Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/429

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 415

A striking instance of the contrast between anticipation and event, between pro- posals and performance, is to be found in the history of the New Zealand govern- ment's dealings with the land question, on which more than on any other Australasian politics have always hinged.

In 1894 the expropriation proposals got the length of being put into the shape of a government bill that was laid before the house of representatives. As a bill it would have been drastic enough for a Ledru Kollin or a Louis Blanc.

As the government had a followmg of about fifty in a house of about seventy, the outlook was serious. It soon appeared, however, that in running the gauntlet of the house itself — government supporters though the great majority were — the bill had an ordeal to pass that was by no means child's play.

One amendment after another had to be accepted by the minister in charge, until it had been transformed into something comparatively innocuous. In the first place, an amendment had been accepted to the effect that, if any part of an estate were taken, the whole, at the owner's option, must be taken also. In the second place, instead of the minister being in a position to buy at his own price, an assessment board, so constituted as to be independent of political influence, was appointed, by which, in the last event, the price would be determined. In the practical working of the act, the opponents of the government have had occasion to criticise them rather for having used it to purchase the properties of their friends and allies at fancv prices than for having used it to terrorize capital or to harass political antagonists. So much for the expropriation aspect of the land-nationalization scheme.

In what we think of as state socialism there appear to be two distinct principles involved ; and, curiously enough, we find them here operating in direct antagonism to each other. On the one hand, there is the principle of subordinating the interests of the individual to the interests of the community; on the other hand, there is the prin- ciple of doing away with the existing system of competitive rewards, and of remuner- ating the individual in accordance with his needs, rather than in accordance %vith his capacity. In regard to the first — the subordination of individual to state interests — the history of New Zealand politics goes to indicate that, in the Anglo-Saxon world at any rate, a victorious democracy, instead of being likely to push it to undesirable lengths, is much more likely unduly to ignore it. The other socialist principle, on the contrary — that of remuneration in accordance with needs — seems to be highly effect- ive, for a time at any rate, in molding the policy of such a victorious democracy. In New Zealand its operation was conspicuous in connection with both the land and the labor question. In regard to both, however, limitations and difficulties soon began to make themselves manifest.

It seems, indeed, that always when the state adopts the principle of making con- cessions to one person or class of persons which, in the nature of things, it is impossible to make to all, the issue is, and must be, political co'rruption in one form or another. There lies the great difficulty and danger that besets the practical application of the principle of payment in accordance with capacity; and it forms a difficulty and a danger that, I think, have not been sufficiently adverted to. As regards the new labor policy, its tendency to give rise to political corruption was at least as conspicuous as was that of the new land policy. The salient features of the new system were that, in the construction of a road or a railway, instead of a few large contracts being let, a large number of small ones were — a change that might or might not be desirable according to circumstances — and that, further, these contracts, instead of being let to the lowest tenderer, as was usual, terms were accepted which were intended to afford a fair living wage to the group of, perhaps, ten or a dozen workmen who took the job.

The practice of sending up the unemployed from the cities to the forest districts was certainly speedily discontinued, and such road work as there was to be given fell into the hands of the settlers themselves and their sons. The original conception of the policy was thus practically abandoned. It was initiated with the aim of raising the whole level of wages in New Zealand. In was only found possible to make it endurable by taking the existing level as something that was fixed ab extra, and over which the government had no control, and by accommodating to it, as their standard, the terms of the employment which they were in a position to give. — William War- rank Carlile, "Democracy in New Zealand," in Economic Review, July, 1899.