SOCIAL CONFLICTS AND PEACE.

Evening Star, Issue 19663, 16 September 1927, Page 2

SOCIAL CONFLICTS AND PEACE.

VO TUB EDITOR. Sir,—A short time ago you kindly published a letter of ours headed ‘ Shaking the Big Stick.” To that a Socialist correspondent under the letters “ D.S.” has chosen to reply He says: “We live in a society clett in two by the class line,” and should not be surprised at the “ shaking of tho big stick.” We do not admit that society is cleft in two in the manner ho infers, but even if it were this would not justify what wo condemned—namely, the action of the xvew Zealand Worker’ in threatening vast losses to industry and the.,State. Thai is more than an expression of class conflict; it is a suggestion of attack that might be made on society as a whole. We said “Any combination ol fools can destroy,” and “D.S.” retorts: “We Socialists said that from 15)14 to 1918.” Just so. And if the Socialists hold that the war was due to a combination of fools, then, to be consistent, they should oppose all stirring up of strife as being foolish action. Instead of thus supporting the spirit or peace your correspondent tries to excuse the ’ Worker’s ’ senseless threat by saying the capitalist class has used tlie big stick on occasions. He thus attempts to make wrong right by the absurd argument that others have done the same. . „ .. As showing how foggy this bocinhst s ideas are, in common with many others, he writes: “The State, which is tho capitalist class. M Thus in tho same lotter ho presents the State as two conflicting classes and also one class—the capitalists. It cannot be one and two at the same time, and yet the Socialists, to suit their arguments, make it sometimes one class and at other times two. The fact remains that the State is not a class at all, though in the body of it there are a number of differing classes. Because there are social conflicts is no sufficient reason tor seeking war rather than peace in industry or any other field of social jitc. Strange, indeed, is it that Socialists who condemn war and conflict between nations are not averse to the same between citizens and classes of the one nation or all of them. Your correspondent complains that the workers under a “cost, of living -n-ace” do not have wines, cigars, and motor cars, and ho seems to imagine that all these and more can be secured by “concentrating more and more on freedom from the capitalist class. Well, the only country wo know or where tho workers have many motor cars is not Soviet Russia, but Ameuca. Ho would no doubt, he more free from the capitalist class m Russia, but that he would be any better off is very doubtful, to say the least. That the workers can have more under conditions of industrial peace than by class war wo are fully confident, and our vote is for peace; in industry and between nations. —We are, etc., N.Z. Weefahe League. September 14.