SOCIALISM IN POLITICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 11 March 1908, Page 81

SOCIALISM IN POLITICS.

A BURNING QUESTION OP THE DAY. The declaration of the British Labour party that the object of the party is the attainment of Socialism has caused Socialism to become one of the burning questions of the day in the Homeland. The British Weekly has undertaken what it calls an impartial inquiry, and will publish a series of articles on the subject, in which it will be assumed (1) that ail Christians are agreed that the present conditions of society cannot be perpetuated, and are in many ways fundamentally wrong : (2) that Christianity i 6 not bound up with any social theory, but exists for the furtherance of the Kingdom of God ; (3) that since we have no revelation as to the economic structure of society, it is by the j>ath of patient inquiry conducted in the Christian spirit that the hope of all true advance lies. The paper announces its intention in the following NOTABLE ARTICLE. " The attention of the country is fixed, and it will be fixed more intently than ever ere all is done, on the active and passionate propagandism of Socialists. The strong and strengthening current of political democracy is at least on object for the most respectful and earnest study. Christians may learn much from the Socialist methods. We do not intend to labour the parallel. A very few words will make it sufficiently clear. — Socialists Go to the People. — " The Socialists go to the people. They have no tine churches and very few buildings of any kind. They have no endowments and very little money. Their lecturers are poorly paid, or not paid at all, but these disadvantages do not deter them from their work. They can hire halls, and they do it ; or if they cannot, they can speak in the park, or at the street corners — wherever, in fact, an opportunity of addressing even two or three presents itself to them. " They are at their business all the time, in season and out of season. Not on one day set apart only, but on all the days in the- week they will utter themselves when they have a chanco. They push their propaganda into all circles of society. — Socialists Aim at Converts. — " The Socialists aim at conversions. They work for them, and they expect them. Their message to the people' is : ' Now it is high time to awake out of sleep.' They are conscious of the obstacles they have to face, and they do not minimise them. Thus the late Professor Anton Menger closed his noted work, ' Volkspolitik,' by pointing out that ' the worst element in the public life of all the nations is their political sloth, their fear of all deeply penetrating changes, which the circles who are interested in the maintenance of the present state of things are accustomed to call Conservatism.' " Then the work of the Socialist missionaries is practical. They do not give lectures on subjects that have a remote connection with Socialism. They do not discuss points of history. Their object is to rouse into energy — into desperate energy we might say — elements of feeling latent in the mind. They try to make their hearers break with the parties who have hitherto restrained and balanced them. Their object is to precipitate society on a new track. They know that the British mind is not easily dislodged from its holdings, and that the Tory workking man is a formidable nut to crack. So * ley make their appeals till people must depart making thear choice and conscious

that they are making it, unless it has been already deliberately made. { — Saviours of Humanity. — "It follows that the Socialist speaks with burning passion. That passion is grounded on the conviction that the world as now constituted is a City of Destruction. Even the reader of their books comes constantly against passages like this, which we translate from Jaures : ' The domination of a class is a crime against humanity. Socialism, which will abolish all primacy of classes and all classes as well, is thus a restoration of tne rights of mankind.. Hence as a mat■ter of justice it is the duty of all of us to be Socialists.' Then they hold out promises of boundless happiness of a transfigured and regenerated world. They preach a New Jerusalem made up o* Socialists. " Further, many of the leaders ofSocialism have broken their hearts over the miseries of the people, and it is not possible to deny to their leaders the deep pity of the saviours of humanity. We shall do well amid all controversies to ; remember that there is in Socialism an element which is certainly from above. Jaures dwells constantly on the thought that Socialism is a great revivifying force. ' Socialism,' he says, 'is not a Utopian ideal ; it moves and unfolds itself in full reality. It is a great vital force, intermingling itself with the whole of life, and it will soon be capable of [ guiding the whole of life.' " Surely Christians have much to learn from the untiring energy and absolute simplicity and purpose of many who are giving their lives to bring in the kingdom of Socialism." " -^