Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 1920. SOCIAL RETROGRESSION.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3375, 2 January 1920, Page 4

Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 1920. SOCIAL RETROGRESSION.

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waiinarino Newo.'*

\Vallowcrs in wealth, parasites upon men and women who work and pro? duce, are, from cables recently ceived, urging on some. subservient London tailors, to take the World back, i.-n so far as the dress of the. idle aristocracy and filthy rich ‘are concerned, about two hundred years. _We state that this drifting backward only concerns aristocrats and rich people because, of course, working people could mot very well perform their ordinary daily duties in scarlet, royal blue, and purple gold-braided silk and satin coats and Waistcoats, with equally gaudy pants, ruifles, buckles, cravats, and” all the contemptible lit‘-tile paraplicrnalia, including -. featherweight gold-mounted cane, scent bottle, powder, and handkerchief. Intelligent men and women «of this age may well ask what ‘these idiotic proposals mean; have British law-mvakers teached the limit of their imaginationin inventing social differences to dis‘tin;guish the thief and robber class from honest working-‘people that they have had to fall back on past ages,’ to: when men vied with women in the; feminity of their dress -and, manners, for a means -of advertising, thernselves as profiteer's and extortioners who have 1 grown rich by means of the unjust laws that ordinary people have been fools enough to let.them place on the 1 Statute Book? If it . is desired to speedily bring about revoluti-on these profitcers cannot aid and abet more to that end than by donning ‘their blue, scarlet, and gold silks and satins; their scent.-bottles, canes, frills, land ru§‘flos_, in the streets and common highways. And yet it is seriously proposed 10 back in British history two himdred Voars or more for so-c-alled men ’s dress of high-coloured silks and satins; an appeal is actually made for fifteen thousand young men as pioneers in moving centuries b*3.cl<wa‘rd; to abandon the serviceable, sensible dress of the present day, -and adopt that of the almost forgotten dI'€SS P 353 It is stated that a London newspaper; owned by Lord North-hcliife, is sympatl‘.rtic, but does not expect success for the movement as ovcrxnuch courage is rc~’,gilired. YVC would have tliought that courage could never enter into such an insane project; we are of opinion that success is only attaimible if courage is kept in the background and imbecility is invol<'ed and depended ‘11.3011- It may be possible to get fifteen thousand fools if every asylum and mental hospital in the United. King-5 dom Of Gfflaf Britain and Ireland is} thoroughly scoured. But this only 7 shows what intelligomce is required to { become a profiteer. to that degree when it exhibits its real nature -and wants to i ‘l-""55 up as a l“ll’P°tt: 01' marionettot i and parade itself in blue and scarlet silk coats and Waistcoats, tl-jnlmezdi lavishly with gold braid. The very! suggestion is an insult to intelligence, and vve do not think that there ai-of fifteen thousand silly efiiminate foolsl in Britain who will -lend themselves inf the get up of any such ‘revolting pup-l pet show. It is indeed. remarkablel that this proposal should have met! with -any serious consideration froml ordinary sane people -at all, least ofl all from a. newspaper that makes pre- l tension; to leading the thought of the‘ world; but, perhaps, this is just am:

1 other instance of genius being only one ‘step removed i":-om madness; at one moment in the lap of t-he gods, the ‘next in a padded cell of a madhouse. ‘There is it Very serious side to this [silly propoSal, however; we would ask the men who would parade in ‘Silks, ruffles, and three-cornered hats, why it is that lTu.n'dreds of thousands 1 of Wol'kol‘S in every country are clamlouring and striving for higher wages and less work?,Do they not realise that it is imitation; one section apeing [the ways and idi-osyncracies of an--0t119T? If if good for the would be ‘gaudily and efieminately attired peo,ple to ha.ve lots of money and do no i work, the masses will decide that some ‘thing precisely similar is good for them; what is sauce for the profiteering goose will be sauce for the working; pl‘o'ducing gander. We cannot conceive of any greater social danger than to deliberately attempt to organ-l ise and engineer greater social diifcr-‘ ences than those which now exist, -and which are already of a. nature that‘ they are driving, forcing the people] rapidly over to the side of that extrem. ism_ which is a short cut to the smaSh- I ing up of all present social institutions, That man who tells the people‘ th-at extreme la-bour has been muzzled or killed in this or any other country is so dishonest a person that he should be put under restraint. The masses have everywhere issued a ballot.-box decree that social‘ differences of aJ questionably just character niust go. What are strikes, industrial unrest, and appeals to Arbitration Courts for? They are the first peace.-able stages towards attaining greater social equality, for a more righteous condition of lite, but if profiteers will vamzl. their Eli-gotten riches they may be fully] assured that the masses of the people will insist, even to bloodshed, uponl doing likewise. The day of Beau Efrurnmells at one end of society and] sack-clad serfs at the other has gone‘ for ever, and it is just -as well to! acknowledge that fact asnd get dilig--ently to work in devising ways and! means of placing social conditions be-] yond peril from any class, for that can only be achievediby a gospel of industry taught _-by universal example. not by hollow,‘ ‘insincere "precept. -