A SHORT CUT TO SOCIALISM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 13 July 1929, Page 9

A SHORT CUT TO SOCIALISM

| Much attention has been given in Britain to a book, published just before I he general election, in which Mr G. D. j il. Cole, who is described as one of the " 1 leading intellectual forces behind pre- ! sent-diiy Socialism, has expounded his ideas or politicaland economic develop---moats hi the next ten years. He suggests that nationalisation of industries may be effected with a minimum, pf.diprv, , turbanco. “Let the State control the nation’s industries and it need not care who'ov/ns them,” he remarks, “so long as it lias the unfettered power of taxation in its hands.” What a Socialist Government should do, he proposes, is not to tax inheritance, but to abolish it in its present forms. When that is done, all things will become easy. Family allowances will become a trifle, and the national debt a thing of no difficulty. The State, using the Rignano device, is to become the rich man’s heir. As duties on the scales contemplated;., cannot be paid in cash, the State will then be enabled to carry on the work of socialisation by “acquiring large masses of property’,” and so the productive capital of the nation will come under public ownership as well as under public control. “Leaving the ethical aspect aside, there is one observation that seems to be called for,” the “Scotsman” remarks. “A system which in two or three generations is designed to transfer the bulk of all m-operty and enterprise to the State leads to a nightmare of collectivism which corald be adequately criticised only by Mr Cole in his virulent youth.”