DRIFT TO SOCIALISM?

Evening Post, Issue 37, 12 August 1936, Page 8

DRIFT TO SOCIALISM?

(To the Editor.)

__ Sir,—Your correspondent "AntiSocialist" in Tuesday's "Evening Postuses some extraordinary argument in support of his ideas. He starts by saying there is abundant evidence I 'that the Government is determined to thrust Socialism upon us." Socialism is hard to define, and there are different stages of it, and, as the great Bernard Shaw said when he visited New Zealand a year or two ago, we had a great amount of Socialism in New Zealand for many years—in railways, pensions, State Advances, life and fire insurance, Public Trust, publicity, public works, subsidised farmers and farming, etc., and that was before the abominable 25 per cent, high' exchange was introduced taxing unfairly the rest of the people for helping the farmers, without a means test to prove that the assistance was necessary. The correspondent's statement is therefore valueless. ,

! Then his second paragraph that "the calibre of the New Zealand people will deteriorate and many things enjoyed in the past will disappear, take away ambition, the desire tt> work for achievement, take away ali splendour of life and individual freedom, and what is left." But, sir, who is suggesting or proposing such a fantasy? Every speech and effort of the present Government has been to achieve the very opposite—that is, to restore and improve just the very things your correspondent says they are, trying to abolish. Further, the legislation passed proves their statements correct. His later remarks about boys looking forward to occupying prominent positions in the community would lead one to believe that all these opportunities have vanished. Look around and see if they have or are likely to vanish, and judge the value of such argument. To me, sir, it's piffle, not argument at all.

Mr. Keynes, the noted English monetary authority, in the "Christian Science Monitor" of February 4, 1936, denounced the British past financial policy for "keeping us permanently in a semi-slump, whereas it ought to have been keeping us in a quasi boom." He would have industry help industry to provide enough work for everybody at progressively higher wages. His proposal is to regulate investment and

the supplies of money, thereby keeping down interest rates and maintaining commodity prices at such a stable level as to relieve the present excessive burden of many types of debt. ' Perhaps these few remarks will help to put the position in a new light to' "Anti-Socialist," lor surely (Mr. J. M Keynes's opinion should be worth his further consideration.—l am, etc., | ' • ' EQUITY. ]