TOM MANN ON SOCIALISM.

Motueka Star, Volume II, Issue 61, 14 March 1902, Page 4

TOM MANN ON SOCIALISM.

Th& Sew'.Zealand • Times says . There- was a crowded house at Wellington last*: Sunday .night to lief a- Mr Tom Mann's lecture on Socialism. Mr Sam Smith, ..MvLuA.,. of New South Wales,-presided:*-'. The lecturer spoke at gi eat-lengthy tracing the development of Socialism in France, Germany, Sweden, -Holland, Belguim and England. There were many grades of Socialising but he declared they were all based on a belief that poverty was the product of unnatural conditions. When a man came to the conclusion that poverty did not arise from the earth's inefficiency to yield ample sustenance for all its people, but that poverty and all its attendant evils arose from conditions prevalent in ill-ordered society, he had grasped the broad plane of Socialism ; and when he applied practice to his opinion he became a Socialist. The Socialist recognised that poverty was preventable, and he used his best efforts to remedy the evils that caused it. There were some Socialists, who attached considerable importance to Parliamentary doings ; there were others who believed in international efforts ; some who thought municipal legislation the best thing to advocate ; | some who were prepared to adopt any means likely to further the end kept in view by the;» ; others who thought the force of strikes the one great means to their end—"the war of the folded arms," as the French section call it—but they were .all swayed by the desire to better the condition of their fellows. Many were seized with the idea that man could get along better without Parliaments than with them—and they were able in argument to make out a strong case. There was no doubt that the referendum and the initiative supplied a substantial substitute. The lecturer was accorded a hearty ovation at the conclusion of his address. Mrs Mann sang two sacred solos during the evening. She possesses a voice of fine tone and sweetness.