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In this book written in the South Pacific Seas there is a definite purpose, that is to help in releasing the human mind from many errors that entangle it. New Zealand is twelve thousand miles from Britain, & distance may help in gaining true perspective & due proportion.

New Zealand is especially in mind when both the constructive & destructive ideas in the book are uttered. But the problems in this part of the British Empire are looming up in every part of it. Many will disagree, for all new truth at first is unpalatable but, at least Tolerance is asked, for under any circumstances, the impact of ideas, & the collision of differing thoughts is good, & results in the sifting of Truth from error. The words of Taine used in completing his book on English Literature are also used here at the beginning of these stray thoughts as herein published, i.e.: “There is in the world but one work worthy of a man, the production of a Truth, to which we devote ourselves, & in which we believe.”

The spare moments in which these thoughts were written were times when the soul was devoted to Truth, in which we believed.

The sections may be short, but these are not the days for long cumbersome chapters. Sydney Smith once in writing to a friend said: “Excuse the length of this letter but I haven’t time to be brief.”

Dr. James Black went to preach in a country church in Scotland. “Hae ye your sermon written?” asked the beadle. On Dr. Black replying that it was even so, the beadle exclaimed, “I’m rale gled, because when thae folks come wi’ paper, ye ken they’ll stop when that stops; but when thae hae nae paper ava, the Almichty Himsel’ disna ken when they’re likely to feenish.”

The citizen, not the soldier, is to be our hero. Our grain of incense will be thrown, not at the shrine of Mars, but with a scientific eugenic picture, & a goal of the city beautiful, & the race perfect; our grains of incense will be cast on the shrine of Venus: for the sublimation of sex & the idealising of the child. We tire of destruction & common-worship, we turn in prayer & reverence to the child & the cradle. We see with Isaac Zangwill, who said, “to safeguard peace we must prepare for war—I know that maxim, it was forged in hell!” We have a new outlook!

Southey once wrote an acrid & rasping letter to Shelley taking him to task for many of his new opinions. Shelley in answering him said: “You say you judge of opinions by their fruits. So do I . . . the immediate fruits of all new opinions are indeed calamity to the promulgators & professors: but we see the end of nothing, & it is in acting well, in contempt of present advantage, that virtue consists.”

In view of this, the reader must give the writer credit for writing what is true at least to himself, ever remembering that often in the world’s history, the voice crying in the wilderness has had the Truth. If one has it, he cannot rest by repressing it, for unuttered Truth becomes poisonous. Said M^rs E. B. Browning: “Truth is like sacramental bread, it must be passed on.” And Jerome of old asserted that if an offence come out of the Truth, better is it that the offence come than that the Truth be concealed, so

It is a day also when creeds are in the crucible, & all brave men & women have to think out their own philosophy. The writer has done so to his own happiness, & has proved himself what he would like the reader to do, to be the unique witness of God in his own life. The best way to understand the great Secret is to work for the uplift of Humanity, by such Service, God is experienced in such a way, it cannot be explained. It is a Life not a belief. Once you get there, life will be full of Ideals & Divine dreams.

“Dreams, are they? But ye cannot stay them

Or thrust the dawn back for one hour!

Truth, Love, Justice,—if ye stay them,

Return with more than earthly power:

Strive, if ye will, to seal the fountains

That send the spring through leaf & spray,

Drive back the sun from the Eastern mountain,

Then—bid this mightier movement stay.”

Much in these pages is prophetic & prophets are ever stoned. It is said that no one should prophesy except he Knows. But some have the leisure to watch world events, also they are well versed in the world’s history, these advantages combined with a Knowledge of the foibles & psychology of Humanity, at least allows one to presage in an accurate way. Shakespeare sensed it when saying:—

Besides when a man believes in Divine Immanence, & lives day by day above the commonly accepted false values of modern life—money, property & so on—preferring the real values of Harmony with God then that person is more likely to presage aright than the mere materialist. Says Noyes:

If the writer at times has been angered at the insane irrationality of war & cruelty everywhere, he asks pardon. Robert Burns once swore when watching a lame hare limp across a ploughed field, after it had been shot at. And the author of this, would rather swear with Burns then pray with any parson over war.

But there are light & gay pages included also, & they will balance the ledger & add a little gaiety & cheer. In an old curio shop in Berkeley, California, the following lines arrested me:

So reader please look upon me in these Southern Seas as a battler for justice against the armies of the unjust. Be critical if you will, but remember the answer of an innocent school-boy who was asked what a critic was:—“a screaming little insect” said he. But he was not far from the Truth!

A battler for social justice, come join the growing ranks. You have nothing to lose but your chains: but so many people today from pure expediency, hug & kiss their shackles. A rather long Spanish proverb says: “Mankind is like an ass who kicks those who endeavour to take off his panniers.”

Matthew Arnold in one of his poems on “Obermann”: (these poems are too unfamiliar.) says of Creeds & Societies too:—

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

[Transcriber Note: Since this is an unfinished work, it is difficult to correlate the Table of Contents with the pages in the manuscript. See Transcriber Notes at the end of this ebook for more information.]

INTRODUCTORY: BOOKS IN GENERAL.

One of the sensations of the last publishing season was a literary hoax by a young woman under twenty years of age. Over 20,000 copies were sold in short time & she found herself with money to invest. The book took the form of a fictitious diary & included a description of a lover’s attempt to climb into a girl’s bedroom at night, as well as other questionable episodes.

That such a book could prove a Success is not complimentary to the reading public, but it recalls what John Stuart Mill once proclaimed: that the writings by which one may live are not the writings which themselves live.

It is not a day when people are very interested in Truth. They live in a world of film-fiction, book-fiction, & also life-fiction generally. All professions are affected by this, & the clergy seemingly are not exempt, for the “garage” seems now more necessary to the manse & Vicarage than the library.

Prof. James Moffat, translator of the Bible, Modern Version, says, on returning to Scotland from his recent lecture tour in this country, that he noticed American ministers “have few studies, & their libraries are distressingly thin, but they all seem to have motor cars.”

The writer, in this book, has avoided long chapters, he has chosen, of set purpose, small sections, instead of laborious chapters. So the reader must be prepared rather, for the dropping of thoughts, than the beating out of ideas into gold-leaf form.

In spare moments here in the Southern Seas, his pen has been active, & it is the result of an active brain in an age of economic, scientific, & theological duress. But there is something more than mental activity, for as Goethe once said: “there is nothing more terrible as activity without insight.”

The days are strenuous, & there is much to unlearn, before we can dwell contentedly on the Growing Point of Truth. Whately long ago observed, we must neither lead nor leave men to mistake falsehood for Truth. Not to undeceive is to deceive.

Criticise & judge my views if you will, but the attitude of the author remains similar to Bruno’s before his Judges: “Greater perhaps (said Bruno) is your fear in pronouncing my sentence, than mine in hearing it.”

IDLENESS, NOT LAZINESS.

There is a great difference between the two, although we often hear them used as if they were synonymous. It may sound strange, but it is also true, that most of the useful & finest work in all spheres connected with the pioneering of the world’s progress has been done by idle men. This sounds paradoxical. It may be explained in this way: a servant in Charles Darwin’s family once said to someone: “M^r Darwin is an idle man, he has been two hours looking at a leaf!”

There has been lots of hypocritical Talk about work, & idleness, & mostly by people who themselves are not only idle, but lazy. They who praise Toil the loudest, usually do the least themselves, either in a way physical or mental. They are fond of the text, “in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread,” forgetting while they repeat the words, that they eat bread regularly, nay all their food, (& shelter & also clothes) comes from the labor of others. So the true rendering of the text should read: “Thou shalt not eat bread, by the sweat of another’s brow!” Such people are apt at quoting the adage about the busy bee, & also the ant, but neither of these wise insects are known to Sweat at their work. The busy bee works pleasantly for about six hours daily, for about five months in the year. The busy ant works when he feels like it. They can both sting & bite the interfering robber-capitalists too, especially the bee.

The whole of the Industrial world will be happier, & do better work also, when the psychology of the worker is better understood.

In a recent number of an American “Journal of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology,” there is an interesting article entitled, “Day Dreaming in a Spinning Mill.”

In a certain American mill every year one hundred hands have to be taken on in order to keep forty working. The spinners used to work five days in the week for ten hours a day, and the investigators who were called in some eighteen months ago rapidly discovered that almost every worker suffered from foot trouble & neuritis, & many complained of pessimistic reveries. At length two or three rest periods of ten minutes each were introduced. The morale rapidly improved, and the spinning department began to earn a bonus, which had never been done before. But owing to a heavy demand for goods last February the rest period system was abandoned. Production immediately went down, and absenteeism increased. Last April the management ordered that all hands should rest for ten minutes four times a day. Since then the output of this department has steadily improved again.

The prosperous country is not the land with the greatest output, not the nation that piles up the material wealth, & allows a few privileged people to be millionaires, & multi-millionaires, the land of prosperity is the land of happy workers, who have plenty of leisure, & have learnt the splendid art of idling. There is badly needed a new definition of the word Prosperity.

In his humorous way M^r. Dooley writes close to the root of common-sense:—“Get up” says Prosperity. “Get up, an’ hustle over to th’ rollin’ mills: there’s a man over there wants ye to carry a ton in coal on ye’er back—Prosperity grabs every man by th’ neck, an’ sets him shovellin’ slag & coke, or running up & down a ladder with a hod in mortar. Wurruk f’r the night is comin’! Get out, an hustle. Wurruk or ye can’t be unhappy; an’, if th’ wurruld isn’t unhappy, they’se no such a thing as Prosperity.”

