Rangitikei Advocate. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1908. EDITORIAL NOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9076, 17 February 1908, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1908. EDITORIAL NOTES.

IN a speech at Kansas City Mr Taft declared that unless effective social and moral reforms are secured, society as at present constituted must yield to a new order of things on a Socialist basis. Of course, much latitude has to be allowed to any speaker who is promoting a political candidature, but it cannot be denied that under present conditions by far too large a proportion of social wreckage is produced. A society which produces millionaires in small numbers, and a vast army of paupers at the same time, must obviously a rotten basis But even this will not justify the demands of [the American unemployed, who, in congress assembled, have demanded that “they shall be State supported during a period of inactivity like soldiers, that they shall have free transportation when seeking employment, also the appropriation of 150 million dollars-for organisation of work for the idle.” Wo have not yet read even any Socialist scheme or dream which provides for the support of the idle, or that the workless shall be treated like soldiers. It is more than probable that a Socialistic nation which had seized qll the means of production and distribution and controlled all industrial operations, would decline to support the idle, and if the number of unemployed became too great that State would probably claim and exercise the right of regulating the xnultipication of the number of the obviously useless —the burdens on the others —those for whom there would be no room, or no adequate means of gaining an existence. That Socialistic State, if the workless pleaded that ‘ ‘ a man must live, ’ ’ would probably supply the retort of the French cynic, that it could not admit Che necessity. A Socialistic State would not be likely to cultivate sentiment in making its regulations. America’s social salvation seems to lie in the suppression of trusts, and this can only be effectively accomplished by the freeing of trade, industry, and commerce from all artificial restrictions. AS bearing on the question of increate in the number of unemployed

and the r multiplication of the unfit, who in some countries maintain that -they have a right to he supported by and thrifty, a case which has occurred in one of our Southern cities may be mentioned. In this the report states “The father of ,a young criminal of seventeen or eighteen gave evidence.that the boy could neither r6ad nor write. The man had nineteen children; and seemed to ignore paternal responsibilities. Hejsaid he could not do much for his family, and did nbt know the ages of the children. ” Some day society will seriously consider whether such a state of affairs should be allowed.

THE appreciation in value of consols and. the fall in the Bank,of England rate of discount cause some to deduce that money is likely to be cheap in the near future. The Mercantile Gazette considers that the lessened demand for money is due to shrinkage of trade and receding values. Less capital is required for carrying on trade, and there is necessarily an accumulation of idle money. This idle'money must find an outlet, and pending the return of confidence and improved trade it is being invested in Imperial Consols; Hence the marked rise in that security. It is pointed out that there was a large increase in the loans of American banks from the year 1900 to 1906. England benefited to the extent of increased exports to America, but when the loans are repaid, as they must be, prices will fall, imports will be diminished, and British exports to America will go down. A serious check has come to the loan operations of the American banks, and prices have fallen as a consequence. The result has been an accumulation of money in London, with lower discount rates, and a diminishing trade with America. In New Zelaand we are likely to see money dearer for the same reason. Lower prices of commodities, wool particularly, will affect our income and give us less of our own money to spend, while the lower return from our industries is likely to prejudicially affect the supply of loan money, capitalists preferring to content themselves with a small return from the best of all securities, Imperial Consols, until prospects and trade improve. It may be that the effect of the American crisis will pass off sooner than we anticipate, and that a speedy revival will take place, in which case New Zealand will benefit. Present prospects, however, are for restricted trade and lower prices, and we shall be wise if we trim our .sails accordingly.

THE attitude of the Socialists towards employers, as displayed in all the legislation they promote, lis purely antagonistic, hut it is seldom so frankly avowed as it has been by Mr G. Bernard Shaw, who in the organ of that cult, called the New Age, thus discourses: —“What services are the employers rendering to the country? How far are they in a position to say to us : ‘You can replace every machine we take abroad with a newer machine paid for by the money you take out of our own pockets by confiscation, disguised by taxation.' 1 Much good they will be to you without our brains and knowledge of business! Your Keir Hardies]and Pete Currans can manufacture talk on the largest scale, and produce gas enough to fill all the gasholders in Wandsworth twice over; but you cannot eat their talk or wear it, and their sort of gas will not burn anything except their neighbours’ houses. Your Mr Sidney knows all about how wealth is produced ; can he produce it? He can employ a few secretaries; can he employ a thousand workmen? And if not, what is to become of the thousand workmen when we have all gone to countries where workmen are reasonable and are content to remain in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call them?’ Even if our employers will remain patriotically with us and help us to organise our industry Socialistically.” Mr Shaw goes on, “They will be more of a hindrance than a help, because the means of carrying on their old routine will no longer be available. I am persuaded that if the hundred most successful English and American employers of the nineteenth century could be resuscitated in the twenty-first and put into harness again, not one of them would be worth his salt, except, perhaps, £as a park constable. ” The foregoing certainly explains the reason for some recent attacks.

AT the anniversary dinner of the Institute of Chemistry, Lord Justice Fletcher Moulton dealt with the question of what the spread of knowledge would do. He expressed a hope that some day, as industrial science went on and got further and further removed from the old ways which were known to the people,’the Board of Inland Revenue would, somehow or other, be interposed between the manufacturers and the unskilled and uninstructed public, in order that it might save the confusion between two radically distinct things—improved technology, which was the salvation of our manufacturers, and adulteration, which was their ruin. “It required a skilled tribunal,” said his Lordship,” “to hold the balance between the two, but upless we succeeded in doing it we must either fall behind in the race or must be open to the reproach of not keeping to the laws of commercial morality.”

Speaking of the Board of Agriculture, he said if that Board could diffuse among the real workers of the soil of this country-the knowledge which chemists had. accumulated if or* it there would be a much brighter future for English agriculture. • In the future the race would be to the wise, and that nation would have the brightest future which contrived most; successfully and speedily to introduce into the life of the people the knowledge which chemistry was perpetually winning for the world.