The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1914. THE COMMON WELFARE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 301, 18 December 1914, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1914. THE COMMON WELFARE.

It is remarkable that war, although its general principles are the exact opposite to Socialism, has brought the belligerent nations, each within its own country, nearer to the Socialistic ideal of the State than it has ever yet approached in time of peace. This conclusion is arrived at by a writer in the Auckland Star, who goes on to say: As soon as war is proclaimed, several of the public utilities,’ such as railways and telegraphs, whether privately owned or not, pass automatically into the control of the Government. On the present occasion the State has also superseded all private Press agencies for supplying news from day to day. No rights 'of private property I are allowed to stand when they are considered by the authorities to interfere with the necessities of the nation. . , All but fools recognise that it is the captain who must navigate the 11 ship of State in the storm. In war, more than in all the years of peace, the central Government represents the nation, and charges itself with its welfare and security. And in war the whole nation comes nearer to unanimity of purpose and to a sense of a common life than it has known at other times. A higher aspect of the Socialism of war is the submergence for a time of the divisions and feuds of parties and sects. Unionists and Home Rulers in Britain have laid aside their quarrel. Suffragists have formed themselves into committees co-operating with the Cabinet, and acting under its directions. Conservatives and Fabians unite in schemes of relief that are really Socialistic rather than charitable in character. Members of the different classes that have until lately rigidly kept their distance from each other, now meet on terms of equality to discuss plans and to help those who are in need. . . .

There has been an uprising of voluntary Socialism from the highest to the lowest. “What was dreamed, but never expected, has come about,” says Mr Paterson, secretary of the Social Welfare Association. Time and money are given without pay or reward of fame in the way that sceptical men of business once assured ns never would be done in this world of selfinterest. Under tremendous pressure, not only England, but France, and also the enemies’ country, are resolving themselves into something 1 ilce the Utopian states of the Socialist’s dream, founded, not on self-interest, but on tbo main motive of the common welfare.