THE BLESSINGS OF LEISURE.

I see action to be good, when the need is, and sitting still also to be good. One piece of a tree is cut for a weather cock, and one for the sleeper of a bridge; the virtue of the wood is apparent in both.

R. W. Emerson

The leisured classes forsooth! Who are they? By what Divine right are they leisured, while millions of folk are under life sentences to hard work, & what is worse than hard work—drudgery? I once saw a little book called: “Blessed be Drudgery” but I don’t believe a word of it, for no drudgery is blessed! If there was no so called “leisured class”, there would be no drudging class. The first is the cause of the second.

Yet there should be a leisured class, & every member of society should belong to it by a Divine right. Said Sir John Lubbock:

The advantage of leisure is mainly that we have power of choosing our work; not certainly that it confers any privilege of idleness.

The leisured class, as it is now known & recognized, enjoy the privileges of leisure, but only at the workers’ expense. The people who deserve leisure are the folk who do the world’s work. But where the leisured eat & drink & do not work in either physical or mental way, others are compelled through this, to work without the proper necessaries of life. One class is the necessary Sequence of the other here also.

Blessed be drudgery forsooth! The sane man will better ask, why this meaningless curse of everlasting toil? Why have I to spend my years turning the handle of the industrial machine & getting next to nothing from the business end of the machine? In fact, does machinery help the workers at all? Richard Jeffries truly said:—

“Mechanism increases convenience—in no degree does it confer physical or moral perfection. The rudimentary engines employed thousands of years ago in raising buildings were in that respect equal to the complicated machines of the present day. . . . Our bodies are now conveyed all around the world with ease, but obtain no advantage. As they start so they return.”

The workers of the world might well ask, as they face the world’s machinery today, “what contribution does all this vast array of wheels, cranks, engines, etc., make to the well being & happiness of society?” Echo answers, “what?” The true answer is, none, for the factories mean dwarfed, consumptive, stunted, physically crooked men & women. Worse even than that is, they also mean the slow destruction of man’s most sacred & Divine gift of Personality.

When everybody begins to work in earnest, it is soon found that there is not enough work to go round; and when everybody sets to work to produce more, the result is that we produce too much. The theory refutes itself as soon as any attempt is made to put into practice. The reason is not far to seek. Scientific ingenuity has provided us with machinery which has multiplied our productivity a hundredfold and more. The problem for economists and moralists of the school of Dean Inge is, therefore, simply this:—Given a machine which enables one man to do the work of a hundred, what are the ninety-and-nine to do? We should have thought the answer simple enough. Either the ninety-and-nine are to be left free to use this leisure at their own discretion, or they are to be engaged in work merely for work’s sake. The former alternative is what rouses the wrath of Dean Inge. It is the state of affairs he denounces as “the greatest idleness of the greatest number.” But how, in this mechanical age, is it to be avoided? By smashing the machines? It is one of Dean Inge’s many grievances against the working class that in the early days of the modern machinery they tried to adopt precisely this remedy of machine smashing. They, like the Dean, dreaded the prospect of being without work. But what are we to do? Yearly, and almost daily, the development of machinery is diminishing the amount of work necessary to produce a given result. At present, workers and capitalists are at their wits’ end to circumvent science by sneaking methods of sabotage. Is there any reason why the actual state of affairs should not be faced openly & honestly?

When the Industrial world control the machines, they will learn, that in a well ordered world, there is no need for drudgery or hard toil of any kind. Four hours work daily is sufficient if there are no idlers.

THE MEANING OF WORK & LEISURE.

The buzz, the whirr, the rush, the bustle, of modern machine life cannot last, if it does it will kill Humanity, & the world will be left to the machines. Or as the quaint, humorous, Samuel Butler suggested, the intelligence of the workers would, in the end, pass from the men into the machines, & the workers would become the slaves of the machines. They have so in part already. The machines drive the men more than the men drive the machines. We learn, that in England last year, the inmates of the mental hospitals were increased by many thousands, & the increasing toll goes on year by year. Today’s cable news states that the toll of life on the roads of America for last year by automobile accidents alone was over 30,000, & among that number over 5000 children. Amid this insane whirl, life on the planet is not worth living. It is no place for a quiet soul: a Godly soul!

A quiet soul, going about his many duties with a sureness that was not so much in his speech as in his spirit, President Samuel Valentine Cole, President of Wheaton College, has made the transit to the place of immorality. He was a poet of real skill, and among his verses there is the well-remembered piece, “In Silence.” It is a plea, high & far from that of a stoic, for one to go about his work without fretting because praise is not forthcoming at every turn. Two stanzas have a memorable quality:

I hear the traffic in the street,

But not the white worlds o’er the town;

I heard the gun at sunset roar,

I did not hear the sun go down.

Are work & workman greater when

The trumpet blows their fame abroad?

Nowhere on earth is found the man

Who works as silently as God.

The word “Sabotage,” is usually in conversation, when talking about the wickedness of Industrialism, but it can also be applied truthfully to the Capitalism of the day. When we think of the tricks of the traders, such as adulteration, cornering markets, speeding up, shortening hours, & using the newspapers for cooking news, what after all are they but the weapons of Sabotage? Are they more moral than the weapons of the workers, when throwing a monkey-wrench into a machine to wilfully disable it? The worst Sabotage of all is the state inventions for destructive war purposes. Nothing is more influential than that!

The truth is that today Labor cannot be creative & artistic, for Capitalism demands human machines & wage slavery.

Creative work is impossible without time for work, & much time for leisure. Creative work is Inspirational, & therefore Divine. Norman Gale well says:

To-day the man who does not shrink from communion with his private angel can hear, when alone in the wild, only the whispering he rejoices to hear—the whisper of Solitude found where she is ready to dispense her largest blessings. There she anoints us with spikenard taken from the box that she keeps only in the wilderness.

These are the days when we hear a lot about “Listening-in”. But who has the leisure to listen in & hear the still small voice of creative art? Who has the time to be with the prophet in Solitude? This “Listening-in” produced Plato, Dante, Milton & G. B. Shaw. They leisured, the uninitiated called them lazy! Plato wrote & re-wrote pages thirteen times! Maratti sketched heads thirty times! That was not machine work—they were Creators!

LOAFE & INVITE YOUR SOULS.

Such was the advice of Walt Whitman, & never was there a day when the advice was more needed. The rapidity of trains were a worry to John Ruskin, but had he lived in our time amid the automobiles on the roads, he would have found life almost unbearable. Trade & rush! Rush & Trade! It is all very well if man is only a body, & has no soul. But he is a soul, & has a body. That being so he needs leisure & time to nourish the soul. Well spent idleness is the most sacred & valuable experience on the earth. To be your own master & with leisure to think & be really free is one of the greatest privileges in life. Nothing is equal to it—no property—no wealth—no amount of money, or number of jewels, are equal to it.

From that kind of leisured freedom has come all that is best in the world. If we reach the treasures in literature, or the treasures in the art galleries, or inventions, we find that they were at least conceived in idleness, not laziness. That is they were exempt from arbitrary labor masters.

Richard Jefferies was right. Idleness is a wonderful thing. When men are free to please themselves, then by a necessity of their being they will cultivate the best of which they are capable, and civilised life will rise to heights of creation and enjoyment of which to-day we can only dream.

In the “Story of my Heart”, Jeffries put it tersely & splendidly: “I hope succeeding generations will be able to be idle. I hope that nine-tenths of their time will be leisure time; that they may enjoy their days & the earth, & the beauty of the beautiful world; that they may rest by the sea & dream; that they may dance & sing & eat & drink. I will work towards that end with all my heart.”

But Jeffries was not exalting laziness! His idleness was music, laziness is discord. His idleness was fertile, laziness is sterile. His idleness was emancipating, laziness is fettering.

No country in the world needs this teaching so much as America, & it was an American who coined the sentence: “Loafe & invite your souls!” It is having a little result for an American writer says:

—in the days, only a little while ago, when this picturesque hill overlooking the Wisconsin River and its beautiful valley, then to a large extent wooded, served as a veritable “lodge in the wilderness,” where, far from the madding crowd of cities and towns, and far removed from all reminders of regular work and cares and responsibilities of the rest of the year, a company of from forty to sixty congenial friends from many places in the West, but largely from great hurrying and restless Chicago, gathered for six to eight weeks every summer during fifteen or twenty years, “just to rest body and mind,” as some of the tired teachers and preachers said; or to “loaf and invite their souls,” as Walt Whitman would have put it; or, as ~~Mr. Jones~~, the great-souled poet and preacher who established the Camp and was always its “inspiration,” expressed it, “to escape the artificialities, the noise, and wear of our modern rushing life, and for a little while, in a quiet and picturesque place, snuggle down in Mother Nature’s arms, with leisure to listen to her birds, to watch her stars and her sunsets, to enjoy the close companionship of a few dear friends, and, alone or with others of like mind, to read and revel in some of world’s great, noble, uplifting, & fascinating books”?

SITTING STILL A DIFFICULT LESSON.

