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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/37351-8.txt b/37351-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f3c21ac --- /dev/null +++ b/37351-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19813 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Contemporary Socialism, by John Rae + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Contemporary Socialism + +Author: John Rae + +Release Date: September 8, 2011 [EBook #37351] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM + +BY + +JOHN RAE, M.A. + +_SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED_ + +New York +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +1891 + + + + +PREFACE. + + +In the present edition the original work has not only been carefully +revised, but very considerably enlarged. The chapters on "The Progress +and Present Position of Socialism" and "Russian Nihilism" contain a few +sentences retained from the first edition, but otherwise they are +entirely new--the former necessarily so on account of the nature of its +subject, and the latter on account of the importance of the fresh +materials that have been recently given to the world. A new chapter has +been added on "Anarchism," and another, of considerable extent, on +"State Socialism." No apology is required for the length of the latter, +for though State socialism is only a growth of yesterday, it has already +spread everywhere, and if it is not superseding socialism proper, it is +certainly eclipsing it in practical importance, and to some extent even +modifying it in character. Revolutionary socialism, growing more +opportunist of late years, seems losing much of its old phrenzy, and +getting domesticated into a shifty State socialism, fighting a +parliamentary battle for minor, though still probably mischievous, +changes within the lines of existing society, instead of the old war _à +l'outrance_ against existing society in whatever shape or form. Anyhow +the socialistic controversy in the immediate future will evidently be +fought along the lines of State socialism. It is there the hostile +parties meet, and it is well therefore to get, if we can, some more +exact knowledge of the ground. Some of the other chapters in the work +have been altered here and there for the purpose of bringing their +matter, where necessary, down to date, or embodying fresh illustrative +evidence, or occasionally of making the exposition itself more lucid and +effective; but it is unnecessary to specify these alterations in detail. + +_April, 1891._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. + +INTRODUCTORY. + +Revival of Socialism, 1--Extinction of Old Types, 2--Main Surviving +Type, Social Democracy, 3--Its Two Varieties, Socialist and Anarchist, +4--Its Relations to Political Democracy, 4--Definition of Socialism, +5--Cairnes on Mill's Profession of Socialism, 6--Ruling Characteristic +common to Old and New Socialism, 9--State Socialism, 11--Conservative +Socialism, 13--The Minimum of Socialism, 14--First Rise of +Social Democracy, 15--Rousseau, 16--Baboeuf, 17--Connection of +Socialism with Democracy, 18--The Danger to Free Institutions, +24--Necessity and Probability of Wider Diffusion of Property, 25. + +CHAPTER II. + +THE PROGRESS AND PRESENT POSITION OF SOCIALISM. + +National Conditions Favourable to Socialism, 30--Germany, 30--Progress +of Socialist Vote, 33--Action of Socialist Party in Reichstag, 34--Party +Programme, 38--Halle Congress of 1891, 40--France, 45--Anarchists, +47--Socialist Revolutionary Party, 48--Possibilists, 50--Blanquists, +53--The Socialist Group in the Chamber, 53--Austria, 54--Italy, +57--Spain, 60--Portugal, 65--Norway and Sweden, 66--Denmark, +67--Belgium, 70--Holland, 72--Switzerland, 73--United States, 77--Boston +Anarchists, 77--Mr. Henry George, 78--Mr. Bellamy's Nationalism, +79--Anarchists, 80--Socialistic Labour Party, 81--Knights of Labor, +82--England, 83--Social Democrats, 84--Anarchists, 86--Christian +Socialists, 87--Fabians, 88--Land Nationalization, 89--Scotland, +90--Australia, 90. + +CHAPTER III. + +FERDINAND LASSALLE. + +German Socialists before Lassalle, 93--Favourable Conditions for +Socialist Agitation in Germany, 94--Character of Lassalle, 96--The +Hatzfeldt Case, 99--Theft of the _Cassette_, 100--Trial for Sedition, +101--Literary Activity, 102--Letter to Leipzig Working Men, +103--Foundation of General Working Men's Association, 105--Lassalle's +Agitation, 105--His Death, 106--Funeral, 108--Political Views, 109--Idea +and Position of the Working Class, 109--Functions of the State, +111--Economic Doctrines, 113--Anarchic Socialism of the present +Industrial _Régime_, 117--Ricardo's "Iron Law" of Wages, 119--A +National, not an International Socialist, 124--Internationally not +Peculiar to Socialist Parties, 126--Reason of Socialist Condemnation of +Patriotism, 127. + +CHAPTER IV. + +KARL MARX. + +Reception of his Work on Capital, 128--The Young Hegelians, +130--Feuerbach's Humanism, 131--"Young Germany," 136--Weitling and +Albrecht, 137--Early Socialistic Leanings of Marx, 139--Marx in Paris, +141--in Brussels, 142--The Communist League, 142--Communist Manifesto of +1847, 144--_New Rhenish Gazette_, 146--Marx in London, 147--The +International, its Rise and Fall, 149--Tendency to Division in +Revolutionary Parties, 152--"Das Capital," 155--Historical Rise of +Capitalism, 156--Origin of Surplus Value, 157--Theory of Value, +160--Price, 163--Criticism of his Theory of Value, 165--Wages, +166--Normal Day of Labour, 168--Machinery, 170--Piecework, 172--Relative +Over-population, 174. + +CHAPTER V. + +THE FEDERALISM OF CARL MARLO. + +Rodbertus, 179--Professor Winkelblech (Marlo), 180--His Awakening to +Social Misery, 180--Application to Economic Study for Solution, +181--View of Social Problem, 182--Heathen Idea of Right (Monopolism) to +be replaced by Christian Idea of Right (Panpolism), 183--Liberalism and +Communism both Utopias, 184--Federalism alone realizes Christian Idea of +Right, 188--Natural Right of all to Property, 189--Right to Labour and +to Fruits of Labour, 191--Necessity of Controlling Increase of +Population, 192--Of Suppressing Unproductive Acquisition, +193--Collectivization of Land and Productive Capital, 193. + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. + +The Name, 195--Held's Vindication of it, 196--Objections to it, +197--Founders of the Historical School, 200--Their Departure from +Manchester Party, 202--Eisenach Congress, 202--The Historical Method, +204--The Historical School a Realist School, 205--An Ethical School, +209--Their Theory of the State, 211--The Social Question, 212--Von +Scheel, 215--Brentano, 215. + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS. + +Socialism and Christianity, 218--Views of St. Simon and Cabet, +218--Irreligious Character of Contemporary Socialism, 219--The Christian +Socialists of England in 1850, 220--Those of Germany now, 223--The +Catholic Group, 223--Ketteler, 224--Moufang, 230--Protestant Group, +233--Stöcker, Todt, 234--Christian Social Working Men's Party, 239--The +Social Monarchical Union, 241--The Evangelical Social Congress of 1890, +241--Is there a Specific Christian Social Politics? 242--Christian +Socialism in Austria, 242--In France, 243--International Catholic Social +Congress of 1890 at Liège, 243--The Pope's Encyclical, 245. + +CHAPTER VIII. + +ANARCHISM. + +Recent Activity of Anarchists, 247--Individualist Anarchists and +Communist Anarchists, 248--Latter are Ultra-Socialist, +249--Ultra-Democratic, 250--Proudhon's Anarchic Government, 250--No +Representative Institutions, 251--Prince Krapotkin's Plan for Housing +the Poor, 252--The Russian _Mir_ the Anarchist Model of Government, +252--Anarchism Atheistic, 254--Ultra-revolutionary, 255--Propaganda of +Deed, 256--Disunity and Weakness of Anarchism, 257. + +CHAPTER IX. + +RUSSIAN NIHILISM. + +Haxthausen's Opinion of Russia's Safety from Socialism, 259--Successive +Phases of Nihilism, 260--Origin of Nihilism, 261--Influence of the +Rural Commune on Revolutionary Thought, 262--Decabrist Conspiracy +of 1825, 263--Extreme Opinions at Russian Universities in Reign +of Nicholas, 264--Ascension of Alexander II., 264--Alexander Herzen, +265--Turgenieff and the word Nihilist, 266--Koscheleff and Fircks's +Accounts of Nihilism, 267--Causes of it, 268--Nihilist Sunday Schools, +Tchernycheffsky, 269--Effect of Emancipation of Serfs, 270--Ruined +Landlords, 270--Jews, 271--Heretics, 272--Bakunin, 273--Herzen's +Recantation of Revolutionism, 273--Bakunin in London, 274--His +"Amorphism," 274--His Picture of the Good Revolutionist, 275--Netchaïeff +founds Branches of the International in Russia, 276--The +first Attempt on the Czar, 276--Reversion to Arbitrary and Despotic +Government, 276--Bakunin and Lavroff at Zurich, 278--"Going into +the People," 279--Secret Societies, 280--Nihilist Arrests and Trials, +281--Terrorism, 282--Assassination of Czar, 283--Present Socialist +Parties, 283--The Black Division Party, 283--Alarming Growth of a +Proletariat in Russia, 284--Impoverishment of Peasantry, 286--Break +up of Communistic System, 288--Dissolution of House Communities, +289--The Black Division, 292--The Labour Emancipation League, 295. + +CHAPTER X. + +SOCIALISM AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. + +A Social Question recognised by Contemporary Economists, 297--Mr. +Cairnes on the Situation, 297--Socialist Indictment of Existing +_Régime_, 299--1st, the "Iron Law of Wages," 300--Alleged Deterioration +of Wage-Labourers' Position Unfounded, 301--Their Standard of Living +Better, 302--Their Individual Share in the National Wealth more, +304--The "Iron Law" Misunderstood by Socialists, 305--The "Iron Law" +Itself Unsound, 307--The Rate of Wages really Depends on the _per +capita_ Production, 307--Prospects of Increasing _per capita_ +Production, 312--Piecework, 314--Shorter Day of Labour, 318--2nd, +Alleged Multiplication of Vicissitudes, 323--Effects of Machinery, +323--Temporary Redundancies, 324--Serious Redundancies Lessening, +324--Value of Good System of Commercial Statistics, 325--3rd, Alleged +Expropriation of the Value of the Labourer's Work, 327--How Value is +Constituted, 327--Justice of Interest, 329--Social Importance of Work of +Capitalist Employer, 330--Public Value of Private Property, 333--Value +of Freedom, 334--_Laissez-faire_, 336--Necessity for Opportunities of +Investment, 338--Co-operative Production, 338--Advantage of Interlacing +of Classes, 340--Reason of exceptionally good House Accommodation among +Working Classes of Sheffield, 341. + +CHAPTER XI. + +STATE SOCIALISM. + +_1. State Socialism and English Economics._ + +M. Léon Say on State Socialism, 345--State Property and State Industries +in Germany, 345--Mr. Goschen and others on Change in English +Opinion regarding State Intervention, 346--Their Views Exaggerated +and undiscriminating, 347--Little done in England in Nationalizing +Industries, 348--Much done in enlarging Popular Rights, 349--English +Thinkers never Believers in _Laissez-faire_, 351--Except Mr. H. Spencer, +352--Adam Smith's "Simple and Obvious System of Natural +Liberty," 353--His Theory of Social Politics, 356--Ricardo's Views, +359--McCulloch's, 360--On the Manufacturing System, 362--On +Crises, 363--On Irish Pauper Labour, 364--On Factory Legislation, +366--On Housing the Poor, 366--On the Poor Law, 368--The So-called +Manchester School, 372--The English Theory of Social Politics, 373. + +_2. The Nature and Principle of State Socialism._ + +Different Definitions of Socialism, 374--Origin and Meaning of State +Socialism, 379--The Social Monarchists, 380--Rodbertus, 380--His +Theory of Social Politics, 381--M. de Laveleye and Establishment of +Equality of Conditions, 384--Alleged Disinheritance of the People +from the Primitive Economic Rights, 385--Mr. Chamberlain's Doctrine +of "Ransom," 386--Professor A. Wagner's State Socialism, 387. + +_3. State Socialism and Social Reform._ + +Cobden's Praise of the Prussian Government for its Social Work, +393--Property, a Requisite of Progress, not of Freedom, 394--Limits +of Legitimate Intervention, 395--Short Definition of State Socialism, +399--Error of Plea for State Socialism as Extinguisher of Chance, +399--As Saving the Waste from Competition, 400--Wastefulness of +Socialism, 401--As shown in Samoa, 401--In England under Old Poor +Law, 402--In Brook Farm, 402--Idleness the Destroyer of the American +Owenite and Fourierist Communities, 403--Idleness, the Great +Difficulty in the Shaker and Rappist Communities, 405--"Old Slug," +406--Contentment with Squalid Conditions, 407--Special Liability to +Mismanagement, 408. + +_4. State Socialism and State Management._ + +Natural Qualities and Defects of State as Industrial Manager, 409--Post +Office, 410--Dockyards, 410--Forestry, 412--Mint and other +Forms of Attesting, 412--Monopolies, 413--Municipal Management +of Gas and Water Supply, 413--Land Nationalization, 414--State +Railways, 415--State Insurance in New Zealand, 417--Results of +Joint-Stock Management and Private Management in Massachusetts, 417. + +_5. State Socialism and Popular Right._ + +Why Impracticable Legislation is Socialistic, 418--Rule of Intervention +for Realizing Rights, 419--Right to Existence, 421--Right to +Superannuation, 421--Right to Labour, 423--Problem of the Unemployed, +425--Free Education, Libraries, Parks, 427--Where Stop? +427--Legal Fixing of Prices, as in Fares and Rates, 428--Of Fair Rent, +429--Of Fair Wages, 430--Compulsory Arbitration, 430--Legal +Minimum Wages, 431--Sweating System and Starvation Wages, +432--International Compulsory Eight Hours Day, 434. + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE AGRARIAN SOCIALISM OF HENRY GEORGE. + +Mr. George Predicts that his Book would find Apostles, 441--Fulfilment +of the Prediction, 441--Sisyphism, 442--Loses His Religious Belief +through Perception of Poverty, 443--Recovers it again, 445--1st, His +Problem, 445--Its unverified Assumption, 445--Evidence of Facts +against it, 448--Average Scale of Living has Risen, 449--Proportion +of Paupers, unable to obtain it, has Declined, 449--Special Decline of +Able-bodied Pauperism, 450--Increase of Length of Life, 452--Mr. +George Changes his Problem from one of Quantity to one of Proportion, +453--Rent really no larger Proportion of National Wealth or +even of Agricultural Produce than before, 454--Wages no Smaller +Proportion, 456--Indications of Increasing Distribution of Wealth, +457--2nd, Mr. George's Explanation, 461--Alleged Tendency of +Wages to a Minimum that gives but a Bare Living, 462--The Wages +Fund and Population Theories, 464--Mr. George's New Population +Theory, 465--His New Wages Fund Theory, 468--His Explanation +of the Distribution of Wealth without taking Profits into Account, +474--Views on Rent, 476--on Interest, 483--Wages, 484--Margin of +Cultivation, 484--Absurdities of his Explanation, 485--3rd, Mr. +George's Remedy, 487--Land Nationalization Movement in England, +488--Futility of Mr. George's Remedy, 489--Confiscation, 490--Difference +of Mr. George's Proposal from Mr. Mill's, 491--Agricultural +Land as truly the Fruit of Labour as other Commodities, 492--Real +Distinction between Land and other Property, 494--Social Claim on +all Property, 495--Is Private Property the best Guarantee for the +most Productive use of Land? 496--Land Nationalization no Assistance +to the Reforms that are Needed, 498. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +INTRODUCTORY. + + +It was a common topic of congratulation at the Exhibition of 1862 that +the political atmosphere of Europe was then entirely free from the +revolutionary alarms which overclouded the first Exhibition in 1851; but +in that very year the old clouds began to gather once more at different +quarters of the horizon. It was in 1862 that Lassalle delivered to a +club of working men in Berlin his address on "The Present Epoch of the +World, and the Idea of the Working Class," which was published shortly +afterwards under the title of "The Working Man's Programme," and which +has been called by his friends "The Wittenberg Theses" of the new +socialist movement; and it was at the Exhibition itself that those +relations were established between the delegates of English and French +trade societies which issued eventually in the organization of the +International. The double train thus laid has put in motion a propaganda +of social revolution more vigorous, widespread, and dangerous than any +which has preceded it. + +But though the reappearance of socialism was not immediately looked for +at the time, it could cause no serious surprise to any one who +considered how nearly the socialist theory is allied with some of the +ruling ideas of modern times, and how many points of attraction it +presents at once to the impatient philanthropy of enthusiasts, to the +passions of the multitude, and to the narrow but insistent logic of the +numerous class of minds that make little account of the complexity of +life. Socialism will probably never keep long away during the present +transitional period of society, and there is therefore less interest in +the mere fact of its reappearance than in marking the particular form in +which, after a prolonged retirement, it has actually returned; for this +may perhaps be reasonably taken to be its most vital and enduring type, +and consequently that with which we shall mainly have to reckon in the +future. + +Now the present movement is, before all, political and revolutionary. +The philanthropic and experimental forms of socialism, which played a +conspicuous _rôle_ before 1848, perished then in the wreck of the +Revolution, and have never risen to life again. The old schools have +dispersed. Their doctrines, their works, their very hopes have gone. The +theories of man's entire dependence on circumstances, of the +rehabilitation of the flesh, of the passional attraction, once in +everybody's mouth, have sunk into oblivion. The communities of Owenites, +St. Simonians, Fourierists, Icarians, which multiplied for a time on +both sides of the Atlantic, are extinct. The socialists of the present +day have discarded all belief in the possibility of effecting any social +regeneration except by means of political authority, and the first +object of their endeavours is therefore the conquest of the powers of +the State. There are some exceptions, but these are very unimportant. +The communistic societies of the United States, for instance, are mostly +organizations of eccentric religious sects which have no part or +influence in the life of the century. The Colinsian Collectivists, +followers of the Belgian socialist Colins, are a mere handful; and the +Familistère of Guise in France--a remarkable institution, founded since +1848 by an old disciple of Fourier, though not on Fourier's plan--stands +quite alone, and has no imitators. Non-political socialism may +accordingly be said to have practically disappeared. + +Not only so, but out of the several sorts and varieties of political +socialism, only one has revived in any strength, and that is the +extremest and most revolutionary. It is the democratic communism of the +Young Hegelians, and it scouts the very suggestion of State-help, and +will content itself with nothing short of State-transformation. Schemes +such as were popular and noisy thirty years ago--schemes, involving +indeed organic changes, but organic changes of only a partial +character--have gone to their rest. Louis Blanc, for example, was then a +name of some power; but, remarkably enough, though Louis Blanc was but +the other year buried with great honour, his Organization of Labour +seems to be as completely forgotten as the Circulus of Leroux. M. G. de +Molinari writes an interesting account of the debates that took place in +the working men's clubs of Paris in the year 1868-9--the first year they +were granted liberty of meeting after the establishment of the Second +Empire--and he states that while Fourier and Cabet were still quoted by +old disciples, though without any idea of their systems being of +practical moment, Louis Blanc's name was not even mentioned. Proudhon's +gospel of a State bank of mutual credit for furnishing labourers with +capital, by issuing inconvertible notes without money and without price, +has still a sprinkling of faithful believers, who call themselves +Mutualists; but they are extremely few, and, as a rule, the socialists +of France at the present day, like those of Germany, put their faith in +iron rather than paper. What they want is a democracy of labour, to use +one of their own phrases--that is, a State in which power and property +shall be based on labour; where citizenship shall depend on a labour +qualification, instead of a qualification of birth or of property; where +there shall be no citizen who enjoys without labouring, and no citizen +who labours without enjoying; where every one who is able to work shall +have employment, and every one who has wrought shall retain the whole +produce of his labour; and where accordingly, as the indispensable +prerequisite of the whole scheme, the land of the country and all other +instruments of production shall be made the joint property of the +community, and the conduct of all industrial operations be placed under +the direct administration of the State. Furthermore, all this is +contended for as a matter of simple right and justice to the labouring +classes, on the ground that the wealth of the nation belongs to the +hands that made it; it is contended for as an obligation of the State, +because the State is held to be merely the organized will of the people, +and the people is the labouring class; and it is contended for as an +object of immediate accomplishment--if possible, by ordinary +constitutional means; but, if not, by revolution. + +This is the form in which socialism has reappeared, and it may be +described in three words as Revolutionary Socialist Democracy. The +movement is divided into two main branches--socialism proper, or +collectivism, as it is sometimes called, and anarchism. There are +anarchists who are not socialists, but hold strongly by an individualist +constitution of property. They are very few, however, and the great mass +of the party known by that name in our day, including the Russian +Nihilists, are as ardent believers in the economic socialism of Karl +Marx as the Social Democrats of Germany themselves. They diverge from +the latter on a question of future government; but the differences +between the two are only such as the same movement might be expected to +exhibit in passing through different media, personal or national. Modern +democrats have been long divided into Centralists and Federalists--the +one party seeking to give to the democratic republic they contemplate a +strongly centralized form of government, and the other preferring to +leave the local communes comparatively independent and sovereign, and +free, if they choose, to unite themselves in convenient federations. The +federal republic has always been the favourite ideal of the Democrats of +Spain and of the Communards of Paris, and there is generally a tendency +among Federalists, in their impatience of all central authority, to drop +the element of federation out of their ideal altogether, and to advocate +the form of opinion known as "anarchy"--that is, the abolition of all +superior government. It was very natural that this ancient feud among +the democrats should appear in the ranks of socialist democracy, and it +was equally natural that the Russian Radicals, hating the autocracy of +their country and idealizing its rural communes, should become the chief +adherents of the federalist and even the anarchic tradition. + +This is the only point of principle that separates anarchism from +socialism. In other respects anarchism may be said to be but an extremer +phase of socialism. It indulges in more violent methods, and in a more +omnivorous spirit of destruction. Its fury takes a wider sweep; it +attacks all current beliefs and all existing institutions; it puts its +hopes in universal chaos. I shall endeavour in a future chapter to +explain, from peculiarities of the national character and culture, why +this gospel of chaos should find so much acceptance in Russia; but it is +no exclusively Russian product. It was preached with singular coolness, +as will be subsequently shown, by some of the young Hegelians of Germany +before 1848, and it obtains among the more volatile members of most +socialist organizations still. Attacks on religion, patriotism, the +family, are very usual accessories of their practical agitations +everywhere. As institutions and beliefs are seen to lend strength to +each other, teeth set on edge against one are easily brought to gnash at +all. A sharp check from the public authority generally brings out to the +front this extremer element in German socialism. After the repressive +legislation of 1878 the German socialists struck the restriction of +proceeding "by legal methods" out of their programme, and the wilder +spirits among them would be content with nothing short of a policy of +general destruction, and, being expelled from the party, started an +organization of their own on thoroughly anarchist lines. + +Under these influences, the word socialism has come to contract a new +meaning, and is now generally defined in a way that would exclude the +very theories it was originally invented to denote. Its political +element--its demand on the public power in behalf of the labouring +class--is taken to be the pith and essence of the system. Mr. Cairnes, +for example, says that the circumstance which distinguishes socialism +from all other modes of social speculation is its invocation of the +powers of the State, and he finds fault with Mr. Mill for describing +himself in his "Autobiography" as a socialist, merely because his ideal +of ultimate improvement had more in common with the ideal of socialistic +reformers than with the views of those who in contradistinction would be +called orthodox. The passage from the "Autobiography" runs as +follows:--"While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of +society over the individual which most socialistic systems are supposed +to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer +be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they +who do not work shall not eat will be applied, not to paupers only, but +impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead +of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of +birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; +and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible +for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits +which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the +society they belong to." ("Autobiography," pp. 231-232). On this passage +Mr. Cairnes observes:--"If to look forward to such a state of things as +an ideal to be striven for is socialism, I at once acknowledge myself a +socialist; but it seems to me that the idea which 'socialism' conveys to +most minds is not that of any particular form of society to be realized +at a future time when the character of human beings and the conditions +of human life are widely different from what they now are, but rather +certain modes of action, more especially the employment of the powers of +the State for the instant accomplishment of ideal schemes, which is the +invariable attribute of all projects generally regarded as socialistic. +So entirely is this the case that it is common to hear any proposal +which is thought to involve an undue extension of the power of the State +branded as socialistic, whatever be the object it may seek to +accomplish. After all, the question is one of nomenclature merely; but +people are so greatly governed by words that I cannot but regret that a +philosophy of social life with which I so deeply sympathize should be +prejudiced by verbal associations fitted, as it seems to me, only to +mislead." ("Leading Principles of Political Economy," p. 316.) + +Mr. Cairnes's objection is just; for a reformer's position ought to be +determined, not by the distant ideal he may think best, if the +conditions were ripe for its realization, but by the policy which he +counts to be of present importance under the conditions that exist. He +may cherish, as many orthodox economists do, the socialist hope. He may +look for a time when comfort and civilization shall be more universally +and securely diffused; when heads and hands in the world of labour shall +work together in amity; when competition and exclusive private property +and self-interest shall be swallowed up in love and common labour. But +he knows that the transformation must be gradual, and that the material +conditions of it must never be pushed on in advance of the intellectual +and moral. And this cuts him off by a whole diameter, from those who are +now known as socialists. In every question of the day he will be found +in an opposite camp from them. For he makes the ideal what it is and +ought to be--the goal of his action; they make it their starting-point, +and the peculiarity of the case is that with their view of the situation +they cannot make it anything else. For to their mind the struggle they +are engaged in is not a struggle for amelioration, but for plain and +elementary right. It is not a question of providing greater happiness +for the greatest number; it is a question of doing them bare justice, of +giving them their own, of protecting them against a disguised but very +real expropriation. They declare that, under the present industrial +arrangements, the labouring classes are in effect robbed of most of the +value of the work of their hands, and of course the suppression of +systematic robbery is an immediate obligation of the present. Justice is +a basis to start from now, if possible, and not a dream to await +hereafter. First let the labouring man have his rights, they cry, and +then, and then only, shall you have the way clear for any further parley +about his future. It is true that he is not the victim of individual +rapacity so much as of the system, and that he cannot get his rights +till the system is completely changed; but the system, they argue, can +never be completely changed except by the power of the State, and why +then not change it at once? Now, it is obvious how, to people who take +this view of the matter, there should seem no other alternative but an +instant reconstruction of industrial society at the hands of the State. +For if it is justice that has to be done, then it appears only natural +to conclude that it falls upon the State, as the organ of justice, to do +it, and that it cannot do it too soon. The demand for the immediate +accomplishment of their scheme by public authority is thus no accidental +accessory of it merely, but is really inseparable from the ideas on +which the scheme is founded. It is, in fact, so much, if I may use the +word, the _note_ of socialism wherever socialism makes itself heard in +the world now, that it can only produce confusion to give the name of +socialist to persons who hold this note in abhorrence, and virtually +desire no more than the gradual triumph of co-operation. + +It may be answered that the latter, like the former, aim not at a mere +reform of the present industrial system, but at an essential change in +its fundamental principles--at an eventual suppression of exclusive +property and unrestricted competition--and that it is therefore only +proper to classify them with those who seek the like important end, +however they may differ from the latter as to the means and seasons of +action. This might be right, perhaps, if our only consideration were to +furnish a philosophical classification of opinions; but we have to deal +with a living and agitating party whose name and work are much +canvassed, and there is at any rate great practical inconvenience in +extending the current designation of that party so as to include persons +who object strongly to its whole immediate work. + +The inconvenience has doubled since Mill's time, because socialism has +now become a much more definite programme of a much more definite party. +Even in the old romantic schools the ruling characteristic of socialism +was always its effort to realize some wrong view of distributive +justice. It was more than merely an impracticable plan for the +extinction of poverty, or the more equable diffusion of wealth, or the +correction of excessive inequalities, although that seems to be so +prevailing an impression that persons who have what they conceive more +feasible proposals to offer for these purposes put them forward under +the name of Practicable Socialism. But so far as these purposes go, they +are common to almost all schools of social reformers, even the most +individualist. If socialism meant only feeling earnestly about those +inequalities, or desiring earnestly their redress, or even strongly +resenting their inconsistency with an ideal of justice, then Mr. Herbert +Spencer is as much a socialist as either Marx or Lassalle. "The fates of +the great majority," says he, "have ever been, and doubtless still are, +so sad that it is painful to think of them. Unquestionably the existing +type of social organization is one which none who care for their kind +can contemplate with satisfaction; and unquestionably men's activities +accompanying this type are far from being admirable. The strong +divisions of rank and the immense inequalities of means are at variance +with that ideal of human relations on which the sympathetic imagination +likes to dwell; and the average conduct, under the pressure and +excitement of social life as at present carried on, is in sundry +respects repulsive." ("A Plea for Liberty," p. 4.) Socialists are far +from being the only persons whose sense of justice is offended by much +in the existing _régime_, and many very moderate politicians have held +that the policy of the law should always favour the diffusion of wealth +rather than its concentration; that it should always favour the active +business interest rather than the idle interest; that it should always +favour the weaker and more unprotected interest rather than the more +powerful and the more contumelious. The socialism comes in not with the +condemnation of the existing order of things, but with the policy +recommended for its correction. There is no socialism in recognising the +plain fact that the gifts of fortune, whether riches or talents, are not +distributed in the world according to merit. There is no socialism in +declaring that the rich, by reason of their riches, have +responsibilities towards the poor; or that the poor, by reason of their +poverty, have claims upon the rich. Nor is there any socialism in +holding that the State has responsibilities towards the poor, and that +the law ought, when necessary, to assert the reasonable claims of +poverty, or enforce the reasonable duties and obligations of wealth. All +that merely says that justice and humanity ought to govern in economic +affairs, as they ought to govern in all other affairs of life; and this +is an axiomatic position which nobody in the world denies. Only, +axiomatic though it is, it seems to dawn on many minds like a revelation +late in life, and they feel they are no longer as other men, and that +they must henceforth call themselves socialists. This awakening to the +injustice or inhumanity of things is not socialism, though socialism may +often proceed out of it. Socialism is always some scheme for the removal +of one injustice by the infliction of a greater--some scheme which, by +mistaking the rights and wrongs of the actual situation, or the natural +operation of its own provisions, or any other cause, would leave things +more inequitable and more offensive to a sound sense of justice than it +found them. The rich idler, for example, is always a great offence to +the socialist, because, according to the socialist sense of justice, no +man ought to be rich without working for his riches; and many other +people will possibly agree with the socialist in that. But then the +socialist proposes to abolish the rich idler by a scheme which would +breed the poor idler in overwhelming abundance, and for the sake of +equalizing poverty and wealth, would really equalize indolence and +industry--at once a more fatal and a more offensive form of injustice +than that which it was designed to redress. Socialists find fault with +the present order of things because the many workers support the few +idlers; but most of the old socialist communities of France and America +failed because of the opposite and greater injustice, that the few +workers found themselves supporting the many idlers, and the consequence +was a more harrowing sense of unfairness and a more universal +impoverishment than prevailed under the old system. The rich idler who +merely lives on what he has inherited may not belong to an ideal state +of society; but the poor idler, who shirks and dawdles and malingers, +because an indulgent community relieves him of the necessity of harder +exertion, is equally unideal, and he is much more hurtful in the +reality. + +But the socialists, in their mistaken ideas of justice, do not stop at +the rich idler. The rich idler is, in their view, a robber; but the rich +worker is a greater robber still. It is characteristic of socialist +thought to hold the accumulations of the rich to be in some sort of way +unjustly acquired by spoiling the poor. The poor are always represented +as the disinherited; their property is declared to have been taken from +them perforce by bad laws and bad economic arrangements and delivered +without lien into the hands of the capitalists. This view lived and +moved in the old socialism, but it has been worked into a reasoned and +professedly scientific argument as a basis and justification for the +new. The old socialism usually exclaimed against the justice of +interest, rent, property, and all forms of labourless income; but the +new socialism pretends to prove the charge by economic principles. It +alleges that all these forms of income are so many different forms of +plundering the working classes, who are the real producers of wealth, +and it sets up a claim on behalf of those classes to the whole value of +the things they produce without any deductions for rent, interest, or +profit--the right, as they call it, of the labourer to the whole produce +of his labour. Now this is a very distinct and definite claim of right +and justice, and the whole final object of the socialist organizations +of the present day is to get it realized, and realized at once, as +claims of right and justice ought, and must, by the powers of the State. +I shall have better opportunities at a later part of this work of +proving how absolutely unfounded and unjust is this claim; but I mention +it here merely to show that the essence of modern socialism is more and +more unmistakably revealing itself as an effort to realize some false +ideal of social or distributive justice. This is the deepest and most +ruling feature of socialism, and it really necessitated the advance of +the movement from the philanthropic to the political stage. The Owenites +were content with the idea of a voluntary equality of wealth; but that +is now dismissed as the mere children's dream, for popular rights are +things to be enforced by law, and questions of justice are for the +State. The political character of the movement has only brought forward +into stronger relief the distorted ideal of justice which gave it being; +and it has therefore become much more confusing than it formerly was for +one to call himself a socialist merely because he dreams of better +things to come, or because he would like to extinguish poverty, or to +diffuse property, or to extend the principle of progressive taxation, or +promote co-operation or profit-sharing, or any other just or useful +measures of practical social reform. That is shown very well by a simple +little tidemark. In the old days it was still possible, though it never +was a happy choice, for Maurice and the promoters of the new +co-operation movement to assume the designation of Christian Socialists; +but although Schultze-Delitzsch was working on the same lines with even +greater _éclat_ at the time when the present socialistic movement began +in Germany, he was left so far behind that he was thought the great +anti-socialist, and the people to whom it was now considered appropriate +to transfer the name of socialists were a set of university professors +and others who advocated a more extended use of the powers of the State +for the solution of the social question and the satisfaction of +working-class claims. + +The Socialists of the Chair and the Christian Socialists of Germany +contemplate nothing beyond correctives and palliatives of existing +evils; but then they ask the State to administer them. They ask the +State to inspect factories, or to legalize trades unions, or to organize +working-class insurance, or to fix fair wages. Their requests may be +wise or foolish, but none of them, nor all of them together, would +either subvert or transform the existing industrial system; and those +who propound them are called socialists merely because they make it part +of the State's business to deal with social questions, or perhaps more +particularly because they make it the State's business to deal with +social questions in the interest of the working class. This idea of +socialism seems largely to govern the current employment of the term. We +often hear any fresh extension of the functions of the State condemned +as socialistic even when the extension is not supposed to be made in the +interests of the working class, or to be conducive to them. The purchase +of the telegraphs was socialistic; the proposal to purchase the railways +is socialistic; a national system of education is socialistic; and an +ecclesiastical establishment, if it were now brought forward as a new +suggestion, would be pronounced socialistic too. Since, in a socialistic +community, all power is assigned to the State, any measure which now +increases the power of the State gets easily represented as an approach +to socialism, especially in the want--and it is one of our chief wants +at present--of a rational and discriminating theory of the proper limits +and sphere of public authority. + +But in the prevailing use of the word, there is generally the idea that +the intervention of authority to which it is applied is undertaken to +promote the well-being of the less fortunate classes of society. Since +socialism seeks to construct what may be called a working class State, +where the material welfare of each shall be the great object of the +organization of all, it is common to represent as socialistic any +proposal that asks the State to do something for the material well-being +of the working class, and to describe any group of such proposals, or +any theory that favours them, by the name of socialism. The so-called +State-socialism of Prince Bismarck, for example, is only, as he has +himself declared, a following-out of the traditions of the House of +Hohenzollern, the princes of that dynasty having always counted it one +of their first duties as rulers to exercise a special protection and +solicitude over the poorer classes of their subjects. The old ideas of +feudal protection and paternal government have charms for many minds +that deplore the democratic spirit of modern society. In Germany they +have been maintained by the feudal classes, the court, and the clergy; +their presence in the general intellectual atmosphere there has probably +facilitated the diffusion of socialistic views; and they have certainly +led to the curious phenomenon of a Conservative socialism, in which the +most obstinately Conservative interests in the country go to meet the +Social Democrats half way, and promise to do everything to get them +better wages if they will but come to church again and pray for the +Kaiser. The days of feudal protection and paternal government are gone; +as idealized by Carlyle, they perhaps never existed; at any rate, in an +age of equality they are no longer possible, but their modern +counterparts are precisely the ideas of social protection and fraternal +government which find their home among socialists. On the strength of +this analogy, Prince Bismarck and the German Emperor are sometimes +spoken of as socialists, because they believe, like the latter, that the +State should exercise a general or even a particular providence over the +industrial classes. But socialism is more than such a belief. It is not +only a theory of the State's action, but a theory of the State's action +founded on a theory of the labourer's right. It is at bottom, as I have +said, a mistaken demand for social justice. It tells us that an +enlargement of social justice was made when it was declared that every +man shall be free--or, in other words, that every man shall possess +completely his own powers of labour; and it claims that a new +enlargement of social justice shall be made now, to declare that every +man shall possess the whole produce of his labour. Now those who are +known as Conservative Socialists, in patronizing the working people, do +not dream of countenancing any such claim, or even of admitting in the +least that there is anything positively unjust in the present industrial +system. None of them would go further than to say that the economic +position of the labourer is insufficient to satisfy his legitimate +aspirations in a civilized community; few of them would go so far. It is +therefore highly confusing to class them among socialists. + +M. Limousin, again, speaks of a "minimum of socialism." He would call no +man a socialist who does not hold this minimum, and he would call every +man a socialist who does hold it. And the minimum of socialism, in his +opinion, is this, that the State owes a special duty of protection to +labourers because they are poor, and that this duty consists in securing +to them a more equitable part in the product of general labour. The +latter clause might have been better expressed in less general terms, +but that may pass. The definition recognises at any rate that the +paternal or the fraternal theory of government does not of itself +constitute socialism, and that this must be combined with the demand for +a new distribution of wealth, on supposed grounds of justice or equity, +before we have even the minimum of socialism. But it would have been +more correct if it had recognised that the demand for a better +distribution must be made not merely on _supposed_, but on _erroneous_ +grounds of justice or equity. If the proposed distribution is really +just and equitable, nothing can surely be more proper than to ask the +State to do its best to realize it and any practicable intervention for +that purpose is only a matter of the ordinary expansion of the law. What +is law, what is right, but a protection of the weak? and all legal +reform is a transition from a less equitable to a more equitable system +of arrangements. The equitable requirements of the poor are the natural +concern of the State on the narrowest theory of its functions, and M. +Limousin's definition would really include all rational social reformers +under the name of socialist. + +If we are in this way to stretch the word socialism first to the one +side, till it takes in J. S. Mill and Maurice and the co-operators, who +repudiate authority and State help, and then on the other side, till it +takes in Prince Bismarck, and our own aristocratic Conservative Young +England Party, and all social reformers who want the State to do its +ordinary duty of supplying the working classes with better securities +for the essentials of all humane living, how can there be any rational +and intelligible use of the word at all? Mill holds a more or less +socialistic idea of what a just society would be; Bismarck holds a more +or less socialistic view of the functions of the State; but neither of +these ideas separately make up the minimum of socialism; and it would +therefore be misleading to call either of them by that name, while to +call both by it would be hopeless confusion, since the one politician +holds exactly what the other rejects, and no more. But, after all, it is +of less importance to define socialism in the abstract than to describe +the actual concrete socialism that has organization and life, especially +as the name is only transferred in common speech to all these varying +shades of opinion, because they are thought to resemble that concrete +socialism in one feature or another. + + +Having now ascertained the general nature of the contemporary +socialistic movement, we shall be in a better position to judge of its +bearings and importance. We have seen that the only form of socialism +which has come to life again since 1848 is the political and +revolutionary phase of Social Democracy. Now, this was also the original +form in which socialism first appeared in modern Europe at the time of +the earlier Revolution of 1789. The tradition it represents is +consequently one of apparently vigorous vitality. It has kept its place +in European opinion for a hundred years, it seems to have grown with the +growth of the democratic spirit, and it has in our own day broken out +simultaneously in most of the countries of the Continent, and in some of +them with remarkable energy. A movement like this, which seems to have +taken a continuous and extensive hold of the popular mind, and which +moreover has a consciousness of right, a passion for social justice, +however mistaken, at the heart of it, cannot be treated lightly as a +political force; but at the same time its consequence is apt to be +greatly overrated both by the hopes of sanguine adherents and by the +apprehensions of opponents. Socialists are incessantly telling us that +their system is the last word of the Revolution, that the current which +broke loose over Europe in 1789 is setting, as it could not help +setting, in their direction, and that it can only find its final level +of repose in a democratic communism. Conservative Cassandras tell us +the same thing, for the Extreme Right takes the same view as the Extreme +Left does of the logical tendency of measures. They feel things about +them moving everywhere towards equality, they feel themselves helpless +to resist the movement, and they are sure they shall waken one morning +in a social revolution. Stahl, for example, thought democracy +necessarily conducted to socialism, and that wherever democracy entered, +socialism was already at the door. A few words will therefore be still +necessary towards explaining, first, the historical origin of modern +socialism; second, the relations of socialism to democracy, and, +finally, the extent and character of the spread of the present movement. + +Respecting the first of these three points, modern socialism was +generated out of the notions about property and the State which appeared +towards the close of last century in the course of the speculations then +in vogue on the origin and objects of civil society, and which were +proclaimed about the same time by many different writers--by Brissot, by +Mably, by Morelly, and above all by Rousseau. Their great idea was to +restore what they called the state of nature, when primitive equality +still reigned, and the earth belonged to none, and the fruits to all. +They taught that there was no foundation for property but need. He who +needed a thing had a right to it, and he who had more than he needed was +a thief. Rousseau said every man had naturally a right to whatever he +needed; and Brissot, anticipating the famous words of Proudhon, declared +that in a state of nature "exclusive property was theft." It was so in a +state of nature, but it was so also in a state of society, for society +was built on a social contract, "the clauses of which reduce themselves +to one, viz., the total transfer of each associate, with all his rights, +to the community." The individual is thus nothing; the State is all in +all. Property is only so much of the national estate conditionally +conceded to the individual. He has the right to use it, because the +State permits him, while the State permits him, and how the State +permits him. So with every other right; he is to think, speak, train his +children, or even beget them, as the State directs and allows, in the +interest of the common good. + +These ideas circulated in a diffuse state till 1793. They formed as yet +neither system nor party. But when Joseph Baboeuf, discarding his +Christian name of Joseph (because, as he said, he had no wish for +Joseph's virtues, and so saw no good in having him for his patron +saint), and taking instead the ominous name of Caius Gracchus, organized +the conspiracy of the _Egaux_ in that year, then modern socialism began, +and it began in the form in which it still survives. Baboeuf's ambition +was to found what he called a true democratic republic, and by a true +democratic republic he meant one in which all inequalities, whether of +right or of fact, should be abolished, and every citizen should have +enough and none too much. It was vain, he held, to dream of making an +end of privilege or oppression until all property came into the hands of +the Government, and was statedly distributed by the Government to the +citizens on a principle of scrupulous equality. Misled by the name Caius +Gracchus, people thought he wanted an agrarian law and equal division. +But he told them an agrarian law was folly, and equal division would not +last a twelvemonth, if the participants got the property to themselves. +What he wanted, he said, was something much more sublime--it was +community of goods. Equality could only be made enduring through the +abolition of private property. The State must be sole proprietor and +sole employer, and dispense to every man his work according to his +particular skill, and his subsistence in honourable sufficiency +according to his wants. An individual who monopolized anything over and +above such a sufficiency committed a social theft. Appropriation was to +be strictly limited to and by personal need. + +Baboeuf saw no difficulty in working the scheme; was it not practised +every day in the army, with 1,200,000 men? If it were said, the soil of +France is too small to sustain its population in the standard of +sufficiency contemplated, then so much the worse for the superfluous +population; let the greater landlords first, and then as many +sansculottes as were redundant, be put out of the way for their +country's good. He actually ascribed this intention to Robespierre, and +spoke of the Terror as if it were an excellent anticipation of +Malthusianism. Did any one say that, without inequalities, progress +would cease and arts and civilization decay, Baboeuf was equally +prepared to take the consequences. "Perish the arts," said a manifesto +discovered with him at his apprehension, "but let us have real +equality." "All evils," he said in his newspaper, "are on their trial. +Let them all be confounded. Let everything return to chaos, and from +chaos let there rise a new and regenerated world." + +We have here just the revolutionary socialist democracy that is still +rampant over Europe. Socialists now, indeed, generally make light of the +difficulty of over-population which Baboeuf solved so glibly with the +guillotine, and they contend that their system would humanize +civilization instead of destroying it. They follow, too, a different +tradition from Baboeuf regarding the right of property. While he built +that right on need, they build it on labour. He said the man who has +more than he needs is a thief; they say the man who has more than he +wrought for is a thief. He would have the State to give every man an +honourable sufficiency right off, according to his need; they ask the +State to give every man according to his work, or, if unfit for work, +according to his need, and they hold that this rule would afford every +one an honourable sufficiency. But these differences are only +refinements on Baboeuf's plan, and its main features remain--equality of +conditions, nationalization of property, democratic tyranny, a uniform +medium fatal to progress, an omnipresent mandarin control crushing out +of the people that energy of character which W. von Humboldt said was +the first and only virtue of man, because it was the root of all other +excellence and advancement. In short, socialists now seek, like Baboeuf, +to establish a democratic republic--a society built on the equal manhood +of every citizen--and, like Baboeuf, they think a true democratic +republic is necessarily a socialistic one. + + +This brings me to the next point I mentioned, the interesting problem of +the true relations of socialism to democracy. Is socialism, as Stahl and +others represent, an inevitable corollary of democracy? If so, our +interest in it is very real and very immediate. For democracy is already +here, and is at present engaged in every country of Europe in the very +work of reorganizing the social system into harmony with democratic +requirements. Its hammer may make little sound in some places, but the +work proceeds none the less effectually for the silence, and it will +proceed, slowly or more rapidly, until all the institutions of the +country have been renovated by the democratic spirit. Will the social +system, which will result from the process, be socialism? "The gradual +development of the principle of equality," says De Tocqueville, "is a +providential fact. It has all the characteristics of such a fact. It is +universal; it is durable; it constantly eludes all human interference; +and all events, as well as all men, contribute to its progress. Would it +be wise to imagine that a social movement, the causes of which lie so +far back, can be checked by the efforts of one generation? Can it be +believed that the democracy which has overthrown the feudal system and +vanquished kings will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists? Will it +stop now that it has grown so strong, and its adversaries so weak?" If, +then, the natural tendency of democracy is to socialism, to socialism we +must eventually go. + +But the natural tendency of democracy is not to socialism. A single +plain but remarkable fact suffices to establish that. Democracy has been +in full bloom in America for more than a century, and there are no +traces of socialism there except among some German immigrants of +yesterday; for, of course, the communism of the eccentric religious +sects of America proceeds from religious ideals, and has no bearing one +way or other on the social tendency of democracy. The labouring class is +politically everything in that country--everything, at least, that +electoral power can make them in an elective republic; and they have +never shown any desire to use their political power to become socially +everything or to interfere with the freedom of property. Had this been +in any way the necessary effect of democratic institutions, it must have +by this time made its appearance in the United States. De Tocqueville, +indeed, maintains that so far from there being any natural solidarity +between democracy and socialism, they are absolutely contrary the one to +the other. "Democracy," he said in a speech in the Republican Parliament +of France in 1849, "extends the sphere of individual independence; +socialism contracts it. Democracy gives every individual man his utmost +possible value; socialism makes every man an agent, an instrument, a +cipher. Democracy and socialism coincide only in the single word +equality, but observe the difference: democracy desires equality in +liberty; socialism seeks equality in compulsion and servitude." + +That is so far substantially true, but it cannot be received altogether +without qualification. We have had experience in modern times of two +different forms of democracy, which may be called the American and the +Continental. In America equality came as it were by nature, without +strife and without so much as observation; the colonists started equal. +But freedom was only won by sacrifice; the first pilgrims bought it by +exile; the founders of the Republic bought it a second time by blood. +Liberty therefore was their treasure, their ark, their passion; and +having been long trained in habits of self-government, they acquired in +the daily exercise of their liberty that strong sense of its practical +value, and that subtle instinct of its just limits, which always +constitute its surest bulwarks. With them the State was nothing more +than an association for mutual protection--an association, like any +other, having its own definite work to do and no more, and receiving +from its members the precise powers needed for that work and no more; +and they looked with a jealousy, warm from their history and life, on +any extension of the State's functions or powers beyond those primary +requirements of public safety or utility which they laid upon it. In the +United States property is widely diffused; liberty has been long enjoyed +by the people as a fact, as well as loved by them as an ideal; the +central authority has ever been held in comparative check; and +individual rights are so general a possession that any encroachment upon +them in the name of the majority would always tread on interests +numerous and strong enough to raise an effectual resistance. Democracy +has in America, accordingly, a soil most favourable to its healthy +growth; the history, the training, and the circumstances of the people +all concur to support liberty. + +But on the Continent democracy sprang from very different antecedents, +and possesses a very different character. Equality was introduced into +France by convulsion, and has engrossed an undue share of her attention +since. Freedom, on the other hand, has been really less desired than +power. The Revolution found the affairs of that country administered by +a strong centralized organization, with its hand everywhere and on +everything, and the Revolution left them so. Revolution has succeeded +revolution; dynasties and constitutions have come and gone; almost every +part of the political and social system has suffered change; the form of +government has been republic, empire, monarchy, empire and republic +again; but the authority of government, its sphere, its attributes, have +remained throughout the same. Each party in succession has seized the +power of the State, but none has sought to curb its range. On the +contrary, their temptation lay the other way; they have been always so +bent on using the authority and mechanism of government to impair or +suppress the influence of their adversaries, whom they regarded as at +the same time the adversaries of the State, that they could only wish +that authority to be larger and that mechanism more perfect than they +already were. Even the more popular parties are content to accept the +existing over-government as the normal state of affairs, and always +strive to gain the control of it rather than to restrain its action. And +so it has come about that, while they sought liberty for themselves, +they were afraid to grant it to their opponents, for fear their +opponents should be able to get the authority of this too powerful +administration into their hands and serve them in the same way. The +struggle for freedom has thus been corrupted into a struggle for power. +That is the secret of the pathetic story of modern France. That is why, +with all her marvellous efforts for liberty, she has never fully +possessed it, and that is why she seems condemned to instability. + +A growing minority of the democratic party in France is indeed opposed +to this unfortunate over-government, but the democratic party in general +has always countenanced it, perhaps more than any other party, because +to their minds government represents the will of the people, and the +people cannot be supposed to have any reason to restrain its own will. +Besides, they are still dominated by the doctrines of Rousseau and the +other revolutionary writers who looked with the utmost contempt on the +American idea of the State being a kind of joint-stock association +organized for a circumscribed purpose and with limited powers, and who +held the State, on the contrary, to be the organ of society in all its +interests, desires, and needs, and to be invested with all the powers +and rights of all the individuals that compose it. Under the social +contract, by which they conceived the State to be constituted, +individuals gave up all their rights and possessions to the community, +and got them back immediately afterwards as mere State concessions, +which there could be no injustice in withdrawing again next day for the +greater good of the community. Instead of enjoying equal freedom as men, +the great object was to make them enjoy equal completeness as citizens. + +From historical conditions like these there has sprung up on the +Continent--in Germany as well as France--a quite different type of +democracy from the American, and this type of democracy, while it may +not be the best, the truest, or the healthiest type of it, has a +tendency only too natural towards socialism. It contains in its very +build and temperament organic conditions that predispose it to socialism +as to its peculiarly besetting disease. It evinced this tendency very +early in the history of the Revolution. As Ledru-Rollin reminded De +Tocqueville, in replying to his speech, the right to labour on the part +of the strong and the right to assistance on the part of the weak were +already acknowledged by the Convention of 1793. Claims like these +constitute the very A B C of socialism, and they have always moved with +more or less energy in the democratic tradition of the Continent. +Democracy, guided by the spirit of freedom, will resist socialism; but +authoritative democracy, such as finds favour abroad, leans strongly +towards it. A democratic despotism is obviously more dangerous to +property than any other, inasmuch as the despot is, in this case, more +insatiable, and his rapacity is so easily hid and even sanctified under +the general considerations of humanity that always mingle with it. + +It is therefore manifest that the question whether political democracy +must end in social, is one that cannot be answered out of hand by +deduction from the idea. The development will differ in different +countries, for it depends on historical conditions, of which the most +important is that I have now touched on, whether the national character +and circumstances are calculated to guide that development into the form +of democratic liberty, or into the form of democratic tyranny. A second +condition is scarcely less important, viz., whether the laws and +economic situation of the country have conduced to a dispersion or to a +concentration of property. For even in the freest democracy individual +property can only be permanently sustained by diffusion, and, if +existing conditions have isolated it into the hands of the few, the many +will lie under a constant, and, in emergencies, an irresistible +temptation to take freedom in their hand and force the distribution of +property by law, or nationalize it entirely by a socialistic +reconstruction. It used to be a maxim in former days that power must be +distributed in some proportion to property, but with the advent of +democracy the maxim must be converted, and the rule of health will now +be found in having property distributed in some proportion to power. +That is the natural price of stability under a democratic _régime_. A +penniless omnipotence is an insupportable presence. When supreme power +is vested in a majority of the people, property cannot sit securely till +it becomes so general a possession that a majority of the people has a +stake in its defence, and this point will not be reached until at least +a large minority of them are actually owners, and the rest enjoy a +reasonable prospect of becoming so by the exercise of care and diligence +in their ordinary avocations. + +The belief of Marx and modern socialists, that the large system of +production, with its centralized capital and its aggregation of +workpeople in large centres, must, by necessary historical evolution, +end in the socialist State, is, as Professor A. Menger has pointed out, +not justified by history. The latifundia and slavery of the decline of +the Roman empire were not succeeded by any system of common property, +but by the institutions of mediæval law which made the rights of private +property more absolute and exclusive. And in our own time the tendency +to concentration of property in the hands of a few great capitalists is +being corrected by the newer tendency to joint stock management, _i.e._, +to the union and multiplication of small capitalists; and this is of +course a tendency back from, and not on towards, the social revolution +Marx conceived to be imminent. But though the modern concentration of +wealth may not for the moment be increasing, and if it were, may not on +that account necessarily spell socialism, it certainly spells social +peril; and the future, therefore, stands before us with a solemn choice: +either property must contrive to get widely diffused peacefully, or it +will be diffused by acts of popular confiscation, or perhaps be +nationalized altogether; and the fate of free institutions hangs upon +the dilemma. For in a democratic community the peril is always near. De +Tocqueville may be right in saying that such communities, if left to +themselves, naturally love liberty; but there are other things they love +more, and this profound political philosopher has himself pointed out +with what exceptional vigour they nourish two powerful passions, either +of which, if it got the mastery, would prove fatal to freedom. One is +the love of equality. "I think," says he, "that democratic communities +have a natural taste for freedom; left to themselves they will seek to +cherish it, and view every privation of it with regret. But for equality +their passion is ardent, insatiable, insistent, invincible; they call +for equality in freedom, and if they cannot obtain that, they still call +for equality in slavery. They will endure poverty, servitude, pauperism, +but they will not endure aristocracy." The other is the unreined love of +material gratification. By this De Tocqueville does not mean sensual +corruption of manners, for he believes that sensuality will be more +moderate in a democracy than in other forms of society. He means the +passion for material comfort above all other things, which he describes +as the peculiar passion of the middle classes; the complete absorption +in the pursuit of material well-being and the means of material +well-being, to the disparagement and disregard of every ideal +consideration and interest, as if the chief end and whole dignity of man +lay in gaining a conventional standard of comfort. When a passion like +this spreads from the classes whose vanity it feeds to the classes +whose envy it excites, social revolution is at the gates, and this is +one of De Tocqueville's gravest apprehensions in contemplating the +advance of democracy. For he says that the passion for material +well-being has no check in a democratic community except religion, and +if religion were to decline--and the pursuit of comfort undoubtedly +impairs it--then liberty would perish. "For my part," he declares, "I +doubt whether man can ever support at once complete religious +independence and entire public freedom; and I am inclined to think that +if faith be wanting in him he must serve, and if he be free he must +believe." It is impossible, therefore, in an age when the democratic +spirit has grown so strong and victorious, to avoid taking some +reasonable concern for the future of liberty, more especially as at the +same time the sphere and power of government are being everywhere +continually extended, the devotion to material well-being, and what is +called material civilization, is ever increasing, and religious faith, +particularly among the educated and the working classes, is on the +decline. + +This is exactly the rock ahead of the modern State, of which we have +been long warned by keen eyes aloft, and which seems now to stand out +plainly enough to ordinary observers on the deck. Free institutions run +continual risk of shipwreck when power is the possession of the many, +but property--from whatever cause--the enjoyment of the few. With the +advance of democracy a diffusion of wealth becomes almost a necessity of +State. And the difficulty only begins when the necessity is perceived. +For the State cannot accomplish any lasting or effective change in the +matter without impairing or imperilling the freedom which its +intervention is meant to protect--without, in short, becoming socialist, +for fear of socialism; and when it has done its best, it finds that the +solution is still subject to moral and economic conditions which it has +no power to control. In trade and manufactures which occupy such vast +and increasing proportions of the population of modern countries, the +range of the State's beneficial or even possible action is very little; +and in these branches the natural conditions at present strongly favour +concentration or aggregation of capital. The small masters have simply +been worsted in ordinary competition with the large producers, and so +long as the large system of production continues the cheapest system of +production, no other result can be expected. The social problem, +therefore, so far as these branches are concerned, is to discover some +form of co-operative arrangement which shall reconcile the large system +of production with the interests of the labouring class, unless, +indeed--what is far from impossible--the large system of production is +itself to be superseded in the further advance of industrial +development. The economic superiority of that system depends greatly on +the circumstance that the power now in use--water or steam--necessitates +the concentration of machinery at one spot. Mr. Babbage predicted fifty +years ago that if a new power were to be discovered that could be +generated in a central place in quantities sufficient for the +requirements of a whole community, and then distributed, as gas is, +wherever it was wanted, the age of domestic manufactures would return. +Every little community might then find it cheaper, by saving carriage, +and availing itself of cheaper local labour, to manufacture for itself +many of the articles now made for it at the large mills; and the small +factory or workshop, so suitable, among other advantages, for +co-operative enterprise, would multiply everywhere. Now, have we such a +power in electricity? If so, not the least important effect of the new +agent will be its influence on the diffusion of wealth, and its aid +towards the solution of the social problem of the nineteenth century. + +With land and agriculture the situation is somewhat different. The +distribution of landed property has always depended largely on legal +conditions; and since these conditions have--in this country at +least--wrought for two centuries in favour of the aggregation of +estates, their relaxation may reasonably be expected to operate to some +extent in the contrary direction. Too much must not be built on this +expectation, however, for the natural conditions are at present, at +least, as partial to the large property as the legal. The abolition of +entail and primogeniture, by emancipating the living proprietor from the +preposterous tyranny of the dead, and by bringing to the burdened the +privilege of sale, must necessarily throw greater quantities of land +into the market than reach it now, but the redistribution of that land +will as necessarily conform to the existing social and economic +circumstances of the country; and England will never cease to be +characterized by the large property, so long as its social system lends +exceptional consideration to the possession of land, and its commercial +system is continually creating an exceptional number of large fortunes. +The market for the large estate is among the wealthy, who buy land as an +instrument of enjoyment, of power, of social ambition; and what with the +wealth made at home and the wealth made in the colonies, the number of +this class is ever on the increase; the natural market for the small +estate, on the other hand, is among the farming class, to whom land is a +commercial investment, and the farmers of England, unlike those of other +countries, unlike those of our own country in former days, are as a rule +positively indisposed to purchase land, finding it more profitable to +rent it. This aversion, however, is much more influential with large +farmers than with small ones. It is commonly argued as if a small farmer +who has saved money will be certain to employ it in taking a more +extensive holding, but that is not so. On the contrary, he more usually +leaves it in the bank; in some parts of Scotland many small farmers have +deposits of from £500 to £1000 lying there at interest; they studiously +conceal the fact, lest their landlords should hear of it, and raise +their rent, and they submit to much inconvenience rather than withdraw +any portion of it, once it is deposited. Their ruling object is security +and not aggrandisement, and consequently if land were in the market in +lots to suit them, they would be almost certain to become purchasers of +land. In forecasting the possibility of the rise of a peasant +proprietary in this country, it is often forgotten that, whether land is +a profitable investment for the farmer or not, the class of farmers from +whom such a proprietary would be generated is less anxious for a +profitable investment than for a safe one, and that to many of them, as +of other classes, independence will always possess much more than a +commercial value. + +But, however this may be, land is distributed by holdings as well as by +estates, and in connection with our present subject the distribution by +holdings is perhaps the more important thing of the two. "The magic of +property" is no exclusive prerogative of the soil; ownership in stock +will carry the same political effects as ownership in anything else; and +a satisfactory system of tenant right may yield all the social and +economic advantages of a peasant proprietary. In fact, tenant right, so +far as it goes, is proprietorship, and it has before now developed into +proprietorship even in name. The old lamented yeomanry of England were, +the great majority of them, copyholders, and a copyholder was simply a +tenant-at-will whose tenant right was consolidated by custom into a +perpetual and hereditary property; and if the soil of England will ever +again become distributed among as numerous a body of owners as held it +in former ages, it will most likely occur through a similar process of +consolidation of tenant right. But as it is--and though this is a +truism, it is often overlooked in discussions on the subject--the +tenants are owners as well as the landlords; their interests enlist them +on the side of stability; they have a stake in the defence of property; +and even though the prevailing tendency to the accumulation of estates +continues unchecked, its peril to the State may be mitigated by the +preservation and multiplication of small and comfortable holdings, which +shall nourish a substantial and independent peasantry, and supply a hope +and ambition to the rural labourers. This is so far well. We know that +it is an axiom with Continental socialists that a revolution has no +chance of success, however well supported it may be by the artisans of +the towns, if the peasantry are contented and take no part in it; and +the most serious feature in more than one of the great countries of +Europe at this moment is the miserable condition into which their +agricultural labourers have been suffered to fall, and their practical +exclusion from all opportunities of raising themselves out of it. The +stability of Europe may be said to rest on the number of its comfortable +peasantry; the dam of the Revolution is the small farm. This is not less +true of England than of the Continent, for although the agricultural +population is vastly outnumbered by the industrial in this country, that +consideration really increases rather than diminishes the political +value of sustaining and multiplying a contented tenantry. + +Now England is the classical country of the large farm as well as of +the large estate. Its holdings have always been larger than those of +other nations; they were so when half of them were owned by their +occupiers, they are so still when they are rented from great landlords. +The large farms have grown larger; a holding of 200 acres was counted a +very large farm in the time of the Commonwealth; it would be considered +a very moderate one in most English counties now. But yet the small farm +has not gone the way of the small estate. The effects of consolidation +have been balanced to such a degree by a simultaneous extension of the +area of cultivation that the number of holdings in England is probably +more considerable than it ever was before. If we may trust Gregory +King's estimate, there were, 200 years ago, 310,000 occupiers of +holdings in England, 160,000 owners, and 150,000 tenants; in 1880 there +were, exclusive of allotments, which are now numerous, 295,313 holdings +of 50 acres and under, and 414,804 holdings altogether. Moreover, the +future of the small farm is much more hopeful than the future of the +small estate or the small factory. All admit the small holding to be +preferable to the large for dairy farming and market gardening; and +dairy farms and market gardens are two classes of holdings that must +continue to multiply with the growth of the great towns. But even with +respect to corn crops, it is now coming to be well understood that the +existing conditions of high farming would be better satisfied by a +smaller size of holding than has been in most favour with agricultural +reformers hitherto; because then, and then only, can the farmer be +expected to bestow upon every rood of his ground that generous +expenditure of capital, and that sedulous and minute care which are now +necessary to make his business profitable. Without entering on the +disputed question of the comparative productiveness of large and small +farms, it ought to be remembered, in the first place, that the economic +advantage of the large farm--the reason why the large farmer has been +able to offer a higher rent than the smaller--is not so much because he +produces more, as because he can afford to produce less; and, in the +next place, that the small farmer has heretofore wrought, not only with +worse appliances than the large--which perhaps he must always do--but +also with less knowledge of the theory of his art, and worse conditions +of tenure--in both of which respects we may look for improvement in the +immediate future. Even as it is, we find small farmers equalling the +highest production of the country. In the evidence before the Duke of +Richmond's Commission, there is a case of a farmer of three acres +producing 45 bushels per acre, or about twice the average of the season +in those bad years that impoverished the larger farmers. The same body +of evidence seems to prove that the small farmer has more staying +power--a better capacity of weathering an agricultural crisis--than the +large; for he has much less frequently petitioned for a reduction of +rent--an advantage which landlords may be expected not to overlook. He +enjoys, too, a monopoly of the superior efficiency of interested labour, +and as the personal efficiency of the labourer--his skill, his +knowledge, his watchfulness, his care--are becoming not less, but more +important with the growth of scientific farming, whether in corn raising +or cattle rearing, the small farm system will probably continue to hold, +if not to enlarge, its place in modern agriculture; and if it is able to +do so, it will constitute one of the best buttresses against the social +revolution. + + +It remains to mark the spread of socialism in the various countries of +Europe and America, and to describe its present position; but this I +shall reserve for next chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE PROGRESS AND PRESENT POSITION OF SOCIALISM. + + +Socialism being now revolutionary social democracy, we should expect to +find it most widely and most acutely developed in those countries where, +1st, the social condition of the lower classes is most precarious, or, +in other words, where property and comfort are ill distributed; 2nd, +where political democracy is already a matter of popular agitation; and, +3rd, where previous revolutions have left behind them an unquiet and +revolutionary spirit--a "valetudinary habit," as Burke calls it, "of +making the extreme medicine of the State its daily bread." That is very +much what we do find. All these conditions are present in Germany--the +country in which socialism has made the most remarkable and rapid +advance. Dr. Engel, head of the Statistical Bureau of Prussia, states +that in 1875 six million persons, representing, with their families, +more than half the population of that State, had an income less than £21 +a year each; and only 140,000 persons had incomes above £150. The number +of landed proprietors is indeed comparatively large. In 1861 there were +more than two millions of them out of a population of 23,000,000; and in +a country where half the people are engaged in agriculture this would, +at first sight, seem to offer some assurance of general comfort. But +then the estates of most of them are much too small to keep them in +regular employment or to furnish them with adequate maintenance. More +than a million hold estates of less than three acres each, and averaging +little over an acre, and the soil is poor. The consequence is that the +small proprietor is almost always over head and ears in debt. His +property can hardly be called his own, and he pays to the usurer a much +larger sum annually as interest than he could rent the same land for in +the open market. More than half of these small estates lie in the Rhine +provinces alone, and the distressed condition of the peasantry there has +been lately brought again before the attention of the legislature. But +while thus in the west the agricultural population suffers seriously +from the excessive subdivision of landed property, they are straitened +in the eastern and northern provinces by their exclusion from it. Prince +Bismarck, speaking of the spread of socialism in a purely agricultural +district like Lauenburg, which had excited surprise, said that this +would not seem remarkable to any one who reflected that, from the land +legislation in that part of the country, the labourers could never hope +to acquire the smallest spot of ground as their own possession, and were +kept in a state of dependence on the gentry and the peasant proprietors. +Half the land of Prussia is held by 31,000 persons; and emigration, +which used to come chiefly from the eastern provinces, where subdivision +had produced a large class of indigent proprietors, proceeds now +predominantly from the quarters where large estates abound. The +diminution of emigration from the Rhine provinces is indeed one cause of +the increase of distress among the peasant proprietary; but why +emigration has ceased, when there seems more motive for it, is not so +clear. As yet, however, socialism has taken comparatively slight hold of +the rural population of Germany, because they are too scattered in most +parts to combine; but there exists in that country, as in others, a +general conviction that the condition of the agricultural labourers is +really a graver social question than the condition of the other +industrial classes, and must be faced in most countries before long. +Socialism has naturally made most way among the factory operatives of +Germany, who enjoy greatest facilities for combination and mutual +fermentation, and who besides, while better off in respect to wages than +various other sections of workpeople, are yet the most improvident and +discontented class in the community. Then, in considering the +circumstances of the labouring classes in Germany, it must be remembered +that, through customs and indirect taxation of different kinds, they pay +a larger share of the public burdens than they do in some countries, and +that the obligation of military service is felt to be so great a +hardship that more than a third of the extensive emigration which now +takes place every year from the German Empire is prompted by a desire to +escape it. Before the establishment of the Empire, only about a tenth +part of the emigrants left the country without an official permit; but +the proportion has been rising every year since then, and sometimes +comes to nearly a half. + +Under these circumstances neither the strength nor the progress of the +Social Democratic party in that country affords occasion for surprise. +At the last general election, in February, 1890, this party polled more +votes than any other single party in the Empire, and returned to the +Imperial Diet a body of representatives strong enough, by skilful +alliances, to exercise an effective influence on the course of affairs. +The advance of the party may be seen in the increase of the socialist +vote at the successive elections since the creation of the Empire. + + + In 1871 it was 101,927. + " 1874 " 351,670. + " 1877 " 493,447. + " 1878 " 437,438. + " 1881 " 311,961. + " 1884 " 549,000. + " 1887 " 774,128. + " 1890 " 1,427,000. + + +The effect of the coercive laws of 1878, as shown by these figures, is +very noteworthy. In consequence of the successive attempts made in that +year on the life of the Emperor William by two socialists, Hoedel and +Nobiling, Prince Bismarck determined to stamp out the whole agitation +with which the two criminals were connected by obtaining from the Diet +exceptional and temporary powers of repression. The first effect of +these measures was, as was natural, to disorganize the socialist party +for the time. Hundreds of its leaders were expelled from the country; +hundreds were thrown into prison or placed under police restriction; its +clubs and newspapers were suppressed; it was not allowed to hold +meetings, to make speeches, or to circulate literature of any kind. In +the course of the twelve years during which this exceptional legislation +has subsisted, it was stated at the recent Socialist Congress at Halle, +that 155 socialist journals and 1200 books or pamphlets had been +prohibited; 900 members of the party had been banished without trial; +1500 had been apprehended and 300 punished for contraventions of the +Anti-Socialist Laws. These measures paralyzed the old organization +sufficiently to reduce the Socialist vote at the next election in 1881 +by thirty per cent.; but the party presently recovered its ground. It +adapted itself to the new conditions, and established a secret +propaganda which was manifestly quite as effective for its purposes as +the old, and charged with more danger to the State. Its vote increased +immensely at each successive election thereafter; and now, as Rodbertus +prophesied, the social question has really proved "the Russian campaign +of Bismarck's fame," for his policy of repression has ended in tripling +the strength of the party it was designed to crush, and placing it in +possession of one-fifth of the whole voting power of the nation. It was +high time, therefore, to abandon so ineffectual a policy, and the +socialist coercive laws expired on the 30th September, 1890, and the +socialists inaugurated a new epoch of open and constitutional agitation +by a general congress at Halle in the beginning of October. + +The strength of the party in Parliament has never corresponded with its +strength at the polls. In 1871 it returned only 1 member to the Diet; in +1874, 9; in 1877, 12; in 1878, 9; in 1881, 12; in 1884, 24; in 1887, 11; +and in 1890, with an electoral vote which, under a system of +proportional representation, would have secured for it 80 members, it +has carried only 37. The party has no leaders now, in Parliament or out +of it, of the intellectual rank of Lassalle or Marx; but it is very +efficiently led. Its two chiefs, Liebknecht and Bebel, are well skilled +both in debate and in management, and have for many years maintained +their authority in a party peculiarly subject to jealousy and intrigue, +and have consolidated its organization under very adverse conditions. +Liebknecht, who is a journalist of most respectable talents, character, +and acquirements, is now the veteran of the movement, having been out in +the '48 and passed twelve years of political exile in London in constant +intercourse with Karl Marx. Bebel, a turner in Leipzig, is a much +younger man, and, indeed, is one of Liebknecht's converts, for he +opposed the movement when it was first started in Leipzig by Lassalle; +but he has fought so long and so stout a battle for his cause that he +too seems now one of its veterans. The other parliamentary leaders of +the party are for the most part still under thirty. Von Volmar, a +military officer who has left the service for agitation and journalism, +seems to be the older leaders' chief lieutenant; and Frohme, a young +_littérateur_ of repute, may be mentioned because he heads a tendency to +more moderate policy. + +Owing to the paucity of its representatives, the party has hitherto made +little attempt to initiate legislation. No bill can be introduced into +the German Diet unless it is backed by fifteen members; and, except in +the Parliament of 1884-7, the Socialist party never had fifteen members +until last February. The work of its parliamentary representatives, +therefore, has consisted mainly of criticism and opposition, and seizing +every suitable occasion for the ventilation of their general ideas; but +after the election of 1884, when they returned to the Diet twenty-four +strong, they introduced first a bill for the prohibition of Sunday +labour, which was stoutly opposed by Prince Bismarck, and defeated; and +second, a Labourer's Protection Bill, proposing to create an elaborate +organization for securing the general wellbeing of the working class. It +was to create, first, a new Labour Department of State; second, a series +of Workmen's Chambers, one for every district of 200,000 or 400,000 +inhabitants, with the necessary number of local auxiliaries; third, +Local Courts of Conciliation for the settlement of differences between +labourers and employers, from whose decision there should be an appeal +to the Workmen's Chamber of the District. Both the Court of Conciliation +and the Workmen's Chamber were to be composed of an equal number of +employers and employed. The connection between the Workmen's Chambers of +the District and the Minister of Labour would be through District +Councils of Labour, the members of which were to be chosen by the +minister out of a list presented by the Workmen's Chamber of the +District, and containing twice the number of names required to fill the +places. It was to be the duty of these Councils of Labour to send a +report every year to the Labour Department in Berlin on the condition +of labour in their respective districts after an annual inspection of +all the factories, workshops, and industrial establishments of any kind +located there. The Workmen's Chambers were to have a wide _rôle_, and +were the keystone of the system. Besides being the courts of final +appeal in labour disputes, they were to bring to the knowledge of the +competent authorities the existence of any disorders or grievances that +occurred in industrial life; to give advice on the best laws and +regulations for industry; to undertake inquiries into all matters +affecting the conditions of labour, treaties of commerce, taxes, rates +of wages, technical education, housing, prices of subsistence, etc. + +In introducing the bill, its promoters said a chief object of the whole +organization was to obtain for working men higher wages for a shorter +day's work, and they proposed the immediate reduction of the day of +labour to eight hours for miners and ten hours for all other trades, +together with some further limitations on the work of women and +children, the abolition of prison work at ordinary trades, and of Sunday +work, and the requirement of the payment of wages weekly, and their +payment in money. The bill was referred to a committee of the House, and +rejected, after that committee brought up an unfavourable report in +February, 1886, and nothing further has been done in the matter since; +but the Minister of the Interior was so much struck with the +unexpectedly moderate and practical character of its proposals that he +said if these proposals expressed the whole mind of the members who +proposed them, then those members might as well sit on the right side of +the House as on the left. The effect of the bill, as far as it was +workable, would merely be to give the working class a real and +systematic, but not unequal, voice in settling the conditions of their +own labour; and its rejection is to some extent an example of the way +the socialist agitation impedes the cause of labour by creating in the +public mind an unnecessary distrust even of reasonable reforms. + +There are some questions of general policy on which the socialist +deputies take up a position of their own. They always oppose the +military budget, because, like socialists everywhere, they are opposed +to all war and armaments. Wars are merely quarrels of rulers, for +peoples would make for peace, and armaments only drain the people's +pockets in order to perpetuate the people's oppression. Then they are +opposed to national debts, because national debts enable rulers to carry +on war. They are opposed to the new colonization policy of the Empire, +because in their opinion it is a policy of aggrandisement and conquest +undertaken under hypocritical pretences. They are opposed to protective +duties, because they dislike indirect taxation, as bearing always +unjustly on the labouring class. They are strong supporters of popular +education, but they opposed the new insurance laws because they feared +these laws would place people too much under the power of the +Government, for their jealousy of the Government that exists corrects +their general partiality for Government control, and tends to keep them +back even from some of the minor excesses of State-socialism. + +The moderate and apparently temporizing policy of the deputies is a +constant source of dissatisfaction to the wilder and more inexperienced +members of the party, who complain, as they did at the recent Halle +Congress, that trying to improve the present system of things is not the +best way of subverting it, and who will either have socialism _cum_ +revolution, or they will have nothing at all. But the older heads merely +smile, and tell them the hour for socialism and revolution is not yet, +that no man knows when it shall be, and that in the meantime it would be +mere folly for socialists to refuse the real comforts they can get +because they think they have ideally a right to a great deal more. +"Why," said Bebel, when he was charged at Halle with countenancing +armaments in violation of socialist principles by voting for a better +uniform to the soldiers,--"why, there are numbers of Social Democrats in +the Reserve, and was I to let them die through inadequate clothing +merely because I object to armaments as a general principle?" + +They of course think of this policy of accommodation as only a temporary +necessity, till they become strong enough to be thoroughgoing; but there +is perhaps better reason to believe it to be an abiding and growing +necessity of their position, for they are finding themselves more and +more obliged, if they are to become stronger at all, or even to keep the +strength they have, to bid for the support of aggrieved classes by +working for the immediate removal of their grievances, and thus to keep +on reducing day by day as it rises the volume of that social discontent +which is to turn the wheel of revolution. It is not unlikely that the +socialist party, now that it is sufficiently powerful to do something in +the legislature, but not sufficiently powerful to think of final social +transformation, will occupy themselves much more completely with those +miscellaneous social reforms in the immediate future; that they will +thereby become every day better acquainted with the real conditions on +which social improvement depends; that they will find more and more +satisfying employment in the exercise of their power of securing +palpable, practical benefits, than in agitating uncertain theoretical +schemes; and, in short, that they will settle permanently into what they +are for the present to some extent temporarily, a moderate labour party, +working for the real remedy of real grievances by the means best +adapted, under real conditions, national or political, for effecting the +purpose. + +The programme of the party, which was adopted at the Gotha Congress of +1875, after the union of the Marxist socialists and the Lassalleans, and +has remained unaltered ever since, has always consisted of a deferred +part and an actual. It contains, in fact, three programmes--the +programme for to-day, the programme for to-morrow, and the programme for +the day after to-morrow. The last is of course the socialist State of +the future, at present beyond our horizon altogether. Before it appears +there is to be a more or less prolonged period in which individual +management of industry is to be gradually superseded by co-operative +societies founded on State credit; but this intermediate state was only +made an article of the programme to conciliate the Lassalleans, and one +hears less of productive associations to-day from the German socialists +than from the French. The Germans would apparently prefer to go from +private property to public property direct rather than go _viâ_ +corporate property; but in any case their programme leaves the creation +of productive societies to a future period, and their task for the +present is to secure for working men factory and sanitary legislation, +constitutional liberties, and an easier and more equitable system of +taxation. + +The programme is as follows:-- + +"I. Labour is the source of all wealth and civilization, and since +productive labour as a whole is made possible only in and through +society, the entire produce of labour belongs to society, that is, it +belongs by an equal right to all its members, each according to his +reasonable needs, upon condition of a universal obligation to labour. + +"In existing society the instruments of labour are the monopoly of the +capitalist class; the dependence of the labouring class which results +therefrom is the cause of misery and servitude in all forms. + +"The emancipation of labour requires the conversion of the instruments +of labour into the common property of society, and the management of +labour by association, and the application of the product with a view to +the general good and an equitable distribution. + +"The emancipation of labour must be the work of the labouring class, in +relation to which all other classes are only a reactionary mass. + +"II. Starting from these principles, the Socialistic Labour Party of +Germany seeks by all lawful means to establish a free State and a +socialistic society, to break asunder the iron law of wages by the +abolition of the system of wage-labour, the suppression of every form of +exploitation, and the correction of all political and social inequality. + +"The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany, although at first working +within national limits, is sensible of the international character of +the labour movement, and resolved to fulfil all the duties thereby laid +on working men, in order to realize the brotherhood of all men. + +"The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany demands, in order to pave the +way for the solution of the social question, the establishment by State +help of socialistic productive associations under the democratic control +of the workpeople. Productive associations for industry and agriculture +should be created to such an extent that the socialistic organization of +all labour may arise out of them. + +"The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany demands, as the basis of the +State, (1) Universal, equal, and direct suffrage, together with secret +and obligatory voting, for all citizens over twenty years of age, in all +elections in State and commune. The election day must be a Sunday or +holiday. (2) Direct legislation by the people. Decision on peace or war +by the people. (3) Universal liability to military service. Militia +instead of standing army. (4) Abolition of all exceptional laws, +especially laws interfering with liberty of the press, of association, +and of meeting; in general, all laws restricting free expression of +opinion, free thought, and free inquiry. (5) Administration of justice +by the people. Gratuitous justice. (6) Universal, compulsory, +gratuitous, and equal education of the people by the State. Religion to +be declared a private affair. + +"The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany demands within the conditions +of existing society (1) The utmost possible extension of political +rights and liberties in the sense of the above demands. (2) The +replacement of all existing taxes, and especially of indirect taxes, +which peculiarly burden the people, by a single progressive income tax +for State and commune. (3) Unrestricted right of combination. (4) A +normal working day corresponding to the needs of society. Prohibition of +Sunday labour. (5) Prohibition of the labour of children, and of all +labour for women that is injurious to health and morality. (6) Laws for +protection of the life and health of workmen. Sanitary control of +workmen's dwellings. Inspection of mines, factories, workshops, and home +industry by officers chosen by working men. An effective employers' +liability act. (7) Regulation of prison labour. (8) Entire freedom of +management for all funds for the assistance and support of working men." + +A committee was appointed at the recent Halle Congress to revise this +programme and report to the Congress of 1891; but as the revision is +merely intended to place the programme in greater conformity with the +needs of the time, and keep it as it were up to date, only minor +modifications may be expected, and those probably in the direction of a +more practical and effectual dealing with existing grievances. Five +years ago the party thought a ten hours' day corresponded with the needs +of the time; they now ask for an eight hours' one. Instead of the +prohibition of Sunday labour, they now prefer to demand, as a more +workable equivalent, a period of thirty-six hours' continuous and +uninterrupted rest every week, irrespective of any particular day; and +they have sometimes taken up new working-class questions not especially +mentioned in their programme, or included directly under any of its +heads, like the abolition of payment of wages in kind. The whole spirit +of the late Congress leads us to look for the contemplated modifications +in this direction of meeting more effectually immediate working-class +wants. + +Many eyes were upon that Congress; for it was the first the German +socialists had held since they had recovered their freedom and proved +their strength. They were now clearly stronger than any socialist party +the world had yet seen, and much stronger than most revolutionary +parties who have made successful revolution. Would then the word now be +revolution? people asked. It was not: the word was caution. The first +effect of the victory in February had been otherwise, and in June, Herr +Bebel was still calling, Steady. "The majority of his party colleagues," +he said at a public meeting in Berlin on the 20th of that month, "had +been intoxicated by the result of the elections of February 20th, and +believed they could do what they liked with the middle class, as it was +already on the point of going under." But before October steadier +counsels prevailed, and the spirit of the Congress was moderation +itself. Although the Congress did not agree to the motion to restore to +the party programme the phrase "by lawful means," which had been deleted +from the opening paragraph of the second part of it by the Wyden +Congress of 1880, in consequence of the Anti-Socialist Laws no longer +giving them any choice except recourse to unlawful means, the general +and decided feeling of the Congress certainly was that only lawful means +could now answer their purposes. The controversy was repeatedly raised +by an extreme section of the party from Berlin, who complained that the +work of their parliamentary representatives had hitherto entirely +ignored the real aims of social democracy, and that a return should now +be made to its socialism and its revolution. But the voice of the +meeting was invariably against this Berlin movement. There was a time, +said M. Fleischman--and his speech was applauded--when it was counted +the right thing in the party to make revolutionary speeches, and point +to the coming day of account when mankind were to be emancipated at one +blow; but that was not a road they could make any progress by. And as +for boycotting, which had been spoken of, he declared he was all for +boycotting; but it was the boycotting of the military in such a way as +to give them no occasion for the use of their weapons. Liebknecht, the +chief leader of the party, followed, and was quite as emphatic in the +same line. People spoke of revolution, he said; but they should remember +that roast pigeons don't fly into one's mouth by themselves. It was easy +enough to make bitter speeches, and any fool and donkey could throw +bombs; but the misadventures of the anarchists showed plainly enough +that nothing could be done in that way. The socialists had now 20 per +cent. of the population; but what could 20 per cent. do against 80 per +cent. by the use of force? No, it was not force; it was reason they must +use if they would succeed. What, then, he asked, was the Social +Democracy to do? They must avoid divisions among themselves, and go out +and convert the still indifferent masses. The electoral suffrage was +their best weapon of agitation, and their surest means of increasing the +party. Prince Bismarck had been represented in a popular book as +practising peasant-fishery and elector-fishery. "Peasant-fishery and +elector-fishery--" said Liebknecht, amid much applause, "that is the +word for the Social Democrats