A FRANK CRITIC.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2467, 3 April 1909, Page 3

A FRANK CRITIC.

AN AMERICAN VISITOR. ON OUR

-LEGISLATION.

To “see ourselves as others see us” is always interesting, especially if the outsider is frank and outspoken. New Zealand is just now coming under review by a distinguished American visitor, the. Rev. George A. Gates, D.D., L.L.D., principal of Pomona College, Claremont, California, and the process is instructive, for Dr Gates apparently has no hesitation in saying-what lie thinks. “I have been wanting to come here for twenty years,” he told a “New Zealand Times” representative, '“and I am not posing as a traveller who sits on tho piazza of the first-class;, hotel and after ten days’ experience of this presumes to write a book about, the people and prospects of New Zealand. 1 have been here' two weeks, and talked with most everybody, not only the prominent people, but the man in. the street. Everyone seems ready and capable of talking about your public affairs. In that respect you are working out a remarkably fine democracy. DOING, NOT DISPUTING.

“You are taking some strong steps in the .lines for which we in older coun-

tries have been arguing, disputing and talking about for years. AVhilo we have debated 3*oll have actually done the thing. There is no doubt 3’ou are a remarkable people. What you have-done successfully with a population of a million would not necessarily he done as well in the United States, where we have between eighty and ninety millions. Still, there are certain generic principles and definite achievements which are of modified applicability anywhere. Your country is new, and you are saving years of agony and millions of money by getting in at the beginning with these reforms.”

GRAPPLING A BIG PROBLEM. Do yon think New Zealand has reached the height of achievement in social

legislation? “Not by any manner of means,” answered Dr Gates emphatically. “It is only tho beginning of what is going to go oh here and all over the world. Iho best people of New Zealand realise that, and it’s mighty good beginning, too! The most prominent thing that strikes anyone with his eye's open must be the advanced position of 3 7 om* Labor legislation and administration. You have taken hold of that big problem with a ■ firm hand. I find all manner of opinions about it —men who say the labor laws are ruining the country, and that it cannot stand nuich longer because capital is being driven out. I. naturally asked people who told mo this if they would give an instance of capital being driven out. Not once have they given a definite and specific reply. Capital is ultra-conservative, I know, but I don t believe it is leaving the country. 1 cannot see very much in 3'our laboi laws that is extreme, and whatever extremities have been reached, I find a disposition on all sides to go slow and carefully reconsider. 4 DANGER. “But there is a rock on winch j'ouv labor legislation may split. The working men a’re apt to be perfect^ 7 happ3’ so long as awards go with them, hut they howl like hyenas when the thing goes the other way. They must learn to give and take. My sympathies, are with them, but I want to put in a word of caution. We used to have the si avery fwstem, when the working man had some kind of standing because he was worth his keep. Under the feudal system he was attached to the soil and provided for. Then we had the great declaration of liberty, but we have overdone it, for we see at one end the plutocrat who has the whole of it, and at the other end is your ‘bread-line.’ It’s a beautiful ladder, a confounded^ 7 fine thing to play on, but we haven’t learned to climb*it! We arc trying to adjust ourselves to that glorious achievement of liberty, and my-advice to New Zealand workmen is. ‘Don’t abuse it. Go conservatively. Be a little patient, for the whole world is watching.. A setback here is going to give a set-hack to the labor movement the world over. You have moved into the front rank of social reform. Hold steady to that, and get the whole of the people up to that point.’ RETRENCHMENT. “A r ou have had ten years of prosperity, and prosperity is 'always dangerous. There is a marked spirit of retrenchment in the air, and you must do it, otherwise this country is going to run into a panic. In our free-and-easy-going style, we say that every twenty years there must be a panic. You are wiser; you are going to retrench, so as to get your balloon to earth without bursting.” New Zealand’s position in relation to temperance satisfies our visitor,, who referred to the astounding wave of prohibition which last year swept over the United States. Thousands of saloons had been closed, no fewer than four, hundred in one State at one election. The success of the movement astounded even the most ardent prohibitionists, and was the fruit of years and years, of discussion and agitation. It is difficult, states Dr Gates, to compare New Zealand’s educational s3 7stem with that of America, for higher education was carried out on quite different lines. However, he saw something very anomalous in the position of the New "Zealand University as simply an examining body, and thought we were bound at an early date to get into trouble over our system of allowing nominated education boards to spend the money furn’shed by the State without control from the central body, to see that the expenditure was wisely and economically directed. “That cannot go on for long.” he added . emphatically. “You don’t keep your • young people in school as long as wo do, ’’" he conti 11 nod. ‘ ‘The young men of America make tremendous sacrifices to complete their education in a college. I have a hundred young men in my college who do odd jobs all the summer to work their wav. They take the roughest kind of work.” Does it affect their standing among j their fellow-graduates? “No, our’s is an absolute democracy.

They are honored a great deal more than some dude who is fooling, around with some one. to pay for him. That is one point that makes, the American hold up his head and say, ‘l’m glad I’m an American citizen 1' ”

AVHAT SHOULD THE CHURCHES DO ?

As a keen social reformer and Doctor of Divinity, the visitor’s opinion about the attitude of the Church in relation to the problems of the hour is well worth quoting. “I believe in tho churches getting right into it with sleeves rolled up. AVliat is a church for but to roll up its sleeves and get hold, of practical life? Your ‘bummers’ want us to sit on the hills and sing ourselves into everlasting life ! Tho politician “ays, ‘Hands off!’ and the vicious man also warns us not to come down from our high and holy pinnacle. There iV nothing too holy if you can make use of it to- raise things on earth. Jesus Christ, of all practical men, talked about the simple matters that interested practical people. I believe in the churches entering into the political battleton any kind of moral issue, not as partisans of thto or that man, but as supporters of The thing that is right.’