THE LETTERS OF BILL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 11 August 1909, Page 65

THE LETTERS OF BILL.

BEING THE OUTLOOK OF A WORKING MAN. JThe charm and point oi " The Letters oi Bill " are manifold. He is a. true type oi Nature's nobleman. The world has been kind and harsh to him by turns. Neither its kindness nor its brutality has wholly spout th© creator of these letters. His philosophy " saved his baoon." He holds no university degree; it is on record that he once won a prize for an original essay The world has been his school: its people his schoolmasters. He baa read widely and understands come of what he has read. His letters are not on the- lines of the stereotyped epistles to a working man or fhom a -working man. H« knows that John Buskin wrote " Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work ' ; that Ferdinand Lassalle spoke to the German Democracy through an historical *' Open Letter"; that William Cobbett, in clear-cut English, indited at least one famous letter io the journeymen and labourers of iSngland: that niaay others, from Edmund Burke to the trenchant " Junius," have used t&e cp-s .oiary iorm -o convey their opinions to ice world; iinl personally knew *" .Totrn Smith of O.dham," whom iSobert Blatchford made notable in " Merrie .England.'' Bill has no vaia imaginings, however. He makes no "prehensions to literary style. He is a working man who knows working men and lives his life among them. He has written these letters in confident anticipation that they wiil be wc<rth reading, tie bas iried io produce human documents. They will be found to range over a wide field — Borne dea ing with current questions, some with, historical subjects, others merely poli-tico-sociolcgical studi&s. This necessitates publication in some cases out of the sequence m which they were written. And he is & typical " Bill " — He Ehail live to the end of this mad o'd world, he has lived since the world began ; Be never has done any good for himself, but was gcod i© every man. He never has done any good for himself, and I'm sure that he never will; He drinks and h« swears, and he fights at times, and his name is mostly Bill. This particular Bill has been "good to every man." end has actually done a little gocd for himself. The reason is that he is not exactly true io ■ type as visioned by the Australian poet. Huch more could be said of Bill. Perhaps the reacer would prefer that he should now &peak for hiinselfj I.— BILL MAKES HIS BOW. Dear Old Pal,— I believe you've "codded me on." You said I knew men ; you said I'd lived my life full; you said I'd met the schoolmaster abroad; you said I was an honest and - industrious working men. You said a lot 'more. How much, was true? "Aiy old fathe;- used to tell me that the good died young. The pets of my boynood days must have been perfect, because they invariably died of infantile troubles or the excesses of very early youth. You warned me to write serious letters. After all, the world is a serious place. You may crack jokes with it, but it often hits back. It is a very' good world to live in, To i-end or to 'spend or to give in ; But to beg or to borrow, or to get a in an a own, It's the very worst world that ever was . known. Perhaps that's nob exactly true. But here am I, a product of British parents, a New Zealander by adoption and from choice, of uncertain age. 1 promised you I wouldn't hash up family history. But can you remember when you were young '{ The man who forgets the times when he was young is on old 'un, for sure. Thinking about the days .of my youth keeps me as young as I am : I was younger still when you knew me. The things we can't alter we should leave as they are. Don't you see that half the people in this world tire themselves to death by attending to the business of the other half? Did you ever sit down and think about poverty? I don't mean just not having enough to eat. That is bad enough; no clothes to wear is uncomfortable, too. But the poverty that hurt's is the sort that keeps the kiddies hungry. * Look here, I don't fear my own poverty — it's some distance away, as you know; it's family poverty I'm sometimes afraid of. You know, the man with the big family is hardest hit by taxes of every kind. Why on earth can't Parliament make things easier for the big-family pjwjents ? Parliament seems to me to work itk« a big, clumsy, antiquated machine. It reminds me of an old engine I used to argue' with. The fire would burn OK, the boiler would hold water; but if ever a mechanical contrivance was possessed with a devil, that engine was. Ifc worked when it liked : It was a good engine a long while before I knew it. The owner of it could not see that new •types had come in with newer times. All his machinery was the came. By-and-bye another fellow started in opposition. My boss stuck to his engine and obsolete methods; the other fellow got hold of all the business. But my boss didn't lose his engine. So I often just think that Parliament could shave off some of ite flummery and its Standing Orders could be put through a lathe with advantage to the people. The thought which continually distresses me, however, is the impossibility of an opposition firm. But about poverty ! You know, I'm a bit soft on understanding fully what we m-ean when we use terms. I once heard a fellow who used to work in our factory call this a poverty-stricken country. I said it wasn't anything ot the sort — that I'd seen some other countries, and this was the best I knew. Mind, this isn't a paradise, by chalks. But my work-mate replied that I was one of th© sort who would take anything the boss gave me and believe anything he told me. You remember the strikes t. was in? And the couple of times i was looked out? You can't forget the stand I then took up. Yet my work mate ■wrote me down a green 'un. He knew better. But some folk are cautious. They won't see that you never lose by admitting what's true. As I said, this

