CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 323, 9 June 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

SELF-MADE MEX. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald. at a "Labor Dini nor" in London to Mr. Fisher, l'rime Minister of the Australian Commonwealth, spoke about the "common people" who nowadays "shine conspicuously'' in Australia. One is glad that Mr. Fisher deprecated the reference to the men who "rose from the ranks." In England, especially, it is impossible, for a man, however eminent supposing he has begun life with few advantages, to escape the implied slur that he is a "self-made" man. Every eminent man is "self-made," whether he begins as the son of a peer or the son of a. scavenger. Intellect is not served out in proportion to the wealth of a child's parents, and intellect wilt blossom no matter what soil it is wwii in. The "self-made man"—that is the man whose parents were poor—lias no moral right to boast either of his accomplishments or of his hardships. The self-made man who, despite the handicap of wealth, achieves eminence, is frequently more worthy of praise for having insisted on working, despite, the fact that he need'not do so. Curiously enough (lie aristocratic eminent (by "eminent" we mean qualities of mind and not size of possessions) would never commit (he error of referring to an eminent contemporary as a "self-made man," nor would he refer (o the fact that he had risen from "the common people." On the contrary, it is usually the man whose talents are superior to his early environments who mentions his former "humbleness" as a reason for public admiration. It all comes back to the one point. Nature serves nut her gifts of mind with a total disregard of status or wealth. Talent is as admirable in the William Balfour, who has always been wealthy, as in the'man who -was cradled in poverty and rose superior to it, because he couldn't help it. The ideas that have revolutionised the world have been the property of no caste, and no class has had a monopoly of orains. The development of a great brain has often been marvellously aided bv the fact thai its owner had to struggle to express its message. We are in the lia'hit of speaking of the "ruling class'' as if the mere, accident of birth or possession of cash was the basis of (lie rule. The "ruling class" everywhere is drawn from all human sources, and intellect dominates the nations. It is by the use (if intellect (hat the nations obtain wealth, and everv nation draws its intellectual leaders without, reference to the status of their fathers. When "Labor" has in its ranks a majority of the highest intellects, Labor will rule, but in the evolution of things Labor will be in precisely the same position the aristocracy occupies now.

NEW ZIiALAXD SHOWS THE WAY. Tributes (o Xew Zealand and New Ac:\lander* are frequent and gratifying. The number of the overseas edition of the Daily Mail comments editorially: Farthest away and first to arrive is the motto of New Zealand. Sir Joseph Ward

has come to the Coronation and the Imperial Conference as Prime Minister of the most distant of His Majesty's Dominions. He brings with him the enthusiasm and the energy characteristic of those beautiful islands of the Pacific. New Zealand is at once the most democratic and the most imperialistic of the British Dominions, and it is natural that her representatives should take a distinguished part in the deliberations of the Imperial Conference next month. There are two questions about which this Dominion has made up its mind. The urgent need for improving and consolidating the naval defences of the Kmpire has long occupied the thoughts of statesmen in New Zealand. They recognise in the, rapid growth of foreign armaments an ever-increasing menace to the distant parts of the Empire, and are anxious to meeit it by any sacrifice. The New Zealand proposal is a practical one. If the Dominions, with their 13,000,000 people of British origin, bore their share of imperial defence the two-Power stanorant would cease to tiouble the dreams of our and rhe pockets of our taxpayers. There is a condition attached to this co-operation. New Zealand is not the only Dominion that holds fast to the doctrine that without representation there can be no taxation for Imperial defence. The Dominions have no voice in the foreign policy on which our defences are lxisi'd. At the Imperial Conference this year the representatives of the Dominions are to lie admitted for the first time to the secrets of British diplomacy. This is nn important concession, and ought to be of immense value to the cause of Imperial co-opera-tion. It is a step in the right direction. But we must go further. New Zealand shows us the way. Sir ,1,-seph Ward will lay before the Imperial Conference proposals for an Imperial Parliament of Defence, in which not merely the United Kingdom., but every Dominion shall he represented. To this Imperial Council, he suggests, shall be committed all important questions of foreign policy and defence. The British people may be slow, as Sir Joseph Ward jm.vs, to accept new thoriea, but we are, after all, a practical race. If the Imperial Conference can show us the way to Imperial cooperation for defence or for other purposes we .shall not hesitate to follow.