[ESTABLISHED 1875.] Manawatu Daily Times The Oldest Manawatu Journal. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, MARCH 30. 1913. CRUDE SOCIALISM.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 1883, 31 March 1913, Page 4

[ESTABLISHED 1875.] Manawatu Daily Times The Oldest Manawatu Journal. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, MARCH 30. 1913. CRUDE SOCIALISM.

The gentlemen who have been honouring our town with we-k-end visits and addressing open-air meetings in the Square from the luxurious depths of a landau may be aid to be representative of the extreme element in labour. They belong to the section which hunts through the dictionary for synonyms of the word " distraction," and spends much time concocting.-terms which will most forcibly convey its meaning, i Their speeches prove their search J fairly successful. They are not of I the school which seeks to build up I the cause of labour, which applies ! experience to the careful compila- ] tion of legislation to adjust iegij timate grievances; they are not of | the school of Millar, McLaren, Paul, | Arnold, Withy and Co., men who | have done much in the cause ! of labour. 'j hey are anathema screech rs, epithet hurlers against the established order of things, | men who exemplify the axiom that a little knowledge is dangj erous; leaders who profess to t be Socialists, but disclose by their , rem-.rks that they know little or | nothing about the latest teachings !of Socialism. If labour in Paimer- ; stem legitimately seeks to advance its | cause it would do well to use a little I discernment and study the industrial ! and po itic*l history of the las' few ■ years in New Zealand, and choose j its associations accordingly, before i it allows unwnole ome, destructive doctrines to be uttered in its name. It would not be a profitable employment of space to deal with all the economic falacies log-horned on Saturday night in the Square. But the burden of the speeches appeared to \ be that the workers should seek to apply the levelling process to society , in order that in the new conditions ' arising each labourer would obtain I the full product of his labour. This is very crude Socialism. It was put | forth to some extent by Marx and the earlier economists, but the more ' educated Socialists of to-day admit the impossibility of the doctrine—they perceive that labour itself produces but a fraction of this wealth. They admit that talents and genius, . and directive ability, must play thei" part; that the reward must be sufficient to supply incentive for the free exercise ot these faculties. They admit, also, ihat in all stages of society there must be those who direct and control. Opponents o! socialism build their defence upon these admissions. One modern writer, Hubbard, also points out that the entire teaching of the socialistic doctrine is that the larger section of the society should have the opportunity of bettering their conditions ; of grasping the utmost sharo they can of this world's goods; and that this self-betterment at the expense of others is the incentive they offer for the revolutionary change they propose. He would educate the large section of society up to this doctrine, yet at the same time would have the opposite lesson of self-abnegation forcibly taught to the smaller section—he would take from the talented men and geniuses, or men of special directiva ability, in short, a share of what they produce. The morality of the many is to remain, as it always has been, comfortably based on the familiar desire for dollars. The morality ot the few is to be based on some hitherto unknown contempt for them; and the class which the Socialists fix upon as the subjects of this moral transformation is precisely the class which they denounce as being, and as always having been, in respect of its devotion to dollars, the most notorious and " the most notoriously incorrigible." The tame writer deals also with the doctrine that every man should have what he produces. He shows that the product per head in Britain towards the close of the 19th century was four to five times as great as it was towards the close of the sixteenth. To what was this increase in industrial productivity due ? It was due, he states, to a change in the ability of those by whom the labour was organised and directed. That class had been progressiveiy absorbing into itself, and concentrating on the conduct of industry ambitions, intelligence, and strong

practical wills wliicli formerly found their outlet in very different channels ecclesiastical, political, and more specially military. Man for man industry became more productive because to an increasing degree the ablest men of the nation concentrated their exceptional powers in directing the business of production. More wealth was brought to the country for division among the inhabitants; wages went up 45 per cent in the period mentioned. What part of this increase was attributable to the ability of the Watts, the Stephensons, the Ark - wrights, the Bessemers, the Edisons and so forthV The argument therefore, of the Socialist who still adheres to the old doctrine of an allotment of the reward of individual production, would, on these facts, rather operate against those he seeks to benefit.