COMMUNISM.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 193, 30 July 1932, Page 9

COMMUNISM.

(To The Editor.) Sir,—l notice in your report of my address last night that I am alleged to have said 1 “was not in agreement with the Communistic ideal The Communist ideal was based on a principle of the abolition of distinctions and inequalities of wealth. ...” What I did was to express my opposition to tho method by which Communism seeks to achieve its objective, and to add that I was not ‘ ‘ altogether ’ ’ in agreement even with its ideal. I approve the general principle of the abolition .of class-distinction and wealth-inequality, but not necessarily the Communist version of this general principle. I had no intention of conveying the impression that I was hostile to the whole ideal of Communism. My definite hostility is to the Communist method of force involving bloodshed, and this point your reporter makes quite clear elsewhere in his report. A slight correction is also necessary in connection with the place of Marxian economics in modern thought. If for the word “without” your readers will substitute “not of the same,” my meaning will be clearer. I am ,etc., 8 W. E. BARNARD. Napier, 29/7/32.