WHAT IS COMMUNISM?

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4828, 1 April 1925, Page 4

WHAT IS COMMUNISM?

GOVERNMENT BY A CLASS. PRESENT SYSTEM BEST. Some interesting observations on Communism and sane government were made by His Honour Mr Justice Ostler when presiding at the annual meeting of the Wellington Roys’ Institute. His Honour said the greatest asset the community possessed was the boys and girls of the country, in whose hands lay the future of the Dominion. He himself was bred and born in New Zealand, and as such was what he might call a double-barrelled BriHsher, whose mission was to maintain the liberty which had been handed down as a heritage by their ancestors. They had heard a good deal at street corners about a form of government called. Communism, or, as some called it, Bolshevism. It was quite clear from a perusal of_ the report made by the delegation of British trade unionists which went to Russia recently, and investigated the Communistic form of government there—and they were friendly critics —that the definition of Communism was the government of the community by a ck'jss which was vrdpared to use force if necessary upon that portion of the community opposed to that form of government. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL. They had had too much government by a class in the past history of their own country, by an absolute king and by aristocracy, both of which had been tried, and had been found wanting. It was not to be expected that any one class would be more successful.' They wanted a form of government which would give an equal opportunity to every boy and girl in the Dominion. Although far from admitting that the present form of government was perfect, it came the nearest, to perfection of any form of government devised by human wisdom. They only had to look at the public men in the Dominion entrusted with responsible offices to see that practically all of them were self-made men. Practically every profession was open to every person having sufficient capacity, industry, and the inclination to enter. BETTER THOSE WE HAVE. What they wanted to do in this country was to devise and keep some form of government which would give, equal to all their boys and girls, and they were .getting on that way. They already had their institutions, and they wanted to strive to better those institutions and keep them, not throw them down for some new form of government which was merely in the experimental stage. In order to preserve the true form of government they had to train boys and girls in the love of their country, in the value of their institutions, which had been built up by the accumulated wisdom of centuries, train thorn in habits of thrift and independence, good comradeship and good spcrtsnianship. After reading the annual report of the Boys’ Institute he liatl no doubt that the boys and girls were receiving such training, and he wished it success and prosperity. Everyone in the community missed his mark in the world unless lie endeavoured to make It a better place for his children and the children of others.