The Wairarapa Daily MONDAY, APRIL 7, 1890. SOCIALISM.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3478, 7 April 1890, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily MONDAY, APRIL 7, 1890. SOCIALISM.

" There are a class of individuals in " "the world who can'aptly be" "compared to soap bubbles, They" " are inflated; there is nothing in" " them; their hollowness and" " emptyness (sic) carries them up-" "wards till finally they hurst with" "a splutter and disappear." Our local contemporary commences a chaste leader in his last issue with tho aboVe suggestive sentences, They are specially intended for us, aud lost tb shaft failed to go home a little further on it is specifically intimated tlret wo are m an' emjneijt degree "a soap bubble." Assuming that such bo the case, and we feel sura that our contemporary would not otherwise say so, we aro lost in wonder why he should fret and fume jb.rpugl)out a long article over a soap bubble Men $3 not usually get apopletic over bo unsubstantial »n object, why then does he nojtj lilfo all sensible people, let the "eminent bubble" burst. We have heard of breaking butterflies on a wheel, but this is the first experience wo have jiad pj bursting- a soap bubble with a sledge hammer, The few initial words of tho concluding, pojitjoi) of the artiole which we reprint below possibly explain tho mystery. They are a reference to'a reeent libel case wliioli was undoubtedly a eovero blow to our local contemporary, and we bftyg jiitherto beeii sufficiently generous to abstain from all coinraont upon it, and are exceedingly sorry, after so long au interval, our contemporary has not recovered his composurfl sufficiently to mite an article on State help without drag-

ging into it so absurd a reference, forgetting too, that tho real Masterton export on libels has yet to appear on the scene, i'jjp. following is. the extract to which we have referred:— " The soothing syrup of the export on libels should put working men on their guard. If ever they were eslled upon to take an active interest jn political questions it is now, New Zealand is tho theatre of a great revolution. The working dosses must be painfully aware that by proeeeses which defy investigation the ground Is being cut from under their feet. The ground is the land off whiMi theyand their children must jjra A Hatty tttog $7 «rtw_

future oalamita, slumberer wu have arude fawakeriing' if he! sleeps on till, an educated generation -eduoated_ politically-demands by What right its political privileges are preserved when the article that gives

these privileges a value is removed beyond its control. A tax on land values that will render monopoly and landlordism.and class tyranny.im-. possible and laws that will conserve for the toiler affair'apportionment of the fruits of his labor, may look impracticable because they are to Bomo eyes repugnant, but they afford the best means of anticipating the outcome of the greatest struggle that civilisation has yet witnessed—the battle .between labor and capital. The State is the great helper because the State is the people, and the present demands of labor in New Zealand and. elsewhere must inevitably be conceded because thej are founded on justice and bofore justice oppression must yield," It is, perhaps, worth while to roviow the progress of the great labor movement throughout the world. At the present time titers is in New Zealand

an accredited agent from the Knights of Labor; a secret Socialistic Society existing in America and.elsewhere, which is one of therapderiiinstruments engaged in bringing about .'• the revolution" to which our contemporary refersi In matters of this kind wo are still a.long-way behind the United States and other advanced communities, whore;; even dynauiito has been introduced'as an argument in the great cause. v As far back as 18G4 an international labor .society was founded in London, to which two and a half millions of workmen

throughout Europe, besides a host in America, were.said to.be affiliated. A former leader of it, Karl Max, is

even moro eloquent- than ■ our looal contemporary, In a speech which he mado some years Hgo ho said ; " Wo arc as yot but throe millions at most, In twenty years wo shall bo fifty, a hundred millions perhaps, Then the world will belong to us; for it will : not only be Paris, Lyons and Marscills which will rise up against odious cnpitnl,but Bcrlin.Muiiioli, Dresden, Vienna, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Brussels, St Petersburg, Now York, (Had lie had the pleasured our local contemporary's acquaintance, ko would probably havo added Masterton,) in shovt tho whole world, And beioro this now insurrection such as history has not yet known, the past will disappear like a hideous nightmare, -tor the popular conflagration kindcd at a hundred points at once, like an immense dawn, will destroy even its memory," This is the kind of jubilee which

