" IS SOCIALISM DEAD ? "
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sift,—That Socialism is not dead only proves the unending gullibility of the human race ; for wherever and whenever its principles have been put into practice it has invariably ended in disaster. It would be interesting, and much more to the purpose, if your correspondent, "I. L. P.," would tell us in what way the Socialism he supports differs front experi- ments already tried. IIis is, as he says, based on the means of production—the great essential natural resources such as coal, land, &c., the great tools of civilization, such as transport of all sorts, factories, plant, &c., being no longer private property, but property of the community. Has he never studied the great Australian Socialistic experiment where 600 square miles of most productive territory in South America was handed over free to the most enthusiastic Socialist body of emigrants from Australia, and which proved a ghastly failure, and the majority of the Socialists were glad to be assisted by the Government to return to their capitalist country ?
Surely, it is up to Socialists of the present day to explain wherein their schemes differ from those already tried so disastrously. No scheme can be perfect in this imperfect world, but those who are out to abolish Capitalism do not appear to have any scheme to replace it that will not bring a country to the condition in which Russia now is.—I am, Bath.
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