' isn't a paradise for a man who works for wages; but ifc isn't a bad country. Unemployed, yes, there is. And I've been there, too. But, for heaven's sake, can't we admit the truth? Are we such weaklings or wasters that we daren't admit what's good in working men's conditions and fight to make better the bad parts. This isn't Russia. It isn't Old England or Germany or the States. For the working man it is better than any of them. And then it ain't good enough. Haoug it, I was going to write something pointed about poverty My dictionary says "poverty" means the state of bein£ poor. That doesn't helt> much. The Earl of Sometihing-or-Otiher"^ announced the other day that the British Budget would make him poor, and henceforth he cannot subscribe to any sort of charity. His net income will only be £50,000 a year in future. The German Kaiser recently complained of the severe increase in tbe cost of living. If I could be dictator of a continent, and could make laws and enforce them, I would enact that all men should commence life in a state of being poor. The trouble about poverty je that it's a class ddse&se. I don't like class privileges, and I don't like class diseases. I like to consider all humans as part of the great human family Poverty has not' been popular in th© -p3B*p 3B * because it has not been universally applied. It isn't essentially bad, either for the individual or .the State. It has its uses and teaches its lessons. I've tried it on the individual, and I know. Make «o mistake, though — I'm not anxious for a second dose. But I know gome folk who'd have been better men by having had my taste. About thrift, too. It is just like poverty. Supposed to be a virtue in a peasant, a vice in a peer. Some folk used to urge an English peasant to be thrifty on a wage of 40s a month, andjustify the extravagance of a peer whose income was £40 a day. The peer's extravagance made work for the workers, they used to say. Now, I don't hate the idle rich as such. That's a fool's thinking. I rather love^them. I want to do them good. The best way to do them good would be to get them to do useful work. The only way to persuade them to do useful work is to prevent them becoming usekrs drones by inheriting wealth or exploiting wealth producers. There was once a Polly Hines, the poetess of the 'Possum Trot — " Sappho of the Cumberland." She wrote with a sort of prophetic frankness which is oertainly more pointed than elegant, and I can never forget the lin«s : — Thar's a word to be uttered to the rich man in his pride : Which a, man is frequent richest when it's jest before be died ! Thar's a word to be uttered to the hawg a-eatin' truck, Which a. hawtc is frequent fattest when it's test before it's 6tuek ! Wouldn't it be better for pet poodles in America and England that they shouldn't die of fatty degeneration of the heart? Wouldn't it be tetter that poor women's babies should have enough nourishment to keep them alive, even if London West'enders had to retrench a little and perform some of society's useful work? And if you were a West-ender don't you think you'd sometimes shiver in your sleep if in waking hours you realised that Eastenders by the hundred thousand shivered all the twenty-four hours for want of food and clothing? I know that's a picture of England. I know that's the result of allowing on© class to have dominion over another. It's the result of a diseased public opinion — a healthy public opinion would end or mend it soon. Fortunately none can say that our public opinion here i.~n't sound. It is, and the man who ke-eps his eyes open sees it every day. When I agreed to allow these letters to be published I promdeed not to writs sermons. To tell the truth I don't much like seraio/is. Nobody's ever done me a bad enough turn that I should preach rermons to him. I'd like to tell what I think about working men and the church, but it will keep. I'm going to write you about a lot of other things in addition to those already covered — I pay, perhaps, I could tell you about sir Socialism. Anyhow, I've tried to look through the gilding on some of the world's tough problems and pet theories, and I'll tell \ou of them if the editor -will print them. I've never been poor in the number of idea<« I hold, though some of the ideas themselves have teen poor ■enough. But there's nothing like ?eeing your ideas in print to arrive at their proper value. I once knew a chap who could write copperplate style. In the "rough" his articles were gems. In print, when they got thei - e, w hich was not always by a lot, they were puny weaklings. He told me he had a distinct " literary style."' That's the worst of having an imagination which hao not been trained. in uneoimollablp imagination, has put may a man behind bar? — iron ones, of course. Other sort-; of untrained imaginations have been airships. I h.a'se neither imagination nor fctylc. literary or otherwise. I get Mine amusement, sometimes a little piofit. out of the newspaper warfare between political leader.*. It is the modern equivalent f<">r pi-to! or rapier. When I was writing thiOelter Mr l.'a.^ey and Dr Findlay were in jrrips per the modiiunj of tiie daily newspaper The last newspaper warfare Mr Massey took part in was with Sir Joseph Ward. The exact number of rounds was never coujited — at least by me. I forget e::a.ctly what terminated the interviews ; but, when I lead a dozen " assertions." many of which wprp "reiterated," and as many "replies" in the same number of issues there seemed no reason why it should ever end, and. as the span of life i? ?hort. and I object to chasing Will-o'-the-WL?pi?, I parsed. The difference between the "journalistic mouthpiece" of the Government (Dr Findlay} and Mr Masc-ey is marked. Both are in a sense self-made men . by industry they are what they are. But the polished

