and the water supplies. For any man or group of men to seize and hold these common gifts of nature from the use of society at large, without making an adequate return, is to inflict injustice upon the people.

We believe that no nation can hope for a great to-morrow that is faithless to the children of to-day; that we must environ childhood with conditions that foster physical, mental and moral unfoldment; that child slavery must not be permitted; that education must be extended and vitalized with the faith and knowledge of citizenship.

We believe in economic justice for all the people, and that political independence must be complemented by industrial independence; that industry must secure the just fruits of its labor and be free from dependence on privileged classes that levy extortion on toil and take from the worker that to which he is rightly entitled. In the great co-operative movements that are sweeping many lands we believe lies a sure and peaceful solution to one of the most serious problems of the hour.

In a word, The Twentieth Century Magazine stands uncompromisingly for a peaceful, progressive and practical program looking toward the realization and maintenance of a government such as was conceived by the author of the Declaration of Independence-a government marked by equal rights for all and special privileges for none-a government in which equality of opportunities and of rights shall be the master note of national life.

Among the fundamental reforms for which this magazine will stand, we mention the following:

I. Direct Legislation, through the Initiative and Referendum, supplemented by the Right of Recall.

II. Public Ownership and operation of all public utilities or natural monopolies.

VII. The fundamental right of society or the people to the enjoyment of the natural resources that are essential to life, prosperity and happiness.

VIII. Advocacy of that whole line of progressive thought and organization that leads toward a truer and securer establishment of popular government.

IX. Coincident with the above program of work for fundamental democracy and justice, a vigorous educational propaganda to arouse the spiritual energies of the people, to the end that moral idealism shall supplant materialistic greed.

We believe that the present calls for the union of brain, heart and pocket-book on the part of every man and woman interested in a political, social and economic order worthy of twentieth century civilization; and we appeal to all high-minded citizens to subordinate minor differences of opinion and unite in a resolute movement against the combined forces of privilege and reaction that, dominated by materialistic egoism, are undermining the foundations of free and just government.

voices of public opinion-swaying influences. The vast schemes for plundering the people of to-day and robbing unborn generations for the abnormal enrichment of the few, by giving to them a monopoly of nature's

"THE SLEEPING GUARDIAN"

(See Editorial)

wealth in water power, and in other ways; the protection of the over-rich privileged interests; and the acquisition by the rapacious of franchises worth untold millions to the people if owned and operated by the municipality-these are a few of the sinister phenomena present in American life that would be impossible were it not that the nation has been drugged by press, church and college, that dare not cry and spare not-phenomena the deadly character of which is fully recognized by numbers of men of means who, were they less the slaves of greed, could easily aid in awakening the people and causing such a democratic reaction as to save the Republic without the shock of a forcible rev

olution, but who refuse to help in the most vital battle that has ever been waged since the signing of the Great Declaration.

In the first of his monthly series of cartoons, Mr. Ryan Walker has in this issue admirably emphasized this vital truth.

The sin of indifference and selfishness in a crucial period like the present, which renders possible the plunder and debauchery of the nation, is scarcely less deadly to the soul of the sinner than the avarice of those who under the craze for gold are destroying our popular representative government and enslaving the millions, and who, unless their rapacity is curbed, will render inevitable a terrible day of reckoning.

Mongers.

After the long and hitherto unparalleled period of uninterrupted prosperity that has marked the history of New Zealand since the Liberal government came into power and inaugurated a government "of the people, by the people and for the people," in 1890, the Dominion has for the past few months been suffering from a period of business stagnation or depression. Though relatively slight, coming as it has after so long a period of prosperity and being the first check in nearly a score of years, it has given the enemies of popular and just government a shadowy basis of facts on which to rear a colossal edifice of misrepresentation and falsehood; and this opportunity has been seized upon with alacrity by the purveyors of tainted news who constitute one of the most dangerous and sinister elements in American society to-day.

Recently a San Francisco daily published an extended editorial, the writer of which was evidently extremely anxious to further the wishes of the private street-car corporations seeking to prevent San Francisco from taking over the Geary-street railway. The following is an extract from this editorial leader:

"To the occasional San Franciscan who still favors political fads, such as the Geary

street municipally operated railroad, the civic center, and similar caprices of the few at public expense, there is an interesting lesson in the sad plight of New Zealand.

"After being advertised all over the world as the 'Paradise of the Workingman,' New Zealand, to-day, is practically bankrupt. So desperate is the poverty which now prevails in this fad-ridden English colony that Acting Minister of Finance Millar proposes a bill to insure workingmen against lack of employment. Just how this can be accomplished and how it will help matters if it is, the average American will find it difficult to understand. But it proves that financial conditions are in a very bad way, indeed.

"New Zealand is a fertile and productive country, inhabited by industrious, intelligent people, for the most part. Its climate is temperate and every potentiality for happiness and prosperity is found there.

ing to Australia and other places, where the economic scheme is not as Utopian as in New Zealand, but where they can work with the assurance of getting their money.

"New Zealand is not the only sufferer from political fads. Paternalism and freak politics have proved disastrous almost without exception, the world over.

"May San Francisco be delivered from them and their promoters."

Since the above is a fair sample of the reckless and unwarranted efforts to poison the minds of the American people by statements either wholly false or wholly misleading in character, and also because the reverse of what the writer assumes is the truth, it is important to consider the charges in the light of historic facts, including the condition of New Zealand under capitalism as well as under fundamental democracy.

In the first place, it is well to observe that there is absolutely nothing in the proposal of the Minister of Finance to insure workingmen against lack of employment that warrants the inferences drawn. The plan is merely a part of the wise and essentially just statesmanship that seeks to maintain self-respecting manhood and insure the happiness, prosperity and development of honest industry by wise governmental provisions, instead of making the government the annex of the privileged interests whose master aim is to plunder and exploit the wealthcreators for the enormous enrichment of the unscrupulous few.

