The Hastings Standard Published Daily. SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1897. TILLETISM ALIAS TOMMYROT.

Hastings Standard, Issue 282, 27 March 1897, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily.

SATURDAY, MARCH 27, 1897. TILLETISM ALIAS TOMMYROT.

For the cause that lacks assistance," For the wrongs that need resistance. For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Mb " I-.kn " Tillet eomoH to New Zealand with a big reputation, but just what it is all about few have stopped to consider. 11c has tilted himself into notoriety, by pure thickheaded agitation and mostly unwarranted interference with labourers. Ho has no doubt organised unions, and drilled the London dockers into battalions capable of an infinite amount of misthief. The wharf laborers, too, are possibly indebted tc) him for their union, and to what sinster purpose thev are desirous of applying their fancied strength the labK.- informed us a few days ago, when the-*' wharf lumpers in till MriousUe.-v- prupo-*-d a feueral strike throughout the world, ti forming unions and spouting redhot Socialism Bta Tiitet is umjueilion*

ably a great man, and to his achivemeuts in this connection is to be found his " big " reputation. It is a pity for those who grovel at the feet of this alleged Labor Leader, that he does not possess a big reputation for doing a day's hard honest work and minding his own business. Still there is no need to quarrel over this man's big reputation, or whether he has any right or title to a reputation as a great labor leader, for we at least in New Zealand would have passed over the matter had Mr Ben Tillet contented himself with posing, and kept his mouth shut. It is always a difficult matter for a man who fancies himself great to avoid speech making, and even if he were disposed to silence, there is the risk of offending those who idolise him. Mr Tillet, possibly appreciates the difficulties and has no doubt faced them with that dauntless com-age which is popularly supposed to be associated with every leader. But Ben Tillet, would, we think, have been held in higher estimation to-day, had he refrained from utteriug a word at the social tendered to him in Wellington last Wednesday. Those who have been fortunate enough to have read Mr Tillet's speech as reported in the Wellington papers must certainly have been struck with the amount of excellent and unadulterated tommyrot it contained. Mr Tillet shrieks for " a change in existing economics and a fairer distribution of wealth," and to emphasise this he draws an unlovely picture of the intense misery of certain sections of workmen in the old world. From his impassioned appeal one would imagine that intense poverty was entirely of modern growth, instead of dating back to time immemorial. But does not this extreme poverty beoome noticeable by comparison. There is a wide gulf between a Rothschild and a roadman, the latter is extremely poor in comparison with the other, but compare one roadman with another and the disparity disappears. Yet, because the world contains a Rothschild and a roadman, Mr Tillett wants to upset the whole fabric of society in the foolish hope of levelling down the rich, or, as he puts it, of obtaining a fairer distribution of wealth. If Mr Tillect was honest to his hearers he would have told them that the condition of the workers of the Old Worlß to-day is infinitely superior to what it was fifty, or even twenty-five, years ago. They are better fed, better clothed, better housed, aipd better paid than their fathers and mothers were; and the wages of today have a far greater purchasing power. Mr Tillett is essentially an agitator, and as such he could not perhaps admit of any improvement in the condition of the workers without jeopardising his calling as an agitator. This fairer distribution of wealth and the change in the existing economics is, according to the Tilletian creed, to be secured by a State Bank and a paper currency. This is no new fad in New Zealand, but we were always under the impression that it had been rotten-egged out of the coun-

try long ago. But let us hear Mr Tillett's version of this oft-exploded fad. To illustrate what everybody knows, this Old-World agitator draws upon Henry George for his ideas. He went on to say that "if they made an island in the Pacific with all the gold of the world, and built houses upon it with £IOO notes, and decorated it with all the brilliant stones and gems that the world could produce, and put upon the island the Rockfellers, the Vanderbilts, the Goulds, and the Mackays, double-banked with the Dukes of Westminster and people of that sort, hemmed round again with the bishops and bankers, the capitalists and the small fry, and the editors, they would be a long time there before they could make coffee out of bank-notes." This outburst of course raised a laugh, and we are not quite sure whether it was at Mr Tillet's unconscious foolishness, or the ludicrous situation of the unfortunate people of the gold island. Supposing this fanciful isle was inhabited by Tillets ft hoc //cvh.s iminr would they be able to make coffee. Would any class of workers fare better than the liockfellers and Goulds and Mackays on an island of solid gold '? What is the value of the illustration except to exhibit Mr Tillet as an economic buffoon. Mr Tillet, however, intended to emphasise the fact that the currency coins were mere tokens, and being tokens Mr Tillet maintains that they can be changed —and he would change the gold currency for scraps of paper which are to possess some magic power through being issued by a State Bank. Mr Tillet has evidently forgotten or perhaps never knew that the history of the development of commerce among nations, from the ancient to the present world, shows that the changes of standard of value mark the progress from a lower state of civilization to a higher one. Shoenhof, in his treatise on Money and Prices says, •' In the periods of transition from a system of barter and payment in kind to a money economy, the cheaper, more common metals are used. Their use denotes a low state of commercial and industrial development. The iron money of Sparta, the copper as of Home, the copper currencies of the middleage period of modern Europe, all denote a similar state of development, or rather undevelopment. The silver standard took the place of copper with the rise and exteiition of trade. Home's copper currency seems to have held itself till the middle of the third century, 1».C., as long as Home contented, itself with extending its dominion over Italy. In 15) I 8.C., shortly before the first Punic war, it adopted the silver standard. But with the beginning of the imperium under Cesar and Poiupey, the gui'i ueiard \\ tth the great i!m uf j*swer, practically extending nVer the milixd world, directing the World's economic and political p'il sat ion, the mure • - tl: - .*■ 111 u'"M Tt.LU-.iard had to take the place uf 'ht : white metai. t.ood enough f>>r a | ro\ iiscial or even an isolated national t Ai-u nce, silver hu fuiuid iosuMcitai iv: ft

world-empire. And what is trade but man grasping the poles in his ambition.'' There has been a progressive development inthe standard of value, and if in the progress of civilisation and the further development of trade and commerce paper is found to be more efficient as the measure of value, and a satisfactory substitute for gold in the settlement of international exchange, then paper will no doubt be used. But today it is the mission of gold to discharge these obligations, and even a Ben Tillet cannot alter it with platform screeching. At this same social Mr Ben Tillet made one almighty prediction calculated to disturb the brass-bound conscience of the average capitalist and tickle the fancy of the marauding socialist. Mr Tillet predicted the overthrow of the capitalistic system, and said the revolution had now begun which would end in State-ownership. The capitalists had better put up the shutters, for the prediction of a Ben Tillet is certain to be realised. This is the kind of man who, while professing to raise the workers, does his utmost to squash their independance. It is leaders of this character that very nearly adored our statute-book with the Undesirable Immigrants Bill. It is feeble-minded but garrulous agitators of the Ben Tillet order that can romp round the world in search of health. It is indeed a pity there is no asylum or refuge where men of society smashing tendencies may rusticate. There is great need of some such institution.