SOCIALISM AT HOME.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 April 1924, Page 4

SOCIALISM AT HOME.

THE POLICY OF THE GOY’ERNjrENT. In view of the appointment of Dr Sidney Webb, the inspiror of most of the modern Socialistic thought, as President of the Board of Trade, the following extracts from his recent writings, says a London paper, will bo of interest to students of the political and industrial situation. "The process of distribution developed by tlie profiteering system might more fitly lie described as an elaborate •system of interception and blackmail.” “All the facts of modern industry prove conclusively that the competitive management of property invested in industrial enterprise, and its management in detail by individual owners, leads to hopeless inefficiency.” “It was, in fact, British commercialism that prepared the moral conscience of mankind for the German theory of world-power.” “History will regard capitalism, not as an epoch, but as an episode, and m the main a tragic episode, or DarkAge, between two eftoohs.” “The Labour and Socialist movement of the world is essentially a. revolt against the capitalist system of society.”

“The primary purpose of the Socialist is to focus attention on the peculiar kind of tyranny now exercised by a relatively small class of rich men over a mass of poor men.” “The making of pecuniary profit has

proved to be a socially injurious and even a dangerous stimulus to activity.” “It is therefore clear that a nation, in deciding to establish or to continue the private ownership of land and capital as tlie basis of the industrial organisation of its people, deliberately chooses inequality.” “The worst circumstance of capitalism is, however, neither the property ol the wage-earner nor the luxury of the property owner, but the glaring inequality in personal freedom between the property-less man and the member of the class that ‘lives by owning.’. . . That is what is meant by the wageearners when they complain of •wageslavery.’ The Socialist believes that the very basis of the capitalist system is scientifically unsound.” “Tiie most glaring instance of the capitalist direction of our mentality and perhaps, ultimately, the most pernicious, is the modern system of ownership of the newspaper press.”

“It lias been reserved for the century of capitalism to produce an extensive class of persons, absolved from productive work, of whom a large proportion of the men, and nearly all the women, have no specific function, and disclaim the obligation of any social service whatever.” “The modern capitalist profit-mak-ers, by eliminating the simple freedom of competition, have ' confronted the community with a false alternative. . . Either the trusts will own the nation or the nation must own the trusts.” “It is unnecessary to dwell in greater

detail upon the poverty of the poor as the most obvious evil result of the ‘free enterprise’ of the profit-making capitalist.” “Tne middlemen become masters of the situation. They will not allow the producers and shopkeepers to compete and thus fix prices by the old higgling of the market. . . . They fix prices themselves with an eye to their own profit. . . . Thus arises the paradox .... increased competition means increased cost of selling, and this has to be added to the price charged to the consumer. The greater the competition, the higher becomes the retail price.” ‘‘The capitalist has to pay the whole cost of the machine and even more, whilst the human instrument, though much more costly to produce, can be had for nothing. . - his only expense being the bare cost of maintaining liis power of working from week to week.”