Pascal once said: “Most of the mischief of the world arises from the fact that we do not know how to sit still in a room.” There is much truth in that. I recall an elderly Scotch woman, who was the mother of a grown up family. She was always fussing & bustling around from the time she got out of bed until she got back into it at night. When getting about sixty years of age the sons & daughters got together to discuss a birthday present for mother. An easy chair was just the thing! So they agreed to buy one. It came & the present was made. But she didn’t know even how to sit in it. She perched on the edge of it. “Sit back mother! Sit right back mother,” they cried out. “But I’m no used to sich things,” said the poor old soul.

The everlasting moving around is almost a mental disease with some folk. The same old motherly soul was also familiar with scripture & drilled all her sons & daughters in Biblical lore. But she had evidently overlooked passages such as these:—“Be still, & know that I am God!” again, “Their Strength is to sit still!” & yet again; “Stand still & see the salvation of the Lord!” What too of the lesson of Jesus about Mary & Martha? It was not the fussing & bustling Martha who was commended, but the idle Mary. She knew how to sit still! It is easier to chop a load of wood than to sit still & think.

The Americans do not know how to sit still. When they try to sit still, they place chewing-gum in their mouths & work their jaws at double the speed. Statisticians compute that Americans spent ninety millions of dollars (about eighteen million pounds) for chewing-gum last year. This averages fifteen packets of chewing-gum for every man, woman & child in the United States! The schools often have a low shelf in the porch for the children to place their chewing-gum after extracting it from their mouths when entering the schools. Where teachers are fond of chewing themselves the children are allowed to keep their jaws working in unison with their teachers during school hours!

The enterprising Yankees tried to get the Chinese to take to chewing-gum, what a fortune could be made if only, five hundred millions of Chinese could only be induced to chew gum! But John Chinaman was not wanting any. He knew how to work leisurely & after working, to sit still. The Orientals have learned the art of contemplation, & they keep sane & do not need the everlasting additions & wings to mental hospitals.

When Wordsworth spoke to his sister Dorothy, he also tried to speak to Humanity:—

My sister! (’tis a wish of mine)

Now that our morning meal is done,

Make haste, your morning task resign;

Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you—and, pray,

Put on with speed your woodland dress;

And bring no book: for this one day

We’ll give to idleness.

Love, now a universal birth,

From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth:

It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more

Than years of toiling reason:

Our minds shall drink at every pore

The spirit of the season.

And from the blessed power that rolls

About, below, above,

We’ll frame the measure of our souls:

They shall be tuned to love.

AMBITIONS TO BE QUIET.

That is the R.V. of a familiar New Testament text, & also a better & more suggestive rendering from the old. So reader, search it out, it will do you good.

Numbers of people have this ambition to be quiet & at leisure, in a latent way perhaps it has been handed on from our lowly origins. The latent pull may be a hark back to remote times. The negro who had been in deep trouble was asked if he did not worry? “Worry,” replied he, “Yes I was full of worries.” “How then do you shake off worry?” again asked the white interlocutor. “Oh,” came the answer, “when I’m worried I just sit down in the sun & go to sleep!”

That Divine gift of sleep, is just what modern civilisation will not allow. Amid the tumultuous storm on the sea, Jesus was found asleep on a pillow! The coloured philosopher was seemingly, nearer the example of the master than the rushing, toiling, spinning, Christians who boast of a higher civilization.

In an interview granted to a lady contributor of “Current Opinion,” General Smuts says, “Unquestionably life has had separate origins. It has sprung up and died out & sprung up in other places. And we may go—just as the Neanderthal man has gone. We may go. The problem of life is too much for man. We are at war with ourselves. We are in this frame of earth, and God has given us a soul . . . and we strive and fight . . . and the consciousness of the world and the sorrows of it wear us out. The only happy man I know is the black. He is a distinct race. The black will work all day, work as hard as you can make him. But night comes, he eats his bellyful, he sings. He has the secret of happiness.”

He touched his breast, half smiling, “We others, we have too much here. It is too much for us, and we may go and another race take our place.”

Margot Asquith, in her writings (pardon the title, I have no care for them, says the wise old proverb, “a nod from the Duke is a breakfast for a fool!”) says that her mother could never sit still & yet maybe that same mother rejoiced in the book that says in quietness & peace shall be thy strength. The desire for work & to be always working, becomes a kind of fixed idea, a mental disease, a form of insanity.

What after all is the meaning of work? Nature teaches that a certain amount of labor brings a reward. Very good. But Nature also teaches that work should be limited & pleasant—certainly not laborious & continuous.

At the present day, the results of labor does not bring its reward—it does bring rewards to the few privileged folk who manage to ride through life straddled on the back of labour. Privilege gets the reward & not labor! By the sweating toil of others, privilege is able to take another tour abroad, to buy another fur coat, to become the owner of the latest automobile.

The old Chinese monarch sent heralds abroad, seeking a new pleasure & offering a fine reward for the one who could suggest it.

One of his industrious & happy but poor subjects, said “Tell the King a new pleasure to him would be to do as I am doing, busy himself awhile among the plants, flowers & vegetables without a shirt & feel the nice warm sun on his skin.” The King tried it, liked it, & sent an unexpected reward.

A rich source of happiness is joyful & pleasant work, not toil, not slavery. A richer source of happiness after it is plenty of time for leisure.

History says that some of the busiest people have been at times the most cruel. Two, who could not be still for a moment were Nero & also Peter the Great!

Reader, keep in mind the words, “Be still, & know that I am God.” Your fears will soon take to themselves wings & fly away. Another American has uttered a useful experience.

“You ask me what we are afraid of? I cannot tell, exactly. Perhaps it was hard times, perhaps fear of being beaten in the race; though I think it was mostly terror of that outer darkness always just a step ahead of us, for, not believing in God, we could see nothing in the future.

“Finally, I discovered that the only way of escape, positively the only way, was through a dominant faith in God. The road to that belief was not a smooth one. It was rough, & there were formidable mountain-peaks to scale. I was literally beaten and battered into a faith. But once you have the feeling—then follows consolation indescribable. You have a certain gratification, as when you listen to sweet music. It is the satisfaction of hunger and thirst appeased. It is not an intellectual process. You may not tell whence it comes or how. But it warms you, enthuses the whole being. In an intangible way you feel power surging through you, as an electric currents surges from a dynamo through the electric wire. This feeling of the intimate presence of God may be cultivated. Practice increases the sense. But one must exercise the greatest care with the technique. There were ten years when I neither prayed nor thought of prayer. Now I pray every hour, sometimes audibly, but oftener the words are unspoken. Prayer helps one tune in with the Infinite, but a person must get the proper wave length.

“I think this experience comes in one form or another to every man. My business associates tried to kill the soul, but they could not do it. Sooner or later the thing will thrust itself up like the ghost at the feast and will not down. I can think of no instance in my experience where a person succeeded in altogether disposing of it.”

IS MACHINERY A BLESSING?

It should be—it could be—if the people who attended the machine were able to own & manage them. The factories in a world of sanity & justice should be managed & controlled from the work shop & not the office.

Emerson once said that steam was almost an Englishman. If so then we retort that an American is almost a machine. I once told a bustling Yankee that he reminded me of a spark plug on two legs. They become nervous wrecks & drug addicts after a few years of this speeding up. It is contrary to God & also nature. This drug habit is infesting New Zealand since the rushing motor cars came, one

“said drug addicts throughout the world could be numbered by millions and they were rapidly increasing. The supply of morphia and other similar drugs was to a great extent conducted through illegitimate channels, for those qualified had hardly anything to do with that trade. It was asked what reason existed for the spread of the vice of drug taking. Perhaps it was due to the strenuousness of modern life and the unnatural life in the cities. It produced idle, bored and mental weaklings.”

Instead of machinery being a blessing to mankind in the way of increasing goods & thereby increasing leisure, they are used in a contrary way. Is the future generation going to embrace the blessing of inventions & machinery or spurn it? Are the Pradgrinds, & the busybodies to continue to infest the world for profits, or will the people get control & own the machine for use? Commercialism at present is run on the immoral value of goods! The future must see that the ethical value, the value of men is the controlling principle!

The new order, if allowed to come, would mean peace & rest to the capitalists themselves. Recently I rode in an automobile with a well to do business man about my own age. He gave a lift in a friendly way. People pity you in these days when they see you walking. When talking to him, I spoke about the rush & tear of the modern money-making life. I asked when he was going to cease the dollar-chasing & settle quietly for some leisure. “Yes,” said he, “I am intending to do it, in a month I am taking a trip to England & intend to start enjoying myself.” Very good! But a few days ago I take up the newspaper & read a cable message that the day before the boat he travelled on, reached the shores of old Albion, he died. Suddenly!

That man was typical of multitudes today. They exist for fifty years or maybe sixty & pass out. They have never lived!

The Divine art of leisure they have never learnt. Life itself, they are ignorant of placing aside the Life more abundantly!

“Nowhere”, says James Martineau, “can you find any beautiful work, any noble design, any durable endeavour, that was not matured in long and patient silence.” John the Baptist & Paul were both trained in the desert of Arabia; Buddha and Mahomet both found inspiration when separated apart from men; and, to come to recent times in our land, the soul of Milton was “like a star that dwelt apart,” and Wordsworth had visions that “flashed upon his inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude.”

