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Evening Star, Issue 15538, 7 July 1914, Page 2

The past week baa brought into prominence an outburst of that

That Debate!

passion for rushing into

print and mounting" tho platform that can hardly b© regarded as Jess than phenomenal, even for * comrnimity where freedom ol speech, allows each to say the thing he will, and even too-restricting libel laws permit the publication of written accusations that pay small regard to the rules of Christian charity. Perhaps the weather and contagion are contributing causes to the vocal and graphic activity. The rising sa-P in leafless trees, the breaking out of cutaneous rashes, the departure of winter hoarseness and coughing are all harbingers of spring. May not this outbreak ol cacoethes loquendi and_ cacoethes scribendi —the itching for speaking and scnboling—be ascribed to some such natural cause. favored, ni course, bv the grand palaver going out the Wellington Areopagus, whim neeensa.uy has a suggestive it not an hypnotic influence. But, passing over causal conundrums to actual facts, it must be evident that newspaper readers at the present- time And themselves very mu, i of Hamlet’s opinion, who, when asked oy Polouius, "What do you read, my Lord? replied: “Words, words, words. Or they might justifiably exclaim with Pnnce Henry, when reading Falstaifs bill of charges at the Boar’s -Head: “ Oh, monstrous ! But one halfpenny-worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack. ’ This paucity of wholesom- 'pabulum and superfluity of windiness were, it must be confessed j the outstanding features of the three nights’ debate during which the lions of the Social Democratic party sought to convince the lambs of the Hanover Street Baptist Literary and Debating Society that the adoption of the prinout in a Bill to establish tho Socialistic Commonwealth would bring in the millennium, even before the year 1928, that will see the beginning of the end, according to our Auckland prophet. When the Premier of this mock Parliament, in moving the second reading of his Bill, proclaimed that its adoption would enable the people for the first time to become the real masters of their economic end social destiny, he so palpably struck '.he wrong note that the erection of a legislative edifice on so rotten a foundation r.aasceen to be impossible. Mr I. Silverstone, as a zealous reformer, is evidently still in the utopian stage that was reached after tha great*. French Revolution, when Industrial changes were dreamed about, but suffered rude awakenings. All workers were to be placed on equal terms, the egoism of private life was to be superseded hy phalansteries, when all feasted at | common tables. As one writer, describing the period, puts it: “ Between meals the men were to work in the fields singing, while a lady accompanied their voices on a grand piano under a hedge.” Surely the members of the Silverstone Cabinet have read enough of history to know that the path of Socialism as adumbrated in their Bill is strewn with the wrecks of schemes promulgated by crack-brained leaders and followed by fanatical disciples. If they do not, then the Carnegie Library opens its doors to them in vain, and cheap, wholesome literature is no more to their liking than waste paper. With such a dreamer at the head of his party, it was quite natural to find a financial obscurantist like Mr A. M'Carthy in the team. This fantastic reformer would take over the control of all our financial institutions live years hence, or immediately on the occurrence of'a financial crisis! He would abolish our present gold basis, and substitute as the standard of value in the Dominion £he labor on the article produced, and the unit would be the day's work. This, of course, is the fallacy laid down by Man in his Bible of Scientific Socialism, wherein he asserts that the measure of exchange between one class of commodities and another, such as cigars, printed books, chronometers, is the amount of manual labor, estimated in terms of time, which is on the average accessary for the production of each. The worker, instead of being paid in coin, would receive “ labor certificates.” This nonsense was talked in the midst of a :omm unity that only a few weeks before had seen or been made aware of the fact that Mr Massey had. at Methven’s foundry, by simply pressing a lever, made a seamless copper washing boiler' What would he the value of Mr Massey’s labor certificate if the amount of his manual labor were estimated in terms of time? Of course Marx and M'Carthy would argue that anything above die labor cost would he “surplus value,” that would be abstracted from ..abor and go to Capital. Both would mntend that all the machinery that made file production of the boiler by the simple pressure of a lever possinle was past labor jrystallised: but they leave out of consideration the directive ability, the inventive genius, that brought the mechanism to perfection, and that made the patentee as much a benefactor to the community as he who makes, two blades of grass grow where only one grew before. Mr M'Carthy, to the detriment of his reasoning, applied his estimate of value in terms of limo to the artist and the musician. Perhaps he never heard of the evidence given in a London witness box, when a well-known portrait painter had to sue a rich lady for his fee, which was, of course, a large one. The lady contended that it took the painter a very short time to produce her portrait, and therefore the damand was an cxhorbitant one “How long were you painting this portrait?” asked the Judge. The reply was: “ All my life, your Honor.” Socialists themselves see the utter futility of their endeavors to make the base metal of “labor certificates” the circulating medium, and look forward to the capture of all the means of production. This they can do to a very large extent if they will put their own shoulders to the industrial wheel by starting co-operative factories and stores. An economic revolution is being brought about elsewhere by such mutual combination, but in the Dominion the workers do not raise a little finger io emancipate themselves from so-called “ wage slavery.” The Social Democratic party, in their recent debate, were dumb ,ss to co-operation, but said a word in favor of Freetrade. As to the Land Question, the Bill suggested nothing hut tinkering with existing conditions, and meddling with staple industries in an obviously impracticable manner. What kind of support or appreciation from the public at large is to he expected from many of the other proposals broached during the Hanover Street debate? What is the value or the sincerity of a claim for free education in all grades when so small a percentage of workers’ children can be induced to carry on their education further than the law compels them ? Why clamor for the socialisation of the medical and surgical professions when the medical examination of school children shows that parents are too indolent to have defects remedied when they are pointed out, although hospitals are free to them? The standing reproach against the Socialists is that they ask for much and do nothing. This is the unanswerable accusation against them wherever they exist :

Socialism has produced resolutions at endless public meetings; it has produced discontent and strikes; it has hampered production constantly. But Socialism has never inaugurated an im-

proved chemical process; it has never bridged an' estuary or built an ocean liner; it has never produced or cheapened so much as a lamp or a frying pan. It is a theory that such things could be accomplished bv the practical application of its principles; but except for abortive attempts, it is thus far only a. theory, and as a theory only can it be examined.

Labor ought to be in a congratulatory .mod at this end of the -world, if anywhere. In the Slate Assemblies of the Commonwealth of Australia the party hold 157 seats out of a total membership of 347, and in the Senate 56 seats out of 111. If Labor has not mote voice in our own Parliament the ballot box is not to be blamed, for there is equality of opportunity there at least. As for the debate that "is under review, it must be franklv conceded that the Hanoverians had small difficulty in pricking the Socialistic bubbles that the Ministry comprising all the Social Democratic talents brought forward to be punctured. The young debaters fleshed their swords up to the hilt, and are no doubt ready to enter the lists again and have a further tilt at the champions af economic fallacies