THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 1910. MR ROOSEVELT ON SOCIALISM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10063, 9 June 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JUNE 9, 1910. MR ROOSEVELT ON SOCIALISM.

Out of the many speeches still being flashed daily around the Globe as the result of Mr Theodore Roosevelt's travels and receptions, it is perhaps informing to reproduce and consider to Eome extent what the ex-President has fraid in relation to a question which politically and psrennially excites us even in New Zealand, that of Socialism, as he said, much of the discussion on individualism and Socialism is fruitless, owing to fail--I ure to agree upon terminology. One set'of Socialists really preaches anarchy through the degradation of ties which every soberly civilised community holds dear and even sacred. Another clamours for the extinction of property as "robbery," in the phrase of a great apostle of the divide-it-all-up creed. And yet another declares for public ownership i wherever and whenever it can be I brought about —for collectivism as tn i ■ ideal to be achieved "a step at a time." What the assorted Socialists are generally agreed upon is that individualism is something to be repressed, at best by substituting the State for the person as owner and thus in effect making employees employers as shareholders in the nationalised concern. Of this conception,, "J am a strong individualist by personal habit, inheritance and conviction," said Mr Roosevelt; "but it is a mere matter of common-sense to recognise that the State, the com- J munity, the citizens acting together, can do a number of things better than if they were left to individual action." Admitting that with great advantage we might adopt certain principles professed, by men calling

themselves Socialists—that "to he afraid to do so would be a mark of weakness on our pwt'* —the exPresident deprecated acting a lie the same as telling one. "We should not say that men are equal where they are not equal, nor proceed upon the assumption that there is an equality where it does not exist; but we should strive to bring about a\ measurade equality, at least to the extent of preventing the inequality which is due to force or fraud. . .

. . To say that the thriftless, the | lazy, the vicious, the incapahle, i ought to have the reward givem to i those who are far-sighted, capable, j and upright «s to say what is not true j and cannot be true. Let us try to level up, but let us beware of the ' evil of levelling down. The good ; citizen will demand liberty for him- i self, and, as a matter of pride, he I will sea to it that others receive the i liberty which he thus claims as his own." Thesajfare really the tenets of Liberalism as contrasted with tnoseof Socialism. Mr Roosevelt is seeing the subject through American i glasses when he admits that there are things which the community can do better than the individual. In his country individualism is supreme, with results which no Liberal can admire any more than he could ap plaud monarchial autocracy. But had the ex-President been speaking out here he would probably have made that admission more (irmly, observ- { ing how audi the State has done and is doing without straying off the path of Liberalism. Wherever public convenience or interest demonstrably requires public ownership, it is a good thing.' 'wherever the same purpose can be better served by private administration State intervention is bad, and, generally speaking, ought to be a last resort. In any case its object cannot honestly or with beneficial public results be t'o destroy what a person ca:i fairly win by Industry or ability. As Mr •| Roosevelt sa'd, the good citizen demands liberty for himself and will see that others alsc eret it for themselves. That is the essence oi. Liberalism, and stands out in sharp contrast with the Social,sm.thac aims at restricting liberty.