only sharpons tho desire for moro strenuous effort and enhances tho confidence that realisation is noaror thoir grasp. In this fanatical condition of mind Socialists can see tho possibility of an earthly olysium built upon pillars of statute books, and moral reformorn can pieturo to thoinsolvos visions of etornal Sunday obsorvancos made compulsory and unbreakable by statutory onactmont. Yet none of them ever stop to think that the hand of the ardent roformer is always in the metaphorical jar, and that the ideal Socialism and the universal puritanism are as far off realisation to day as thoy wore two thousand years ago, when the most enlightoned roformer that the world has ever known lirst promulgated tho doctrines of true socialism and showod the only way in which reforms could be permanently secured. Ho was not a legislator, and Ho never wasted His time in calling aloud for votes on this, that, or the other question. Ho never clamoured for legislation to compel people to do this, or to prevent people from doing that, under pain of fine or imprisonment. He condemned tho publican and moneychanger, but He never went so far as to suggest that either should be punished by man-made law for his practices. His method was to show them thoir errors, and to teach them better things both, by precept and examplo, but He never put His haud in the jar. Yet He was a Socialist of the true typo and a reformer who know tho essential elements necessary to the permanence of reform—He wao the reformer par excellence in the world’s history. To-day we have imitators whom Mr Lloyd George is forced to dub extremists, whose only redeeming character is their honest desire to do good did they but know how to do it aright. The Socialist has his plans, and he thinks they must succeed. He talks of equal distribution of worldly wealth and the enforce* mont of legal bonds that would bring about that result, while he never dreams rhat the process was one of legal spoliation without justification, and quite unauthorised by the Author of the real Socialism. “ Take all that thou hast and give it to the poor,” said the Great Reformer ; but by no stretch of imagination can that be made to lit in with the Socialistic doctrine of modern times, that the poor may under cover of an enactment “ take all that thou hast.” Nor do we find a very great multiplicity of examples among Socialists of the pronounced type who obey more than the first portion of the command. Most of (hem are ready to take all that they hast and keep it, and they “give to the poor ” very sparingly. But that is a matter for their individual consciences with which we have no light to interfere, nor have we any such desire. And so long as extremist propaganda is confined within the same limits of right to allow us to take all that we “hast” and do what we please with it, as they themselves have the privilege of doing (always provided that our privileges and theirs do not encroach upon each other to the undue detriment of either), they need not fear any interference.