SOCIALISM

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7446, 22 May 1911, Page 6

SOCIALISM

ADDEESS BY ME E. S. EO3S. Mr E. S. Eoss addressed a well-attended meeting in the Socialists’ Hall last evening. The title of his address was "Some Propositions and their Consequences.” Socialism, said the speaker, was re’atcd to all propositions; it ignored nothing. The Socialist dealt with the most basic interests, bottom questions, and getting a living was the bottom question.. His first proposition was that economic misery and inequality were everywhere, with the accompaniments of the white slave traffic and unemployment. Why is this so? This question Mr Eoss sought to answer. He argued that misery and inequality were not caused by governments, because they existed under all governments, despotic, oppressive and benevolent. They were not caused by intemperance, because they were to bo found alike in beer-drinking -Germany and abstemious India. They were not bred of the fiscal svstem, because they existed in freetrado England and protectionist America. Labour legislation did not cure the evil, because increased wages made the condition of the worker no bettor. Land nationalisation likewise existed in Idiia. but so did the evils. Economic misery and inequality were due to the competitive system, kept going by unpaid labour. Socialism would remove this and tho evils following in its train.