CLOUDS IN THE UTOPIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 November 1932, Page 6

CLOUDS IN THE UTOPIA.

There would be almost a touch of comedy, if it were not so dreadfully tragic, in the Soviet’s latest decree regarding its factory workers. It is always a painful experience to realise that one’s Utopia is not all one thought it was, and the distress can well be imagined of all fervent Socialists in New Zealand on reading the news that if a Soviet worker is absent from work for a single day without authority he will be instantly dismissed and deprived of his food cards; that he will be evicted from his dwelling regardless of the season, without the opportunity of obtaining another dwelling or transport to another place; that he cannot be re-employed for six months; and that he is therefore virtually condemned to a lingering death for himself and his family from starvation and exposure. Nor is that all. To ensure that the punishment for this heinous crime shill be full and proper the unions are expressly forbidden to help dismissed employees. This decree, it is stated, is already ip force in Moscow and Donetz, and hundreds of people have already experienced its full severity. Apparently this is the Soviet’s, way of accomplishing its grand Five Year Plan. If this is the means to the end one may be pardoned for wondering just what the end will be. Perhaps, after all, life in New Zealand has its advantages, in spite of employers who are allegedly grinding the workers beneath their heels; in spite of Capital’s alleged tyranny over Labour; and in spite of the slavery of only a fortnight’s holiday at Christmas at the expense of the general taxpayer. It is one thing to be a cog in the great Soviet machine. It is another to be cast on the scrap heap when one develops a slight squeak.