CORRESPONDENCE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1866, 16 March 1889, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

(We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents.) WHAT ARE WE TO DO WITH OURSELVES ? TO THE EDITOR. Sie, —Give them a sound education and leave them to do what they find best with themselves, is the only intelligent answer to the stupid question What are we to do with our boys f It is our duty as parents to care for our children to the best of our abilities while they are children, and when they are old enough to take our place it Avill be their duty to take care of themselves and their children, and, if equipped with sound education, they ought to manage far better than we do. Our ignorance is about as dense as a London fog; consequently we are continually acting as if we were trying to make life as unendurable as possible. There, is a lot of fudge in this virtue of providing for our families. The true instincts of man are far above mere animal selfishness, and he is naturally ashamed of his degradation and glad of any excuse; and making a virtue of providing for our families is a grand apology for the contemptible habit of accumulating and hoarding of wealth, which is the eurse of our age. We had a good illustration of the effect of families being provided for in a squad of men who were at Kakahu last week looking for minerals. They were strong, ablebodied, healthy enough like men to look at—yet, withal, had so little stamina that after walking about a couple of miles they had no desire to go further unless they could drive. And these are the sort of men that call those that tramp 30 or 10 miles a day in search of employment loafers, without discerning the absurdity of their position! They must be a very civilised sort of minerals they expected to find at road sides ! What would the old diggers—who carried their provisions over miles of country too rough for mules —think of men prospecting it in buggies ? I know very little about minerals, but, if they had not been so effeminate, I intended to show them some of the beauties of Nature in places rough enough for minerals being found. But they want gold mines they can drive to in buggies, with a man and a pick and ahoyel to fill their portmanteau ! Give a man with little mind wealth and ease, sumptuous living, dyspepsia and gout, and he imagines he is a somebody, and he is highly pleased with the delusion. Another iastance of crass ignorance is the still prevalent idea that machinery is a cause of evil. We make it a universal curse, but if we had intelligence to use the benefits properly machinery would be one of our greatest blessings. The fact that mechanical inventions keep pace with the multiplicity of our real and artificial wants is certain proof that it is no part of Nature's plan that any man should live as a mere working animal; that we are destined for nobler pursuits than those that supply only our animal wants. The heathenish principle of legislating that the many may J

be serfs to the few is untenable with civilisation, and nations that persist in so legislating will cease to exist. It is puerile nonsense to think we can remedy the sweating system by artificial means. Manual labor is not required. We mußt abolish caste and usurpation. Away with the belief that men carry their brains in their pockets and get statesmen to manage our State affairs. Riches is the reward of crafty selfishnes; superior intelligence and unselfishness are the characteristics of a statesman. There is room enough for all, if we couljl learm to live and let live—to raisiqrthe man and sink the brute. —I am, etc., "Wm. L. Duncan. Kakahu Bush, March 12th, 1889.

[Our friend, Mr Duncan, is evidently getting werse. He once tackled us fiercely on the question of Protection: now he aims at pulverising us into Kakahu pipe-clay for asking the question " What are we to do with our boys ?" and for suggesting that machinery has thrown men out of employment. Notwithstanding what Mr Duncan says, we are still of ' opinion that it is our duty, as parents, to make this world brighter and happier and more tolerable for our children than it has been for ourselves. Kvery previous generation has done something towards the extension of human liberty, and we ought to do our share. There are certain people to whom the higher flights of reasoning to which Mr Duncan so frequently soars is unintelligible. The question " What will we do with our boys ?" as tb% understand ifc awakens their natural affection for their offspring—it sets them thinking; it is the* A.B.C. of all other questions involved, and from it they can be led step by step up to the more lofty heights from which Mr Duncan flings his thunderbolts at us. Can Mr Duncan now see the utility of asking the question ? We want to make the people think by some means, and we endeavor to reach their thinking faculties by appealing to the love they bear for their children. Children who have received a sound education, and more, have been reduced to misery and have died of starvation before now, We pity the father who has ho thought concerning the future of his children. The fox kicks its offspring out when it is able to do for itself. Mr Duncan wants all mankind to substitute " foxy " instincts for the nobler 1 attributes that prompt man to provide for his offspring. We have not risen to those heights above the London fogs yet; we still grovel at that degraded level at which we would Eke to provide for our children., We do not know what is above the " London fogs," and consequently are not in a position to discuss its grandeur with Mr Duncan., As regards the accusa* tion of " crass ignorance " our remarks on machinery, if Mr Duncan came down to our level, and read our articles, he would find that we came to the same conclusion as he has. We regard machinery as a blessing to mankind, but it has been misused so as to make it a blessing to capital and a curse to labor. That is good enough for Mr Duncan, surely. As regards the gentlemen who visited Kakahu, they did not come to see " the beauties of Nature ;" they came to see any minerals which were to be seen, and, so far as we can learn, they saw them.—The Editoe.]