NATIONAL PARTY AND LABOUR.

Evening Star, Issue 22881, 12 February 1938, Page 2

NATIONAL PARTY AND LABOUR.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —From the exposition of Mr Hargest it will be. hard to account for the existence of the National Party except upon grounds of personal ambition or of political 'inertia. It certainly does not represent the economic interests of any section of the community. Never in the history of New Zealand has there been' a government whose policy has been so much in conformity with the immediate needs of the whole population as the present Labour Government. If those who ignorantly give support to its opponents were to act wisely, they would withdraw that support, and stimulate and assist the Labour Government further along the road it has already taken. The needs of the employing class—the commodity sellers, both of goods and services—are for a secure and expanding market. That expanding marketcan be provided only by increasing wages, salaries, and social services. Steadily-increasing production, can be absorbed only by correspondingly higher standards ot living This has been the general result of the Labour Government’s policy. IF , An important factor m the defeat of the Forbes-Coates Administration was the impoverishment of small business meti and farmers who were driven to the conclusion that a Labour Government was the only hope of salvation The National Party, as lineal descendant of the late Coalition, proposes to carry on its destructive and suicidal policy. Mr Hargest or lack of argument, pushes forward the bogy of Socialism. He believes that it has been so long and consistently stigmatised that his hearers will recoil from it with horror. But history has moved on, and people now understand that Socialism is the name of a just and efficient social order. Mr Hargest assumes that the alternatives that confront us to-day are Capitalism and Socialism. That is not so. The inevitahility of Socialism is recognised by the ablest thinkers in the world. Professor Blackett, broadcasting from the B B.C. as a scientist, has this to say “I do not think that Fascism is something peculiar to the Italian or German temperament, but I think it is the logical end of a policy which meets the world crises of Capitalism by restriction of output, by-economic nationalism, and by the consequent lowering of the standard of life of the working class. . . The other way is complete Socialist planning on a large scale; this would be a planning for the maximum possible output, and not a planned restriction of output.” Fascist Italy, Germany, and Japan provide us with a frightful object lesson. They represent the natural and inevitable development of papltalism in its last stages. Not prosperity, but destitution; not freedom, but. despotism ; not peace, but incessant and devastating war. The alternatives

for any enlightened people who are not already enslaved lie between a steady, progress to Socialism and the suppression of all democratic liberty, followed as it must be eventually by violent revolution. The opponents of Socialism ignorantly strive to dam up the irresistible forces of human development* Thus the Forbes-Coates Administration balanced the official Budget by unbalancing the budgets of the people. It took from them £25 millions a year in wages, salaries, and pensions. To facilitate these deductions the Finance Act of 1932 contained! a provision: for -the summary dismissal of any public servant who dared publicly to criticise the Government. It reduced the miserable pensions of the aged. It dismissed 263 school teachers and “ saved ” a million on education. At the same time it remitted part of the excise duty on beef, abolished the graduated land tax, and reduced taxation on the incomes of banks ind large companies. Its consistent policy appears to have been to relievo the rich and make the poor pay. But, as the whole'is greater than and includes all its parts, the general: effect Wss disastrous, even for, those the party was created to represent. To-day the world is torn with war, half its income is devoted to preparation for more war, and all this death and destruction—indeed, all the major evils that afflict society—-are, directly consequent upon that despotic Capitalism which Mr Hargest arid the National Party seek to defend arid perpetuate.—l am, etc., A. B. Powell. February 12. ' -