KING DICK'S FAREWELL TO ENGLAND. "Wake Up!"

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 115, 13 September 1902, Page 8

KING DICK'S FAREWELL TO ENGLAND. "Wake Up!"

MR. SEPPON had a conviction when he left New Zealand that Bntam was apathetic. He had frequently said so. Since then he has been in England for some time, has been hospitably entertained has enjoyed himself immensely, and worked \ery hard indeed. In return for all the hospitality thrust on him he still maintains that Britain is apathetic, that danger threatens her manufacturing supremacy, and that she must wak" up. Of course, there are some fine old crusted Tories who think this is the rankest heres) on our Premier's part. Why should any single man, coming from a sparsely populated country like New Zealand, in its infancy in regard to trade matters, dare to say that Britain is decadent ? Is he the only man who knows it is true "? • • * Po you think that the fossils of British commerce who hopped into a ready-made business when their fathers died, and who are too comfortable to hustle do not know that danger threatens British trade 9 Of course they know. It is merely a question of personal comfort wth the big British commercial man. Even if America does step in and eat up British orders, what then ? There is enough left out of the wreck to provide the British merchant princes with big incomes. * • * It is not a national question with the British manufackuer. He doesn't look past his own bank book and in most ca-es his interest begins and ends at the walls of his own factory. The Yankee is imbued with the spirit of emulation. He wants more money than his neighbour. He wants better means of getting money and he wants every individual to help to make a country that shall " lick creation." The Britisher is calmly satisfied that he always has "licked creation" by standing in the one groove and he's not going to do anything so undignified as to get out of his grandfather's groove. • • • Already America is inclined to give New Zealand labour legislation a trial. Mr. Seddon's remark that they will do so and that England will follow suit is quite too much to expect. Probably

the surest way to stimulate private enterprise at Home would be to establish large commercial concerns run by the State. It is the only way that could be used to awaken private enterprise. It is obvious that although British people are apathetic in regard to outside competition they are keen on countering compeciti'in withm their own borders, hlad Mr. Seddon stayed in St. Helens from his boyhood to the present time he would probably have thought that the St. Helens' way of doing things was the right and only ■way. • • ♦ Having found out that St. Helena \ras not the hub of tbe unueise he left it and has been picking up knowledge ever since. He probably hurt the feeling-, of many English people by sticking to his convictions after he had accepted their hospitality. If, however, he has stirred even a few sluggards out of their grooves, and hab convinced them that the small country that hustles is a fair example for the big one that does not, he need never regret that he stuck to his convictions, even when the gibes were thickest