THE TRUST PRINCIPLE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7948, 25 January 1906, Page 7

THE TRUST PRINCIPLE.

Mr Hall Caine bns escaped from the ''tyranny of Amoriean hospitality," muob impressed with its immensity. Of course h<* encountered the inevitable interviewer immediately on liia return homo, and incidentally ho admitted to this gentleman that ho bad been warning the Amoricaus agaiust their growing wealth. Mr Rockfeller having asked the novelist to speak to bis Bible olass, Mr Caine lelfc justified in saying a word or two about rich men and rioh nations. He quoted the Biblical estimate of « rich man's difficulties, and pointed out that if it was hard for a rioh man to be good, it must be hardbr still for a rich nation to be good. The progress aud prosperity of tl<o -great nations were often secured by means which would send the indivi •dual man to tbe penitentiary. There wbb never a time, Mr Hall Caine thought, when it was more desirable, tooth in Britain and in America, to -apply tbe Drinclples of Christianity to the affairs of men and of nations than it was at present. Pre sident Roosevelt was one of the few publo men since Gladstone who brought questions first of all to the touchstone of principle. He told the Americans squarely that their great democracy could live only on the foundations of justice, and that ill-got power or ill-got prosperity whether in the individual or in the nation, oould lead only to bankruptcy and shame. With regard to the national ideals of America, Mr Caine found an increasing sense of national humiliation at the reoont disclosures of commercial and public corruption. The appalling nature of secret commissions, the enormous sums spent to hinder or influence particular Segisation, were making the American people ashamed. They were losing confidence in maiy of great honoured institutions. Men who had been long held ill high esteem had gone down like r«e"ds before tbe awakened public opinion, and would never be heard of again. The prinoiple of the trust bad been weighed and found wanting, and public fe«ling was venting itself up on the monopolists. The best sense of America was in favour of public 'control of many of the things that are now monopolised by trusts, and it w(,s bound to make itself felt more and more as the eduoation of the mass of the people progressed.