BLACK AND WHITE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 42, 13 November 1907, Page 6

BLACK AND WHITE.

It is_ a hard heart "that sees no pathos in the anxiety of the State Socialist to disclaim all connection with his big brother—the Collectivist. When the Attorney-General, in an ecstacy of definition, declared that he was a Socialist, and " gloried " in it, he could not have foreseen the contortions to which he was driving his friends. They are still explaining away Dr. Findlay's embarrassing confession. At first they argued that the Socialism of the Government was not Socialism, but another thing of the same name. Now they have got a stage further, and are arguing that State Socialism is not merely not Socialism, but the very opposite to Socialism, the antidote to the Socialistic spirit. The argument by which the pea is made to disappear from under the thimble is a truly astonishing one. Briefly stated, it is contended that " State Socialism says merely that in any community there are some functions, some forms of industry, that can be exercised and applied better by the State than by the individual. The question which functions, how many industries, is left to experience." In New Zealaud, the argument proceeds, the Government has thus merely taken half-a-dozen industries under its wing, instead of confining its attention to the' Post Office and like concerns, but this gradual progress towards the Collectivism which "would be an acquirement of all those functions and industries" is declared to be the one sure way of not arriving at the end of the journey! There is here what Grattan would have called "great generosity of assertion, and great thrift of argument." When Alice endeavoured, in Looking-glass Land, to get to the Red Queen, she had to walk away from her. You do not ask reasons of Alice, but politics are not so privileged. How does it crime about that the nearer you go to CollectivistSocialism the further you are away from it? To this the reply of your State Socialist is that the " Socialisni-in-our-time" party is breaking away from the gradual party, and that therefore, because he wants all at once what the State Socialist gives him in instalments, the Collectivist-Socialist is the opposite of the State Socialist. The extremist is antagonistic to the leisurely method of his colleague. Therefore he is antagonistic to his aims! This is quite too transparent to deceive anybody, and mere assertion will not controvert the axiomatic truth that in Socialism, as in anything else, "the whole is equal to the sum, of its parts." We need not now occupy ourselves by exposing the fallacy of the argument that, because the State pays the policeman, the anti-Socialist must hold his peace. It is sufficient to point out the absurd straits to which Dr. Findlay has reduced his friends. It may not fbe out of place to quote the story of a well-known schoolmaster who asked a pupil to construe the word "nigef," and was informed that the meaning was " white." " White, my boy? Quite fight. A rather creamy sort of white, that is; a kind of ash colour, a neutral tint, you might call it; shading into grey, perhaps, or dark grey—that is, in fact, black. Black. Quite right." Yet black is not white, nor is Socialism anything but Socialism.