SELFISHNESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 185, 6 August 1936, Page 6

SELFISHNESS.

(By FRANK A. GAT!BUTT.)

Selfishness is regarded as a vice. Tt is worse. It is unintelligent. If a man could by his own exertions create everything needed or desired he might with safety disregard the welfare of others and depend upon his own industry. Man has discovered, however, that he cannot create those things lie wants and must have for himself and family. The total sum of human knowledge is so great that one man can acquire very little of it. Our modern methods have so developed that the combined efforts of many men can produce infinitely more than all of them working independently. Originally the selfish took "from others what they wanted. They can lio longer do so with safety. Our well-being is so interwoven that no group of men can advantage themselves .more than transiently by taking from some other group. Workmen cannot profit permanently at the expense of employers, employers cannot profit permanently at the expense of workers, nor union labour at the expense of unorganised labour, nor can taxes be shifted from one group to another, nor can government favour or oppress with impunity. Man must think of himself, but he must think also of his fellow human •beings, upon all of whom his own welfare depends.— (N.A.N.A.)