The Daily News WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20. TWO KINDS OF LOYALTY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8137, 20 June 1906, Page 2

The Daily News WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20. TWO KINDS OF LOYALTY.

The man who yells " God Save the King" until he is hoarse, and goes to bed wrapped in the Union Jack, is not necessarily loyal. The oneness and indivisibility of the British Empire owes nothing to flag-wagging, nor has the "mafficking" of the masses efi'ected any lasting good. We know of men who glow with patriotic fervor-and buy a German razor. We have heard of the person who would strike the detractor of his country to the earth, and choose an American axe to work with in preference to an English tool. There may even be citizens who observe close holiday on the King's birthday and the birthday of the latter's son, but who buy Dutch cocoa, Smyrna pais ins, foreign clothes, American boots, and Swiss milk. They are not loyal. They merely think so.

There is to be a congress of delegates from Chambers of Commerce soon, and a tour is to be arranged, during which the delegates may see Britain working, and decide whether John Bull b the worn out, effete, doddering party -commercially considered— Americans, Germans, Frenchmen, Italians, and other manufacturing people contend he is. John Bull may be a poor, pale wraith in a commercial sense. Last year he sent away sixty million pounds' worth of goods in excess of the previous year's values. Those delegates will be able to see the defunct methods, the awful ignoranco, the wilful neglect which enables John Bull to do these things, and will also be able to instruct him in the methods colonials would pursue if England were theirs. When New York wanted two immense traffic subways —which, when completed, will represent one of the greatest engineering feats of all time—New York was not loyal enough to get New Yorkers to do the work. An English engineering firm is doing the work. About two-thirds of the railways of the world are British-built, and a large quantity of the rolling stock has been made by the poor played-out Homelander.

* * * * Britain, as a general tiling, has been in the lnbit of making honest things. " English-made " was a guarantee of the highest quality until Germany, and even America, began to manufacture things with the same mark on. That is one reason wily many of the best firms in the Old Country do not attach the words " made in England.'' Foreigners have made the words a reproof. In the matter of loyalty, a colonial's first duty is to be loyal to his colony. Let New Zealanders yell for New Zealand, if they must yell. Let Australia huzzih for the Commonwealth, but let them use colonial tilings. But although there is sentiment about the exhibition of alleged loyalty—the wagging of flags and roaring of " Go:l save," we mean —there is no sentiment in business. * * #

Say a colonial has the choice of three articles, all of equal quality. First one, made in New Zealand, price two shillings. Second one, made in Britain—the place we borrow monev from- priceeighteenpence. Thethird one, made in Germany, price one shilling. Which of the three does he choose? Does his flag-wagging instinct force him to buy tho twoshilling article because it is colonialnimlo, oi' does his loyalty to his pocket determine him in his choice ot the foreign and cheapest article 2 We need not answer this question. But. suppose, on the other hand, that New Zealand does not make a thousandth part of the ai tides New Zeaknders require, and America, France, Ger.many, and Britain do make all the articles we do not. Will you, a flagwagger, buy John Bull's article or the other fellow's ? And if the other fellow's, why ? Perhaps you say you want a four and a-half pound " falling" axe, and John Bull has known you wanted it for years, and keeps on giving yon a wierd lump of ironmongery weighing nine pounds, and of good quality—enough to outlast three American axes so far as mere solidity is concerned. You don't trouble John Bull. You take Uncle Sam's tool. And so on with innumerable articles. You are not loyal enough to invite blistered hands and a pain in your back.

If John Bull won't make the thing you require, it is his fault. On the other hand, it, is very evident that our friends at Home have very widely awakened to the requirements of colonial markets in the past few years, and are as go-ahead, as up-to-date, and as enterprising as the Americans, the Germans, or any other people. No other nation can show the same enormous increaso of exports as that group of small islands away at the other side of the earth, which some of us still care to call " Home " And although John Bull may be a fool,) and slow and unprogressive, and deserve all the taunts he gets from all the smart people (\Vho never reach either his perfection in manufacture or get the same value for them), he is our relative still, and we are doing more good by buying his goods than in wagging a flag at him.

* * * * First lie loyal to New Zealand manufactures, so long as being loyal to them doesn't mean being disloyal to one's wife and children and one's pocket. Secondly, be loyal_ to the Homeland, not by worshipping the caste fetish, or the House of Lords, or the Tower of London, or any old thing that stands for something not understandable, but by keeping John Bull's mills working and his factories going, and his millions of workers doing something to keep the wolf from the door. The immense increase in the British exports is a letter insurance against aggression than an immense increase in the naval programme. Napoleon is credited with having sneered, " The British are a nation of shopkeepers!" If it wore only truer! If there were no drones, and all were workers! If there were no people who were under-fed and none who were gorged !

Do you understand that although trado nourishes in Britain, thore is not enough to go round? Do you know that there are eight millions of paupers in Britain who never have<« square feed? Do you think that wagging a Hag for the King is going to appease their hunger, or that yelling " God save " has any ell'eet on the death-rate, or lessons the number of people in the work-houses ? There are thousands of commercial concerns in Britain that are run on kinder lines than any in the world, and there are many that are not. In being loyal to British manufactures, you help in your small way to lift a few paupers from the ranks of posts to the. ranks of workers. By being loyal to British goods, you make it necessary for British manufacturers to push the territorial lords.a little further back.

* * * iWiies the late Mr Seddon was in England lie wanted the English to wake up, and not let the foreigner collar their markets. Since then John Bull has certainly not let cobwebs grow on him. Jf delegates from tlie colonics to that Chamber of Commerce Congress! feel that John needs guidance, tvud requires to'uiuk

ploughs a little lighter in the share, or'axes a few pounds lightei' in the blade, and tuck-hammers less like a sledge-hummer, of course they may do so, but colonials should remember that John Bull's trade( is not entirely exhausted when he has sent away all bis ploughs and axes and tack-hammers. He makes rather a good maa-o'-war, and not a bud kind of railway-engine, and several other small items that other people copy without success If he is not worthy of your loyalty, go to Germany or Japan for your goods by all means. If on the other hand, he still commands your respect as an honest shopkeeper, and his factory turns out the things you can't make yourself -you know his address.