to-day." + +Another suggestion of the extreme section was that the party should now +assail the Church and religion, as socialist and revolutionary parties +have so generally done; but this bit of their old traditional policy +received scant regard from the Halle Congress. A strong feeling was +expressed that the party had damaged itself in the past by its assaults +on the Church, and that its present policy ought, in self-preservation, +to be one of religious neutrality and toleration. "Instead," said +Liebknecht, "of squandering our strength in a struggle with the Church +and sacerdotalism, let us go to the root of the matter. We desire to +overthrow the State of the classes. When we have done that, the Church +and sacerdotalism will fall with it, and in this respect we are much +more radical and much more definite in purpose than our opponents, for +we like neither the priests nor the anti-priests." The old revolutionary +policy of stirring up hatred against all existing institutions is thus +relegated from the present to the distant future, after the present +class-State is overthrown and the working-class or socialist State +established in its place. + +"Well, then," suggested another old-world socialist, "let us, at any +rate, issue a pamphlet describing the glories of this socialist State, +and get the people prepared to flock into it"; but this suggestion was +also frowned down. "For," said Liebknecht, "who could say what the +_Zukunft Staat_--the socialist State of the future--is to be? Who could +foresee so much as the development of the existing German State for a +single year?" In other words--I think I am not misinterpreting their +meaning--the State of the future is the concern of the future; the +business of a living party is within the needs and within the lines of +the living present. + +What, then, is to be the business of this formidable Social Democratic +party? Peasant-catching is the word. The elections showed that while the +party was very strong in the large towns, it was very weak in the rural +districts, and among special populations like the Poles and Alsatians; +and although previous revolutionists thought everything was gained if +the large towns were gained, the Social Democrats generally admit that +the social revolution is impossible without the adherence of the +peasantry. The peasants, therefore, must be won over to the party. Once +in the party, they may learn socialism and revolution, but they must +first be brought in, and for that purpose there must be started a +special peasants' cry--a cry, that is, for the redress of some immediate +grievance of that class; and one suggestion made at the Congress was, +that the cry for the peasantry should be the abolition of the German +_Gesinde_ (farm-servant) system. In the same spirit the Congress +recommended the parliamentary party to take up the question of seamen's +rights, and agitate for better regulations for securing the wellbeing of +that class. The advance towards practicality is even more evident in +their determination upon strikes. Hitherto, for the most part, +socialists have either looked on strikes with lofty disdain as poor +attempts to get a petty rise in wages instead of abolishing the present +wages system altogether, or they have thrown themselves into strikes for +the mere purpose of fomenting labour troubles, and breaking perchance +the power of the large capitalist class; and this latter view was not +unrepresented at the Halle Congress. The resolution of the Congress, +however, declared (1st) that strikes and boycotting were often useful +means of improving the social position of the labouring class; but (2nd) +that they were to be resorted to even for that purpose with great +circumspection. "Whereas, however, strikes and boycotting are +double-edged weapons which, when used in unsuitable places and at an +inopportune moment, are calculated to do more harm than good to the +interests of the working class, this Congress recommends German working +men carefully to weigh the circumstances under which they purpose to +make use of those weapons." The revolutionary ideal seems thus to be +retreating--perhaps insensibly--in the socialistic mind into an +eschatological decoration, into a kind of future Advent which is to come +and to be believed in; but the practical concerns of the present must be +more and more treated in their own practical way. + +Since the Congress, the party has issued a manifesto to the peasantry, +in which, after promising a new and happy day that is coming for them, +which is to restore to them the beautiful earth and the poetry of life, +they declare against the patriarchal system, and the increase of brandy +distilling; and then, confessing that few socialists know anything about +agricultural questions, invite information and discussion for the +enlightenment of the party. Here again they forget that they have a +theory which is as applicable to agriculture as to manufactures, and +they want to make practical investigations with a view to practical +solutions. + +Of course the movement will always generate revolutionary elements as +occasions arise, and these sometimes of the wildest character. Most and +Hasselman, and their following, who were expelled at the Congress of +Wyden in 1880, were anarchists of a violent type, and Mosts and +Hasselmans may arise again. But at present anarchism hardly exists in +Germany, and the Social Democratic party is peacefully trying to make +people as comfortable as possible till the fulness of time arrives. + +It may be added that the present income of the party, as stated at the +last Congress, is £19,525, and that since February, 1890, they have +established nineteen daily newspapers and forty weekly, with a total +circulation of 254,000. + +The socialist movement in other countries may be disposed of much more +briefly, for in no other country has it worn anything like the same +importance, except in Russia, and of the Russian agitation I shall treat +more fully in a subsequent chapter on "Russian Nihilism." I may observe +here, however, that the Russian agitation has not been without its +influence on the nations of Western Europe. It was Bakunin who first +kindled the socialist movements of Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Holland, +and the anarchist fermentations of the last six years have been due in +no inconsiderable measure to the new leaven of Russian ideas introduced +by men like Prince Krapotkin and the two hundred other Russian refugees +that are scattered abroad in the free countries of Europe. + +In France there is much animated socialist agitation, but no solid and +coherent socialist party such as exists in Germany. The movement is +disunited and fragmentary, and confined almost entirely to the large +towns, where many circumstances conspire to favour its growth. The +French working class are born to revolutionary traditions. The better +portion of them, moreover, though they long since gave up all belief in +the old native forms of socialism, never ceased to be imbued with +socialist ideas and aspirations; and M. de Molinari said in 1869, from +his experience of French working men's clubs, that out of every ten +French working men who had any interest beyond eating and drinking, nine +were Socialists. Then there is in France a larger proportion of the +working class than in most countries, who are kept in constant poverty +and discontent and commotion by their own improvident habits. A pamphlet +called "Le Sublime," which attracted considerable attention some years +ago, stated that only forty per cent. of the working men of Paris were +out of debt; and Mr. Malet reported to the English Foreign Office that +they were, as a body, so dissipated that none of them had grandchildren +or grandfathers. But, on the other hand, France enjoys a solid security +against the successful advance of socialism in her peasant proprietors. +Half the French population belong to that class, and their industry, +thrift, and comfort have long been held up to our admiration by +economists. According to M. de Lavergne, they are not so well fed, so +well clad, or so well lodged as the farm labourers of England; but, +living in a different climate, they have fewer wants, and are +undoubtedly more contented. Among people like these, passing their days +in frugal comfort and fruitful industry, and looking with quiet hope and +confidence to the future, socialism finds, of course, no open door. On +the contrary, every man of them feels he has something to lose and +nothing to gain by social revolution; the fear of socialism is, indeed, +one of the chief influences guiding their political action; and as they +are as numerous as all the other classes in the community put together, +their worldly contentment is a bulwark of enormous value to the existing +order of things. The impression of their substantial independence is so +marked that even the Frenchmen who were members of the International +Working Men's Association would not assent to the abolition of a peasant +proprietary, but always insisted, contrary to the principles of the +Association, on the continued maintenance of that system as a necessary +counterpoise to the power of the Government. + +The present socialist groups and sects of France are all believers in +the so-called scientific socialism of Marx and Lassalle, and the most +important of them work for a programme substantially identical with that +of Gotha. Marx's ideas were introduced among the French by the +International, and they were adopted by a section of the Revolutionary +Committee of the Paris Commune, 1871; but after the suppression of the +Commune, they made so little stir for some years that Thiers declared, +in his last manifesto as President of the Republic, that socialism, +which was then busy in Germany, was absolutely dead in France. Its +recrudescence was chiefly due to the activity of the Communards. Some of +them had escaped to London, where they got into closer communion with +Marx and his friends; and in 1874, thirty-four of these refugees, all +military or administrative officers of the Commune, and most of them +not professed socialists before, issued a manifesto pronouncing entirely +for socialism, and describing the Commune as "the militant form of the +social revolution"; but it was not till after the amnesty of the +Communards, and their return from New Caledonia and elsewhere in 1880, +that the first sensible ripple of socialist agitation was felt in France +since the downfall of the second Republic. Numbers of socialist journals +began to appear, and a general congress of working men, held at Havre in +1880, adopted a programme modelled on the lines of that of the German +Social Democrats, and made preparations for an active propaganda and +organization. + +The adoption of the socialistic programme, however, rent the Congress in +three, and the two opposite wings, the Co-operationists and the +Anarchists, withdrew and established separate organizations of their +own. The co-operationists, believing that the amelioration of the +working class would only come by the gradual execution of practicable +and suitable measures, and that these could only be successfully carried +by means of skilful alliances with existing political parties, declared +the Havre programme to be a programme for the year 2000, and that the +true policy of the working-class now was a policy of possibilities. This +last word is said to supply the origin of the term Possibilist, which +has now come to be applied not to this co-operationist party, but to one +of the two divisions into which the third or centre party of the Havre +Congress--the socialists--shortly afterwards split up. + +The co-operationists formed themselves into a body known as the +Republican Socialist Alliance, which, as the name indicates, aims at +social reforms under the existing republican form of State. They have +held several congresses, their membership includes many well-known and +even eminent Radical politicians--M. Clemenceau, for example--and they +were supported by leading Radical journals, like _Le Justice_ and +_L'Intransigeant_; but their activity and their numbers have both +dwindled away, probably because their work was done sufficiently well +already by other political or working-class organizations. + +The anarchists set up not a single organization, but a number of little +independent clubs, which agree with one another mainly in their dislike +of all constituted authority. They want to have all things in common, +somehow or other; but for master or superior of any sort they will have +none, be it king or committee. Their ideas find ready favour in France, +because they are near allied with the theory of the Revolutionary +Commune cherished among the Communards; and although there is no means +of calculating their numbers exactly, they are believed to be pretty +strong--at least, in the South of France. At the time of the Lyons +Anarchist trial, at which Prince Krapotkin was convicted, they claimed +themselves to have 8,000 adherents in Lyons alone. In 1886 the +authorities knew of twenty little anarchist clubs in Paris, which had +between them, however, only a membership of 1,500; and of these a +considerable proportion were foreign immigrants, especially Austrians +and Russians, with a few Spaniards. Some of these clubs are mainly +convivial, with a dash of treason for pungency; but others have an +almost devouring passion for "deeds," and are ever concerting some new +method of waging their strange guerilla against "princes, proprietors, +and parsons." When a new method is discovered, a new club is sometimes +formed to carry it out. For instance, the _Anti-propriétaires_, which is +said to be one of the best organized of the anarchist clubs, bind their +members (1) to pay no house-rent,--rent, of course, being theft, and +theft being really restitution; and (2) if the landlord at length +resorts to law against any of them for this default, to come to their +brother's help and remove his furniture to safer quarters before the +moment of execution. The group _La Panthère_, to which Louise Michel +belongs, and which has 500 members, and the group _Experimental Chemie_, +as their names indicate, prefer less jocular methods. The best known of +the anarchists are old Communards like Louise Michel herself and Élisée +Reclus, the geographer. + +The third section of the Havre Congress contained the majority of the +119 delegates, and they formed themselves into the Socialist +Revolutionary Party of France, with the programme already mentioned, +which was carried on the motion of M. Jules Guesde. + +This programme sets out with the declaration that all instruments of +production must be transferred to the possession of the community, and +that this can only result from an act of revolution on the part of the +working class organized as an independent political party, and then it +goes on to say that one of the best means of promoting this end at +present was to take part in the elections with the following platform:-- + + +A. _Political._ + +1. Abolition of all laws restricting freedom of the press, of +association, or of meeting, and particularly the law against the +International Working Men's Association. Abolition of "work-books." + +2. Abolition of the budget of public worship, and secularization of +ecclesiastical property. + +3. Abolition of national debt. + +4. Universal military service on the part of the people. + +5. Communal independence in police and local affairs. + + +B. _Economic._ + +1. One day of rest in the week under legal regulation. Limitation of +working day to eight hours for adults. Prohibition of the labour of +children under fourteen, and limitation of work hours to six for young +persons between fourteen and sixteen. + +2. Legal fixing of minimum wages every year in accordance with the price +of provisions. + +3. Equality of wages of male and female labour. + +4. Scientific and technical training for all children, as well as their +support at the expense of society as represented by the State and the +Communes. + +5. Support of the aged and infirm by society. + +6. Prohibition of all interference on the part of employers with the +management of the relief and sustentation funds of the working classes, +to whom the sole control of these funds should be left. + +7. Employers' liability guaranteed by deposit by employers proportioned +to number of workmen. + +8. Participation of the workmen in drawing up factory regulations. +Abolition of employer's claim to punish the labourer by fines and +stoppages (according to resolution of the Commune of 27th April, 1871). + +9. Revision of all agreements by which public property has been +alienated (banks, railways, mines, etc.). The management of all State +factories to be committed to the workmen employed in them. + +10. Abolition of all indirect taxes, and change of all direct ones into +a progressive income tax on all incomes above 3,000 francs. + +11. Abolition of the right of inheritance, except in the line of direct +descent, and of the latter in the case of fortunes above 20,000 francs. + +At the congress of the party held at St. Etienne two years after this +programme was adopted, M. Brousse, a medical practitioner in Paris, and +a member of the Town Council, who had already shown signs of disputing +the leadership of M. Guesde, carried by a vote of thirty-six to +twenty-seven a motion for introducing some modifications, and the +minority seceded and set up a separate organization. In spite of +repeated efforts at reconciliation, the two sections of the French +socialists have never united again or been able even to work together +temporarily at an election. Besides personal jealousies, there are most +important differences of tendency keeping them apart. The Guesdists +accept the policy of Karl Marx as well as his economic doctrine: the +universal revolution, and the centralized socialist State, as well as +the theory of surplus value and the right to the full product of labour. +The Broussists, on the other hand, believe in decentralization, and +would prefer municipalizing industries to nationalizing them. They are +for giving the commune control of its own police, its own soldiers, its +own civil administration, its own judiciary; and they think the _régime_ +of collective property can be best brought in and best carried on by +local bodies. They would have the towns take over their own gas, light, +and water supply, their omnibus and tramway traffic; but they would have +them take over also many of the common industries which never tend +towards monopoly or even call for any special control. They would +municipalize, for example, the bakehouses and the mealshops and the +granaries, apparently as supplying the necessaries of life, and they +would have various other branches of industry undertaken by the towns to +a certain limited extent, in order to provide suitable work for the +unemployed. Then in 1887 they added a fresh plank to their platform, and +asked for the establishment by municipalities, on public money or +credit, of productive associations to be owned--not, like the other +undertakings, by the municipality, but--by the working men employed in +them. This is a reappearance of the old policy of Lassalle, with the +difference that the productive associations are to be founded on +municipal and not on State credit; and the reappearance is not +surprising in France, because co-operative production has, on the whole, +been more successful in that country than in any other. Then another of +their demands is, that all public contracts should be subjected to such +conditions as to wages and hours of labour as the workmen's syndicates +approve; and in Paris they have already succeeded in obtaining this +concession from the Town Council so far as municipal contracts are +concerned. These workmen's syndicates are trade unions, which aim only +at bettering the position of their members without theoretical +prepossessions, but are quite as bold in their demands on the public +powers as the socialists, and apparently more successful. In 1885 their +claims included, not only an eight hours' day and a normal rate of fair +wages, but the fixing of all salaries under 500 francs, a credit to +themselves of 500,000,000 francs, and the gratuitous use of empty houses +by their members; and in 1886 they obtained from the Town Council of +Paris a furnished room, with free lighting and firing, and a subvention +of 20,000 francs, for the establishment of a Labour Bureau, to be a +centre for all working-class deliberations and intelligence, and a +registry for the unemployed. + +The socialism of the Broussists is thus practically a municipal +socialism: municipal industries, municipal credit for working men's +productive associations, municipal concessions to trade unions; but all +this seems to the Guesdists to be mere tinkering, to be no better than +the possibilities of the Republican Socialist Alliance, and they have +for that reason given their rivals the name of Possibilists, which for +distinction's sake they still commonly bear. Neither section had any +representative in the Chamber of Deputies till 1889, when the Broussists +succeeded in returning M. Joffrin; but the Broussists have nine in the +Town Council of Paris. The Guesdists have more men of culture among +them; Guesde himself and Lafargue, Karl Marx's son-in-law, are both men +of ability and public position; but they have a smaller following, and +what they have is on the decline. Their sympathy with the principles of +German Socialism, their alliance with the German Socialist party is +against them, for the French working men have a very honest hatred of +the Germans, both from recollections of the war and from the pressure of +German industrial competition; and the feeling seems to be returned by +the Germans, for it appeared even among the socialists at the recent +congress at Halle, international and non-patriotic as socialists often +claim to be. One of the personal accusations that disturbed the sittings +of that congress was, that the leaders of the party had been discovered +in secret conference with the delegates of the French socialists, MM. +Guesde and Ferroul, who had been sent to greet their German comrades. + +The Possibilists have no very eminent members, the most leading persons +among them being Brousse himself and MM. Allemane and Joffrin. But they +are not inconsiderable in number, and they are growing. They have 400 +Circles of Social Studies all over the country, organized into six +regions, each with its regular regional congress, and all working under +a national executive committee and a general national congress, meeting +once a year. The future of French socialism seems to be with the +Possibilists rather than the Guesdists; and the future of the +Possibilists, like the future of the German socialists, seems to lie in +the direction of releasing their limbs from the dead clothes of +socialist theory, in order to take freer and more practical action for +the positive wellbeing of the working class. At the recent congress of +the Possibilists at Châtellèrault in October, 1890, the chief questions +discussed were the reform the system of poor relief and the eight hours' +day. They want an international eight hours' day, but they would be +willing to allow other four hours' overtime, to be paid for by double +wages. + +In 1885 the two divisions of socialists combined for electioneering +purposes with one another and with a third revolutionary body called the +Blanquists, and they actually formed together an organization known as +the Revolutionary Union; but the three parties quarrelled again before +the election, and the union was dissolved. The Blanquists are disciples +of the veteran conspirator Blanqui, and include some well-known men, +such as General Eudes, and MM. Vaillant and Roche. They are +revolutionists pure and simple, and in some respects stand near the +anarchists; only, being old birds, they move about more cautiously, and +indeed are sometimes for that reason--and because they act as +intermediaries between other revolutionaries--called the "diplomatists +of lawlessness." With all their love for revolution, however, they have +more than the usual democratic aversion to war, and their chief work at +present is in connection with the league they have founded against +permanent armies. + +Although revolutionary socialism is so ill represented in the French +Legislature, there is a special parliamentary party, known as the +Socialist Group, which was founded by nineteen deputies in 1887, and +returned thirty candidates to the Chamber at the election of 1889. They +are for communal autonomy; for the transformation of industrial +monopolies into public services, to be directed by the respective +companies under the control of the public administration; and for the +progressive nationalization of property, so as to make the individual +employment of it accessible to free labourers; and they have no lack of +other planks in their platform: international federation and +arbitration; abolition of standing armies; abolition of capital +punishment; universal suffrage; minority representation; sexual +equality; free education, primary, secondary, and technical; suppression +of the budget of public worship; separation of Church and State; +absolute liberty to think, speak, write, meet, associate, and contract; +abolition of indirect taxes and customs, and introduction of a +progressive income tax, and a progressive succession duty; public +_crêches_; establishment of superannuation, sick and accident insurance +at public expense. Among the deputies who signed the programme in 1887 +were the two Boulangists, MM. Laisant and Laur, and MM. Clovis Hughes, +Basley, Bower, etc. The idea of the party seems to be what M. Laisant +recommends in his "L'Anarchie Bourgeoise," published in the same year +1887, a Republican Socialist party, which, accepting the good works of +socialism, without caring for its political or economic theory, shall do +its best to abolish misery by any means open to it under the existing +republican form of government. Republican socialism corresponds +therefore to what is called State socialism in Germany--the abolition of +poverty by means of the power of the present State; and the question +between socialists and other reformers is narrowing in France, as +elsewhere, into a question of the justice and the suitability of the +individual measures proposed. + +There is also a body of Christian Socialists in France, of whom, +however, I shall have more to say in a subsequent chapter on the +Christian Socialists. + +Socialism crossed very early from Prussia into Austria and took quick +root among the German-speaking population, but has never to this day +made much way among any of the other nationalities in the Empire. The +Magyars are, on the whole, fairly comfortable and contented in their +worldly circumstances, and they have a strong national aversion to +anything German, even a German utopia; so that they lent no ear to the +socialist agitation till 1880, when a socialist congress of 119 +delegates was held at Buda Pest and founded the Hungarian Labour Party. +The agitation, however, has not assumed any important dimensions. The +Poles of Austria, like the Poles of Russia and the Poles of Prussia, +have all along been a source of much disappointment to socialist +leaders, who expected they would leap into the arms of any revolutionary +scheme, but find them too pre-occupied with their own nationalist cause +to care for any other. The same observation applies to the Czechs. They +are Czechs and Federalists first, and a social system under which they +would cease to be Czechs and Federalists, and become mere atoms under a +powerful centralized government, led possibly by Germans, is naturally +not much to their fancy. But in the German-speaking part of the monarchy +socialism has found a ready and general welcome, and has latterly grown +most popular in the anarchist form. This development is due to various +causes. The federalist ideas prevalent in the country would be a bridge +to the general principles of anarchism, while the coercive laws in force +since 1870 would naturally provoke a recourse to revolutionary methods +and an impatience with the sober and Fabian policy of the Austrian +Social Democrats. The Social Democrats of Austria were advised from the +first by Von Schweitzer and Liebknecht, the leaders of German socialism +at the time, to adopt this temporizing policy, as being on the whole the +best for the party in the circumstances existing in their country. They +were advised to give a general support at the elections to the Liberal +party, because nothing could be done for socialism in Austria till the +priestly and feudal ascendancy was abolished, and that could only be +done by strengthening the hands of the Liberals. They have continued to +observe this moderate course. Unlike their German comrades, they looked +with favourable eyes on the labour legislation introduced by Government +for improving the condition of the working classes; and though they have +suffered from coercive legislation much longer and sometimes quite as +severely, they have never struck the qualification "by legal means" out +of their principles, but, on the contrary, have declared, when they were +permitted to hold a meeting--as for example at Brünn in 1884--that they +adhered entirely and exclusively to peaceful methods, and repudiated the +deeds of the anarchists. But then they are apparently not prospering in +number, while the anarchists are. For one thing they have never had good +leaders, and though they sometimes invite Liebknecht or one of the +German socialist leaders to come and rouse them, Government has always +refused liberty for such addresses to be delivered in Austria. The +anarchists, on the other hand, had an energetic and eloquent leader in +Peukert, a house-painter, who is now a chief personage in anarchist +circles in London, and from here no doubt still carries on relations +with his old friends; and their propaganda seems to be spreading, if we +judge from the political trials, and from the fresh measures of +repression directed against it in 1884, when Vienna was put under siege, +and again in the latter part of 1888. They have nine or ten newspapers, +and the socialists six or seven. Neither faction has any representative +in Parliament. + +Both parties direct their chief attention to the peasantry, especially +where any germ of an agrarian movement happens already to prevail. The +Galician agitation against great landlords in 1886 was fomented by +anarchist emissaries, and we occasionally hear of anarchist operations +among the people of Northern Bohemia or Styria as well as in Upper +Austria, where rural discontent has long been more or less acute. +Austria is mainly an agricultural country; but greater part of the land +is held in very large estates by the clergy and nobility, and the evils +of the old feudal _régime_ are only now being gradually removed. There +are, it is true, as many as 1,700,000 peasant proprietors in the +Cisleithanian half of the Empire alone; but then their properties are +seriously encumbered by the debt of their redemption from feudal +servitudes and by the severity of the public taxation. The land tax +amounts to 26 per cent. of the proprietor's income, and the indirect +taxes on articles of consumption are numerous and burdensome. But +three-fourths of the rural population are merely farm servants or day +labourers, and are worse off even than the same class elsewhere. The +social question in Austria is largely agrarian, but the spontaneous +movements of the Austrian peasantry seem rather unlikely to run in +harness with social democracy. Unions of free peasants for example have +sprung up of recent years in various provinces. Their great aim is to +procure a reduction in the taxes paid by the peasantry; but then they +add to their programme the principle of State-help to labour, the +abolition of all feudal privileges and all rights of birth, gratuitous +education, and cessation of the policy of contracting national debt, and +they speak vaguely about instituting a peasant State, and requiring +every minister and responsible official to serve an apprenticeship to +peasant labour as a qualification for office, in order that he may +understand the necessities and capacities of the peasantry. This idea of +the peasant State is analogous to the idea of the labour State of the +Social Democrats; but of course this is agreement which is really +conflict. It is like the harmony between Sforza and Charles VIII.: "I +and my cousin Charles are wonderfully at one; we both seek the same +thing--Milan." The class interest of the landed peasant is contrary to +the class interest of the working man, and would be invaded by social +democracy. The peasantry are simply fighting for their own land, and as +their votes are courted by both political parties they will probably be +able to secure some mitigation of their grievances. Distress is +certainly serious among them when, as happened a few years ago, in a +parish of 135 houses as many as 35 executions were made in one day for +failure to pay taxes, and in another of 250 houses as many as 72; but on +the whole there seems to be little of that hopeless indigence which +appears among the peasant proprietary in countries where the practice of +unrestricted or compulsory subdivision of holdings exists, or has +recently existed, to any considerable extent. + +There is an influential Catholic Socialist movement in Austria, led by +the clergy and nobility, and dealing in an earnest spirit with the +social question as it appears in that country. + +Socialism was introduced into Italy in 1868 by Bakunin, who, in spite of +the opposition of Mazzini, gained wide acceptance for his ideas wherever +he went, and founded many branches of the International in the country, +which survived the extinction of the parent society, and continued to +bear its name. They were, like Bakunin himself, anarchist in their +social and political views, and were marked by an especial violence in +their attacks on Church and State and family. They published a great +number of journals of various sorts, and kept up an incessant and very +successful propaganda; but no heed was paid them by the authorities till +1878, when an attempt on the life of the king led to a thorough +examination being instituted into the whole agitation. The dimensions +and ramifications of the movement were found to be so much more +extensive than any one in power had anticipated, that it was determined +to set a close watch thereafter on all its operations, and its meetings +and congresses were then from time to time proclaimed. But after the +passing of the Franchise Act of 1882, a new socialist movement came into +being which looked to constitutional methods alone. The franchise was +not reduced very low: it only gave a vote to one person in every +fourteen, while in England one in six has a vote; but the reduction was +accompanied with _scrutin de liste_ and the ballot, and it was felt +that something could now be done. Accordingly a new Socialist Labour +Party was formed on the usual Marxist lines, under the leadership of a +very capable man, an orator and a good organizer, Andrea Costa, who was +formerly an anarchist. This party obtained 50,000 votes at the first +subsequent election, and returned two candidates to the Legislature, one +of them being Costa. In 1883 it formed a working alliance with the +Italian Democratic Society--an active working-class body of which Costa +was a leading member; and in 1884 it entered into an incorporating union +with another working-class body, the Lombardy Labour Federation, which +had a large number of local branches. With their help it had become, in +1886, an organization of 133 branches, and Government resolved to +suppress it. Most of the branches in the north of Italy were dissolved, +and their funds, flags, and libraries confiscated. But the party is +still active over the country. They returned three members at the late +election in November, 1890. The growth of this party was even more +displeasing to the anarchists than to the Government, and in 1882 they +called back Maletesta, one of their old leaders, from abroad, to conduct +a regular campaign over the whole kingdom against Costa, and to denounce +every man for a traitor to the socialist cause who should take any +manner of part in parliamentary elections, or show the smallest sign of +reconciliation to the existing order of things. His campaign ended in +his arrest in May, 1883, and the condemnation of himself and 53 comrades +to several years' imprisonment for inciting to disturbance of the public +peace. Besides their contentions with the Socialist Labour Party, the +Italian anarchists are much given to contending among themselves, and +split up, even beyond other parties of the kind, upon trifles of +doctrine or procedure. But however divided they may be, socialists and +anarchists in Italy are all united in opposing the new social +legislation of the Government. When the Employers' Liability Bill was +introduced, Costa declared that legislation of that kind was utterly +useless so long as the people were denied electoral rights, because till +the franchise was reduced far enough to give the people a real voice in +public affairs, there could be no security for the loyal and faithful +execution of the provisions of such an act. + +The Italian socialists and anarchists have always had a lively brood of +journals, which, however, are generally shorter lived than even +socialist organs elsewhere; but when one dies for want of funds to-day, +another comes out in its place to-morrow. This remarkable fertility in +journals seems to be due to the large literary proletariat that exists +in Italy--the unemployed educated class who could live by their pen if +they only had a paper to use it in. Through their presence among the +socialists new journals are pushed forward without sufficient funds to +carry them on, and as the people are too poor to subscribe to them, and +the party too poor to subsidize them, they soon come to a natural +termination. + +The development of socialism in Italy is no matter of surprise. Though +there is no great industry in the country, the whole population seems a +proletariat. There is a distressed nobility, a distressed peasantry, a +distressed working class, a distressed body of university men. Mr. +Gallenga says that for six months of the year Italy is a national +workshop; everybody is out of employment, and has to get work from the +State; and he states as the reason for this, that the employing class +wants enterprise and ability, and are apt to look to the Government for +any profitable undertakings. The Government, however, are no better +financiers than the rest, and the state of the public finances is one of +the chief evils of the country. Taxation is very heavy, and yet property +and life are not secure. "The peasants," says M. de Laveleye, "are +reduced to extreme misery by rent and taxation, both alike excessive. +Wages are completely inadequate. Agricultural labourers live huddled in +bourgades, and obtain only intermittent employment. There is thus a +rural proletariat more wretched than the industrial. Excluded from +property by _latifundia_, it becomes the enemy of a social order that +crushes it." The situation is scarcely better in parts of the country +which are free from _latifundia_. In Sicily most of the agricultural +population live on farms owned by themselves; but then these farms are +too small to support them adequately, and their occupiers scorn the idea +of working for hire. There are as many nobles in Sicily as in England, +and Mr. Dawes (from whose report on Sicily to the Foreign Office in 1872 +I draw these particulars states) that 25 per cent. of the lower orders +are what he terms drones--idlers who are maintained by their wives and +children. In Italy there is little working-class opinion distinct from +the agricultural. There are few factories, and the artisans who work in +towns have the habit of living in their native villages near by, and +going and coming every day to their work. Two-thirds of the persons +engaged in manufactures do so, or at least go to their rural homes from +Saturday till Monday. Their habits and ways of thinking are those of +agriculturists, and the social question of Italy is substantially the +agricultural labourers' question. The students at the universities, too, +are everywhere leavened with socialism. The advanced men among them seem +to have ceased to cry for a republic, and to place their hope now in +socialism. They have no desire to overturn a king who is as patriotic as +the best president, and they count the form of government of minor +importance as compared with the reconstitution of property. Bakunin +thought Italy the most revolutionary country of Europe except Spain, +because of its exceptionally numerous body of enthusiastic young men +without career or prospects; and certainly revolutionary elements abound +in the peninsula, but, as M. de Laveleye shrewdly remarks, a revolution +is perhaps next to impossible for want of a revolutionary metropolis. +"The malaria," he says, "which makes Rome uninhabitable for part of the +year will long preserve her from the danger of becoming the seat of a +new commune." + +In Spain, as in Italy, socialism made its first appearance in 1868 +through the agency of the International, and found an immediate and warm +response among the people. In 1873 the International had an extensive +Spanish organization with 300,000 members and 674 branches planted over +the whole length and breadth of the country, from industrial centres +like Barcelona to remote rural districts like the island of Majorca. M. +de Laveleye was present at several sittings of these socialist clubs +when he visited Spain in 1869, and he says: "They were usually held in +churches erected for worship. From the pulpit the orators attacked all +that had previously been exalted there--God, religion, the priests, the +rich. The speeches were white hot, but the audience remained calm. Many +women were seated on the ground, working, nursing their babes, and +listening attentively as to a sermon. It was the very image of '93." He +adds that their journals wrote with unparalleled violence, especially +against religion and the Church. + +On the division of the International in 1872 the Spanish members sided +with Bakunin, supporting the anarchist view of the government of the +future. This was natural for Spaniards, among whom their own central +government had been long thoroughly detested, and their own communal +organization regarded with general satisfaction. The Spanish people, +even the humblest of them, are imbued beyond others with those +sentiments of personal dignity and mutual equality which are at the +bottom of democratic aspirations; and in their local communes, where +every inhabitant who can read and write has a voice in public council, +they have for ages been accustomed to manage their own affairs with +harmony and advantage. The revolutionary tradition of Spain has +accordingly always favoured communal autonomy, and the Federal rather +than the Central Republic. Castelar declares the Federal Republic to be +the most perfect form of State, though he thinks it for the present +impracticable; and the revolution of 1873, in which the International +played an active part, was excited for the purpose of establishing it. +The Federal Republicans are not all socialists. Many of them are for +making the agricultural labourers peasant proprietors, and even for +dividing the communal property among them; but in a country like Spain, +where communal property exists already to a large extent, the idea of +making all other property communal property lies ever at hand as a ready +resource of reformers. Nor, again, are all Spanish socialists +federalists. There is a Social Democratic Labour party in Spain which +broke off from the anarchists in 1882, and published a programme more on +Marxist lines, demanding (1) the acquisition of political power; (2) the +transformation of all private and corporate into the common property of +the nation; and (3) the reorganization of society on the basis of +industrial associations. This body is not very numerous, but at one of +its recent congresses it had delegates from 152 different branches, and +it has for the last four years had a party organ, _El Socialista_, in +Madrid. + +The bulk of Spanish socialism still belongs, however, to the anarchist +wing. Little has been heard of the anarchists in Spain since the +revolution of 1873 and the fall of the International. They have usually +been blamed for the attempts on the life of the king in 1878, but they +have certainly never resorted to those promiscuous outrages which have +formed so much of the recent policy of the anarchists of other +countries; and except for participation in a few demonstrations of the +unemployed, they have maintained a surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive +existence. In 1881 they reconstituted themselves as the Spanish +Federation of the International Working Men's Association, which is said +by the author of "Socialismus und Anarchismus, 1883-86," apparently on +their own authority, to have 70,000 members in all Spain, who are +distributed in 800 branches, and hold regular district and national +congresses, but always under cover of secrecy. They have two journals in +Madrid, and others in the larger towns elsewhere. They are sorely +divided into parties and schools on very petty points, and fierce strife +rages between the tweedledums and tweedledees. One party has broken away +altogether and established a society of its own, under the name of the +Autonomists. The anarchists are in close alliance with an agrarian +organization called the Rural Labourers' Union, which has agitated since +1879 for the abolition of _latifundia_ in Andalusia, but they always +disclaim all connection with the more notorious Andalusian society, the +Black Hand, which committed so many outrages in 1881 and 1882, and is +often identified with the anarchists. The Black Hand is a separate +organization from the anarchists, and has, it is said, 40,000 members, +mostly peasants, in Andalusia and the neighbouring provinces; but their +principles are undoubtedly socialistic. Their views are confined to the +subject of land; but they declare that land, like all other property, +has been made by labour, that it therefore cannot in right belong to the +idle and rich class who at present own it, and that any means may be +legitimately employed to deprive this class of usurpers of their +possessions--the sword, fire, slander, perjury. + +In Spain, unlike most other countries, the artisans of the towns show +less inclination to socialistic views than the rural labourers. They +have an active and even powerful labour movement of their own, carried +on through an extensive organization of trade unions which has risen up +rapidly within the last few years, especially in Catalonia, and they put +their whole trust in combination, co-operation, and peaceful agitation +for gradual reform under the present order of things, and will have +nothing to say to socialism or anarchism; so much so, that they +manifested the greatest reluctance to join in the eight hour +demonstrations of May-day, 1890, because they did not wish to be +confounded or in any way identified with the more extreme faction who +were getting those demonstrations up; and they actually held a rival +demonstration of their own on Sunday, the 4th of May, "in favour," as +they stated in the public announcement of it, "of State socialism and of +State legislation, both domestic and international, to improve the +general condition of the working classes without any revolutionary or +sudden change that could alarm the Sovereign and the governing classes." + +Spain made a beginning in factory legislation in 1873, when an act was +passed restricting the labour of children and young people; but the act +remained dead-letter till 1884, when the renewal of agitation on the +social question by the various parties led the cabinet to issue an order +to have this law carried into effect, and a little later in the same +year to appoint a royal commission to institute a thorough inquiry into +the whole circumstances of the labouring classes, and the conditions of +their improvement. This commission, which received nothing but abuse +from the anarchists, who said the labour problem must be settled from +below and not from above, was welcomed very heartily by the trade +unionists, and with favour rather than otherwise even by the Social +Democrats; but it has as yet had little or no result, and men who know +the country express their opinion very freely that it will never lead to +anything but an act or two that will remain dead-letter like their +predecessors. The suffrage is high, only one person in seventeen having +a vote; and working-class legislation will continue lukewarm till the +working class acquires more real political power. A leading Spanish +statesman said lately: "The day for social questions has not yet come in +Spain, and we can afford to look on and see other countries make +experiments which may be of use some day when our politicians and +thinkers can find time to devote attention to these twentieth century +problems." + +There seems much truth in the view that socialism, spite of the alarm +its spread caused to the Spanish Government in 1872, is really a disease +of a more advanced stage of industrial development than yet exists in +Spain, and therefore unlikely to grow immediately into anything very +formidable there. The country has few large industrial centres. +Two-thirds of the people are still engaged in agriculture; and though it +is among the agricultural classes socialism has broken out, the outbreak +has been local, and confined to provinces where the conditions of +agricultural labour are decidedly bad. But these conditions vary much +from province to province. In the southern provinces the cereal plains +and also the lower pasturages are generally possessed by large +proprietors, who work them by farmers on the _metayer_ principle, with +the help of bands of migratory labourers in harvest time; but in the +mountainous parts of these provinces the estates belong for the most +part to the communes. They are usually large, and as every member of the +commune has an undivided right of using them, he is able to obtain from +them the main part of his living without rent. Many of the inhabitants +of such districts engage in the carrying trade, to which they conjoin a +little cattle-dealing as opportunities offer; and as they are sober and +industrious, they are usually comparatively well off. In the northern +provinces the situation is in some respects better. Land is much +subdivided, and though the condition of the labouring class is not as a +rule unembarrassed, that result is due more to their own improvidence +and indolence than to anything else. A man of frugal and industrious +habits can always rise without much difficulty from the position of day +labourer to that of _metayer_ tenant, and from tenancy to +proprietorship, and some of the small proprietors are able to amass a +considerable competency. Besides, even the improvident are saved from +the worst by the communal organization. They have always a right of +pasturage on the commons, and a right to wood for fire, house and +furniture, and they get their children's education and medical +attendance in sickness gratuitously on condition of giving six days' +labour at the roads of the commune. The most active and saving part of +the population, north and south, is the class of migratory workmen, who +stay at home only during seed-time and harvest, and go for the rest of +the year to work in Castile, Andalusia, or Portugal, as masons or +carpenters, or waiters, and always come back with a store of money. +Sometimes they remain abroad for a year or two, and sometimes they go to +Cuba or Mexico for twenty years, and return to settle on a property of +their own in their native village. This class forms the _personnel_ of +the small property in Spain, and they give by their presence a healthy +stimulus to the neighbourhoods they reside in. The small property is in +Spain, as elsewhere, too often turned from a blessing to a curse by its +subdivision, on the death of the proprietor, among the members of his +family, who in Spain are usually numerous, though it is interesting to +learn that in some of the Pyrenean valleys it has been preserved for +five hundred years by the habit of integral transmission to the eldest +child--son or daughter--coupled with the habit of voluntary celibacy on +the part of many of the other children. The economic situation of Spain, +then, is not free from defects; but there always exists a wide margin of +hope in a country where, as Frere said, "God Almighty has so much of the +land in His own holding," and its economic situation would not of itself +be likely to precipitate social revolution. + +From Spain, socialism passed into Portugal; but from the first it has +worked very quietly there. Its adherents formed themselves into an +association in 1872, and held congresses, published newspapers, started +candidates, and actively promoted their views in every legitimate way. +Their programme was anarchism, like that of their Spanish allies; but, +unlike anarchists elsewhere, they repudiated all resort to violence, +for, as M. de Laveleye says, they are naturally "less violent than the +Spaniards, the economic situation of the country is better, and liberty +being very great, prevents the explosion of popular fury, which is worse +when exasperated by repression." Portugal is an agricultural country in +a good climate, where the people have few wants, and find it easy to +satisfy them fairly well. In the absence of any manner of acute +discontent, socialism could never have been much better than an abstract +speculation; and Portuguese socialism, if we may trust the complaints +made by the party elsewhere, seems now to have lost even the savour it +had. In March, 1888, one of the socialist newspapers of London reported +that the Portuguese working men's movement had, in the course of the +preceding ten years, given up the straightforward socialist character it +once had; that its leaders had entered into compromises with other +political parties, and threw themselves too much into experiments in +co-operation; that the party press was very lukewarm in its socialism, +and inclined more to mere Radicalism; and that one or two attempts that +had been made to start more extreme journals had completely failed; but +it announced with satisfaction, that at last, in January, 1888, a +frankly anarchist paper was published at Oporto--_A Revoluzao Social_. +About the same time the editor of a journal which had made some hostile +remarks on anarchism was shot, and anarchists were blamed and arrested +for the deed. There was a Socialist Congress at Lisbon in 1882, composed +of twelve delegates representing eight societies, all in Lisbon or +Oporto. + +While the socialist cause has been thus rather retreating in the south +of Europe, it has been making some advances in the north. Of the three +Scandinavian countries, Denmark alone gave any early response to the +socialist agitation; but there are now