WORKING MEN AND SOCIALISTS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3000, 6 October 1891, Page 3

WORKING MEN AND SOCIALISTS.

TO THE KDITOH. Bnt,—My last letter lias had the effect of working " Lothair" into a state, of extreme nervous excitability, and his irrelevant twitterings in reply are quite distressing, evidencing plainly by their tone that he had not yet recovered from the elfee's of our last merry meeting. The old bruises still cause hint pain. In the first place he accuses mo of writing contemptuously of tht: Socialists, and gets the terms working men and Socialists so hopelessly confounded that he cannot distinguish " t'other from which." He treats them as synonoinous terms. Let mo tell him, then, that all working men are not Socialists—no, not by a long way. Whilst the Socialistic ranks contain a greater number of working men than members of those classes who have had the advantage of a better education thin working men of the old school were able to obtain, still it would be casting a slur upon honest working men to stigmatise them all as Socialists. " Lothair " submits for rny approval a new name for the Socialistic community, namely, "haters of injustice and despisers of trumpe.-y two-penny-halfpenny ill-bred cads." In the first place the title is altogether too long for general use, and in the second it would be misleading. Socialists are not "haters of injustice"— they advocate injustice. Socialists, we learn from tho submitted title, despise cads, whose commercial value is 21d—no more, no less ; I despise cads of all sorts, no matter what their commercial value may bo. Socialism aims at the equal distribution of property and wealth, thereby placing every lazy, improvident loafer and debauchee on an equal footing (so far as material wealth is concerned) with the most thrifty and industrious — offering a premium to indolence and handicapping and discouraging industry. As one of the first means to this most undssirable end, the Socialists (who are represented even in our own small community) advocate tho confiscation—not the purchase, mind you—by the State (i.e., the people) of land originally sold hy die State, and for which the State has icceived full payment in money. Does such a proposal indicate that Socialists are " haters of injustice ?" Does it Dotratherdeinoiistratetheconver.se? There are some people who can admire Dick Turpin, the highwayman of notorious memory, from the fact that ho put into practice the doctrines now advocated by the Socialists—he robbed some, and gave to others. Was Dick Turpin looked upon as a lover of justice? No ; he was called a thief, and died—a martyr to his Socialistic practices—at tho end of a rope.' Tiie maudlin sentimentality which led some folks to regard Dick Turpin as a hero— none of his victims so regarded him we may bo sure—is the same which blunts tho moral sense of the advocates of Socialism so that they can regard the confiscation of land aiid other property as a virtuous and not as a criminal act. "Lothair" surmises that [have no respect for working men, but let me tell him that for no other unit of the community have I greater regard and esteem than for a thrifty industrious working man, a man who seeks to better his condition (as it is open to ns till to do in this colony) in an honest upright manner, and I grieve to think that so many worxing men are made tho dupes of discontented, covetous Socialistic pests, and induced, in too many instances, to value the substance already to tlieir hands so lightly for tho pursuit of a phantasy conceited in dishonest and immoral minds. A working man who does his duty as such wo.ild resent being made the object of patronage and toadyism, such as evidently delights the heart of "Lothair" as shown by the excerpt in his letter from " The Country Chinch." The working men of this colony prefer to bo treated as men with some independence and pride in their com. portion, nr.d not. as the Ignorant, servile yokels of oO <:r 00 years ago in some country parishes in the Did Country. I very much regret, indeed, that there should be the shadow of a possibility of stopping free education at the fourth standard, as I believe that when working men are better educated they will not so readily be led by those who appeal to their worst natures.— Yours, etc., Li IiKKA L.