LABOUR AND THE HUMAN COMMODITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22830, 14 March 1936, Page 21

LABOUR AND THE HUMAN COMMODITY

TO THE EDITOR.

Sik, —"Citizen" seems to me to have misconstrued my contention, when he tells me the system now operatine in Soviet Russia is the best exaniple of State capitalism. I did not say it was Communist or even yet Socialist, and I gave the quotations to show that the past and present lea_ders in Russia also realise this. " Citizen," in his letter in your issue of March 9, charges the Labour Party with not being Socialist. I replied and said that no political party could go very far ahead of its supporters' views. The Soviet leaders also found this out. You can call it expediency if j'ou like. I turned to the First Workers' Republic for evidence and example. " Citizen" says if he were a capitalist the Labour Party would suit him, and he is glad ag a result, but not as a worker. As it is a bit early yet to dogmatise, I can only counsel: Wait and 6ee. I cannot quite follow " Citizen " when he says that because the New Zealand Labour Party is not affiliated to the Third International therefore anything they do there should be taboo, and that we here as a party should not take any cognisance of such, etc. Let me take just two illustrations—sex equality and a universal seven-hour day. Would this not be an advantage here? In dangerous and unhealthy work the hours are loss. It is perfectly true they have unequal pay for different classes of work. This only goes to show it is all a question of growth and development. To talk of anything being 100 per cent, pure—well, not just yet. The commodity gold is mined, and has to go through some processes before we see the pure article. The same applies to the human commodity, and it is the human being we have to deal with. When he is ready for the next stage, (hen the next stage will emerge. We see it in the European situation at this moment. —I am. etc., March 13. P. Neilson.