Correspondence.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2203, 30 May 1870, Page 2

Correspondence.

[We are not responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents.] To the Editor of the Evening Star. Sir, — If the writer of Friday night’s leader had been well posted up hi his subject, he would scarcely have referred to the paper read before the Institute as being “prqfessedly on co-operation, hut inferentially on the organisation of labour.” All who know anything about the matter must be aware that “co-operation” and “organisation of labour,” have, for soma time past, been convertible terms. lie says that I have a desire to “setup” an ideal system under which “every man shall have enough to eat, whether he works or not.” If, by the words “whether he works or not” is meant “whether he is willing to work or not,” I beg to say that there is nothing in my paper to justify any such statement I do, however, most assuredly believe that every man who is “ willing to work ” is justly entitled to support. It seems that I was very much to blame for referring to such a book as the B hlc, or for attempting to support my position by anything contained therein. I am charged with “ wresting the doctrines of Holy Avrit to purposes for Avliich they were never intended." Bray, avlio is to decide this? Does the Editor of the Evening Star set himself up as an infallible authority, and must all how to his decision ? I was not aware that this was the function of a journalist. It appears that my application of tho parable “ is but another instance of the necessity for keeping purely religious teaching distinct from secular controversies.” t reply that you, not I, have introduced “religious teaching.” I kept the religious or spiritual side of the parable studiously out of sight, because it would have been highly improper to have introduced such a subject on such an occasion. I merely took the human groundwork of the parable, and from that dreAV AA r hat I conceived to be a logical inference, Avithout any regard to the religious aspect of the question. But you haA - e thought lit, not only to enter into a full and detailed, opposition of the spiritual meaning of the parable—a thing which I carefully avoided— but actually to lay down a rule of interpretation that is to be binding on the whole of the community. You —“ It is the duty of every rawi to read them reverentially and carefully, with reference to the manners and customs of the day, and to deduce from them prechehj the spiritual instruction they were designed to convey and no more. ” (The italics are mine.) Who is to decide the precise amount of spiritual instruction the Bible is designed to com-ey ? Clearly the editor of the Evening Star Enough, however, on this subject, particularly as the principle of wages deduced from the ground-work of the parable was no? meant to apply to the present state of society

bt all. It was only mentioned for the purpose of showing that co-operators were endeavoring to carry out the spirit of it by providing employment for all who were willing to work. You say—“We are aware that Fourier, Owen, and others hold different notions on the subject from those clear-headed men Adam Smith and his successors; but common sense rejects their doctrines as unsuitcd to society. This is a particularly unfortunate sentence, and shows that the author of the article in question is as ignorant of the nature of Fourierism as ho is certainly unacquainted with the opinions of some of the most distinguished successors of Adam Smith. I quote the following from a wellknown writer on political economy : “ If, therefore, the choice were to be made between communism with all its chances am l the present state of society with all its sufferings and injustices ; if the institution of private property necessarily carried with it as a consequence that the produce of labour should 1)0 apportioned as we now see it, almost in an inverse ratio to the labour—the largest portions to those who have never worked at all, the next largest to those whose wo kis almost nominal, and so on in a descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life; if this or communism were the alierna'ive, all the difficulties, great or small, of communism, would be but as dust in the balance.”

■ “ The two elaborate forms of non-com-munistic socialism known as St Simonism and Fourierism, arc totally free from the objections usually urged again: t communism, and though they are open to others of their own, yet by the great intellectual power which in many respects distinguishes them, and by their large and philosophic treatment of some of the fundamental problems of society and morality, they may justly be counted among the most remarkable productions of the past and present ago. “Even from so brief an outline it must bo evident that this system does no violence to any of the general laws by which human action, even in the present imperfect state of moral and intellectual cultivation, is influenced ; and it would be extremely rash to pronounce it incapable of success, or unfitted to realise a great part of the hopes founded on it by its partisans. With regard to this, as to all other varieties of socialism, the thing to be desired, and to which they have a just claim, is opportunity of trial.” It has been reserved for the Evening Press of Dunedin to make the important discovery that John Stuart Mill is wanting in the attribute of “ common sen e.” Is it not possible that others besides the writer of this letter may belong to a school of theorists who condemn what they cannot understand ?