Dear Sir

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 49, 13 November 1946, Page 4

Dear Sir

Letters to the Editor must be clearly written on one side of the paper only and where a nom-de-plume is used the name of the writer must be included for reference purposes. The Editor reserves the right to abridge, amend or withhold any letter or letters.

WHAT WILL' BE LEFT lIS

Sir, —Your correspondents Messrs. Carr and Hallett overlook the fact that it was a Labour, candidate, .Dr. Finlay, who told us what would be left us—our clothes, our radios and private motor, cars. It. was the Minister of Transport who also told us that there would be no interference with the right of an individual to use his car for his own domestic purposes. It was Mr Hackett, Labour M.P., who stated at Otorohanga a few days ago that the state would have to assume the obligation of deciding who w r as to be granted overdrafts. Nobody knows better than Mr Hallett that if the State plans the economic activities of the community there must be direction to employment or manpower control, for as Socialist Bernard Shaw writes “Compulsory labour' is the keystone of Socialism.” Mr Hallett still quotes the Dean of Canterbury on the Socialist paradise in Russia. Methinks that the Dean must be regretting that he wrote his stupid nonsense, particularly so when even Socialist Mr Attlee has found it necessary to condemn the Soviet system as “disregarding all those standards of conduct which 'make life possible in a civilised world.” Your correspondents try to distract attention from the ultimate aim of our Socialist Government for what is so important is what lies at the end of the road we are travelling. Millions of well-intentioned people—in fact at one stage every Socialist—saw only good in what Hitler was doing. Even George Lansbury who resigned his Leadership of the British Labour Party so as to devote his whole time to world peace wrpte ip 1936, “History will record Herr Hitler as one of the great men of all times. Simple in his mode of life in which he is in tune with all true Socialist leaders.” The British Labour Party conducted a wide .publicity campaign lauding Mussolini and all his works, Every effort is being made to keep attention away from the ultimate objective of the Socialists, namely, the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange, whereas it is on this that all attention should be focussed together with a clear understanding of the working mechanism of a Socialist State. Any Socialist Government to achieve its objective must .finally accept dictatorial powers or abandon Socialism. Once dictatorial powers are accepted then it must commit acts which it once condemned.

All Socialists applauded the Socialists, Hitler and Mussolini—they saw the hope of civilisation in Russia—they applauded Socialist Tito, but the result of these four Socialist experiments was the opposite of the expected paradise, and must ever be so. What is so important is to fix our eyes and thoughts on the end of the road, for the end has always .been the same in every Socialist experiment to date. This was not accidental but inevitable. Yours etc.,

“ONLOOKER.”