UNSOCIAL SOCIALISTS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 146, 21 June 1924, Page 13

UNSOCIAL SOCIALISTS

A STORY OF CONTRADICTIONS

The Welfare League writes;^.

"It Is astonishing what a tremendous amount of pessimism is attached to what is oemmanly known as the Socialist movement, You take up almost any issue of a, Labour^Soclolisfc paper, and yon find it mostly ene long-drawn-out grouch and whine. Everything is wrong but tho author of the stuff issued, and he, surely, cannot be too well, or he would not groan so much, "If Socialism meant good social feeling and general sociability, how many good individualists there ore who might rightly data to be Socialists, The creed of Socialism is, however, a warped philosophy. It preaches brotherhood in •such, a spirit of hatred that the difference between its love and extreme selfishness _is nowhere distinguishable. Capitalism is wrong, therefore all capitalists should be hated,' is the social dictum of the Socialist, It would be quite as rational to say sin is wrong, and all human beings should be hated, as all are sinners,

"boelety Is visualised by the Socialists as two warring. camps, and the more class war is engendered the better ar o they pleased. This very misocial attitude is tha keynote of all their activities. They may talk pacifism as between nations, but as between themselves and the rest of society who do not agree with them, their whole attitude is one of unrelenting warfare. Their .aims, tactics, and strategy are those of warfare within i tho nation of which they, in common with other citizens, are members. Social reform which recegnißes the community' of interests of all citizens is another doctrine than that of the pessimist view that progress can only be made by pulling down' tha structure of society in the hope that a better may he produced. We find the Socialist politicians, whilst making the greatest professions of humanity, are at the same time constantly engaged in stirring-up class feeling and coniliet._ Their social attitude is one of contradiction in that they declare themselves collectivists and yet purßue such tactics as inevitably divide the collective spirit of the nation to which they belong.

"The New Zealand Labour Party joins with the Alliance of Labour in support of the idea of 'ona big union on a class basis.' When examined this is seen to be not a movement for social unity,. but an attempt to split the nation in two, and establish permanent warfare between the adherents of the alliance and party, and all other citizens whe differ from them. If all labour unions join this alliance, how then is it to function? It does not profess to act for the whole of the people, but only for the class who belong to it. There must arise occasions when the interests of the class—or section of it—will conflict with those of the State as a whole, and the vital question has to be faced, which power shall be recognised as the social authority of government, the self-constituted alliance or the political government constitutionally elected and appointed,

Look at it as we will, there remains a definite conflict between the ideas of class warfare and that of true democracy. The one big union of society must take precedence over all other ferms of union, if the social character of the State is to be preserved. Rightly considered, the only justification for voluntary associations of section or class, lies in the evidence they produce of their helpfulness to the State as a whole. Ne > alliance, league, or other named combination can usurp the power of social dictation without precipitating war within the State. Such warfare £he Communists declare for as their policy,

"The political Socialists of the Labour Party should be honest about the matter, and either drop their Marxian policy of class warfare er acknowledge that, their aims are anti-social in relation to the State.

"Division and unity of society can^t walk hand in hand, nor the creed that is unsocial in character be rightly called social in name."