NATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20919, 28 July 1933, Page 17

NATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION.

TO THE EDITOR CF T[£p: PHSS3. Sir, —It was with something akin to amazement that I read the letter of your correspondent, Wm. Machin. He seems quite innocent of the fact that the Great War was the outcome of private enterprise in the fields o[ industry, production, distribution, and external investments; and that the huge spent on public works arise from the same cause to provide an outlet for the colossal accumulation of surplus capital from private enterprise in industry, coupled with the demand that the Slate should not compete in productive enterprises. The economic loading down of the farmer to the point of desperation is the outcome of private enterprise in the sale of land and the control o£ credits and finance by the same interests. This also has an application to the housing problem. The chaos in the realms of exchange (currency) is directly due to private enterprise in the ownership and sale of external credits. The so-called slump is due to the same thing, private enterprise .in production, distribution, and exchange , and no reform is possible because of ! private enterprise. The World Economic Conference failed because of private enterprise and the foundation of another World War has been laid as a result. - The Ottawa agreements will split 011 the same rock. Mr Machin seems quite unaware that a social system evolves and never stops evolving except when it revolves, and that this means constant change. He completely ignores the fact that here in the midst of plenty and the means to create plenty more, in fact, with all that makes human life worth while and the wherewithal to create abundance for all, we have some 80,000 totally unemployed, perhaps half that number partially employed, factories nearly idle, and machinery going to decay while scores of thousands are in need of adequate food, thousands of our boys have no prospects in life, and no visible occupations to go to. And in the midst of it all wealth accumulates and men, yes and women, too, and little children, decay. The challenge is out. What are Mr Machin and his fellow captains of industry going to do about it? The only contribution they have so far made is to cut wages, reduce conditions, and generally add to the things that make the slump a complete breakdown of an economic system.—Yours, etc. J. N. HARLE. July 27, 1933. TO THE 101101 Or THE PKESS Sir, —I agree completely with your correspondent who stated that private enterprise is the best way out of our present difficulties, and who quoted the French proverb, "The wise are busy correcting the errors of the good." Undoubtedly the French revolution was an illustration of how effective this proverbial wisdom was when practised. Private enterprise was almost eliminated by private privilege before that revolution. To-day, private enterprise is hampered, and almost eliminated by private privilege. The privileged were big land-own-ers before the French revolution, while now the big business owners occupy a relative position. The implement used so effectively by the French on their aristocrats was designed for gentlemen, and would not be equal to the "strains and stresses" in dealing with the tougher hides and grosser necks of business men. This may be, however, a matter for our engineers to deal with. Success, the incentive to private enterprise, is being monopolised by the few, while failure, the deterrent to private enterprise, is accentuated against the Many. The fear of the one, and the power of the other, require diluting.—Yours, etc., H. J. BUTTLE. July 27, 1933. TO THE EDITOB OW THE PBESS. Sir, —R. Palme-Dutt, editor of the "Labour Monthly," has wisely said that the Fascists in Germany found it necessary to talk about socialism in order to get a hearing. Your remarkable leading article of Wednesday makes an admission which would furnish evidence that a similar development is taking place in this country. While you are not prepared apparently to take the final step which makes the complete Nazism—you prefer socialisation to socialism—yet you admit that it is a movement that cannot be stopped. Was it not Pantagruel who set up a straw man for the pleasure of knocking him down again? That is precisely what you have done with Marxism. Socialisation by the state under capitalism is the antithesis of the socialisation of industry under the workers' state, i.e., the dictatorship of the proletariat How could you so cynically emasculate Marxism? In all the works of Marx you wiil not find one word to justify the typically reformist illusion that state ownership of any industry or service, while state power remains in the hands of the capitalist, constitutes a measure of socialism. What you have presented for your readers is a distortion, a parody, of Marxism, which is scientific socialism. Marx certainly laid down a programme of socialisation, but he made 'it abundantly clear that such measures must be carried out by the workers organised as the ruling class (vide the Communist Manifesto and Marx's Criticism of the Gotha Programme). Under such a power socialism and private enterprise will most certainly exist side by side, transitionally, but the "proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest by degrees all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible" (Com--1 munist Manifesto). Now what is happening in the United States? Probably the greatest experiment of rationing work in human ■history, but a rise in real wages—no; in spite of the declarations of the Mayor and the Trades and Labour Council that the Labour party's programme has been adopted. Shortly after Britain left the gold standard the dollar rose to 3.13 to the £1 and more recently it was fairly stable at 3.45 to the £l. Lately it has been 35 low as 4.85 to the £l. To restore the purchasing power to that of the 3.13 days would take an increase in money wages of approximately 60 per cent. The cablegrams inform us that money wages have been raised 25 per cent.; what then has Mr Sullivan to wnoop about? And in addition, the hours of work have been reduced while the money wages ■ have failed to make up the leeway; a fortiori, the Labour party s pro- ; gramme has riot been adopted but Cr A. E. Armstrong's programme has. ; —Yours, etc., MARXIST. July 27, 193.1