The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1920. NEW VIEW OF CAPITAL.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3426, 4 March 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1920. NEW VIEW OF CAPITAL.

With which 115 incorpr; “The Taihape Post. 3171 WBiH\Bl'inO Newt.” '

From reading the reports of‘ speeches made by a Mr Horne, a British Member o-f Parliament. at a. lun- ‘ cheon given in his honour at the Wel- ‘ lington Club, this week. We are compelled to wonder whether peregrinat-‘ ing capitalist members of some other Parliaments are doing a useful work‘ in the countries they visit by making‘ such partisan speeches as those under discussion, more especially when‘ made to such gathering as that at the ‘Wellington Club House. Not much ‘ has been heard of Mr Home as a! Member of the British Parliament,‘ but, as he himself told his audience‘ of clubmen, he is a director in one’ firm which employs eighteen hundred‘ clerks, he is probably being honoured ‘ on Wellington Terrace more in that‘ connection than from having distin-‘ guished himself as a legislator. Any-‘ way, that is the View speaker, speech- ‘ es and audience all contribute to. It‘ is because We believe such twaddleu as that dispensed by Mr Horne, M.P.‘ is a danger in a country that is toler- ‘ ‘ably free from labour aggression and‘ unreasonaibleness that We“ think it‘ ‘worth while to comment upon it.‘ Wealth is considered by the distin-‘ ‘guished visitor as being Within the‘ ‘realm of mechanics, and from casual‘ ‘observance one is inclined to think‘ ‘there is good reason for ‘holding that‘ ‘opinion, but when a commencement is made to separate the static from" the‘ ‘dynamic, confusion arises. It is said; ‘that houses and railways are static M ‘wealth, and from that avenue of rea— I ‘soning, so is all Wealth that is _ not‘ liquid, including land. coalmines, and even unexpended labour, in fact‘ ‘everything is static wealth until it is‘, ‘converted, even manual effort. It is ‘noticeable that the effort of commer-t ‘cialism is primarily to reduce thei ‘chief force in‘ production, manhood,§ ‘to the level of mechanics, morality‘ and ethics being increasingly elimin-‘ ated as the process progresses. The sequence is that far too much wealth ‘ becomes '-static; static wealth attracts static wealth and so the number of‘ millionaires increase at one end and‘ human starvation at the other. It‘ would be interesting to hear an am-' plificatio-n of the mechanical wealth idea, with all its gravities and polygons discussed to their legitimate‘ end, for then only would the ultimate ‘ reached out for be discoverable. We wonder whether the static and dyn-‘ amic idea excludes either from being‘ regarded as capital, or whether there‘ is anything at all in mechanic wealth ‘ other than a. little colour to give new ‘ effects to an old subject. The fact will, however, for ever remain that wealth, whether it be static in the bowels of the earth, or dynamic in rivers, -oceans and air, or whether it‘ be in one of the many forms of con-. creted labour, or in unexpended la-‘ bour, Wealth is wealth and all wealth‘ is capital. The sovereign‘ is of no‘ more value than Mr Horne’s static‘ house or railway till it is brought in» to W 39; the labour of man is useless ‘ ‘llntil"it ‘is exerted honestly and for :1 ' ‘usetul purpose, until then it remains ‘static; the coal and iron in‘ the bow~ ‘els of the earth are static 0313- so ‘l°“‘=f 38 they lie stored away from the ‘labour of man, both are made e:»:~ ‘Changeable at will, that. is changed from the static to the dynamic state,

We are always glad for "visitors, from other countries to come" along with their new ideas, but it is our business to take care that we are not bamboozled with any high-falutin nonsense. Capital is wealth and all wealth is capital, and nothing is wealth until it becomes exchangeable, or as Mr Horne would say, dynamic. Houses and railways in use are not static because they are (exchangeable, but unmined coal. ores that Still lie uncovered in the bowels of the earth. may fairly be termed static wealth, and will remain static wealth until the pick of the miner begins to remove them into the dynamic category. We need have no confusing of the issue, all exchangeable commodities, whatever they may be, are Wealth and all wealth is therefore capital. "fie tendency of commercialism is to go on making stupendous; accumulations of static wealth out of the gl‘ell.tel' part of dynamic wealth that comes the commercialistic way, not leaving suflicient dynamic for every‘ man wherewith to keep the physical health of the manhood of the Empire in such a state that is necessary for protecting either the race or its static wealth -accumulations from he who would break through and steal, Mr Home was protusely applauded. by Wellington Clubmen for his illuminating dissertation on strikes; the pity of it is that nothing was stated. that we New Zealanders could make practical use of. It is positively alarming to hear a British M.P. of the capitalist order justifying the use of the-‘strike weapon, butparadoxical as it may seem, it is only some strikes that he categorises as legitimate. for -there are in his opinion strikes ' that are not legitimate. If workers in a »boot factory are dissatisfied it is perfectly legitimate for them to strike if their demands are not acquirable by any other process, so with the drapery and grocery employees, anyone not engaged in what Mr Horne correctly termed public services though owned by private‘ individuals, as British railways, coalmines, shipping and -such like. In neither of these public services owned by private individuals or comlbines must men strike. it is not legitimate. It is a lovely distinction and fully discloses fairly well where the static -an‘d«~dynamic wealth of the «speaker is involved. It is quite legitimate. according to Mr Horne. M.P., -for men to strike in all businesses that would result in "increasing the cost of those commodities whereby men live, strikes that injure the masses more than anybody else, but strikes for fair wages from shipping combines, from railway magnates, from the aristocratic seizers of the coal of a country, are illegitimate. anathema, and must be suppressed at all costs. It is evident that Mr Horne did not realise that he was :Iddre's’Sing: a population in which, approximately, every man reads and studies his daily newspaper, and if this fact is ever brought to his understanding he will regret, perhaps curse, the day he uttered words more preg7lant with industrial unrest than with industrial peade. Shipping combines: and coalmine ownGTS are intensely militant ‘against labour just now, and their obsession of greed blinds them to the fact that /they cannot refrain from making an ‘irritating exhibition of that disposiition. But what is equally bewilderling is that Wellington Clubmen, men Lin business "and finance, in New Zealland, should «so heartily applaud the istatenient that strikes were legitijimte so long as they did not affect itransport. Mr Horne may '-be ever so [anxious to tie New Zealand to shipiping combines, but, we think, New izealanders of every g:~:n‘le of society iare convinced of the fact that ‘their ;best interests. nay their very freedom, depends upon their possession Lot the means whereby their surplus products may be cai-"fled to wlratsoever market they please, and that their requirement may be obtained from the best and cheapest source, not from where the combine is dis-' DOSed to run its ships. New Zealand-?-TS might -as well been a desert island as implicity entrust themselves, for egress and ingl'eSS_. to American 01‘ all-.V other Shipping combine. We neither like Mr Horne.-’s premises, his al'gument, his logic nor his conclusions, and we are strongly of opinion the industrial situation can be more ably put,~—less specionsly, more ac-Cefitabiy-l3Ut in a frank way that will tend; in an educated community, to lessen rather than increase the irritation between labour and capital. The Subtleties of the shippillg situation Concern us less than striving 'by all means in our power to preserve Ne-W Zefllfllld from indus'trial upheaval. *