SOCIALISTS’ GOAL

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 127, 23 February 1938, Page 12

SOCIALISTS’ GOAL

Steady Push Toward Collectivism THRIFT CONDEMNED “Thousands Sooner Be Fed Than Be Free” Dominion Special Service. Dannevirke, February 22. “No Government in the world has ever encouraged unproductive , energy and idleness the way the New Zealand Socialists have done,” declared Mr. 0. 9- Mazengarb, Wellington, in an address, given under the auspices of the National Party in the Town Hall, Dannevirke, tonight. Mr. Mazengarb said that thousands of men in this country gloried in the Prime Minister’s condemnation of thrift, and would sooner be fed than be free and earn . their own bread.

An enthusiastic audience filled the hall. The mayor of Dannevirke, Mr. E. Gibbard, presided., .

Mr. Mazengarb said that a proper regard for the aged, the feeble and the very poor must ever be a dominant consideration in statesmanship, but there was no justification for the type of Socialistic economy now being preached, under which whatever a man might earn above his immediate needs, would be taken from him and given to those who did not try to support themselves. A longing for leisure should not be confused with the leprosy of laziness which afflicted some people. No one decried altruism and kindness, but the question before the people to-day was whether the spirit of social service should be carried so far that a man should not be allowed to save for the support of himself and his family in the evening of their lives. Mr. Savage’s idea was that the State would save for him. He had told them that “it is no use saving individually; we must save nationally.” . A Nation of Mendicants? “Are we going to convert our people into a nation of mendicants, undermining their character, stifling their energy, and encouraging them to rely on the politicians for suitable jobs?” asked Mr. Mazengarb. “Is it wise to have so many people looking to the Public Treasury for the means of support either now or in later years? Think of the numbers in receipt o£ sustenance; think of the large company of trade union officials living on the levies of men and women who must contribute willy-nilly to union funds whether they like it or not; think of the dozens of people being added every day to the public pay-roll, as inspectors and overseers and checkers. All these people are allegedly there in the cause of social reform ; but they are all consumers, and a heavy burden on the really effective producers and distributors of wealth.” “Does anybody pause to think what is going to keep these ‘have-nots’ when we so discourage the ‘haves’ that they-no longer have the incentive or the energy to earn more than is required for their immediate needs?” Mr. Mazengarb alleged that there were cases in which the Labour Government had deliberately abused the employment funds by placing men on sustenance as a temporary .relief from embarrassing party situations, and quoted illustrations in “support of his contention. Karl Marx, he went on, had enunciated a theory of “surplus value,” which was the difference between what the employer gave to the worker for his labour and the amount which the employer himself received for that labour. “Surplus value” was roughly the equivalent of profit. The theorv of the Communists and Socialists was that that surplus value should go to the State, but in practice, the workman was no better off, for the “surplus value” or profit was absorbed by the extra cost involved in the maintenance of a small army of officials who consumed more of the workers' toil than the proprietor did in private enterprise. .If it were otherwise, one would soon hear of the profits made by the State in the management of those commercial concerns which it had already acquired. State Management of Everything.

“It is almost axiomatic that State concerns are run at a loss,” said Mr. Mazengarb. “But notwithstanding the proved failure of State trading, the policy of our Socialist Government is to push our people steadily along the path of collectivism, creating a State tenantry, State jobs, and State management of everything down to the shortest shoe-lace and the last potato.

"Only a few days ago the Hon. Mr. Nash declared that 'there is no sphere of life other than home life into which the Government could not at some time come?”

“The Minister of Labour would, of course, go further by entering the home itself in order to direct domestic service. And this management of every sphere of life is being attempted in the first place mainly by a group of watersiders and miners. Outside the Cabinet the head of the Watersiders’ Federation is president of the Labour Party and the president of the Miners’ Union is president of the Federation of Labour. Inside, we have Mr. Webb’s authority for the statement that ‘there are five miners and two watersiders in the Cabinet.’ And Mr. Webb has further stated that ‘the roughies who laid the foundation of the Labour movement look askance at the so-called ‘intelligentsia.’” In marked contrast to all that, the policy of the National Party, said Mr. Mazengarb, was to encourage industry and initiative, to see that merit and ability had their fair reward, and to protect the just savings of the individual from the attacks of those who held it was wrong to save. The National Party would restore the right to work to all those men, women and young people who could now stay in their jobs only by paying tribute to a union whose methods and political ideals were anathema to them. The National Party would abolish altogether the employment tax on the wages of women and would reduce the tax on men to the bare limit of what was necessary for the maintenance of those for whom work could not be provided. Objection to “Isms.” “We are determined,” he said, “that the cherished rights and privileges of the individual shall not wither away. Socialism before the war and Communism and Fascism since the war may have their .appeal to some totalitarian states in Europe and Asia. British communities have always rejected these ■isms.’ The present party was given power in New Zealand at last election

not because of its Socialism, but, in spite of it. "We cannot afford to allow a second accident of that sort, especially when we find in the last annual report of the Workers’ Union that this powerful body has some demands to make as soon as their Government is ‘safely in power for a further term.’ ” Mr. Mazengarb said that the National Party was being encouraged in its platform work by the fact that, men and women of all classes, all parties and all creeds were joining the organisation and aiding in the selection of new, young and virile men as their Parliamentary candidates. The candidates of the National Party believed that, under right direction, the individual working on his own account in co-operation with the agencies of the State, and not aft a mere cog in the machinery of State Socialism, would be able to make and to keep New Zealand and all the people who were privileged to dwell in A./'both now and in the years to co:**. yf-hat they were ever intended by Xatu.ie to be — A Nation, great, glorious and free First flower of the Earth, First Gem of the Sea.