The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1920. THE CRIME OF EXTREME LABOUR.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3617, 2 November 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1920. THE CRIME OF EXTREME LABOUR.

With which is incorporated 'The Taihape Post and Waimarino News ” ■

It has been said more than once that if it had not been that man was dissatisfied to live in a cave and yearned for houses, beds, furniture, pianos, motor cars and such-like, he would still be living in 'a cave. Is this great yearning, unsatisfied desire tor accumulating wealth beyond what anv man could honourably spend, a truly humane desire or is it the outcome of brutish instincts? Most people will concede that the desire to own property is one cause of progress. One man will work to improve his lot in life, to secure a house from which no one can turn him, as well as to supply his wants from .day to day, and perhaps lay up a little for the sere and yellow time of life. Another man devotes his whole life and energy to gathering around him, bringing under his will and’ control, the wealth that is required to keep other men In health. The imperialist will go on empire building; the Soviet will dissipate imperialism and confiscate all privately owned property. The freeholder stands for getting into his possession all the land that a freehold stricken government will permit him to hold regardless of whether he has the ability to produce the utmost fromit; all the qualification he needs for cornering huge areas is possession of the money wherewith to buy it. New Zealand laws have been enacted to limit the area of land a man may legally hold, but it is well-known the process of sisters, cousins, aunts and! other dummies that offer safety from detection has left all land" limiting laws in shreds. The State set aside endowment lands for purely national purposes, for institution's any and every State should he possessed of, and which can only be obtained otherwise by taxation yet it seems the innate greed of one or another class oi men will not be satisfied till those endowment lands are raked out of the possession of the State, taken from the high purpose for which they were set apart, and raked into the possession of some insatiable land gourmand. To say that all progress profrom the desire to own property is in a measure untrue, for there are even yet many thousands who are actuated first by the desire to excel, and any desire for owning property would have clogged the intellect and genius that had to be kept from contamination if success was to be assured- From the purely business aspect, the money-making point of view, the desire to get and hold as much as possible of the world’s riches is perhaps the greatest incentive to progress, and it seems from the closing session of Parliament thai the men actuated by the desire to acquire the land and all there is upon it have had an unobstructed orgy of turning the State pockets inside out, leaving it with nothing but the right and the necessity to tax. It will perhaps be admitted that such tangents of greed and selfishness are chiefly responsible for the state of desperation the masses of the victims of'greed attain to. One excess begets another, _and so there stand opposed to-day selfishness, greed a.nd grab for million? on one side, and the Soviet, the enemy of imperialism, .the confiscation of all pri-vately-owned’ property, the revolutionist. anarchist, on the other. Between these two extremes are the forces of money to bribe help and assistance for greed, and the millions of the masses who will throw their lives into the struggle for the right to live. Neither party seems desirous of evolving such conditions as could be regarded as just to the whole body politic; each is bent upon straining its .bow to its breaking point, and the climax is not yet. Although those people constituting the two extremes will not see or believe, it is- a fact nevertheless that thousands of men have become desperate, and no longer care what happens; they are prepared to tumble pell mell into anything that will break the present tension, for they discern, either in the present op in the future, nothing to indicate that | what Parliament has accomplished can lead to anything but worse conditions than now obtain. There is a way out of all legislated difficulties, for it has been made very obvious that what one Parliament can do, anI other Parliament can undo. There is no occasion" whatever for listening to people who insanely talk about Direct Action, and the setting up of Councils of Action. The franchise in this Dominion is all-powerful. The last general election furnished one of the greatest, political surprises New Zca-

landers • have experienced. Even men who,, presumably, favour peaceful or ■other revolution were abte to capture •a number of important constituencies. And when it is recognised that those men were all pledged to observe what an'extremist Labour Council imposed upon them theif success is somewhat astonishing. It .those labour extremes do ever see the folly of trying to introduce a semi-savage cult into a British Dominion, and do heartily link themselves up with a truly sane policy for social and industrial improvement, a new power would arise that no other combination, could resist. Peaceful minded people are sick and tired to death Of having it continuously rung in their ears that the Soviet and Communism are coming whether they like it or not. British people do not like it and they will not have it, and they are merely fools who keep on harping npon the/one Soviet string. Extremists by virturc of their own actions are directly responsible tor all the anti-popular legislation of the session; for the indenturing of British boy labour; for the failure to stop land aggregation; for the omission to have the largest, landed estates taxed as other people are taxed; for the continuance of the black sin of Indirect taxation; for the seizure of endowments, and the indifference to the cost of living crime. All these things would have been impossible but for the fatal blunder Extreme Labour made at the general election. They worked dishonourably to oust frienfls of the people from election and to place' over themselves an overwhelmingly preponderant party which has made Labour in Parliament appear a pfmy political joke. The people now know the , nature of the Parliament they have elected, and leaders are already shaping a course towards more just and honourable tactics on future occasions. Humanity’s greatest need at present is the sense of community, an impulse to help and serve each other, not at the expense of a neighbour, or out of the coffers of the State. “Each for all and all for each,’* not the spoils to the victors policy of greed. But what British citizens do not want, and will not have is communism; and if there, ate yet those *who think they can mpose it upon British people, it were better that 'they went and hanged themselves. ,