“NO ALTERNATIVE TO SOCIALISM”

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22521, 1 October 1938, Page 16

“NO ALTERNATIVE TO SOCIALISM”

Mr J. A. Lee’s Revealing 800k 5 LABOUR AND THE TRADE UNIONS [Specially Written for “The Press” by STANDFAST.] In this article is reviewed “Socialism in New Zealand,” a book written by Mr J. A. Lee, M.P., which has already been the subject of much discussion during the present election campaign. In this book Mr Lee gives his personal interpretation of the policy of the New Zealand Labour Party. He indicates plainly that in his opinion there is for New Zealand “no alternative to Socialism,” and gives his views of the trend his party’s policy should take.

Mr Lee’s book has the interest of its authorship, its subject, and its occasion. Mr Lee is a prominent figure in the Labour Party and the Government, the political head of the Housing Construction Department, the most conspicuous exponent of aggressive Socialism. His book is a review of New Zealand’s political past, in which he attributes the good and the gain of every experiment to unconscious or reluctant Socialism, but still to Socialism; it is an account of the present Government’s legislation, as conscious and convinced Socialism, though limited yet by circumstances; and it is an outline of the future that Mr Lee would have his party build, as the limits are overcome and scope for Socialism whole and perfect is opened up, . As for the occasion, Mr Lee and his Government are within a fortnight of learning the country’s judgment of what they have done, of what they are and mean and offer.

who differ about “the degree of emphasis” to be laid at present on, for example, monetary policy as an instrument of Socialist strategy. But he is quite clear that the party has more than one mind only upon the mode and rate of approach to ita goal; upon the goal itself it is singlemindedly bent. The difference between the most conservative member of the Labour Party and the most progressive member of the opposing political party is an unbridgeable gulf, the difference between the will to inhabit a i-roflt system or the will to inhabit a system based - on human requirements. Even Mr Lee, though he certainly belongs to the “shock tactics” school of Socialist thought, not the ' Fabian or “gradualist” school, will concede the necessity for a regulated pace. One step at a time—or one leap; but it is interesting to see what leaps he is thinking of:

What the Government is seeking at the moment is the co-ordination of private industry, an improvement in its capacity to yield service to the people, an assurance that the people shall share in the advantage of such co-ordination rather than the shareholders only, rather than immediate ownership, which would be too large a responsibility to undertake overnight.

A Plain Avowal Mr Lee’s colleagues, or some qf. ihem, may wish that he had taken a later occasion. They have turned lace to the wall the Socialist constitution of the Labour Party. They are smiling ingratiatingly at every industrial and business group of the electorate. They are all innocence and friendliness. They can’t think what Socialism means; they can’t remember being pledged to it; but they feel profoundly sure, on the platform, that whatever it means and whatever they are pledged to, they can link arms with private enterprise and go merrily onwards and upwards. . . . But Mr Lee’s mind is quite clear, and most of his intentions are.

Licensing of Industry But not to-morrow .... In the meantime Mr Lee is content to see industry operate under licence—and under the eye of a Government which is to judge when the return to the licence-holders and the service to the community are “reasonably equalised.” L"r Lee himself is a hanging judge. His verdict upon private enterprise, or capitalism, totally denies it enlightenment—even the unchallengeable, utilitarian enlightenment of enlightened selfinterest—denies it all sense of social values or respect for them, denies it all credit of "contributing to them; he attributes to it only “gangster characteristics,” only a single, blind concern for “the quantity of cash profit." Mr Lee is serious. That is why it is impossible to mistake his drift when he says, in an “Afterthought in April, 1938,” that there is no likelihood, in the near or predictable future, of socialising “small private business enterprises” or of “the compulsory collectivisation of farming.” Two possibilities are excluded, but those two only.

The Labour Government—an avowedly Socialist Government—is building on socialist foundations. It is only that the vows, just now, are not being enthusiastically renewed, and that it is politically inexpedient to remember them or let the electorate remember them and realise their importance. But Mr Lee has none of this caution. He shouts out loud:

To-day, the issue is not Socialism or no Socialism. . . . The issue is democratic Socialism or Socialism dictated. I believe there is n6 alternative to Socialism, and soon we must either socialise or destroy the machine, and there is no likelihood of the machine being destroyed. New Zealand during the next few years should tell to what extent a State can speed towards Socialism along the democratic road, for speed to Socialism we will, even if a reactionary government is in power.

The Trade Unions It is perhaps not surprising that Mr Lee sees as the greatest obstacle in. the road to Socialism)the selfishness and the stupidity of the trade unions. He describes their rooted habit and established technique of using their organised power to extort some fresh gain, in conditions or cash, from their employers, without thought of wider interests than their own. He hints very plainly that it has been no part of trade union policy to give more efficient service as its gains have been won.

