Is This Socialism?

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 21, 19 October 1944, Page 4

Is This Socialism?

Sir, —The professed ideals and principles of Socialism seem to, have about as much effect on the conduct of its votaries as the lofty precepts of Confucius on Chinese mandarins.

These reflections arose on reading in Friday’s “Dominion” the account not only of the Fordell tunnel scandal, but of the shameful stop-work meetings on the wharves, and the decline in the standard of education in bur Socialist-ridden State schools, where no teacher dare punish for misbehaviour. ,

Mr. Semple tells us he was “let down”' by the tunnellers. No doubt He has been, but neither he nor his fellow-Ministers can escape their responsibilities by laying the blame ou others' shoulders in that fashion. Inside and outside of Parliament these men have never ceased to assure the workers and the country at large that employers are mere parasites and the working class the salt of the earth. That Socialists alone possessed the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and their policy alone made practical Christianity a possibility on this earth. Mr. Semple and his colleagues are reaping as they have sown. Instead of being leaders, and as such resisting ,the demands of unionists for ever higher wages and short hours, they have given in, only to be met, by still more demands, until it is not too much to say they have become servants to trade unions. But the financial loss to the country over the slumming of work in the tunnels, over stop-work meetings on the wharves, over the go-slow tactics. in the mines, is infinitely less serious than the moral deterioration of character and the decadence of ethical standards shown by the workers who indulge in such practices. Socialism, its advocates assure us, will bring about the Kingdom of God upon earth. Can that be established by the work-shy and the breakers of agreements solemnly entered into?—l am. etc., WAYFARER. Hawke’s Bay, October 15, 1944.