socialist organizations in Sweden +and Norway, and the movement in Denmark has assumed considerable +dimensions. Attempts were made to introduce socialism into Norway as far +back as 1873 by Danish emissaries, and the International also founded a +small society of thirty-seven members in Christiania; but the society +seems to have died, and nothing more was heard of socialism there till +the commotion in favour of a Republic in 1883. A Social Democratic Club +was then established in Christiania, and a Social Democratic Congress +was held at Arendal in 1887; but even yet Norwegian social democracy is +of so mild a character that it would be counted conservatism by Social +Democrats elsewhere, for this Congress issued a programme for a new +labour party without a word of socialism in it, and merely asking for a +normal working day, for factory legislation and reform of taxation. In +Sweden there is more appearance of agitation, because there is one very +active agitator in the country, Palm, a tailor, who keeps socialism _en +evidence_ by making stump speeches, or getting up street processions +with the usual red flags, and sometimes--such was the easy indifference +of the Government to his work at first--with a military band in full +uniform at the head of them. The Swedish socialists had four newspapers +in 1888, but three of them were confiscated by the Government in +December of that year, and their editors arrested for offences against +religion and the throne. In May, 1890, they held their first Congress at +Stockholm, when delegates appeared from twenty-nine unions; but the +movement is very unimportant in Sweden and Norway, and the chief +conditions of success seem wanting to it in those countries. There is no +class of labourers there without property; no town residuum, and no +rural cottagers. There being few great manufacturers in the kingdom, +only fifteen per cent. of the people altogether live in towns. The rest +are spread sparsely over the rural districts on farms belonging to +themselves, and in the absence of roads are obliged to make at home many +of the ordinary articles of consumption. What with the produce of their +small properties and their own general handiness, they are unusually +independent and comfortable. M. de Laveleye considers them the happiest +people in Europe. + +The circumstances of Denmark are different. The operatives of the town +are badly off. Mr. Strachey tells us in his report to the Foreign Office +in 1870 that every fourth inhabitant of Copenhagen was in receipt of +parochial relief in 1867, and he says that while the Danish operatives +are sober, and well educated, they fail in industry and thrift. "No fact +in my report," he states, "is more certain than that the Dane has yet to +learn the meaning of the word _work_; of entireness and thoroughness he +has seldom any adequate notion. This is why the Swedish artisan can so +often take the bread from his mouth." In the rural districts, too, the +economic situation, though in some respects highly favourable, is +attended by a shadow. The land is, indeed, widely diffused. There are in +all 280,000 families in the rural districts of Denmark, and of these +170,000 occupy independent freeholds, 30,000 farm hired land, and only +26,000 are agricultural labourers pure and simple. Seven-eighths of the +whole country is held by peasant proprietors, and as a rule no class in +Europe has improved more during the last half century than the Danish +peasant or Bonde. Mr. Strachey says: "The Danish landlord was till +recent times the scourge of the peasantry. Under his paternal care the +Danish Bonde was a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water; his lot was +no better than that of the most miserable ryot of Bengal. The Bonde is +now the freest, the most politically wise, the best educated of European +yeomen." But there is another side to the picture. In Denmark, as in +other places where the small property abounds, the property is often too +small for the proprietor's necessities, and there thus arises a kind of +proprietor-proletariat, unwilling to part with their land and unable to +extract a living out of it. This class, along with the rural labourers +who have no property, constitute a sort of fourth estate in the country, +and there as elsewhere their condition is preparing a serious social +question for the future. Then, among the influences favourable to the +acceptance of socialism in Denmark, must be counted the fact that one of +the two great political parties of the country is democratic. Curiously +enough that party consists of the peasantry, and the Conservatives of +Denmark are the commercial classes of the towns, with the artisans in +their wake, their Conservatism, however, being substantially identical +with the Liberalism of the same classes in other countries. This +democratic party seeks to make everything in the State conduce to the +interests of the peasantry, and keeps alive in the country the idea that +the State exists by the will of the people, and for their good alone. + +The International was introduced into this exclusively Protestant +country by two militant Roman Catholics--Pio, a retired military +officer, who came to Denmark as religious tutor to a baroness who had +joined the Church of Rome, and Geleff, who wrote for an Ultramontane +journal. They pursued their new mission with great zeal and success. +They opened branches of the association in most of the towns, started a +party newspaper, held open-air meetings, were sent to imprisonment for +sedition in 1873, and on their release in 1877 absconded to America with +the whole of the party funds, and disputed bitterly there over the +spoil. While they were in prison, the International was suppressed in +Denmark; but the members merely reconstituted the organization under the +name of the Socialist Labour Party, and the place of leader was taken +for a time by an authoress, Jacquette Lilyenkrantz, for, as in other +countries, women are in Denmark among the most active propagandists of +socialism. They kept up communications with the socialist leaders in +Germany, and the meeting of the German Socialist Congress at Copenhagen +in 1883 gave the movement a new impetus. They were able to return two +deputies, Holm and Hördun, to the Volkething in 1884, and they took +part, 80,000 strong, in the Copenhagen procession of 1886, in +commemoration of the fundamental law of the State. Their chief party +organ, the _Social Demokraten_, has a circulation of 26,000 daily, one +of the largest newspaper circulations in Denmark; and there are other +four socialist journals in the kingdom. + +They belong to the moderate wing of social democracy, being opposed to +revolution and terrorism, and placing their confidence in constitutional +agitation. Their programme is substantially that of Gotha--the right of +the labourers to the full product of labour, State management of all +industry, free education, universal suffrage, normal working day, +abolition of class inequalities, single chamber in legislature, free +justice, no standing army, State provision for sick and aged, religions +to be a private affair. They turn their propaganda with most hope to the +land proletariat; and a recent writer, P. Schmidt, in an interesting +paper in the _Arbeiterfreund_ for 1889, says they are succeeding in +their mission, and that socialism is spreading more and more every day +among the rural labourers. At their last Congress, held at Copenhagen, +in June, 1890, and attended by seventy-one delegates from fifty-four +different branches, their attention was chiefly occupied with questions +about the land; provision of more land for the people by compulsory +acquisition of ecclesiastical property and uncultivated ground; State +advances of capital to agricultural labourers; agricultural schools; +better housing for farm servants, etc. In 1887 they held a socialist +exhibition in Copenhagen--an international exhibition of socialist +pamphlets, newspapers, books, magazines, and pictures; and in 1890 they +returned two members to the Landthing--the first time they secured +representatives in the Upper Chamber. + +Belgium has many of the conditions of soil most favourable for +socialism--a dense population, large towns, an advanced productive +system, and an industrial class at once very numerous, very ill paid, +and very open, through their education, to new social ideas. For a time, +accordingly, socialism spread remarkably in that country. The +International had eight federations of branches in 1869, with 60,000 +members and several newspapers. In the dispute between Marx and Bakunin, +the Belgian Internationalists seem to have sided as a body with Bakunin; +but they presently fell out among themselves, and, in spite of many +repeated efforts at reconciliation, they have never since succeeded in +composing their differences. The German socialist leaders tried to +reorganize them in 1879 at a special Congress at Brussels, under the +name of the Socialist Labour Party of Belgium, and with the Gotha +programme; but they were rent again in 1881 by a division which had then +entered into German socialism itself. The majority of the party adhered +to Liebknecht and Bebel; but an active minority, composed chiefly of +Walloons, followed the anarchist views of Most and Hasselman, withdrew +from the party, and founded another called the Revolutionary Union. The +anarchists have one journal--_Ni Dieu, Ni Maître_--violent, as the name +indicates, but obscure and unimportant; but they believe most in the +less intellectual propaganda of deed, and make themselves conspicuous +from time to time by dynamite explosions and street fights with the +police or the military, or their own socialist rivals. The Belgian +socialists, on the other hand, look more to constitutional and +parliamentary action, and usually work with the Liberals at the +elections; but the Belgian voting qualification is high, and they have +never succeeded in returning a candidate of their own. In 1887 their +candidate for Brussels got 1,000 votes, while his successful rival had +3,000. They took an active part in the Republican agitation which was +raised by the School Law in 1884. They have capable leaders, and they +publish two journals, which, however, for want of funds, appear only at +distant and uncertain intervals. They have lately begun to hold many +open-air meetings, which the authorities had long forbidden, and they +held an International Socialist Exhibition at Ghent in 1887 like that +held in the same year at Copenhagen. + +On the whole socialism, after twenty years' work, is making no way in +Belgium, notwithstanding the favourable character of the soil, because +the labour movement is choosing other directions and forms of +organization. Trade unions and co-operative societies have been +multiplying much during these twenty years, and in 1885 a strong Belgian +Labour Party was formed, with 120 branches and 100,000 members, which +aims at promoting the practical wellbeing of the working class by +remedial legislation--by in some cases vicious State-socialistic +legislation, it may be--but has no word of the right to the full product +of labour, of the nationalization of all industry, or of the social +revolution. One of the items of the programme is worded "collective +property"; but whether it contemplates the universal State-property of +collectivism or the corporate property of co-operation does not appear. +The other items are universal suffrage, direct legislation by the people +(presumably the _referendum_), free undenominational education, +abolition of standing army, abolition of budget of worship, normal work +day, normal wages, regulation of work of women and children, factory +inspection, employers' liability, workmen's chambers, courts of +conciliation, repeal of taxes on means of subsistence, increased income +tax, international labour legislation. M. de Laveleye attributes the ill +success of socialism in Belgium, and no doubt rightly, to the influence +of discussion and free institutions. Government has left it to stand or +fall on its own merits before public opinion. The socialists enjoy full +liberty of the platform and press; they can hold meetings and congresses +and form clubs in any town they please, and the result is that though +the movement, like all new movements, made a certain impression and +advance for a time at first, it got checked under the influence of +discussion and the application of solid practical judgment. Then, though +the Belgian Legislature has not yet done what it can and ought for +ameliorating the condition of the labourers, philanthropy has been very +active and useful in a number of ways in that kingdom. The Catholic +Church has always intervened to keep up a high ideal of employers' +responsibility--the old ideal of a patriarchal care; and there is a +strong organization in Belgium of Catholic Working Men's Clubs, which +were formed into one body in 1867, which were united with the Catholic +Working Men's Clubs of Germany in 1869, and with those of France in +1870, and which now constitute with these the International Catholic +Working Men's Association. + +It ought perhaps to be mentioned that there is an old but small party of +Land Nationalizers in Belgium, the Colinsian Socialists, whose +principles have been warmly endorsed by Mr. Ruskin as "forming the most +complete system of social and political reform yet put forward." They +want the State to own all the soil, and let it out by auction; but they +are opposed to nationalizing any of the other instruments of production. + +In Holland, wealth is very unequally divided, wages are low, and +taxation, being largely indirect, falls heavily on the working class; +but the people are phlegmatic, domestic, religious, and contrive on +small means to maintain a general appearance of comfort and decency. +Above all, they enjoy free institutions; and, under freedom, socialism +has run the same course in Holland as in Belgium. The International made +rapid advances in 1869, founded branches in all the towns, and carried +on, after the Paris Commune, so active and successful an agitation that +the _bourgeoisie_ took alarm, and Government imposed some restrictions +on the disaffected press. But a general rise in wages happened about the +time, a strong co-operative movement was promoted under the lead of the +orthodox divines, a lively polemic against socialism broke out among the +working men themselves, and all interest in the social revolution seemed +to have died away, when, in 1878, it was revived again by D. Niewenhuis, +a retired Protestant minister, a man of capacity and zeal, who has been +unwearied in his advocacy of the cause ever since. He started in that +year a journal, _Recht Voor Allen_, which is still, I believe, the only +socialist organ in Holland, and appears now three times a week; and he +founded the Social Democratic Union in 1884, which is strongest in the +Hague and Amsterdam, but has branches in most of the other towns, and a +membership by no means inconsiderable, though much below the old numbers +of the Dutch International. After being imprisoned in 1887 for political +reasons, Niewenhuis was returned to the Legislature in 1888--the first +socialist who has sat there. The Dutch Socialists, to increase their +numbers, enrol a class of "secret" members, timid spirits who will only +come to them "by night, for fear of the Jews." There is also a handful +of anarchists in Holland, who have a newspaper in Amsterdam, and are +said to live harmoniously with the socialists, and, according to the +reports of the American consuls, nobody in the country thinks any harm +of either. + +Switzerland has swarmed for a century with conspirators of all hues and +nations; but the Swiss--thanks again to free institutions--have been +steel against revolution. The "Young Germanys" and "Young Italys" whom +she sheltered in the past sought only, it is true, to win for their own +countries the political freedom which Switzerland already enjoyed; but +the socialist and anarchist refugees of the last twenty years have had +social principles to preach which were as new and as good for the Swiss +as for their own countrymen; and, speaking as they did the languages of +the Confederation, they have never ceased making active efforts for the +conversion of the Swiss. The old Jurassian Federation of the +International, still continues to exist in French-speaking Switzerland, +and to bear witness for the extremest kind of anarchist communism--no +force or authority whatever, and a collective consumption of products as +well as a collective production; but this body is not increasing, and +though Guesde, the French socialist, made a lecturing tour through that +division of Switzerland in 1885, he had quite as little success for his +branch of the revolutionary cause. There are numbers of Social +Democratic Clubs in the German-speaking cantons, but they consist mainly +of German refugees, and contain few native Swiss members. After the +Anti-Socialist Laws of 1879, the German socialists settled largely in +Switzerland. They transferred to Zurich their party organ, the _Social +Democrat_, and along with it, to use their own phrase, the entire +Olympus of the party, the body of writers and managers who moved the +shuttle of its operations. These propagandists naturally did not neglect +the country of their adoption, but used every opportunity to forward +their agitation by addresses and even by extended missionary journeys, +and a separate Swiss Social Democratic party was actually founded, with +a separate organ, the _Arbeiterstimme_; but it collapsed in 1884 from +internal dissensions. No attempt was made to revive it till 1888, when +the action of the Federal Council in May against the foreign socialists +resident in the Confederation led to the organization of a Swiss +socialist party in October. The Federal Government had already, in 1884 +and 1885, taken measures against the political refugees, especially the +anarchists, who were thought to have abused the hospitality they +received by planning and preparing in Switzerland the series of crimes +which shocked all Europe in 1884, and even by trying to explode the +Federal Palace at Berne itself. The Government instituted an inquiry, +and finding the country absolutely riddled with anarchist clubs, +determined to keep the eye of the police on them, and in the meantime +expelled thirty or forty of their leading members from Switzerland +altogether. These were almost without exception either Austrians or +Germans, and included Neve, now a leading anarchist in London. The +Russian anarchists were apparently not thought so dangerous, their great +occupation being to invent new ways and means of smuggling newspapers +into Russia; but they disliked the police supervision to which they were +subjected, and very generally quitted Switzerland of their own accord +for London or Paris. The anarchist organ, the _Revolté_, was removed at +the same time to Paris, but its place in Geneva was taken by a new +paper--_L'Egalitaire_. In 1888 the police were ordered to report all +socialist meetings held in the country, and all arrivals or departures +of "foreigners whose means of subsistence was unknown, and whose +presence might, for other reasons, become dangerous to the safety of the +country"; and as this further turn of the screw was believed to be made +on the instigation of Germany, it provoked considerable opposition, one +result of which was the formation of the new Swiss socialist party. + +This party, however, is not an affair of any magnitude, and does not +appear very likely to become so; for the working men of Switzerland have +the public power in their own hands already, and they have their own +organizations besides to look after their interests; and while they are +by no means averse to the use of the powers of the State, they are +disposed to move with inquiry and caution, and to see every step of +their way before running into speculative schemes of foreign origin. +Their political position satisfies them, because they know they are too +strong for Government to neglect their wishes, because some labour laws +have already been passed for their protection, and because the +authorities always show themselves ready to entertain any new proposals +for the same object, as, for example, they did in May, 1890, by +summoning an International Congress at Berne to discuss the length of +the working day and other conditions of labour. + +Their economic position, moreover, is also comparatively satisfactory +for various reasons, among which Mr. Bonar, in his report to the Foreign +Office in 1870, gives a chief place to the general working of democratic +institutions and the prevalence of benevolent and charitable +associations. "In enumerating," he says, "the favourable circumstances +in which the Swiss working man is placed, prominence must be given to +the immense extension of the principle of democracy, which, whatever, +may be its defects and dangers from a political point of view when +pushed to extremes, serves in Switzerland in its economical effects to +advance the cause of the operative by removing the barriers dividing +class from class, and to establish among all grades the bonds of mutual +sympathy and goodwill, further strengthened by a widely-spread network +of associations organized with the object of securing the common +interests and welfare of the people." Masters and workmen are socially +more equal than in most European countries; they sit side by side at the +board of the Communal Council, they belong to the same choral societies, +they refresh themselves at the same _cafés_. In most cantons, too, +operatives are either owners of, or hold from the communes, small +pieces of land which they cultivate in their leisure hours, and which +thus serve them when work gets slack or fails altogether. The favourable +rural economy of the country is well known; its peasant proprietors +rival those of France. The Swiss societies of beneficence are +remarkable, and almost suggest the hope that the voluntary socialism of +a more enlarged and widely organized system of charity may be found to +furnish a substantial solution of the social question. Every canton of +Switzerland has its society of public utility, whose aims take an +extensive range; it gives the start to projects of improvement of every +description, infant schools, schools of design, savings banks, schemes +for the poor, the sick, the dumb, singing classes, halls for Sunday +recreation, popular lectures, workmen's houses, protection of animals, +even industrial undertakings which promise to be ultimately beneficial, +though they may not pay at first. The society of Basle has 900 members +and a capital of £6,000, and the Swiss Society of Public Utility is an +organization for the whole Republic, which holds an annual congress at +Zurich, and general meetings in the different cantons by turns. These +meetings pass off with every mark of enthusiasm, and gather together men +of all religious and political opinions in a common concern for the +progress and prosperity of the masses. One of the institutions which +these societies have largely promoted is what they call a hall of +industry, or a bazaar, where loans may be received by workmen on the +security of their wages, or of goods they may deposit. A labourer who +has made any article which he cannot get immediately sold, may deposit +it at one of these bazaars, and obtain an advance equal to a fixed +proportion of its value, and if the article is sold at the bazaar, the +proceeds are accounted for to the depositor, less the sum advanced and a +small charge for expenses. These institutions, Mr. Bonar says, have had +excellent effects, though he admits that the facilities of borrowing +have led the working men in some places into debt; but they are at any +rate a vast improvement on the pawnbroking system in vogue elsewhere. +The condition of Switzerland shows us clearly enough that democracy +under a _régime_ of freedom lends no ear to socialism, but sets its face +in entirely different directions. + +The United States of America have done more for experimental socialism +than any other country. Owenites, Fourierists, Icarians have all +established communities there, but these communities have failed long +ago, except one of the Icarian, and the only other socialist experiments +now existing in America are seventy or eighty religious communities, +Shakers and Rappists, whose success has been due to their religious +discipline and their celibacy, and whose members amount to no more than +5,000 souls all told. There is indeed a Russian Commune in California, +but it remains a solitary Russian Commune still, the "new formula of +civilization," as Russian reformers used to call it, showing no sign of +further adoption. Nor has the new or political socialism found any +better success in the States. There are various indigenous forms of +it--such as the agrarian socialism of Mr. Henry George, and the +nationalism of Mr. E. Bellamy--but in point of following they are of +little importance, and the socialism of the American socialist and +revolutionary parties is a mere German import, with as yet a purely +German consumption. It has been pushed vigorously in the American market +for twenty years, but taken singularly little hold of the American +taste. There is one revolutionary socialist body composed chiefly of +English-speaking members, the International Workmen's Association, which +was founded in 1881 in one of the western states; but Mr. Ely says its +membership would be generously estimated at 15,000, and it considers the +great work of the present should be popular education, so as to prepare +the people for the revolution when it comes. + +The Boston Anarchists, perhaps, ought not, strictly speaking, to be +included in any account of socialism, for, unlike most contemporary +anarchists, they are not socialist, but extremely individualist; but +historically, it is worth noting, Boston Anarchism is the doctrine of a +disenchanted socialist, Josiah Warren, who had lived with Robert Owen at +New Harmony, and came to the conclusion that that experiment failed +because the individual had been too much sunk in the community, and no +room was left for the play of individual interests, individual rights, +and individual responsibilities. From Owen's communism, Warren ran to +the opposite extreme, and thought it impossible to individualize things +too much. He would abolish the State, and have the work of police and +defence done by private enterprise, like any other service. He issued +some books, tried to carry out his views by practical experiment, and, +though they failed, he has still a small band of believing disciples at +Boston, who publish a newspaper called _Liberty_, but have no +organization and no importance. + +Henry George and his followers, too, perhaps ought not in strictness to +be classified among socialists. He would certainly repudiate such a +classification himself, and the United Labour Party, which he founded in +1886 to promote his views by political action, expelled the socialists +from membership in 1887. His actual practical proposal is nothing more +than a narrow and illusory plan of taxation; but he puts it forward so +expressly as the keystone of a new social system, as the remedy +prescribed by economic science itself for the complete regeneration of +society and the simultaneous removal of all existing social evils, that +he is not improperly placed among Utopian socialists. Does he not +promise us a new heaven and a new earth? And if he believes the State +can call the new heaven and the new earth into being by a mere turn in +the incidence of taxation, while most other contemporary socialists +think the State must first pull down all that now is and reconstruct the +whole on a new plan, is he, on account of this greater credulity of his, +to be considered a more, and not rather a less, sober and rational +speculator than they? He wants to abolish landlordism, while they want +to abolish landlordism and all other capitalism besides; and his views +may fairly be called partial or agrarian socialism. The United Labour +Party was founded mainly to promote Mr. George's panacea of the single +tax on such land values as arise from the growth of society apart from +individual exertion; but it includes other articles in its +programme--the municipalization of the supply of water, light, and heat; +the nationalization of all money, note issue, post, telegraphs, +railways, and savings banks; reduction of the hours of labour, +prohibition of child labour, suppression of the competition of prison +labour with honest labour; sanitary inspection of houses, factories, and +mines; simplification of legal procedure; secret ballot; payment of +election expenses. The United Labour Party is not strong. When Mr. +George stood for the Mayoralty of New York, he had 68,000 votes to his +opponent's 90,000; but he had on that occasion the assistance of the +Socialistic Labour Party, who are said by Mr. Ely to number about 25,000 +in New York, and who certainly constituted a very considerable element +in the United Labour Party, for they were expelled at the Party +Convention only by a vote of 94 to 54. On the other hand, Mr. Ely's +estimate of the strength of the socialists is possibly too high, for +they ran a candidate for the Mayoralty of New York themselves in 1888, a +leading man of the party, one Jones, and he only secured 2,000 votes. +However that may be, the United Labour Party was certainly much weakened +by the loss of the socialists, and they were disabled entirely in the +following year by a division on the question of Free Trade and the +secession of Father McGlynn and the Protectionist members. + +Nationalism is the name of a new movement, the fruit of the remarkable +and very popular novel of Mr. Edward Bellamy, "Looking Backward," which +may be said to be the latest description of Utopia as it now stands with +all the most modern improvements. Mr. Bellamy would have all industry +organized and conducted by the nation on the basis of a common +obligation of work and a general guarantee of livelihood, all men to get +exactly the same wages, and to do exactly the same quantity of work, due +allowance being made for differences in severity, and the State to +enlarge indefinitely its free public provision of the means of common +enjoyment and culture. Mr. Bellamy's charming pictures of the new +country naturally engendered a general wish to be there, and many little +societies have been established to hasten the hour; but as the movement +has not been more than a year in being, little account can yet be given +of its success. The Nationalists have quite recently issued an organ, +_The New Nation_, which announces its programme to be (1) the +nationalization of post, telegraphs, telephone, railways and coal mines; +(2) municipalization of gas and water supply, and the like; and (3) the +equalization of educational opportunities as between rich and poor, and +the promotion of all reforms tending towards humaner, more fraternal, +and more equal conditions. Nationalism out of Utopia, therefore, means +merely a little State-socialism. + +The strongest socialist organizations in the United States are the +Socialistic Labour Party, corresponding to the Social Democrats of +Europe, and the International Working People's Association, +corresponding to the anarchists; but both are composed almost +exclusively of Germans. There are more Germans in the North American +Republic than in any State of Germany except Prussia; and as many of +them have fled from their own country for political reasons--to escape +the conscription, or to escape prosecution for sedition--they bear no +goodwill to the old system of government, and harbour revolutionary +ideas almost from the nature of things. A socialist propaganda began +among them so far back as 1848, when Weitling, of whom more will be said +presently, published a socialist newspaper; and a Socialist Gymnastic +Union was established in New York in 1850, which succeeded in forming a +kind of federal alliance, apparently for socialistic purposes, with a +number of other local German gymnastic societies throughout the States; +but though these societies still exist, they seem to have dropped their +socialism. It was taken up again, however, in 1869, by the +International, which transferred its General Council to New York in +1872, held congresses from time to time in the country, and eventually, +at the Newark Convention of 1877, adopted the name of the Socialistic +Labour Party, with a programme formed after the Gotha lines. The numbers +of the party were strengthened in the years immediately following by the +arrival of German refugees, expelled from their own land by the +Socialist Laws; but the new members brought with them elements of +dissension which speedily came to a head after the arrival of the +incendiary spirit, John Most, in 1882, and led, in 1883, to the entire +separation of the Anarchists from the Social Democrats. The latter held +a separate Congress at Baltimore in the latter year, attended by 16 +delegates, representing 23 branches and 10,000 members, and it reported +that altogether 38 branches adhered to them. The anarchists held a +Congress at Pittsburg, and formed themselves into the International +Working People's Association, with the following principles:-- + +"What we would achieve is therefore plainly and simply-- + +"1st. Destruction of the existing class rule by all means; _i.e._, by +energetic, relentless, revolutionary, and international action. + +"2nd. Establishment of a free society based upon co-operative +organization of production. + +"3rd. Free exchange of equivalent products by and between the productive +organizations without commerce and profit-mongery. + +"4th. Organization of education on a secular, scientific, and equal +basis for both sexes. + +"5th. Equal rights for all without distinction of sex or race. + +"6th. Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between the +autonomous (independent) communes and associations resting on a +federalistic basis." (Ely's "Labour Movement in America," p. 231.) + +They differ from the Socialistic Labour Party, as this programme shows, +in their exclusive devotion to revolution, and their opposition to all +central government. + +The Socialistic Labour Party has several newspapers, the principal being +the _Sozialist_ and the _Neu Yorker Volkszeitung_ of New York, and the +_Tageblatt_ of Philadelphia; and the anarchists have more, the best +known being Most's notorious _Freiheit_. Mr. Ely mentions sixteen +socialist newspapers and ten sympathizing with socialism, and says that +the majority of these support the anarchist side. The anarchists, +moreover, have one journal in English--the _Alarm_; the Socialistic +Labour Party started one in 1883, but it died. With that exception the +press of both parties is entirely German, and neither party seems to +have done almost anything in the way of an English propaganda from the +platform. Dr. and Mrs. Aveling state that before they made their +lecturing tour on the subject through the States in 1886, the American +public had never heard socialism preached to them in their own tongue; +yet books like Mr. Gronlund's "Co-operative Commonwealth," giving a very +effective exposition of socialism, had already appeared from the +American press. Dr. and Mrs. Aveling say, moreover, they met with more +hostility to their mission from the anarchists than from any other +source in America. The American people, while firmly stamping out the +dynamite policy of the anarchists, have naturally nothing to say +against an academic propaganda of any system of doctrine. + +The trend of the labour movement in America seems away from socialism. +That movement is in many respects more powerful there than in any +European country. There are some five hundred labour newspapers in the +United States, and an immense number of trade organizations of all +kinds. Political power, moreover, both in the States and in the Union, +is in the hands of the working class; and that class has now very nearly +the same grievances there as it has in Europe, and the same aspirations +after a better order of things. But their tendencies are not nearer +socialism, but further from it. They simply cannot understand people who +tell them they have no power to work out their own salvation under the +system that is, and that nothing can be done, as Marx assures them, +until every capital in Europe is ready for a simultaneous revolution +with New York and Chicago. The trade unions accordingly ignore +socialism. The Knights of Labour expressly repudiate it, and in the +course of a very long programme they hardly make a demand which has a +taint even of State-socialism. This "Noble Order of the Knights of +Labour" is a general association of working men to promote the cause of +labour, partly by their own efforts and partly through the Government. +By their own efforts they are to promote co-operation till, if possible, +it supersedes the present wages system entirely; equality of wages for +men and women for equal work; a general eight hours day through a +general strike; and a system of arbitration in trade quarrels. From the +Union Legislature they want merely a few general reforms, none bearing +directly on the situation of labour, except the abolition of foreign +contract labour. The others are, reform of the currency, nationalization +of telegraphs and railways, and the institution of banking facilities of +various kinds in connection with the Post Office. From the State +Legislatures they ask the reservation of public lands to actual +settlers, the simplification of the administration of justice, factory +legislation, graduated income tax, and the following provisions for +labour: weekly payment of wages in money, mechanic's lien on the product +of his labour for his wages, compulsory arbitration in trade disputes, +prohibition of labour of children under fifteen. In 1886 they were +702,884 strong, but they have declined sorely since then. Their great +weapon was to be an extension of strikes and boycotting beyond what was +possible to single trades; but it was found that this policy was +double-edged, and caused more hurt to some sections of the working class +than any good it could do to others; and people lost faith in the +principle of such huge miscellaneous organizations. Dr. Aveling contends +that the Knights of Labour, in spite of Mr. Powderly's disclaimer, are +really, though it may be unconsciously, socialists, because they want to +supersede the wages system, if they can, by establishing co-operative +institutions without State aid; and this, he holds, "is pure and +unadulterated socialism." Indeed! then where is the man who is not a +pure and unadulterated socialist? and what need for any mission to the +States to preach the socialist message to the Americans for the first +time in their own tongue? + +England was the country last reached by the present wave of +revolutionary socialism, although the system has been largely conceived +upon a study of English circumstances, and is claimed to be peculiarly +adapted to them. England is alternately the hope and the despair of +Continental socialists. Every requisite of revolution is there, and yet +the people will not rise. The yeomanry are gone. The land has come into +the hands of a few. Industry is carried on by great centralized capital. +The large system of production has almost finished its work. The mass of +the people is a proletariat; they are thronged in large towns; every +tenth person is a pauper; and the great mansions of the rich cast an +evil shadow into the crowded dens of the wretched. "The English," says +Eugène Dupont, a leading member of the old International, "possess all +the materials necessary for the social revolution; but they lack the +generalizing spirit and the revolutionary passion." Any proletariat +movement in which the English proletariat takes no part, said Karl Marx, +is "no better than a storm in a glass of water"; yet, though Marx +himself resided in England for most of his life, no organized attempt +was made to gain over the English proletariat to socialism till +1883--the year he died. There was before that, indeed, a small English +section in a foreign socialist club in Soho; and, after the fall of the +Paris Commune, hopes were for a time entertained of starting a serious +socialist movement in our larger towns; but these hopes proved so +delusive that Karl Marx said more than once to Mr. Hyndman, as we are +told by the latter, that he despaired "of any great movement in England, +unless in response to some violent impetus from without." But in 1883 a +socialist movement seemed to break out spontaneously in England, the air +hummed for a season with a multifarious social agitation, and we soon +had a fairly complete equipment of socialist organizations--social +democratic, anarchist, dilettante--which have ever since kept up a busy +movement with newspapers, lectures, debates, speeches, and +demonstrations in the streets. + +In 1883 the Democratic Federation, which had been established two years +before to promote measures of Radical reform, including, among other +things, the nationalization of the land, adopted the socialistic +principles of Karl Marx, and changed its name to the Social Democratic +Federation. Its programme is long, and includes, besides the +nationalization of land and all means of production, direct legislation +by the people, direct election of all functionaries by adult suffrage, +gratuitous justice, gratuitous, compulsory, and equal education, +abolition of standing armies, Home Rule for Ireland, an eight hours day, +State erection of workmen's dwellings, to be let at bare cost, +progressive income tax, proportional representation, abolition of House +of Lords, separation of Church and State, etc. Its principal founders +were Mr. William Morris, an artist, a great poet, and a manufacturer +exceptionally excellent in his arrangements with his workpeople; Mr. H. +M. Hyndman, a journalist of standing and ability; Mr. J. Stuart Glennie, +and Mr. Belfort Bax, both authors of repute; Dr. Aveling, a popular +lecturer on science, and son-in-law of Karl Marx; Miss Helen Taylor, +step-daughter of John Stuart Mill; and the Rev. Stewart Headlam. In +January, 1884, they started a weekly newspaper, _Justice_, and a monthly +magazine, _To-Day_, both of which still appear, and began the active +work of lecturing and founding branches. But before the year was out, +the old enemy of socialists, the spirit of division, entered among them, +and Mr. Morris, with Dr. Aveling and Mr. Bax, seceded and set up an +independent organization called the Socialist League, with a separate +weekly organ, _The Commonweal_. The difference seems to have arisen out +of the common socialist trouble about the propriety of mixing in current +politics. The same disruptive tendency has persisted in the two parts, +and in the end of 1890, Mr. William Morris seceded from the Socialist +League with his local following at Hammersmith. + +Neither of these revolutionary bodies has a complete organization like +those of continental countries. They have never held a Congress, either +national or provincial. They consist of a central committee in London, +and detached local groups in the provinces, and their membership is not +accurately known, but it is not extensive. It is in both cases +declining, and it has always been variable, young men joining for a year +or two, and then leaving. Their chief success has been among the miners +of the North of England, and they have returned three members to the +School Board of Newcastle. There is one socialist member in Parliament, +Mr. Cunningham Graham, but he has not been returned on socialist +principles or by a socialist vote; and hitherto the party has failed to +obtain any serious support at the elections. At the election of 1885, +Mr. John Burns, socialist candidate for Nottingham, had only 598 votes +out of a total poll of 11,064, and Mr. J. Williams, the socialist +candidate for Hampstead, had only 27 out of a total of 4,722. Mr. Burns, +however, has since been returned to the London County Council, and will +not improbably succeed in being returned to Parliament at next election. +He is a working engineer, but is much the strongest leader English +socialism has produced, an orator of great power, an excellent +organizer, and the head and representative of a new labour movement +which is likely to play a considerable part in the immediate future, and +which is certainly fermented with a good measure of socialistic leaven. +The New Unionism, as this movement is sometimes called, represents +mainly the opinion of the new trade unions of unskilled labour--dockers +and others--which have sprung into existence recently, and it was strong +enough at the Trade Union Congress in 1890 to carry the day against the +old unionism of the skilled trades by a considerable majority in favour +of the compulsory and universal eight hours day. But, as Mr. T. Burt, +M.P., the miners' parliamentary representative, said in his speech to +the Eighty Club two months afterwards, the New Unionism is, after all, +only the young and inexperienced unionism, and must needs run now +through the same kind of errors which the older trade unions have gone +through before, but will, like the older unions, learn, by discussion +and experiment, to keep within the lines of practicable and beneficial +action. However that may be, for the moment, at any rate, the fortunes +of English socialism seem to lie with Mr. John Burns and his labour +movement, and not with the two socialist organizations which appear to +have already reached their height, and to be now on the decline. + +A well-informed German writer lately warned us that anarchism had +brought its headquarters to London, that it was coming into relations +with the English population through its clubs and newspapers, and he +ventured to prophesy that we should certainly have soon an anarchist +fire to extinguish on our own hearth much more serious than Germany or +Austria has had to encounter. So far, however, there is little to +support such a prophecy. There are four small anarchist clubs in +London--three of them German clubs, which live at strife with one +another, and the fourth a Russian or Polish club, whose members have few +or no dealings with the Germans. The German anarchists publish two +weekly newspapers in German, which it is their great business to smuggle +into the Fatherland, and the Russian or Polish anarchists publish one in +Yedish--the German-Hebrew _patois_ of the Polish Jews--which is printed +for the entertainment of the Polish tailors of the East End. Some of the +principal anarchist leaders, it is true, live amongst us--for example, +Prince Krapotkin and Victor Dave--and under their influence a group of +English anarchists has grown up during the last few years; but this +group has already, after the manner of modern revolutionists, split on a +point of doctrine into two opposite camps, which,--if we may judge from +their respective organs, _The Anarchist_ and _Freedom_--expend a +considerable share of their destructive energies upon one another. The +English anarchists have no permanent organization of any kind, and the +one group are for socialist anarchism, and the other for individualist +anarchism. On the whole the conversion of the English by the anarchist +refugees is not an idea worthy of serious consideration; a better and +more likely result would be that they would themselves, like Alexander +Herzen, the leading anarchist of the past generation, be converted in +England to more rational ideas of politics. Our safety lies, however, +not so much in the practical character of our people, as in their habits +of free and open discussion. What is called practicality is no safeguard +against delusive ideas outside one's own immediate field of activity, +and there is perhaps no country, except the still more practical country +of America, where more favour is shown than here to fanaticism of any +kind, if there seems to be heart in it. Besides, when we hear it said, +We have indeed an enormous proletariat, but they are too practical to +think of insurrection, we ought to reflect that, to the miserable, the +practical test of a scheme will not be, Shall we be any the better for +the change? but Shall we be any the worse for it? But under free +institutions grievances always come to be ventilated; ventilation leads +to more or less remedial measures, and discontent is removed altogether, +or, at any rate, appeased for the time; and although under free +institutions ill-considered schemes which inflate that discontent with +delusive hopes may raise for a season a boom of earnest discussion, the +discussion eventually kills them. So it seems to be with the fortunes of +revolutionary socialism in England to-day. It has been much discussed +for six years, but the height of the tide has been reached already, and +the movement is now apparently on the ebb. + +Besides these manifestations of revolutionary socialism, we have various +societies representing an amateur and appreciative interest in +socialism. There is the Christian Socialist Society, a small body of +less than 150 adherents, including many clergymen and other members of +the learned professions. They must not be confounded with the Christian +Socialists of forty years ago, Maurice, Kingsley, and their allies, for +the survivors of this earlier movement, such as Judge Thomas Hughes, Mr. +Vansittart Neale, and Mr. J. M. Ludlow, do not belong to the present +Christian Socialist Society, and would repudiate its principles. They +wanted to promote co-operation without State interference, and they take +a leading part in the co-operative movement still; but the Christian +Socialist Society of the present day is all for State interference, and +the articles of its organ, the _Christian Socialist_, strongly support +the doctrines of Karl Marx, and declare that "the command, 'Thou shalt +not steal,' if impartially applied, must absolutely prohibit the +capitalist, as such, from deriving any revenue whatever from the +labourer's toil." But with all their will to believe with the Marxists, +the latter are not sure of them, and the socialist organs, _Justice_ and +_To-Day_, twit them one day for not being Christians, and the next for +not being socialists. They are not men of the same mark as the earlier +body of English Christian socialists, Canon Shuttleworth and Mr. Stewart +Headlam being the two best known of them. The Guild of St. Matthew, +which is composed to some extent of the same _personnel_ as the +Christian Socialist Society, has published a compendium of Christian +socialism, and strives, among other branches of its activity, to +cultivate good relations between socialists and the Church. + +The Fabian Society, again, is a debating club of mixed socialism. It +contains socialists of all feathers--revolutionary socialists and +philosophical socialists, Christian socialists and un-Christian +socialists--who meet together under its auspices and exchange their +views, without having any recognised end beyond the discussion. They +intervened lately, however, in the eight hours day controversy, and +drafted a bill for a compulsory measure on the subject which attracted +some public attention. Among the principal members are Mr. Sidney Webb, +a well-known writer and lecturer on economic subjects, Mr. G. Bernard +Shaw, journalist, Mrs. Besant, and Mr. W. Clarke. They have published a +volume of Fabian Essays, which has had a large sale. + +No account of English socialism would be complete that made no mention +of the writings of Mr. Ruskin, which have probably done more than any +other single influence to imbue English minds with sentiments and +principles of a socialistic character. But they have produced nothing in +the nature of a school or party more than perhaps some detached local +group; such, for example, as the Sheffield Socialists, a small body +formed under Ruskinian inspiration, and the leadership of Mr. E. +Carpenter. + +The outburst of socialist agitation in England in 1883 and 1884 was +immediately preceded by a revival of popular interest in an old and +favourite subject of English speculation, the nationalization of the +land. Mr. Henry George had published his "Progress and Poverty" in 1881, +and in the same year the Democratic Federation was established in London +with land nationalization for one of its principles, and Mr. A. R. +Wallace, the eminent naturalist, founded the Land Nationalization +Society. In 1882, Mr. Wallace contributed still further to awaken +discussion of the question by publishing his work on "Land +Nationalization," and the discussion was spread everywhere in 1883 by +the appearance of a sixpenny edition of Mr. George's remarkable work. +Land nationalization in the hands of Mr. Wallace has little in common +with any form of contemporary socialism. He does not contemplate any +interference with the present system of agricultural production; that is +still to be conducted by capitalists and hired labourers, as it is now. +He merely proposes to abolish what is called landlordism by the +compulsory conversion of the present tenant farmers into a body of +yeomanry or occupying owners, and his scheme differs from the more +ordinary proposals for the creation of peasant proprietors merely in two +points: 1st--which is a very good proposal--that he would leave part of +the price of the property to be paid in the form of a permanent annual +quitrent to the State; and 2nd--which is a more doubtful proposal--that +this part should represent, as nearly as it is possible now to calculate +it, the original value of the soil apart from improvements of any +kind--or, in other words, the unearned part of the present value of the +property--and that it should be subject to periodical revision, with a +view to recovering from the holder any further unearned increments of +value that may accrue to his holding from time to time. Mr. Wallace, +like Mr. George, has very utopian expectations from his scheme; but he +would honestly buy up the rights of the existing landlords, while Mr. +George would merely confiscate them by exceptional taxation. This +difference broke up the Land Nationalization Society in 1883, and the +partisans of Mr. George's view seceded and formed themselves into the +English Land Restoration League, which has established branches in most +of the larger towns, and has now probably a more numerous membership +than the original society. It is especially strong in Scotland, and ran +three candidates for Glasgow at the last general election; but the three +only got 2,222 votes between them, out of a total of 23,800 polled in +the three divisions they contested. The ideas of the League have a +certain vogue among the Highland crofters, where they blend very readily +with the universal peasant doctrines that the earth is the Lord's, and +that all other lords should be abolished. + +In Scotland there are a good many branches of the two regular socialist +organizations. The Scottish Emancipation League joined the Social +Democratic Federation, and the Scottish Land and Labour League joined +the Socialist League; but it is remarkable that there is no socialism in +Ireland, except in a small branch of the Socialist League in Dublin, +called the Dublin Socialist Club, although it seems a miracle for a +country seething for centuries with political and economic discontent to +escape such a visitation. Probably, as with the Poles, the minds of the +discontented are already too much pre-occupied with other political and +social solutions. The land nationalization views of Mr. George are, of +course, spread widely through the influence of Mr. Michael Davitt in the +agrarian movement of Ireland. + +But while the recent wave of socialism has passed over discontented +Ireland, and left it, like Gideon's fleece, quite dry, much more +susceptibility has been shown by those parts of the Empire where the lot +of labour is, perhaps in all the world, the happiest--the Australian +colonies. Here, too, the susceptibility has been created to some extent +by the land questions of the country. Mr. George, in his recent +lecturing tour through these colonies, met with a warm welcome in almost +all the towns he visited, made many converts to his ideas, and gave rise +to a considerable agitation. In South Australia three of his disciples +were returned to the Legislature in 1887, and their views are supported +by several newspapers in Adelaide. In a new colony the argument for +keeping the land in the hands of the State has in some respects more +point and force than in an old. Mr. George's disciples in Sydney publish +a paper called the _Land Nationalizer_, and his views are advocated by +one of the most influential papers in the colony, the _Bulletin_ of +Sydney. In New Zealand a bill has actually been brought in for the +purpose of nationalizing the land. But apart from Mr. George altogether, +there is a flourishing Australian Socialist League in Sydney, +established in 1887, and with a membership of 7,000 in 1888. It has a +journal called the _Radical_, and keeps up a busy agitation with +lectures and discussions. As a method of temporary policy it promotes +associations of labourers for the purpose of undertaking Government and +municipal contracts. In Melbourne, again, people are more advanced. They +have no socialist organization, but they have an anarchist club, +established in 1886 for the purpose of aiding social reform on the lines +of liberty, equality, and fraternity. It circulates the works of +Proudhon, Tucker, the Boston anarchist, Bakunin, and Mr. Auberon +Herbert; and it publishes a newspaper called _Honesty_, which appeared +at first once a month, and latterly once in two months. The ideas of the +party are not easy to ascertain exactly from the pages of their journal. +The State is, of course, the enemy, and land monopoly is one of the +State's worst creations; but some of the writers advocate land +nationalization, while others propound a scheme of what they call +"constructive anarchy," under which every man is to own the land he +occupies. They have started a new form of co-operative store, a kind of +mutual production society, whose members bind themselves to produce for +one another, and exchange their products for the bare cost of +production; and they have started a co-operative home, in which the +members get better and cheaper accommodation through their combination. +Melbourne anarchism, however, has no harm in it: it is a mere spark of +eccentric speculation. The working class of Melbourne is probably the +most powerful and the best organized working class in the world. In +their Trades Hall they have had for thirty years a workmen's chamber of +their own creating like what German socialists are vainly asking from +the State, and much more effective, because more independent. They have +secured the eight hours day to fifty-two different trades without +receiving a finger's help from the law, and without losing a shilling of +wages. They have, moreover, the voting power in their own hands. In +fact, they are, as nearly as any working class can be, in the precise +condition socialists require for revolutionary action. They are entirely +dependent on a handful of capitalists for their employment, and they +have the whole power of the State substantially under their own control; +so that they might, if they chose, march to the Parliament House with a +red flag, and instal the socialist State to-morrow. But they do not +choose. They propose no change in the present industrial system, and +make surprisingly few demands of any sort upon the State. The world goes +very well with them as it is, and they will not risk the comforts they +really enjoy to try any sweeping and problematical solutions. While the +socialist movement, in the countries where it is most advanced and +powerful, seems settling into a practical labour movement, the labour +movement, in the countries where it is most advanced and powerful, is +steering furthest and clearest from socialism. