THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1913. A LESSON OF THE STRIKE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 27 December 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1913. A LESSON OF THE STRIKE.

We cannot hglp thinking that an important_lesson has been taught, from the recent strike that so far has beeij apparently overlooked. , While, our public school-curriculum provides for the' inculculation in the youthful mind of countless subjects of a more or less useful nature, it is somewhat, surprising to find that in these days of supposedly advanced "enlightenment" on the part of labour no one in authority lias thought it sufficiently important to keep abreast of the tines by introducing into primaly schools the study of political econ omy. The only importance so far attached to, this momentous subject in Mew Zealand is that it is included in, the University syllabus as a test paper for tlie degree of Bachelor of Commerce, or as an optional subject for other University degrees. Surely the time has come when at-least the upper standards \ of our primary schools should be versed in questions one of which has so recently caused so much sensation and sorrow in New Zealand—the strike problem. It can be safely said tlikt a very small minority ) of our public school scholars ever bother themselves about the ethics of political econo-jiy, for the obvious reason that few indeed have their course set for a degree so uncommon as that of Bachelor of Commerce. it may not be too much to say that had the question of economics been more considered by the "Continuous Ministry" and its following, as a subject peculiarly necessary for New Zealand electors, the regrettable strike just concluded would never have occurred. For a long period the Seddon-W ar d-Mackenzie Ministries held office. For such period they saw change and decay all around them. They saw irresponsible Labour climbing blindly to power, yet never did it strike them that the mass elector was being left in economic ignorance of the tremendous responsibility "being affiliated upon him. < We put it to the sane, sensible logical workers of this Dominion—can they dispute that the successful men of this country are almost entirely men who have had no better chance in life than had the humblest worker of to-day. This proposition, we assume to lie irrefut-

"able. Pursuing the question, ff'e desire to ask, why has not thie position been thorough by brought " homo to the graduates, so to speak, of our public schools. We cannot help thinking that it is a great mistake that our elder boys and girls at the primary schools art not taught that in political and social progress all true advancement and success is purely and emphatically evolutionary. Of course, nothing approaching the study of political economy is essayed in our primary schools to-day, and the young idea is left to develop on the incendiary and anarchistic linos evidenced no valuably by-the sedition charges in Wellington and -elsewhere. We believo that in New Zealand most particularly, where political progress has faeen a 6o much vaunted,'-' nothing could be more appropriate and necessary to our political well-being than the introduction of a course cf political economy in our public school syllabus for higher standard scholars.