The Daily News. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1. NATIONALISING HONESTY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 199, 1 December 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1. NATIONALISING HONESTY.

The other day Lord Rosebery, who is very rich and very clever and who at present '"cuts no ice" in politics, made the almost astounding declaration that he was becoming a convert to nationalisation. He said he wouldn't begin with land, but he did not mention that this was because all his wealth was in land. He said lie would begin by nationalising honesty. 'Like many .great and good men, Lord; Rosebery is rich enough to be quite honest. He does not need to steal, he believes in a fair deal, because he would still have a crust if he were beaten in a deal, and altogether is entirely removed from the temptations that do so grievously beset the folk who want to be as rich as Lord Rosebery. The idea of nationalising the virtues is a very fine one, and it can't be effected by any legislation. It is also tmlikely that at so late a date that people generally will begin to give everybody a "square deal." Most folk are troubled with the itch to make money, and mere plodding doesn't build a bank balance very rapidly. It may be taken for granted that the phenomenal financial success of any person nowadays is not attained by observing the virtues. For instance, we are always hearing of the "get-rich-quick" methods of our clever friends in America. They do not begin to exercise the common virtues or use mere honesty until they achieve what they strive for. Senile virtue after a life of robbery is one of tiie most pathetic but frequent of human life, and, anyhow, most people regard the outward semblance of virtue and honesty as the real thing. If honesty were common, papers would not write lecstactic pars, about the marvellous little boy who picked up a gentleman's pocket-book full of notes and handed it back to him. It would not be necessary to laud the bankrupt who after twenty years paid his creditors, and it wouldn't stir anybody to the soul that a tradesman had suddenly decided to give value for his money. To applaud honesty is to assert that honesty is a rare jewel. When we read Rosebery on the nationalisation of honesty it occurred to us to search—like poor old Diogenes—for an honest man within the pages of current periodical literature. The first indication that honesty was not- already nationalised was in the portrait of a young woman on whose upper lip had been re-touched with a small moustache. Another photo showed her lip without the male adornment. She had used—so the honest advertiser said —some of his marvellous hair destroyer. Would Lord Rosebery hold that it was honest to retouch photos to deceive the public into buying threepennywortti of chemicals for five shillings? Again, the honest regenerator photographs a young woman, gets the picture retouched and carefully painted to represent a haggard woman of apparently sixty years. The fake is so obvious that few should be deceived, but many are. Its sole object is to sell sis pennyworth of beauty cream (or some such horror) for ten shillings. Nationalise honesty? The "before and after" advertiser screams his lies from every illustrated paper, the cheapest articles of daily use are faked and teased into new shapes and smells and appearances in order that they may be sold for twenty times their value. One pays a penny a pound for salt under its own name, but twelve times more for half the quantity when it is fitted with a title and tinned. From pills to calico the fakir wins all along the line. A woman the other day was fined for selling whiting as hair wash. She made five shillings for the expenditure of one-sixteenth of a penny. The great philanthropic pill merchant and the noble millionaire distributors of colored water whose profits

are infinitely greater are still outside gaol. We should be very angry if asked to pay eighteenpence for a pound of common flour, but if it is teased into grotesque shape and labelled "Rooty Toots," or some fastidious name of the kind, we cheerfully hand out the money for half the -weight. If one could disguise ordinary grass, carefully pack it in daintily wrappered vessels, call it by a high-falutin' name, and assert in all the papers on earth that it was the first and last thing in heart disease cures, one might become as rich as Lord Rosebery and give up stealing. Just imagine a state of national honesty. Supposing everybody was perfectly frank about religion and law, medicine, newspaper advertisements, and everything. Suppose everyone told everyone else what was really in his mind—what a revolution! rhis is the sort of advertisement one ivould find in the illustrated papers: 'Pinko, the famous toilet preparation, is :omposed solely of boric acid, to which ias been added a small proportion of nineral perfume. It costs us a few lence per pound, and we are therefore ible to retail it in illuminated tins for ;wo shillings the four ounces." National lonesty ? Lord Rosebery is too sanguine. It is impossible to walk a treet, to read a newspaper, to enter a heatre, racecourse, private dwelling, hoslital, or shop without knowing—and it loesn't offend us—that "thing's arc not rhat they seem." We don't want things o be what they seem, and everybody is ontent to be deceived daily and all be time. The only satisfaction one can

is that there are degrees of dishonesty, and that the kind of praotices which have been emphasised here are not regarded as culpable. Lord Rosebery in his scheme of nationalisation "would not begin with the land. - ' But would not he or any other great reformer in attacking national dishonesty necessarily have to begin with land-dealing?