The Editorial "I."

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 27, 8 September 1911, Page 8

The Editorial "I."

I would that New Zealand at the hour could be set reading and debating three books. They are not Socialist books, but they are great books. They are everlasting books. They deal with everlasting principles. They are neither party nor partisan books. Thej' are: Thoreau's "Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers," John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty," and Paine's "Political Writings." ■■' • •

I venture to say that no citizen or citizeness of the Dominion, could risefrom even a cursory perusal of any or all of these books without feeling better a.nd truer. After all, this is the sort of reading the world most needs. Necessarily our daily lives are disproportionately sordid, petty, unheroic. The inevitable social warfare punishes the participants, and hence the real pain comes back to the individual, We have to fight (it is the vendetta inherent of Capitalism), but if we could declare an armistice whilst preachers, editors, politicians and propagandists of all sorts grappled with the three specified books, I feel sure the warfare would be grandei* because morally and intellectually greater.

The above photo, represents Miss Selina Anderson. Miss Anderson left Wellington last week for the West Coast, under engagement with the Grey Industrial and Political Council, to organise the women, in the Grey electorate. Miss Anderson, as has been previously stated in these columns, has had a- wide experience in organising work in N.S.W., where she won considerable fame through her ability in that direction. In securing the services of Miss Anderson, the Grey District Council is boiind to meet with that success which has attended Miss Anderson's organising work elsewhere.

Possibly the warfare would be keener, but it would bo cleaner. This is the kind of warfare which will obtain under Socialism. It will obtain under Socialism because under Socialism there will be no conflicting economic interests, which conflicting economic interests is the platform upon which the world, to-day rests ; and so we have controversial passion and dirt, envy, malice and uncharitableness, in out social warfare. Politically and industrially we have disputation, not in order to establish truth, but to "score."

Though I would like to see the armistice referred to, with its resultant keener but cleaner conflict, believe mc, I am obliged to conclude that the cleanness would not last, as there can be no permanently-established social cleanness whilst the economic maker and moulder of ethics impels dirtiness. When the economic foundations of society are clean, otherwise just, then, and only then, shall the social structure be likewise. Nevertheless, one may be forgiven indulgence in the dream of a whole people reading priceless books of eternal truth thereafter to put precept into practice.

For tho peculiarly unusual times in which we live —and such times are cyclical : and not ever-pre&ent —Thoreau,, Mill and Paine are rare teachers. New Zealand just now is undergoing that national tribulation and temptation undergone of all nations and indelibly shaping subsequent history. What I mean is that to every nation there has come the time of tests and trials on burningly fundamental verities, which afterwards was seen to be epochal. In these times the populace was swayed for righteousness and liberty (and so made imperishable records) or the populace was unequal to its test (a*id so added nothing to progress). Eves , the pivot of such periods was Liberty, and all that the glorious word «,«**m» notes. Called contemptuously by some

an. abstraction, yet Liberty, like con>seience (indefinable but infinitely dea-r. and understood by the alert avd awak'the lever moving mankind and exalting humanity!

Amazingly enough, unexpectedly enough. Liberty is the pivot of this country's nascent stirring; yet so eomm<m- # place are we that w<j sigh for the glor-> ies of the past and to come, not seeing at our own door as great a fight as any fight of the past. The quickening in New' Zealand—the disquietude, and the meaning of the separate and collective promptings—is not on account of anything Ward is doing or that Massey is doing, nor on account of anything any pressman or politician is saying, but is on account of uneasiness over wrongdoing — the wrongdoing which justifies wounding Freedom and assailing Liberty. We are the manifestation of events —the children of evolution. To us, as from the clouds, has come an historical visitation. Should we prove treacherous to the- ' 'ominous ■stern whisper from the Delphic cave within" then, alas for our Judas undoing and for our shamed posterity vainly scanning' national anaials for" their comfort, pride and inspiration..

- These three books. Get-them. Mill and Paine at 6d each; Thoreau perhaps half a crown, but in any reputable library. Read especially in Thoreau's work the glowingly beautiful paper on "Civil Disobedience. ,5 What purity of style, what divinity of soul! May I quote: , "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. ... Must the citizen even for a moment, or in the lea.&t degree, resign his conscience to the legislator ? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right" to assume is to do at any time what I think right."

And so in superb simplicity and blinding power for thirty. magic pages; and next to light upon "A Plea for Captain John Brown* , —John Brown, once outcast, but now upoai Great Whit© Th.-ro.ne in human hearts.

In the "Political Writings" you will find the almost unknown addresses and manifestoes of Tom Paine (hats off!) as Deputy to the National Convention of France (1792-1793), and you will find the classical "Common Sense" and "Tne American Crisis." To the latter please first turn, and imagine these flaming words addressed to you as you make them the impetus to action her© and now:

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it. The event of yesterday (Battle of Brandywine, 1777) was one of those kind of alarms which is just sufficient to rouse us to duty, without being of consequence enough to depress our fortitude. It is not a field of a few acres of ground, but a. cause, that we are defending, and whether we defeat the enemy in one battle, or by degrees, the consequence will be the same."

** * i I doubt not the average reader will be most moved by Thoreau and most aroused by Paine, leaving Mill to beget the conviction of deep study. Here, too, I must leave Mill —with one timely excerpt: .

"Let us not flatter ourselves that we are yet free from the stain even, of legal persecution. Penalties for opinion, or at least for its expression, still exist by law ; and their enforcement is not, even in these times, so unexampled as to make it at all incredible that they may some day b© revived in full force." As in New Zealand I THE EYE.