MR FRANKLAND AND THE LABOUR QUESTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3778, 24 December 1907, Page 3

MR FRANKLAND AND THE LABOUR QUESTION.

ft is with pleasure -that. ■ we are able to infer, from a back edition of the American Insurance Encyclopedia which; has fallen into our hands, and .also .from other sources of information, that our worthy townsman, Mr F. W. Frankland.who at the last election stood for - a while as a Parliamentary candidate" in the interests more especially of ; -.the. small farmers and manual wage- \ workers, was enthusiastically ideu- ' tifield with those liberal‘and "demo- j cratjc political views, even before his return to this Dominion. Re- : ferring to his resignation of the Associate Actuary ship of the New. V s Yqrk Life Insurance Co., the Encyclopedia (published, in 1903-4") says: “ Having ipjierited ' stantial fortune from his father, he resigned his appointment in 1902, and. returned to live in New Zealand, where he. is u engaged in studying the new labour laws and labour conditions of that colony, and, also on original researches in connection with the philosophical foundations of mathematics.” From whaii we know of Mr Frankland’s jte previous career in New Zealand, ' we can say that the American publication would have been justified in dating back his ardent denlocfatic political opinions to the earliest period of his -youth, though as he was then a member of the Civil Service ol New ZeaI land, he was, of course, debarred s from taking an active part in political life. But we are not surprised that, holding the views he has done since boyhood, he should " be the whole-hearted supporter he ' is of the Ward Government —the friends of the small settler and of labour-just as\he was of their predecessors, the Seddon Government. Of Mr Frankland’s enthusiasm for everything which promotes commercial and industrial progress, it is unnecessary for us to speak. His endeavours to promote local interests are a sufficient guarantee of this; but, in days when the captains ot industry and commerce are suspicions that their l, enterprise may be crippled by the \ action of ‘ labour’ extremists, it is gratifying and reassuring to come / across such a sentence as this in the ‘ Collected Essays ’ of so strong a labour advocate as Mr Frankland : “In ‘order to maximise , the incentive to exertion, to ** stimulate the invention of ever more and more efficient industrial ' processes, and in order to avoid the dangers attaching to monopolistic compulsion (even when in the hands of a democratic State), it jvill be necessary—probably for to come —not only to i but to encourage private' .- enterprise.” Mr Frankland evidently has no.desire to “kill the r the golden eggs !” ~ ;His therefore, have our wafmept sympathy.