The world must stop its speed & return to family. It cannot be done under the modern commercialised form of society. The bane of our social order, or rather social disorder, is that trinity curse of Rent, Interest & Profit. The key to the future is production for use. The people who do the work of the world must control the world’s work. They & no others!

A RED CARPET.

Recently in Melbourne, a deputation of workers on the railways, waited on the Government authorities, to request that the placing of a red strip of carpet on the platform, on the arrival & departure of Vice Regal passengers, should be dispensed with.

The Minister said, “Surely you are not going to discuss that seriously! You might as well protest against the Governor General wearing a cocked hat!”

The deputation assured the Minister for Railways that it was serious. The custom was out of date, & it gave the station staff much unnecessary trouble, & the Vice Regal parties, often omitted to tread on the carpet, which was spread for their benefit.

Now any person in these days, who had merely touched the fringe of democracy, would sympathise with the deputation. These silly displays might have been accepted in good faith, when Queen Elizabeth was abroad in the old land, but today in these new lands, the whole thing is not only needless but stupid. Even in London it is out of place in these times.

Besides, if as the deputation said, that sometimes the Regal folk avoided the carpet, it shows they themselves have a grain more sense than the lickspittle people who are responsible for putting it down. The sensible members of the Vice Regal people know how ridiculous it is.

Also, it is time the cocked hats were jettisoned. Not long ago, I stood outside Westminster Abbey, when there was some high function going on inside, & as there was a crowd waiting to see the grand military, & navel moguls come out, I also waited. Patience rewarded me. There were soon streaming out, cocked hats in great numbers. The cockneys seemed awed at the sight, but at least one over-seas onlooker, stood philosophising at the empty display, & the cocked hats especially, for each had a tuft of rooster-feathers on the top waving in the wind. My mind reverted to the Chinese processions, on some oriental gala day. To the western mind, that is all grotesque, & the Westminster Abbey display was no more intelligent to the eastern mind.

Besides, can all this useless expence be afforded? This Vice Regal expence is indirect, & we know not what it costs. But the monarchs we partly know:

A pamphlet issued by German Republicans gives a list of royal salaries which includes the following instances:

King of Siam	£700,000
King of Italy	640,000
King of England	580,000
Emperor of Japan	450,000
King of Spain	355,000
King of the Belgians	215,000

The lowest paid monarch is the King of Norway, who has to eke out his royal existence on a miserable pittance of £48,800 a year.

THE “KEY-STONE” THAT LOCKS THE ARCH.

There is a reason, a vital reason, why interested people want to keep Royalty (& in these over-sea parts, Vice Regal people) in the seats of the mighty. The reason is, that in Britain, the King is the “Key-Stone” of an arch. Picture for a moment the arch, with all the stones forming it. On each stone write a word, Privilege, Exploiting, Commercialism, Capitalism, Militarism, Imperialism, Nationalism, & Aristocracy. Eight stones, four on each side, place the word “King” on the central “Key Stone,” & the whole arch which represents our unjust social system is locked together.

Not only locked, but interlocked! So the social injustices persist, & the Republican Governments of the world, are held back by the Monarchies.

The Republican Governments cannot shake off the Capitalist, Imperialist, & Military system while the Monarchical Governments remain. While they persist, the twin-evils of Monarchs & Millionaires will also persist. The truth is, we cannot afford either. While they remain, there must be slums, poverty & unemployment.

“ECONOMISTS SHOW THAT IN PRE-WAR DAYS THE MILLIONAIRE BY MERELY SPENDING HIS INCOME GAVE EMPLOYMENT TO FIVE HUNDRED MEN. THIS HAS OFTEN BEEN USED AS ONE OF THE ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF THE MILLIONAIRE, THAT BY SPENDING HIS MONEY HE ‘GAVE EMPLOYMENT.’ QUITE TRUE. BUT IF SOMEBODY ELSE SPENT THE MONEY IT WOULD GIVE THE SAME AMOUNT OF EMPLOYMENT.

THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THAT THE AVERAGE MILLIONAIRE WHO SPENDS THE YEAR IN THE USUAL ROUND—THE SEASON, POLO, DINNERS, DANCES IN THE SUMMER, GROUSE SHOOTING, AND THEN HUNTING IN THE AUTUMN, MONTE CARLO AND THEN FISHING IN THE SPRING, WITH RACING ADDED ALL THE YEAR ROUND, GIVES EMPLOYMENT TO THE 500 PEOPLE ON LUXURY EXPENDITURE. IF, INSTEAD OF HIS INHERITING THIS MONEY, IT HAD BEEN TAKEN BY THE STATE IN THE FORM OF DEATH DUTIES AND SPENT IN DEVELOPING EDUCATION AND PUBLIC HEALTH, THOSE MEN WOULD HAVE BEEN EMPLOYED, NOT AS GROOMS OR BOOKMAKERS OR CROUPIERS, BUT AS TEACHERS OR SANITARY INSPECTORS OR HEALTH VISITORS.

THE SONS OF THE RICH ARE RICH, WHETHER THEY WORK OR NOT. THE SONS OF THE POOR, WHO HAVE TO WORK, ARE POOR.”

All this, may sound strange to some who have never given it a thought. All things are strange, when they conflict with custom. Montaigne said truly: “Whatever is off the hinges of custom, is believed to be off the hinges of reason; though how unreasonably for the most part, God only knows.”

Take the simple matter of food. In Scotland they flourish on oatmeal. Such food to many English people is not reasonable, they would prefer to starve. In Germany, rabbits are loathed as food, & likewise frogs in England, & both are quite outside the bounds of reason. In France to eat sauer-kraut is not rational.

The gentility of old Rome, ate fat snails; we shudder! Yet we eat prawns & oysters!

WHAT IS A SWEET EXISTENCE?

Old Omar Khayyam the Persian poet of the eleventh century says: “In this world, he who possesses a morsel of bread, & some nest in which to shelter himself, who is master or slave of no man, tell that man to live content; he possesses a very sweet existence.”

Well said Omar! Yet for a thousand years after you, we have not attained to this philosophy. On this Sunday morning, I sit on the Tauranga wharf in the sunshine, & ponder the fact. Tomorrow is the shortest day in the year, & it is midwinter. Some steam holiday launches are going out with their pleasure parties. In the distance stands, at the end of a low-lying strip of land, an extinct volcano, Mount Maunganui. The sheen of the beautiful sub-tropical midwinter sun is dancing across the face of the waters.

It all comes to me afresh, that man with a very little, could have a very sweet existence. But the fact is—he does not. The Maoris do, or at least did, until the entry of the grasping & anxious Christians. Even by the contact of the Europeans, they are much happier than their overlords, who, in a way, pity & despise them. Watching them last night, Saturday, in the main street of this beautiful little town, they seemed more happy, & carried the sweet existence smile on their faces, much better than the Christians, who give money in order to convert them. What is the secret of it?

The answer is, the Maoris refuse to be civilized too much. They cling in their settlements to their communal habits, & are the happier thereby. In a dim way they vaguely sense the socialist ideal, one for all & all for one.

They are happier thereby, but not so happy as they were prior to the entry of the civilized Christians. In these days, they did on occasion, indulge in a cannibalistic feast, but it was not for the killing alone, it was for food. In the Christian wars of Europe they kill for the mere sake of killing. They pile up millions of bodies & bury them. They select the best of the young virile life for the shambles. The old day Maoris were wise compared to this! They did not kill a human being to waste the rich protein in the flesh.

When we look at Europe today, especially the working population of Great Britain, a sensible man will ask, “Why this waste?” & what have we gained? We are told we won the war! But what have we won? The truthful answer is, we have won dear food, dear clothes, dear rents, dear boots, dear books, lower wages, longer working hours, also an army of limbless, broken down, nerve shattered, & in many instances syphilitic men who are ruined as parents, worse than ruined, for if they dare to become parents, their children are damned from birth.

Omar! Dear old friend—while capitalism persists, & its necessary sequence Militarism, & war, there can be no simple happy life, & a sweet existence. The songs of Communism are not the songs of the Capitalists:

A TOLL THAT CEASES NOT.

The New Zealand government steamer has just returned from the islands, & reports that a stoker fell overboard at sea & was drowned. It is so ordinary that no one takes any notice of it. No comment is made. A widow & children, maybe, are in tears, but what of that?

Reader! Have you ever been to sea? Have you ever watched the stokers come up from the bowels of the ship for a breath of air, with a grime covered face, & sweat tracks close together? Pale, & showing signs of faintness? Well, they often for a few moments, sit on the side of the ship, & enjoy a cool breather. But now & again, one faints & slips over, the cool sea water soon recovers them, & they shout, & swim for dear life. There is little hope at night for their recovery. All this is not exaggeration, the case referred to is very ordinary. In the Red Sea & other tropical seas, it is fairly common for these poor sweating, toiling slaves to jump over into the blue ocean in a sudden fit of insanity, caused by the hell of the stoke-hold. But it is nothing, he is only a common worker! Sometimes, good smart seamanship on the part of the Captain & officers make a gallant recovery:

Mr. T~~ony~~ M~~adison~~, an American citizen and stoker on board the cargo steamer Ripley Castle, that arrived here this week, considers that he has had one of the luckiest escapes from drowning in the history of the sea. When the vessel was nearing the Equator on the voyage from Philadelphia to Cape Town, he fell overboard just after midnight and was in the water for one and a half hours before he was rescued.

