VIRTUE OF CO-OPERATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 17, 21 January 1938, Page 6

VIRTUE OF CO-OPERA-TION

I (To the Editor.) | Sir, —May I commend to your readers •■ the splendid exposition of co-operation given by the Hon. Walter Nash at the opening of the first holiday camp of Co-operative Holidays, and fully reported in Monday's "Post." The Min- | ister of Finance said many striking and significant things, and his remarks expressed in admirable summary just what the Labour movement is trying to say and do. A now era of cooperation and friendliness was promised, and a release from age-old, crippling strife.

"It is now generally agreed," said the Minister, ''that economic planning on a national basis is almost inevitable. Under any system of sound, economic, and scientific planning there will be ample scope for the people themselves to have both the power and the willingness to contribute to the planning. Along the lines of free, democratically organised co-operation - for communal objects we have the greatest chance of building the right kind of state and the right kind of social philosophy among the people." In those words iJ expressed the core of Socialism. Socialism implies co-operation, and cooperation is the essential part o£ Socialism. Socialism means production for use, with the fullest and most efficiently organised utilisation, for the benefit of all the people, of the resources of the community. Socialism is democratic—far more democratic than any form of capitalism, because to political liberty is added economic liberty, and without the latter freedom and democracy are empty phrases. Socialism, in -U word, recognises the futility of throat-cutting and strife, and insists upon the essential sanity and sheer, common sense of free, democratic, and intelligently and comprehensively planned co-operation.

But why do we need co-operation? Is it not obvious? Are not the ills, wastes, and frustrations of our present social and economic order painfully evident, and is it not clear how much more would mankind accomplish, howmuch more satisfactory would be all our lives, were we but to agree to pull together instead of against one another? Do a farmer and his family struggle amongst themselves, each endeavouring to secure for himself the greatest number of cows or the most grain? Of course not! They cooperate for a common purpose, and their co-operation is reflected in the communal prosperity and well-beinf of the family. In precisely the same way shall that larger family, the nation, prosper once the principle of co-operation is accepted as the guiding principle of human activity.—l am, etc..

Wm. L. ROBERTSON.