SELF HELP OR STATE AID.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2924, 18 August 1925, Page 4

SELF HELP OR STATE AID.

Td tliesL* days it is the lashion to sneer at Samuel Smiles doctrine of “Self Help.” People in the mass are being taught to look to the (Invernment, the Municipality, to Institutions, or help of their follows. We are bomb reared in the habit of leaning upon others rather than relying upon ourselves. Under the old aristoeratical system an individual acquired certain rights by the simple process of being born. The Socialists and Radicals denounced this theory and proclaimed that what mattered was not birth but worth. It is a peculiar social phenomenon to-day to lind the socialist advocates have adopted one of the least defensible attitudes of the old style aristocracies. On the mere ground of being born, or at least christened “Labour” all sorts of claims by way of rights are being established. Under the teachings of what is termed socialism the worker is presented as entitled by right to —the right to work, or free maintenance. Then there are all the other rights — free education, free insurance, free medical attention, free holidays,

and, under certain circumstances, freedom from rates, taxes, and the liability to defend his country it case of emergency.

Titov have abandoned the doctrine of Self-help in favour of the dogma of Estate-aid. Instead of being taught to look to his own resources as much as possible and to the State only as a last resource the modern Britisher is encouraged to look t° the State tirst and all the lime. To "go on the rates" was a condition once looked upon with horror by the independant Briton. Now we have the spectacle of the mass rushing to get on the rates. "The Government must provide” has become the watchword of so many people's existence.

This theory of State intrrventioi doubtless is derived from the perverted doctrine, so acceptable tc socialists, that you can improve tin world by coercing oilier people instead of by each individual improving himself and taking care that !u is not a burden upon his neighbours

This mania of leaning on the State is the more remarkable amongst the British race. Our Empire has been built by pioneers and men of adventure who relied on self help. Consider the Labour movement. The Trade Unions were founded on self help. its best leaders have forged their way to the front by self help. The great co-operative movement rests upon the same sound principle. The Rochdale pioneers did not rely upon the help of some outside authority. They set to and solved their own dillieulies and bettered their circumstances by helping themselves.

INDIVIDUAL COMES FIRST, Robert Owen, William Morris, John Ruskin, James Wall, Richard A rk weight—Britain's progressive Industrialists and Reformers have all held that the individual conies over first and that man to make progress must help himself. Mr. Smiles opens with the words "Heaven helps those who helps themselves,’’ to which the Socialists have added "and the Slate will help those who don’t." That addendum is causing a whole lot of trouble. Those who do not want to (•.vert themselves unduly console themselves with the assurance that the Slate will do for them what they arc too indolent, too apathetic or too careless to do for themselves. Looking to the State has got us to the Stage where we rely on it to control our trading, our industries and almost our whole economic being. In polities we look to t lie Slate to compel us to enroll and to vote, and one of these days someone may discover a method by which the State will do the voting for us.

Was Smiles wrong when lie wrote —"Whatever is done for men or classes to a certain extent takes oway the stimulus or necessity for doing i'or themselves; and where men are subjected to over guidance and over govci'ament, the inevitable lindeney is to render them eompnritvely helpless." We rather think lie was right. 11 is ]tlea is strongly maintained by one of the live men oi' our day. Henry Ford, whose life is brilliant example of the value of st I)' help, wrote as follows: —"When you get a whole country —as did oars —thinking' that Washington (Government) is a sort of heaven and behind its clouds dwell omniscience and omnipotence, yon are educating that country into dependant state of mind which augurs ill for the future. Our help docs not come from. Washington but from ourselves."

That applies in New Zealand as well as in America. There is too ’much of leaning upon the State in our young land to be quite healthy. The Stale aid doctrine has a root of pessimism. We want State aid, regulation and control because we think supplies are limited and there won't be enough to go round; so the call for Government aid, oft repeated. Self Help is the creed of optimism. It visualises life, trade industry etc. as rich with opportunities for individual enterprise. What it seeks is soldidarity in making and giving not soldidarity tor the. purpose of demanding. Self Help and virile individuality makes the State ever greater but reliance on State Aid breeds the spirit of dependence which is had in effect both on the individual and the State. Less of government by proxv and more of real self government as individual human beings is f he true line of progress. (Contributed by the New Zealand Welfare League).