DR. FERN’S TEACHING CHALLENGED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19961, 20 November 1934, Page 11

DR. FERN’S TEACHING CHALLENGED

To the Editor of " The Tirnaru Herald ” Sir,—Dr. Fern, a visiting business consultant from London, recently favoured us with two interesting addresses on how to make more money, and rise in the world, by vigorously engaging in that struggle for existence, which, in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, have resulted in the survival of the fittest, and in the extinction of the unfit. Because this struggle had been going on for untold ages among plants and animals, businessmen mistakenly concluded that it operated in human communities undergoing the slow process of civilisation; and the result of this mistake was the gradual building up of capitalist individualism, which soon infected' all the nations, like a cancer, making the poor poorer and the rich richer, as a malignant tumour robs the body of its nutriment and drains away its vitality. And then, by finally plunging the world into its present moribund condition, capitalism had demonstrated that it was unfit to survive any longer. Businessmen made a mistake, and Dr. Fern is repeating it. They imagined that, in the matter of modern citizenship, the fittest necessarily means the best, whereas such is not the case. A 1 Capone, Dillinger, and “Pretty Boy Floyd” were, undoubtedly three of the fittest men in the whole of America, but they were notorious and dangerous criminals. They were criminals simply because they persisted in pursuing the businessman’s law of the jungle, which is the survival of the fittest, in a community in which the higher human law of evolving the best had taken hold of the better classes of the people. All the high-placed people, who accumulate large fortunes by acquiring a lien on the property and lives of others, without giving an equivalent, differ very little from the kidnappers and gunmen of the United States, for, they are all actuated by the law of the' jungle. But, with this vital difference that, whereas, in the natural struggle for existence, dog does not eat dog, and shark does not devour shark, in the unnatural struggle for existence which business men imposed on the world, men are encouraged and trained to beat men. Since capitalism has failed to feed, clothe, and house the people of the earth decently, after science had gone to the trouble of showing how this might easily be done, the nations have been compelled to search for the right 1 road leading to the co-operative commonwealth, and, they have found it. In that commonwealth all will be expected to serve to the limit of their abilities, and receive in accordance to their needs. In that state, the fittest only will no longer be encouraged, but also the noblest, the wisest, the most just, unselfish, helpful, loving and lovable. Everything is at our hands for the immediate founding of such a state, with the exception of money, lack of which has brought the world to a standstill. But, since our own Central Bank has demonstrated once and for all, that money is a costless creation, there is no reason why the issue of a necessary supply of our own free money should not be issued to the people, to enable them to consume what, they need of our own productions, plus the commodities which our surpluses exchange for abroad, and thus enter the new state, to enjoy unbroken national prosperity, and an ever-rising standard of life.—l am, etc., A. M. PATERSON. Timaru, November 19.