ARRESTING PROGRESS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 31 December 1927, Page 7

ARRESTING PROGRESS.

SIR E. BENN’S COMPARISON.

‘‘Under Capitalism we stand in the market place to be hired; under Socialism we stand in tiie queue to be rationed.” This commentary on the difference between Capitalism and Socialism was made during an interview with a representative of the Press Association oy Sir Ernest Benn, reported in the “Manchester Guardian.” “My generation has lived, and will live, through a period which has suffered immeasurable harm from bad history,” Sir Ernest said. “All our public arrangements, all our social legislation, all our industrial schemes, seem to be to be founded on the assumption that the Industrial Revolution was a Horrible and degrading thing. Thd Victorian era will stand out as the greatest epoch in history. The next generation will realise that the factory owners and the private capitalists, who for 50 years have been maligned, performed the greatest work of all time. No one will. claim that they reached perfection, but I do claim that after 50 yeans of experimental and introductory work we have found out how to provide for all the reasonable needs of everybody, and that then, thanks to politics founded on bad history, the beneficent process was arrested, ' and has been checked, thwarted, and restrained ever since. “All those trades and commodities that have been left to the ‘profiteer ’ the capitalist, the factory owner, and the employer are more or less plentiful. On the other hand, those that have been touched by the politician are dear, scarce, and increasingly unobtainable. . Coal, houses, and employment have been spoilt by politics. “Take a. Sunday afternoon walk through anv slum area, and you will be. a*ppalled' at the housing conditions. But you will be astonished' to find, coming out of hovels, charming maidens in silk stockings and ‘vagabond’ hats, with dump umbrellas and vanity bags, and handsome youths in Homburgs and well-pressed trousers. “Social legislation has decreed the abolition of the landlord and of profits in houses, and in consequence there are no houses. The politician has hitherto left the clothing trade m comparative peace, and in consequence, while there is'room for improvement, we are not badly clothed. “As a theory Socialism has no leg to stand on. Capitalism is a system of exchange —is the consumers’ system, and under it each of us is under the necessity of finding others willing to accept such service as we can rendei at a price they consider reasonable and proper. . “Socialism, on the other hand, is the producers’ system. It aims at the state of affairs at which those who produce shall decide the conditions upon which they will work, the amoui'vt of work they will do, and the quality of service they will render.”