SOCIALISM.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4112, 13 May 1892, Page 3

SOCIALISM.

"A Sketch and Criticism."

The Presbyterian Church Mutual Improvement Association in Masterton opened its session last night with a public leoUre by the Rev Robert Wood on" Socialism: A Sketch and Criticism." There was a good attendance, and the chair was taken by Mr E.' Feist. The lecturer said the misery and degradation of millions of the labouring classes throughout Europo and America had caused a deep and widespread disoontent with our present social order and had led many lo look upon!' Socialism" as the .Mosea that would lead the nations out ol an Egypt of poverty into a Canaan of plenty. Tho lecturer divided Ms lemarkd under three heads, First he skotched the dreamers of Sooialism of past ages, referring at some length to Sir Thomas More's " Utopia," Babaeufs " Society of Equals," (label's " Voyage to loarin," and lo the writings of Count St. Simon and Cliarles Fourier. In the second part the lecturer described the Socialism of to-day. He dated its rise from 1862, and stated its founders were two Germans of Jewish extraction, Lassale and Karl Marx, The real Socialism of the present day was that born in the subtle brain of Earl Marx, expounded in his work on " Capital," and popularised in such books as the " Fabian Essays" and Gouland's "Co-operative Common 1 * wealth." After stating at some length tho doctrines and assumptions of modern Socialism in the cause- of poverty and the nature of labour and capital, the speaker passed on to tho third part of his lecture and criticised the Socialistic Scheme. He pointed out that labour was not the solo sourco of wealth ; that the capitalist was not a" thief and a robber" as Marx said he was; that the land and instruments of production could be nationalised by fair and honest means, and if foul means were used tho poor would come out of the appeal to the sword worse than they were before j and lastly that even were socialism in operation it would mean the destruction of individual liberty and a condition of universal slavery, The lecturer concluded by saying that there was no ray of hope for man in tho Atheistic Socialism of the ago, In the Socialism of Christianity, with its two great truths of the brotherhood of man and the stowards ship of wealth, there was the true hearing for the world's disease,

At the conclusion of the lecture a large number ol young men and women stayed behind and appointed the following office bearers for the year, and approved of an interesting syllabus ol essays, debutes and lectures : —President; Eev K, Wood; Vice-Presidents: Messrs 0. floldaway and U.Wilson; Editor of Journal :Mr J. Colway; Secretary : Mr N. Bunting.: Committee : Misses Feist and Sage.