“Overcome with the heat of the stoke-hold, I had staggered on deck for fresh air and a cup of cold water,” Mr. M~~adison~~ said. “I must have lost consciousness then, for the next thing I saw was the stern of the ship passing me. How I escaped being sucked into the wash of the propeller I don’t know. I was wearing shoes, socks, dungaree trousers and a shirt. I soon kicked my shoes off and I managed to get rid of my trousers. Then I floated, watching the lights of the ship vanishing into the distance. There seemed little hope of rescue, for no one had heard my frantic shout as I hit the water. But I had strength, the water was warm enough and I made up my mind not to give in.

“After a long time I saw the lights of the ship again and I thought that she was still steaming away, and that I had seen them from the top of a wave higher than the rest. But the ship was on her way back. Other stokers had noticed I was missing and had reported it to the captain. He turned round and steamed back over the same course. I was half dazed and could not understand why there was a large red light close by. It was the steamer’s port light, and when they threw lifebuoys with flares into the water I realised that help had arrived. They lowered a boat and dragged me into it—one and a-half hours after I had fallen overboard.

“I am not a particularly strong man and I have certainly never won any prizes as a swimmer,” said Mr. M~~adison~~, “but I made up my mind not to drown while I had enough strength left to keep on the surface, and that saved me.” The captain of the Ripley Castle corroborated M~~adison’s~~ story in every particular.

These men, you say, drink! Well, I guess I would, & so would you, if we were chained to this work! Drink? I would maybe drink like the proverbial fish! We would better the camel who can go, they say, seventeen days without a drink—but if I was damned to such toil probably I would drink seventeen days without stoking! Thank God they can get drink & forget the work!

The late Fredrick Harrison was not a Socialist, as the word is ordinarily accepted, but he was right when saying that ninety per cent of the actual producers of wealth have no home that they can call their own beyond the end of the week; have no bit of soil, or so much as a room that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any kind, except as much old furniture as will go in an old cart. Good enough for stokers!

HAIL THE REVOLUTION!

Every good man wants it! Every good man lives for it! Every genuine religious man prays for it! Dear God! May I be spared to see it, & share its delights. This is not thoughtless, for there are horrors unceasing at present. A long drawn out agony. What is the torture of a short Revolution, in comparison to the want, unemployment, (when working,) the grinding wages, & all the social injustices of modern commercialism, where wolf-like all are compelled to compete with each other? Again, a good man, a Divine woman, will long & pray for the Revolution as Mary the mother of Jesus did. Read the “Magnificat” slowly & allow her Revolutionary utterances to percolate into your mind!

Besides—no Revolution could ever equal in horrors the doings in the great war. All that sacrifice too, was useless, & misplaced for it accomplished nothing, only piling up debts that can never be paid, except by mortgaging labor for centuries. It brought no good, except to the profiteers. All the world is worse off. God will not allow the world to revert to pre-war conditions, the planners & schemers, of the great tragedy are being brought to confusion & the end is not yet. The late twenties will ripen matters!

Twelve millions of lives wasted! Twenty millions of lives broken! All to no purpose!

A practical part of this sacrifice would bring about a successful Revolution. In this struggle there would be a purpose! It could be accomplished without violence or bloodshed, with planning & much thought. The great combat must be carried out with man’s greatest weapon. The weapons of IDEAS! Ideas are more powerful than bombs, more deadly than poison gas! If all the nitro-glycerine in the world was placed together for one grand explosion in a material way, it could not be compared to the release of a Divine, Spiritual & Revolutionary idea. The one who founded Christianity released that Idea! It is to be found in the most Revolutionary prayer ever uttered:—“Thy Kingdom come!”

There can be no hate, no war, no soldiers, no exploiting, no rent, no interest, no profit, no nationalism, no Imperialism, no capitalism, in that Kingdom!

CAN “SOCIALISM” BE A RELIGION?

Where minds are consecrated to the betterment of the world, & also are sacrificing themselves for that purpose, in order to bring the kingdom of peace, goodwill & brotherhood on the earth, they are religious people. It is the same Divine Spirit activating them that also was the motive power in Jesus & the Disciples. They love “Good” & that is another name for “God”—the word “Good” is the word God—the difference being that it has an extra letter “o”. In like manner the word “devil” is the word “evil” with the letter “d” placed in front of it. This explanation does not eliminate God from the Universe, for God is Immanent Spirit, filling & flooding all things. In Him, we live & move & have our being. “He is closer than breathing, nearer than hands & feet.” If Socialists never pray, & refuse to enter an orthodox church, & yet live for the founding of God’s Kingdom on the earth, (& maybe without knowing it,) they still remain more truly religious than the folk who repeat the Creeds, & learn the catechisms, attend Communion Services, & go through all the mental assents towards traditional dogmas, & yet neglect the Kingdom of Peace on the earth.

If there be a Deity to face, (though Judgment in reality never ceases on the earth!) I would rather stand before the Great Judge as a Socialist, than as an ordinary Christian that defends militarism & champions war, & also winks at the social injustices. Why? Because the Judge of all the earth shall do right!

The average worshipper has a very mistaken notion as to what religion is. The word “notion”, by the way, is the correct word here, for when in America I often saw in small shops these words: “Notions sold here.” It struck me as strange & I enquired as to the meaning. The answer was, in America we call pins, needles, tape & such like things “Notions”. Little insignificant things! So the popular church-going of the day is not a serious thing at all, it is small, petty & insignificant.

This “notion” is the sort of thing, despised in sarcastic terms by the socialists of today. Very few of them know Latin, but the Latin phrase they would be delighted in:—

Without Latin, how often have I heard them say in almost the same words: “Too much religion makes me sick?”

You cannot catch them with chaff & husks. They know peace is the ally of wisdom, & far-sighted human consideration for humble lives. Also that war is the ally of egotism, anger, cruelty, & vainglory. Peace is the unshakeable courage of sanity; war is the red blind courage of madness. They know the churches defend war & militarism.

PERSONAL. IS THIS SOCIALIST A RELIGIOUS MAN?

You have a right to ask it reader. Many years ago he was tried for heresy in the Presbyterian Church. As Ian Maclaren used to say, in Scotland heresy hunting is the national sport. Nobody really dislikes a heretic, that is if he is game & gives them, for their money, a good run. I gave the Presbytery a short quick run & still retain the title “Reverend”, perhaps to annoy the auld lichts. “What you a Minister? Well I should never have thought it,” said one. He was right, I don’t feel a little bit reverend at times, in fact quite the other way when the social wrongs are before me.

The ordinary cleric is known by the “holy tone” style of talk. The “brother-how’s-your-soul,” way of greeting. Also the pervading spirit carried into all company of “Let-us-rise-&-sing-that-grand-old-hymn, manner.” These things, the writer has dropped, & yet he claims to be religious. My sons have not been trained either, as what the Americans choose to call “religious Lizzie-boys,” & yet they are all turning out well, not one black sheep among them. Parsons’ children too are proverbial black sheep!

The parsonic, dog-collar I, too, have discarded, with all the outward signs of the pulpit dress, I leave them to the undertaker. My wife likes me all the better & so she does not say in the language of M^rs Malaprop: “Here comes my husband in the garbage of a monk!”

Sometimes, people yet approach me, when in trouble, but very few now do so as they did of yore, wanting to discuss about, & reveal to me, their spiritual insides.

Fifteen years ago, I became a Unitarian, but strange to relate, I have very little in common with that movement either. But they give me a free platform & so happiness is mine, but no stipend. They do not require me to preach the Hell dogma. To some, that seems a pity, for one said: “The Unitarians believe that everybody will be saved, but we hope for better things!”

Said one orthodox parson, on the subject of the eternal burnings:—“If I did not believe in fire & brimstone, I’d steal!” So to him, hell was the hangman’s rope to keep the wretch in order. Anyway, it is good, I have not to sit in that man’s church, & listen to him, for when he belauded hell & damnation, I would have to hold my nose. We leave these middle-age beliefs now to the Pharisees, with all their theological splitting of hairs. The Pharisees discussed of old, whether an egg laid on the Sunday could be eaten on Monday without sin? These things now trouble me not!

In the matter of these peccadilloes, I am like the old negress who was asked by her mistress whether she ought to attend the communion service? For she asked her:—“What about that goose you stole last week?” “Lor missus,” she replied in vast surprise, “do you think I’d let an old goose stand betwixt me & my blessed Lord & master?”

But I am not frivolous, reader! A schoolmaster son of ours, recently married, wrote a letter to his mother & father, asking what was the secret of the beautiful way he had been brought up? What really were the religious beliefs we held? Write & explain, for they followed & haunted him.

A woman speaker & also known the world over, she is old now, but she has passed through many shades of thought, was in dire mental trouble & perplexity about the year 1875. She then wisely wrote:—

NEW ZEALAND’S OPPORTUNITY.

By the Imperialist Politicians our fair young land has been switched from the path of God & Right. These men are not Statesmen but merely politicians, who have the unwavering eye on the next election. It is not New Zealand they love so much, as the future possible honors that may come their way on a King’s Birthday or some future New Year, when titles & sugar-plums are thrown across the seas from London. They are politicians, (odious word!) not Statesmen, but men of expediency, what Nietzsche rightly calls “Soft-treaders.” These men would have this young land follow in the path of the older land, with its thousand years of bloody wars, & steaming in Europe’s everlasting hates.

