MISERABLE MILLIONAIRES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 24 August 1907, Page 3

MISERABLE MILLIONAIRES.

ANDREW CARNEGIE ON POVERTY AND IUCiIES.

The great plutocrat of the world, the laird of Skibo, has been at it again, growling at his wealth, and telling the poor man how lucky lie is to have escaped being a millionaire. These periodic outbursts of Mr Carnegie have not made many converts; but, really, as the li-brary-giver maintains, lie was a very poor man before lie was a wealthy one, and lias lived under both regimes, and so ought to know something about the matter. .Moreover, it is rather tue pursuit of wealth than thejiossession of it that Mr Carnegicr ails at. I was liorn to poverty, he remarks in

bis latest essay to convince one of the "unliappiness that seeking wealth brings, but f wouldn't exchange with the richest millionaire's son that over breathed, who?e father and mother were only names to him. It is the boy whose mother is nurse and seamstress and washer and cook and teacher and angel and saint that has the real wealth, and whose father is guide and philosopher and friend.

I hear men say "poverty is dreadful and richesWtre corrupting." They don't ] know. They only see one side of die shield or the other. I have lived on both sides. And I say to you, there is very liltle that wealth can add to human happiness. 1 believe on the other hand that it decreases unliappiness. Tno millionaires who laugh are rare. If a poll were taken of the wealthiest people in the world, hardly a tithe of them could be recorded ns happy. Mo-ney-making, when pursued exclusively without regard to wholesome and healthy pleasures, is a most paralysing performance. It almost invariably narrows the capacity for normal cnjoyme.it, and beyond a certain point is more of a bane than a blessing. The money-mak-ing idea stulifies us mentally, artistically and morally. But lam optimistic in this as in other things. I believe wc are becoming rich enough in material things to realise the necessity of havii;g other and higher ambitions. Beyond a competency for old age which need not be great, and raay be. very small, wcallh lessens rather thaa

increases human happiness. 'lac possession of money is a great worry. My first duty is to distribute my wealth •vi-jo.lv. Money does not make a man

happy. I wntii.' Rive up all the wealth I have, if I were denied the pleasure that enmes from ill? ifiuly oi" It;.v:'Uro and art. If Shakespeare and Wagner, the mountain peaks of literature and art, were taken out of my ii'e, 1 should be

poor indeed. Millionaires wbo live merely for the sake of milking money lave 3 sorry time of it, if they devote no portion of tlieir time to other pursuits. Some men are continually grinding away at their work. .1 iid are'like Hi.? fly on >i.;S wheel, '•See wlwt a dust we stir up." The;' find no time to take a vacation, and imagine this world will not travel on its axis every twenty-four hours, unless they keep incessantly at tlveir desks. It il all a great mistake.