SOCIALISM.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16486, 27 February 1914, Page 9

SOCIALISM.

, TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Our friend F. W. Burke says with the letter in this morning’s issue that his task ends. He claims that ho has shown tho impractical nature of Socialism. In forty lines he has wiped out the evolutionary, revolutionary, the I.WAV. and the syndicalist movement. He is wasting his time, [n England there is an association called the Anti-Socialist League, with lords and dukes and earls on their board of management, and they are paying thousands of pounds annually to train speakers and produce literature to show that Socialism is impracticable—and the Socialist movement is going ahead with leaps ' and bounds in England. Yes, our friend has shown that his Socialism is impracticable. I want, with your permission, to give our friend a challenge, but first let me say I am not a Syndicalist; I am a political animal, but I do not believe we shall get any change until the people, want a change; therefore I am a Propagandist. - Now. our . friend uses words very freely, and so I challenge .him to produce' any. Syndicalist . literature that advocates tile spilling of blood, the smashing of machinery, or to use. his own words, “the destruction of-.life and property.” When I said I was not a. Syndicalist I simply meant that I did not believe in their form .of organisation, but I do not wish to cast reflections .on them. The _ only organisation organised: on Syndicalist lilies-in this country: is. .the Amalgamated Society of Railway. Servants. Painters, plumbers, carpenters, blacksmiths, fitters, clerks and engine-drivers are all in the one union and are working tp benefit themselves, and.they have nothThe Federation of Labour is organised on the lines of Industrial Unionism or 1.W.W., that is each industry organised as an industry, and then federated by' an executive -board,J and each industry helps,: if necessary, other industries. That form of organisation I believe in, and the employing class believe in it, because they are organised on the same lines. . The Cornish motto is “one and all,” that is I.W.W. ism. Socialism means “one and all,” and does not mean the elevation of the few and the starvation of the many, whilst food is being destroyed because it cannot be sold at a profit. . ■ The Socialists will prevent war by the use of the general strike, and the war lords fear the Socialist movement. Take Mexico for an example. The Socialists know, and are telling the world, that the trouble there is being caused by two groups who are trying to see wlio shall get the greatest control of the oil wells. Blood will be spilt, machinery will be smashed, homes will be broken up, marriage ties will be severed and thousands of graves filled with men who are walking about to-day in the image of God, just to satisfv man’s greed for power in that far-away country, not by the Syndicalists, or the I.W.W.’s or the Socialists, and after it’s all over how much better will the world be for it ? -I am. etc., e j HOWARD. February 25. , j