Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, DEC. 8, 1894. Stewardship.

Manawatu Herald, 8 December 1894, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, DEC. 8, 1894. Stewardship.

♦ »• In this colony the duty of those holding a stake within its districts to take up their share in the management of public matters, is terribly shirked, tending to foster, in the future, as bad a condition of affairs

as exists at the present time in America. We have not " boodlers " or trusts, yet awhile, but we have incompetent administration, arising from the laudable efforts of those who are pushed into positions which others, better qualified should hold. Our remarks have no local reference, which a review ot a large number of our local bodies would assure. It is time a change was mads, and we believe a careful examination of Mr Stead's boo'j on Chicago, would cause those who now shirk their duty to reconsider their determination and so take up their duty to themselves and the State. In refering to the three wealthiest men in Chicago, Mr Stead regrets their lack of public interest, he says " What Chicago is suffering from, as a city, is a want of probity, an almost lack of ordinary business honesty in the transaction of the city's business. These men are upright and inflexibly honest, how cornea it that their honesty has no more influence in the City Hall than the sickly smile of a December sun has upon an Alpine Glacier ? These men are among the greatest financiers in the world, the smartest, shrewdest, brainest men to handle dollars and cents whom the United States has provided. But the city financiers are in a snarl 1 ! He wants to know how these men will be able to account for their stewardship ? The same question can be put to those in this colony and district. Mr Stead finds the plutocratic system as it prevails even at its best in Chicago is worse than the results obtained by the aristooratic system which prevails in England and Germany. The obligations of property are there recognised and acted upon by a very third-rate landlord to an extent to which the ordinary holder of consols or scrip would stand aghast. There is more sense of the stewardship of wealth and responsibility of personal service among the English and German aristocrats, says Mr Stead, than in the moneyed class either in the Old or the New World. To enforce his views, the case of the Duke of Westminster is mentioned who on being asked to take the chair at some society, looked through his notebook and found he had not a spare evening or afternoon for the whole of the season, when he suddenly found one afternoon which he had reserved to view his beautiful seat at Clieveden, which he had not seen for a year, and this pleasure he gave up at the call of duty. Another case mentioned is that of a member of the London County Council who instead of renewing his partnership in a flourishing business, by which he might have doubled his fortune, yielded to the representations made to him and entered the Council and devoted his energy to the good of the public instead of himself, with the result that by attending to the department of the poor insane he succeeded in raising the discharges from 45 to 52 per cent. What is said of the millionaire is also applicable to those who have a duty and do it not, "it is not so much the sins of commission as those of omission which lie piled at his , door." '