■ Doctor is the direct opposite of " Plain Bill." Mr Massey has an utter and limitless contempt for all theory "with which he does not agree. The " journalistic mouthpiece " of the Government has tested most theories and found some of them good. Surely Mr Massey does not want this country run according to the principles laid down by Adam Smith. His most ardent political supporters would revolt. And others would join the revolt. Adam Smith ! Yes, he was great : much more humane and practical than the majority of political economists who have followed him. He wrote " Wealth of Nations" over 120 years ago. That it is not up-to-date is not due to any ehortcoming in the genius of Smith. His fault was that he reckoned without the other Adam — Old Adam the First — in many things. He condemned State regulation or intervention on grounds of utility. He held that competition" was the lifeblood of trade, and would always re|rul«ute prices so that the consumers would not be exploited. But he did not see that the very people who most loudly proclaimed their faith in competition Would be the first to attempt to kill" competition. All over tine trading world — especially in the parts where civilisation is most highly developed — competition _has been largely, or is in the process of being, consigned to the Hmbo of forgotten things. In some cases the State has been compelled to enter into competition wifch believers in the competitive system to compel them to comply with the rules of the game. Instead of competition certain industrial undertakings are pooled, a list price is agreed on, ond in many instances we have in full play a system of trade which has not even the only safeguard which is possible under any entirely individualistic system of society. "If a" man has learnt his lesson well, never mind about his university or his degree," Adam Smith was in advance of his time by leagues. He has left "An Inquiry Into the Wealth of Nations " to a posterity which has no use for it. It is not the fault of the monumental work of Smith. In an age when we read sloppy fiction by the hundred thousand and shrink with pain from anything approaching solid reading or hard thinking it would be idle to expect a real classic in the all-important field of political economy to be appreciated at its real value. A people which ignores Adam Smith has, of course, never known what he stood for. He startled the world with his four canons of taxation. They revolutionised thought because they had never previously been formulated. Hera they are : — 1. The subjects 'of every Slate should contribute in proportion to their respective abilities. 2 A -tax should be certain and not arbitrary. 3. A tax should be levied at the time and in the way moat convenient to the taxyaper. 4. Every tax ought to be co contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pocicete of the people as little as possible over and above what it brings i-ito the public treasury. _ Adam Smith was considered a- rare bird because he took the then new ground that the taxpayer had a right to any consideration. He contended in his " Wealth of Nations " that no system of taxation was -good in itself : the land tax was best of a bad lot. Taxes on the necessaries of life he hated most of all. He was a consistent preacher of economy in national expenditure, but no abject worshipper of the fetish of thrift as such. He advocated the strictest economy in times of peace, so much so that one writer contends that it was Pitt's adherence to this principle which enabled Great Britain to withstand successfully the stress and strain of her long-drawn conflict with Napoleon. Adam Smith and his work were the product of a time when the world's people were not bustled : he gave 20 solid years to the task of creating his book. John Stuart Mill's " Principle.-, of Political Economy," the only book which lends itself to comparison with the " Wealth of Nations." was completed in almost as many months. Judged in relation to his time, Adam Smith must always be classed among the Great. My friend, I have been side-tracked. When I commenced this letter I h.ad no idea of even mentioning Adam Smith, Dr Findlay, or Mr Massey. And here am I — a man of lost opportunities, whose hand is tired and whose space is fill. In for a penny, in for a pound, however. Our unimaginative Sir Joseph Ward told the gathering of British Parliamentarians the other day that our interest in the Briti.=h Budget was the '" imnersonal interest with which a spectator would contemplate « dental operation." The cablegram says the sentiment was greeted with laughter and applause. Methinks Sir Joseph was an | unconscious humourist To tho?e hardest hit the passing of the British Budget is at least as painful as the forcible extraction of a faithful molar which has rendered long and valuable service. To many of the newer school of thought who occupy the vantage point of spectator to this painful operation, the interest is decidedly of a- more intimate character. If Sir Joseph's figure of speech mutt be used the soectator has at least the interest of a man who rejoices in the troubles of his natural enemy. That is not exactly what Sir Joseph meant. And it is not exactly the meaning his listeners extracted from it. Some of them occupy the dental chair. Till another day. yours in palclom, Enx.

A W.-iiku.io farmer alleirps that an inspector of noxious v. e-o<K JaU'lv linpiit.'vl from j a, Lancashire cit\, o. d^vi'i him to clear l.'s | kii'hen tprclen of V,\ '«=•"!? sprout-, which J a.s it fub eqiientlv turned out a f'-l'iow-in-sp° ior ha-I told him v,-?io v cpJ j Tho anT.ojinc: p<«rt of it is, th-e ffirmcr, that there is no appeal from the decisions of buch me a. '