THURSDAY, MAY 19, 1892. TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4117, 19 May 1892, Page 2

THURSDAY, MAY 19, 1892. TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT.

Sir Robert Stodt is on the track again. He is a fluent lecturer, with that most valuable stock-in-trade, a " pork and presence," We remember how, some years ago, he used to split the ears of the groundlings when the Preethought fever was raging among them; we have not forgotten how he taught men and women to gigolo at God—admission Od. There, is no doubt that he is a fluent lecturer. But Lyceums have strangely languished since then, people do not jostle each other now to get a front seat at an infidel lecture, the Christian religion seems likely to linger anions; us a little longer yet—and the glib speaker ia on a different track. Perhaps we owe it to the knighthood bestowed by an appreciative sovereign on Mr Robert Stout, that bis attitude towards the Preethought Lecture platform has become one of considerable reserve. He has chaoged his topic. Religion can go to hem, Sif Robert can no longer concern himself with these unimportant issues, Political' regeneration will bring about the peaceful death of popular superstition, Every ill the body politic is heir to can be cured by tho State, if only we will give the State carte blanche to go to work upon us.

This iB the burden of the discourse delivered the other day in Wellington iiy our ex-Premier. Bather curiously, he selected a Presbyterian Sunday Schoolroom as the place to lecture in, andlhe Presbyterian minister as his ohairman, Radicalism, religious or political, ia, we should have thought, the last characteristic of the cauiious Scot. since Sir Robert Stout never made a joke in his life, we hesitate to say that there was a grim jest in this choice of place and chairmun. JT imports; tho lecture was iJgljvergd, and it was' understanded' by the people, iflje" New Zealand Tinies" Bays it was' "lucid" or " luminous"—we fancy this means that it,was light, and we. can only .trust that it was not frivolous. According to the Wellington newspaper reports, the lecturer thinks that an ideal community might be created by -establishing State institutions, and capable .fjtate control. Good heavens J and in thjs the prelude to some new nostrum jn the way of grandmotherly. legislation ? The State, as it seems to us, is already, running a good many businesses which we uped to be able to manage pretty well for ourselves. It insures nur lives—and invests our premiums in Harbour- Board stook. It takes charge of our property when we die—and doesn't seem to know what has become of it. Let' it but extend ita supervision to our entrance upon (bis mortal life, by means of S|l?[e-f|ontrolled accoucheuses j • and let tho undertake!?,' p()o presently shall plant our State-aided carcase in the ground which the State has nationalised, be himself subject to a Government license j and then we shall foe jde/jlately looked after. No, we forget; lt neidf a jjjatfjmonial bureau under Stjte management, to render the oyplo of pur pohybriierices compljjtp. religion -vye shall not see, for a very healthy pcason ; it is like tlje Armada jn The Gritio," ■ ".The Spanish fleet you cannpt see, ■ Because It i'b pot yet,in sjgjit."

But, with this trilling .exception, everything that the modern human cau ask for shall be provided for him by the State, his nursing mother. Alas, "the State,"as an interfering entity, will never aohieve more than can; be aobieved under existing conditj.on§ bj ordinarily wise legislation. Men's dispositions wnuflt be

isma,:; Sjr Robert Stout unadulterated Sooia« lisrn—is a dream impossible of fulfil* ment among live men-and women, While, therefore, we heartily oonour in the appreciation bestowed upon this particular lecture, so fur as it dealt with the growing improvement in the industrial and social life of the masses; and while we acknowledge that wo should have been among Sir Robert's most delighted listeners when he pleaded for extended education j free libraries, more efficient sanitation, and other reforms, we cannot but deplore the importance ivhich will attach to this wild and chimerical chatter about tho potentialities of State control, in the minds of people who only think of the lecturer as an ex-Premier and one of the leading politicians of the Colony.