Allen, Alfred. (Playwright and Author.)
I am opposed to Socialism because of their inhumanity towards the poor millionaire. In spite of it all, they are our brothers.
Owen, Douglas. (Author, Barrister and Lecturer.)
Until Socialists themselves shall have come to some sort of an agreement as to the aims and objects of the Socialism to be adopted as their creed, how can one formulate one's objections to Socialism? The more moderate and reasonable of its advocates profess, indeed, indignation and abhorrence at the views of the extremists, and to reply to the extremists is to call forth charges of gross misrepresentation on the part of the more moderate. But broadly stated, what Socialism even in its more moderate form appears to aim at, is the negation and suppression of the greatest and most beneficent law of nature—law of humanity—which we know as the law of the survival of the fittest. On this supreme law depends, and always has depended, and must depend, the uplifting, enlightenment and, in the end, the highest welfare of mankind. And just as that which is good for the hive cannot be bad for the bee, so must the welfare of the hive depend on the independent effort of each individual bee.
The mainspring of the world's upward and forward progress is the ambition and emulation of the individual worker: the slothful, the ill-qualified and the weakling being left behind; one and the same law, beneficent if hard, for all life upon this world, whether animate or inanimate. The Socialists' aim is to deprive the individual of stimulus to put forth his best efforts for his own advancement and therefore for the benefit of the human hive.
When I received your invitation to state my views on this subject, I chanced to be reading David Hannay's work. "The Sea Trader." At the conclusion he deals with the subject of convoy, under which all ships, fast and slow, good and bad, were compelled to voyage under armed escort. His remarks on the consequences of the system are so apposite that I quote them here:
"The necessity for keeping together imposed a restriction often of a highly injurious kind, on the best appointed vessels. Since the whole must be kept together, it followed that the convoy was condemned to sail at the rate of speed of the slowest among them. A quick sailing ship lost the whole advantage of her superiority. She could neither obtain the advantage of being early in the market, nor make prompt arrangements to unload or reload. She was brought down to the level of the most lumbering tub. Of what use was it to build for speed, to be alert, to seek for better ways, when the law stood over you, fine and imprisonment in hand, to make you go slow, to force you to follow the known road!"