Hei-ieic of Reiuei^s, 1^ 11/06. 



Gorrsspondence. 



3-15 



be "the securing" of the full results of their in- 

 dustry," not to a few, or to many, but to '" ALL 

 PRODUCERS." How can that be done, according to 

 the Socialists, save by the bringing of all industries 

 in which there are producers under State or muni- 

 cipal management? The "objective" binds Mr. Wat- 

 sou, the leader, just as firmly as it binds the humblest 

 member of a labour league. The inter-State Confer- 

 ence adopted that "objective" in 1905 by 35 votes 

 to 1. Mr. Watson and 25 other members of the 

 Federal or state Parliaments voting in the 35. What 

 is the use of Mr. Watson's quotation from some book 

 published somewhere as one which he thinks the 

 "Labour Party will accept" as a "statement of 

 their position? ' We see their policy emblazoned in 

 plain words on their battle flags, and whether they 

 FL.iUNi the battle flags in the van, or stow them away 

 in the baggage carts, we know what their real objec- 

 tive is, and what their marching orders are. Mr. 

 Watson and his friends used to boast, and, with some 

 justice, that they put their policy in plain, straight- 

 forward terms, which they stood to. Why this vast 

 ingenuity in marching backwards? The backward 

 strategy so much in evidence now is reassuring to the 

 Anti-Socialists, but they will persist in testing and 

 resisting the "objective" on its merits, as a frank 

 declaration of war against private enterprise and in- 

 dustrial liberty. Mr. Hughes is moving for a system 

 of universal compulsory military service. He is also 

 (in virtue) of the " objective " a champion of a uni- 

 versal compulsory system of industrial conscription. 

 The former has a thousand times more to recommend 

 it than the latter. 



While the individualist believes in individual 

 liberty it by no means follows that he believes in 

 the weakest " going to the wall." The more indi- 

 vidual liberty has expanded, the less hard has the 

 lot of the weaker members of society been. Besides, 

 under an army of industrial " bosses," the weakest 

 might still go to the wall, as badly as ever. It is the 

 greatest of all mistakes to suppose that Anti-Socialists 

 are averse to progress, and the freest use of the 

 powers of the State to advance the general welfare, 

 and to improve the lot of the weak and the poor. AVe 

 think we can advance humanity best by leaving it 

 free ; by regulating monopolies, if they injure the 

 public; or by suppressing them, if they cannot be re- 

 gulated. We are just as prepared to suppress abuses 

 as Mr. Watson. We are also as ready to broaden and 

 equalise opportunities. But our cure is more liberty 

 not less. In Australia there is no sort of excuse to 

 "call off" the industrials of the Commonwealth 

 from the open fields of private enterprise into the 

 barracks of a vast State speculation, knocking down 

 the thousand ladders on which merit can rise to-day, 

 in order to establish one dismal crush at the font of 

 the one ladder of promotion in a Socialist State, that 

 which leads to a better Government billet. 



September 3. G. H. REID, 



P.S. — Mr. Watson sees only a " verbal " distinction 

 between a " Commonwealth of Co-operatives " and 

 " a co-operative Commonwealth." Yet there is as 

 great a difference between the two as there is be- 

 tween private enterprise and individual liberty on 

 the one hand, and State Socialism and industrial 

 conscription on the other. G.H.R. 



AX IMPERIALISTS VIEWS ON THE DRINK AND 

 GAMBLING QUESTIONS. 

 J. Earle Hermann, .Sydney, writes: — Often the 

 noblest things are placed to the meanest uses. Fre- 

 quently the grandest themes of eloquence and loftv 

 virtue are prostituted to the service of the most sel- 

 fish aims. In the fight with tTie great curses of our 

 civilisation — Drink and Gambling— the arguments of 



the greatest thinkers are dragged fonvard, and the 

 noblest praise of liberty is transformed to the sem- 

 blance of laudations of free vice. The " Trade " 

 insistently attempts to prove that they propa- 

 ganda of reform and Christian progress is the 

 possessiou of faddists and fanatics, and by cast- 

 ing this stigma on any sympathiser with the Tem- 

 perance movement, attempts to frighten the indi- 

 vidual from active participation. Personally I am not 

 an extremist ; I do not expect to find the millennium in 

 any man-made reform. Yet I feel that the crying 

 needs of our Empire demand from every loyal subject 

 a decided opinion on those evils which are to a great 

 extent the noot of whatever weakness and deca- 

 dence the times exhibit. 



Like evei-y other private person. I have witnessed 

 individual cases of the evil results of drinking and 

 gambling habits, but my judgment has been influenced 

 by wider considerations than those of regret and pity 

 for the undennining of character, brains, energy and 

 future in the victims of excesses. As a business man 

 and an Imperialist, the appalling wast* cf the Elm- 

 pire's revenue year by year in the huge drink bill has 

 most appealed to me. 



AVith many others, I believe that the Empire is 

 entering upon the most arduous period of its history, 

 that the future is dark and fraught with danger ; 

 especially in South Africa and India : that the defence- 

 less condition of Australia's nine thousand miles of 

 coast line is a terrible menace to our existence and 

 independence. Holding such views, the annual drink 

 bill and the huge tribute to the gaming dens of our 

 cities and towns assume proportions not merely of 

 great moral evils, but of cancers eating up the wealth 

 and prosperity of the nation. I see a revenue which, 

 if saved, would build navies, drill and accoutre na- 

 tional armies, train up grand industries to the making 

 of a self-dependent people, and remove crushing bur- 

 dens of debt, poured out in reckless waste. Add to 

 that waste the immense loss of nerve power, of vitality, 

 and of all those Spartan qualities which assist to a 

 nation's strength, and the figures of the annual loss 

 must shock any well-balanced mind. The amount to 

 be debited against the nation for moral hurt it is 

 difficult — indeed, impossible — to estimate. Science 

 teaches us that the palpable effects of the weakness 

 and excess of one generation must be sought " even to 

 the third and fourth.'' The luxury of the Csesars 

 reaped its final harvest in the downfall of the Byzan- 

 tine Emperors. The profliccary of the Court of Charles 

 II. was the parent of England's feefcleness in the 

 eighteenth century. 



To-day the devotees of sport, as it is represented 

 by "two-up schools" and "tote-shops," and the wor- 

 shippers of alcohol, are piliijg up a debt that pos- 

 terity will have to pay. 



Drink, with inevitable inertia and decay of tissue ;• 

 gambling, with its enticement to idleness and distaste 

 of hard work, must produce a race neurasthenic and 

 decadent — a race less inclined to face the sterner 

 problems of life, nnfit to meet a great national crisis. 

 The evil is not yet accomplished. The British people 

 to-day are strong and manly, and it is that they may 

 always remain so that the integrity of the Empire 

 ma.y be for ever assured, that all public-spirited men 

 should give the Temperance movement encouragement 

 and support. 



In view of these facts, and in the face of any im- 

 putation of extremist partisanship. I am bound to 

 express my admiration and sympathy with Mr. 

 Judkins's strenuous campaign for the cleansing of our 

 citv life. Without enthusiasts we should not have 

 had the Magna Charta. Without enthusiasts the Re- 

 formation would have died stillborn. Without en- 

 thusiasts moral and social reform to-day is impossible. 