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +FERDINAND LASSALLE. + + +German socialism is--it is hardly too much to say--the creation of +Ferdinand Lassalle. Of course there were socialists in Germany before +Lassalle. There are socialists everywhere. A certain rudimentary +socialism is always in latent circulation in what may be called the +"natural heart" of society. The secret clubs of China--"the fraternal +leagues of heaven and earth"--who argue that the world is iniquitously +arranged, that the rich are too rich, and the poor too poor, and that +the wealth of the great has all accrued from the sweat of the masses, +only give a formal expression to ideas that are probably never far from +any one of us who have to work hard and earn little, and they merely +formulate them less systematically than Marx and his disciples do in +their theories of the exploitation of labour by capital. Socialism is +thus so much in the common air we all breathe, that there is force in +the view that the thing to account for is not so much the presence of +socialism, at any time, as its absence. Accordingly it had frequently +appeared in Germany under various forms before Lassalle. Fichte--to go +no farther back--had taught it from the standpoint of the speculative +philosopher and philanthropist. Schleiermacher, it may be remembered, +was brought up in a religious community that practised it. Weitling, +with some allies, preached it in a pithless and hazy way as a gospel to +the poor, and, finding little encouragement, went to America, to work it +out experimentally there. The Young Hegelians made it part of their +philosophic creed. The Silesian weavers, superseded by machinery, and +perishing for want of work, raised it as a wild inarticulate cry for +bread, and dignified it with the sanction of tears and blood. And Karl +Marx and Friedrich Engels, in 1848, summoned the proletariat of the +whole world to make it the aim and instrument of a universal revolution. +But it was Lassalle who first really brought it from the clouds and made +it a living historical force in the common politics of the day. The late +eminent Professor Lorenz von Stein, of Vienna, said, in 1842, in his +acute and thoughtful work on French Communism, that Germany, unlike +France, and particularly England, had nothing to fear from socialism, +because Germany had no proletariat to speak of. Yet, in twenty years, we +find Germany become suddenly the theatre of the most important and +formidable embodiment of socialism that has anywhere appeared. Important +and formidable, for two reasons: it founds its doctrines, as socialism +has never done before, on a thoroughly scientific investigation of the +facts, and criticism of the principles, of the present industrial +_régime_, and it seeks to carry them out by means of a political +organization, growing singularly in strength, and based on the class +interests of the great majority of the people. + +There were, of course, predisposing conditions for this outburst. A +German proletariat had come into being since Stein wrote, and though +still much smaller, in the aggregate, than the English, it was perhaps +really at this time the more plethoric and distressed of the two. For +the condition of the English working-classes had been greatly relieved +by emigration, by factory legislation, by trades unions, whereas in some +of these directions nothing at all, and in others only the faintest +beginnings, had as yet been effected in Germany. Then, the stir of big +political movement and anticipation was on men's minds. The future of +the German nation, its unity, its freedom, its development, were +practical questions of the hour. The nationality principle is +essentially democratic, and the aspirations for German unity carried +with them in every one of the States strong movements for the extension +of popular freedom and power. This long spasmodic battle for liberty in +Germany, which began with the century, and remains still unsettled, this +long series of revolts and concessions and overridings, and hopes +flattered and again deferred, this long uncertain babble of +_Gross-Deutsch_ and _Klein-Deutsch_, and Centralist and Federalist and +Particularist, of "Gotha ideas" and "new eras" and "blood and iron," +had prepared the public ear for bold political solutions, and has +entered from the first as an active and not unimportant factor in the +socialist agitation. Then again, the general political habits and +training of the people must be taken into account. Socialistic ideas +would find a readier vogue in Germany than in this country, because the +people are less rigidly practical, because they have been less used to +the sifting exercise of free discussion, and because they have always +seen the State doing a great deal for them which they could do better +for themselves, and are consequently apt to visit the State with blame +and claims for which it ought not to be made responsible. Then the +decline of religious belief in Germany, which the Church herself did +much to produce when she was rationalistic, without being able to undo +it since she has become orthodox, must certainly have impaired the +patience with which the poor endured the miseries of their lot, when +they still entertained the hope of exchanging it in a few short years +for a happier and an everlasting one hereafter. + +All these circumstances undoubtedly favoured the success of the +socialistic agitation at the period it started; but, when everything is +said, it is still doubtful whether German socialism would ever have come +into being but for Lassalle. Its fermenting principle has been less want +than positive ideas. This is shown by the fact that it was at first +received among the German working classes with an apathy that almost +disheartened Lassalle; and that it is now zealously propagated by them +as a cause, as an evangel, even after they have emigrated to America, +where their circumstances are comparatively comfortable. The ideas it +contains Lassalle found for the most part ready to his hand. The germs +of them may be discovered in the writings of Proudhon, in the projects +of Louis Blanc. Some of them he acknowledges he owes to Rodbertus, +others to Karl Marx, but it was in passing through his mind they first +acquired the stamp and ring that made them current coin. Contentions +about the priority of publishing this bit or that bit of an idea, +especially if the idea be false, need not concern us; and indeed +Lassalle makes no claim to originality in the economical field. He was +not so much an inventive as a critical thinker, and a critical thinker +of almost the first rank, with a dialectic power, and a clear, vivid +exposition that have seldom been excelled. Any originality that is +claimed for him lies in the region of interpretation of previous +thought, and that in the departments of metaphysics and jurisprudence, +not of economics. + +The peculiarity of his mind was that it hungered with almost equal +intensity for profound study and for exciting action, and that he had +the gifts as well as the impulses for both. As he said of Heraclitus the +Dark, whom he spent some of his best years in expounding, "there was +storm in his nature." Heine, who knew and loved him well as a young man +in Paris, and indeed found his society so delightful during his last +years of haggard suffering, that he said, "No one has ever done so much +for me, and when I receive letters from you, courage rises in me, and I +feel better,"--Heine characterizes him very truly in a letter to +Varnhagen von Ense. He says he was struck with astonishment at the +combination of qualities Lassalle displayed--the union of so much +intellectual power, deep learning, rich exposition on the one hand, with +so much energy of will and capacity for action on the other. With all +this admiration, however, he seems unable to regard him without +misgiving, for his audacious confidence, checked by no thought of +renunciation or tremor of modesty, amazed him as much as his ability. In +this respect he says Lassalle is a genuine son of the modern time, to +which Varnhagen and himself had acted in a way as the midwives, but on +which they could only look like the hen that hatched duck's eggs and +shuddered to see how her brood took to the water and swam about +delighted. Heine here puts his finger on the secret of his young +friend's failure. Lassalle would have been a great man if he had more of +the ordinary restraining perceptions, but he had neither fear nor awe, +nor even--in spite of his vein of satire--a wholesome sense of the +ridiculous,--in this last respect resembling, if we believe Carlyle, all +Jews. Chivalrous, susceptible, with a genuine feeling for the poor man's +case, and a genuine enthusiasm for social reform, a warm friend, a +vindictive enemy, full of ambition both of the nobler and the more +vulgar type, beset with an importunate vanity and given to primitive +lusts; generous qualities and churlish throve and strove in him side by +side, and governed or misgoverned a will to which opposition was almost +a native and necessary element, and which yet--or perhaps rather, +therefore--brooked no check. "Ferdinand Lassalle, thinker and fighter," +is the simple epitaph Professor Boeckh put on his tomb. Thinking and +fighting were the craving of his nature; thinking and fighting were the +warp and woof of his actual career, mingled indeed with threads of more +spurious fibre. The philosophical thinker and the political agitator are +parts rarely combined in one person, but to these Lassalle added yet a +third, which seems to agree with neither. He was a fashionable dandy, +noted for his dress, for his dinners, and, it must be added, for his +addiction to pleasure--a man apparently with little of that solidarity +in his own being which he sought to introduce into society at large, and +yet his public career possesses an undoubted unity. It is a mistake to +represent him, as Mr. L. Montefiore has done, as a _savan_ who turned +politician as if by accident and against his will, for the stir of +politics was as essential to him as the absorption of study. It is a +greater mistake, though a more common one, to represent him as having +become a revolutionary agitator because no other political career was +open to him. He felt himself, it is said, like a Cæsar out of employ, +disqualified for all legitimate politics by his previous life, and he +determined, if he could not bend the gods, that he would move Acheron. +But so early as 1848, when yet but a lad of twenty-three, he was tried +for sedition, and he then declared boldly in his defence that he was a +socialist democrat, and that he was "revolutionary on principle." This +he remained throughout. He laughs at those who cannot hear the word +revolution without a shudder. "Revolution," he says, "means merely +transformation, and is accomplished when an entirely new principle +is--either with force or without it--put in the place of an existing +state of things. Reform, on the other hand, is when the principle of the +existing state of things is continued, and only developed to more +logical or just consequences. The means do not signify. A reform may be +carried out by bloodshed, and a revolution in the profoundest +tranquillity. The Peasants' War was an attempt to introduce reform by +arms, the invention of the spinning-jenny wrought a peaceful +revolution." In this sense he was "revolutionary on principle." His +thought was revolutionary, and it was the lessons he learnt as a +philosopher that he applied and pled for an agitator. His thinking and +his fighting belonged together like powder and shot. His Hegelianism, +which he adopted as a youth at college, is from first to last the +continuous source both of impetus and direction over his public career. +Young Germany was Hegelian and revolutionary at the time he went to the +University (1842), and with the impressionable Lassalle, then a youth of +seventeen, Hegelianism became a passion. He wrote articles on it in +University magazines, preached it right and left in the _cafés_ and +taverns, and resolved to make philosophy his profession and establish +himself as a _privat Docent_ at Berlin University. It was the first +sovereign intellectual influence he came under, and it ruled his spirit +to the end. In adopting it, his intellectual manhood may be said to have +opened with a revolution, for his family were strict Jews, and he was +brought up in their religion. + +Lassalle was born in 1825 at Breslau, where his father was a wholesale +dealer. He was educated at the Universities of Breslau and Berlin, and +at the latter city saw, through the Mendelssohns, a good deal of the +best literary society there, and made the acquaintance, among others, of +Alexander von Humboldt, who used to call him a _Wunderkind_. On +finishing his curriculum, he went for a time to Paris, and formed there +a close friendship with H. Heine, who was an old acquaintance of his +family. He meant to qualify himself as _privat Docent_ when he returned, +but was diverted from his purpose by the task of redressing a woman's +wrongs, into which he flew with the romantic enterprise of a +knight-errant, and which he carried, through years of patient and +zealous labour, to a successful issue. The Countess Hatzfeldt had been +married when a girl of sixteen to a cousin of her own, one of the great +nobles of Germany; but the marriage turned out most unhappily after a +few years, and she was obliged, on account of the maltreatment she +suffered, to live apart from her husband. His persecution followed her +into her separation. He took child after child from her, and was now +seeking to take the last she had left, her youngest son. He allowed her +very scanty and irregular support, while he lavished his money on +mistresses, and was, at this very moment, settling on one of them an +annuity of £1,000. This state of things had continued for twenty years, +and the Countess's own relations had, for family reasons, always +declined to take up her case. Lassalle, who had made her acquaintance in +Berlin, was profoundly touched by her story, and felt that she was +suffering an intolerable wrong, which society permitted only because she +was a woman, and her husband a lord. Though not a lawyer, he resolved to +undertake her case, and after carrying the suit before thirty-six +different courts, during a period of eight years, he at length procured +for her a divorce in 1851, and a princely fortune in 1854, from which +she rewarded him with a considerable annuity for his exertions. +Lassalle's connection with this case not unnaturally gave rise to +sinister construction. It was supposed he must have been in love with +the Countess, and wanted to marry her, but this was disproved by the +event. Darker insinuations were made, but had there been truth in them, +it could not have escaped the spies the Count sent to watch him, and the +servants the Count bribed to inform on him. Chivalry, vanity, and +temerity at the season of life when all three qualities are at their +height, account sufficiently for his whole conduct, and I see no reason +to doubt the explanation he himself gives of it. "Her family," he +states, "were silent, but it is said when men keep silence the stones +will speak. When every human right is violated, when even the voice of +blood is mute, and helpless man is forsaken by his born protectors, +there then rises with right man's first and last relation--man. You have +all read with emotion the monstrous history of the unhappy Duchess of +Praslin. Who is there among you that would not have gone to the death to +defend her? Well, gentlemen, I said to myself, here is Praslin ten times +over. What is the sharp death-agony of an hour compared with the pangs +of death protracted over twenty years? What are the wounds a knife +inflicts compared with the slow murder dispensed with refined cruelty +throughout a being's whole existence? What are they compared with the +immense woe of this woman, every right of whose life has been trampled +under foot, day after day, for twenty years, and whom they have first +tried to cover with contempt, that they might then the more securely +overwhelm her with punishment?... The difficulties, the sacrifices, the +dangers did not deter me. I determined to meet false appearances with +the truth, to meet rank with right, to meet the power of money with the +power of mind. But if I had known what infamous calumnies I should have +to encounter, how people turned the purest motives into their +contraries, and what ready credence they gave to the most wretched +lies--well, I hope my purpose would not have been changed, but it would +have cost me a severe and bitter struggle." There seems almost something +unmodern in the whole circumstances of this case, both in the oppression +the victim endured, and in the manner of her rescue. + +In the course of this suit occurred the robbery of Baroness von +Meyerdorff's _cassette_, on which so much has been said. The Baroness +was the person already mentioned on whom Count Hatzfeldt bestowed the +annuity of £1,000. The Countess, on hearing of this settlement, went +straight to her husband, accompanied by a clergyman, and insisted upon +him cancelling it, in justice to his youngest son, whom it would have +impoverished. The Count at first promised to do so, but after her +departure, refused, and the Baroness set out for Aix to get her bond +effectually secured. Lassalle suspected the object of her journey, and +said to the Countess, in the presence of two young friends, Could we not +obtain possession of this bond? No sooner said than done. The two young +men started for Cologne, and one of them stole the Baroness's +_cassette_, containing the veritable deed, in her hotel, and gave it to +the other. They and Lassalle were all three successively tried for their +part in this crime. Oppenheim, who actually stole the _cassette_, was +acquitted; Mendelssohn, who only received it, was sent to prison; and +Lassalle, who certainly suggested the deed, was found guilty by the +jury, but acquitted by the judges. Moral complicity of some sort was +clear, but it did not amount to a legal crime. Our interest with the +transaction is merely to discover the light it reflects on the character +of the man. It was a rash, foolish, and lawless freak, but of course the +ordinary motives of the robber were absent. The theft of the +_cassette_, however, was a transaction which his enemies never suffered +to be forgotten. + +The theft of the _cassette_ occurred in 1846; Lassalle was tried for it +in 1848, and was no sooner released than he fell into the hands of +justice on a much more serious charge. The dissolution of the first +Prussian National Assembly in 1848, and the gift of a Constitution by +direct royal decree, had excited bitter disappointment and opposition +over the whole country. There was a general agitation for combining to +stop supplies by refusing to pay taxes, in order thus "to meet force +with force," and this agitation was particularly active in the Rhine +provinces, where democratic views had found much favour. Lassalle even +planned an insurrection, and urged the citizens of Dusseldorf to armed +resistance; but the Prussian Government promptly intervened, placed the +town under a state of siege, and threw Lassalle into jail. He was tried +in 1849 for treason, and acquitted by the jury, but was immediately +afterwards brought before a correctional tribunal on the minor charge of +resisting officers of the police, and sent to prison for six months. It +was in his speech at the former of these trials that he declared himself +a partisan of the Socialist Democratic Republic, and claimed for every +citizen the right and duty of active resistance to the State when +necessary. He had nothing but scorn to pour on the passive resistance +policy of the Parliament. "Passive resistance is a contradiction in +itself. It is like Lichtenberg's knife, without blade, and without +handle, or like the fleece which one must wash without wetting. It is +mere inward ill-will without the outward deed. The Crown confiscates the +people's freedom; and the Prussian National Assembly, for the people's +protection, declares ill-will; it would be unintelligible how the +commonest logic should have allowed a legislative assembly to cover +itself with such incomparable ridicule if it were not too intelligible." +These are bold words. He felt himself standing on a principle and +representing a cause; and so he went into prison, he tells us, with as +light a heart as he would have gone to a ball; and when he heard that +his sister had petitioned for his pardon, he wrote instantly and +publicly disclaimed her letter. + +All these trials had brought Lassalle into considerable notoriety, not +unmingled with a due recognition of his undoubted _verve_, eloquence, +and brilliancy. One effect of them was that he was forbidden to come to +Berlin. This prohibition was founded, of course, on his seditious work +at Dusseldorf, but is believed to have been instigated and kept up by +the influence of the Hatzfeldt family. Lassalle felt it a sore +privation, for his ambitions and hopes all centred in Berlin. After +various ineffectual attempts to obtain permission, he arrived in the +capital one day in 1857 disguised as a waggoner, and through the +personal intercession of Alexander von Humboldt with the king, was at +length suffered to remain. His "Heraclitus" had just appeared, and at +once secured him a position in literary circles. One of his first +productions after his return to Berlin was a pamphlet on "The Italian +War and the Mission of Prussia; a Voice from the Democracy," which shows +that his political prosecutions had not soured him against Prussia. His +argument is that freedom and democracy must in Germany, as in Italy, be +first preceded by unity, and that the only power capable of giving unity +to Germany was Prussia, as to Italy, Piedmont. He had more of the +political mind than most revolutionaries and doctrinaires, and knew that +the better might be made the enemy of the good, and that ideals could +only be carried out gradually, and by temporary compromises. He was +monarchical for the present, therefore, no doubt because he thought the +monarchy to be for the time the best and shortest road to the democratic +republic. His friend Rodbertus said there was an esoteric and an +exoteric Lassalle. That may be said of all politicians. Compromise is of +the essence of their work. + +During the next few years Lassalle's literary activity was considerable. +Besides a tragedy of no merit ("Franz von Sickingen," 1859) and various +pamphlets or lectures on Fichte, on Lessing, on the Constitution, on +Might and Right, he published in 1861 the most important work he has +left us, his "System of Acquired Rights," and in 1862 a satirical +commentary on Julian Schmidt's "History of German Literature," which +excited much attention and amusement at the time. His "System of +Acquired Rights" already contains the germs of his socialist views, and +his pamphlet on the Constitution, which appeared when the "new era" +ended and the era of Bismarck began, is written to disparage the +Constitutionalism of modern Liberals. A paper constitution was a thing +of no consequence; it was merely declarative, not creative; the thing of +real account was the distribution of power as it existed in actual fact. +The king and army were powers, the court and nobility were powers, the +populace was a power. Society was governed by the relative strength of +these powers, as it existed in reality and not by the paper constitution +that merely chronicled it. Right is regarded as merely declarative of +might. It is thus easy to see why he should have more sympathy with the +policy of Bismarck than with the Liberals; and later in the same year he +expounded his own political position very completely in a lecture he +delivered to a Working Men's Society in Berlin, on "The Connection +between the Present Epoch of History and the Idea of the Working Class." +This lecture, to which I shall again revert, was an epoch in his own +career. It led to a second Government prosecution, and a second +imprisonment for political reasons; and it and the prosecution together +led to his receiving an invitation to address a General Working Men's +Congress at Leipzig, in February, 1863, to which he responded by a +letter, sketching the political programme of the working class, which +was certainly the first step in the socialist movement. + +Attention was already being engaged on the work of industrial +amelioration. The Progressist party, then including the present National +Liberals, had, under the lead of Schultze-Delitzsch, been promoting +trades unions and co-operation in an experimental way, and the working +classes themselves were beginning to think of taking more concerted +action for their own improvement. The Leipzig Congress was projected by +a circle of working men, who considered the Schultze-Delitzsch schemes +inadequate to meet the case. This was exactly Lassalle's view. He begins +his letter by telling the working men that if all they wanted was to +mitigate some of the positive evils of their lot, then the +Schultze-Delitzsch unions, savings banks, and sick funds were quite +sufficient, and there was no need of thinking of anything more. But if +their aim was to elevate the _normal_ condition of their class, then +more drastic remedies were requisite; and, in the first instance, a +political agitation was indispensable. The Leipzig working men had +discussed the question of their relation to politics at a previous +congress a few months before, and had been divided between abstaining +from politics altogether, and supporting the Progressist party. Lassalle +disapproved of both these courses. They could never achieve the +elevation they desired till they got universal suffrage, and they would +never get universal suffrage by backing the Progressists who were +opposed to it. He then explains to them how their normal condition is +permanently depressed at present by the essential laws of the existing +economic _régime_, especially by "the iron and cruel law of necessary +wages." The only real cure was co-operative production, the substitution +of associated labour for wage labour; for it was only so the operation +of this tyrannical law of wages could be escaped. Now co-operative +production, to be of any effective extent, must be introduced by State +help and on State credit. The State gave advances to start railways, to +develop agriculture, to promote manufactures, and nobody called it +socialism to do so. Why, then, should people cry socialism if the State +did a similar service to the great working class, who were, in fact, not +a class, but the State itself. 96½ per cent. of the population were +ground down by "the iron law," and could not possibly lift themselves +above it by their own power. They must ask the State to help them, for +they were themselves the State, and the help of the State was no more a +superseding of their own self-help than reaching a man a ladder +superseded his own climbing. State help was but self-help's means. Now +these State advances could not be expected till the working class +acquired political power by universal suffrage. Their first duty was +therefore to organize themselves and agitate for universal suffrage; for +universal suffrage was a question of the stomach. + +The reception his letter met with at first was most discouraging. The +newspapers with one consent condemned it, except a Feudalist organ here +and there who saw in it an instrument for damaging the Liberals. What +seemed more ominous was the opposition of the working men themselves. +The Leipzig Committee to whom it was addressed did indeed approve of +it, and individual voices were raised in its favour elsewhere, but in +Berlin the working men's clubs rejected it with decided warmth, and all +over the country one working men's club after another declared against +it. Leipzig was the only place in which his words seemed to find any +echo, and he went there two months later and addressed a meeting at +which only 7 out of 1,300 voted against him. With this encouragement he +resolved to go forward, and founded, on the 23rd of May, 1863, the +General Working Men's Association for the promotion of universal +suffrage by peaceful agitation, after the model of the English Anti-Corn +Law League. He immediately threw himself with unsparing energy into the +development of this organization. He passed from place to place, +delivering speeches, establishing branches; he started newspapers, wrote +pamphlets, and even larger works, published tracts by Rodbertus, songs +by Herwegh, romances by Von Schweitzer. But it was uphill work. South +Germany was evidently dead to his ideas, and even among those who +followed him in the North there were but few who really understood his +doctrines or concurred in his methods. Some were for more "heroic" +procedure, for raising fighting corps to free Poland, to free +Schleswig-Holstein, to free oppressed nationalities anywhere. Many were +perfectly impracticable persons who knew neither why exactly they had +come together, nor where exactly they would like to go. There were +constant quarrels and rivalries and jealousies among them, and he is +said to have shown remarkable tact and patience, and a genuine governing +faculty in dealing with them. Lassalle's hope was to obtain a membership +of 100,000: with a smaller number nothing could be done, but with +100,000 the movement would be a power. In August, 1863, he had only +enrolled 1,000 after three months' energetic labour, which, he said, +"would have produced colossal results among a people like the French." +He was intensely disappointed, and asked, "When will this foolish people +cast aside their lethargy?" but meanwhile repelled the suggestion of the +secretary of the organization that it should be at once dissolved. In +August, 1864, another year's strenuous work had raised their numbers +only to 4,610, and Lassalle was completely disenchanted, and wrote +Countess Hatzfeldt from Switzerland, shortly before his death, that he +was continuing President of the Association much against his will, for +he was now tired of politics, which was mere child's play if one had not +power. He seems to have been convinced that the movement was a failure, +and would never become a force in the State. Yet he was wrong; his words +had really taken fire among the working classes, and kindled a movement +which, in its curious history, has shown the remarkable power of +spreading faster with the checks it encounters. It seems to have +profited, not merely from political measures of repression, but even +from the internal dissensions and divisions of its own adherents, and +some persons tell us that it was first stimulated into decided vigour by +the fatal event which might have been expected to crush it--the sudden +and tragical death of its chief. + +In the end of July, 1864, Lassalle went to Switzerland ostensibly for +the Righi whey cure, but really to make the acquaintance of Herr von +Dönnigsen, Bavarian Envoy at Berne, whose daughter he had known in +Berlin, and wished to obtain in marriage. It is one of the fatalities +that entangled this man's life in strange contradictions, that exactly +he, a _persona ingratissima_ to Court circles, their very arch-enemy, as +they believed, should have become bound by deep mutual attachment with +the daughter of exactly a German diplomatist, the courtliest of the +courtly, a Conservative seven times refined. They certainly cherished +for one another a sincere, and latterly a passionate affection, and they +seem to have been well fitted for each other. Helena von Dönnigsen was a +bright, keen-witted, eccentric, adventurous young woman of twenty-five, +and so like Lassalle, even in appearance, that when she was acting a +man's part, years afterwards (in 1874), in some amateur performance in +the theatre of Breslau, Lassalle's native town, many of the audience +said, here was Lassalle again as he was when a boy. Learning from a +common friend in Berlin that Lassalle was at the Righi, she made a visit +to some friends in Berne, and soon after accompanied them on an +excursion to that "popular" mountain. She inquired for Lassalle at the +hotel, and he joined the party to the summit. She knew her parents would +be opposed to the match, but felt certain that her lover, with his +gifts and charms, would be able to win them over, and it was accordingly +agreed that when she returned to Geneva, Lassalle should go there too, +and press his suit in person. The parents, however, were inexorable, and +refused to see him; and the young lady in despair fled from her father's +house to her lover's lodging, and urged him to elope with her. Lassalle +calmly led her back to her father's roof, with a control which some +writers think quite inexplicable in him, but which was probably due to +his still believing that he would be able to talk the parents round if +he got the chance, and to his desire to try constitutional means before +resorting to revolutionary. Helena was locked in her room for days alone +with her excited brain and panting heart. For days, father, mother, +sister, brother, all came and laid before her what ruin she was bringing +on the family for a mere selfish whim of her own. If she married a man +so objectionable to people in power, her father would be obliged to +resign his post, her brother could never look for one, and her sister, +who had just been engaged to a Count, would, of course, have to give up +her engagement. She was in despair, but ultimately submitted passively +to write to Lassalle, desiring him to consider the matter ended, and +submitted equally passively (for she informs us herself) to accept the +hand of Herr von Racowitza, a young Wallachian Boyar, whom she had +indeed been previously engaged to, and sincerely liked and respected, +without in the eminent sense loving him. Lassalle had meanwhile wrought +himself into a fury of excitement. Enraged by her parents' opposition, +enraged still more by their refusal even to treat with him, enraged +above all by his belief that their daughter was being illegitimately +constrained, he wrote here, wrote there, tried to get the foreign +minister at Munich to interfere, to get Bishop Ketteler to use his +influence, promised even to turn Catholic to please the Dönnigsens, +forgetting that they were Protestants. All in vain. At last two of his +friends waited by appointment on Herr von Dönnigsen, and heard from +Helena's own lips that she was to be married to the Boyar, and wished +the subject no more mentioned. She now tells us that she did this in +sheer weariness of mind, and with a confused hope that somehow or other +the present storm would blow past, and she might have her Lassalle +after all. Lassalle, however, was overcome with chagrin; and though he +always held that a democrat should not fight duels, and had got +Robespierre's stick, which he usually carried, as a present for having +declined one, he now sent a challenge both to the father and the +bridegroom. The latter accepted. The duel was fought. Lassalle was +fatally wounded, and died two days after, on the 31st August, 1864, at +the age of 39. Helena married Herr von Racowitza shortly afterwards, but +he was already seized with consumption, and she says she found great +comfort, after the tumult and excitement of the Lassalle episode, in +nursing him during the few months he lived after their marriage. + +The body was sent back to Germany, after funeral orations from +revolutionists of all countries and colours, and the Countess Hatzfeldt +had made arrangements for similar funeral celebrations at every halting +place along the route to Berlin, where she meant it to be buried, but at +Cologne it was intercepted by the police on behalf of the Lassalle +family, and carried quietly to Breslau, where, after life's fitful +fever, he was laid silently with his fathers in the Jewish +burying-ground of his native place. Fate, however, had not even yet done +with him. It followed him beyond the tomb to throw one more element of +the bizarre into his strangely compounded history. Lest the death of the +leader should prove fatal to the cause, the Committee of the General +Working Men's Association determined to turn it, if possible, into a +source of strength, as B. Becker, his successor in the president's +chair, informs us, "by carrying it into the domain of faith." Lassalle +was not dead, but only translated to a higher and surer leadership. A +Lassalle _cultus_ was instituted, and Becker says that many a German +working man believed that he died for them, and that he was yet to come +again to save them. This singular apotheosis, which is neither +creditable to the honesty of the leaders of the socialist movement, nor +to the intelligence of its rank and file, was kept up by periodical +celebrations among those of the German socialists who are generally +known as the orthodox Lassalleans, down, at least, to the time of the +Anti-Socialist Law of 1878. + +Lassalle's doctrines are mainly contained in his lecture on "The +Present Age and the Idea of the Working Class," which he delivered in +1862, and published in 1863, under the title of the "Working Men's +Programme," and in his "Herr Bastiat-Schultze von Delitzsch, der +Oekonomische Julian; oder Capital und Arbeit," Berlin, 1864. + +In the "Working Men's Programme," the question of the emancipation of +the working class is approached and contemplated from the standpoint of +the Hegelian philosophy of history. There are, it declares, three +successive stages of evolution in modern history. First, the period +before 1789, the feudal period, when all public power was vested in, +exercised by, and employed for the benefit of, the landed class. It was +a period of privileges and exemptions, which were enjoyed by the landed +interests exclusively, and there prevailed a strong social contempt for +all labour and employment not connected with the land. Second, the +period 1789-1848, the _bourgeois_ period, in which personal estate +received equal rights and recognition with real, but in which political +power was still based on property qualifications, and legislation was +governed by the interests of the _bourgeoisie_. Third, the period since +1848, the age of the working class, which is, however, only yet +struggling to the birth and to legal recognition. The characteristic of +this new period is, that it will for the first time give labour its +rights, and that it will be dominated by the ideas, aspirations, and +interests of the great labouring class. Their time has already come, and +the _bourgeois_ age is already past in fact, though it still lingers in +law. It is always so. The feudal period had in reality come to an end +before the Revolution. A revolution is always declarative and never +creative. It takes place first in the heart of society, and is only +sealed and ratified by the outbreak. "It is impossible to make a +revolution, it is possible only to give external legal sanction and +effect to a revolution already contained in the actual circumstances of +society.... To seek to make a revolution is the folly of immature men +who have no consideration for the laws of history; and for the same +reason it is immature and puerile to try to stem a revolution that has +already completed itself in the interior of society. If a revolution +exists in fact, it cannot possibly be prevented from ultimately existing +in law." It is idle, too, to reproach those who desire to effect this +transition with being revolutionary. They are merely midwives who assist +in bringing to the birth a future with which society is already +pregnant. Now, it is this midwife service that Lassalle believed the +working class at present required. He says of the fourth estate what +Sieyès said of the third, What is the fourth estate? Nothing? What ought +the fourth estate to be? Everything. And it ought to be so in law, +because it is so already in fact. The _bourgeoisie_, in overthrowing the +privileges of the feudal class, had almost immediately become a +privileged class itself. At so early a period of the revolution as the +3rd of September, 1791, a distinction was introduced between active and +passive citizens. The active citizen was the citizen who paid direct +taxes, and had therefore a right to vote; the passive citizen was he who +paid no direct taxes, and had no right to vote. The effect of this +distinction was to exclude the whole labouring classes from the +franchise; and under the July Monarchy, while the real nation consisted +of some thirty millions, the legal nation (_pays légal_), the people +legally possessed of political rights, amounted to no more than 200,000, +whom the Government found it only too easy to manage and corrupt. The +revolution of 1848 was simply a revolt against this injustice. It was a +revolt of the fourth estate against the privileges of the third, as the +first revolution was a revolt of the third against the privileges of the +other two. Nor were the privileges which the _bourgeoisie_ had contrived +to acquire confined to political rights alone; they included also fiscal +exemptions. According to the latest statistical returns, it appeared +that five-sixths of the revenue of Prussia came from indirect taxation, +and indirect taxes were always taken disproportionately out of the +pockets of the working class. A man might be twenty times richer than +another, but he did not therefore consume twenty times the amount of +bread, salt, or beer. Taxation ought to be in ratio of means, and +indirect taxation--so much favoured by the _bourgeoisie_--was simply an +expedient for saving the rich at the expense of the poor. + +Now, the revolution of 1848 was a fight for the emancipation of the +working class from this unequal distribution of political rights and +burdens. The working class was really not a class at all, but was the +nation; and the aim of the State should be their amelioration. "What is +the State?" asks Lassalle. "You are the State," he replies. "You are +ninety-six per cent. of the population. All political power ought to be +of you, and through you, and for you; and your good and amelioration +ought to be the aim of the State. It ought to be so, because your good +is not a class interest, but is the national interest." The fourth +estate differs from the feudal interest, and differs from the +_bourgeoisie_, not merely in that it is not a privileged class, but in +that it cannot possibly become one. It cannot degenerate, as the +_bourgeoisie_ had done, into a privileged and exclusive caste; because, +consisting as it does of the great body of the people, its class +interest and the common good are identical, or at least harmonious. +"Your affair is the affair of mankind; your personal interest moves and +beats with the pulse of history, with the living principle of moral +development." + +Such then is the idea of the working class, which is, or is destined to +be, the ruling principle of society in the present era of the world. Its +supremacy will have important consequences, both ethical and political. +Ethically, the working class is less selfish than the classes above it, +simply because it has no exclusive privileges to maintain. The necessity +of maintaining privileges always develops an assertion of personal +interest in exact proportion to the amount of privilege to be defended, +and that is why the selfishness of a class constantly exceeds the +individual selfishness of the members that compose it. Now under the +happier _régime_ of the idea of labour, there would be no exclusive +interests or privileges, and therefore less selfishness. Adam would +delve and Eve would spin, and, consciously or unconsciously, each would +work more for the whole, and the whole would work more for each. +Politically, too, the change would be remarkable and beneficial. The +working class has a quite different idea of the State and its aim from +the _bourgeoisie_. The latter see no other use in the State but to +protect personal freedom and property. The State is a mere +night-watchman, and, if there were no thieves and robbers, would be a +superfluity; its occupation would be gone. Its whole duty is exhausted +when it guarantees to every individual the unimpeded exercise of his +activity as far as consistent with the like right of his neighbours. +Even from its own point of view this _bourgeois_ theory of the State +fails to effect its purpose. Instead of securing equality of freedom, it +only secures equality of right to freedom. If all men were equal in +fact, this might answer well enough, but since they are not, the result +is simply to place the weak at the mercy of the powerful. Now the +working class have an entirely different view of the State's mission +from this. They say the protection of an equality of right to freedom is +an insufficient aim for the State in a morally ordered community. It +ought to be supplemented by the securing of solidarity of interests and +community and reciprocity of development. History all along is an +incessant struggle with Nature, a victory over misery, ignorance, +poverty, powerlessness--_i.e._, over unfreedom, thraldom, restrictions +of all kinds. The perpetual conquest over these restrictions is the +development of freedom, is the growth of culture. Now this is never +effected by each man for himself. It is the function of the State to do +it. The State is the union of individuals into a moral whole which +multiplies a millionfold the aggregate of the powers of each. The end +and function of the State is not merely to guard freedom, but to develop +it; to put the individuals who compose it in a position to attain and +maintain such objects, such levels of existence, such stages of culture, +power, and freedom, as they would have been incapable of reaching by +their own individual efforts alone. The State is the great agency for +guiding and training the human race to positive and progressive +development; in other words, for bringing human destiny (_i.e._, the +culture of which man as man is susceptible) to real shape and form in +actual existence. Not freedom, but development is now the keynote. The +State must take a positive part, proportioned to its immense capacity, +in the great work which, as he has said, constitutes history, and must +forward man's progressive conquest over misery, ignorance, poverty, and +restrictions of every sort. This is the purpose, the essence, the moral +nature of the State, which she can never entirely abrogate, without +ceasing to be, and which she has indeed always been obliged, by the very +force of things, more or less to fulfil, often without her conscious +consent, and sometimes in spite of the opposition of her leaders. In a +word, the State must, by the union of all, help each to his full +development. This was the earnest and noble idea of 1848. It is the idea +of the new age, the age of labour, and it cannot fail to have a most +important and beneficial bearing on the course of politics and +legislation whenever it is permitted to have free operation in that +sphere by means of universal and direct suffrage. + +This exposition of Lassalle's teaching in his "Working Men's Programme" +already furnishes us with the transition to his economic views. Every +age of the world, he held, has its own ruling idea. The idea of the +working class is the ruling idea of the new epoch we have now entered +on, and that idea implies that every man is entitled to a +_menschenwürdiges Dasein_, to an existence worthy of his moral destiny, +and that the State is bound to make this a governing consideration in +its legislative and executive work. Man's destiny is to progressive +civilization, and a condition of society which makes progressive +civilization the exclusive property of the few, and practically debars +the vast mass of the people from participation in it, stands in the +present age self-condemned. It no longer corresponds to its own idea. +Society has long since declared no man shall be enslaved; society has +more recently declared no man shall be ignorant; society now declares no +man shall be without property. He cannot be really free without property +any more than he can be really free without knowledge. He has been +released successively from a state of legal dependence and from a state +of intellectual dependence; he must now be released from a state of +economic dependence. This is his final emancipation, which is necessary +to enable him to reap any fruits from the other two, and it cannot take +place without a complete transformation of present industrial +arrangements. It is a common mistake, he said, to think that socialists +take their stand on equality. They really take their stand on freedom. +They argue that the positive side of freedom is development, and if +every man has a right to freedom, then every man has a right to the +possibility of development. From this right, however, they allege the +existing industrial system absolutely excludes the great majority. The +freeman cannot realize his freedom, the individual cannot realize his +individuality, without a certain external economic basis of work and +enjoyment, and the best way to furnish him with this is to clothe him in +various ways with collective property. + +Lassalle's argument, however, is still more specific than this. In the +beginning of his "Herr Bastiat-Schultze," he quotes a passage from his +previous work on "The System of Acquired Rights," which he informs us he +had intended to expand into a systematic treatise on "The Principles of +Scientific National Economy." This intention he was actually preparing +to fulfil when the Leipzig invitation and letter diverted him at once +into practical agitation. He regrets that circumstances had thus not +permitted the practical agitation to be preceded by the theoretical +codex which should be the basis for it, but adds that the substance of +his theory is contained in this polemic against Schultze-Delitzsch, +though the form of its exposition is considerably modified by his plan +of following the ideas of Schultze's "Working Men's Catechism," and by +his purpose of answering Schultze's misplaced taunt of "half knowledge" +by trying to extinguish the economic pretensions of the latter as +completely as he had done the literary pretensions of Julian Schmidt. +"Every line I write," says Lassalle, with a characteristic finality of +self-confidence, "I write armed with the whole culture of my century"; +and at any rate Schultze-Delitzsch was far his inferior in economic as +in other knowledge. In the passage to which I have referred, Lassalle +says, "The world is now face to face with