COMPULSORY CO-PARTNERSHIP.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 January 1928, Page 4

COMPULSORY CO-PARTNERSHIP.

“Compulsion” is' an obnoxious- word to tho Britisher. He is rightly jealous of interference with the freedom of the individual. Yet, in a complicated civilisation, such as our own, when it is to the interest of the community, compulsion has been willingly adopted. What reasonable Britisher objects to compulsion applied to sanitation, education, taxation, or lighting? The same principle has been extended by tho “Insurance,” “Factory,” and “Employers’ Liability” Acts. It is generally admitted that the most urgent task devolving upon the National Executive at the present time is the placing of the economic life of the nation on a firm and equitable basis. Are tho .sufferings recently endured by our population to be merely a punishment for past ineptitude and apathy —or are they the necessary pains ol a nation, in travail with a big and beneficent idea, to bear fruit in an epoch of industrial peace, the harbinger of a higher civilisation? Disraeli held that to divert a dangerous public tendency into a safe and beneficial channel is one of the highest tasks of statesmanship.—. H. Miall in the “Fortnightly Review.”