We are ready for a Statesman, but there is not one in sight, a man who will steer this land clear of Imperialism. One who will extend hands across the Pacific, to all who are willing to stretch their hands.

We are ready for the real, the genuine patriotism, the Divine seal upon it, that patriotism expresses itself in world-neighbourliness. We are tired of that false brand of jingo-patriotism, of the flag-flapping & profiteering brand, expressing itself in military conscription & enthusiasm for war, when occasion offers. There is a growing feeling abroad, based upon common horse-sense, that the only patriotism acceptable in God’s sight, finds expression in upholding the hands of those who are working to avert war by culturing the Spirit of Universal Brotherhood. To prove that this spirit is not a mere personal matter, but growing daily, the following will prove it. It has been addressed to the citizens of New Zealand & the ever-growing figures of the prosecuted lads, who refuse to drill. These young men are amongst the most alert, & intelligent of the country. They have something better than the animal courage of the soldier, they have moral courage:

Are you satisfied to let New Zealand remain a Conscript country? Do you want to be more Militaristic than Great Britain, where there is neither boy nor adult conscription?

Do you know that OVER 40,000 LADS have been prosecuted during the past 15 years, and that convictions at the rate of 2,000 per year are now taking place? Thus from 40 to 50 youths face the Courts every week.

“But,” you will say, “we should be glad to do away with conscription if we could feel safe. The League of Nations has not secured disarmament.”

Will your support of Conscription help the League?

Are you satisfied with your Representation on the League?

Do you think that those who advance Conscription and have been Ministers of War, or believe in the compulsory saluting of national flags and the glory of Empire will ever bring peace among Nations? World experience proves that they will not.

Ask YOUR MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT to work for the repeal of Conscription.

Ask him to favour the appointment of really world-minded and genuine peace-loving Representatives for New Zealand on the League of Nations.

This land is wanting & waiting for the Imperial slogans to be cast aside. We have been duped too long with the words & phrases of a false loyalty. We have been the slaves of a bogus Terminology. In the S. African war with the Boers & also in the world war, the public were definitely & effectively psychologised by the designing Imperialist politicians. Imperial slogans were thrown out, & the public mistook the slogans for ideas. They had the name, but not the idea. It is not “Imperial Unity” we want in these Southern Pacific Seas, it is Universal Unity, a somewhat different thing. We are going to Change the Terms & adjust the stupid institutions to our own Divine Ideals, & modern Tendencies & thereby model our Terminology upon the Ideals of a new civilisation.

NEW ZEALAND’S GROWING REVOLT.

During the last decade especially, our visions & ideals in these pacific islands have suffered a shock, & our intellectual rebels are contributing in a slow but effective way towards a better goal. This growing revolt is a necessary factor to the change that lies ahead. The unthinking crowd in the meantime, do not entirely grasp the cause of the revolt in ideas. But it is slowly dawning upon the most unintelligent, that war & militarism, is the assassin of democracy. As a matter of fact we have never had Democracy in New Zealand. You can vote here on non-essentials but you cannot use the ballot-box on any vital matter. There is very little publicity about many Imperial & Military doings, they leak out slowly when it is too late for repeal & make alteration, & the public are hoodwinked by all kinds of party issues that divides the voting.

But we are going to demand the fullest publicity in all matters, for it is the greatest safeguard against the autocratic designs of the Imperial-Capitalist-Militarists. We are beginning to hate the spirit of this evil Trinity, for it is in bad odour & is repugnant to the fundamental principles of Social-Democracy. There is a growing, & a higher ethic abroad; a developing mind & conscience that looks upon any man who brags about his Empire, his military & naval power, his boys of the bull-dog breed, as a blasphemer, when he links the Universal Mother-Father God to them.

The war & its aftermath, taught us that, after all the prating about Democracy, we were merely the puppets & creatures of an absolute State. The idea has to go, we are determined to bring about the responsible State, a State subject to the moral law written deep in the soul of the average man & woman. That indelible moral law, is at present crushed beneath wheels of the Imperial Juggernaut. There is going to be a New State, when the Revolution develops in England, will be our chance to create it, & see that it is subject, not to Imperial designs of debts & slaughter, but to the moral law of God’s Fatherhood, & thereby as a necessary sequence, Mass Brotherhood; that coming State will have a decent regard, not to England, but to Mankind.

We are tired of being tied to the apron-strings of the so-called Mother-land, for it is time we learned to fend & rely upon ourselves. In this land, Imperialism has killed initiative, except the initiative connected with Mammon-Art. Literary talent, Artistic talent, Inventive talent, is almost a dead thing in this country. When we break away from the present shackles as rebellious America did, then, like her, we shall expect a great surge of inventive genius. Imperialism chloroforms it, except in Military form. We are hungering to invent, to organise & to achieve, also to assume wonderful initiative in all directions. Alas! at the present, the Imperial millstone hangs about New Zealand’s neck, & at the moment our one Ideal is Imperial Preference whereby the profiteers in London extend hands across the seas, & pick the pockets of our workers, & whereby the profiteers of New Zealand extend hands across the seas, & pick the pockets of Britain’s millions. So they dazzle the people at both ends, while the Union Jack is waved, & the National Anthem is sung. Some workers unthinkingly stand for it, but they are being slowly classed in a new order, known as the Union-Jackasses.

In a word, the Imperial policies that attempt to mix New Zealand up with the European fates, or any other fate, will have to go. We are developing a policy too, & that new ideal will allow Europe to stew in her own juice.

Some statesman will appear here soon, who will frame up a kind of Monroe Doctrine for New Zealand, whereby to all the outside world we will say “Hands off!” “Mind your own business!” If your hands are soiled, & your soul dirty with Naval bases, & so on. We refuse to meddle in your evil business, except on the lines of reciprocal commerce, & open free trade, in which we desire our ports free to all trade, & also to all eugenic peoples who are devoted to Social Democracy. That Divine intercourse, that freedom of travel & commerce, that Holy interchange of thought & Brotherhood is due. Said the poet:—

IMPERIAL PARSONS.

Yet the founder of their religion was a rebel against the Empire of Rome. When war is declared, these Imperial parsons drop their peace & goodwill, & turn their churches & chapels into recruiting stations. Is it any wonder, the workers look upon the church-message as a kind of enchanted sawdust? On occasion they (the clergy) repeat the commandment, “Thou shalt not Kill,” & then bless troops that go forth to kill. They are very little better than the boy who was asked if he could repeat the Ten Commandments? He declared: “I can’t just repeat them, but I know ’em when I hear ’em.” But you cannot argue with these jingo parsons, they throw a text back at you. They are no more amenable to reason than the healing cult, that declare disease doesn’t exist, & then go on to testify that they have been cured of twenty different diseases. So they go on in their strange fallacies singing the hymn:—

& at the same time worshipping the Man of Peace & Goodwill! They thus wink at & defend the greatest curse on the earth, & quibble about theological hair splittings. Like the wranglers of old they don’t quarrel about the ass, but about the shadow of the ass.

These men, too, are ardent Imperialists. It pays! It allows them to enter society! The workers are as nought. But supposing that a Revolution changed New Zealand into a Social Democracy, or something on the line of the Russian Soviet system, then these Imperialist parsons would probably do what the clergy of the Greek Orthodox Church did in Russia—come over on the side of the Soviet! Expediency again!

It all gives point to what G. B. Shaw once said, & it applies to the supposed fixity of the orthodox church code:—“Morals are mostly only Social habits & circumstantial necessities!”

Am I uncharitable? I have no wish to write merely in a destructive way. Let me suggest a constructive method. In view of a peaceful & brotherly world, would it not be better to outlaw war, & take advantage of the suggestibility of the minds of the people by dropping all words about war & hate? Refuse to use such terms as “War Departments,” instead, coin the term, “Peace Department.” Drop the term “Secretary for War,” & use in its place “Secretary of Peace”. Let the sentence “War-policies” go, & use the Christian words “Peace-policies”. Would the new words express more accurately the temper, & spirit of the Nazarene Carpenter? Would not “Peace-Budgets” sound better in the pulpit than “War-Budgets?”

There is a law of the association of ideas. Read Le Bon’s work on “Crowd Psychology”, & learn the truth. In that work the laws of mental action are learnt.

If the clergy will only learn, that there is a new & growing world consciousness, set towards peace & goodwill, they can take the tide at the flood. Often they have a few soldiers, (not many!) in their Services. Would it not be better to tell them, their business is for peace? Tell them it is for war, & they naturally look forward to war. Officers, too, often attend Services when on duty, expediency demands it. The new terms may impress them. As it is, the officers dare not openly advocate peace, for they are men of war, & have to live up to the term of villainy.

But the clergy can yet repent, & do their just works, while it is day, they have still a limited power to direct, & accelerate the world conscience toward the ideal of peace, & love, instead of war, & hate.

De Tocqueville, the historian on American affairs said:—“The work of the Consulate, & the empire consists more particularly in the clothing with new words of the greater part of the institutions of the past.” Le Bon also, tersely points out, “that when crowds have come, as the result of changes of thought or belief, to acquire a profound antipathy by the images evoked by certain words, the first duty of the true Statesman is to change the words.”

Very good! Will the clergy of New Zealand read, mark, learn & inwardly digest, in the interests of pure & undefiled religion, & a higher ethical code for this beautiful land in the Pacific Seas? Be true to the word Pacific? It is Christian!