There is nothing startling about this. Mr Lee is making no revelations, He is only capping the very good joke of Mr Savage’s sudden distaste for the title of Socialist, and the still better joke of the widespread Labour Party protest against a matter-of-fact statement—the statement that on October 15 the electorate will have a chance to say whether it wants “an avowedly Socialist Government” in power or wants the alternative offered by the Nationalist Party.

Hours have been reduced, wages have been increased, but many conditions prevail which are essential to the existence of craft union [si fighting a capitalist employer but which are a menace to a Labour Government engaged in Socialist construction. . . . For instance, for yeans the railway* organisations have been fighting capitalistic Governments. It would be nothing short of a disaster If such an organisation were to fight a Labour Government tfs though Labour were a capitalistic boss. It must now assist the transport industry to function more economically if Labour is to continue in office and to distribute that larger income which Socialism can yield.

“Pig Iron and Profit” The interests, particularly the controversial interests (and demands), of Mr Lee’s book are numerous. One of them appears in his resolute claim for Socialism of every measure of advance in social service. State enterprise, and nationalisation, and so on, even though he recognises quite clearly that the principle actuating these advances has (up till 1935) never derived from Socialism but always from liberal promptings or a sense of expediency.

Mr Lee insists that “old-fashioned trade union technique” must be disavowed, that “the trade union must appreciate that it cannot have power and good conditions without responsibility.” He insists, in other words, that trade unionism must become enlightened. And he is anxious, because he sees one truth, uncompromising as a mountainside, and admits its full significance.

New Zealand experiments have generally followed some necessity, and whether Ihe expedient or the principle they have adopted has conformed to a theoretical viewpoint or not, they have asked, “Does what is proposed conform to human requirements? Is it practicable? Is it desirable?”

If the only result of nationalising industry is to secure worse service, capitalism will win out in the democratic struggle. Socialism adds tremendously to productive costs; only the savings of monopoly enable higher standards to be enjoyed. As the State expands its ownership, more and more must trade unions function as producing units, or social democracy fails. . If trade unions are to be caught up only in the question of wages and hours and at no time to be concerned about the general running and output and welfare of Industry, to which wages and hours are but an incident, the Labour movement in New Zealand will fail.

Yet Mr Lee appears to desire nothing less than the transformation of this rule of realism into the rule of a political- ideology. Second, although Mr Lee insists that the true values of Socialism appear in the opening of a wider and richer lifericher in leisui'e, cultux-e, art, music, health—and insists on the contrast between these values and those of “pig-iron and profit” capitalism, he insists briefly, and very x-egrettably fails to develop the argument and the evidence. It is pig-iron rather than culture that ballasts his book, after all. Third, Mr Lee’s book contains footnotes which bring it almost up to date; yet it contains accounts of certain Labour legislation and its results which are far too sketchy and inaccurate. Fourth, no judgment can be too severe on certain rancorous and reckless statements in which Mr Lee criticises the Coalition Government. “So heartless and mei’ciless was the attitude of the Government of the day that the unemnloyed flared into revolt and the four major cities of New Zealand knew riots”; this is worse than rhetorical exaggeration.

Many electors will be grateful to Mr Lee. He has here, with force and vision, stated an issufe for them, or one side of it. If they vote for the Labour Party, they vote for the chance of a complete revolution and reform of trade unionist thought and purpose and tactics—for this slender and remote chance of wise and unselfish Socialism; or they vote for the probability and near threat of a disastrous breakdown of Socialist planning. They may ask themselves the question which Mr Lee’s candour suggests, whether the better hope and the greater security do not rest with a party that rejects Socialism and trusts still in the steady development of a system based on. private enterprise and the motive of enlightened self-interest. Mark, of course, “enlightened.” Private enterprise has already proved its adaptability, its responsiveness to social change and new conditions, its ability to accept control here and to make surrender there, to judge obligations as well as opportunities, to serve a community as well as the shareholders of a company. What does Mr Lee want?—“To help make the necessary economic adjustments to keep machine production functioning humanly.” Socialism does not offer the only chance, or the best chance, but Mr Lee’s forlorn hope.

It is not true, as Mr Lee says, that the result of the Coalition’s rehabilitation policy was that “adjustment was further off after the application of the cure than at the start.” It is grotesquely untrue that this “policy of retrenchment . . . actually bankrupted New Zealand.” Such things can be only in ignorance or *in malice; but Mr Lee is not ignorant. These are respects in which a book that is to be read as history, if also as political areument, loses the honourable breadth and judiciousness that belong to historv, and earns the unpleasant distinctions of propaganda.

The Goal Most important, however, is the disclosure of Mr Lee’s personal attitude as a Socialist. He knows that the Labour Party includes Socialists

Socialism in New Zealand. By Job* A. Lee. M.P. Whitcomfce w» Tombs Ltd. and T. Werner Lauri* Ltd. 304 pp. (13/6.1