THE ANTI-SOCIALIST STANDPOINT.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 225, 16 June 1908, Page 6

THE ANTI-SOCIALIST STANDPOINT.

The fact that at Christchurch recently, when delivering a political address, the Prime, Minister was heckled by, the local Socialists, has been citcd by the Government organs throughout the Dominion as demonstrating the absurdity of charging Sir Joseph Ward with favouring legislation of an advanced Socialistic character. This contention, of course, is ingenious, but dis-ingenuous, and it merely clouds the real question at issue. These same journals profess, also, to see in the anti-Socialist criticisms emanating from both the friends and the opponents of the Government merely the panic utterances of men alarmed by the bogy of "revolutionary Socialism." To give theatrical • effect to this they depict the proletariat parading in its thousands with the red cap and tie, and the' red flag, of revolution, barricades in the streets, the tumbril, and the guillotine, and suggest that it is really too ridiculous to expect people to be scared' by a prospcct so impossible. This evasion of tho real issue may pass muster with the thoughtless, but it carries no weight with the thinking public, who fail to find in such argument any reassurance that the. legislation of. the • Government is not based upon an economic error that is a danger both to the State and the individual.

The people who complain of the Socialism of the Government have no visionary dreacl of improbable extremes. They argue from the admissions of Ministers themselves, and from the dicta of the leaders of the Socialist movement. Sir Joseph Ward, Mr. Millar, and Dr. Findlay have in turn plainly stated in public that while dissociating themselves from " revolutionary Socialism, the policy of the Government is a progressive or "evolutionary" Socialism. It is, they have said, the intention of the Government to introduce, as opportunity offers, further legislation in the direction of enlarging the scope of State control of certain productive and industrial enterprises. The anti-Socialist is justified in viewing with alarm such proposals, because every step taken in that direction is another nail in the coffin of true liberty; becausc each progression in the direction of State Socialism means the increase of officialdom, the weakening of the rights of private property, and the lessening nf personal initiative and ambition. The impression is sought to be promulgated that it is possible to pursue such a legislative course, and,then to ory a halt a,t any given point) whereas not only do the heat writers on Eoolologl-

cal subjects lay if, down that thii is impossible, but even such an authcrity on Socialism as Mr. Keir Hardie oniesses that a people once embarked upon (he State Socialistic sea must, incvibbly arrive, sooner or later, at comnunism. It is idle, he says, to dogmatiie about, the form which the Socialist stito shall take because it must end in its ' natural successor," the commune. And Ik. Keir Bardie, it must be remembered, 1 has told his comrades in Great Britain ill at New Zealand possesses the most advanced Socialistic legislation in the world at the present time. i

Those who see in this propocd extension of State activities, in this projected further intrusion by the Stataupon the legitimate domains of private enterprise, a real danger to public and private interests, have good reason for siying that they are anti-Socialists, and ii that degree distrustful of a Governrient which is the sclf-proclaimcd champun of such a policy. " Revolutionary Socialism has no place whatever in this <onnection. It can never arrive as a scpial state. But the anti-Socialist asks foi a sudden halt in the gradual drift of State Socialism in order that much suffering and injustice may be averted. The; danger of the Socialistic trend is the ecocomic truth that no one man, no Government, no party, once fully launched ujon such a policy, can stay its inevitable results. Herbert Spencer has shown in his " Man versus the State" how the' old Liberalism, introduced in the sacred .earee of freedom to combat the restrictions of the Tory regime, has developed into a form of Liberalism which has placed new fetters upon individual liberty. He has shown that the ."practical" politician animated by the very best and most philanthropic motives, introduces a measure whica, bet coming law, develops in sucli a manner that it becomes a curse instead of a blessing to those intended to bt benefited. And all this simply because the forces of human nature, ever grasping, ever selfish, work as they might Ic expected to work, and not as they are desired to work. Socialism is not goirg to alter human nature.

The anti-Socialist is justified in warning the community of the dangers in the path upon which, all unwittingly, it is being led. If it is urged, as a reason for extending State action, thst the great public services are Socialistic in their nature, the reply is that these are the only legitimate spheres .of Sate enterprise. If it is argued thit the incursions already made into Socialistic experiments by the municipalities have proved successful, and have worked no harm, the answer is that it is too early to form a correct judgment tipon them, .and that there is no sort of proof whatever that private competitive enterprise would not have served the imblic just as well, and even more cheaply, as time went'on. So far as this' Dominion has gone in its social experiments, there is no retracing its stops, save at the cost of a great'initial public inconvenience, and dislocation of trade. Even if a halt i 3 made now .at the Socialistic point reached in this country, the results as time passes will be shown to be more detrimental to the individual and general interests involved than they will be beneficial The effects of some of.these experiments are already patent to the observer, and these, instead. of improving the condition of those sought to be benefited, have proved to.have rendered it either worse, or, at most,, no better. It cannot be wondered, then, .that the antiSocialists, being both good citizens and patriotic, protest against any further instalment of Socialism, and distrust a Government which is pledged to provide it " as opportunity offers."