WHO PAYS?

Evening Star, Issue 22596, 13 March 1937, Page 13

WHO PAYS?

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —“Consumer” says I have failed to tell what the saner economic system is. Well, now, “Mint Julep,” “Scrutator,” and the Welfare League have never accused me of that. For about 10 years now, like Mussolini and Hitler, although no dictator, I have not hidden my light under a bushel. For those who profess Christianity I would sum up tho situation of a saner economic system as one where “ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” For those antagonistic or indifferent to religion I refer to tho definition of Karl Marx, the public (or social) ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. At present we give economic security to any one mentally deficient, also to the blue-faced-mandrill at the Zoo, not to mention the rattlesnake and the skunk, while we on the other hand deny it to millions of decent human beings. Do people, on the whole, believe what they profess to believe? Many people I know profess a belief in God. What they really believe in is a rising market in “their “stock exchange investments, and the humbler fry their capabilities of spotting two winners on a double chart, in either case making good at the other fellow’s loss. My pad is not big enough, nor will my life be long enough, to tell “ Consumer ” all that is in my mind about a saner system, but I can assure him when it does come (as come it will) no man’s garage or washhouse will be superior to another’s man’s bouse, and not even an unskilled labourer or his wife will have to cut down food, clothes, or deny themselves a holiday to give their girl a secondary education. “Consumer” forgets one point, and that is that consumers are producers first, oud when producers own the means of production they, and they alone, will share the wealth. No doubt “ Consumer ” will say this is Communism or Socialism, 1 don’t care what you call it; the system of every man for himself is anarchism, and leads to war and the great contradiction (there is always one in the capitalist system) comes about, the communal army is called up to safeguard tho privately-owned property. The saner economic policy will not brand an honest man denied the right to work and revere another who has no intention of working, but receives £BO,OOO a week rent from land that was made for the community. If lam wrong, then the first chapter of Genesis is wrong. I have never claimed that increased wages will solve the question far from it. I want a new system that will usher in the era when New arts shall bloom of loftier mould And mightier music thrill tbo skies, And every life shall be a song. When all the world is Paradise. —I am, etc., POL’OVESKI. 31 arch 12.