The Daily News. THURSDAY, JUNE 23 THE MAN WITH THE SPADE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 63, 23 June 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, JUNE 23 THE MAN WITH THE SPADE.

Three years ago a titled aristocrat travelled through New Ztuuand, aim incidentally honored Taramiki. He stayed for two nights at a wayside ho eel. He complained bitterly that, when he desired to refresh himself at the bar, there were grimy men there—common, everyday persons who wielded spades and mattocks, .shovels and axes. He had never been dirty himself, and he would have disdained to use any of the tools mentioned. The sensible licensee mentioned to the aristocrat that the men who had forgotten to change their grimy clothes -were the men who had made the country, and were still employed in making it. The aristocrat might hase been told, too, that he himself had been made what he happened to be by the man witk the spade, the person with the shovel, the peasant with the musket, and the "clodhopper" at .the plough. Without this class of despised persons there could be no aristocracy. The despised person is expected to stand aside and to raise his hat to the man who has never delved, or chopped, or ploughed, but the person who lives in idle comfort might with more justice raise bis hat reverently to the navvy, the farmer, the laborer, or any person whose physical exertions provide the world with what it eats. The "respectable" occupations, according to a modern travesty'of idea, is one that produces nothing, but battens on the work of the 'producer. The man with the spade provides a job for the man with the yard-stick, the man with the pen, and the man with the tongue. We are all, in fact, parasites on the persoi -who performs primal duties. The nomiproducers are the masters of the producers, but at any moment the sweatgrimed delvers might become masters of the world, reduce aristocracy to servitmde, and force the parasites to let go. It is extraordinary in a young country like New Zealand that so many people should 'believe that primal work is undignified, and that most parents should desire for their children occupations that kill their manual skill, their independence, and their physical health. The 'State help's this idea with both hands. The greatest effort the democracy makes is in the direction of helping the town person, supposing that he is "organised," to achieve a more payable position as a. parasite of the man with the spade. The man with the gnarled arms and the sun■burnt brisket is unpopular, because as a general thing he is so naturally employed that he says nothing and digs. The man who lives on his digging is the person who makes the remarks and obtains "redress." The present population of New Zealand owe their soft billets to the man with the spade. The ringing' of the axe keeps legions of clerks oh their stools, the person who pushes a long-handled shovel has been good enough t« dve Civil Servants a job. and the • who expresses himself in ten ' found in dictionaries makes it possible for towns to spring up out of the wilderness and for the railway to feed them. To go to the man with the spade and tell him that his Tom ought to be a professor at the Universitj', and that Mary ought to foe a society lady, is a crime. The alleged education which diminishes the number of real producers and exalts the ideas without increasing the skill of the primal producers is bad. It is better to draft a thousand men from office seats on to a working, gang than to draft a thousand navvies into the University. Brains control the world, but the nation that has no muscles for the brains to drive is the feeblest circumstance. An interesting experiment would be to place non-pro-ducers by birth, heredity, or pride in an isolated position where the man with the spade was not allowed to enter. The brainiest man, of the bunch would be less popular than the amateur laborer who could tickle a turnip out of the earth-'or dig a track over the hill. By some extraordinary evolution of ideas, the man of the colonies who is able habitually to wear clothes showing that he has no connection with the soil is regarded as a superior person. It is very wrong of anyone to smell sweaty, or to have straw in his hair, or mud on his boots. The correct idea nowadays is to insist on the other fellow getting dirty and to carefully take two-thirds of the proceeds of his work. New Zealand requires the man with the spade more than she requires the man with the profound ideas about accountancy; she is better off with four men who are contented to use the axe than with twenty men who batten on the public proclivity to see records broken. One grimy ploughman is of more assistance to the town than three shop assistants, because the ploughman provides the latter with their billets. A very heavy toll is taken from the earnings of the man with the spade or the hoe, the mattock or the shovel. New communities do not indulge in luxuries until the necessities are won, but the disposition of all modern new countries is to lessen the number of utilities and to increase the sum «f ornaments. New Zealand is still in the making, and' we have to thank Providence that, although there is a disposition to look upon real labor—as distinct from parasitical employment—as degrading, thare is still a large proportion of people in the Dominion who are in truth just as truly pioneers as the brave people who made the land for us. A virile people physically sound and imbued with ■the best ideal of making the most of every circumstance will beat out its destiny without any plaguey experiments having for their object the decrease in the number of the men with the spades. The boy who has a contempt for his father's occupation generally has no reason on his side, but his contempt for the person with the spade is generally 1

much greater than that of the man' whose forefathers knew nothing about | spades. Education nowadays is by wayl of showing Johnny Smith, the son of the cow-farmer, that selling ribbons is a' much more aristocratic occupation than sitting in a cow-byre. Producers are wanted more than idealists; grit, work, and physical fitness are more necessary J than information that will make a man i a B.A. The man who puts a yard of | metal on the road is much more usefully: employed than in swatting Euclid's fifth proposition. No one would have time to j theorise if the person with the spade did not supply him with the necessary means, and although it is necessary to theorise, the proportion of. theorists to practitioners is too large in this country. Education is only of use where it expands a person's natural talents. Where it gives a natural farm laborer the idea that he ought to be a bookmaker, or a born navvy the opinion that he was cut out for a barrister, education fails. What New Zealand wants is for more people to get on with the ivork instead of assuming that real work is the portion only of the man with the spade.