HAVE WE NO SOUL?

Owing to passports, oaths of allegiance, & what is to all intents & purposes, military conscription, we are beginning to wonder if New Zealanders have any souls at all. To one, who has lived in this fair land, amid emerald seas, for over thirty years, it came as a shock, on board an ocean liner, to hear this young country referred to as the New Siberia. And yet, there was a reason for it, in fact many reasons.

A military-imperialism is ruining the land. Another war, & the ruin will be complete. When Gambetta was once talking to Lubbock, the English banker & scientist, he said: the day will come when Frenchmen will all be beggars in front of barracks. New Zealand was headed in that direction during the Boer war. In 1914 it gained momentum in the same direction, & the leaders here, still sit mounted on the military beast, & they recall the old Chinese proverb: “When you are riding a tiger you cannot dismount.” They have no ideal, no vision beyond good markets, & prices for meat, hides, cheese & butter-fat. There are a few who understand things of the Spirit, as expressed by Olive Mercer:—

But the only heaven the New Zealand politicians seemingly vision, is a good Imperial market, with the orthodox streets of gold, & gates of pearl, also trees whereon grow twelve manner of fruits (marketable apples for the London shops & market) in a word, a heaven of materialism.

The Imperial Gospel of greed, & the cruel force of militarism, & navalism to protect it. These commercial profiteers attend church on occasion, & hear the usual platitudes about Imperial conquest paving the way for the Gospel. The Divinely appointed destiny of the British Empire, & so on. The same thing, old Greece, Rome, & Spain had drummed into their ears until they got to believe it. So the pulpit urges them to keep a stout heart for God, & the Empire, & the services conclude with “Onward Christian Soldiers!”

These political adventurers who are bringing this land to ruin, will ere long need to be unseated. As Emerson said long ago, they are in the saddle & ride mankind. The military war horse must be destroyed & the riders sent sprawling in the mire. Then men of vision, ideals & with a goal in view, will take their place, men who:—

THE CAUSE OF OUR GROWING UNREST.

Until the war, things were going along fairly well, but the useless destruction of our finest human life in the European shambles, has caused a rubbing of eyes, & a clearing of vision. The increase of crime & immorality since the war has caused reflection. Even those men who returned safely to New Zealand, were not the same men who went away. No mother received the same son in return for the son who went to the trenches. It takes the military barracks, & life, to awaken the slumbering devil in a man. In Australia, & also at times in this land, a good shepherd’s dog will lapse into the wolf spirit & attack sheep. Once the dog does that, no matter how intelligent & useful he may be, he is never the same dog & can never be trusted again. There may be exceptions in soldiers, but even when the best are under survey, the men themselves will readily confess, that the war spoiled them & that they are not quite the same since. No one is more conscious of this than the returned soldiers themselves. Destroying homes, looting, rapine, shooting, & bayonetting others belonging to the one human family, leaves all men who are guilty of it as they were not prior to the experience. It has been a shock to the moral sense, & there can be no real recovery from it. The moral wound may heal in time but the scar on the soul remains! The guilt of this presses upon the British Imperialism, & throughout the whole Empire, we note the growing unrest. It is not peculiar to New Zealand. We see another comment, on much the same lines.

“It is true, of course, that the British Empire is of vast extent. But it is not true that the British flag flies over territories, countries and peoples whose contentment is unquestioned and whose acceptance of British rule is enthusiastic.

“On the contrary, it is safe to say that never within any period of the Empire’s history was unrest as great and so-called “disloyalty” so manifest. As a matter of plain and unvarnished truth, the majority of those who constitute what we call the Empire want none of it, and would, if they could, sever their connection with it to-morrow. The Empire is only kept together by force—by compelling unwilling elements and countries to acknowledge the sovereignty of the British Crown.

“It is as well for us that we occasionally look at these matters quite plainly. That we cease our cant and humbug and squarely face the facts, and by these means glimpse the world and the Empire as it really is, and not as we would like it to be.

“India and the British possessions adjacent thereto are restlessly stirring. Not for much longer will they acquiescence in foreign domination. There is evidence in abundance to show that the Eastern people want to work out their own destiny in their own way, and are working with increasing unanimity towards that end. The outcome is inevitable. India will secure complete independence. What is true of India is true of the rest of Asia as a whole.

“In Africa we have Egypt in the North sullenly discontented and working feverishly for national independence. Concessions wrested from the British Government will not suffice—will not satisfy—complete and untrammelled independence will only cease the agitation, and so complete independence it will have to be in the end, whether we like it or not.

“South Africa’s former Republicans are beginning to organise politically on a republican basis and just as soon as the internecine strife among the Boers end a Republican majority will control the South African Union. And what then? Another South African war or the extension of the principles of self-determination within the Empire?

“Of Ireland, in the very heart of the Empire, we need not comment. Pages are being added daily to her tragic history written in letters of blood, and every page contains a denunciation of an Empire which denies to a section of its people the liberty it desires.

“In America the French Canadians and others of that Dominion had their patience tested during the war. Observant British statesmen of that time stated that unless there was a decided change of policy in Canada towards the citizens of certain provinces and centres, the Dominion would be split in twain. That ‘Empire spirit’ which appeals to a certain type of swash-buckler, is abhorrent to these Children of old France. Their country is Canada and to her their loyalty is unquestioned, but they refuse to accept that ‘wider vision’ Imperialism demands, and its enforcement only means disaster.

“In Australia there is a growing sentiment which is distinctly Australian. A sentiment which says, in effect, that the first consideration of Australia is Australia and its people. A sentiment which causes the Australian people to eye with suspicion schemes of ‘Imperialism’ with ‘Imperial Parliaments’ and similar devices ‘for strengthening the bonds of the Empire,’ but which the average Australian shrewdly suspects will limit his own powers of self-government. The Australian Labor Party stands very definitely for ‘No Imperial Federation,’ and will have none of it, not withstanding the trumpetings of ~~the Milners, Curzons, Georges and the rest of~~ a suspect crew. Indeed, the behaviour of the present Government of Britain with its wild-cat military expeditions abroad and its anti-Labor & anti-democratic policy at home, is responsible for the suspicion so very widespread in Australia that however glorious the Empire may be, it is being grossly & wickedly mismanaged.”

Like other parts of the Empire, our hopes lie in the growing Industrial consciousness, the ever-increasing unrest in the breast of the Labor world. It is there the moral force lies that will regenerate the world. Real culture is in the spirit of International altruism & Universal Brotherhood. The workers, have that Divine Culture, strange to say, & University graduates have it not: at least very seldom.

CUCKOO CRIES!

There are many cuckoo cries heard in this land. The old country cuckoo is not familiar to us, but we have a special cuckoo of our own, it is called the silver-tailed cuckoo. Also the political & imperial slogans heard here on occasion, are cries of silver-tailed cuckoos.

One familiar cry is “Don’t drive capital out of the country!” With some, that ever has a telling effect. They don’t stop to ask what real capital is. If they did, it would dawn upon them, that if the bogus capital of paper currency, & debit & credit entries, in the ledgers of banks ceased, our real capital would remain as it was, i.e.;—the rivers, mines, forests, plains, coast-lines, mountains, lakes, & arable land would remain as it was. They could not be driven out. If capital goes—they remain!

Another bawling cry is “Markets.” So for markets & food dividends for the few, great freezing works are dotted here & there throughout the land. But the irony of it! They do not store meat, butter, fruit, & cheese, for the people, they are used in order to keep the necessaries of life away from the people until big prices can elsewhere be demanded.

Instead of man’s inventive genius being used for his good, the exploiters use it to work against Humanity in the aggregate, in order to bless the few, who of course become rich in peace times, & their wealth is quadrupled in times of war. So much so, they cannot hear the cries of the wounded & broken men, nor the wails of the Rachels at home, who are in war-times bereft of sons. No! their ears are plugged tight with cheese, meat & butter, they cannot hear! These things mean big cheques & abundant prosperity. But these things are not real wealth, that’s the rub! A country’s real wealth is her young virile manhood. But under Imperial policies, this wealth does not count, except for Imperial aggrandisement.

This aggrandisement also allows the wares of Britain to be carried across the seas to other places, but what better off is the British worker? The most contented workers, & peasantry, to be found in the world are not members of Great Empires, but the people of small lands like Switzerland, Denmark, Norway & Sweden.

When Emerson said: “Empire is an immense egotism,” he sounded the depths of the Imperial Dead Sea. Its fruits too are apples of ashes.

When New Zealand becomes a free Social Democracy, it will become at the same time the finest land on the planet earth.

A land that knows no frontier, no blustering, empty, meaningless patriotism. A land with no class pride, except the only class worth a thought, the working class. Love of Humanity will replace love of nation. The Ideal will then be to consolidate the Human Family, on a basis of firm & enduring Brotherhood.

“Empires, to endure, must be based upon equality and human liberty. Without that fundamental basis they will perish, even as the Empires of old have disappeared. Greece, Babylon, Nineveh, Carthage, Rome, & Spain; their glories have passed away. They rested upon a foundation of servitude and of conquest. Unwilling nations were held in subjection by force; the will of the conqueror was alone worthy of consideration. And in our day, given a similar basis, Empires will disintegrate, for it is a law of nature most inexorable in its decree.

