TRUSTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1079, 18 March 1911, Page 4

TRUSTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

Some very significant observations upon the stage of Socialism readied by New Zealand were given to a Sydney newspaper by Mr. C. E. Russell, the American Socialist writer who recently travelled through this country. Mr. Russell complained that although New Zealand "ought to bo the first Socialist country in the world" it has not rushed madly to a complete nationalisation of all industry and production. He citefjrthe: chief State enterprises and adds:

But. why stop at these tilings? Government ownership of these utilities eliminates nil enormous amount of the corporation trouble, such as we experience, in America with our railroad, telegraph, and telephone companies. The.v are, too, a source of our political corruption. New Zealand and Australia, having Government ownership of these utilities, pre freo from that source of corruption

We offer to you a perfect example of what these things come to if allowed to go their way unchecked. If yon permit private corporations to gain headway, and spread out over tho country, and get possession of your sources of money, supply, light, heat, why, it's liko a snowball rolling down-hill, increasing in size at every yard. It is liko ft 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 overcomo tho Government. They dictate policies. That is what we have in the United States."

The first thing that should strike any reflective reader of this passage is the similarity of the results produced by a mass of private Trusts on tho one hand and a great State Trust on the other hand. In America the Trusts arc a source of corruption of various kinds, the net result upon the average citizen being dishonest and insinccre government, unreliable Courts of law, and an increased cost of living. These are results 'already produced in New Zealand. In America the persons dependent upon the maintenance of the Trusts are numerous, and very active in their degraded prcferenco for their personal interests over truly national interests. In New Zealand we have tho same phenomena, the Government being the director of the greatest monopolies. The essence of the predatory Trust is its strangulation of free competition and natural trade. The State monopoly kills competition outright. In both eases the consumer suffers from the monopoly. The "extensive" character of the Trust cancerous is not comparable with tho extensivity of State monopoly. The Trusts "dictate policies" in America; in New Zealand the State monopolies dictate policies, make poltroons of our Ministers, make time-servers of many of our politicians, degrade Parliament, and injure the common man who has to pay for them. The plea that the State monopolies are "owned by the people" is a thoroughly absurd one. They arc "owned," so far as the enjoyment of their existence is ownership, only by the people who have secured the directorship from the majority of the people. In short, the State monopoly has the vices of private monopoly and it has vices of its own. It corrupts the conscience of thousands where the Trusts make rogues or traitors to the nation of tens. It produces a great economic waste that the Trusts at any rate do not produce. It keeps thousands of people feeding upon the true producers. It loads the real worker with tho support of a mass of parasitism that the private Trusts, in their very nature, cannot produce. It fattens a thousand demagogues | where the Trust system keeps only one man in luxury. Of course the burden of waste is not yet severely felt in New Zealand. And why 1 Bccausc the community is receiving in loans four millions' worth of goods every year.