The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1900. "DUBIOUS LIBERALITY."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 100, 8 June 1900, Page 2

The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1900. "DUBIOUS LIBERALITY."

Our correspondent " X,5.,d." having written a further letter in elucidation of his ideas on the question as to what constitutes true liberality, we think the matter may now be discussed at length. Commencing with the letter in yesterday's issue, "£,s.,d."starts by criticising certain suggestions made by a contemporary, and which we quoted with approval, urging the curtailing of personal expenditure on luxuries in order that the money saved might be devoted to the amelioration of the famine and cholera-stricken millions in India. In the opinion of our correspondent the universal adoption of these lines would be likely to land us in a very questionable position. He follows this up with the remark that " there is no subject more surrounded with aspects of fallacy than the question of expenditure and economy." That this is so his own letter is ample evidence; but this fact in no way weakens our premises. As to the statement that " nine-tenths of the proverbs and adages which have gained currency among us have but a modicum of truth in them, and given a wider, truer condition of things would be abandoned," we do not know whether he refers to such proverbs as are in harmony with the Golden Rule, or to those incorporated in the creed of the Stock Exchange, and therefore are not in a position to challenge his assertion. Possibly in his next communication this point will be made clear. " Ip find contributions for any particular object only by stopping the purchase of articles heretofore thought needful is only to shift the locality g£ the distress is the next point advanced, but, while it sounds very well as an aphorism, it is quite beside the point at issue, which concerns not what may bs thought necessary, but what, indeed and in truth, is necessary. Dives might have thought it necessary to be clothed in purple and fine lineij aud fare sumptuously every day," and, according tp the argument of " £,5., d.," he was justified in so doing, and to have contributed to the " particular object" of clothing naked Lazarus and feeding him would have been " only to shift the locality of the distress." Jo have given up his luxurious and sumptuous style of living would certainly have distressed Dives and the merchants who catered to his expensive tastes; possibly, too, the wearers of fine linen and purveyors of sumptuous fare would have been partners in this distress. Bat in view of the fact that the saving effected would have clothed and fed Laearus and a hundred other starving and suffering paupers, it is no wonder that the rich man's selfishness came under the condemnation of the Friend pf the Poor. " While I should personally fw?o)w the cessation of expenditure on tobacco and beer, because of my belief that both habits encouraged by their use is mischievous, I think the saving is a very small item in the argument," is the next statement made I by our correspondent, who is evidently very much afraid of discountenancing the use of these articles, on the grounds of self-denial instead of those of expediency. The objection to our suggested economy in ladies' headgear js peculiarly unfortunate " Suppose this economy was universally adopted, who is to compensate milliner, tiadesman, manufacturer, and the hundred and one workers who are dependent on th.e | ileii.'itad for new hats and bonnets? Oistress and bankruptcy would certainly follow." This is a question and j assumption such as might have been ! expected from a liberty League lecturer rather than from our correspondent The paragraph which provoked '■£, s , d.'s " reference to ladies' head-gear simply suggested that a saving might be made by the re-trim-lnmg of hats and bonnets in pi ice of buying new ones ; what there is in this for our correspondent to take exception to we fail to see. It is, however, at this point that the crucial question presents itself, namely, what principle should guide the spending or withho di> g of our means? Our correspondent's answer amounts to this: that we should upend money on that which p.oducLS prolits for tradesmen and provides work for their employees, apart from any consideration of its necessity to humanity at largo. Against this we contend that the neces city or otherwise of an article is the measure of justification or othemise for jtj? and sale, which is

not affected by the profit it produces! on the labour it provides, i. -.10 -idingl as to what is necessary umveio... aw' permanent considerations must tai. precedence of those which are merely individual and temporal. When every unit of the great army of paupers now shivering and starving for want of clothes and food, and who are hiding themselves and their shame in rotting tenements and filthy slums, is wrapped in the rights of manhood, when he isgiven his due portion of what rain and sun and soil have wrought together to produce for his clothing and sustenance, it will be time enough to consider what pains and labour may be bestowed on the manufacture, and what cash may be spent on the purchase, of things which are not necessaries. At present there are wider and more pressing claims to consider than those of a class of tradesmen whose financial interests might be threatened by the repentance of a selfish society and the cessation of its demand for luxuries and other superfluities that the said tradesmen have been in the habit of supplying. As to the employees of the latter, their deft fingers and expert knowledge may find ample exercise on less fancy but more necessary articles required by those who now have to do without them. We cannot leave this point without a word as to the proceeds of the sale of things which, in view of the extreme necessities we have referred to, cannot be regarded as other than luxuries. John Buskin's famous and most trenchant aphorism applies here. " That which seems to be wealth may in verity be only the gilded index of far-reaching ruin; a wrecker's handful of coin gleaned from the beach to which he has beguiled an argosy; a camp follower's bundle of rags unwrapped from the breasts «f soldiers dead; the purchase pieces of potters field wherein shall be buried together the citizen and the stranger." These effectively sum up the situation, and are the ultimate expression of its truth. Now, as regards our correspondent's second letter, which appears in another column of this issue. Passing by the personal strictures provoked by our footnote to the first letter, we come to the consideration of two local instances cited by " £,5., d." in support of his argument. He says: " I have known many people in the old land who through stress of poverty have been ,trained to look upon butter as a luxury. Suppose the whole of England's population went in for denying themselves the use of this article, what would happen to Taranaki's dairy industry ? " To this we reply that the stress of poverty alluded to U the direct outcome of the sumptuous living of the " upper classes" and the selfishness of the " middle classes." Had these lived at the level of social life indicated by the use of butter, the poor who now have to go without that commodity would have been in a position to purchase it. More than this, our staple product can only be classed as a luxury when all other things of a lesser degree of necessity have been dispensed with in order to meet the requirements of the poor and have been found, insufficient far this purpose. Until then we decline to believe that it represents a higher standard of living than is possible for the world at large to attain. This in no way opposes the principle we contend for, but if England's ability to feed and clothe her necessitous poor depended on her giving up the use of butter, it were better that every one of our factories should at once shut down than that they should be kept going at the price of England's inhumanity to those within her border. Much as Taranaki people value their great and beneficent industry they have not yet churngd all their iflilk of human kindness into butter. Now a word fof ourselves, seeing that " £.,5., d." has tried to hoist us on our own petard. " Suppose," says he, "we all denied ourselves the morning paper, what becomes of editor, reporter, compositors, etc. f' The existence or non-existence of a njorning paper is not a njatter of life or death to the staff. The mental and mechanical ffceulties exercised in the production and publication of our paper are not by any means restricted to this particular work. We may be pardoned for " magnifying our office," but a 3 a matter of fapt journalists are about the most all-round men in the I world: this is universally admitted and is beyond dispute. As to the necessity for newspapers, they are ill a poor way indeed if this depends upon the mere provision of work for a oertain section of the community. It would be expecting too much of us to s'.ate the case for their right of existence, as this depends upon the character of the in? fluence tney exert upon the community—a matter upon which our readers may be safely left to judge for themselves.