“Notwithstanding the gloomy outlook, the Empire can be saved. But not by oppression. Not by the machine gun, the aerial bomb and the battleship; but by complete social and economic readjustment of our relations both within and without, by the recognition and acceptance of the Socialist policy of reconstruction. There is no other way.

“The Empire’s greatest enemies are those who condone the present form of society. Those who shriek the loudest of their patriotism are, from an Empire point of view, the most unpatriotic, for they countenance and support a policy which must inevitably lead to disruption.

“So strange contradiction. Socialism alone can save the ~~Empire~~. Socialism alone can link these conflicting nationals ~~within the Empire~~ into a League of Free Peoples, and not only maintain an Empire which then will be truly great, but make it greater still by stimulating world-federation of Socialist States wherein the fullest measure of political and economic liberty will be enjoyed by each and every unit in the federation.

“The choice is: Capitalism and Empire decay; Socialism and ~~Empire~~ rejuvenation.”

[Transcriber Note: In the original manuscript, the word “~~Empire~~” has been replaced with the word “WORLD”.]

IMPERIALISM AT A DEAD-END.

Evolution is a fact & can be no longer questioned. No thoughtful man who knows the evidences, can apply the words theory, or hypothesis to evolution any longer. That being so, the one interested in economics, & imperialism, must be prepared for changes. The pre-historic monsters, some over eighty feet long, & with only a tea-cup full of brains, came to a dead end. Evolution there, could go no farther. They became useless monsters, & utility ceased,—hence they were without use. So it is with Imperialism. It has developed into a ruthless tyrant, & the earth has no further use for it. It is at a dead end. Far from being of any use it has become a danger to Humanity. It is allied to the old world word, “Mammon”, which is the synonym of the modern word Capital. Writers on economics are being forced, at times, very reluctantly, to acknowledge this. The following to wit:

“In the final analysis, Capital is inert matter. Consequently we may fill from basement to attic all the banks and treasures of the world with gold or any medium of exchange, and it will never produce or reproduce one penny’s worth of human betterment till labour is used in conjunction for that purpose. This shows, in a measure, the true value of labour. Capital now lives, thrives, and expands on the surplus profits derived from interest, rent and profits which have been made ready by those who toil with hand or brain or both. The surplus collected this year and not spent by the profit-takers is invested so as to extract profit next year and ever after if possible, thus increasing the burdens of the people.

“Excess or surplus profits and the usual methods employed for acquiring them are directly responsible for most of ‘man’s inhumanity to man.’

“The present ‘get-rich-quick’ scramble for class wealth must be humanised by the strong arm of the law. The talk about brotherhood, moral suasion, self-denial, ‘golden rule’ and service is quite useless when surplus private profits are being considered or dealt with. Every businessman knows this fact.

“The Governments of the world at the present time seem to exercise little useful control on behalf of humanity over interest, exchange, rent, profits, big business, war-mongery, disturbing foreign loans, bonuses, subsidies, concessions, franchises, artificial money shortages, mortgage foreclosures, debt funding, bond issues, stocks and food gambling, the liquor and drug traffic, ‘carrying coals to Newcastle,’ disgraceful unemployment and many other preventable evils, all of which tend to degrade the people and are allowed to run riot quite contrary to our much-vaunted British justice and liberty, and the Christian standard of universal good. Most people seem to think, vaguely, that the present private profit system must continue indefinitely with slight modifications. There is nothing in modern experience to warrant that view.”

In New Zealand at least, Imperialism must go. This will be resented by the Patriots & Profiteers. Patriotism & Profits have kissed each other. The two are one—Patriotism is to Imperialism, what superstition is to religion. Real religion has need no longer for superstitions, man’s evolving mind casts them aside. Real patriotism, has need no longer for Imperialism, man’s broadening mind cannot be kept within Imperial boundaries, nor within sectarian fences either. There is a new orientation in both spheres.

We are tired of war & Empire. So is Canada, South Africa, India & Australia. The only people who are not weary of it are the flag-flapping profiteers, who are moral derelicts.

John Ruskin was right, when saying: “two nations may go mad, & fight like harlots, God help them; but they who hand them carving knives of the tables, that you may pick up a dropped sixpence, what mercy is there for you?” Therein you find the ethical code, (or want of it) of Imperial-profiteers.

So New Zealand approaches the cross-roads, & a few of us are in readiness abiding our time, & watching for the finger of God! With Shelley we say:—

BLUNTING THE MORAL SENSE.

Archibald Forbes, the war correspondent, referred truthfully to the Imperial menace as a soul-blinding, & heart-blurring business. It is all that, & more; it is full of pious hypocrisy. British Imperialism especially, is dealt out in cant phrases about preserving democratic free institutions, the general uplifting of Humanity, & the glorious spreading of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, & so on. New Zealand so far reprises this theological cant in her day schools, but the churches, & their Sunday Schools, are permeated with it. But a false Imperial history is cunningly handled & dealt out in the State Schools. John Bryce was right in proclaiming that history as taught in schools was an evil & should be taught no longer. When this ghoul of Imperialism is linked with Christianity, it sends a cold chill down one’s spine. A N.Z. penman reminds us:

“All my readers will either recollect or will have heard of the battle of Omdurman in 1898. At the time, when the press was gloating over the great triumph achieved for civilisation and Christianity, it became noised abroad that the Egyptian auxiliary troops had killed the wounded. Of course the story was denied, just as the Mallow shootings and the burning of Cork City by the Crown Forces have been denied. I have just read two very interesting volumes, however, by Mr. Wilfrid Blunt (1), and there I find it recorded that Mr. Winston Churchill, while holding office as a Cabinet Minister and during a week-end visit to the author’s home in Sussex, had personally described how the Lancers—not the native troops by the way—had killed wounded Dervishes at Omdurman! Mr. Churchill, in fact, described how the Lancers were obliged to place their full weight on their bayonets in order to pierce the thick coarse clothing worn by the wounded men! He added that one Lancer had boasted that he had been the most merciful to his man in that he had given him only four inches of cold steel!”

“I myself remember well they we were advised by cable a few days after Omdurman that a relative of General Gordon had blown up the Mahdi’s tomb at Khartoum. More than one New Zealand newspaper commented on that item of news in strong terms and reprobated the act as a needless display of barbarism. Mr. Blunt tells the whole story, however, and a horribly gruesome one it is. It is true that one of the officers concerned in the outrage was a nephew of General Gordon but evidently he participated most reluctantly. The tomb was destroyed by the express orders of Lord Kitchener, and the skeleton of the Mahdi thrown into the Nile—except the head which was taken by the commander and retained by him! We read with a shrug that during the Maori War in Taranaki certain Hauhaus slew Colonel Lloyd, and subsequently displayed his head on a spear in several engagements. What can be our verdict on Kitchener’s conduct? Had the matter not been proved to the hilt, would anyone credit that such brutality could be perpetrated by a British general? After the battle of Omdurman a great Thanksgiving Service was held at Khartoum, when fervent thanks for the victory were offered to the Lord of Hosts! We may imagine the comments of intelligent Mohammedans who knew that the wounded had been butchered and that the Mahdi’s skull had been ‘commandeered’ by the Commander of the Christian Forces!”

Christian-Imperialism forced the ports of China for the opium traffic. The same political-unctions thing, forced Chinese labour on the Rand in Africa. The same Imperial-Triah-Hepism, went hand in hand with the old Russian-Czarism, in shooting & hanging the Persians, whose only crime was that they loved their country, whose only fault was that they carried out to the logical issue the teaching that Britain instills into her public school children: the love of country. The crime was—the Persians love Persia. The same thing is going on in Egypt, & India, today, with much the same results, excepting that Russia has since been Divinely Regenerated.

A NEW IDEALISM & TOWARDS HUMANISM.

The tide has turned. New Zealand is tired of European politics, & balances of power. The words of a wise woman, a heroine of old Alexandria, Hypatia, to wit, spoke words in her day that have a pointed message to the million odd New Zealanders:—“To understand the things that are at our door, is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond. We are going to do that first & then extend the hands of amity across the seas to all workers of the world. We are going to cultivate a soul!” We have failed in initiative, but a new age dawns. In literature & poetry, (excepting one poem of Brackens) we are as dead as the proverbial door nail, but there is a Social Beyond!

“Dreamer of dreams,” we take the taunt with gladness,

Knowing that God beyond the years you see,

Has wrought the dreams that count with you for madness,

Into the substance of the world to be.

This ebook has been created from a handwritten manuscript instead of a printed book.

Although there is a Table of Contents with seven intended chapter headings, it is difficult to correlate these with the headings in the actual manuscript.

Multiple clippings from newspapers or books, most from unidentified sources, are included in the manuscript. Text from these clippings are in bold font in this ebook. Underlines and strike-throughs in the clippings were added by the author and replicated in this ebook.

Misspelled words have not been corrected.

Punctuation has been normalized.

Book cover is placed in the public domain.

[The end of The Growing Point of Truth by James Chapple]

I.	The Growing Point of Truth in Sociology.
II.	The Scientific & Evolutionary Growing Points.
III.	Truths Growing Points in Nationalism, Imperialism & Universalism.
IV.	Truths Growing Points on Militarism & War.
V.	The Religious & Philosophical Growing Point of Truth.
VI.	Truths Growing Point on Sex: Child-Love: & Education.
VII.	Didactic & Miscellaneous Growing Points of Truth.

FOREWORD.