a new social question, the +question whether, since there is no longer any property in the immediate +use of another man, there should still exist property in his mediate +exploitation--_i.e._, whether the free realization and development of +one's power and labour should be the exclusive private property of the +owner of the instruments and advances necessary for labour--_i.e._, of +capital; and whether the employer as such, and apart from the +remuneration of his own intellectual labour of management, should be +permitted to have property in the value of other people's +labour--_i.e._, whether he ought to receive what is known as the +premium or profit of capital, consisting of the difference between the +selling price of the product and the sum of the wages and salaries of +all kinds of labour, manual and mental, that have contributed to its +production." + +His standing-point here, again, as always, belongs to the philosophy of +history--to the idea of historical evolution with which his Hegelianism +had early penetrated him. The course of legal history has been one of +gradual but steady contraction of the sphere of private property in the +interests of personal freedom and development. The ancient system of +slavery, under which the labourer was the absolute and complete property +of his master, was followed by the feudal system of servitudes, under +which he was still only partially proprietor of himself, but was bound +by law to a particular lord by one or more of a most manifold series of +specific services. These systems have been successively abolished. There +is no longer property in man or in the use of man. No man can now be +either inherited or sold in whole or in part. He is his own, and his +power of labour is his own. But he is still far from being in full +possession of himself or of his labour. He cannot work without materials +to work on and instruments to work with, and for these the modern +labourer is more dependent than ever labourer was before on the private +owners in whose hands they have accumulated. And the consequence is that +under existing industrial arrangements the modern labourer has no more +individual property in his labour than the ancient slave had. He is +obliged to part with the whole value of his labour, and content himself +with bare subsistence in return. It is in this sense that socialist +writers maintain property to be theft--not that subjectively the +proprietors are thieves, but that objectively, under the exigencies of a +system of competition, they cannot help offering workmen, and workmen +cannot help accepting, wages far under the true value of their labour. +Labour is the source of all wealth, for the value of anything--that +which makes it wealth--is, on the economists' own showing, only another +name for the amount of labour put into the making of it; and labour is +the only ground on which modern opponents of socialism--Thiers and +Bastiat, for example--think the right of individual property can be +established. Yet on the methods of distribution of wealth that now +exist, individual property is not founded on this its only justifiable +basis, and the aim of socialists is to emancipate the system of +distribution from the influence of certain unconscious forces which, as +they allege, at present disturb it, and to bring back individual +property for the first time to its natural and rightful +foundation--labour. Their aim is not to abolish private property, but to +purify it, by means of some systematic social regulation which shall +give each man a share more conformable with his personal merit and +contribution. Even if no question is raised about the past, it is plain +that labour is every day engaged in making more new property. Millions +of labouring men are, day after day, converting their own brain, muscle, +and sinew into useful commodities, into value, into wealth. Now, the +problem of the age, according to Lassalle, is this, whether this unmade +property of the future should not become genuine labour property, and +its value remain greatly more than at present in the hands that actually +produced it. + +This, he holds, can only be done by a fundamental reconstruction of the +present industrial system, and by new methods of determining the +remuneration of the labouring class. For there is a profound +contradiction in the present system. It is unprecedentedly communistic +in production, and unprecedentedly individualistic in distribution. Now +there ought to be as real a joint participation in the product, as there +is already a joint participation in the work. Capital must become the +servant of labour instead of its master, profits must disappear, +industry must be conducted more on the mutual instead of the proprietary +principle, and the instruments of production be taken out of private +hands and turned into collective or even, it may be, national property. +In the old epoch, before 1789, industrial society was governed by the +principle of solidarity without freedom; in the period since 1789, by +freedom without solidarity, which has been even worse; in the epoch now +opening, the principle must be solidarity in freedom. + +Partisans of the present system object to any social interference with +the distribution of wealth, but they forget how much--how entirely--that +distribution is even now effected by social methods. The present +arrangement of property, says Lassalle, is, in fact, nothing but an +anarchic and unjust socialism. How do you define socialism? he asks. +Socialism is a distribution of property by social channels. Now this is +the condition of things that exists to-day. There exists, under the +guise of individual production, a distribution of property by means of +purely objective movements of society. For there is a certain natural +solidarity in things as they are, only being under no rational control, +it operates as a wild natural force, as a kind of fate destroying all +rational freedom and all rational responsibility in economic affairs. In +a sense, there never was more solidarity than there is now; there never +was so much interdependence. Under the large system of production, +masses of workmen are simply so many component parts of a single great +machine driven by the judgment or recklessness of an individual +capitalist. With modern facilities of inter-communication, too, the +trade of the world is one and indivisible. A deficient cotton harvest in +America carries distress into thousands of households in Lyons, in +Elberfeld, in Manchester. A discovery of gold in Australia raises all +prices in Europe. A simple telegram stating that rape prospects are good +in Holland instantly deprives the oilworkers of Prussia of half their +wages. So far from there being any truth in the contention of +Schultze-Delitzsch, that the existing system is the only sound one, +because it is founded on the principle of making every man responsible +for his own doings, the very opposite is the case. The present system +makes every man responsible for what he does not do. In consequence of +the unprecedented interconnection of modern industry, the sum of +conditions needed to be known for its successful guidance have so +immensely increased that rational calculation is scarcely possible, and +men are enriched without any merit, and impoverished without any fault. +According to Lassalle, in the absence as yet of an adequate system of +commercial statistics, the number of known conditions is always much +smaller than the number of unknown, and the consequence is, that trade +is very much a game of chance. Everything in modern industrial economy +is ruled by social connections, by favourable or unfavourable situations +and opportunities. _Conjunctur_ is its great Orphic chain. Chance is its +Providence--Chance and his sole and equally blind counsellor, +Speculation. Every age and condition of society, says Lassalle, tends to +develop some phenomenon that more particularly expresses its type and +spirit, and the purest type of capitalistic society is the financial +speculator. Capital, he maintains, is a historical and not a logical +category, and the capitalist is a modern product. He is the development, +not of the ancient Croesus or the mediæval lord, but of the usurer, who +has taken their place, but was in their lifetime hardly a respectable +person. Croesus was a very rich man, but he was not a capitalist, for he +could do anything with his wealth except capitalize it. The idea of +money making money and of capital being self-productive, which Lassalle +takes to be the governing idea of the present order of things, was, he +says, quite foreign to earlier periods. Industry is now entirely under +the control of capitalists speculating for profit. No one now makes +things first of all for his own use--as mythologizing economists +relate--and then exchanges what is over for the like redundant work of +his neighbours. Men make everything first of all, and last of all, for +other people's use, and they make it at the direction and expense of a +capitalist who is speculating for money, and, in the absence of +systematic statistics, is speculating in the dark. Chance and social +connections make him rich, chance and social connections bring him to +ruin. Capital is not the result of saving, it is the result of +_Conjunctur_; and so are the vicissitudes and crises that have so +immensely increased in modern times. What you have now, therefore, says +Lassalle, is a system of socialism; wealth is at present distributed by +social means, and by nothing else; and all he contends for is, as he +says, to substitute a regulated and rational socialism for this anarchic +and natural socialism that now exists. + +His charge against the present system, however, is more than that it is +anarchic; he maintains it to be unjust--organically and hopelessly +unjust. The labourer's back is the green table on which the whole game +is played, and all losses are in the end sustained by him. A slightly +unfavourable turn of things sends him at once into want, while even a +considerably favourable one brings him no corresponding advantage, for, +according to all economists, wages are always the last thing to rise +with a reviving trade. The present system is, in fact, incapable of +doing the labourer justice, and would not suffer employers to do so even +if they wished. Injustice is bred in its very bone and blood. In this +contention Lassalle builds his whole argument on premises drawn from the +accepted economic authorities. Socialist economics, he says, is nothing +but a battle against Ricardo, whom he describes as the last and most +representative development of _bourgeois_ economics; and it fights the +battle with Ricardo's own weapons, and on Ricardo's own ground. There +are two principles in particular of which it makes much use--Ricardo's +law of value and Ricardo's law of natural or necessary wages. + +Ricardo's law of value is that the value of a commodity, or the quantity +of any other commodity for which it will exchange, depends on the +relative quantity of labour which is necessary for its production, and +not on the greater or less compensation which is paid for that labour. +Value is thus resolved into so much labour, or what is the same thing, +so much time consumed in labour, mental and manual, upon the commodity. +This reduction of value to quantity of time is reckoned by Lassalle the +one great merit of Ricardo and the English economists. Ricardo, however, +strictly limited his law to commodities that admitted of indefinite +multiplication, the value of other commodities being, he held, regulated +by their scarcity; and he confined it to the normal value of the +commodities only, the fluctuations of their market-price depending on +other considerations. But Lassalle seeks to make it cover these cases +also by means of a distinction he draws between individual time of +labour, and socially necessary time of labour. According to this +distinction, what constitutes the value of a product is not the time +actually taken or required by the person who made it; for he may have +been indolent or slow, or may not have used the means and appliances +which the age he lived in afforded him. What constitutes value is the +average time of labour socially necessary, the time required by labour +of average efficiency using the methods the age supplies. If the +commodity can be produced in an hour, an hour's work will be its value, +though you have taken ten to produce it by slower methods. So far there +is nothing very remarkable, but Lassalle goes on to argue that you may +waste your time not merely by using methods that society has superseded, +but by producing commodities that society no longer wants. You go on +making shoe-buckles after they have gone out of fashion, and you can get +nothing for them. They have no value. And why? Because, while they +indeed represent labour, they do not represent socially necessary +labour. So again with over-production: you may produce a greater amount +of a commodity than society requires at the time. The value of the +commodity falls. Why? Because while it has cost as much actual labour as +before, it has not cost so much socially necessary labour. In fact, the +labour it has taken has been socially unnecessary, for there was no +demand for the product. On the other hand--and we are entitled to make +this expansion of Lassalle's argument--take the case of +under-production, of deficient supply. Prices rise. What is usually +known as a scarcity value is conferred on commodities. But this scarcity +value Lassalle converts into a labour value; the commodity is produced +by the same individual labour, but the labour is more socially +necessary. In plain English, there is more demand for the product. + +Lassalle's distinction is thus an ingenious invention for expressing +rarity value in terms of labour value. It has no theoretical importance, +but is of some practical service in the socialistic argument. That +argument is not that value is constituted by labour pure and simple, but +by labour modified by certain general conditions of society; only it +holds that these conditions--conditions of productivity, of rarity, of +demand--have been created by nobody in particular, that, therefore, +nobody in particular should profit by them, and that so far as the +problem of the distribution of value goes, the one factor in the +constitution of value which needs to be taken into account in settling +that problem, is labour. All value comes from labour, represents so much +time of labour, is, in fact, so much "labour-jelly," so much preserved +labour. + +While one accepted economic law thus declares that all value is +conferred by the labourer, and is simply his sweat, brain, and sinew +incorporated in the product, another economic law declares that he gains +no advantage from the productivity of his own work, and that whatever +value he produces, he earns only the same wages--bare customary +subsistence. In that lies the alleged injustice of the present system. +Von Thuenen, the famous Feudalist landowner and economic +experimentalist, said, many years ago, that when the modern working +class once began to ask the question, What is natural wages? a +revolution might arise which would reduce Europe to barbarism. This is +the question Lassalle asked, and by which mainly he stirred up +socialism. The effect of the previous argument was to raise the +question, What is the labourer entitled to get? and to suggest the +answer, he is entitled to get everything. The next question is, What, +then, does the labourer actually get? and the answer is, that on the +economists' own showing, he gets just enough to keep soul and body +together, and on the present system can never get any more. Ricardo, in +common with other economists, had taught that the value of labour, like +the value of everything else, was determined by the cost of its +production, and that the cost of the production of labour meant the cost +of the labourer's subsistence according to the standard of living +customary among his class at the time. Wages might rise for a season +above this level, or fall for a season below it, but they always tended +to return to it again, and would not permanently settle anywhere else. +When they rose higher, the labouring class were encouraged by their +increased prosperity to marry, and eventually their numbers were thus +multiplied to such a degree that by the force of ordinary competition +the rate of wages was brought down again; when they fell lower, +marriages diminished and mortality increased among the working class, +and the result was such a reduction of their numbers as to raise the +rate of wages again to its old level. This is the economic law of +natural or necessary wages--"the iron and cruel law" which Lassalle +declared absolutely precluded the wage-labourers--_i.e._, 96 per cent. +of the population--from all possibility of ever improving their +condition or benefiting in the least from the growing productivity of +their own work. This law converted industrial freedom into an aggravated +slavery. The labourer was unmanned, taken out of a relationship which, +with all its faults, was still a human and personal one, put under an +impersonal and remorseless economic law, sent like a commodity to be +bought in the cheapest market, and there dispossessed by main force of +competition of the value of the property which his own hands had made. +_Das Eigenthum ist Fremdthum geworden._ + +It is no wonder that teaching like this should move the minds of working +men to an intolerable sense of despair and wrong. Nor was there any +possibility of hope except in a revolution. For the injustice complained +of lay in the essence of the existing economic system, and could not be +removed, except with the complete abolition of the system. The only +solution of the question, therefore, was a socialistic reconstruction +which should make the instruments of production collective property, and +subordinate capital to labour, but such a solution would of course be +the work of generations, and meanwhile, the easiest method of transition +from the old order of things to the new, lay in establishing productive +associations of working men on State credit. These would form the living +seed-corn of the new era. This was just Louis Blanc's scheme, with two +differences--viz., that the associations were to be formed gradually, +and that they were to be formed voluntarily. The State was not asked to +introduce a new organization of labour by force all at once, but merely +to lend capital at interest to one sound and likely association after +another, as they successively claimed its aid. This loan was not to be +gratuitous, as the French socialists used to demand in 1848, and since +there would be eventually only one association of the same trade in each +town, and since, besides, they would also establish a system of mutual +assurance against loss, trade by trade, the State, it was urged, would +really incur no risk. Lassalle, speaking of State help, said he did not +want a hand from the State, but only a little finger, and he actually +sought, in the first instance at least, no more than Mr. Gladstone gave +in the Irish Land Act. The scheme was mainly urged, of course, in the +interests of a sounder distribution of wealth; but Lassalle contended +that it would also increase production; and it is important to remember +that he says it would not otherwise be economically justifiable, because +"an increase of production is an indispensable condition of every +improvement of our social state." This increase would be effected by a +saving of cost, in abolishing local competition, doing away with +middle-men and private capitalists, and adapting production better to +needs. The business books of the association would form the basis of a +sound and trustworthy system of commercial statistics, so much required +for the purpose of avoiding over-production. The change would, he +thought, also introduce favourable alterations in consumption, and in +the direction of production; inasmuch as the taste of the working class +for the substantial and the beautiful, would more and more supplant the +taste of the _bourgeoisie_ for the cheap and nasty. + +After the death of Lassalle, the movement he began departed somewhat +from the lines on which he launched it. 1st, His plan of replacing +capitalistic industry by productive associations of labourers, founded +on State credit, had always seemed a mockery, or, at least, a makeshift, +to many of the socialists of Germany. It would not destroy competition, +for one association would still of necessity compete with another; and +it would not secure to every man the right to the full product of his +labour, for the members of the stronger productive associations would be +able to exploit the members of the weaker as the ordinary result of +their inter-competition. In other words, Lassalle's plan would not in +their eyes realize the socialist claim, as that claim had been taught to +them by Marx. Their claim could only be realized by the conversion of +all industrial instruments into public property, and the systematic +conduct of all industry by the public authority; and why not aim +straight for that result, they asked, instead of first bringing in a +merely transitional period of productive associations, which would, on +Lassalle's own calculations, take two hundred years to create, and which +might not prove transitional to the socialist state after all? Rodbertus +even had gone against Lassalle on this point, because he wanted to see +individual property converted into national property, and thought +converting it first into joint stock property was really to prevent +rather than promote the main end he had in view. + +Then, 2nd, Lassalle was a national, not an international socialist. He +held that every country should solve its own social question for itself, +and that the working-class movement was not, and should not be made, +cosmopolitan. He was even--as Prince Bismarck said in Parliament, when +taxed with having personal relations with him--patriotic. At least he +was an intense believer in Prussia; less, however, because he was a +Prussian than because Prussia was a strong State, and because he thought +that strong States alone could do the world's work in Germany or +elsewhere. By nationality in itself he set but little store; a +nationality had a right to separate existence if it could assert it, but +if it were weak and struggling, its only duty was to submit with +thankfulness to annexation by a stronger power. He wished his followers, +therefore, to keep aloof from the doings of other nations, and to +concentrate their whole exertions upon victory at the elections in their +own country and the gradual development of productive associations on +national loans. This restriction of the range of the movement had from +the first dissatisfied some of its adherents, especially a certain +active section who hated Prussia as much as Lassalle believed in her, +and after the influence of the International began to make itself felt +upon the agitation in Germany, this difference of opinion gathered +gradually to a head. In 1868 a motion was brought before the general +meeting of the League in favour of establishing relations with the +International and accepting its programme. The chief promoters of this +motion were the two present leaders of the Social Democratic party in +the Reichstag, Liebknecht and Bebel, and it was strongly opposed by the +president of the League, Dr. von Schweitzer, an advocate in Frankfort, +and a strong champion of Prussia, who was elected to the presidency in +1866, just at the time the extension of the suffrage gave a fresh +impetus to the movement, and whose energy and gifts of management +contributed greatly to the development of the organization. The motion +was carried by a substantial majority, but before next year Von +Schweitzer had succeeded in turning the tables on his opponents, and at +the general meeting in 1869, Liebknecht and Bebel were expelled from the +League, as traitors to the labourers' cause. After their expulsion they +called together in the same year a congress of working men at Eisenach, +which was attended mainly by delegates from Austria and South Germany, +and founded an independent organization on the principles of the +International, and under the name of the Social Democratic Labour Party +of Germany. The two organizations existed side by side till 1874, when a +union was effected between them at a general meeting at Gotha, and they +became henceforth the Socialist Labour Party. This was the burial of the +national socialism of Lassalle, for though in deference to his +followers, the new programme promised in the meantime to work within +national limits, it expressly recognised that the labourers' movement +was international, and that the great aim to be striven after was a +state of society in which every man should be obliged to share in the +general labour according to his powers, and have a right to receive from +the aggregate product of labour according to what was termed his +rational requirements. Some "orthodox Lassalleans," as they called +themselves, held aloof from this compromise, but they are too few to be +of any importance. They still remain apart from the main body of German +socialism, and live in such good odour with the Government, whether on +account of their unimportance or of their supposed loyalty, that they +were never molested by any application of the Socialist Laws which were +enforced for twelve years strenuously against all other socialists. + +Among the causes which brought the others to so much unanimity was +undoubtedly the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, which was +viewed with universal aversion by socialists of every shade. On the +outbreak of the war, Schweitzer and the members of the original League +gave their sympathies warmly to the arms of their country, and the +Social Democratic party was nearly equally divided on the subject; but +after the foundation of the French Republic, they all with one consent +declared that the war ought now to cease, and the socialist deputies, no +matter which organization they belonged to, voted without exception +against granting supplies for its continuance. They were likewise +opposed to the recognition of the title of Emperor and to the +constitution of the Empire, and indeed as republicans they could not be +anything else. From a recollection mainly of these votes Prince Bismarck +considered the movement to be unpatriotic and hostile to the Empire, and +accordingly suppressed its propaganda in 1878, when its growth seemed +likely to prove a serious danger to an Empire whose stability was still +far from being assured by any experience of its advantages. The +socialists retorted upon this policy at their congress at Wyden, +Switzerland, in 1880, by striking out of their programme the limitation +of proceeding by legal means, on the ground that the action of the +Government having made legal means impracticable, no resource was left +but to meet force by force. They thus threw aside the last shred of the +practical policy of Lassalle, and stood out thenceforth as a party of +international revolution. + +The movement could, however, hardly help becoming international; not, as +some allege, because this is a peculiarity of revolutionary parties; on +the contrary, other parties may also exhibit it. What, for example, was +the Holy Alliance but an international league of the monarchical and +aristocratic parties against the advance of popular rights? Nor is it a +peculiarity of the present time only. No doubt the increased +inter-communication and inter-dependence between countries now +facilitates its development. There are no longer nations in Europe, said +Heine, but only parties. But in reality it has always been nearly as +much so as now. Any party founded on a definite general principle or +interest may in any age become international, and even what may seem +unpatriotic. The Protestants of France in the 16th century sought help +from England, and the Jacobites of England in the 18th sought help from +France; just as the German socialists of 1870 sided with the French +after Sedan, and the French communists of 1871 preferred to see their +country occupied by the Germans rather than governed by the +"Versaillais." In all these cases the party principles were naturally +international, and the party bias overcame the patriotic. + +Besides, the socialist is, almost by necessity of his position and +principles, predisposed to discourage and condemn patriotism. Others, +indeed, condemn it as well as he. Most of the great writers who revived +German literature towards the beginning of this century--Lessing, +Herder, Wieland, Goethe--have all disparaged it. They looked on it as a +narrow and obsolete virtue, useful enough perhaps in rude times, but a +hindrance to rational progress now; the modern virtue was humanity, the +idea of which had just freshly burst upon their age like a new power. +This consideration may no doubt to some extent weigh with socialists +also, for their whole thinking is leavened with the notion of humanity, +but their most immediate objection to patriotism is one of a practical +nature. Their complaint used always to be that the proletarian had no +country, because he was excluded from political rights. He was not a +citizen, and why should he have the feelings of one? But now he has got +political rights, and they still complain. He is in the country, they +say, but not yet of it. He is practically excluded from its +civilization, from all that makes the country worth living or fighting +for. He has no country, for he is denied a man's share in the life that +is going in any. Edmund Ludlow wrote over his door in exile-- + + + "Every land is my fatherland, + For all lands are my Father's." + + +The modern socialist says, No land is my fatherland, for in none am I a +son. He believes himself to be equally neglected in all, and that is +precisely the severest strain that can try the patriotic sentiment. The +proletarian is taught that in every country he is a slave, and that +patriotism and religion only reconcile him to remaining so. Moreover, as +Rodbertus has remarked, the social question itself is, in a sense, +international because it is social. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +KARL MARX. + + +In opening the present chapter in the previous edition of this book, I +said it was not a little remarkable that the works of Karl Marx, which +had then excited considerable commotion in other European countries, +were still absolutely unknown in England, though England was the country +where they were written, and to whose circumstances they were, in their +author's judgment, pre-eminently applicable. His principal work, "Das +Kapital," is a criticism of modern industrial development as explained +by English economists and exemplified in English society. It shows a +rare knowledge of English economic literature, even of the most obscure +writers; it goes very fully into the conditions of English labour as +described in our parliamentary reports; and out of four hundred odd +books it quotes, more than three hundred are English books. Its +illustrations are drawn from English industrial life, and its very money +allusions are stated in terms of English coin. Its chief doctrine, +moreover, was an old English doctrine, familiar among the disciples of +Owen; and to crown all, if the author's belief was true, England was the +country ripest for its reception, for the socialist revolution, he +thought, would inevitably come when the working class sunk into the +condition of a proletariat, and the working class of England had been a +proletariat for many years already. Yet Marx's work was not at that time +(1884) translated into English, though it had been into most other +European languages, and had enjoyed a very large sale even in Russia, to +whose circumstances it had admittedly very little adaptation. An English +translation appeared at length, however, in 1887, twenty years after the +publication of the original, and a considerable edition was disposed of +within a year, though the price was high. We have therefore grown more +familiar of late with the name and importance of Karl Marx. + +Born at Trèves in 1818, the son of a Christian Jew who had a high post +in the civil service, Marx was sent to the University of Bonn, towards +the end of the '30s, won a considerable reputation there in philosophy +and jurisprudence, determined, like Lassalle, to devote himself to the +academic profession, and seemed destined for an eminently successful +career, in which his subsequent marriage with the sister of the Prussian +Minister of State, Von Westphalen, would certainly have facilitated his +advancement. But at the University he came under the spell of Hegel, and +passed, step by step, with the Extreme Left of the Hegelian school, into +the philosophical, religious, and political Radicalism which finally +concentrated into the Humanism of Feuerbach. Just as he had finished his +curriculum, the accession of Frederick William IV. in 1840 stirred a +rustle of most misplaced expectation among the Liberals of Germany, who +thought the day of freedom was at length to break, and who rose with +generous eagerness to the tasks to which it was to summon them. Under +the influence of these hopes and feelings, Marx abandoned the +professorial for an editorial life, and committed himself at the very +outset of his days to a political position which compromised him +hopelessly with German governments, and forced him, step by step, into a +long career of revolutionary agitation and organization. He joined the +staff of the _Rhenish Gazette_, which was founded at that time in +Cologne by the leading Liberals of the Rhine country, including +Camphausen and Hansemann, and which was the organ of the Young Hegelian, +or Philosophical Radical Party, and he made so great an impression by +his bold and vigorous criticism of the proceedings of the Rhenish +Landtag that he was appointed editor of the newspaper in 1842. In this +post he continued his attacks on the Government, and they were at once +so effective and so carefully worded that a special censor was sent from +Berlin to Cologne to take supervision of his articles, and when this +agency proved ineffectual, the journal was suppressed by order of the +Prussian Ministry in 1843. From Cologne Marx went to Paris to be a joint +editor of the _Deutsche Französische Jahrbücher_ with Arnold Ruge, a +leader of the Hegelian Extreme Left, who had been deprived of his +professorship at the University of Halle by the Prussian Government, and +whose magazine, the _Deutsche Jahrbücher_, published latterly at Leipzig +to escape the Prussian authority, had just been suppressed by the Saxon. +The _Deutsche Französische Jahrbücher_ were published by the well-known +Julius Froebel, who had some time before given up his professorship at +Zürich to edit a democratic newspaper, and open a shop for the sale of +democratic literature; who professed himself a communist in Switzerland, +and had written some able works, with very radical and socialistic +leanings, but who seems to have gone on a different tack at the time of +the Lassallean movement, for he was--as Meding shows us in his "Memoiren +zur Zeitgeschichte"--the prime promoter of the ill-fated Congress of +Princes at Frankfort in 1865. The new magazine was intended to be a +continuation of the suppressed _Deutsche Jahrbücher_, on a more extended +plan, embracing French as well as German contributors, and supplying in +some sort a means of uniting the Extreme Left of both nations; but no +French contribution ever appeared in it, and it ceased altogether in a +year's time, probably for commercial reasons, though there is no +unlikelihood in the allegation sometimes made, that it was stopped in +consequence of a difference between the editors as to the treatment of +the question of communism. + +The Young Hegelians had already begun to take the keenest interest in +that question, but were, for a time, curiously perplexed as to the +attitude they should assume towards it. They seem to have been +fascinated and repelled by turns by the system, and to have been equally +unable to cast it aside or to commit themselves fairly to it. Karl Grün, +himself a Young Hegelian, says that at first they feared socialism, and +points, for striking evidence of this, to the fact that the _Rhenish +Gazette_ bestowed an enthusiastic welcome on Stein's book on French +communism, although that book condemned the system from a theologically +orthodox and politically reactionary point of view. But he adds that the +Young Hegelians contributed to the spread of socialism against their +will, that it was through the interest they took in its speculations and +experiments that socialism acquired credit and support in public opinion +in Germany, and that the earliest traces of avowed socialism are to be +found in the _Rhenish Gazette_. If we may judge by the extracts from +some of Marx's articles in that journal which are given in Bruno Bauer's +"Vollständige Geschichte der Parthei-Kämpfe in Deutschland während der +Jahre 1842-46," we should say that Marx was even at this early period a +decided socialist, for he often complains of the great wrong "the poor +dumb millions" suffer in being excluded by their poverty from the +possibility of a free development of their powers, "and from any +participation in the fruits of civilization," and maintains that the +State had far other duty towards them than to come in contact with them +only through the police. When Ruge visited Cabet in Paris, he said that +he and his friends (meaning, he explained, the philosophical and +political opposition) stood so far aloof from the question of communism +that they had never yet so much as raised it, and that, while there were +communists in Germany, there was no communistic party. This statement is +probably equivalent to saying that he and his school took as yet a +purely theoretical and Platonic interest in socialism, and had not come +to adopt it as part of their practical programme. Most of them were +already communists by conviction, and the others felt their general +philosophical and political principles forcing them towards communism, +and the reason of their hesitation in accepting it is probably expressed +by Ruge, when he says (in an article in Heinzen's "Die Opposition," p. +103), that the element of truth in communism was its sense of the +necessity of political emancipation, but that there was a great danger +of communists forgetting the political question in their zeal for the +social. It was chiefly under the influence of the Humanism into which +Feuerbach had transformed the Idealism of Hegel, that the Hegelian Left +passed into communism. Humanist and communist became nearly convertible +terms. Friedrich Engels mentions in his book on the condition of the +English working classes, published in 1845, that all the German +communists of that day were followers of Feuerbach, and most of the +followers of Feuerbach in Germany (Ruge seems to have remained an +exception) were communists. Lassalle was one of Feuerbach's +correspondents, and after he started the present socialist movement in +Germany, he wrote Feuerbach on 21st October, 1863, saying that the +Progressists were political rationalists of the feeblest type, and that +it was the same battle which Feuerbach was waging in the theological, +and he himself now in the political and economic sphere. Stein +attributed French socialism greatly to the prevailing sensualistic +character of French philosophy, which conceived enjoyment to be man's +only good, and never rose to what he calls the great German conception, +the logical conception of the Ego, the idea of knowing for the sake of +knowing. The inference this contrast suggests is that the metaphysics of +Germany had been her protector, her national guard, against socialism, +but as we see, at the very time he was writing the guard was turning +traitor, and a native socialism was springing up by natural generation +out of the idealistic philosophy. The fact, however, rather confirms the +force of Stein's remark, for the Hegelian idealism first bred the more +sensualistic system of humanism, and then humanism bred socialism. + +Hegel had transformed the transcendental world of current opinion, with +its personal Deity and personal immortality, into a world of reason; and +Feuerbach went a step further, and abolished what he counted the +transcendency of reason itself. Heaven and God, he entirely admitted, +were nothing but subjective illusions, fantastic projections of man's +own being and his own real world into external spheres. But mind, an +abstract entity, and reason, a universal and single principle, were, in +his opinion, illusions too. There was nothing real but man--the concrete +flesh and blood man who thinks and feels. "God," says Feuerbach, +speaking of his mental development, "was my first thought, Reason my +second, Man my third and last." He passed, as Lange points out, through +Comte's three epochs. Theology was swept away, and then metaphysics, and +in its room came a positive and materialistic anthropology which +declared that the senses were the sole sources of real knowledge, that +the body was not only part of man's being, but its totality and essence, +and, in short, that man is what he eats--_Der Mensch ist was er isst_. +Man, therefore, had no other God before man, and the promotion of man's +happiness and culture in this earthly life--which was his only life--was +the sole natural object of his political or religious interest. This +system was popularized by Feuerbach's brother Friedrich, in a little +work called the "Religion of the Future," which enjoyed a high authority +among the German communists, and formed a kind of lectionary they read +and commented on at their stated meetings. The object of the new +religion is thus described in it:--"Man alone is our God, our father, +our judge, our redeemer, our true home, our law and rule, the alpha and +omega of our political, moral, public, and domestic life and work. There +is no salvation but by man." And the cardinal articles of the faith are +that human nature is holy, that the impulse to pleasure is holy, that +everything which gratifies it is holy, that every man is destined and +entitled to be happy, and for the attainment of this end has the right +to claim the greatest possible assistance from others, and the duty to +afford the same to them in turn. + +Now the tendency of this metaphysical and moral teaching was strongly +democratic and socialistic. There was said to be in the existing +political system a false transcendency identical with that of the +current religious system. King and council hovered high and away above +the real life of society in a world of their own, looking on political +power as a kind of private property, and careless of mankind, from whom +it sprang, to whom it belonged, and by whom and for whom it should be +administered. "The princes are gods," says Feuerbach, "and they must +share the same fate. The dissolution of theology into anthropology in +the field of thought is the dissolution of monarchy into republic in the +field of politics. Dualism, separation is the essence of theology; +dualism, separation is the essence of monarchy. There we have the +antithesis of God and world; here we have the antithesis of State and +people." This dualism must be abolished. The State must be +_humanized_--must be made an instrument in the hands of all for the +welfare of all; and its inhabitants must be _politized_, for they, all +of them, constitute the _polis_. Man must no longer be a means, but must +be everywhere and always an end. There was nobody above man; there was +neither superhuman person, nor consecrated, person; neither deity, nor +divine right. And, on the other hand, as there is no person who in being +or right is more than man, so there must be no person who is less. There +must be no _unmenschen_, no slaves, no heretics, no outcasts, no +outlaws, but every being who wears human flesh must be placed in the +enjoyment of the full rights and privileges of man. The will of man be +done, hallowed be his name. + +These principles already bring us to the threshold of socialism, and now +Feuerbach's peculiar ethical principle carries us into its courts. That +principle has been well termed Tuism, to distinguish it from Egoism. The +human unit is not the individual, but man in converse with man, the +sensual Ego with the sensual Tu. The isolated man is incomplete, both as +a moral and as a thinking being. "The nature of man is contained only in +the community, in the unity of man with man. Isolation is finitude and +limitation, community is freedom and infinity. Man by himself is but +man; man with man, the unity of I and Thou, is God." Feuerbach +personally never became a communist, for he says his principle was +neither egoism nor communism, but the combination of both. They were +equally true, for they were inseparable, and to condemn self-love would +be, he declared, to condemn love to others at the same time, for love to +others was nothing but a recognition that their self-love was +justifiable. But it is easy to perceive the natural tendency of the +teaching that the social man was the true human unit and essence, and +was to the individual as a God. With most of his disciples Humanism +meant making the individual disappear in the community, making egoism +disappear in love, and making private property disappear in collective. +Hess flatly declared that "the species was the end, and the individuals +were only means." Ruge disputed this doctrine, and contended that the +empirical individual was the true human unit and the true end; but even +he said that socialism was the humanism of common life. Grün passes into +socialism by simply applying to property Feuerbach's method of dealing +with theology and monarchy. He argues that if the true essence of man is +the social man, then, just as theology is anthropology, so is +anthropology socialism, for property is at present entirely alienated, +externalized from the social man. There is a false transcendency in it, +like that of divinity and monarchy. "Deal, therefore," he says, "with +the practical God, money, as Feuerbach dealt with the theoretical"; +humanize it. Make property an inalienable possession of manhood, of +every man as man. For property is a necessary material for his social +activity, and therefore ought to belong as inalienably and essentially +to him as everything which he otherwise possesses of means or materials +for his activity in life; as inalienably, for example, as his body or +his personal acquirements. If man is the social man, some social +possession is then necessary to his manhood, and might be called an +essential part of it; but existing property is something outside, as +separate from him as heaven or the sovereign power. Grün accordingly +says that Feuerbach's "Essence of Christianity" supplies the theoretical +basis for Proudhon's social system, because the latter only applies to +practical life the principles which the former applied to religion and +metaphysics, but he admits that neither Feuerbach nor Proudhon would +acknowledge the connection. + +We thus see how theoretical humanism--a philosophy and a religion--led +easily over into the two important articles of practical humanism, a +democratic transformation of the State and a communistic transformation +of society. This was the ideal of the humanists, and it contains ample +and wide-reaching positive features; but when it came to practical +action they preferred for the present to take up an attitude of simple +but implacable negation to the existing order of things. No doubt +variety of opinion existed among them; but if they are to be judged by +what seemed their dominant interest, they were revolutionaries and +nothing else. They repudiated with one consent the socialist utopias of +France, and refrained on principle from committing themselves to, or +even discussing, any positive scheme of reconstruction whatsoever. They +held it premature to think of positive proposals, which would, moreover, +be sure to sow divisions among themselves. Their first great business +was not to build up, but to destroy, and their work in the meantime was +therefore to develop the revolutionary spirit to its utmost possible +energy, by exciting hatred against all existing institutions; in short, +to create an immense reservoir of revolutionary energy which might be +turned to account when its opportunity arrived. Their position is +singularly like the phase of Russian nihilism described by Baron Fircks, +and presented to us in Turgenieff's novels. It is expressed very plainly +by W. Marr, himself an active humanist, who carried Feuerbach's "Essence +of Christianity" as his constant companion, and founded a secret society +for promoting humanistic views. In his interesting book on Secret +Societies in Switzerland, he says, "The masses can only be gathered +under the flag of negation. When you present detailed plans, you excite +controversies and sow divisions; you repeat the mistake of the French +socialists, who have scattered their redoubtable forces because they +tried to carry formulated systems. We are content to lay down the +foundation of the revolution. We shall have deserved well of it if we +stir hatred and contempt against all existing institutions. We make war +against all prevailing ideas, of religion, of the State, of country, of +patriotism. The idea of God is the keystone of a perverted civilization. +It must be destroyed. The true root of liberty, of equality, of culture, +is Atheism. Nothing must restrain the spontaneity of the human mind." +All this work of annihilation could neither be done by reform, nor by +conspiracy, but only by revolution, and "a revolution is never made; it +makes itself." While the revolution was making, Marr founded an +association in Switzerland, "Young Germany," which should prepare +society for taking effective action when the hour came. There was a +"Young Germany" in Switzerland when he arrived there; part of a +federation of secret societies established by Mazzini in 1834, under the +general name of "Young Europe," and comprising three series of +societies:--"Young Italy," composed of Italians; "Young Poland," of +Poles; and "Young Germany," of Germans. But this organization was not at +all to Marr's mind, because it concerned itself with nothing but +politics, and because its method was conspiracy. "Great +transformations," he said, "are never prepared by conspiracies," and it +was a very great transformation indeed that he contemplated. He +therefore formed a "Young Germany" of his own. His plan was to plant a +lodge, or "family," wherever there existed a German working men's +association. The members of this family became members of the +association, and formed a leaven which influenced all around them, and, +through the wandering habits of the German working class, was carried to +much wider circles. The family met for political discussion once a week, +read Friedrich Feuerbach together on the Sundays with fresh recruits, +who, when they had mastered him, were said to have put off the old man; +and their very password was _humanity_, a brother being recognised by +using the half-word _human_--? interrogatively, and the other replying +by the remaining half--_ität_. The members were all ardent democrats, +but, as a rule, so national in their sympathies that the leaders made it +one great object of their _disciplina arcani_ to stifle the sentiment of +patriotism by subjecting it to constant ridicule. + +Their relations to communism are not quite easy to determine. Marr +himself sometimes expresses disapproval of the system. He says, +"Communism is the expression of impotence of will. The communists lack +confidence in themselves. They suffer under social oppression, and look +around for consolation instead of seeking for weapons to emancipate +themselves with. It is only a world-weariness desiring illusion as the +condition of its life." He says the belief in the absolute dependence of +man on matter is the shortest and most pregnant definition of communism, +and that it starts from the principle that man is a slave and incapable +of emancipating himself. But, on the other hand, he complains that the +members of "Young Germany" did not sufficiently appreciate the social +question, being disgusted with the fanaticism of the communists. By the +communists, he here means the followers of Weitling and Albrecht, who +were at that time creating a party movement in Switzerland. The prophet +Albrecht, as he is called, was simply a crazy mystic with proclivities +to sedition which brought him at length to prison for six years, and +which took there an eschatological turn from his having, it is said, +nothing to read but the Bible, so that on his release he went about +prophesying that Jehovah had prepared a way in the desert, which was +Switzerland, for bringing into Europe a reign of peace, in which people +should hold all things in common and enjoy complete sensuous happiness, +sitting under their common vine and fig-tree, with neither king nor +priest to make them any more afraid. Weitling was not quite so +unimportant, but the attention he excited at the time is certainly not +justified by any of the writings he has left us. He was a tailor from +Magdeburg, who was above his work, believing himself to be a poet and a +man of letters, condemned by hard fate and iniquitous social +arrangements to a dull and cruel lot. Having gone to Paris when +socialism was the rage there, he eagerly embraced that new gospel, and +went to Switzerland to carry its message of hope to his own German +countrymen. There he forsook the needle altogether, and lived as the +paid apostle of the dignity of manual labour, for which he had himself +little mind. His ideas are crude, confused, and arbitrary. His ideal of +society was a community of labourers, with no State, no Church, no +individual property, no distinction of rank or position, no nationality, +no fatherland. All were to have equal rights and duties, and each was to +be put in a position to develop his capacity and gratify his bents as +far as possible. He was moved more by the desire for abstract equality +than German socialists of the humanist or contemporary type, for they do +not build on the justice of a more equal distribution of wealth so much +as on the necessity of the possession of property for the free +development of the human personality. He is entirely German, however, in +his idea of the government of the new society. It was to be governed by +the three greatest philosophers of the age, assisted by a board of +trade, a board of health, and a board of education. In Switzerland he +founded, to promote his views, a secret society, the "Alliance of the +Just," which had branches in most of the Swiss towns. Its members were +chiefly Germans from Germany, for very few of the communists in +Switzerland were born Swiss, and according to Marr, who was present at +some of their meetings, they were three-fourths of them tailors. "I +felt," says Marr, "when I entered one of these clubs, that I was with +the mother of tailors. The tailor sitting and chatting at his work is +always extreme in his opinions. Tailor and communist are synonymous +terms." It was to some