PROPERTY AND LABOUR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 23 February 1926, Page 3

PROPERTY AND LABOUR

A PRESIDENT'S WINK WORDS (Contributed by the Welfare League.) Organised Labour in .America believes in capital. It stands for property as well as for labour. It is seeking better conditions not in sonic vision of a Socialist State but in securing for the worker a larger share of property. There are certain people who through ignorance ,„■ hate, talk as if the possession of property by others were a wrong. They hold forth on the "have nots" as though such unfortunates alone had rights to be considered. Nothing liner was ever uttered on ibis question of "property in relation to labour than these words delivered by President Lincoln to a workmen's as-ooint ion :- "Property is the fruit of labour, property is desirable, is of positive good in lhe world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him that his houseless pull down the house of another, hut let him work diligently and build one for himseif. thus by example showing that his ow,i shall be safe from violence when built." The possession of property is the.v rightly regarded as "encouragement to industry and enterprise." This is a different message to the numerous Socialist publications which treat of property as if it existed merely as a stimulus to envy and class hatred. What a rebuke to the philosophers of destruction is carried in the sentence "let i£''i him that his houseless pu'.l down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself." Jn the Labour movements of various countries to-day there is far too much of leaching which runs on the line of pulling fibers down. Communist and Socialist doctrines are promulgated towards the incitement of class warfare. The objective is to take from the man of protierty, to pull down what he has, and just as the house that is pulled down it not habitable for the demolisher so the wreckers Mud they have lost what they ha\e sought. The destructive method does not pity even the destrovers constructive plans, and abjuration of violence, industry, enterprise and thrift. They ,are old time virt ties. P is. however, as true as when Abraham Lincoln spoke that these are Hie solid means of progress for the individual and the nation. Property being the fruit of labour, it is the sin ceresl respect to labour to safeguard and protect the fruit. Those who look to (he increase of property tire labour's friends whilst the destroyer is an enemy no matter what line words he may use to cover his designs.