Freedom or Dictatorship ?

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 48, 26 February 1938, Page 3

Freedom or Dictatorship ?

THREAT OF STATE CONTROL. “There is no doubt that the great issue to-day is freedom versus dictatorship said the Hon. J. G. Cobbe,‘M.P., at Feilding last evening. ‘‘The question to be decided is, the tho people to own tho State or is the State to own the people? And it should not be forgotten that the reply must come from the people themselves. "When speaking in Parliament towards the close of the session, I said, ‘ ‘ the taking of a man’s property by legislation is a serious matter, but it is only a trifle when compared with the taking away of human liberty." In much of our recent legislation one can detect an insidious attempt to smother freedom, crush individual effort, and make State Control supreme. Independent thinking is one of the greatest crimes in the Communistic calendar. The thinking for the 70 million people of Russia is dono by a few dictators who have the power to ruin, imprison or shoot those who are obnoxious to them. We have not got that far in New Zealand; but we have a political perty, not one of whom for two years has given an independent vote. I am sure there are those among its number who disagree with waste on unpayable public works, there are no doubt those who disagree with much of our oppressive legislation, but the heavy hand of the Union dictator has crushed out the spirit of independence.

Those favouring the Russian system of collective farming in New Zealand are careful to disguise it by terming it "Co-operative farming." A recent article by a New Zealand member of Parliament, who represents a district in which there are a number of farmers, says:—"A few co-operative farms or even State farms would do more than any other form of propaganda to wean the farmer from his rank individualism." Individual effort is hateful to the Socialist. It is quite evident that doctrines, emanating from Moscow, are being quietly spread through New Zealand. The Minister of Finance admitted in the House recently that Communistic literature is now coming into New Zealand without censorship. "It is surely a frightful state of affairs when the minds of our young people are being corrupted by ungodly, disloyal literature drainage from the sewers of Moscow. A short time ago it was unlawful to import such, noxious rubbish, into our country. Socialism has declared war against the capitalist and does not believe in capital—at least in other people's hands. It has been well said that ‘capital is as necessary to the social and economic machine as steam is to an engine; they are co-existent and co-equal; take away one and the other becomes of no practical value.’ Capital is as necessary to labour as labour is to capital. And the agitator who tries to promote enmity between these two forces and prevent them from working amicably together, and to the advantage of both, is either a feather-headed demagouge or an unprincipled self-seeker, who, like the camp follower of an army, hopes to enrich, himself through, suffering and misfortune of others."