Life in a Beehive And the Perfect Socialist State

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26916, 30 October 1948, Page 7

Life in a Beehive And the Perfect Socialist State

Special to the Daily Times

WELLINGTON, Oct. 29. Life in a beehive was the nearest approach to the perfect Socialist State of which there was knowledge, said Mr J! R. Hanan (Oppn., Invercargill), when the House of Representatives spent most of to-day discussing honey in the Imprest Supply debate. Mr Hanan said a hive was the true Fabian pragmatic Socialism of which so much had been heard in recent times in # the House—from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.

Bees had rigid discipline and a realistic approach to life as had all Socialists, but their treatment of old age merited severe condemnation. When a working bee reached the age where he was no longer a producer he was thrown out of the hive, and the country was working along that way under its so-called Socialist Administration. In proof of that, one had only to fcoint to the .present age benefits, which applied an unfair means test to old: folk when they reached §O, and it was apparently desired that they no longer continue effective work in the community. If they did, they were denied the age benefits. The honey bee might be considered to be regimented in the approved Socialist manner, but its life was actuated by instincts on which was superimposed a system of regimentation and ruthlessness. Bees had found that the means of production, distribution, and exchange—socialistically owned—left nq place for democracy as the British people understood it. It could be imagined that if all the bees of the hive—and they numbered some 80,000—had a vote on the issue of the 30-jiour week and ' ted for it how much Honey there would be produced. The beekeepers had to work hard to receive any adequate reward. There were considerable profits in the Tare really good seasons, but then the beekeeper, apart from being stung by the bees, got well stung by the Minister of Finance.