THE DANGER OF NATIONALISATION.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 2 May 1922, Page 8

THE DANGER OF NATIONALISATION.

A LABOUR MAN'S VIEWS

(Contributed by the Welfare League.) We have in New Zealand a revolutionaiy political party which is constant y engaged in advocating "the nationalisation of banking and all the principal industries." She party is looked upon generally as "extremist " A real danger, however, exists in respect to the attitude of a large body of our politicals in that they are disposed to advocate from time to time advancements in the way of State trading and tne nationalisation of services previously left in private hands. We present here the views of Mr W A Appleton, secretary of the General Federation of Trades Unions, Great Britain, as they are worthy of the most serious thought: DANGERS OF STATE CONTROL. I tw t^ * ****■ the State mor« than 1 tear the inexperienced workman. The aUur, Wn° Ui d SUfl e + \ aS a sequence of failure, and, might be expected to learn by experience. The State would also suffer by failure, but the individuals mostly responsible for failure would mostly escape Coffering, continue to draw salaries and to qualify for Tensions. J yviL "It was Mr. Gladstone who declared that !t was the State's business to govern, not to trade. State interference involves political, as well as industrial, disadvantage. It is not merely that fetate trading costs more in cash- in practice it jeopardises more than it costs commercially. "The industrial past has had many unhappy phases. There have been bitter conflicts between Capital and Labour, but in Britain until recently there have been no revolutionary collisions between Labour and the State. If the State extends its activities, and does more than provide opportunities and hold an even balance as between the workers and tho owners of capital, it increases its uisagreements with both, so that, instead of strikes, it will become necessary ior it to face the possibility, and perhaps the fact, qf revolution. "Those who glibly advocate State control of enterprise should ponder this fact. Workmen are being advised to commit the mistake of assuming that what the State has done in abnormal circumstances, and on credit, the State can do in normal circumstances when credit has to be liquidated by cash or goods. ' "It is astonishing to find how few people there are who realise that what the State was doing during the war was merely to purchase, within its own borders, articles that had no reproductive value whatever, and for which it paid a pr:ce .altogether disproportionate to the work involved. In other words, the State was purchasing fireworks and paying for them'with papei^-paper which had no value outside Britain unless it was backed by the very capital which the Syndicalist now seeks to dissipate. Wartime prosperity was indeed fictitious., but the average man and Woman d:d not realise this, and so was started a chain, of ideas concerning post-war possibilities that well might, through undug interferance by the State ultimately result in* revolution and the disintegration of tEfc great commonwealth which includes, with Britain, Australia Canada, South Africa and India, and a host of kindred communities. THE CASE AGAINST REVOLUTION. "Only a fool desires tb produce chaos in the hope that order will evolve. Anarchy—the elimination of law and order and restraint—.whether in industry or in politics, or in commerce, carries with it disaster. All nature bows to law and cries out against its infraction. Anarchy may be dismissed as a reversion to the ineffective elemental, and as the least useful of all the theories advanced by the advocates ot

revolutionary change. "The case against revolution is admirably epitomised in the words of the •management committee of the General Federation of Trade Unions. 'It is no- , torious.' says the committee, all representative trade unionists, 'that some | men live only to fan the flame of disj content.-, They have no scruples. They call themselves revolutionaries, and the ! best of them frankly aim at the creation of a social state which has ceased to know either in equalities or pain. Their mental outlook prevents them seeing that disastrous results may follow beneficent intentions if these intentions ignore economic laws and social rights. It is argued that revolutions are necessary to coerce and displace governments. Unfortunately, revolutionary action cannot be confined to the \ punishment of governments. It is the people who? give blood and suffe material loss; and whatever is lost the people must replace with renewed greater' industrial effort. In an Empire constituted as the British Empire, that replacement must be tremendous, for the trouble cannot be confined to geographical or ethnological limits.'," The application of these thoughts of Mr. Appleton to our New Zealand conditions should inspire us to be on our guard against the insidious movement towards nationalisation. Already the people of New Zealand have seen how much the Government is being involved in industrial disputes, and what this may lead to should give pause to every public man and woman who desires stable conditions and avoidance of the dangers of social and industrial upheaval.