The Press FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1938. The Road to Socialism

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22514, 23 September 1938, Page 12

The Press FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1938. The Road to Socialism

It would be absurd to deny, and it is unnecessary to ignore, the presence of sound and useful planks in the Labour platform, of which a summary account is printed this morning and which the Prime Minister developed in his speech at Wellington last ijight. Among these may be mentioned, for example, the annual medical examination and improved physical education of all school children, the provision of assured finances for the University of New Zealand and its colleges, the raising of the school leaving age. the extension of housing schemes to help farmers and farm workers, and the organisation of measures to minimise occupational disease. Any party that made and carried out these pledges would, to that extent, be doing well; they cannot, in fact, be said to belong to the arena of party contest. Such tasks are typical of the extent to which the two parties in New Zealand agree, both upon the objects and upon the means of social progress. One party may as much be depended upon as the other to see the need for such advances and to make them. In respect of two of those points, at least, the Government is merely renewing promises so far unfulfilled: one of them appeared in the National Party’s manifesto the other day; and all of them may well be expected to be incorporated in its legislative programme. It would, indeed, be possible to take other parts of the Labour policy 'and, at first glance, to see them as parts of the National Party policy. One such is the declaration of “ the maintenance and improvement of living “standards” as a first object. Another is " the “maintenance and improvement of wages and “ conditions in industrial and other employ- “ ment. in accord with productive facilities and “ potential living standards.” Such examples of coincident aims are not rare; and it is their recurrence, perhaps, that urges the observer to look for the difference between the parties and then impresses it upon him. not as a verbal difference but as a vital one. It is. of course, the' difference between a Socialist conception, of ends and means and a liberal or individualist conception, ats the National Party manifesto strongly emphasises. But it is interesting to see. from the Labour platform itself, especially at a time when the Labour Party is not at all eager ,to parade its Socialism, what the practical effects of this difference are and threaten to be! Several illustrations present themselves. One appears in the statement that the Labour Party will “ maintain and extend the control of “ credit until the State is the sole authority for “ the issue of credit and currency.” In other words, the political party which has through responsible members noisily denounced financial! dictatorship, without the shadowiest proof of its existence, proposes to set up its own dictatorship, and a kind of dictatorship most to be feared. A bureaucracy set in absolute command of the financial life, and therefore the industrial and commercial life, of the community' not only could be but infallibly would be the most dangerous power imaginable. The Reserve Bank retains at present a certain measure of independence: it was recently used to deliver a plain , and striking warning against the Government’s hazardous financial policy in two respects—a warning to which the Government has made no adequate reply, because none can be made. The policy now announced by the Labour Party means that this independence must vanish, and with it the protection that such, independence affords to the public against misgovernment. A second illustration appears in a series of Statements, which provide for the extension of the guaranteed price plan, for the “ organisation ' and' support for expansion and “ diversification of production,” and for the." regulation of orderly marketing.” Taken together, these provisions amount to nothing short of State control of production and marketing. Although the wording is different, their meaning reaches out to that of the classic phrase ,of Socialism, “ the socialisation of the “ means of production, distribution, and ex- “ change.” The farmer who accepts these provisions must accept with them the prospect of sowing and reaping as the State directs, delivering to the State, and receiving such a reward as the State may fix. Third, under the heading of. ..public works, two things are clearly laid down: that the present public works programme Will ; be “ continued and expanded ” and that, in particular, the railway construction programme is not only, to be completed but extended. A few weeks ago the Minister for Finance rejected the theory that it is desirable to expand public works as industry -slackens and to contract them as it develops boom tendencies. This defiance of an accepted principle is now renewed. It indicates the strength of the Government’s faith in the superior efficacy of State’ spending to any other constructive agency; it indicates the Government’s indifference to the inflationary effects of continuous and increasing State expenditure of this sort; and, in the case of railway construction particularly, it indicates an almost incredible degree of obstinacy in resisting the lessons of change in transport standards and needs. All this wrongheadedness is to be attributed to the indurated prejudices of Socialism. A people which, neither admires nor trusts them should not permit itself to be ruled by them and to pay their disastrous penalties.