The Daily News WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9. EAT, DRINK, AND BE MERRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 296, 9 December 1908, Page 2

The Daily News WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9. EAT, DRINK, AND BE MERRY.

Once upon a time then} was a man who was ruined, -lie was niini'd to sueh a dire extent thai In- only had a shilling left. He was wry hungry, so he speni, the whole ol the" shilling in tub Hire. When you are asked vJiat son of a matt this was you will immediately reply, "A fool.' That man was a very tair sample of many i'cw Zcnlanders. They believe in ail easy life. Ease ill life, however, is destructive of ambition. Everybody knows the old adage, "Easy come, easy go." Jf a man wins a hundred pounds on the' racecourse lie does not value ihat hundred pounds to the same extent as lie would the same sum that lie iiad fought and worked ha.'d for. If fortune pours pearls into his lap while lie is lying under his own figtree with his mouth held open for ripe fruit, he doesn't value the pearls so much as he would do if he had to scrape the whole Pacific Ocu'i 'or them.

The old pioneers of Xew Zealand were the very best kind of human beings il is possible to rear. W'ilil exceptions they won with their own hard work everything they possessed. There is as much pioneering to do to-day as 'ever there was, but as 'it is easier to play witli other people's money and to sowone shilling for the growth of one or two more, the pioneering spirit is dying out and the deim -.1 ici luxury increases as the old spirit vanishes. Thrift has won national eminence always, and there lias never yet been a nation that ultimately succeeded in reaching preeminence by spending cightcciipence for every shilling earned. .New Zealaudors are amongst the most extravagant people in tile world. The ideals of too large a proportion of them is to cea-e work when they lone won enough money to speculate. Speculation always means loss- to one of Hie persons to in bargain. Therefore the wave of speculation which has surged over New Zealand for the past few years lias beeri: exceedingly bad for New Zealand, merely because in speculation the few benelit and not the nation. The ideal country is the country where the wealth produced by the whole of the people is shared more or less evenly according as individuals have worked to procure it.

The speculative disease which has eaten into this Dominion has had the effect of increasing Ul2 cost, but not the value of everything the people want. The old rainy day idea is dying out. It will revive only when the speculators gel such an unholy financial kick that they are brought to their right minds. 'The person who must have luxury even if he mortgages his possessions is a real danger, because his disease is "catching." I.and is not so much a means of growing things to-day as a means of gainh ling. The settler, "(he backbone of the country," isn't so much a settler as he 'used lo be. He is a great d"al like the swallow, anil migrates from one place to another if he can get a hundred or two pounds "on his bargain.'" Haying got a hundred or two profit he is llliseltled. lie has 111;, fever of speculation, lliil the nation is not being"developed by the "swapping" of fniu:s or Hie raising of mortgages. The chairman of the Hank of New Zealand lately accused the people o, \,.w Zeahi'i I of extravagance. And he is right. If the people of Xew Zealand made up their minds that nothing that had not to be fought for was worth having, if they would really understand that this Dominion was as yet only a country for pioneers exactly as if this vear were IS-KI and not V.W, they would be less careful of their while collars a.iid more careful of I heir work. Xew Zealand is 100 young to be artilicial.