SOCIALISM DEFENDED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14923, 22 February 1912, Page 4

SOCIALISM DEFENDED.

When _ a bishop and an archbishop aro reported in parallel columns of a newspaper as attacking Socialism, it is timo that tho socialists replied, and had a fair opportunity for the same. Bishop Julius says that- the sanctity of tho family, the sanctity • of marriage, and the disintegration and tho breaking up of the social Ufa and the sacrament of marriage are going on now, and (arc likely to do a vast amount of injury— ! not under Socialism, but now! Bishop | Redwood makes a bogey, labels it Socialism I then condemns his own bogey in unmeasured and foolish terms. In tho course of his remarks the Archbishop says:—"Socialism aims at. a fourfold destruction— tho destruction of Christianity, the destruction of Church authority, the destruction of tho i rights of property, and tho destruction of I tho family; in other terms, the utter ruin ■ of tho four main foundations of Christian i society and civilisation. If Christianity is 'true, neither Socialism, Rationalism, nor : any other " ism" can over shako its walls , lot alono its foundations. Church authority j is merely something which men have conferred upon themselves. There is nothing divine about it. The Churches themselves deny tho authority of each other, and the so-called Church authority is a very human affair, entirely contrary to all tbo teachings

of ordinary common mom. Prooertv w. i no rights, and can have no rights, PwimrtJ '/ ' owners hedged m with a littlo'Ssi| authority, have made laws and a<lminigfc»V2 laws to protect. owners "of f ' property ; f£!S WW I .property of itself has. no rights. "Tljft <2! struction of the family." This letter state! I '4 ment is not true. The present-dayj conrtl IB tions are destroying family life evertwh#S," , m evidence of which fact I call RifE Julius as a witness. The family is fen!! destroyed wholesale to-day. Nothing but Socialism can put a stop to its destruction ~ ■ ' Is there no ono to put up a case again,* Socialism—that is, against the full and com plcte ownership of the means whereby th* ' (people live by the whole of the people'li? HI »?*? I ",? ther words, that all the l an d '*«! the buildings, and all the machinery iw ; be owned by all the people and used for the public good, instead of as to-day ial private gam. Edward R. Habtlet ' i Waihi. " !