Comments: Common and Caustic.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 23, 11 August 1911, Page 7

Comments: Common and Caustic.

By "CASSJUS CASBUS;" ; It is not" Favour Ave'want, but Freedom . Are' you for Freedom ? There's an 'exception to every rule. Example is not ahvays better- than precept. L. R. Andrews, the : author of-"HoAV to be Happy," committed suicide by taking arsenic. Socialism offers emulation worthy of the dignity of man, - instead Of'the creed of greed, the law of the pigstye. Miss Alma Black, a teacher in an 1.111----nois school,; told her ---.pupils-- that 'the Bible story of creation Avas a fableand that there was no hell. The subsequent conduct of the "unco quid" and the ''rigidly .righteous" has convinced her that "hell" is a reality. Evolution in the : physical world reflects itself mentally but not immediately. While wage-slaves have made' possible the aeroplane, -their mentar processes continue to move: with A snaillike A'elocity. . ; "Some of the'neAv trains," declares a fashion expert, "are decidedly -sugr-gestive■-of. a mermaid's tail—more pecially those which are slit- up the centre and edged round with fur or metal embroidery." But ;has anybody seen a mermaid ; s tail- built on elaborate principles here indicated? Capital itself makes no wealth—it is merely the medium -through which Labor creates wealth:- A man -may -own a pile of-soA-ereigns as largeas "a haystack; but Avithout labor they would produce nothing. He might possess all the machines and all the factories- hi the country, but without labor >'hV Avould die of starvation.' A Jewish boy, prosecuted at Liverpool- for stealing a leg of pork; eyir; aeiitly thought more : of the faith of 4iis fathers than of'the moral! Law. When asked by the magistrate why he stole the pork, he replied:, '■S'elp mc, I thought it was veal!" i-Says Iveir Hardie : "We do not want Socialism because a king >or queen' beiieA'ed in it." If it came in that form it would be. a curse. We: Avant Sociatr ism because the people demand it -as being essentia! to their waifarei" 1 ' 'Life,'' said Heraclitus of Ephesus /'is no better than death:" "Then why do you liA'e on ?" queried one. "Be--cause,'' said ;Hef aelitus, "death is no better than' life." The- aA-erage worker imagines he is in the same fix-as-Hera-clitus. "Ward is no better than Massey;" he says. Ask him why then he continues to A r ote. for Wardf and he will reply, "Because Mas-sey is no better than Ward." He does not see that Avhereas Heraclitus must choose one or the other, he need choose nei-ther-she can-vote Socialist. Writing in "Everybody's Magazine" Frederick ToAvnsend Martin, a NeAV York millionaire, declares that the average employee in the U.S.A. produces £256 of AA'ealth every year. Of this amount the Avorker gets £87. The remainder —£169- :i -goes into the -hands of other men, the capitalist and the exploiter of Labor. An American lady pastor has in N.Z., and has oj>ened out in one of the chief cities teaching people how to get rich by faith. She belongs to the New Thought Church, but one doubts if her idea is either new or original as her denomination would seem to".imply. One in a lifetime gets to knoAV quite a lot of people who seem to liA'e Avell by working on faith —the faith of other people. ( For the quarter ending. March* 31st last the deposits in Australasian banks shoAved an increase of £14,744, as compared with the corresponding quar-* ter of the previous year.- The total deposits amounted to near £165,000,000. To exist capital must go into production, and despite the coming of the Labor Party, Australia is the most-pro-"! , fitable place for Fat to exploit-just noAV. And-there are those who count this for righteousness to the Labor Party. The average life of all children born in the Old Country in Februarj; is 40 years, while for June children it is only 30 years. The peculiar thing about this fearful death rate among children in the summer month is that the increase in the aA'erage is among the children of the poor only, -which goes to prove that it arises from preventable causes —lack of proper care and improper living conditions-—both the outcome of the capitalist system. A man (one calls him a man to denote his gender merely) who was- one of the 1 noisiest of the interrupters at the Wellington Socialist meeting last Sunday night, met-with a telling rebuke from the wife of his bosom. He. Avas quite excited, and told her he had a glorious time shouting for the honour of the Empire. minutes later he asked impatiently, "Ain't supper ready ?" "Here," said she, handing him "the baby, "take hold of your bit of the Empire till I w*rm up that bit of stale Gak."