THE STATE AS SOCIALIST AGITATOR

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 109, 31 January 1908, Page 6

THE STATE AS SOCIALIST AGITATOR

Some time ago, if we remember ® aright, the public was promised that the l Journal of the Department' of La- j bour would be improved by the addi- i tion of new and attractive features, r beginning with the January number. s We cannot speak for the attractiveness s of such alterations as we can discover - in the current issue of the Journal, but I( there is one new feature of such de- j cided novelty that it calls for notice. r This is an article reprinted *from ah , American magazine under the_ title { " The Agitator: His Functioniin-S- s cial Evolution." The purpose of the article is a defence of Radical agita- i tors in general, and advanced Labour demagogues in particular.- The writer has nothing new to add to a question that has been discussed times out of ' number. He shows, what has been ' shown much better before, that the 1 real reformer is usually, or at any rate ■ very often, a brave, earnest man, pursuing his end in defiance of calumny 1 and persecution'. What makes the article remarkable, i however, is the rank luxuriance of its • assault upon people who are not Socia- i lists. In this respect it is exactly the i kind of thing to appeal to the author of the fatuous pronouncement that'in New Zealand we have only touched the : fringe of "the soiled economic garment." Nobody,, even' those familiar with the tactic 3 of a certain member of the Conciliation Board, will_ greatly mind being told that " the agitator is the pioneer'of progress, the pathfinder of civilisation, the herald of the future, the great, animating, quickening force of social development." But it is another matter when the writer discusses the corrupt and tyrannical plutocracy " that pays wages; The opponents of the Socialist demagogue are described as " the beneficiaries of .special privilege and their educated sycophants." " Flunkeyism," we are ■ further told, "may voice its feeble note of complacent servility and satisfaction j the janizaries of corruption and oppression may hold up their fat and oily hands in horror at the approach of the agitator; he is mightier and nobler than them all." This will give the public a taste of the quality of the maii to whom the Labour Department gives a front seat in order that he may explain why the agitator, " that passionate hungerer after the nobler and more perfect," is " dangerous to respectable scoundrelism." We need quote no further from the paper, sin<je those who love a rich, not to say a rank, flavour, in their reading, may for twopence secure the article from the publisher, the Government. The Journal is a publication issued by the State, at the public expense, for the dissemination of facts relating to the industries of the Dominion. That it serves a useful purpose by giving publicity to the state of the labour market and to the' more important judgments of the Arbitration Court is, we , thinkj i undisputed. But is it proper that the - Government should use . the . Journal for the dissemination of . inflammatory attacks upon capital? ■ As it- is " issued under the direction of , the Minister for Labour," the cons tents of the Journal are necessarily . such as Mr. Millar approves, and such ■ as he considers the public funds should 1 be used to make public. Does he think ! that the public funds should be used 3 for the circulation of Socialistic mani--5 festoes, and the consequent encouraget rnent of the class-hatred that is being . more violently fostered every day by ] private agitators ?