The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] MONDAY, MARCH 27, 1911. TIMID SOCIALISM.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13336, 27 March 1911, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] MONDAY, MARCH 27, 1911. TIMID SOCIALISM.

Mr Charles Edward Bussell, the American journalist and author of many wellknown books on Socialism, who recently visited New' Zealand, told an Australian interviewer the other day I hat Now Zealand had a magnificent chance to show the world an example in progress upon right linos, for it was a small country, with a compact, homogenous population i who wore intelligent and whose education prepared them for progressive ideas. The Government, however, had come to a halt when it had gone only half-way in what was, according to his convictions, the rigid policy. The Government, he said, just did enough to show what ought to be accomplished, and then it stopped. A little had been done on right lines. For instance, the £dnte owned and controlled the rail- . way, telegraph, and telephone services. State coal mines were working, hut the quantity of coal taken from the Government pita was not enough to kill the monopoly. Yet the Government was in a position to annihilate the monopoly. A little business was done in the fire insurance line, hut not sufficient to relieve New Zealand of the fire insurance companies. A little life insurance business was done, but not enough and casualty insurance was not touched by the State. Under the Workers’ Compensation Act the Government had great use for casualty insurance. That insurance ought to be furnished by the Government, but instead of supplying it the State allowed the, business to go into private corporations. When a claim was made upon a private insurance company there was always a strong tendency to fight it, and a contest in such matters was bad. New Zealand employees being insured in these private corporations brought them enormous premiums and enormous profits. That was bad. The Government had stopped where it should go ahead. Take the New Zealand purchase policy, under which large estates were compulsorily acquired and cut up to bring about closer settlement. What had been done was very good, said Mr Russell, but New Zealand was being checked in its development by land speculation, the high price of land, and the difficulty of obtaining settlement areas. The country had a good railroad system, a telephone and a telegraph system, all State-owned, but why stop at these things? Government ownership of these utilities eliminated an enormous amount of the corporation trouble, such as experienced in America with their railroad, telegraph, and telephone companies. They were, too, a source of political corruption. New Zealand and Australia, having Government pwnership of these utilities, wore free from that source of corruption. His observations round the world thoroughly con-, vineed him that the road society / Was takingwas towards public ownership anc?public pberatioii of public: utilities and .the sourtvs of necessary supply,. New Zealand: made a

very fine start towards that some years ago, but had now stopped. Hut what they have done in New Zealand,” continued Mi’ Bussell, “represents a great advance upon anything we have reached in America, where the power of the corporate company and accumulated wealth is becoming more formidable every day, more tremendous, and more irresistible. \\c offer to you a perfect example of what these things come to if allowed to go their way unchecked. If you permit private corporal ions to pain headway, and spread out over the country and get possession of your sources of money, supply, light, heat, why, it’s lik-> a snowball rolling down-hill, increasing in size at every yard. It is like a malignant, growth in a man’s body, swelling and hurting, and constantly .sapping his energies, and rendering him incapable of independent action. Trusts grow with magic rapidity, and very quickly operate and overcome the Government. They dictate policies. That is what wc have in th? United Stales.”