PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20918, 7 January 1930, Page 8

PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Mij Sivertsen, in his letter of January 3, states the obvious, which he evidently imagined I overlooked when he writes „that the insuperable obstruction to the realisation of the object which 1 advocate is not from capitalist or landowner, but from the opposition of the majority of the workers themselves. As these, he says, constitute SO per cent of the voting power, then they could put a majority in Parliament and achieve the result I desire. This, he claims, is unfortunate for my ideals, but is fortunate for the country's well-being, because I have ma do no mention of the worker's or owners right to his individual possession of the fruits of his labours. He further says, judging by his looking back over 40 years, that he sees no sign of the worker's likelihood of ever giving a vote to place a parliament in power with a majority favourable to my views. All I have to eay is, then Mr Sivertsen surely must have been, like Rip Van Winkle, very fast asleep. Forty years ago how many Labour members were in the British House of Commons? To-day there is a Labour Government. How many Labour Governments were there in Australia 40 years ago, and how many since? How did we 6tand in our little Dominion 40 years ago? and if Sir Joseph Ward had not come in with hia £70,000,000 bap of magic and his wonderful promises the Labour Party would have gone very near to being the Government here today. But why continue the tale? # Where I disagree with Mr Sivertsen is in his statement that the majority of the workers are opposed to the abolition of the private ownership of land. It is ftot opposition that they exhibit; it is nothing more or less than pure unadulterated apathy and indifference to anything that requires an ounce Or two of clear thinking, and of even 6ome of those who endeavour to. criticise, it is clearly obvious that they have not given much study to the subject. Ido not deny the person's right to what he produces. It ie because he does not get it to-day that I deny the right of private ownership of the land; but because the producer has to give up a certain portion of his product, in the form of rent, to a nonproducer and idler, who toils not neither does he 6pin, but consumes a portion of someone else's product, and that no mean amount cither.

.Does Mr Sivertsen believe our millionaires produced all they claim to control to-day? These huge private_ accumulations are the result of unpaid labourpower, usually called surplus value, and are used to exploit the non-owners further. Two factors are required to produce wealth —land, the natural or raw material, and human labour. I say that the land which is the free gift of Nature or God should be owned by all, used by all in the interests of all. Therefore it follows, surely, that, seeing all wealth is the result of human labour applied to the land, the. whole product should ho distributed in accordance with the people's, needs, no one going short of the essentials, and no one enjoying any luxury till all essentials were first satisfied. Mr Sivertsen says I ignore the foundation principle upon which the value of labour is determined, etc. “ The remuneration of labour everywhere,” he writes, “is derived solely from the price of the produce. There is no other source from which wages can be augmented. What constitutes the real defect lies in the system, and not in the ownership, which, whether private or public has no determining influence upon the rise or fall of wages.” So according to Mr Sivertsen’s own words “ the real defect is in the system,” but he seems somehow to think that the system he blames can be divorced from ownership, whether private or public, etc. I do not agree. If the system is the cause of the defect, and the system of capitalism is based on private ownership, then, logically, private ownership is the cause of the defect. This is the point I have set out to prove, and I claim that so far none of my critics has shown wherein T aifl wrong, To go into a technical discussion of details, etc., is. to me. at this stage, of little value as far as the aver age worker is concerned. The first thing to me that is required is to endeavour to show the fundamental basis of the position, then, in the words of the British Labour Party, “the Labour Party asks for power. If granted power it will use it both to lay the foundations of a new social order, and to relieve distress by carrying out as rapidly as parliamentary opportunity permits, the policy embodied in Labour and the nation; to secure for the producers by hand or brain the full fruits of their industry, and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production a 5“ best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each Industry and service; further, severally to promote the poliitcal. social, and economic emancipation of the people, and more particularly of those who depend directly upon their own exertions by hand or brain for the means of life. The individualist system of capitalist production—with its reckless profiteering and wage slavery with its glorification of the unhampered struggle for the means of life, and its hypocritical defence of the survival of the fittest; with the monstrous inequality of circumstances which it produces, and the degradation and brutalisation, both moral and spiritual, resulting therefrom', we of the Labour Party will do our utmost to see that it is buried with the millions it has done to death, etc., etc.” We have first to convince the average worker or sympathiser that a change is essential. After this he must act and gl -\f e e necessar y Power to those who will then operate the machinery la that

this change can have a chance to function. There is much work to be done, and there are capable men and women able and willing to do the job. All they ask is for a mandate to go ahead and make a start.— I am, etc.. January 4. P. Neilson. TO THK EDITOR. Sir, —Mr Neilson states that I endeavoured to make political capital out of the issue. May I ask him whether he did not state in a previous letter that there was no need for him to start a Socialist Party as one has long been in existence in New Zealand? Thereupon 1 asked him whether he meant to 6ay the present Labour Party is a Socialist Party, a straightout answer being desired. I maintain that Mr Neilson side-stepped here, and that he was cornered, as he never answered the question. Then, Sir, Mr Neilson goes on to say that neither the Socialists nor he ever said that those who own homes stole them. May I quote Mr Neilson's letter dated October 21: " Even where the present owners have paid for land, I claim that not only morally, but legally, they cannot claim it as it was either stolen, or plundered, or schemed." Mr Neilson,.replying to "A. H. T.," asks: What about the people who have to live in slums where sometimes no sun is seen or felt, and where the air is polluted, and poisoned? May I ask your correspondent if he expects these people to get a piece of land and a house builtthereon for nothing? The Government will advance all those people money to buy a_ section and build a house where there is no polluted and poisonous air, if they will only put down 5 per cent, of the money. There are thousands of workers in New Zealand to-day who have secured homes on those terms, but it is a case where what one man will live on, and live well, another will starve. If Mr Neilson would so advise the workers instead of writing the rubbish he does, he would be doing a* good and righteous action. —I am, etc., January 4. QrjEEtt FELLOW.