Anti-Freehold Cranks.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 34, 10 February 1904, Page 4

Anti-Freehold Cranks.

Discoursing cm the recent crusade in Christchurch against the freehold tenure. Truth remarks :—The high priest of the ami-flrwhoM crusudo hwlds very couiforUi'ile views about reconciling his conscience with Lis practice. Wijat trine he isn't cmsii. CT ' in I'arliaincnt or on some public pl-.<4->rjn Ht tlic inirjuUies of the freehold system, he is running a business that depends mainly on the private ownership of plots "on the globe's surface. (With his usual cuteness he gets a free ad. out of us over this.) B e evidently seemed trouble ahead on tliis score, for in addressing the members of his sect on Thursday night, he opened out with a defence of the morality of believing one thing and doing- the exact opposite. On the solid old French principle, "qui s'excuse s'accuse," Mr Taylor would have been wiser if he had omitted this "apologia pro vita sua." As it is, his theory that "there is nothing, immoral in any man taking advantage ot the present state of civilisation," and that "a man is perfectly justified in adapting himself to existing coridStiibtnsjsia long) as he de|es his Lest to bring the. people to a better fiif;.ne of mtod,|"" Opens up some interesting possibilities. It seems a rehash of the old gag that has been hurled at the preaching profession for agiti—"don't do as 1 do, do as I U'll you." Tiie life of a man with Mr Taylor's albility to dissociate action from conviction could furnish any number of apparent contradictions. We shouldn't be surprised to see him pulling a beer pump as Boniface in one of his much-abused hotels. They are a part of the present civilisation, 'as long as he let loose the vials of his wrath occasionally from a platform, what immorality would there be in Mr Taylor taking advantage of them V Or, suppose lie ever becomes Premier or Minister of Defence —would he have any objection to discovering- a military expert that the colony needed, among his progeny ? Or, again—but the public can amuse themselves by imagining all sorts of conflicts between piinciplc ami performance, and apply Mr Taylor's formula. Then, perhaps, like the Ashburton people did last week, they.will decline with a loud voice to sit at the feet of a Gamaliel of the Taylor type.