Letters to the Editor
THE SOCIALIST MYTH [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—If you think that the Labour Party has deserted entirely its Socialist creed, I think you are mistaken. When any movement (e.g., Christianity) becomes relatively popular and fashionable it always attracts a large number of people, who are either too lazy or too muddle-headed to be able to under- stand its underlying theory, or who join it from purely self- interested motives. It is also true that human nature and intellect being finite, no human theory can ever be either complete or entirely sound even so far as it is complete. The doctor, the engineer, the schoolmaster spend their professional lives in modifying, and apparently discarding, the theory they learnt at college in deference to the practical difficulties that arise ; but they would deny that they abandoned their theory. It is true that during the last thirty years great improvements have taken place (in 1904 " unemployment " was not officially recognized, and was commonly believed not to exist ; to-day something is done to alleviate it). The Factory Acts may have been Socialistic, but they were unconsciously so. The steam- engine was invented before its mathematical theory was written. But for thirty years the Labour Party have con- sciously striven after a Socialist ideal ; nevertheless, a Minority Government must modify its theory to suit practical difficul- ties, the chief difficulty being that it is a Minority Government. But such a difficulty need not last for ever. No doubt the shrewd anti-Socialist will try to kill Socialism by kindness.— I am, Sir, &c.,
[This letter has been shortened for reasons of space. Our concern, as we have said, is not with theory. It is precisely this " practical Socialism " which we think has killed the theory.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
