LETTER BY G. MAZZINI TO WORKING MEN.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 947, 12 November 1868, Page 2

LETTER BY G. MAZZINI TO WORKING MEN.

The abolition of individual property, is the panacea proposed by several socialistic systems, especially by Communism Some even proceed further, and because the ideal of religion, legislation, and patriotism has grown obscure through ages of error, ciiste, and dynastical egotism, they would proclaim the suppression of ail faith, government, and nationality—vain chimeras of children

or barbarians ! As well clamour for the extinction of air in consequence of the evils generated by the vitiation of gases. Those theories which, in the name of liberty, aim at the establishment of anarchy and the subversion of society by exclusively substituting the individual and his rights, need no refutation at my hands, the labour of my life having been to expose such pernicions delusions by which progress, duty, the brotherhood of man, and the solidarity of the peoples, are all alike abjured. But the design of those economists who proclaim the abolition of individual property and the founding of Communism belong to the opposite extreme, and by ignoring both the individual and his liberty, bar the path of progress, and would, so to speak, petrify society. The communist formula ordains that the possession of all productive property —land, capital, household chattels, and implements of labour—should be vested in the State, by which labour and compensation should be alloted to each citizen- absolutely equal, according to some ; in proportion of merit, according to others. Were such a system practicable it would constitute a society of beavers* but not of men. Individual liberty, digpity, and conscience must expire in such an organisation of producing-machines. Physical life might continue to thrive, but moral and intellectual life must decline with the extinction of emulation, of the free choice of labour, of free co-operative association, and of the stimulus and reward of property—in short, of every inducement to prosperity and progress. In such a system the human family must degenerate into a simple herd, with the single advantage of sufficient pasturage.. Equality in the division of labour is an impossibility. Labour so various in kind cannot be estimated by the quantity wrought in a given period, but must be valued by its difficulty, its greater or less toil, by the degree of vitality it consumes, and by the utility of its results to society. By what process of calculation could we reduce to equality the labour of an hour in a mine or in a foetid swamp • and that of .an hour in a factory? Equality in the division of produce is equally an impossibility, involving immense injustice, and incapable of discriminating between varied wants or between the merit of laboriously acquired skill in labour and mere natural aptitude and untrained capacity. No ! Communism cannot achieve equality for the labourer or increase production; for, by a necessary law, let subsistence be but secure and; humanity would lose the great incentive to increase produce, to develope ability, and to progress in mechanical inventions. Communism offers but one remedy for protecting the people from hunger, and that remedy, by extinguishing all individual freedom, must blight industry,. bar progress, and eventually found a system of military despotism —I am, &c. Guiseppe Mazzini.