REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 139, 3 June 1908, Page 3

REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM.

DB. FINDLAY DECLINES A CHALLENGE DEBATE. Per Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. The secretary of the New Zealand Socialist P»rtv wrote to Dr. Findlay as follows.—'ln your speech delivered at Wanganui on Friday last you made special and critical reference to revolutionary socialists. The members of the New Zealand Socialist Party who arc the advocates of international revolutionary socialism, instruct me to ask yon that yon debate this subject with one of our members in the Town Hall, or any

other public hall in Wellington, any time during the next four or five weeks. JW> Bime as our nominee comrade Tom Hum, who, though not a member of the Sew Zetland Socialist Party, is a member of the International Socialist Party, with which the Kew Zealand Socialist Ttttj is affiliated, but if you object to swet Comrade Tom Mann on the ground that he ia not a Kew Zealand citizen, we will be pleased to appoint a member of oar Wellington branch to meet aßd debate with you on any date suitable to your convenience. Failing either of these suggestions I shall take a future opportunity of inviting you to His Ma\atfi Theatre on a Sunday evening (tt> be decided upon), when one of our comrades will give a full and exhaustive reply to your attack on revolutionary so- . ciaEsts and socialism.''

Dr. Findlay replied: '"I am in receipt of your conrteoiis invitation to debate with Mr. Tom Mann in the Town Hall Or elsewhere the subject of 'revolutionary socialism.' From the tone of Mr. Mann's address last Sunday. I take it I am assuming that the real object of this invitatinn is an imjiersDnal vindk-a-tJoa of the aims and methods of your Society. I fail, however, to see what possible good such a debate would pro aise. lat least could not hope to con vince you of my belief that revolutionary socialism bv the violent extremes of its purposes, and notwithstanding the sincerity of its advocates, is a real enemy of true progress in this country—an enemy specially because it enab'-s Bur political reactionaries to disturb threat friends of social refonu by needle -"

«.Urm. Thin, even wer„ I free «.">. «>ul objections- to its accept am • • °T: .•• J >m not, I should decline your a* one serving no good kindim faithfully. John »i. purpose.— .«*"•» branch of the party. Dr. Findlay, in reply, »id hi" *«\ (or declining to debute the snl,j«-t f. i-n Mr. Mann wa* quite impersonal and ap

olied iiiuallv to any meml«-r o in< CU. Or- Findlay remark* that >n his opinion socialistic revolution in V« tatad *«b«t counsel oH.»-H -s <m "You refer to the worker,ol Mn yl'land. Permit roe to express my on .fiction flat they need no argument ► from me to satisfy them that the rev... -lutinnarv methods you mJv.iwU" are as ..Treat a "peril to I hem a- to *ny other ilas< of the community.' |