WHERE SOCIALISM HAS FAILED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 398, 16 May 1922, Page 6

WHERE SOCIALISM HAS FAILED.

mr robert blatchford's second thoughts. In n recent issue of the Clarion, Air Robert Blatchford began a series of articles entitled "Second Thoughts on Socialism. Mr Blatchford suggests in his first article that his views have been tempered, if not changed by time, and Socialists and nonSocialists alike will be sure to turn with curiosity to this latest exposition of the author's principles and beliefs. It will be thirty years next month (he says) since the- birth of the Clarion, but it is more than thirty years since I joined the Socialists. We have all of us seen and learnt a good deal in the meantime, and it will be worth our while to find out where we stand to-day. I have held all the time, that Socialism, as 1 meant it. is a fine ideal, and I hold still to that belief, lint I have said from the first and I say now that there is no short cut to Socialism and that we cannot have Socialism without Socialists. Here I must own to one mistake. I have found it harder to make Socialists than I once thought. The reason is that it is not enough to make Socialists in opinion unless they are Socialists in heart. The predatory few—clover, strong, greedy for wealth of power---are one danger. The weak few, open to every lure or bribe, are another danger. There we have a flaw in the Socialist plan, and a serious one, as we shall find when we come to look into it. With the great mass of our people the fault is not of the heart, but of the head. They do not know enough, nor think enough, and so are easily duped or.led. While we have a clever minority of eager selfish men with another minority of selfish weaklings ready to be their tools, and while the honest and unselfish majority do not think and act for themselves, or take their proper pan in the care and protection ot the laws and business of the Slate, we shall get only bad or wasteful management and administration, and Socialism will be unable to succeed. Can we gel enough good Socialists lo make Socialism safe? Can we make Socialism " pay " ? Can we make it work ? If thai seem impossible, or unlikely, is there no oilier plan that will be safer, or better suited to our imperfect nature, as il is to-day and may be for many centuries? For we must find the truth if we run. even though ii run counter 10 old hopes Merrie England in our way. lei us seek another. Ii is the good of the people, we seek, not glorification of a pet ideal. To obtain Socialism we must have Socialists. To obtain justice we must have just dealing, to obtain just dealing we must have just women and just men. And. at the best, since any scheme musl be dependent upon human beings, and since human beings are imperfect, we must no) build upon perfection, for we shall not get