Socialism

New Zealand Tablet, Issue 3, 6 August 1908, Page 9

Socialism

Proteus (of old pagan Roman, mythology) was' almost as elusive and hard to capture' as the Jfeprjechaun, the dwarf "and" f ..tricksy, -guardian sprite of , Irish buried'treasure. He' assumed - ;all sorts of .different (heritSPekHe'ff'p'fotcan) shapes, and eluded the seeker's grasp in the form of a" lion, a tiger, a whirlwind,-a

rushing stream, or a flame of 'fire. The doctrines of Socialism have become almost as protean as Proteus, .almost as elusive as the leprechaun. There was a time — and not long since— when Marx's work, 'Capital,': was its Bible. and rock-foun<Utloq[t -But Marx has -been winched dow/i, from his former pedestalj Utf authority is "no longer jvhat it was ; and no other leader, no other socialist Scripture, has been set up in his place. In the mass of floating, and- often mutually repellent, doctrines that are tossing about, it is hard to seize upon any set of teaching * and label it ' socialism ' — sans phrase. ' You have to' construct the socialist argument as best you .can when you are proceed-*" ing to deal with it ; and (as sotne one has remarked) there is * no instance' of a social community living long_enough.' to warrant us in basing an argument -on its experience; so there is a certain unreality about the discussion.' * It is, none the less, interesting to turn- to the pronounce- _ ments of men who take a .place- in the forefront of the^ movement. Among these is Belfort Bax. He is one of the ablest and most active writers- in the movement ; he occupies a high, position in the (British) Social Democratic Federation; and among the members of that body, his works— and especially ' his Ethics of Socialism— are accepted as the gospel of the militant form of socialism. In the work just mentioned, he writes (p. 128):— ... ■

.Supposing Social Democracy triumphed in Germany before our Western countries were ripe for the "change of their own initiative It might then be a matter of life and death for Sociahst Germany to forestall a military and economic isolation in the face of a reactionary European coalition, by immediate action especially against the stronghold of modern commercialism, ano'ild such an invasion of the country take place, it would be the duty of every Socialist to do all in his power ,to assist the invaders to crush the will of the tount-of-heads majority of he people of England, knowing that the real welfare of the latte? lay therein, little as they might themselves suspect it '

To this very emphatic proclamation of the ' duty • of treason to one's country, we may add the following outspoken proclamation of the supremacy of lynch-law in the Socialist State It is set forth in Ethics of Freethought (p. 34), by another distinguished English Socialist author, Professor Karl Pearson He writes : « Socialists have to inculcate that' spirit which would give offenders against the" State "Thort shrift and the nearest lamp-post. Every citizen must learn to say with Louis XIV • LEtat, c'est moi " ' ('I am-the State')- The less militant ' socialists, both ,n England and in Australasia, would probably reject these teachings. But their proclamation by acknowledged standard-bearers of the movement has a significance which U is well to mark, learn, arid inwardly digest.