of the leaders of this alliance that Weitling +unfolded his wild scheme of a proletariat raid, according to which an +army of 20,000 brigands was to be raised among the proletariat of the +large towns, to go with torch and sword into all the countries of +Europe, and terrify the _bourgeoisie_ into a recognition of universal +community of goods. It is only fair to add that his proposal met with no +favour. Letters were found in his possession, and subsequently published +in Bluntschli's official report, which show that some of Weitling's +correspondents regarded his scheme with horror, and others treated it +with ridicule. One of them said it was trying to found the kingdom of +heaven with the furies of hell. The relations between "Young Germany" +and Weitling's allies were apparently not cordial, though they had so +much in common that, on the one hand, Weitling's correspondents urge him +to keep on good terms with "Young Germany," and, on the other, Marr says +he actually tried to get a common standing ground with the communists, +and thought he had found it in the negation of the present system of +things--the negation of religion, the negation of patriotism, the +negation of subjection to authority. + +Now the importance of this excursus on the Young Hegelians lies in the +fact that Karl Marx was a humanist, and looked on humanism as the vital +and creative principle in the renovation of political and industrial +society. In the _Deutsche Französische Jahrbücher_ he published an +article on the Hegelian Philosophy of Right, in which he says: "The new +revolution will be introduced by philosophy. The revolutionary tradition +of Germany is theoretical. The Reformation was the work of a monk; the +Revolution will be the work of a philosopher." The particular philosophy +that was to do the work is that of the German critics, whose critique of +religion had ended in the dogma that man is the highest being for man, +and in the categorical imperative, "to destroy everything in the present +order of things that makes a man a degraded, insulted, forsaken, and +despised being." But philosophy cannot work a revolution without +material weapons; and it will find its material weapon in the +proletariat, which he owns, however, was at the time he wrote only +beginning to be formed in Germany. But when it rises in its strength, it +will be irresistible, and the revolution which it will accomplish will +be the only one known to history that is not utopian. Other revolutions +have been partial, wrought by a class in the interests of a class; but +this one will be a universal and uniform revolution, effected in the +name of all society, for the proletariat is a class which possesses a +universal character because it dissolves all other separate classes into +itself. It is the only class that takes its stand on a human and not a +historical title. Its very sorrows and grievances have nothing special +or relative in them; they are the broad sorrows and grievances of +humanity. And its claims are like them; for it asks no special +privileges or special prerogatives; it asks nothing but what all the +world will share along with it. The history of the world is the judgment +of the world, and the duration of an order of things founded on the +ascendancy of a limited class possessing money and culture, is +practically condemned and foredoomed by the rapid multiplication of a +large class outside which possess neither. The growth of this latter +body not merely tends to produce, but actually _is_, the dissolution of +the existing system of things. For the existing system is founded on the +assertion of private property, but the proletariat is forced by society +to take the opposite principle of the negation of private property for +the principle of its own life, and will naturally carry that principle +into all society when it gains the power, as it is rapidly and +inevitably doing. Marx sums up: "The only practical emancipation for +Germany is an emancipation proceeding from the standpoint of the theory +which explains man to be the highest being for man. In Germany the +emancipation from the middle ages is only possible as at the same time +an emancipation from the partial conquests of the middle ages. In +Germany one kind of bond cannot be broken without all other bonds being +broken too. Germany is by nature too thorough to be able to +revolutionize without revolutionizing from a fundamental principle, and +following that principle to its utmost limits; and therefore the +emancipation of Germany will be the emancipation of man. The head of +this emancipation is philosophy; its heart is the proletariat." He adds +that when things are ripe, "when all the inner conditions have been +completed, the German resurrection day will be heralded by the crowing +of the Gallic cock." + +In this essay we mark already Marx's overmastering belief in natural +historical evolution, which he had learnt from Hegel, and which +prevented him from having any sympathy with the utopian projects of the +French socialists. They vainly imagined, he held, that they could create +a new world right off, whereas it was only possible to do so by +observing a rigorous conformity to the laws of the development already +in progress, by making use of the forces already at work, and proceeding +in the direction towards which the stream of things was itself slowly +but mightily moving. Hegel sought the principle of organic development +in the State, but Marx sought it rather in civil society, and believed +he had discovered it in that most mighty though unconscious product of +the large system of industry, the modern proletariat, which was born to +revolution as the sparks fly upward; and in the simultaneous decline of +the middle classes, that is, of the conservative element which could +resist the change. The process which was, as he held, now converting +society into an aggregate of beggars and millionaires was bound +eventually to overleap itself and land in a communism. I shall not +discuss the truth of this conception at present, but it contributes, +along with the sentiments of justice and humanity that animate--rightly +or wrongly--the ideal of the socialists, to lend something of a +religious force to their movement, for they feel that they are +fellow-workers with the nature of things. + +We left Marx in Paris, and on returning to him, we find him engaged--as +indeed we usually do when his history comes into notice--in a threefold +warfare. Besides his general war against the arrangements of modern +society, he is always carrying on a bitter and implacable war against +the Prussian Government, and is often engaged in controversy--sometimes +very personal--with foes of his own philosophical or revolutionary +household. After the cessation of the _Deutsche Französische +Jahrbücher_, Marx edited a paper called _Vorwärts_, and in this and +other journals open to him, he attacked the Prussian administration so +strongly that that administration complained to Guizot, who gave him +orders to quit France. His more personal controversy at this time arose +out of one of the schisms of the Young Hegelians, and he and his friend +Friedrich Engels wrote a pamphlet--"Die Heilige Familie"--against the +Hegelian Idealism, and especially against Bruno Bauer, who had offended +him--says Erdmann, in his "History of Philosophy"--at once as Jew, as +Radical, and as journalist. When expelled from France, he went to +Brussels, where he was allowed to continue his war upon the Prussian +Government without interference, till the revolution of 1848. During +this period he devoted his attention more particularly than hitherto to +commercial subjects, and published in 1846 his "Discours sur le +Libre-échange," and in 1847 his "Misère de la Philosophie," a reply to +Proudhon's "Philosophie de la Misère"--both in French. + +While in Brussels, Marx received an invitation from the London Central +Committee of the Communist League to join that society. This league had +been founded in Paris in 1836, for the purpose of propagating communist +opinions among the working men of Germany. Its organization was +analogous to that of the International and other societies of the same +kind. A certain number of members constituted a _Gemeinde_, the several +_Gemeinden_ in the same town constituted a _Kreis_, a number of _Kreise_ +were grouped into a leading _Kreis_, and at the head of the whole was +the Central Committee, which was chosen at a general congress of +deputies from all the _Kreise_, and which had since 1840 had its seat in +London. The method of the league was to establish, as a sphere of +operation, German working men's improvement associations everywhere. The +travelling custom of German working men greatly facilitated this work, +and numbers of these associations were soon founded in Switzerland, +England, Belgium, and the United States. The reason its committee +applied to Marx was that he had just published a series of pamphlets in +Brussels, in which, as he tells us, he "submitted to a merciless +criticism the medley of French-English socialism and communism and of +German philosophy, which then constituted the secret doctrine of the +League," and insisted that "their work could have no tenable theoretical +basis except that of a scientific insight into the economic structure of +society, and that this ought to be put into a popular form, not with the +view of carrying out any utopian system, but of promoting among the +working classes and other classes a self-conscious participation in the +process of historical transformation of society that was taking place +under their eyes." This is always with Marx the distinctive and ruling +feature of his system. The French schemes were impracticable utopias, +because they ignored the laws of history and the real structure of +economic society; and he claims that his own proposals are not only +practicable but inevitable, because they strictly observe the line of +the actual industrial evolution, and are thus, at worst, plans for +accelerating the day after to-morrow. But, besides this difference of +principle, Marx thought the League should also change its method and +tactics. Its work, being that of social revolution, was different from +the work of the old political conspirators and secret societies, and +therefore needed different weapons; the times, too, were changed, and +offered new instruments. Street insurrections, surprises, intrigues, +_pronunciamentos_ might overturn a dynasty, or oust a government, or +bring them to reason, but were of no avail in the world for introducing +collective property or abolishing wage labour. People would just begin +again the day after to work for hire and rent their farms as they did +before. A social revolution needed other and larger preparation; it +needed to have the whole population first thoroughly leavened with its +principles; nay, it needed to possess an international character, +depending not on detached local outbreaks, but on steady concert in +revolutionary action on the part of the labouring classes everywhere. +The cause was not political, or even national, but social; and +society--which was indeed already pregnant with the change--must be +aroused to a conscious consent to the delivery. What was first to be +done, therefore, was to educate and move public opinion, and in this +work the ordinary secret society went but a little way. A secret +propaganda might still be carried on, but a public and open propaganda +was more effectual and more suitable to the times. There never existed +greater facilities for such a movement, and they ought to make use of +all the abundant means of popular agitation and intercommunication which +modern society allowed. No more secret societies in holes and corners, +no more small risings and petty plots, but a great broad organization +working in open day, and working restlessly by tongue and pen to stir +the masses of all European countries to a common international +revolution. Marx sought, in short, to introduce the large system of +production into the art of conspiracy. + +Finding his views well received by the Central Committee of the +Communist League, he acceded to their request to attend their General +Congress at London in 1847, and then, after several weeks of keen +discussion, he prevailed upon the Congress to adopt "the Manifesto of +the Communist party," which was composed by himself and Engels, and +which was afterwards translated from the German into English, French, +Danish, and Italian, and sown broadcast everywhere just before the +Revolution of 1848. This Communist League may be said to be the first +organization--and this Communist Manifesto the first public +declaration--of the International Socialist Democracy that now is. The +Manifesto begins by describing the revolutionary situation into which +the course of industrial development has brought modern society. Classes +were dying out; the yeomanry, the nobility, the small tradesmen, would +soon be no more; and society was drawn up in two widely separated +hostile camps, the large capitalist class or _bourgeoisie_, who had all +the property and power in the country, and the labouring class, the +proletariat, who had nothing of either. The _bourgeoisie_ had played a +most revolutionary part in history. They had overturned feudalism, and +now they had created proletarianism, which would soon swamp themselves. +They had collected the masses in great towns; they had kept the course +of industry in perpetual flux and insecurity by rapid successive +transformations of the instruments and processes of production, and by +continual recurrences of commercial crises; and while they had reduced +all other classes to a proletariat, they had made the life of the +proletariat one of privation, of uncertainty, of discontent, of +incipient revolution. They exploited the labourer of political power; +they exploited him of property, for they treated him as a ware, buying +him in the cheapest market for the cost of his production, that is to +say, the cost of his living, and taking from him the whole surplus of +his work, after deducting the value of his subsistence. Under the system +of wage labour, it could not be otherwise. Wages could never, by +economic laws, rise above subsistence. While wage labour created +property, it created it always for the capitalist, and never for the +labourer; and, in fact, the latter only lived at all, so far as it was +for the interests of the governing class, the _bourgeoisie_, to permit +him. Class rule and wage labour must be swept away, for they were +radically unjust, and a new reign must be inaugurated which would be +politically democratic and socially communistic, and in which the free +development of each should be the condition for the free development of +all. + +The Manifesto went on to say that communism was not the subversion of +existing principles, but their universalization. Communism did not seek +to abolish the State, but only the _bourgeois_ State, in which the +_bourgeois_ exclusively hold and wield political power. Communism did +not seek to abolish property, but only the _bourgeois_ system of +property, under which private property is really already abolished for +nine-tenths of society, and maintained merely for one-tenth. Communism +did not seek to abolish marriage and the family, but only the +_bourgeois_ system of things under which marriage and the family, in any +true sense of those terms, were virtually class institutions, for the +proletariat could not have any family life worthy of the name, so long +as their wages were so low that they were forced to huddle up their +whole family regardless of all decency, in a single room, so long as +their wives and daughters were victims of the seduction of the +_bourgeoisie_, and so long as their children were taken away prematurely +to labour in mills for _bourgeois_ manufacturers, who yet held up their +hands in horror at the thought of any violation of the institution of +the family. Communism did not tend to abolish fatherland and +nationality--that was abolished already for the proletariat, and was +being abolished for the _bourgeoisie_, too, by the extensions of their +trade. + +As to the way of emancipation, the proletariat must strive to obtain +political power, and use it to deprive the _bourgeoisie_ of all capital +and means of production, and to place them in the hands of the State, +_i.e._, of the proletariat itself organized as a governing body. Now, +for this, immediate and various measures interfering with property, and +condemned by our current economics, were requisite. Those measures +would naturally be different for different countries, but for the most +advanced countries the following were demanded: (1) Expropriation of +landed property and application of rent to State expenditure; (2) +abolition of inheritance; (3) confiscation of the property of all +emigrants and rebels; (4) centralization of credit in the hands of the +State by means of a national bank, with State capital and exclusive +monopoly; (5) centralization of all means of transport in hands of +State; (6) institution of national factories, and improvement of lands +on a common plan; (7) compulsory obligation of labour upon all equally, +and establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture; (8) +joint prosecution of agriculture and mechanical arts, and gradual +abolition of the distinction of town and country; (9) public and +gratuitous education for all children, abolition of children's labour in +factories, etc. The Manifesto ends by saying:--"The communists do not +seek to conceal their views and aims. They declare openly that their +purpose can only be obtained by a violent overthrow of all existing +arrangements of society. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic +revolution. The proletariat have nothing to lose in it but their chains; +they have a world to win. Proletarians of all countries, unite!" + +When the French Revolution of February, 1848, broke out, Marx was +expelled without circumstance from Brussels, and received an invitation +from the Provisional Government of Paris to return to France. He +accepted this invitation, but was only a few weeks in Paris when the +German revolution of March occurred, and he hastened to the theatre of +affairs. With his friends, Freiligrath, Wolff, Engels, and others, he +established on June 1st in Cologne the _New Rhenish Gazette_, which was +the soul of the Rhenish revolutionary movement, the most important one +of the year in Germany, and that in which, as we have seen, the young +Lassalle first emerged on the troubled surface of revolutionary +politics. After the _coup d'état_ of November, dissolving the Prussian +Parliament, the _New Rhenish Gazette_ strongly urged the people to stop +paying their taxes, and thus meet force by force. It inserted an +admonition to that effect in a prominent place in every successive +number, and Marx was twice tried for sedition on account of this +admonition, but each time acquitted. The newspaper, however, was finally +suppressed by civil authority after the Dresden insurrection of May, +1849, its last number appearing on June 19th in red type, and containing +Freiligrath's well-known "Farewell of the _New Rhenish +Gazette_"--spiritedly translated for us by Ernest Jones--which declared +that the journal went down with "rebellion" on its lips, but would +reappear when the last of the German Crowns was overturned. + + + Farewell, but not for ever farewell! + They cannot kill the spirit, my brother; + In thunder I'll rise on the field where I fell, + More boldly to fight out another. + When the last of Crowns, like glass, shall break + On the scene our sorrows have haunted, + And the people its last dread "Guilty" shall speak, + By your side you shall find me undaunted. + On Rhine or on Danube, in war and deed, + You shall witness, true to his vow, + On the wrecks of thrones, in the midst of the field, + The rebel who greets you now. + + +This vow is no mere Parthian flourish of poetical defiance. Freiligrath +and his friends undoubtedly believed at this time that the political +movements of 1848 and 1849 were but preliminary ripples, and would be +presently succeeded by a great flood-wave of revolution which they heard +already sounding along in their dangerously expectant ear. His poem on +the Revolution remains as evidence to us that in 1850 he still clung to +that hope, and it would not have been out of tune with his sanguine +beliefs of the year before if he promised, not merely that the spirit of +the journal would rise again, but that its next number would be +published, after the Deluge. + +Meanwhile Marx went to London, where he remained for the rest of his +life. Finding that the revolutionary spirit did not revive, and that +historical societies, which have not lost their moral and economic +vitality, had a greater readjusting power against political disturbance +than he previously believed, he gave up for the next ten or twelve years +the active work of revolutionizing. The Communist League, which had got +disorganized in the revolutionary year, and was rent in two by a bitter +schism in 1850, was, with his concurrence, dissolved in 1852, on the +ground that its propaganda was no longer opportune; and the story of the +Brimstone League, with its iron discipline and ogrish desires, of which +Mehring says Marx was, during his London residence, the head-centre, is +simply a fairy tale of Karl Vogt's, whose baselessness Marx has himself +completely exposed. Before leaving the Communist League, two +circumstances may be mentioned, because they repeat themselves +constantly in this revolutionary history. The one is that this schism +took place not on a point of doctrine, but of opportunity; the extremer +members thought the conflict in Germany on the Hessian question offered +a good chance for a fresh revolutionary outbreak, and they left the +League because their views were not adopted. The other is that in one of +its last reports (quoted by Mehring) the League definitely justifies, +and even recommends, assassination and incendiarism--"the so-called +excesses, the inflictions of popular vengeance on hated individuals, or +on public buildings which revive hateful associations." For the next ten +years Marx lived quietly in London, writing for the _New York Tribune_ +and other journals, and studying modern industry on this its "classical +soil." He read much in the British Museum Library, gaining his +remarkable acquaintance with the English economic writers, and it was +probably in this period he elaborated his famous doctrine of surplus +value, with its corollary of the right of the labourer to the full +product of his labour. There can be no doubt that the original +suggestion of this doctrine came from English sources, for it was taught +more than a generation before among the English socialists, notably by +William Thompson in his "Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution +of Wealth," which was published as early as 1824, and is actually quoted +by Marx in his work on Capital. Marx built up the doctrine, however, +into a more systematic form, and it is through him and not through the +Owenites it has come into the present socialist movement in which it +plays so conspicuous a part. During this period of reading and +rumination, Marx published a pamphlet against Louis Napoleon; another +against Lord Palmerston, which was widely circulated by David Urquhart; +a third of a personal and bitter character against his +fellow-socialist, Karl Vogt; and a more solid and important work, the +"Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie" (1859), the first fruits of his new +economic studies. But a revolutionist never permanently gives up +revolutionizing, and after his prolonged abstinence from that +excitement, Marx returned to it again in 1864, on the foundation of the +famous International Working Men's Association. + +The International was simply the Communist League raised again from the +dead. Their principles were the same; their constitution was the same; +and Marx began his inaugural address to the International in 1864 with +the very words that concluded his Communistic Manifesto of 1847, +"Proletarians of all nations, unite!" When the representatives of the +English working men first suggested the formation of an international +working men's association, in the address they presented in the +Freemasons' Tavern to the French working men who were sent over at the +instance of Napoleon III. to the London Exhibition of 1862, they +certainly never dreamt of founding an organization of revolutionary +socialist democracy which in a few years to come was to wear a name at +which the world turned pale. Their address was most moderate and +sensible. They said that some permanent medium of interchanging thoughts +and observations between the working men of different countries was +likely to throw light on the economic secrets of societies, and to help +onwards the solution of the great labour problem. For they declared that +that solution had not yet been discovered, and that the socialist +systems which had hitherto professed to propound it were nothing but +magnificent dreams. Moreover, if the system of competition were to +continue, then some arrangement of concord between employer and labourer +must be devised, and in order to assert the views of the labouring class +effectively in that arrangement, a firm and organized union must be +established among working men, not merely in each country, but in all +countries, for their interests, both as citizens and as labourers, were +everywhere identical. Those ideas would constitute the basis of a very +rational and moderate programme. But when, in the following year, after +a meeting in favour of the Polish insurrection, which was held in St. +Martin's Hall under the presidency of Professor Beesly, and at which +some of the French delegates of 1862 were present, a committee was +appointed to follow up the suggestion, this committee asked Marx to +prepare a programme and statutes for the proposed association, and he +impressed upon it at its birth the stamp of his own revolutionary +socialism. He never had a higher official position in the International +than corresponding secretary for Germany, for it was determined, +probably with the view of securing a better hold of the great English +working class and their extensive trade organizations, that the +president and secretary should be English working men, and then, after a +time, the office of president was abolished altogether because it had a +monarchical savour. But Marx had the ablest, the best informed, and +probably the most made-up mind in the council; he governed without +reigning; and, with his faithful German following, he exercised an +almost paramount influence on its action from first to last, in spite of +occasional revolts and intrigues against an authority which democratic +jealousy resented as dictatorial, or--worse still--monarchical. The +statutes of the association, which were adopted at the Geneva Congress +of 1866, declared that "the economic subjection of the labourer to the +possessor of the means of labour, _i.e._ of the sources of life, is the +first cause of his political, moral, and material servitude, and that +the economic emancipation of labour is consequently the great aim to +which every political movement ought to be subordinated." Now no doubt +the "economic emancipation of labour" meant different things to +different sections of the Association's members. To the English trades +unionists it meant practically better wages; to the Russian nihilists it +meant the downfall of the Czar and of all central political authority, +and leaving the socialistic communal organization of their country to +manage itself without interference from above; to some of the French +members (as appeared at the Lausanne Congress in 1867) it meant the +nationalization of credit and all land except that held by peasant +proprietors, a class which it was necessary to maintain as a +counterpoise to the State; while, to the German socialists, it meant the +abolition of wages, the nationalization of land and the instruments of +production, the assumption by the State of a supreme direction of all +trade, commerce, finance, and agriculture, and the distribution by the +State of land, tools, and materials to guilds and productive +associations as the actual industrial executive. There were thus very +different elements in the composition of the International, but a _modus +vivendi_ was found for some years by nursing an ultimate ideal, which +was desirable, and meanwhile practically working for a proximate and +much narrower ideal, which was more immediately feasible or necessary. +The association could thus hold that nothing could benefit the working +class but an abolition of wages, and could yet, as it sometimes did, +help and encourage strikes which wanted only to raise wages. At its +Congress in Brussels in 1868 it declared that a strike was not a means +of completely emancipating the labourers, but was often a necessity in +the present situation of labour and capital. Most of the other practical +measures to which the association addressed itself--the eight hours +normal day of labour, gratuitous education, gratuitous justice, +universal suffrage, abolition of standing armies, abolition of indirect +taxes, prohibition of children's labour, State credit for productive +associations--contemplated modifications of the existing system of +things, but always contemplated them as aids to and instalments of the +coming transformation of that system. The consciousness was constantly +preserved that a revolution was impending, and that, as Lassalle said, +it was bound to come and could not be checked, whether it approached by +sober advances from concession to concession, or flew, with streaming +hair and shod with steel, right into the central stronghold. + +This was very much the keynote struck by Marx in his inaugural address. +That address was simply a review of the situation since 1848, and an +encouragement of his forces to a renewal of the combat. Wealth had +enormously increased in the interval; colonies had been opened, new +inventions discovered, free trade introduced; but misery was not a whit +the less; class contrasts were even deeper marked, property was more +than ever in the hands of the few; in England the number of landowners +had diminished eleven per cent. in the preceding ten years; and if this +rate were to continue, the country would be rapidly ripe for revolution. +While the old order of things was thus hastening to its doom, the new +order of things had made some advances. The Ten Hours Act was "not +merely a great practical result, but was the victory of a principle. For +the first time the political economy of the _bourgeoisie_ had been in +clear broad day put in subjection to the political economy of the +working class." Then, again, the experiment of co-operation had now been +sufficiently tried to show that it was possible to carry on industry +without the intervention of an employing class, and had spread abroad +the hope that wage labour was, like slavery and feudal servitude, only a +transitory and subordinate form, which was destined to be superseded by +associated labour. The International had for its aim to promote this +associated labour; only it sought to do so, not piecemeal and +sporadically, but systematically, on a national scale, and by State +means. And for this end the labouring class must first acquire political +power, so as to obtain possession of the means of production; and to +acquire political power, they must unite. + +The International, though, as we have seen, possessing no real +solidarity in its composition, held together till the outbreak of the +Franco-German war, and of the revolution of the Paris Commune. It was, +of course, strongly opposed to the war, as it was to all war; and +strongly in favour of the revolution, as it was of all revolution. Its +precise complicity in the work of the Commune is not easy to determine, +but there can be no doubt that its importance has been greatly +exaggerated, both by the fears of his enemies and the vanity of its +members. Some of the latter were certainly among those who sat in the +Hôtel de Ville, but none of them were leading minds there; and, as for +the Association itself, it never had a real membership, or +ramifications, of any formidable extent. For example, the English trades +unions were in connection with it, and their members might be, in a +sense, counted among its members, but it is certain they never +recognised it as an authority over them, and they probably subscribed to +it mainly as to a useful auxiliary in a strike. The leaders of the +International, however, were, undoubtedly, heart and soul with the +Commune, and approved probably both of its aims and methods, and Marx, +at the Congress of the International, at the Hague, in 1872, drew, from +its failure the lesson, that "revolution must be solidary" in order to +succeed. A revolution in one capital of Europe must be supported by +simultaneous revolutions in the rest. But, while there is little ground +for the common belief that the International had any important influence +in creating the insurrection of the Commune, it is certain that the +insurrection of the Commune killed the International. The English +members dropped off from it and never returned, and at its first +Congress after the revolution (the Hague, 1872), the Association itself +was rent by a fatal schism arising from differences of opinion on a +question as to the government of the society of the future, which would +probably not have become a subject of such keen present interest at the +time but for the Paris Commune. The question concerned the maintenance +or abolition of the State, of the supreme central political authority, +and the discussion brought to light that the socialists of the +International were divided into two distinct and irreconcilable +camps--the Centralist Democratic Socialists, headed by Marx, and the +Anarchist Socialists, headed by Michael Bakunin, the Russian +revolutionist. The Marxists insisted that the socialist _régime_ of +collective property and systematic co-operative production could not +possibly be introduced, maintained, or regulated, except by means of an +omnipotent and centralized political authority--call it the State, call +it the collectivity, call it what you like--which should have the final +disposal of everything. The Bakunists held that this was just bringing +back the old tyranny and slavery in a more excessive and intolerable +form. They took up the tradition of Proudhon, who said that "the true +form of the State is anarchy," meaning by anarchy, of course, not +positive disorder, but the absence of any supreme ruler, whether king or +convention. They would have property possessed and industry pursued on a +communistic principle by groups or associations of workmen, but these +groups must form themselves freely and voluntarily, without any social +or political compulsion. The Marxists declared that this was simply a +retention of the system of free competition in an aggravated form, that +it would only lead to confusion worse confounded, and that the +Bakunists, even in trying to abolish the evils of _laissez-faire_, were +still foolishly supposing that the world could go of itself. This +division of opinion--really a broader one than that which parts +socialist from orthodox economist--rent the already enfeebled +International into two separate organizations, which languished for a +year or two and passed away. And so, with high thoughts of spreading a +reign of fraternity over the earth, the International Working Men's +Association perished, because, being only human, it could not maintain +fraternity in its own narrow borders. This is a history that repeats +itself again and again in socialist movements. As W. Marr said in the +remark quoted above, revolutionists will only unite on a negation; the +moment they begin to ask what they will put in its place they differ and +dispute and come to nought. Apprehend them, close their meetings, banish +their leaders, and you but knit them by common suffering to common +resistance. You supply them with a negation of engrossing interest, you +preoccupy their minds with a negative programme which keeps them united, +and so you prevent them from raising the fatal question--What next? +which they never discuss without breaking up into rival sects and +factions, fraternal often in nothing but their hatred. "It is the shades +that hate one another, not the colours." Such disruptions and secessions +may--as they did in Germany--by emulation increase for a time the +efficiency of the organization as a propagandist agency, but they +certainly diminish its danger as a possible instrument of insurrection. +A socialist organization seems always to contain two elements of +internal disintegration. One is the prevalence of a singular and almost +pathetic mistrust of their leaders, and of one another. The law of +suspects is always in force among themselves. At meetings of the German +Socialists, Liebknecht denounces Schweitzer as an agent of the Prussian +Government, Schweitzer accuses Liebknecht of being an Austrian spy, and +the frequent hints at bribery, and open charges of treason against the +labourers' cause, disclose to us now duller and now more acute phases of +that unhappy state of mutual suspicion, in which the one supreme, +superhuman virtue, worthy to be worshipped, if haply it could anywhere +be discovered, is the virtue men honoured even in Robespierre--the +incorruptible. The other source of disintegration is the tendency to +intestine divisions on points of doctrine. A reconstruction of society +is necessarily a most extensive programme, and allows room for the +utmost variety of opinion and plan. The longer it is discussed, the +more certainly do differences arise, and the movement becomes a strife +of schools in no way formidable to the government. All this only +furnishes another reason for the conclusion that in dealing with +socialist agitations, a government's safest as well as justest policy +is, as much as may be, to leave them alone. Their danger lies in the +cloudiness of their ideas, and that can only be dispersed in the free +breezes of popular discussion. The sword is an idle method of reasoning +with an idea; an idea will eventually yield to nothing but argument. +Repression, too, is absolutely impossible with modern facilities of +inter-communication, and can at best but drive the offensive elements +for a time into subterranean channels, where they gather like a +dangerous choke-damp that may occasion at any moment a serious +explosion. + +After the fall of the International, Marx took no further part in public +movements, but occupied his time in completing his work _Das Capital_, +under frequent interruption from ill-health, and he died in Paris in the +spring of 1883, leaving that work still unfinished. + + +The _Das Capital_ of Marx may be said to be the sacred book of +contemporary socialism, and though, like other sacred books, it is +probably a sealed one to the body of the faithful, for it is extremely +stiff reading, it is the great source from which socialist agitators +draw their inspiration and arguments. Apart from the representative +authority with which it is thus invested, it must be at once +acknowledged to be an able, learned, and important work, founded on +diligent research, evincing careful elaboration of materials, much +acuteness of logical analysis, and so much solicitude for precision that +a special terminology has been invented to secure it. The author's taste +for logical distinctions, however, as he has actually applied it, serves +rather to darken than to elucidate his exposition. He overloads with +analysis secondary points of his argument which are clear enough without +it, and he assumes without analysis primary positions which it is most +essential for him to make plain. His style and method carries us back to +the ecclesiastical schoolmen. His superabounding love of scholastic +formalities is unmodern; and one may be permitted to hope that the odium +more than theological with which he speaks of opponents has become +unmodern too. + +Marx's argument takes the form of an inquiry into the origin and social +effects of capital; understanding the word capital, however, in a +peculiar sense. Capital, according to the elementary teaching of +political economy, always means the portion of wealth which is saved +from immediate consumption to be devoted to productive uses, and it +matters not whether it is so saved and devoted by the labourer who is to +use it, or by some other person who lends it to the labourer at interest +or employs the labourer to work with it at a fixed rate of wages. A +fisherman's boat is capital as much as a Cunard Company's steamer, +although the boat is owned by the person who sails it and the steamer by +persons who may never have seen it. The fisherman is labourer and +capitalist in one, but in the case of the steamer the capital is +supplied by one set of people and the labour undertaken by another. Now +Marx speaks of capital only after this division of functions has taken +place. It is, he says, not a logical but a historical category. In +former times men all wrought for the supply of their own wants, the seed +and stock they received was saved and owned by themselves, capital was +an instrument in the hands of labour. But in modern times, especially +since the rise of foreign commerce in the 16th century, this situation +has been gradually reversed. Industry is now conducted by speculators, +who advance the stock and pay the labourer's wages, in order to make +gain out of the excess of the product over the advances, and labour is a +mere instrument in the hands of capital. The capitalist is one who, +without being personally a producer, advances money to producers to +provide them with materials and tools, in the hope of getting a larger +sum of money in return, and capital is the money so advanced. With this +representation of capital as money, so long as it is but a popular form +of speech, no fault need be found, but Marx soon after falls into a +common fallacy and positively identifies capital with money, declaring +them to be only the same thing circulating in a different way. Money as +money, he says, being a mere medium of exchange, is a middle term +between two commodities which it helps to barter, and the order of +circulation is C--M--C, i.e. _commodity_ is converted into _money_ and +_money_ is reconverted into _commodity_. On the other hand, money as +capital stands at the two extremes, and commodity is a middle term, a +medium of converting one sum of money into another and greater; the +order of circulation being expressed as M--C--M. Of course capital, like +other wealth, may be expressed in terms of money, but to identify +capital with money in this way is only to introduce confusion, and the +real confusion is none the less pernicious that it presents itself under +an affectation of mathematical precision. + +Capital, then, as Marx understands it, may be said to be independent +wealth employed or its own increase, and in "societies in which the +capitalistic method of production prevails" all wealth bears +distinctively this character. In more primitive days, wealth was a store +of means of life produced and preserved for the supply of the producer's +future wants, but now it "appears as a huge collection of wares," made +for other people's wants, made for sale in the market, made for its own +increase. What Marx wants to discover is how all this independent wealth +has come to accumulate in hands that do not produce it, and in +particular from whence comes the increase expected from its use, because +it is this increase that enables it to accumulate. What he endeavours to +show is that this increase of value cannot take place anywhere except in +the process of production, that in that process it cannot come from the +dead materials, but only from the living creative power of labour that +works upon them, and that it is accordingly virtually stolen from the +labourers who made it by the superior economic force of the owners of +the dead materials, without which indeed it could not be made, but whose +service is entitled to a much more limited reward. + +No increase of value, he contends, can occur in the process of exchange, +for an exchange is a mere transposition of things of equal value. In one +sense both parties in the transaction are gainers, for each gets a thing +he wants for a thing he does not want. The usefulness of the two +commodities is thus increased by the exchange, but their value is not. +An exchange simply means that each party gives to the other equal value +for equal value, and even if it were possible for one of them to make a +gain in value to-day--to get a more valuable thing for a less valuable +thing--still, as all the world is buyer and seller in turn, they would +lose to-morrow as buyers what they gained to-day as sellers, and the old +level of value would be restored. No increase whatever would be +effected. There is indeed a class of people whom he describes as always +buying and never selling--the unproducing class who live on their money, +and who, he says, receive by legal titles or by force wealth made by +producers without giving anything in exchange for it. And it may be +supposed that perhaps value is created by selling things to this class +of persons, or by selling things to them above their true value, but +that is not so; you would have brought no new value into the world by +such a transaction, and even if you got more for your goods than their +worth, you would only be cheating back from these rich people part of +the money that they had previously received for nothing. Another +supposition remains. Perhaps new value is created in the process of +exchange when one dealer takes advantage of another--when Peter, say, +contrives to induce Paul to take £40 worth of wine for £50 worth of +iron. But in this case there has been no increase of value; the value +has merely changed hands; Peter has £10 more than he had before, and +Paul £10 less. The commodities have between them after the transaction, +as they had before it, a total value of £90, and that total cannot be +increased by a mere change of possessor. + +Having thus established to his satisfaction that commerce, being only a +series of exchanges, cannot produce any increase of value, or what he +terms surplus value, Marx says that that only makes the problem of the +origin of surplus value more enigmatical than ever. For we are thus left +in presence of an apparent contradiction: surplus value cannot spring up +in the circulation of commodities because circulation is nothing but an +exchange of equivalents; and yet surplus value cannot spring up anywhere +except in circulation, because the class of persons who receive it and +live by it do not produce. Here, then, is a riddle, and Marx sets +himself to rede it. True, he says, value is not created directly in the +market, but a commodity is purchased in the market which has the +remarkable property of creating value. That commodity is the human +powers of labour. The very use of these powers, their consumption, their +expenditure, is the creation of value. But marvellous as they are, their +possessor is obliged to sell them, because while they are yielding their +product he must meanwhile live, and he sells a day's use of them for a +day's means of living. They create in a day far more than the value of +the wages for which they are bought. This excess is surplus value, and +is the secret and fountainhead of all accumulations of capital. Powers +which can create six shillings worth in a day may be procured in the +market for three shillings, because three shillings will pay for their +necessary maintenance. Surplus value is the difference between the value +of the labourer's necessary maintenance and the value of the labourer's +production, and it is in the present system entirely appropriated by the +dealer who advances him his wages. + +Marx thus bases his argument on two principles which he borrows from +current economic writers, without, however, observing the limitations +under which those writers taught them, and introducing besides important +modifications of his own. The one principle is that value comes from +labour, or as economists stated their law, that the natural value of +commodities is determined by the cost of their production. The second is +only a special application of the first; that the natural wages of +labour are determined by the cost of its production, and that the cost +of the production of labour is the cost of the labourer's subsistence. +The fault he finds with the present system is accordingly this, that +while labour creates all value it is paid only by its stated living, no +matter how much value it creates; and he then goes over the phenomena of +modern industrial life to show how each arrangement is invented so as to +extract more and more value out of the labourer by prolonging his hours +of work or enhancing its speed without giving him any advantage whatever +from the increase of value so obtained. We shall get a fair view of +Marx's argument, therefore, if we follow it through the successive +heads: 1st, Value; 2nd, Wages; 3rd, Normal day of labour; 4th, +Machinery; 5th, Piecework; 6th, Relative over-population. + +1st. _Value._ Marx holds that all capital--all industrial advances +except wages--is absolutely unproductive of value, and therefore not +entitled to the acknowledgment known as interest. The original value of +all such capital--the purchase price of the materials, together with a +certain allowance made for tear and wear of machinery--is carried +forward into the value of the product, and preserved in it, and even +that could not be done except by labour. The old value is preserved by +labour, and all new value is conferred by it, and therefore interest is +a consideration entirely out of the question. It is obvious to object +that labour by itself is as unproductive as capital by itself, but Marx +would reply that while labour and capital are equally indispensable to +produce new commodities, it is labour alone that produces new value, for +value is only so much labour preserved, it is merely a register of so +many hours of work. His whole argument thus turns upon his doctrine of +the nature of value, and that doctrine must therefore be closely +attended to. + +What, then, is value? Marx considers that most errors on this subject +have arisen from confusing value with utility on the one hand or with +price on the other, and he regards his discrimination of value from +these two ideas as his most important contribution to political economy. +He takes his start from the distinction current since the days of Adam +Smith between value in use and value in exchange, and of course agrees +with Smith in making the value of a commodity in exchange to be +independent of its value in use. Water had great value in use and none +in exchange, and diamonds had great value in exchange and little in use. +Value in use is therefore not value strictly so called, it is utility; +but strictly speaking value in exchange, according to Marx, is not value +either, but only the form under which in our state of society value +manifests itself. There was no exchange in primitive society when every +family produced things to supply its own wants, and there would be no +exchange in a communism, for in an exchange the transacting parties +stand to one another equally as private proprietors of the goods they +barter. And where there was no exchange there could of course be no +exchange value. No doubt there was value for all that in primitive +times, and there would be value under a communism, though it would +manifest itself in a different form. But as we live in an exchanging +society, where everything is made for the purpose of being exchanged, it +is in exchange alone that we have any experience of value, and it is +only from an examination of the phenomena of exchange that we can learn +its nature. + +What, then, is value in exchange? It is the ratio in which one kind of +useful commodity exchanges against another kind of useful commodity. +This ratio, says Marx, does not in the least depend on the usefulness of +the respective commodities, or their capacity of gratifying any +particular want. For, first, that is a matter of quality, whereas value +is a ratio between quantities; and second, two different kinds of +utility cannot be compared, for they have no common measure; but value, +being a ratio, implies comparison, and comparison implies a common +measure. A fiddle charms the musical taste, a loaf satisfies hunger, but +who can calculate how much musical gratification is equivalent to so +much satisfaction of hunger. The loaf and the fiddle may be compared in +value, but not by means of their several uses. Third, there are many +commodities which are useful and yet have no value in exchange: air, for +example, water, and, he adds, virgin soil. In seeking what in the +exchange the value depends on, we must therefore leave the utility of +the commodities exchanged entirely out of account; and if we do so, +there is only one other attribute they all possess in common, and it +must be on that attribute that their value rests. That attribute is that +they are all products of labour. While we looked to the utility of +commodities, they were infinite in their variety, but now they are all +reduced to one sober characteristic they are so many different +quantities of the same material, labour. Diversity vanishes; there are +no longer tables and chairs and houses, there is only this much and that +much and the next amount of preserved human labour. And this labour +itself is not discriminated. It is not joiner work, mason work, or +weaver work; it is merely human labour in the abstract, incorporated, +absorbed, congealed in exchangeable commodities. In an exchange +commodities are quantities of labour jelly, and they exchange in the +ratio of the amount of labour they have taken in. + +Value, then, is quantity of abstract labour, and now what is quantity of +labour? How is it to be ascertained? Labour is the exertion or use of +man's natural powers of labour, and the quantity of labour is measured +by the duration of the exertion. Quantity of labour is thus reduced to +time of labour, and is measured by hours and days and weeks. Marx +accordingly defines value to be an immanent relation of a commodity to +time of labour, and the secret of exchange is that "a day's labour of +given length always turns out a product of the same value." Value is +thus something inherent in commodities before they are brought to +market, and is independent of the circumstances of the market. + +Marx has no sooner reduced value to the single uniform element of time +of labour, and excluded from its constitution all considerations of +utility and the state of the market, than he reintroduces those +considerations under a disguised form. In the first place, if a day's +labour of given length always produces the same value, it is obvious to +ask whether then an indolent and unskilful tailor who takes a week to +make a coat has produced as much value as the more expert hand who turns +out six in this time, or, with the help of a machine, perhaps twenty? +Marx answers, Certainly