THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 1907. THE PEAR OF SOCIALISM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9020, 6 January 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 1907. THE PEAR OF SOCIALISM.

We have no fear, remarks the "London Spectator," of the world at large adopting Socialism, though our anxiety is great lest Britain should lose her place in the world, and lose it for ever, by the adoption of Socialism. Depend it, the State will not long absorb all the sources of production, or be able to maintain for long a system under which the population are n the position of State serfs. Private property, even if overwhelmed for the moment, will reapnear, though, it may well be, not accompanied by those popular rights and democratic institutions which are enjoyed along with it at the present time., Dr Hodgson, the eloquent author of "Italy and Her Invaders," in describing how in reality it was State socialism, and not the military prowess of the barbarians, which destroyed the Roman Empire, has pointed out that the JtJritish people may very soon be face to face with th 3 situation which confronted the people of Rome: —"Will the great democracies of the twentieth century resist the temptation to use political power as a means of material selfenrichment? With a higher ideal of public duty than has been shown by some of the governing classes which preceded them, will they refrain from jobbing the commonwealth? Warned by the experience of Rome, will they shrink from reproducing, directly or indirectly, the political heresy of Caius Gracchus, that he who votes in the Forum must be fed by the State? If they do, perhaps the world may see democracies as long-lived as the

dynasties of Egypt or of China. If they do not, assuredly now as in the days of our Saxon forefathers it. will be found he that he who is a giver of bread is also lord. The old weary round will recommence, democracy leading to anarchy, and anarchy to despotism, and the national workshops nf some future Gracchus will build the palaces in which British or American despots, as incapable of rule as Arcadius or Honarius, will guide mighty empires to ruin amidst the acclamation of flatterers as eloquent and as hollow as the courtly Claudian." This passage is as sound in thought as it is eloquent in expression. We may 'oe perfectly pure that there will be no escape from the "old weary round" under which the social Revolution and the Terror give way to a Napoleon, unless we can make the democracy here realise that it is not to its true interests to follow the selfish example of other classes that have been endowod with political power, and, as Dr Hodgkin says, to "job the commnowealth" under the name of State socialism or any other misleading alias. Our belief is that if the men of light and leading of all parties will deal honestly and openly with the British democracy, it may be made to realise the truth and to pause even at the edge of the precipice. But there must be plain speaking and plain dealing. Any attempt to prevent the catastrophe by descending half-way down the precipice is doomed to failure.