SOCIALISM AND PRIVATE PROPERTY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 8046, 27 February 1912, Page 9

SOCIALISM AND PRIVATE PROPERTY.

(To the Editor "N.Z. Times.") Sir,—ln your' issue of the 16th inst. a correspondent signing himself "Industrialist" takes exception to two counts in Dr Redwood's indictment of Socialism. First, your correspondent denies that Socialism is opposed to private property, and secondly, that Socialism is anti-religious. Regarding the first count permit me to auote an extract from a speech hy "Comrade" Hartley, who has- recently been brought from England to preach. Socialism in this country. According to the report published in the "New Zealand Times" of October 26th last, Mr Hartley, in the oourse of his speech in reply to a welcome by Wellington Socialists, stated " . . . Where there -was privately-owned property there would be trouble. He believed that if ha went to Heaven and had property there, there would be trouble. Private property must always mean labour for those who did not possess property." Could language be plainer? If Mr Hartley did not mean that private property should bo abolished, what did he mean? . And in the face of suoh language what right has "Industrialist" to accuse the Archbishop of misrepresentation? As for the second point—that Socialism is opposed to Christianity—there is the broad fact that Continental revolutionaries and Socialists are unanimous In traduolng Christianity. The Archbishop has quoted frc-m the speeohea of professing Socialists. But there is no, need to go. beyond the coarse attacks on religion by suoh men as Blatchford, Quelch, and the late Paul Lafargue. As for the toleration of Socialists to men in their own, ranks, need I mention more than the long and sustained attacks on.M. Jaures when he permitted his daughter to receive hor first communion? I may say, reverting to the attitude of Socialists towards the right, of -private property, that I took. Mr .Hartley to task in your columns soon after his speech was reported, and though several Socialists essayed to answer me, not one did so, indeed Mr Hartley's language' was much too plain to bo ambiguous.—l am, etc, A "WORKER. February 21st. ' I . ■ . :