GERALDINE LITERARY AND DEBATING SOCIETY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2399, 25 August 1892, Page 3

GERALDINE LITERARY AND DEBATING SOCIETY.

There was a large attendance at the above society’s meeting on Monday night, when a debate was held on “ Co-operation and Competition.” The Rev. A. B. Todd presided at the meeting. Mr R. Y. Ferguason led off on the side of Co-operation and Mr N. Dunlop championed the side of Competition, Mr Fergusson maintained that competition was the cause of the accumulation of wealth on one hand and extreme poverty on the other hand. Competition caused selfishness in the individual, monopolies, “ sweating,” war for protection of wealth, bankruptcies, suicides, premature loss of life from worry, and, in fine, it destroyed all that was best, high, and noble inman. As an antidote for this state of things Mr Ferjmsson propounded a scheme of national .co-operation, similar in many respects to Bellamy’s, and asserted that under such a system there would be “ none banquetting in everlasting ease, while others were unhappy in poverty.” Mr Dunlop, on the other side, argued that if it were possible to get national co-operation it would bo a good thing. Bellamy had propounded a scheme, but had never shown how it could be carried out. Competition, he believed, was one of the finest things they could have. It brought everything to a level, and developed talent in a man which he might never have known he had. He held that the idea of an equality among men would never be realised, and he denied that competition created monopolies any more than co-operations. To (Say that competition caused selfishness was absurd, for who would say that a man was selfish because by energy and perseverance he had been more successful than his indolent neighbor 1 He admitted that there might be abuses in competition as well as in anything else, but he conaicjered they were much better off with the imperfections of competition than they wC'dd be with the imperfections of co-operatio'Ji. Messrs Buzuterj F. Wilson Smith, M. 0. Orbell, T. C. Farnie, and Archibald also took part m the debate, and the show of hands at the finish made 7 in favor of co-operation and 17 against it.