IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A "LAND PIRATE" AND A BUCCANEER?

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 191, 7 May 1908, Page 5

IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A "LAND PIRATE" AND A BUCCANEER?

Sir, —To the various queries as to just what Socialists would do with "women," "Parliaments," "private property," or any other plundor which a poor down-trodden "man-thing" might covet of his neighbour, your readors will doubtless have noticcd that under such prctontious and nll-embrac- : ing titles as: "How Socialism proposes to ; deal" with this, that, and t'other —your dis-

tinguishcd London authorities usually make some such pious reservation as: "I speak for myself, as far as I havo gono into particulars" ; or "My answer may contain much which may. not bo considered distinctly Socialistic"; or again: "It must be understood that my personal views are hero expressed, and that I am not empowered to pledgo my fellow-Socialists thorto." All of which is tantamount to saying nothing at all as to the ulterior designs of Socialism, and which are really the only points worth considering, since to the prospective victims, the political "knife-grinder" is of far less importance than the "political assassin." Apparently your English Socialists are (in their public confessions of faith) mucli more guarded than are their New Zealand brethren, as the following random quotation from a reeont correspondent in the " Lyttelton Times" will show.: "The man who owns the land and machinery, which the worker needs to work with, owns the worker's job, and with the job he holds the worker's life. To own his job tho worker must own tho land and machinery. Therefore (if you please) he must wrench it from the other man. This is exactly what the worker is going to do some day." Yes, and it is devoutly to bo hoped that ho will get his desserts when ho tries it, and with as short shrift as any other pirate. The idea of "men" (save the mark 1) calling themselves "British Colonials," seriously suggesting such a thieving procedure, in a country whore there is any amount of room for honest industry, and at a fair remuneration too 1 But such apparently is the ultimate ambition of your rank-and-file Socialists, and only comparable, for "unity of system," ' with that of the old Port Royal Buccaneers, who at least won, the reputation for being hardier fighters than modern Socialists have anywhere earned for being, hard workers. As for a "Macdonald Bill," a "Court of summary jurisdiction," or any other device (short of a club of Hercules) being an-effec-tive cure for chronic idleness, in an indolent " Commonwealth," whose very foundations are, professedly, to be laid upon the expropriated wealth of their neighbours—the idea is simply preposterous. " Take the devil for your master and ho'll ride you to hell" is as applicable in politics as it is in morals. What hope is there for a Government which exists solely on tho suffrage of a rabble majority? and which is "sans-culottism" puro and simple, with "anarchy 1 ; like tho "Sword of Damoclcs" forever: pending. In short, if arbitration won't work now, what sense is there in talking about "summary jurisdictions" under Socialism?—l am, etc., A BITTER ENDER. April 30. • ■