The writer of the editorial in question states in a catch line, emphasized to call special attention to the statement, that "political fads alone have bankrupted New Zealand." We shall presently show that such statements as that New Zealand has been bankrupted or is "practically bankrupt” are not only absolutely false, but are the exact reverse of the truth. What we wish to notice at present, however, is the statement that political fads are responsible for the business depression from which New Zealand is suffering at the present time. The whole aim of the author's article was to convince the uninformed reader that the Liberal policy of New Zealand's statesmen since 1890 is responsible for evil conditions in the dominion; or, in other words, that the present period of slight business depression, the first in nearly a score of years, is due to the enlight

ened program of fundamental democracy, which contrasts boldly with the capitalistic program which the author favors and under which New Zealand existed at the time when the Liberal Ministry came into

power.

New Zealand Under Capitalism. As a matter of fact, the condition of New Zealand was never more deplorable than at the time when the Liberal Party swept the country and inaugurated the era of progressive democracy which has been followed by an unmatched period of prosperity. To appreciate this, it is only necessary to glance at a pen-picture of New Zealand in its last days under capitalism, as given by the late Professor Frank Parsons in the most extended and authoritative history of New Zealand that has been published in the English-speaking world:

By

"Bargaining with natives, cheap land regulations and the failure to adopt and maintain the vital elements of the land proposals of Vogel, Grey and Ballance, gave the speculators and monopolists ample opportunities to corner the soil, and they improved their chances with a vigor that made the land situation in New Zealand more severe than it has ever been in Europe or America. 1890 the concentration of land ownership had reached an astonishing pass. More than 80 per cent of the people had no land-only 14 per cent of the white population were landholders, and less than 3 per cent of the landholders, or 1-3 of 1 per cent of the people, owned over half of the areas and values in the hands of the people; while a little more than I per cent of the landowners possessed 40 per cent of the realty values. Six companies having estates of 150,000 or more each, held 1,321,000 acres of real property worth $13,000,000.

*

"One hundred and seven persons owned land of the value of $35,000,000, and eleven holders had land worth $24,000,000. This in a nation of 626,000 people, with only $450,000,000 of realty, land, buildings and improvements all told, was certainly an enormous concentration of landed wealth.

"Thousands of acres were kept in idleness, unimproved and held only for speculation, and other thousands were occupied by a few sheep, while multitudes of men were without homes or land on which to raise a subsis

tence. Would-be settlers, in search of homes and farms, would pass here a tract of 75,000 acres of the best land with a population of only twenty-nine men, women and children; and there another tract of 250,000 acres of good land with only sixty-five people. There were already more farmers in New Zealand who were tenants than farmers who were free from the private landlord, and the majority of those who owned their lands were under the yoke of the mortgage-58 per cent of them were mortgaged so heavily that their interest was equivalent to rackrent. The tenants also were paying ruinous rates. Mr. McKenzie pointed to places in his own district where tenants were paying rents at the rate of 250 per cent on the price paid the government for the land. Such tenants in good seasons could just pull through; bad seasons meant ruin for them and the tradesmen and business people dependent on them.

* * *

"Besides the land monopoly, a money ring, timber ring, shipping trust, and other combines, were developed in New Zealand, and in addition to all this, producers were crushed for many years beneath the growing pressure of falling prices. Rent and interest stayed where they were, while prices fell, and the mortgaged farmer and the merchant doing business on borrowed capital could not meet their liabilities. Many were the failures and many the men thrown out of work. The workingman able to get neither land nor work had to become a tramp. The roads were marched by sturdy men crowding in from the country to the cities. There were problems of strikes, unemployed in town and country, overcrowding, dear money, idle factories, stagnant markets, and unjust taxation.' The uncivilized Maoris who owned New Zealand before the white man came, held their lands in common and worked them for the common benefit, so that no one was ever in want; but civilization had put the lands in the hands of the monopolists, and left every man to look out for himself, so that many were landless and in want.

"The Hon. R. J. Seddon thus describes the condition to which things had come: 'We had soup kitchens, shelter sheds, empty houses, men out of work, women and children wanting bread. This was how we

"From 1885 to 1890, 20,000 people left New Zealand; that was the excess of departures over arrivals in that time. Depression aggravated by a large decrease of expenditure on public works, together with the accumulating difficulties that confronted a poor man seeking to build a home and support himself on the land, resulted in a large migration of the laboring classes. It was not a flitting of travelers to visit other lands and then return. It was a transportation or transplantation of homes. The pressure of land and money monopoly with falling prices and discouraged industry reached such a pass that the tide of population turned, going out instead of coming in. The unemployed problem rose to the overflow, and working people went overseas from a population of 600,000 in a land where 20,000,000 and more could live in comfort under just conditions. A country, easily capable of sustaining more than thirty times the population it possessed, witnessed the astonishing spectacle of an exodus of vigorous and industrious people because they could not get homes or work."

Such was the condition of New Zealand during the last years under capitalism. And yet the editorial writer for the San Francisco paper has the effrontery to charge the present slight depression in New Zealand to the progressive democratic program of the Liberal Ministry. It would seem that this capitalistic editor has been having a Rip Van Winkle sleep for about a score of years and, remembering New Zealand under capitalism, imagined he was writing of present conditions.

New Zealand Under Fundamental
Democracy.

But from the monopoly-cursed dominion under capitalism, we turn to New Zealand under the progressive democratic statesmanship inaugurated by the Ballance Ministry in