LABOUR IDEALS.

Shannon News, 12 May 1922, Page 2

LABOUR IDEALS.

AND THE TEACHING OF HISTORY

Local members of the W.E.A. will be interested in the following report of a lecture given by Mr C. Marsh-Robsrts to a W.E.A. class at Broken Hill, N.S.W., from which it is evident that Shannon’s former mentor has not under a new sky lost*any of liis vigour r.f originality:—

The opening meeting of the World History Class was held last night at the Technical College. The tutor said that an educational, curriculum which merely dealt with man's economic interests was a, fraud. The object of education was to fit man to understand and to enjoy life, not to teach him to gain a livelihood. It might be objected that a man must concern himself with economic issues before be had time for such an education. The lesson, however, which history taught us was that uneducated people were not fit to solve the economic problems which beset them. 'Jhe very fact that the working class today was obsessed with only its economic grievances was a ..proof that it did not understand bow to tackle even economic problems. To produce wealth if required a knowledge of geology, chemistry, and a dozen other sciences. One might, also add a knowledge of ethics. The working class could not carry on the productive processes of industry and agriculture without a considerable amount of knowledge of man’s external environment and also of man’s own nature and history. In '"The Outline of History,” Mr H. G. .Wells had done bis best to give,-in simple language, &n account of the evolution of our inorganic environment and organic bfe. This book should be in the hands of every worker. To read it was to be armed with a liberal education. Labour politicians had bluffed the workers and lied to them shamelessly, telling them that State and political machinery could solve, such problems as poverty, unemployment, international war, and commercial crises. These problems could never be solved by politicians, even were they politicians honest and intelligent, which they seldom were.

The hope of the future lay in the education of the rank and file of the workers. Australia had a dozen houses of Parliament, and not one Labour College. In England a million miners could come out on strike and remain on strike for months lor some pettifogging economic benefit, but they would not" raise a finger to support* a movement for extending free libraries, reading rooms, Labour newspapers, public school baths, or the raising of the standard of ibeir children’s education.

As a result of this apathy and ignorance amongst the workers, the genuine Communist or Socialist w’as beginning to study history more carefully, and to revise his opinions on the class-war -and on the burning questions of the- source of value and the nature of wealth. The results of the deliberate and searching thoughts of such Communists might be summarised as follows: The old struggle between the “have-nots” and the “haves” w r as merely a struggle between jealousy and greediness. It must be superseded by a higher fouu of class struggle, that of the intelligent and public-spirited minority against the stupid, self-satisfied, selfseeking majority. Faith in democracy and human' equality was a delusion. Men ere unequal in capacity, character end intelligence. The and natures would be suppressed by proletarian democracy even more than by the capitalist system. A new spirit, a willingness to experiment, to take a broader outlook, and to abandon an-, tiquated economic) theories was required by Labour. The reason that Mr Wells had offended the Labour paries of the British Empire w’as that he had laughed at. their ridiculous ignorance land conceit, He had told them the truth, and Labour would never forgive those, who told it the truth.