SOCIALISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20898, 13 June 1931, Page 12

SOCIALISM.

Sir, —Mr. J. Thornes says all rny ''fulminations" are against capital, and he asks what harm is there in being a.-Capi-talist. Well, I have not "fulminated" against capital, or said there was any harm in being a Capitalist. What I have said is that the Capitalist system is a failure, and in support of that contention 1 point to the Capitalist countries of the world to-day, wherein there are at least twenty million employable people who arc unemployed. Mr. Thornes says tho people who practice self-denial and .thrift, and who work hard and save a portion of their wages, are the salt of the earth and the mainstay of any State. Now that is what I call good Victorian rhetoric and it used to b<!i an answer to critics in the days of Disraeli and Gladstone. But I would ask Mr. Thornes how many of his " salt of the earth" kind of people are there Among the unemployed and almost destitute to-day ? I could show hi in hundreds, even, in New Zealand, who worked and saved and put their hard-earned savings into little businesses or little farms, and now it is all gone and they aro broken in spirit as well as broken in purse. Such is the inevitable result of Capitalism. Good times may disguise it for a while, but the inherent contradiction in the system, namely, that producers of wealth are not able to buy back enough of what they produce to clear the market, must periodically bring about circumstances like we have to-day. When Capitalism can avoid that, consequence it will be a success., but Capitalism cannot do that. I do not blame individuals for saving or for becoming Capitalists, but I do blame people , who refuse to see what is going on around them! I still say that there his as yet been no Gove.'rnment elected with a mandate to introduce Socialism. Labour Governments in various places are trying to administer the affairs of Capitalist States in such a way that such sacrifices as are now demanded, in conseqr.ence of Canital- - ism, shall not all be borne by the liardworking " salt of- the earth" kind of " people. So far as Russia and. Italy aro '• ! concernedj those Governments were not elected, but I would like Mr. -Thornes to know that I do not believe all I read about those two Governments, or even about the Government of New South Wales. If they were all the bad things that are said about them, their badness would not make the failures of Capitalism into successes, and if it should turn out to be true that Russia and Italy, under their present systems, can feed all their people, can employ them all, and can raise their general standard of educaiion and culture, and all this seems at least possible, then their experiment will have been better worth while than Capitalism's war to end wai and make the world safe for democracy was. » Ton Bloodwortk.