Evening Post. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1908. SOCIALISM AT THE MOMENT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 124, 24 November 1908, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1908. SOCIALISM AT THE MOMENT.

It is not commonly known that, given a little more eaily Victorian enthusiasm, a real Socialistic settlement might have been recorded in the annals of New Zealand. It was to New Zealand, then somewhat vaguely "situated in the Pacific Ocean," that Robert Peitoberton turned his eyes of ecstatic inspiration in 1854 ; and at one time Peniberton hopefully anticipated receipt of the vital cash. Even now, Pemberton's book is cheerful reading for New Zcalanders. It tells us what we have missed. In this distant paradise "situated in the Pacdfic Ocean," a tract of land 200,000 acres in extent was to be acquired from the British Government, but it was 1 intimated that it might be possible to procure the land from the innocent aborigines of that epoch at about a farthing per acre. Once obtained, it was to be divided into ten districts of 20,000 acres each, with a separate society to each— the first of them to bo called Queen Victoria Town. Each town was to be perfectly round, and about a mile in diameter, with a central circle of about 50 acres occupied by colleges. Manufactories were to occupy the next belt, and then concentric rings of buildings were to be erected until aIJ the spaco was occupied. How many people were to be accommodated in each society is not mentioned, and the book, according to the Socialistic manner, does not provide such common commercial things as estimates and balance-sheets. All was a dream. The happiness of the colony was to rest upon a communistic basis, andi to abide under tho shelter of an entirely new system of education. Book teaching was to be abolished. Intelligence and knowledge were to be trained and fed by observation, while trades and occupations were to be acquired by practice. Geography, for ex- i ample, was to be taught from a map of tho world laid out on five acres of ground, natural history by oil paintings of animals and reptiles fixed in the ! bush, and' astronomy and geometry were also to be imparted on the ground-plan principle. In their earliest days children were to be exercised in "manipulating labour for tho fingers," such as basket-making, and they were to be kept in educational harness in the Elysian Academy or National University until they were 21, when it was considered that they would be industrially proficient, and' have all arts, sciences, and philosophies within their grasp, so that they would be thoroughly equipped for the life of happiness that awaited them. This is what New Zealand has lost, because tho stolid English mind did not respond to the idea of circular cities. And, when Queen Victoria vSettlement broke up in the natural Socialistic course, the settlers would have come in handy as farmers and fathers of farmers. The settlers are really to be regretted. The stolid English mind, from the Socialistic standpoint, has a great many missed opportunities <to answer for. It seems appropriate that our cable messages should exhibit the progress of.Socialism among the poetic Celts, by preference. According to London news received under date of 19fch November, the i result of the proceedings at the conference of the South Wales Miners' Federation at Cardiff shows that the Socialists will henceforth dominate the organisation — regardless of the warnings of the significantly-named Mr. Abraham, M.P., who prognosticated, as President, the possible mm of the Federation, consequent upon the introduction of politics. A Welshman would be no Welshman if he had not the capacity to forget the mere real in contemplation of the lovely ideal. And as the case stands in Britain, even the Englishman is likely to be led away in pursuit of false gods — simply because many Englishmen are hungry, and the existing scheme of society gives them no fair chance to be filled. When an Englishman is hungry, he becomes truly formidable ; and the huge disparity of fortunes in Britain grows apparently

greater than ever. The country is enormously rich j but the riches are accu /rrulated .in so few hands comparati p©ly, that poverty is continually tempt/^d to revolt. The danger of Socialism ,j s in Britain's case a very real dangfar. Not that ifc is is to be anticipated '/hat the order of government will be overthrown, or that Socialists will capture,/ even momentarily, as in France, the 'j?arliamentary citadel. But, before rnrAgry English Socialists are converted into true-blue English Conservatives, by the process of acquiring something to live for and something to lose, it is likely that the social fabric will have to eiwiure some severe shocks. The cur© for ' Socialism in all countries, as Socialist 'Zheorists recognise, is to feed the proletariat ; to give workmen good wages and decent conditions of labour ; and to opejt » career for energetic industry. T'Aen follows that base and sordid state off things referred to by our own Secretaj^y for Labour in his famous American letter — when nobody is very rich and nobody is very poor ; and [ workmen are bo well off, in sprte of high rents arvd dear living, that it is impossible to persuade them to awake and arise and overturn a society in which, by comparison with the lot of workmen elsewhere, they occupy very comfortable, places. Theoretic Socialists, desirous of seeing the Millennium in Our Time, do nofc relish this picture of content in the least. A contented working-man is their abhorrence. They wish to see him thoroughly discontented, so that he may become a useful tool for the establishment of theory. Hfris opposition of interest helps to explain the cabled refusal of Mr. H. M. Hyndman, the Socialist writer, and Mr. Victor Grayson, the Socialist M.P., to appear on the same British platform with Mr. Keir Haedie. Mr. Keir Hardie our readers know ; and it seems strange at first sight ■that such an enthusiast should be classed as Laodicean by enthusiasts warmer still. But the author of "Paradise Lost" is able to assure us that there are degrees and ranks even in the hierarchy of hell. Mr. Hardie may cast off all bonds when he is thinking about regenerated India, but when he applies theory to English trade-unions and the plans of English labour — which he really knows something about — he has been discovered as making conditions, reservations even. The British Labour Party represents the British workman who is still paid wages, and who is still fed, and is therefore averse from following apostles of the unfed into real revolt. Moderation is still the Labour party's watchword ; the Socialist party's watchword is devastation preliminary to reconstruction — more or less on the model of the French Commune. And, according to Mr. Lawrence Jerrold, who writes of "A Slump in French Socialism" in the Contemporary Review for October, a division similar to the British division has now been made in France. M. Clemenceau has succeeded in establishing a distinction between theoretical Socialism and practical, and has persuaded the country, for the time being, that theoretical Socialism — the Socialism of Jaures, of the Hyndmans and Graysons — is not concerned with the real affairs of the State. He has detached the Dream from the Business, and has brought France to a conviction that, However rosy the dream, business is business. This, at least, is Ttfr. Jerrold's explanation of the facts of the hour. In France, as in England, the Socialists and the Trades Unions are not drawn together ; and the result of a momentary triumph, by the Socialists has apparently been to convince the main body of French labourers that the road to salvation must be travelled with an eye to facts, and that it is impossible to reach the goal at' a bound merely by imagining ones-self there in handbills and proclamations.