A Bout at Feilding.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 22, 4 August 1911, Page 17

A Bout at Feilding.

"It is' quaint hoAV seriously dealers in Avords tako themselves. Prof. Mills, .of Milwaukee, Avho Avas in Feilding a short time ago,, confessedly came to Ncav Zealand 'to learn tilings.' He has been only a feAv Aveeks Avith us, and already he has turned schoolmaster. He has cut nearly all Gordian knots. 'The only problem remaining,' he told a Southern audience, 'is the practical problem of lioav best to accomplish the result almost unanimously desired.' What a sage, deep, deep thought. If the Man from MilAvaukoe doesn't watch out, someone Avill be calling him a Poet. Here is another of his Great Thoughts on Socialism : —'Politically, the real question in NeAV Zealand is Avhether the people of NeAV Zealand are sufficiently Avellinformed as to* the nature of the proposals and sufficiently convinced of their Avisdoni to make "a practicable and immediate fight for their adoption.' The question of questions is: Does the Socialist - really knoAV Avhat he wants? No—because the English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, French, German, Italian, Swiss, and American Socialist has a different idea of Socialism —and even the practical Socialism in operation in Ncav Zealand is repudiated by those who don't know what they want." The above criticism of Prof. Mills and Socialism generally appeared in a recent issue of the Feilding "Star." I wrote the editor denying that the different nationalities mentioned by him had different ideas *of Socialism. I defined Socialism as meaning the nationalisation and socialisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and assured him, as a member of the Socialist movement for many years, that all Socialists of whatever nationality agreed to this definition as being .their aims as Socialists. I further said that his acquaintance Avith Socialism and Socialists must be a very superficial one, otherwise he AA'ould not have made the statements he did. He refused to publish my letter, the enclosed answer to correspondent appearing instead:— "R. ROSS. —You would teach your grandmother lioav to get at the inside of an egg. The most absurd thing on the face of this very practical earth is just tho parties (you are quite wrong in calling it one united party) Aye have catalogued a Surely you are not the only wellinformed man on this or any other part of the earth? There are a • few others who have read as much and heard as much and seen as much and met as many men expert on the subject in dispute as you haA r e experienced. Abuse is not argument, the suggestion of ignorance shoAA-s a \ r ery narroAV mind, and definitions ore obtainable in any textbook." . . To. this I replied as folloAvs : — Sir, —Your, suppression of my letter is absolutely against all the rules of what is usually recognised as British fair-play. You make an attack on a. party of which lam a member; you make statements Avhich are so easily refuted that you are afraid to publish. the refutation; then you de- ; scend to abuse. "You would teach your grandmother lioav to get at the . inside of an egg." The only person I was endeavouring to teach Avas yourself, but you are Jabouring under a delusion if you imagine that because you may be an old woman that therefore you are a relation of mine on the maternal side. I enclose stamped envelope, in i which you might kindly return my letter, Avhich you have refused to publish. —R. Ross; The folloAving "AnsAver to Correspon- • dent" Avas the editor's answer to' the above : — "M. Ross. —We do not keep rejected MS. It went into the W.P.B. on the day of its receipt. You are still rude, and do not'obserA*e the first rule of newspaper correspondence — courtesy, j And you must not get angry because j Avhatever you write' is not published. All letters sent to the editor are not printed—and Aye draw a hard-and-fast line against encouraging religious and Socialist controA _ ersies." My ansAA*cr to that Avas as" folloAvs : — Sir, —Your answer to my last letter goes to heap up the evidence of lioav grossly- unfair your tactics are. ~ One of your subscribers here informed mc that I must not expect fair treatment from 3'ou, but I did not believe that there Avas a single editor of any paper in this colony would descend to make an attack on any. "party without giving the right of reply. I have learned, however, that there is one. I confess this is my first experience of such treatment, and I shall take some method oi. : getting the facts placed before the Feilding public. You have a perfect right to refuse to alloAv your columns to be used for a Socialistic*.

The Newspaper and Mv Rod. Ross.

controversy, but you are morally bound as a sequence of this principle to " refrain from attacking Socialism. To make, attacks without allowing any right of reply is devoid"of all principle.—R. Ross. The enclosed appeared in the Feilding "Star" of July 17. As the editor absolutely refuses to allow any reply to his scurrilous articles, my only recourse is to send it to "The Worker." :— (Enclosure.) "ANTI-SOGIALISTIC." "It Avas the Hon. W. P. Reeves whomany years ago coined the phrase 'the social pest,' applying that term to the owners of large areas of land in New Zealand. Wo think the term can be more aptly applied to the Socialist, whom there is no satisfying. He does not know what he Avaftts, he is filled Avith what the Americans neatly phrase as 'hot air,' he blocks all practical reform by acting as a stumbling block not only out here but in. most other parts of the world, he claims that he has the same aims as the trades unionist, and yet he won't mix Avith the latter, he Avants to oavii the earth and the newspapers thereof, he is as narroAV as a tightrope, as jealous as a cat, as bitter as" gall, as proud as Lucifer, as conceited as a peacock, and a know-all avlio sees nothing but ignorance in all avlio differ with him. 'As for the Labour Party, that is only a superstition,' exclaimed a Socialist at a meeting in Auckland, no later than last Wednesday. We have knoAvn the Ncav Zealand Socialist intimately for the past tAventy years, and have come into personal contact with him and his brightest men from overseas—and the above epitomises our opinion of them as Socialists. We are .moved to emphasis o"n the subject through reading three letters from a correspondent who, folioAving the bad old Socialist examples of his comrades in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, mistakes abuse for argument, epithets for culture, personal reflections for courtesy, and threats for the art that prevails.' And all because he is not alloAA-.ed to have a free run of the 'Star' Avith his discourteous correspondence. And, like the t bad boy who has been smacked', he -Avrites : —'l shall take some method of getting the facts placed before the Feilding public' What are the real facts? The 'Star's' strong opposition to the Socialist as the pest of modern politics is a v fact knoAvn to everyone in this district Avho reads the 'Star.' The Socialist, as a Socialist, is a _time-waster, and he certainly is not going to be a spaceAvaster as Avell —in the 'Star's' columns." [The foregoing is editorially handled on another page. —Ed.]