SOCIALISM AND MILITARISM.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 136, 9 June 1906, Page 9

SOCIALISM AND MILITARISM.

TO Tlftj EDITOR. Sir,. — Being one who listened to Mr. J ■Hogg's address on uhe above subject at His Majesty's Theatre on the 3rd inst., | I could not help thinking that Mr. Hogg, although well versed in politics, does not even know the rudiments on which the great "law of life" is founded. Mr. ! Hog-g must know that an inevitable i duality besets nature. For instance, we | have amongst nature's laws the inde- | structibility of matter and the conservation of energy, centripetal and centrifugal gravity, the ebb and flow of tides, animal and vegetable life, light and I darkness, heat and cold, male and female, etc. ;^ the one being indispensable for tho existence of tho other. Now, sir", the. " law of combat," and its duality " the struggle for existence, ' is the "law of life." Amongst >vild men and all wild animals those who propagate and perpetuate the species amongst the males are the strongest and best fighters. Both savage and semi-civilised nations practise infanticide; or, in other words, • eliminate the unfit. Amongst domestic I animals man eliminates and sterilises tho unfit. Regarding so-called civilised society, both the fit and the unfit are allowed to propagate the species indiscriminately and regardless of the result — namely, national oblivion Does' not Mr. Hogg observe that in all past ages, as soon as any nation became tolerably comfortable and the struggle for existence became suspended, that nation began to decay? This also applies to families and individuals. Hence the reason that human society always- first goes rotten at tho top — that, is, amongst the aristocracy. Leave a navvy, who has been a hard worker, -a fortune, or put him in an hotel, his struggle for existence is suspended; he immediately tends to decay, and in five years is in his coffin. Men retiring from active life go the same way. The nation that exists by an interminable struggle for existence, or by a drastic and perfect military system, is the one. that will survive. The socialistic one will be relegated ,to oblivion. If the law of combat and tho struggle for existence are to be violated, we must certainly eliminate the unfit "from propagating their species. Otherwise national oblivion will follow. Jn conclusion, I would like to point out to our citizens that it is the duty of every man to learn to shoot and ride, "n caso our country is invaded. Being a good rider and a crack shot, I have no hesitation in saying that it takes ut lea^t three years to become proficient i in both. — I am, etc., NATURE.. Masterton, 4th June.

Randolph Bedford, journalist and author of, several clever but erratic and loosely-constructed stories dealing -with oertaiu phases ot Australian life, has announced himself as a candidate for a seat in the next Federal Parliament. Theauthor of "Tho Waybacks," when he essayed parliamentary honours, fell heavily, the indignant farmers resenting his caricatures; and tho despised "cowspankers," who will not have forgotten how the}' arc represented in one of Bedford's recant books, may bo expected in like manner to make an effective re-. K ply. to the pitj tw at ike. Bolls*