TWO PHILOSOPHIES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 78, Issue 7017, 9 February 1949, Page 4

TWO PHILOSOPHIES

LIBERALISM AND SOCIALISM VIEWS OF NATIONAL AND LABOUR MEMBERS The function of Liberalism is to protect the small man, according to Mr J. R Marshall, National Party member for Mount Victoria. A decentralised planned economy is the only way to ensure real liberty, according to Mr Ormond Wilson, Labour Party member for Palmerston North. These opinions were expressed at a session of the University Students’ Association Congress at Curious Cove in addresses on New Zealand’s political and economic future. The alternatives to-day were Socialism and Liberalism, said Mr Marshall. There was a superficial idealism in the conception of Socialism—the idea of sharing and co-operation. It appealed to youths who were seeking a panacea for world evils. But there was a conflict between what was ideally desirable and practically possible. Socialism involved control planning with absolute power in the hands of a few men, who would direct the affairs of all other men. The contrary philosophy led to constitutional checks and balances, as for example in the United States’ constitution. In the final form of the Socialist state, freedom ceased to exist. Opposition meant death by slow starvation. The alternative, Liberalism, was a state of mind to guide final judgements rather than philosophy along set lines, added Mr Marshall. The Liberal outlook was instinctive and traditional at the University. The idea was not confined to those parties naming themselves Liberal. There was a place for planning in his philosophy—planning for freedom in a wellordered community under the rule of law. Society should function without the abuses of unregulated competition. Liberalism planned to break monopolies, .prevent the exploitation of workers and consumers “and the exploitation to-day of employers, too.” It would outlaw restrictions on trade he said. Mr Wilson’s Views “Socialism is not incompatible with liberty and in smaller countries such as New Zealand, the best traditions of British Liberalism are most genuinely carried on by Labour Governments,” said Mr Wilson. Up to the present, the development of social services and the control of planning introduced by the Labour Government had admittedly been centralised. As he saw it, the development of the future must lie in the direction of a wider share in the responsibility of the management of industry, both State and private. He welcomed the trend tow’ards worker-participation in the management of industry and he quoted the case of the Primary Products Marketing Commission as an example of centralised planning in which farmers shared the control with the Government. Mr Wilson expressed the view that the present organisation of the civil service in New Zealand needed considerable reform. It had grown up haphazardly to meet the needs as they arose and a good deal of the delays and “red tape” which people complained of were due to this. What was wanted was a better co-ordination between departments in similar fields and at the same time to associate the outside public and interested organisations in the over-all direction of State activities. “I believe that only r through the combination of a planned economy with the widest possible measure of decentralisation, local coifr trol and workers and producers sharing in the management, can we have real liberty in the modern world,” he said.