LABOUR CATCHWORDS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16209, 11 May 1918, Page 10

LABOUR CATCHWORDS.

In the course of the "Obiter Scripta," which he is contributing to the "JJ'ortingntiy Review," Mr lYederic Harrison gives strong expression to the disgust* which he feels at the homage paid by the workers to siily shibboleths in these days of crisis., '"i'o me, an old friond and comrade of their claim, for legal rights, it is melancholy to note," he says, "how groat is the power ovel tho "irm of to-day of catchwords fraudulent, double-tongued, mendacious catchwords." "The conscription ot ! Labour," for example, he terms "a masterpiece of trickery." ''Labour," he indignantly exclaims, "has no more been colled to arms than any other class, profession, order, or rank. Do these conjurors mean that rich men and their children have not served and bled and died i"' Tho "socialisation of land," again, is "what the moujiks in ltussia are doing when they have murdered tho landowners." '"iSodalisation of mines, railways, docks, and forests means (in words) expropriation by the State—and the State ineaDs tho labourers, voting by millions, men and women' in a single Chamber. Yes, no doubt in words there is to be compensation to the present owners! But compensation is a mero blind'to cover rauk The State could not pay one shilling in the pound. The reason is that the wealth of the State is largely a matter of ledgers, confidence, credit, and open market. Social revolution sweeps away all these at a blow —involves national bankruptcy. What is the wealth today of the Russian State?". "Conscription of wealth'' is only tho other limb of an "antithetical juggle." Conscription of men is simply calling upon citizens to do their duty, but it is not possible to conscribe wealth in the mass by force and by social revolution. "Wealth implies social order, trust, credit, that debts will be enforcdH and pledges kept. If faith in social order is destroyed, wealth is sterilised, suspended, destroyed. It melts away as dees a snow figure in a thaw. To seize by violence the property of the rich would be to seize useless bad debts, worthless papers. Wealth would have disappeared just as if a burglar had captured a rich man's cheque-book and thought it was a hoard of money." Tho so-called "profiteering of capitalists" as an explanation of high prices is yet another catchword that gulls tho ignorant. "It is true," says Mr Harrison, "that seme financiers, some manufacturers, aro making great profits, for the most part automatically, in spite of enormous taxation and severe restrictions by a War Council. But this does not account for 10 per ce'nf. of the increased prices. The dislocation of trade, U-boats, less production, worse carriage, also affect prices; but the main cause of higher prices is the 'inflation of currcrcy* by the reckless issue of note 3 without gold reserves. All the belligerents, all the neutrals, suffer even worse than we do, especially Russia, which has made the wildest inflation of paper money. Our revolutionists, distorting economic facts as oertain as the rising of tho tides, cry out that 'profiteering' is tho cause of high prices. And by forcing up higher wages they seek to force on more issues of paper— though that is the real cause of high prices." What to Mr Harrison_ is bo saddening, from the moral point of view, is that Socialism, which in the ideal has a noble spirit of humanity, is being depraved into a gospel of plunder. •'Sc-called Socialists," he declares, "make no attempt to prove that their revolution will be good for society. For them it is enough that Labour will g::m. Thb capitalist—i.e.. he who has saved— his wire, children, unA descendants are regarded as the enemy. They yrho have never saved enough to get them 9 house, or a plot of land, or even a year s keep, or who havo made away with what their parents had saved, they aro the Cbopea People. To them every gpoU

thing belongs of right. Tho Clu'jst said, 'Blessed are the uowlffi spirat.' JLiie new gospel says, 'liieawj are tlie poor; uur&uu uro too rich.'-.!®*, kind, ol oocialisin is a gospel of self,m! greed, of civil war. Juuas wanted,® precious ointment 'sold and giyen*fo tlie poor.' isow Judas was 'a