The Dominion FRIDAY, JULY 1, 1910. A STATE SOCIALIST RALLY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 857, 1 July 1910, Page 6

The Dominion FRIDAY, JULY 1, 1910. A STATE SOCIALIST RALLY.

The debate upon the establishment of a State insurance monopoly which was initiated in the House yesterday by Mb. T. E. Taylor was unusually interesting and of no small importance. It revealed clearly for the first time the frankly Socialistic aims and ideas of what we may call the propulsive section of the 'Ward party. Mr. Taylor's idea is that the accident insurance business should be made a State monopoly, and he'was supported by Mr. L.wkesson, who wants the State to assert its monopoly of every sort of insurance; by Mr. Hogg, who somehow has grown woefully depressed bccause "private enterprise" is "bleeding the country to death," and by Mn. M'Lahen, who believes that competition is a curse and that State action is alone economical and destructive of waste. The Prime Minister had no difficulty in showing that as a matter of plain business Mr. Taylor's suggestion is intolerably preposterous, hut ho softened the shock to the fatuous Socialists by saying a good word for the principle of State monopolies. "lie was one of those," he said, "who believed that a monopoly which the State had was not in the same category as a monopoly held by private people." He gave no reason for this view, and made no attempt to refute the arguments against it. ITe I himself,-if he_ had . thought for a moment, supplied the central argu- ' ment against State monopolies ia a

passage of his* Winton speech. We have quoted the passage before with the opinion that "sounder sense in as small room is rarely met with anywhere." Here it is;

Tlicro shouM bo complete freedom between people ol nil classes in the country to deal with whom Uiev like. As it is at present, llita is not the case; aiul what is an undoubted evil should be mado impossible for anv company or person, however strong financially they may be, to compel traders, anil indirectly the community, *.o deal witli them, and l:h™ alone. I'Veed.mi ol* trade means competition, ami competition is not only the lilo of trade, but is essential for tho welfare of our people."

Is it hot the character of a State monopoly that it represses this vitally necessary competition? As to Mr. M'Larbn's strange contention that economy can bo got by destroying private enterprise and private competition, not much need be said. It is a commonplace fact, as tho London Spectator recently reminded us, that "hitherto the experience of all countries has proved that the State spends more than private persons to obtain a given end." It is also an actual fact that the cost of administration—tho want of economy—is the character that distinguishes the State insurance businesses from private companies. But no quantity of facts is likely to persuade the State Socialists that their conception of the State as an allpowerful, perfectly wise entity is grotesquely unsound. Perhaps, however, thev may pay to the ripe opinion of the_ late Me. Gladstone a respect which they would deny to any living opponent of the new Liberalism. In his new volume, Sketches am! Snapshots, the Eight Elon. G. W. E. Russell, the distinguished author and statesman and a lifelong friend and admirer of Gladstone, has this passage:

"As long ago as 1885 bo asked me with marked anxiety if it- v as true that Socialistic opinions were gaining ground nnions JMUug Liberals. Before answering, I asked if by Socialism he meant ihe State doing what the individual should do, or the taking of private property for public uses. Ho replied, with indescribable emphasis: 'I mean both; but I reserve my worst Billingsgate for lie . . . AYhcn he quitted of-

fie? in 189-1, in ropl.v to my letter o; farewell [Russell )iad L-cen a colleague, lie reverted to the subject in words which I think I may venture to quote— '1 am thankful to hive had a part in the om.meipatinf: la'omus of the last sixty years; but entirely uncertain hew, had I now to begin my life, I could face (lie very- different problems of tho next sixty years. Of one thing I am, and always have been, convinced—it is not by the State that man can le regenerated and the terrible woes of this darkened world effectually dealt with."'

On the other side we have Mr. Hogg and Mr. M'Laren and Mr. Laurenson. For the present, however, the Prime Minister is against their latest idea, and that, no doubt, we ought to be thankful for.