“THE LABOUR PARTY’S AIM”.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2688, 29 January 1924, Page 4

“THE LABOUR PARTY’S AIM”.

POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SOCIALISM. (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League.) A group of seven members of the British Labour Party have published a book under the title of “The Labour Party’s Aim.” It is an iifnteresting brochure for the reason that it tells in fairly plain terms where the Party means to carry the nation if allowed to do so. The pole star of the party is definitely what the .waiters name Socialism, but whether the form of Socialism propounded will satisfy supporters of the party remains problematical. As a study of Socialism by these Socialists the following extract is of special interest : PRESENT LABOUR POLICY. “Here perhaps lies the chief weakness of the present Labour policy. This policy tends to concentrate on one only of the two lines of socialist development. It seeks, by taxation and industrial legislation, to make the position of the owners of capital and employers of labour inereasngly unhappy; and by collective bargaining ond legislation to make the position of the worker decreasingly wretched. In this way it will, if carried far enough, eventually stop the * capitalist, and employer from performing their only useful functions, namely, the managment and initiation of enterprises and the accumulation of new capital, while the workers will plainly become increasingly unwilling to discharge their functions in the existng condition of industry. We thus approach gradually —in this country very gradually —towards a breakdown of the whole industrial system. The collapse is long delayed because, on the one hand, workers are really much more ready to work under good conditions or bad than a student, of labour or anti-labour literature, might suppose. They are not actuated by purely economic motives, and the improvement in their position is so slow that the mass of them are nowhere in sight of being able to live in luxurious idleness on any kind of dole. On the other band, few things in this world are so much exaggerated as the poverty and self-depreciation of capitalists. Their ability to bear taxation is immensely greater than they like to pretend; the Check to saving consequent upon fresh taxation is still largely mythical, or at- worst temporary. None the less, a point must some day be reached at which the amelioration of the workers’ position at the expense of the proper-ty-owners and employers will lead to a breakdown. And the greater the success and the wider the scope of present Labour policy, the sooner will that point be reached.” POSITIVE ASPECT OF SOCIALISM. “What is wanted is that the development of communal enterprise should take a far more prominent place in the Labour programme than is now accorded to it. If the policy of burdening the rich and helping the poor had this complement, it would no longer need to be diluted. The charge that proposals directed to secure equality and freedom must check saving and industry would then lose its sting; even if true, it would become irrelevant, once it could be shown that as Capitalism was burdened, so communal enterprise was developed to replace it The positive aspect of Socialism —in the development of communal enterprise—is in fact the complement of the present negative policy of irritating the capitalist and placating the worker.” THOUGHTS ON LABOUR’S POLICY. It is admitted that the Socialist policy is dual in character —negative and positive. Did anyone outside the party say that at present it was negative and, also, destructive, in the sense of leading the worker to destroy the very subsistence they depend 'upon, they would be looked at as traducing the party. The trend of taxation and legislation under Labour party pres-

sure is something that all citizens should give more attention to il it is the danger these Socialists recognise. The phrase “development of communal enterprise” has a pleasing tone about it but what is really meant is State ownership and control of industries. Whether the pressure of Labour on the industries will be any less when owned by the State is a question most conveniently ignored. State industries may not carry the burdens of taxation and restrictive legislation that privately owned do yet it is beyond question that the people have to bear the losses just the same. The idea that there, s some special virtue in “communal enterprise” is one not substantiated by the experiences of State Trading up till now. The facts of experience are what, will ultimately tell no matter how the nation may be ed by plausible political doctrine preached even by the most able advocates.