THE ECONOMI LE

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 14061, 16 May 1906, Page 8

THE ECONOMI LE

TO THE EDITOR. Sir—The able article of Mr George Laurenson, M.H.R., which appeared in your issue of Saturday last, and tho letters which have subsequently been contributed to your columns by “ Radii aal ” and “R.H.,” give rise to interesting questions. Mr Laurenson c> theory that the accumulation of wealth by individuals should be restricted seems illogical in itself, for if a person is morally justified in employing others •for la stipulated wage, and in appropriating the profits arising out of their industry, where can we draw the line and say that profit-making must stop? If on 1 the other hand, Mr Laurenson’s theory is correct, we must also say, to be consistent, that it should be made , impossible for one man to appropriate any portion of the profits arising out of the labour of another. Mr Laurenson’s reply to the Rev Alex. Whyte's • statement is full of happy quotations from the reverend gentleman’s own greatest authority, but it is rather a pity that ' ■ he wastes the ammunition of his intellectual powers on such medieval nonsense as that indulged in by the representative of the church, which has always been the handmaid of power and ' privilege and tbe enemy of the people. . But why does Mi’ Laurenson stop at half measures? Surely he recognises . tbe logical conclusion to which all fear- ’ less reformers have come, and sees the necessity for a complete revolution in our industrial system, and the substl- ,' tution of a co-operative common- 1 wealth in the place of the present . competitive and profit-making system. * Tour contributor, “ Radical,” evidently has his heart in the right place, but he is still groping . in the outer darkness of political economy. The Manchester school and Cobden do not satisfy the yearnings of tho humanitarian. ’ Let “ Radical ” take heart and r£ad “Looking Biackward.” j The State bank proposal of “ R.H.” Is ’* good one, but these patch-work re- I forms will never abolish poverty and i destitution. So long as men and wo- | men have to’ work for wages which are only sufficient to keep body and soul together, while others are allowed to j make,profit out of them, by appropriat- j Ing wEat they earn over and above the : amount it costs them to live, we shall have-the poor always with ns.—l am, etc., SOCIALIST.