MINISTERS ON SOCIALISM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9189, 8 September 1908, Page 5

MINISTERS ON SOCIALISM.

SOME DECIDED VIEWS.

GOVERNMENT WON'T BE "BOUNCED."

Some pronounced views on the question of Socialism were given expression to last evening by the two members of the Ministry, who visited Carterton in connection with the Liberal "rally." The Hon. J. Carroll, in the course of a speech, dealing with broad political questions, said that at the present juncture the people of the country were sailing, as it were, between Scylia and Charybdis. It was for them to say whether the pendulum should in its swing back encounter the former in the shape of the Opposition, or in its swing forward strike the rock of Socialism and free and independent labour. He asked were the people going to trust their material wealth to the party whose views had not yet crystalised? On the other hand were they in the swing back of the pendulum going to trust themselves to a party which, giving it all due and . honour, had done good service in the old days, but which was fast being reduced to the irreducible minimum? The Minister then pass'ed on to other matters. The Hon. Millar, on the same subject, said that it had been declared that we were going too fast in New Zealand, but the trend of affairs showed that there was one party which desired to shut ofx steam altogether, and another which desired to go too fast. The ambition of the Government had all along been to strike the happy medium. The country was now face to fane with a movement which it was the duty of the Government to look after. The country had been progressing quietly for years, and the ("position of the workers had been gradually and materially improved. But to-day was growing in the midst of it all what was originally a German importation, but latterly an Australian product. Because the speaker did not see eye to eye with ceitain persons he was all that was bad. But because he did not believe in kll that the extremists desired, he waif not going to bs bounced into doing it. They were not going to prompt him to do a single thing that he uui not think was for the benefit of the country. As a father , who had spent'his whole life in the Dominion he would do the utmost for the best for bis own children, which meant for the 1 children of the country. New Zealand was purely an exporting country, and with its greatdistance from the world's markets, and the, fact that its exports entered there into competition with the jroducts/of sweated countries, it was fatal'if the coscof production was going to be increased to handicap the New Zealand article out of the market. Yet, as he said, because he refused to accede to the demands of men, sincere enough, no doubt, whose knowledge of the world's markets was nil, he was everything that was bad. Ihe Government's motto was hasten slowly, and they preferred steady evolution ■to the policy demanded by the extremists.