STATE SOCIALISM.

Evening Star, Issue 12868, 18 July 1906, Page 8

STATE SOCIALISM.

[Special to the Star.]

WELLINGTON, July 18. M. Broda, a prominent French Socialist just arrived here, says: " The Socialists in France arc particularly interested ii woman suffrage, the eight-hour day in your Arbitration Act (or, as we term it. constitutional factory government), and Prohibition." Ho added: "I believe that you are going further in tho direction ol State Socialism, towards the nationalisation of industrial life, than you think yov are doing. New Zealand is in a. state* of evolutionary tendency towards this. Yon will, have Socialism before any other nation in the world, and, without having a theoretical knowledge of this fact, to a large extent you have already the environment. Your people have security against economic death; they feel safety. °You / wholo economic life is not ruhd," as it is in Europe and America, by struggle and ambition. Your people 'have not the ideals of competition and economic gain, but the ideal to do their duty and to have their joy of life. In America" money is the ultimate goal of human effort. Happiness and refinement of life are the ideals in Australasia." Speaking of the one dangei which ho sees, he said: ".. will be a very important necessity of your intellectual progress to establish a system of education and scholarships by which the most capable of your young people will have, leisure to do scientific and artistic work, j without regard for having to gain a livelihood. Then, I believe, the New Zealand democracy will have even greater possibilities of progress, artistically and intel lectually, than the world-famed aristocracies of Europe. Americans now give great attention to this. America was once only concerned about the development" of her economic resources, but to-dav takes the greatest interest in science and art." In conclusion, and where, perhaps, comes the parting of the ways, he said : " Your system of arbitration has attracted attention, because it solves the problem of con stitutional government of factories, and defines and legalises the relation between employer and employee, but there remains the far-reaching problem, concerning the benefit to labor of the creation oi pro ducts. It should go to labor. There is parasitic class gaining a part of this produce without working. Socialism will eliminate this class, and substitute own r ship by the people of all means of produc tion, the people gaining the whole henefi of their own labor. In all parts of Europe and America Socialism is being propagated Meanwhile, in New Zealand, as the farmer

has the same interest in State. Socialism, the goal of nationalising industrial life may Tx?. realised by labor with the aid—at least by the benevolent neutrality—of the farmer." Before ending he advocated the establishment .of .a system of popular universities. This is diametrically th© opposite view to • that of another French traveller, M. Andre, who wrote a charming book some;three years ago after avisit here, declaring, inter alia, "Socialism to be tho one thing furthest away from"tho'thought's of,the proletariat of New Zealand."