The Survey, volume 30, number 7, May 17, 1913 — John Shaqi
The Survey, volume 30, number 7, May 17, 1913Various
History
The Survey, volume 30, number 7, May 17, 1913
Various
Charities -- Periodicals; Social problems -- Periodicals; United States -- Social conditions -- Periodicals
Mr. Lusk shows how in New Zealand, government-built railroads became
a necessity in a sparsely settled country where private capital
would not venture, and how an extensive scheme of legislation for
the benefit of settlers on the land was forced upon a people whose
appetite for mutual help grew with what it fed upon. Each piece
of legislation had in view no more than the meeting of a definite
difficulty as it arose. Yet step by step New Zealanders went on
in the same direction, until they had reached the point where,
somewhat to their own surprise, they found themselves famous and
envied in the world at large. Some of that surprise is due to the
fact that politics, even as we know them here, are there recognized
to have played an important part in shaping the destinies of those
islands. “Dick” Seddon and his followers appreciated to its full, the
vote-getting value of land reform, progressive taxation and public
improvements. Mr. Lusk makes too little of this significant lesson
from New Zealand.
And by one who understands the “States” so well, and who is writing
for our encouragement and warning, it is surprising that more
emphasis is not placed upon methods of administration. To me, as I
came to appreciate the New Zealand civil servant, his integrity, his
ability, the esteem with which he is held, it always seemed that
in him more than anywhere else was to be found the secret of such
success as New Zealand has attained. Turn the present corps out and
put in such incompetents and grafters as we have in many of our state
departments in America, and the whole New Zealand structure would
come tumbling down immediately. Not until law and public opinion make
it possible, can we have here such administration of labor laws,
for instance, as Edward Tregear has given these many years to New
Zealand, and not until then will new labor laws be of much more avail
to us than old ones are now.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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