the working men of New Zealand are practically invited to join. Turning again to America, m will give, in the language of one of its leaders, ,a

statement of the Socialistic aims. " Tho cntiro overthrow of the present social sj'Btom; tho abolition of all personal property in land and other means of production, and their cession to the-State; the introduction of the co-epcralivo plan in labor, so that every laborer may be a partner in every factory or workshop; tho compulsory limitation ol the hours of labor to eight hours a day, or less,;according to the requirements of tho unemployed workmen ; tho regulation of the prices of labor by arbitration between the'employer and tho employed, until tho co-operative system is introduced; compulsory education, and the opening of all colleges and universities free to all classes; the abolition of savings bauk; the abolition of direot taxation, and tho institution ol a scaled income tax, and the taxation of all church property. This is the Socialistic platform.in America. Here, in New Zealand, our liberal friends express themselves in somewhat vaguer terms, aud do not. call themselves Socialists; nut are not the two platforms tolerably identical, and is there not the making oi a goodJSooialist, in, say, a leading Masterton liberal. For example, if we cull a fowtowers from the Socialistic nosegay, and a few more from our local contemporary's borjuot what do we find.

Socialistic Plat. . MasteHon liberal form. Platform. Abolition of per- Land nationalisasonal property in tion, laud. Co-operativo plau Conserving for the of Iflbor.overy laborer toiler a fair appora partner, tionment of tho fruits of his laber,' Labor insurrection. Labor revolution. Capital odious, Battlo between labor and capital Why on earth do not the members of tho mis-named Liberal Association of this town, with its-affiliated school of the Henry George pattern, appear in their proper colors as socialists? Why not let the public know the true scope of their aims and objects, and their relation with tho great socialistic movement of the nineteenth century. The doctrines they preach have been on the socialistic banners for the past five and twenty years, but they are not the doctrines of tho grcalcstandmostliberalstatesmenthat the world has ever known, they are not the doctrines-which John Bright taught, a man whoso name was a talisman for half a century with almost every working man in England. Reform, with which his great and honored nameisindissolubly linked, is a very different thing from insurrection, from revolution,' or from socialism, It is also a menace to us that socialistic;societies work in the dark, and are secret conventions. In America the Catholic Church fought a long battle with the Knights of labor on this very ground, and kept thousauds of men from joining them. The position huAmerica has been summed up in the following words, /•'Two ijn'lliqn unemployed people, i million and a Jialf of voters in secret organisation and • looming' in" |l]o future painful political and social crises." We may,,without irreverence, thank-God that we have not as yet reached such, a stage- as this in New Zealand, but wo aro told that we are ion"-the t|psljpl|-.pf a revolution which will hring'these tlifngo upon ua. This we do not Jbelieye j 1 There are discontented nien about who are readily induced' to liston to the utterances of demagogues, but the majority of the working men of this djstrict have far too much self-respect to embark pij §ucl} a mad campaign.. Tjjey knoyv tlialin tin's fjounky it is open to each inan to rise to any position-lie lias' the courage, and ability to take, without pulling down others who have already made headway, They know' that industry is honester iliaiv robbery 'aiid pays bettor |p the long run, and thoy have not tho slightest jntontion of turning this fair, and fertile'land flf New Zealand into a socialistjp pauo> mpnium, where nOman can retain a fjejßurejfojd'pfa single acre of land, or call his house and goQiJs his own'. But even now a jolbiid no biggor thau 8 man's Jiand threatens us,' Even as near to us as >yeli.iiigtoi? vre see working men becoming the abject slaves, the veriest dupe's, and iopjs, of secret despotic unions. A man working jn ft-stop, earning good wages and supporting hjs wife and family respectably, if told |S,o throw up Ills W<# 8t & a »y' s Wta and come out into the andjoiji the ranks of tho unemployed! Hjs heart may braak, hjs wife and family rnftv Btarve and '-"suffer,., but he is bound by foroe fatal secret pledge to

comes from a ceftfUii secretvqiiarteiv Is ,; flow 'Zealand no longer countryT In some parts it isrnot I. The cancer of a worso despotism than that of land monopoly is beginning to eat into our big towns, and the colonist whowasouce afraid of no man is now becoming the abject I unresisting slave of a secret Bociety.