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Show New Zealandizing America. HENRY D. LLOYD is one of the profoundest reasoners on economic subjects in our country today. He comes up from the ranks of the common com-mon people and therefore has had abundant opportunity to study their needs and aspirations, and suggest the proper methods of organization and legislation. He belongs to the rational cult of socialists. Were he other than a conservative teacher and philosopher it is not likely that he would be filling a position as professor in the Chicago university, which is sometimes called the Rockefeller high school. The other day Mr. Lloyd .was in Salt Lake and delivered a lecture before the Ladies' Literary club, in which he reviewed re-viewed the social and economic conditions con-ditions of New Zealand. In selecting this colony of Great Britain as an example ex-ample of the social theory of government govern-ment practically applied, he could have chosen none better. Tn fact, without New Zealand as an illustration, he could present nothing tangible in proof of the wisdom of his philosophy, although al-though New Zealand has not yet reached the boundary of Mr. Lloyd's ideal state. Mr. Lloyd said in beginning that he had not found in New Zealand a cooperative co-operative commonwealth, a perfect people or a Eutopia, but he had found a people dealing with public questions in so novel and successful a way that, whether we would approve of them or not, we would be compelled to admit that they were interesting and might be of great importance. He impressed, too, upon his hearers the fact that New Zealand had not been settled by religious re-ligious martyrs, political exiles or men and women in search of a Eutopia, but by plain, matter-of-fact people in search of a better living, and to this he attributed in great part the advancement ad-vancement made on that island. Mr. Lloyd then outlined the policy of monopoly which had ruled the government govern-ment of New Zealand prior to the great strike of 1890, which he characterized charac-terized as a revolution and a turning point in the development of the coun try; that on the. election day following j the strike the. sun set forever on the conservative party of New Zealand, and was quickly followed by a revival of yie democracy. The changes wrought under ,the new system were then outlined, including the land system, sys-tem, the . government ownership of railroads, compulsory arbitration laws, woman's suffrage and old-age pension. The compulsory arbitration law, he said, had been a brilliant success. The old-age pension; has done away with the aged tramp on the highways of New Zealand, The public ownership of railroads has completely done away with the system of fvoritism in rates so common in other countries, and the roads are run for the public service, not for the government's profit. The system known' as the co-operative group, through which the government gives . employment at good wages to elderly men without means of support, sup-port, and to what he termed "soft-handed" "soft-handed" -men, men unused to manual labor, Mr. Lloyd considered one of the most commendable features of the social so-cial system of New Zealand. In clos ing, the speaker advised the Americans Amer-icans to not. go to New Zealand to Americanize that country, but to stay at home and New Zealandize America. That last remark about New Zealandizing Zea-landizing America is certainly good counsel, and the picture he draws of the contentment in that country is encouraging en-couraging to the optimist in this republic. re-public. Yet failure is written on all schemes of co-operation in this country coun-try except such as have been established estab-lished by people allying their religion with business affairs of -life, which has been so successful among the Mormons because obedience to authority was the principal lever in the co-operative plan. . - ' To carry out their purpose of a higher high-er form of government than exists elsewhere, New Zealand had the advantage ad-vantage of isolation. In the beginning of great things, that counts for something. some-thing. Their commerce Vith the rest of the world is carried aboard ships, and it takes a ship a long time to reach any port in New Zealand. Hence trade competition could not be as savage as It is here, nor the struggle for a living liv-ing so keen as it is in American cities. So there was a chance for a more equitable distribution of the products of labor, and where such a condition prevails the trust has no show; there are no tramps, no paupers, few jails. Instead, everybody gets a living whether wheth-er he be a swift man or only a "soft-handed" "soft-handed" man, and all complaints are settled by arbitration. But It will be some time yet before any attempt is made to New Zealandize Zealand-ize America. |