Evening Post. THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1938. WHO ARE THE BOGY MEN?

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 6, 7 July 1938, Page 8

Evening Post.

THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1938.

WHO ARE THE BOGY MEN?

The "bogy of Socialism" was resurrected in Parliament yesterday by the Attorney-General, the Hon. H. G. R. Mason. * Socialism has long ceased to be a bogy, though Socialists may occasionally, for tactical purposes, refer to it as such. Socialism is a very definite quantity, and is a candidate for the support of the electors; it has long ceased to be bogy-like, or spectral, or unsubstantial. No sensible opponent of Socialism regards it as, or calls it, a bogy; no sincere Socialist could possibly call it a bogy; and if any Socialist implies that the opponents of Socialism are representing Socialism as a bogy, he surely misreads their minds and intentions. What the opponents of Socialism are concerned with is nof ; the bogy of Socialism, but the reality of it. The opponents of Socialism are not-an, the position of saying to the electors—as a nurse says to children—-"here comes the bogy man." What they are pointing out to the electors is a fullblooded flesh and blood affair, no mere apparition—a Socialism that is written into the Labour creed and which is being embodied in the political flesh. Does any Labour member deny this? Can any one of them deny it? Mr. Mason is reported as saying: "It is said that one of the main election issues will be this bogy of Socialism." If he had said that "the main election issue is Socialism" he would have stated the case correctly. "The bogy of Socialism" is a phrase at least fifty years old, and for at least a decade the b»gy part of. it has been obsolete. Labour members can claim the merit of candour only if they accept the Socialisation plank at its full face value, and if they present Socialism as their definite offering to the electors. In the great struggle of last century between Protection and Free Trade, the issue was plain and honest and unbogy* like; why should the issue between Socialism and the existing order be any different? Frequently it is said, on the Socialist side, that the Government's taxation and other policies are being directed to the redistribution of wealth. Is this Socialism or is it not? Few people will deny that it is Socialism, and certainly no taxpayer will affirm that it is a bogy. The word bogy is not being kept alive by people who have any real experience of the new order and who oppose it. "Bogy" seems to be found only in the mouths of those who work under the promise and bond of the Socialisation plank. They, and nobody else, are the bogy men. ;■■ Complete control of the credit of a country by the Government has long ceased to be a tale to frighten children with. The possibility of such control is very definite, and equally definite is the possibility that the controlling Government will make a great many radical experiments directed, with other experiments and policies, to redistributing wealth and levelling conditions —in short, to Socialism, There is one barrier, and one only, to a Government's doing this and" much more; that barrier is the electors. Surely, then, the electors should be approached in sincerity, and should be told by,the Socialists that Socialism is a near, not a distant, objective which the Labour Party is pledged to attain and is definitely at work on. An elector, on being informed of the Government's whole policy—not merely part of it—and on hearing the advice of both Socialists and opponents, will then be in a better position to make his own decision than he will be if the people working under the Socialisation plank hoodwink him into believing that Socialism is only a bogy invented by Labour's opponents. On the electors falls the fateful responsibility of deciding whether Socialism js practical politics. He who swears fidelity to a principle which, on the platform, he denies or minimises, is not contributing to an electoral solution that can be either infprmed or enduring.