The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1919 BOLSHEVISM RECOGNISED.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 January 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1919 BOLSHEVISM RECOGNISED.

(With which Ifl tncorporatasJ The TaShape Post and WaiEmmo Newo).

The world is, despite the utter defeat of the Central Powers, threatened with very wide-reaching bloodshed; , there are dark social and political, ua- I tional and international, clouds loom- j ing very near. Bolshevism is rfiilitantly opposing itself to the social conditions in Russia and elsewhere while in other places, not excluding New Zealand, the gauntlet may be thrown down at any minute, either by wageearners, or by those who may rightly be termed capitalists. It is well thatcvery man and woman in this and all other New Zealand communities should realise that they may be on the very threshold of a conflict that will be felt much more seriously and affect them much more acutely than the great war has done. The country’s shipping is being held up, necessary communications stopped by men who may be said to be making exorbitant demands for their labour, and while two wrongs cannot make a right it is only human nature to return blow for blow. On the plea of shortness of supply and strong demand for the necessaries of life prices have been put up till men earning what was hitherto regarded as a high wage cannot purchase them; two or three families have to “pig” in a house only large enough for one, and now 'that »the vvage-'earner —particularly seafaring men —finds the supply of labour is not anything like equal to the demand he is practicing the exploiters’ contemptible trickery. For three year* the victims of high prices have been appealing to their Government for justice giving them the means to acquire a sufficiency and variety of food to keep them in health and vigour. Now, by a strange turn of the labour wheel, the capitalists are appealing for means to make men work ! for what they are pleased to pay them. ■ The worker regards the whole situa: 1 tion as a very one-sided affair; the j Capitalist wants to do as he pleases I whichever way the wheel turns; he I puts jup the price dishonestly with i Government support of what he has j to sell to labour, now he wants Gov- | ernment support to keep down the j price of what labour has 1 to sell to him. | and a very delicate situation has been j reached in consequence. In some other j countries this exploiting and plunder- ! ing has been carried to such a degree I as to cause desperation, and as a rej suit the cults of nihilism and anarchy came into existence, and have grown j and flourished just in proportion to the j oppression, plundering and profiteering j of capitalism, and at this very inoI ment a Parliament sitting in Franco, | representative of the whole civilised ! world, is staggered with the immensity and powerfulness of the menace that 1 the hideous practice of greed has | brought about. Nihilism and anarchy, | under the name of Bolshevism, have 1 grown by the practice of greed forcing ! into the ranks millions, of victims of their thieving proclivities, until at this moment they constitute the greatest | and most important difficulty the Peace 1 Conference has to deal with. Undoubt edly Bolshevism is supreme in Russia, and its propaganda is going (throughout the world; the Central Powers cannot stop its inroads and the Allies dare not. Here is again experienced a weakness that can only result in disaster. Bolshevism is to be offi- , cially recognised by the Allies, and the great Peace Conference has decided to invite the Bolsheviks to send representatives to confer and discuss. We can no longer refuse to realise that Bolshevism has won its greatest victory; it has forced its way on to a level with old political entities and governments, and what an impetus this , must give to Bolshevism in its vary--1 ing degrees of cruel virility in all parts !of the world. To close our eyes to the fact that Bolshevism is now in a 1 position to demand an eye for an eya and a tooth for a tooth will be sheer idiocy. Bolshevism is the absorbing problem; it has been belittled and its consideration has been brushed aside by the magnates’ of capital while it has been growing to a full political maturity. The position is intolerable, and delegates at the Peace Conference are divided on the proposal to invite Bolsheviks, as representing Russia, to attend the Conference deliberations, but it has been decidd to hold a speial conference with them. Britain is afraid to interfere in Russia as such a course might give that country a“national army on the lines of the French Revolution, and it is plain that if something is -not done Bolshevism is destined to develop on lines 1 repugnant, to civilisation and subversive of

sense of right and established social law. In this dilemma there arc almost irrefutable evidences that Frenchmen have the clearst insight; Prussianism and Bolshevism are rivals in methods of ruthlessness and frightfulness. A Frenchman effected the complete defeat of one and it is for Frenchmen that the most practical and practicable proposals for defeating the other come. A great Frenchman writing in “Lo Matin” emphasised two points; first, there cannot be any peace with Bolshevism; second, that Bolshevism, the German Imperialism, threatens all civilised states unless strangled betimes. He states that large forces would not be required to stem the invasion if steps were taken early. While Britain invites disaster by dallying and fear, France would crush out the thing while it is yet weak by prompt, practical methods; while it would yet require but comparatively insignificant forces to do it. The weakness and fear of British statesmen is enveloping British mining, transport, and other industries in industrial chaos; hundreds of thousands of men are already striking and threatening to. strike. In New Zealand, a-,few junkers are frightening sane leaders, from promptly adjusting social matters and thus saving the country from irritation and inconvenience of held-up shipping and from the outburst of an immense undercurrent of sullen dissatisfaction amongst the working-class generally. We strongly urge upon the Liberal and Labour leaders, in and out of Parliament, to combine in putting an end to the dangerous regime of dalliation with so terrible a menace; to evolve a political programme in accordance with the times in which we live; a programme that will make the life of the worker worth while; that will limit greed; that will incalculably increase production; that will institute an unequivocally liberal land policy; that will make - the sanitary housing of the people a first consideration; that will institute measures for a more just distribution of the earnings of labour; in short, a programme that will appeal to every sane, honest man as being as near uniform justice as fallible man can make it. In the absence of some such an effort this country must, and undoubtedly wilt drift along, one party trying to crush down the other in its eager greed to seize that to which it has no right, only that of might, till open, armed revolution overtakes it. New Zealand Bolshevism may yet be stemmed by peaceful means, and we cannot believe that sane labour and liberalism will neglect their duty. Sane labour has much to suffer from resort to force; sane labour doesn’t want force and will not countenance force so long as there is a general de sire to institute a just administration of the public affairs. With a close understanding liberalism and labour has ample power to bring about the programme we suggest.