The Daily News. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17. "NAKED AND NOT ASHAMED."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 213, 17 December 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17. "NAKED AND NOT ASHAMED."

la April referenda will be taken in the Australian Commonwealth by way of obtaining authority to recast the Constitution. The voter of the Commonwealth, no matter whether he is intelligent or lacks common-sense, will be asked, per ballot paper, to decide questions unsolvable by any living statesman. The idea of these referenda is to enormously add to the power of the Commonwealth Government, and if the popular decision is that the Constitution shall be amended, the Labor Government will be a body which has a tighter grip on the lives and pockets of the people than any Government that ever held office in any country on earth throughout history. The Government will have unexampled control of commerce, and it will have the power to destroy individuals or corporations in a commercial sense. It will, should the citizens answer the complex ballot paper I to the satisfaction of the Government, be able to nationalise any industry. The power of interference will be almost unlimited, and a few men, guided by a more or less thoughtful populace, will control the country with as absolute a power as was ever held by Nero. If the referenda are satisfactory to the Labor caucus of the Commonwealth, whatever rights individuals States of the Union may possess will be as a gift of the small group of men, and the dispossession of rights will be an easy matter. Mr. Deakin has referred to the proposals as an attempt at "naked and unashamed Socialism." The Socialist claims that, he is the architect of his own fortune, that he as an individual has a right to his own opinion, and that his career must be left to himself without interference from outside. But his methods are necessarily coercive methods. In 1789 the belief in the rights of the individual was expressed in the French Revolution. Anarchy and terror reigned, and order was restored by the despotism of Napoleon. The introduction of labor-saving machinery in specific trades gave birth to industrial revolution, and a more or less vague thing called "Socialism" was advocated as the only radical cure for the existence of industrial and social evils, th& disparities then and now existing and the just arrangement of the varying and conflicting elements of society. One cannot forget the influence of the great Socialist, St, Simon, who in 1817 began his work for the amelioration of the masses. He and his followers proposed that the possession of capital and land should be vested in the State, which would delegate powers to associations. The Utopian schemes of St. Simon, Fourier and Owen failed. With Louis Blanc's book, "The Organisation of Labor," published in 1840, began the era of democratic socialism, and Louis Blanc's ideas, either sensibly or insensibly,, are to-day used as expressions of original thought by advocates of socialist rule. The "national workshops," for which BlaJic wa s responsible, utterly failed, mainly because no system ever invented changed the individual characteristics of workers, loafers, capitalists, thieves or wavering philanthropists. The most serious phase of Socialism was that originated by Marx and Engels. Marx proved forcibly that the wage which the capitalist agrees to pay does not represent the value of the work done by the worker. He showed, further, that the product of unpaid labor was the genesis of huge fortunes, and the profoundness and truth of his arguments gave to the world a new outlook on the relations between master and man. Modern Socialism and "class consciousness" has spread from Marx and Engels all over the civilised world. Socialism endeavors to solve unthinkable problems, with small chance of success. Its objects may be desirable, but its means are inadequate. To apply "naked, unashamed," and complete Socialism to Britain, for instance, would he utterly impossible. Dominant Socialism aims to gain enough political power to convert private property in land and cash into collective property for the common good'.' The private appropriation of the instruments of labor would cease under dominant Socialism. Much has been done in every civilised country in the way of removing cruel impositions, ;but out-and-out nationalisation is as far from realisation in any State as it ever was. Regarding the alleged "naked and unashamed" brand of Socialism to which the people of the Commonwealth will be asked to consent, it has been shown that although the Commonwealth Government may be given the enormous powers contemplated, it will not necessarily use them all. General dispossession of capitalists, the slaying of private enterprise, the annexation of land and all the rest of it, could only come by gradual evolution, and there is no raason to suppose that future Commonwealth Governments will see eye to eye with the present caucus. The idea that the individual must work for the common good is a noble one, and, perhaps, when the world is people with new men and women, an attainable one. At present abuse of "capitalism" seems the most necessary ammunition for social reformers, and abuse does not provide a substitute for the prevailing system. It is feared that private enterprise is opposed most vioflently by those who lack enterprise of their own. The people as a body are not competent to sign the death warrant of private enterprise or to decide on complete or partial nationalisation. We do not for a moment believe that the referenda to be taken will confer the enormous power desired by the caucus, or that if the power is conferred the Government would dare to take the drastic step suggested. Whatever "class conconsciousness" may exist in Australia, it is certain there is no animosity in the ranks of the huge political section of Commonwealth and States to cut into j their own purses. Australia presents an unexampled picture of political grab. | Its huge group of Parliaments drain the treasuries of enormous sums of money that should.be spent, not in talk, but in development. Labor, although perhaps

willing enough to vote nationalisation and' the death of "Capital," does not combine to make private enterprise impossible by combination of its own cash, brains and enterprise. Enterprise in the text-book of the Socialistic ironoclast is mere theft. Therefore, comrades, let us rob the thief!