not, for the time of labour which determines +value is not the time actually taken, but the time required in existing +social conditions to produce that particular kind of commodity--the time +taken by labour of average efficiency, using the means which the age +affords--in short, what he calls the socially necessary time of labour. +Value is an immanent relation to socially necessary time of labour. +Marx's standard is thus, after all, not one of quantity of labour pure +and simple; it takes into account, besides, the average productive power +of labour in different branches of industry. "The value of a commodity," +says he, "changes directly as the quantity, and inversely as the +productive power, of the labour which realizes itself in that +commodity." Before we know the value of a commodity we must therefore +know not only the quantity of labour that has gone into it, but the +productive power of that labour. We gather the quantity from the +duration of exertion, but how is average productive power to be +ascertained? By simply ascertaining the total product of all the labour +engaged in a particular trade, and then striking the average for each +labourer. Diamonds occur rarely in the crust of the earth, and therefore +many seekers spend days and weeks without finding one. Hits and misses +must be taken together; the productive power of the diamond seeker is +low; or, in other words, the time of labour socially necessary to +procure a diamond is high, and its value corresponds. In a good year the +same labour will produce twice as much wheat as in a bad; its productive +power is greater; the time socially necessary to produce wheat is less, +and the price of the bushel falls. The value of a commodity is therefore +influenced by its comparative abundance, whether that be due to nature, +or to machinery, or to personal skill. + +But, in the next place, if value is simply so much labour, it would seem +to follow, on the one hand, that nothing could have value which cost no +labour, and, on the other, that nothing could be devoid of value which +cost labour. Marx's method of dealing with these two objections deserves +close attention, because it is here that the fundamental fallacy of his +argument is brought most clearly out. He answers the first of them by +drawing a distinction between _value_ and _price_, which he and his +followers count of the highest consequence. Things which cost no labour +may have a _price_, but they have no _value_, and, as we have seen, he +mentions among such things conscience and virgin soil. No labour has +touched those things; they have no immanent relation to socially +necessary time of labour; they have not, and cannot have, any value, as +Marx understands value. But then, he says, they command a price. Virgin +soil is actually sold in the market; it may procure things that have +value though it has none itself. Now, this distinction between value and +price has no bearing on the matter at all, for the simple reason that, +as Marx himself admits, price is only a particular form of value. Price, +he says, is "the money form of value"; it is value expressed in money; +it is the exchange value of a commodity for money. To say that +uncultivated land may have a price but not a value is, on Marx's own +showing, to say that it has an exchange value which can be definitely +measured in money, and has yet no value. But he has started from the +phenomena of exchange; he has told us that exchange value is the only +form in which we experience value now; and he thus arrives at a theory +of value which will not explain the facts. If he argued that a thing had +value, but no exchange value, his position might be false, but he says +that a thing may have exchange value but no value, and so his position +is contradictory. Moreover, he describes money accurately enough as a +measure of value, and says that it could not serve this function except +it were itself valuable, _i.e._, unless it possessed the quality that +makes all objects commensurable, the quality of being a product of +labour. Yet here we find him admitting that virgin soil, which, _ex +hypothesi_, does not possess that quality, and ought therefore to be +incommensurable with anything that possesses it, is yet measured with +money every day. Such are some of the absurdities to which Marx is +reduced by refusing to admit that utility can confer value independently +of labour. + +Let us see now how he deals with the other objection. If labour is just +value-forming substance, and if value is just preserved labour, then +nothing which has cost labour should be destitute of value. But Marx +frankly admits that there are such things which have yet got no value; +and they have no value, he explains, because they have no utility. +"Nothing can have value without being useful. If it is useless, the work +contained in it is useless, and therefore has no value." He goes +further; he says that a thing may be both useful and the product of +labour and yet have no value. "He who by the produce of his labour +satisfies wants of his own produces utility but not value. To produce a +ware, _i.e._, a thing which has not merely value in use, but value in +exchange, he must produce something which is not only useful to himself, +but useful to others," _i.e._, socially useful. A product of labour +which is useless to the producer and everybody else has no value of any +sort; a product of labour which, while useful to the producer, is +useless to any one else, has no exchange value. It satisfies no want of +others. This would seem to cover the case of over-production, when +commodities lose their value for a time because nobody wants them. +Lassalle explained this depreciation of value by saying that the time of +labour socially necessary to produce the articles in question had +diminished. Marx explains it by saying that the labour is less socially +useful or not socially useful at all. And why is the labour not socially +useful? Simply because the product is not so. The social utility or +inutility of the labour is a mere inference from the social utility or +inutility of the product, and it is therefore the latter consideration +that influences value. Marx tries in vain to exclude the influence of +that consideration, or to explain it as a mere subsidiary qualification +of labour. Labour and social utility both enter equally into the +constitution of value, and Marx's radical error lies in defining value +in terms of labour only, ignoring utility. + +For what, after all, is value? Is Marx's definition of it in the least +correct? No. Value is not an inherent relation (whatever that may mean) +of a commodity to labour; it is essentially a social estimate of the +relative importance of commodities to the society that forms the +estimate. It is not an immanent property of an object at all; it is a +social opinion expressed upon an object in comparison with others. This +social opinion is at present collected in an informal but effective way, +through a certain subtle tact acquired in the market, by dealers +representing groups of customers on the one hand, and manufacturers +representing groups of producers on the other; and it may be said to be +pronounced in the verdict of exchange, _i.e._, according to Mill's +definition of value, in the quantity of one commodity given in exchange +for a given quantity of another. Now, on what does this social estimate +of the relative importance of commodities turn? In other words, by what +is value and difference in value determined? Value is constituted in +every object by its possession of two characteristics: 1st, that it is +socially useful; 2nd, that it costs some labour or trouble to procure +it. No commodity lacks value which possesses both of these +characteristics; and no commodity has value which lacks either of them. +Now there are two kinds of commodities. Some may be produced to an +indefinite amount by means of labour, and since all who desire them can +obtain them at any time for the labour they cost, their social +desirableness, their social utility, has no influence on their value, +which, therefore, always stands in the ratio of their cost of production +alone. Other classes of commodities cannot be in this way indefinitely +multiplied by labour; their quantity is strictly limited by natural or +other causes; those who desire them cannot get them for the mere labour +of producing them; and the value of commodities of this sort will +consequently always stand in excess of their relative cost of +production, and will be really determined by their relative social +utility. In fact, so far from the labour required for their production +being any guide to their value, it is their value that will determine +the amount of labour which will be ventured in their production. A +single word may be added in explanation of the conception of social +utility. Of course a commodity which is of no use to any one but its +owner has no economic value, unless it happens to get lost, and, in any +case, it is of no consequence in the present question. The social +utility of a commodity is its capacity to satisfy the wants of others +than the possessor, and it turns on two considerations: 1st, the +importance of the want the commodity satisfies, and, 2nd, the number of +persons who share the want. All commodities which derive a value from +their rarity or their special excellence belong to this latter class, +and the vice of Marx's theory of value is simply this, that he takes a +law which is true of the first class of commodities only to be true of +all classes of them. + + +2. _Wages._ Having concluded by the vicious argument now explained that +all value is the creation of the personal labour of the workman--is but +the registered duration of exertion of his labouring powers--Marx next +proceeds to show that, as things at present exist, the value of these +labouring powers themselves is fixed not by what they create but by what +is necessary to create or at least renovate them. The rate of wages, +economists have taught, is determined by the cost of the production of +labouring powers, and that is identical with the cost of maintaining the +labourer in working vigour. Marx accepts the usual explanations of the +elasticity of this standard of cost of subsistence. It includes, of +course, the maintenance of the labourer's family as well as his own, +because he will die some day, and the permanent reproduction of powers +of labour requires the birth of fresh hands to succeed him. It must also +cover the expenses of training and apprenticeship, and Marx would +probably agree to add, though he does not actually do so, a +superannuation allowance for old age. It contains, too, a variable +historical element, differs with climate and country, and is, in fact, +just the customary standard of living among free labourers of the time +and place. The value of a commodity is the time of labour required to +deliver it in _normal goodness_, and to preserve the powers of labour in +normal goodness a definite quantity of provisions and comforts is +necessary according to time, country, and customs. The part of the +labouring day required to produce this definite quantity of provisions +and comforts for the use of the day may be called the _necessary time of +labour_--the time during which the workman produces what is necessary +for keeping him in existence--and the value created in this season may +be called _necessary value_. But the workman's physical powers may hold +on labouring longer than this, and the rest of his working day may +accordingly be called _surplus time of labour_, and the value created in +it _surplus value_. This surplus value may be created or increased in +two ways: either by reducing or cheapening the labourer's subsistence, +_i.e._, by shortening the term of necessary labour; or by prolonging the +length of the working day, _i.e._, by increasing the term of surplus +labour. There are limits indeed within which this kind of action must +stop. The quantity of means of life cannot be reduced below the minimum +that is physically indispensable to sustain the labourer for the day, +and the term of labour cannot be stretched beyond the labourer's +capacity of physical endurance. But within these limits may be played an +important _rôle_, and the secret of surplus value lies in the simple +plan of giving the labourer as little as he is able to live on, and +working him as long as he is able to stand. A labourer works 12 hours a +day because he cannot work longer and work permanently and well, and he +gets three shillings a day of wages, because three shillings will buy +him the necessities he requires. In six hours' labour he will create +three shillings' worth of value, and he works the other six hours for +nothing, creating three shillings' worth of surplus value for the master +who advances him his wages. It is from these causes that we come on the +present system of things to the singular result that powers of labour +which create six shillings a day are themselves worth only three +shillings a day. This absurd conclusion, says Marx, could never have +held ground for an hour, had it not been hid and disguised by the +practice of paying wages in money. This makes it seem as if the labourer +were paid for the whole day when he is only paid for the half. Under the +old system of feudal servitude there were no such disguises. The +labourer wrought for his master one day, and for himself the other five, +and there was no make-believe as if he were working for himself all the +time. But the wages system gives to surplus labour that is really unpaid +the false appearance of being paid. That is the mystery of iniquity of +the whole system, the source of all prevailing legal conceptions of the +relation of employer and employed, and of all the illusions about +industrial freedom. The wages system is the lever of the labourer's +exploitation, because it enables the capitalist to appropriate the +entire surplus value created by the labourer--_i.e._, the value he +creates over and above what is necessary to recruit his labouring powers +withal. + +Now surplus value, as we have seen, is of two kinds, absolute and +relative. Absolute surplus value is got by lengthening the term of +surplus labour; relative surplus value by shortening the term of +necessary labour, which is chiefly done by inventions that cheapen the +necessaries of life. The consideration of the first of these points +leads Marx into a discussion of the normal length of the day of labour; +and the consideration of the second into a discussion of the effects of +inventions and machinery on the condition of the working classes. We +shall follow him on these points in their order. + + +3. _Normal day of labour._ There is a normal length of the day of +labour, and it ought to be ascertained and fixed by law. Some bounds are +set to it by nature. There is a minimum length, for example, beneath +which it cannot fall; that minimal limit is the time required to create +an equivalent to the labourer's living; but as under the capitalistic +system the capitalist has also to be supported out of it, it can never +be actually shortened to this minimum. There is also a maximum length +above which it cannot rise, and this upper limit is fixed by two sorts +of considerations, one physical, the other moral. 1st. _Physical +limits._ These are set by the physical endurance of the labourer. The +day of labour cannot be protracted beyond the term within which the +labourer can go on from day to day in normal working condition to the +end of his normal labouring career. This is always looked to with +respect to a horse. He cannot be wrought more than eight hours a day +regularly without injury. 2nd. _Moral limits._ The labourer needs time +(which the horse does not, or he would perhaps get it) for political, +intellectual, and social wants, according to the degree required by +society at the time. Between the maximum and minimum limit there is, +however, considerable play-room, and therefore we find labouring days +prevailing of very different length, 8 hours, 10, 12, 14, 16, and even +18 hours. There is no principle in the existing industrial economy which +fixes the length of the day; it must be fixed by law on a sound view of +the requirements of the case. Marx pitches upon 8 hours as the best +limit, because it affords a security for the permanent physical +efficiency of the labourer, and gives him leisure for satisfying those +intellectual and social wants which are becoming every day more largely +imperative. He makes no use of the reason often urged for the 8 hours +day, that the increased intelligence it would tend to cultivate in the +working class would in many ways conduce to such an increase of +production as would justify the shorter term of work. But he is very +strong for the necessity of having it fixed by law, and points out that +even then employers will need to be carefully watched or they will find +ways and means of extending the day in spite of the law. When the day +was fixed in England at 10 hours in some branches of industry, some +masters gained an extra quarter or half-hour by taking five minutes off +each meal time, and the profit made in these five minutes was often very +considerable. He mentions a manufacturer who said to him, "If you allow +me ten minutes extra time every day, you put £1,000 a year into my +pocket," and he says that is a good demonstration of the origin of +surplus value, for how much of this £1,000 would be given to the man +whose extra ten minutes' labour had made it? Marx enters very fully into +the history of English factory legislation, acknowledges the great +benefit it has conferred both upon the labouring class and the +manufacturers, and says that since the Act of 1850 the cotton industry +has become the model industry of the country. As might be expected, he +thinks the gradual course taken by English legislation on the subject +much inferior, as a matter of principle, to the more revolutionary +method taken by France in 1848, when a twelve hours Act was introduced +simultaneously as a matter of principle for every trade in the whole +country; but he admits that the results were more permanent in England. + + +4. _Effects of machinery, and the growth of fixed capital on the working +classes._ The whole progress of industrial improvements is a history of +fresh creations of relative surplus value, and always for the benefit of +the capitalist who advances the money. Everything that economizes labour +or that adds positively to its productivity, contracts the labourer's +own part of the working day and prolongs the master's. Division and +subdivision of labour, combination, co-operation, organization, +inventions, machinery, are all "on the one hand elements of historical +progress and development in the economic civilization of society, but on +the other are all means of civilized and refined exploitation of the +labourer." They not only increase social wealth at his expense, but in +many cases they do him positive injury. These improvements have cost +capitalists nothing, though capitalists derive the whole advantage from +them. Subdivision, combination, organization, are simply natural +resources of social labour, and natural resources of any kind are not +produced by the capitalist. Inventions, again, are the work of science, +and science costs the capitalist nothing. Labour, association, +science--these are the sources of the increase; capital is nowhere, yet +it sits and seizes the whole. Machinery, of course, is capital, but then +Marx will not admit that it creates any value, and contends that it +merely transfers to the product the value it loses by tear and wear in +the process of production. The general effect of industrial +improvements, according to Marx, is--1st, to reduce wages; 2nd, to +prolong the day of labour; 3rd, to overwork one-half of the working +class; 4th, to throw the rest out of employ; and, 5th, to concentrate +the whole surplus return in the hands of a few capitalists who make +their gains by exploiting the labourers, and increase them by exploiting +one another. This last point we need not further explain, and the third +and fourth we shall unfold under the separate heads of Piecework and +Relative Over-population. The remaining two I shall take up now, and +state Marx's views about a little more fully. + +(_a_). Industrial improvements tend to reduce wages. They do so, says +Marx, through first mutilating the labourer intellectually and +corporeally. As a result of subdivision of labour, workmen are rapidly +becoming mere one-sided specialists. Headwork is being separated more +and more from handwork in the labourer's occupation, and this +differentiation of function leads to a hierarchy of wages which affords +great opportunity for exploiting the labourer. Muscular power is more +easily dispensed with than formerly, and so the cheaper labour of women +and children is largely superseding the dearer labour of men. If this +goes on much further, the manufacturer will get the labour of a whole +family for the wages he used to pay to its head alone, and the labourer +will be converted into a slave-dealer who sells his wife and children +instead of his own labour. That this kind of slavery will find no sort +of resistance from either master or labourer, is to Marx's mind placed +beyond doubt by the fact that though the labour of children under 13 +years of age is restricted in English factories, advertisements appear +in public prints for "children that can pass for 13." + +(_b_). Industrial improvements tend to lengthen the day of labour. +Machinery can go on for ever, and it is the interest of the capitalist +to make it do so. He finds, moreover, a ready and specious pretext in +the greater lightness of the work as compared with hand labour, for +keeping the labourer employed beyond the normal limits of human +endurance. Capitalists always complain that long hours are a necessity +in consequence of the increasing extent of fixed capital which cannot +otherwise be made to pay. But this is a mistake on their part, says +Marx. For, according to the factory inspector's reports, shortening the +day of labour to 10 hours has increased production and not diminished +it, and the explanation is that the men can work harder while they are +at it, if the duration of their labour is shortened. Shortening the day +of labour has not only increased production, but actually increased +wages. Mr. Redgrave, in his Report for 1860, says that during the period +1839-1859 wages rose in the branches of industry that adopted the ten +hours' principle, and fell in trades where men wrought 14 and 15 hours a +day. Small wages and long hours are always found to go together, because +the same causes which enable the employer to reduce wages enable him to +lengthen the labouring day. + + +5. _Piecework._ Industrial improvements tend, Marx maintains, to +overwork, to undue intensification of labour, for machinery can go at +almost any rate all day and all night, and labourers are compelled by +various expedients to work up to it. Among these expedients none is more +strongly condemned by Marx than piecework, as encouraging over-exertion +and overtime. He says that though known so early as the 14th century, +piecework only came into vogue with the large system of production, to +which he thinks it the most suitable form of payment. He states (though +this is not quite accurate) that it is the only form of payment in use +in workshops that are under the factory acts, because in these workshops +the day of labour cannot be lengthened, and the capitalist has no other +way open to him of exploiting the labourer but by increasing the +intensity of the labour. He ridicules the idea of a writer who thought +"the system of piecework marked an epoch in the history of the working +man, because it stood halfway between the position of a mere wage +labourer depending on the will of the capitalist and the position of the +co-operative artisan who in the not distant future promises to combine +the artisan and the capitalist in his own person." Better far, he holds, +for the labourer to stick to day's wages, for he can be much more easily +and extensively exploited by the piece system. He contends that +experience has proved this in trades like the compositors and ship +carpenters, in which both systems of payment are in operation side by +side, and he cites from the factory inspectors' reports of 1860 the case +of a factory employing 400 hands, 200 paid by the piece and 200 by the +day. The piece hands had an interest in working overtime, and the day +hands were obliged to follow suit without receiving a farthing extra for +the additional hour or half-hour. This might be stopped by further +legislation, but then Marx holds that the system of piece payment is so +prone to abuse that when one door of exploitation shuts another only +opens, and legislation will always remain ineffectual. Every peculiarity +of the system furnishes opportunity either for reducing wages or +increasing work. On the piece system the worth of labour is determined +by the worth of the work it does, and unless the work possess average +excellence the stipulated price is withheld. There is thus always a +specious pretext ready to the employer's hand for making deductions from +wages on the ground that the work done did not come up to the stipulated +standard. Then again, it furnishes the employer with a definite measure +for the intensity of labour. He judges from the results of piecework how +much time it generally takes to produce a particular piece, and +labourers who do not possess the average productivity are turned off on +the ground that they are unable to do a minimum day's work. Even those +who are kept on get lower average wages than they would on the day +system. The superior workman earns indeed better pay working by the +piece, but the general body do not. The superior workman can afford to +take a smaller price per piece than the others, because he turns out a +greater number of pieces in the same time, and the employer fixes, from +the case of the superior workman, a standard of payment which is +injurious to the rest. In the end a change from day's wages to piece +wages will thus be found to have merely resulted in the average labourer +working harder for the same money. Marx, however, admits that when a +definite scale of prices has been in long use and has become fixed as a +custom, there are so many difficulties to its reduction that employers +are obliged, when they seek to reduce it, to resort to violent methods +of transforming it into time wages again. He gives an example of this +from the strike of the Coventry ribbon-weavers in 1860, in resistance to +a transformation of this kind. + +These are only some of the evils Marx lays at the door of piecework; he +has many more charges. From rendering the superintendence of labour +unnecessary, it leads to abuses like the sub-contracts known in this +country as "the sweating system," or what is a variety of the same, to +contracts of the employer with his manager, whereby the latter becomes +responsible for the whole work, and employs and pays the men. From +making it the pecuniary interest of the labourer to work overtime, +piecework induces him to overstrain his powers, and both to transgress +the legal or normal limits of the day of labour, and to raise or exceed +the normal degree of the intensity of labour. Marx, quoting from +Dunning, says that it was customary in the engineering trade in London +for employers to engage a foreman of exceptional physical powers, and +pay him an extra salary per quarter to keep the men up to his own pace; +an expedient which, he adds, is actually recommended to farmers by +Morton in his "Agricultural Encyclopædia." He attributes to piecework, +especially in its operation on women and children, the degeneration of +the labouring class in the potteries, which is shown in the Report of +the Commission on the Employment of Children. But while Marx thus +objects to piecework because it leads to overwork, he objects to it also +because it leads to underwork. It enables employers to engage more hands +than they require, when they entertain perhaps only an imaginary +expectation of work, for they know they run no risk, since paying by the +piece they pay only for what is done. The men are thus imperfectly +employed and insufficiently paid. + + +6. _Relative Over-population._ One of the worst features of modern +industrial development is the vast number of labourers whom it +constantly leaves out of employ. This Marx calls relative +over-population. Of absolute over-population he has no fear. He is not a +Malthusian. He holds that there is no population law applicable to all +countries and times alike. Social organisms differ from one another as +do animals and plants; they have different laws and conditions. Every +country and age has its own law of population. A constant and +increasing over-population is a characteristic of the present age; it is +a necessary consequence of the existing method of carrying on industry; +but it is nothing in the nature of an absolute over-growth; it is only, +to Marx's thinking, a relative superfluity. There is plenty of work for +all, more than plenty. If those who have employment were not allowed to +be overwrought, and if work were to-morrow to be limited to its due +amount for every one according to age and sex, the existing working +population would be quite insufficient to carry on the national +production to its present extent. Even in England, where the technical +means of saving labour are enormous, this could not be done except by +converting most of our present "unproductive" labourers into productive. +There is therefore, Marx conceives, no reason why any one should be out +of work; but at present, what with the introduction of new machinery, +the industrial cycles, the commercial crises, the changes of fashion, +the transitions of every kind, we have always, besides the industrial +army in actual service, a vast industrial reserve who are either +entirely out of employment or very inadequately employed. This relative +over-population is an inevitable consequence of the capitalistic +management of industry, which first compels one-half of the labouring +community to do the work of all, and then makes use of the redundancy of +labour so created to compel the working half to take less pay. Low wages +spring from the excessive competition among labourers caused by this +relative over-population. "Rises and falls in the rate of wages are +universally regulated by extensions and contractions in the industrial +reserve army which correspond with changes in the industrial cycle. They +are not determined by changes in the absolute number of the labouring +population, but through changes in the relative distribution of the +working class into active army and reserve army--through increase or +decrease in the relative numbers of the surplus population--through the +degree in which it is at one time absorbed and at another dismissed." +The fluctuations in the rate of wages are thus traced to expansions or +contractions of capital, and not to variation in the state of +population. Marx ridicules the theory of these fluctuations given by +political economists, that high wages lead to their own fall by +encouraging marriages, and so in the end increasing the supply of +labour, and that low wages lead to their own rise by discouraging +marriages and reducing the supply of labour. That, says Marx, is very +fine, but before high wages could have produced a redundant population +(which would take eighteen years to grow up), wages would, with modern +industrial cycles, have been up, down, and up again through ordinary +fluctuations of trade. + +Relative over-population is of three kinds: current, latent, and +stagnant. Current over-population is what comes from incidental causes, +the ordinary changes that take place in the every-day course of +industry. A trade is slack this season and brisk the next, has perhaps +its own seasons, like house-painting in spring, posting in summer. Or +one trade may from temporary reasons be busy, while others are +depressed. In the last half year of 1860 there were 90,000 labourers in +London out of employment, and yet the factory inspectors report that at +that very time much machinery was standing idle for want of hands. This +comes from the labourer being mutilated--that is, specialized--under +modern subdivision of labour, and fit for only a single narrow craft. +Another current cause of over-population is that under the stress of +modern labour the workman is old before his years, and while still in +middle life becomes unfit for full work, and passes into the reserve. +Marx says this is the real reason for the prevalence of early marriages +among the working class. They are generally condemned for being +improvident, but they are really resorted to from considerations of +providence, for working men foresee that they will be prematurely +disabled for work, and desire, when that day comes, to have grown-up +children about them who shall be able to support them. Other current +causes are new inventions and new fashions, which always throw numbers +out of work. Latent over-population is what springs from causes whose +operation is long and slow. The best example of it is the case of the +agricultural labourers. They are being gradually superseded by +machinery, and as they lose work in the country they gather to the towns +to swell the reserve army there. A great part of the farm servants are +always in this process of transition, a few here, and a few there, and a +few everywhere. The constancy of this flow indicates a latent +over-population in the rural districts, and that is the cause of the low +wages of agricultural labourers. By stagnant over-population Marx means +that which is shown in certain branches of industry, where none of the +workmen are thrown back entirely into the reserve, but none get full +regular employment. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE FEDERALISM OF CARL MARLO. + + +Marlo and Rodbertus are sometimes spoken of as the precursors of German +socialism. This, however, is a mistake. The socialism which now exists +appeared in Germany among the Young Hegelians forty years ago, before +the writings of either of these economists were published, and their +writings have had very little influence on the present movement. +Rodbertus, it is true, communicated a decided impulse to Lassalle, both +by his published letter to Von Kirchmann in 1853, and by personal +correspondence subsequently. He was a landed proprietor of strongly +liberal opinions, who was appointed Minister of Agriculture in Prussia +in 1848, but after a brief period of office retired to his estates, and +devoted himself to economic and historical study. He took a very decided +view of the defects of the existing industrial system, and held in +particular that, in accordance with Ricardo's law of necessary wages, +the labourer's income could never rise permanently above the level of +supplying him with a bare subsistence, and consequently that, while his +labour was always increasing in productivity, through mechanical +inventions and other means, the share which he obtained of the product +was always decreasing. What was required was simply to get this tendency +counteracted, and to devise arrangements by which the labourer's share +in the product might increase proportionally with the product itself, +for otherwise the whole working population would be left behind by the +general advancement of society. The remedy, he conceives, must lie in +the line of a fresh contraction of the sphere of private property. That +sphere had been again and again contracted in the interests of personal +development, and it must be so once more. And the contraction that was +now necessary was to leave nothing whatever in the nature of private +property except income. This proposal is substantially identical with +the scheme of the socialists; it is just the nationalization of all +permanent stock; but then he holds that it could not be satisfactorily +carried out in less than five hundred years. Rodbertus's writings have +never been widely known, but they attracted some attention among the +German working class, and he was invited, along with Lassalle and Lothar +Bucher, to address the Working Men's Congress in Leipzig in 1863. He +promised to come and speak on the law of necessary wages, but the +Congress was never held in consequence of the action of Lassalle in +precipitating his own movement, and from that movement Rodbertus held +entirely aloof. He agreed with Lassalle's complaints against the present +order of things, but he disapproved of his plan of reform. He did not +think the scheme of founding productive associations on State credit +either feasible or desirable, and he would still retain the system of +wages, though with certain improvements introduced by law. He thought, +moreover, that Lassalle erred gravely in making the socialists a +political party, and that they should have remained a purely economic +one. Besides, he looked on it as mere folly to expect, with Lassalle, +the accomplishment in thirty years of changes which, as we have seen, he +believed five centuries little enough time to evolve. + +Rodbertus may thus be said to have had some relations with the present +movement, but Marlo stands completely apart from it: and his large and +important work, "Untersuchungen über die Organization der Arbeit, oder +System der Weltökonomie," published at Kassel in 1850-5--though +original, learned, and lucid--remained so absolutely unknown that none +of the lexicons mention his name, and even an economist like +Schaeffle--who was the first to draw public attention to it, and has +evidently been considerably influenced by it himself--had never read it +till he was writing his own work on socialism (1870). But though Marlo +cannot be said to have contributed in any respect to the present +socialistic movement, his work deserves attentive consideration as a +plea for fundamental social reform, advanced by a detached and +independent thinker, who has given years of patient study to the +phenomena of modern economic life, and holds them to indicate the +presence of a deep-seated and widespread social disease. Carl Marlo is +the _nom de plume_ of a German professor of chemistry named Winkelblech, +and he gives us in the preface to his second volume a touching account +of how he came to apply himself to social questions. In 1843 he made a +tour of investigation through Northern Europe in connection with a +technological work he was engaged in writing, and visited among other +places the blue factory of Modum, in Norway, where he remained some +days, charmed with the scenery, which he thought equal to that of the +finest valleys of the Alps. One morning he went up to a neighbouring +height, whence he could see the whole valley, and was calmly enjoying +the view when a German artisan came to ask him to undertake some +commission to friends in the fatherland. They engaged in conversation. +The artisan went over his experiences, and repeated all the privations +he and his fellows had to endure. His tale of sorrow, so alien +apparently to the ravishing beauty around, made a profound impression on +Winkelblech, and altered the purpose and work of his life. "What is the +reason," he asked himself, "that the paradise before my eyes conceals so +much misery? Is nature the source of all this suffering, or is it man +that is to blame for it? I had before, like so many men of science, +looked, while in workshops, only on the forges and the machinery, not on +the men--on the products of human industry, and not on the producers, +and I was quite a stranger to this great empire of misery that lies at +the foundation of our boasted civilization. The touching words of the +artisan made me feel the nullity of my scientific work and life in its +whole extent, and from that moment I resolved to make the sufferings of +our race, with their causes and remedies, the subject of my studies." He +pursued these studies with the greatest industry for several years, and +found the extent of men's sufferings to be greatly beyond his +expectation. Poverty prevailed everywhere--among labourers and among +employers, too--with peoples of the highest industrial development, and +with peoples of the lowest--in luxurious cities, and in the huts of +villagers--in the rich plains of Lombardy, no less than the sterile +wilds of Scandinavia. He arrived at the conclusion that the causes of +all this lay not in nature, but in the fact that human institutions +rested on false economic foundations, and he held the only possible +remedy to consist in improving these institutions. He became convinced +that technical perfection of production, however great, would never be +able to extinguish poverty or lead to the diffusion of general comfort, +and that civilization was now come to a stage in its development at +which further progress depended entirely on the advancement of political +economy. Political economy was, therefore, for our time the most +important of all sciences, and Winkelblech now determined to give +himself thoroughly to its study. Hitherto he had not done so. "During +the progress of my investigations," he says, "the doctrines of +economists, as well as the theories of socialists, remained almost +unknown to me except in name, for I intentionally abstained from seeking +any knowledge of either, in order that I might keep myself as free as +possible from extraneous influences. It was only after I arrived at the +results described that I set myself to a study of economic literature, +and came to perceive that the substance of my thoughts, though many of +them were not new, and stood in need of correction, departed completely +from the accepted principles of the science." He reached the conclusion +that there prevailed everywhere the symptoms of a universal social +disease, and that political economy was the only physician that could +cure it; but that the prevailing system of economy was quite incompetent +for that task, and that a new system was urgently and indispensably +required. To set forth such a system is the aim of his book. He derides +Proudhon's idea of social reforms coming of themselves without design, +and argues strongly that no reform worthy the name can ever be expected +except as the fruit of economic researches. He agrees with the +Socialists in so far as they seek to devise a new economic system, but +he thinks they make a defective diagnosis of the disease, and propose an +utterly inadequate remedy. He counts them entirely mistaken in +attributing all existing evils to the unequal distribution of wealth, a +deficiency of production being, in his opinion, a much more important +source of misery than any error of distribution. In fact, his +fundamental objection to the existing distribution is that it is not the +distribution which conduces to the highest production, or to the most +fruitful use of the natural resources at the command of society. He +differs from the German socialists in always looking at the question +from the standpoint of society in general, rather than from that of the +proletariat alone, and he maintains that a new organization of labour is +even more necessary for the interest of the capitalists than for that of +the labourers, because he believes the present system will infallibly +lead, unless amended, to the overthrow of the capitalist class, and the +introduction of communism. His point of view is moreover purely economic +and scientific, entirely free from all partizan admixture, and while he +declares himself to be a zealous member of the republican party, he says +that he purposely abstains from intervention in politics because he +regards the political question as one of very minor rank, and holds +that, with sound social arrangements, people could live more happily +under the Russian autocracy than, with unsound ones, they could do under +the French republic. The organization of labour is, in his opinion, +something quite independent of the form of the State, and its final aim +ought to be to produce the amount of wealth necessary to diffuse +universal comfort among the whole population without robbing the middle +classes. These characteristics sufficiently separate him from the +socialist democrats of the present day. + +His book was published gradually in parts, sometimes after long +intervals, between 1848 and 1856, and it was finally interrupted by his +death in 1865. A second edition appeared in 1885, containing some +additions from his manuscripts, but the work remains incomplete. It was +to have consisted of three parts; 1st, a historical part, containing an +exposition and estimate of the various economic systems; 2nd, an +elementary or doctrinal part, containing an exposition of the principles +of economic science; and, 3rd, a practical part, explaining his plan for +the organization of labour. The first two parts are all we possess; the +third, and most important, never appeared, which must be regretted by +all who recognise the evidences of original power and singular candour +that the other parts present. + +Marlo's account of the social problem is that it arises from the fact +that our present industrial organization is not in correspondence with +the idea of right which is recognised by the public opinion of the time. +That idea of right is the Christian one, which takes its stand on the +dignity of manhood, and declares that all men, simply because they are +men, have equal rights to the greatest possible happiness. Up till the +French Revolution, the idea of right that prevailed was the heathen one, +which might be called the divine right of the stronger. The weak might +be made a slave without wrong. He might be treated as a thing and not as +a person or an equal, who had the same right with his master or his +feudal superior to the greatest possible enjoyment. Nature belonged to +the conqueror, and his dominion was transmitted by privilege. Inequality +of right was therefore the characteristic of this period; Marlo calls it +monopolism. But at the French Revolution the Christian idea of right +rose to its due ascendancy over opinion, and the sentiments of love and +justice began to assume a control over public arrangements. Do as you +would be done by, became a rule for politics as well as for private +life, and the weak were supported against the strong. Equality of right +was the mark of the new period; Marlo calls it panpolism. This idea +could not be realized before the present day, because it had never +before taken possession of the public mind, but it has done this now so +thoroughly that it cannot be expected to rest till it has realized +itself in every direction in all the practical applications of which it +is susceptible. The final arbiter of institutions is always the +conception of right prevailing at the time; contemporary industrial +arrangements are out of harmony with the contemporary conception of +right; and stability cannot be looked for until this disturbance is +completely adjusted. + +Now the first attempts that society made to effect this adjustment were +not unnaturally attended with imperfection. In the warmth of their +recoil from the evils of monopolism, men ran into extreme and distorted +embodiments of the opposite principle, and they ran contrary ways. These +contrary ways are Liberalism and Communism. Liberalism fixed its +attention mainly on the artificial restrictions, the privileges, the +services, the legal bonds by which monopoly and inequality were kept +up, and it thought a perfect state of society would be brought about if +only every chain were snapped and every fetter stripped away. It +conceived the road to the greatest possible happiness for every man was +the greatest possible freedom; it idolized the principle of abstract +liberty, and it fancied if evil did not disappear, it was always because +something still remained that needed emancipation. Communism, on the +other hand, kept its eyes on the inequalities of monopolistic society; +imagined the true road to the greatest possible happiness was the +greatest possible equality; that all ills would vanish as soon as things +were levelled enough; in short, it idolized the principle of abstract +equality. Modern Liberalism and modern Communism are therefore of equal +birth; they have the same historical origin in the triumph of the +principle of equality of right in 1789; they are only different modes of +attempting to reduce that principle to practice; and Liberalism happens +to be the more widely disseminated of the two, not because it represents +that principle better, but merely because being more purely negative +than the other, it was easier of introduction, and so got the start of +Communism in the struggle of existence. According to Marlo, they are +both equally bad representatives of the principle, and their chief good +lies in their mutual criticism, by means of which they prepare the way +for the true system, the system of Federalism, which will be presently +explained. The history of revolution, he says, begins in the victory of +Liberalism and Communism together over Monopolism; it proceeds by the +conflict of the victors with one another, and it ends in the final +triumph of Federalism over both. + +Marlo next criticises the two systems of Liberalism and Communism with +considerable acuteness. Both the one and the other are utopias; they are +absorbed in realizing an abstract principle, and they, as a matter of +fact, produce exactly the opposite of what they aim at. Communism seeks +to reach the greatest possible happiness by introducing first the +greatest possible equality. But what is equality? Is it equality when +each man gets a coat of the same size, or is it not rather when each man +gets a coat that fits him? Some communists would accept the former +alternative. They would measure off the same length to the dwarf and +the giant, to the ploughman and the judge, to the family of three and +the family of thirteen. But this would be clearly not equality, but only +inequality of a more vicious and vexatious kind. Most communists, +however, prefer the second alternative, and assign to every man +according to his needs, to every man the coat that fits him. But then we +must first have the cloth, and that is only got by labour, and every +labourer ought if possible to produce his own coat. The motive to +labour, however, is weakened on the communistic system; and if those who +work less are to be treated exactly like those who work more, then that +would be no abolition of monopoly, but merely the invention of a new +monopoly, the monopoly of indolence and incapacity. The skilful and +industrious would be exploited by the stupid and lazy. Besides, +production would for the same reason, insufficient inducement to labour, +be diminished, progress would be stopped, and therefore the average of +human happiness would decline. Communism thus conducts to the opposite +of everything it seeks. It seeks equality, it ends in inequality; it +seeks the abolition of monopoly, it creates a new monopoly; it seeks to +increase happiness, it actually diminishes it. It is a pure utopia, and +why? Because it misunderstands its own principle. Equality does not mean +giving equal things to every man; it means merely affording the greatest +possible playroom for the development of every personality, and that is +exactly the principle of freedom. The greatest possible equality and the +greatest possible freedom can only be realized together; they must +spring out of the same conditions, and a system of right which shall +adjust these conditions is just what is now wanted. + +Liberalism is a failure from like causes. It seeks to realize happiness +by freedom; it realizes neither. For it mistakes the nature of freedom, +as the Communists mistake the nature of equality. It takes freedom to be +the power of doing what one likes, instead of being the power of doing +what is right. Its whole bent is to exempt as much as possible of life +from authoritative restraint, and to give as much scope as exigencies +will allow to the play of individuality. It is based on no positive +conception of right whatever, and looks on the State as an alien whose +interference is something exceptional, only justified on occasional +grounds of public necessity or general utility. It fails to see that +there are really no affairs in a community which are out of relation to +the general wellbeing, and destitute of political significance. Nothing +demonstrates the error of this better than the effects of the Liberal +_régime_ itself. For half a century the industrial concerns of the +people have been treated as matters of purely private interest, and this +policy has resulted in a political as well as economical revolution. +Industrial freedom, which has produced capitalism in the economic field, +has resulted in political life in the ascendancy of a new class, a +plutocracy, "the worst masters," said De Tocqueville, "the world has yet +seen, though their reign will be short." The change which was effected +by the legislation of the Revolution was not a development of a fourth +estate, as is sometimes said; it was really nothing more than the +creation of a money aristocracy, and the putting of them in the place of +the old hereditary nobility. The system of industrial right that happens +to prevail, therefore, so far from being, as Liberals fancy, outside the +sphere of political interest, is in truth the very element on which the +distribution of political power, in the last analysis, depends. Nothing +is more political than the social question. Liberals think slight of +that question, but it is, says Marlo, the real question of the day, and +it is neither more nor less than the question of the existence or +abolition of Liberalism, the question of the maintenance or subversion +of the principle of industrial freedom, the question of the ascendancy +or overthrow of a money aristocracy. The fight of our age is a fight +against a plutocracy bred of Liberalism. It is not, as some represent +it, a struggle of labourers against employers; it is a joint struggle of +labourers and lower _bourgeoisie_ against the higher _bourgeoisie_, a +struggle of those who work and produce against those who luxuriate idly +on the fruits of others' labour. As compared with this question, +constitutional questions are of very minor importance, for no matter +whether the State be monarchy or republic, if the system of industrial +right that prevails in it be the system of industrial freedom, the real +power of the country will be in the hands of the capitalist class. He +who fails to see this, says Marlo, fails to understand the spirit of +his time. It is always the national idea of right that governs both in +social and political relations, and as long as the national idea of +right is that of Liberalism, we shall continue to have capitalism and a +plutocracy. It is the mind that builds the body up, and it is only when +a new system of right has taken as complete possession of the national +consciousness as Liberalism did in 1789, that the present social +conflict will cease and a better order of things come in. + +From want of such a system of right--from want even of seeing the +necessity for it, Liberalism has defeated its own purpose. It sought to +abolish monopoly; it has only substituted for the old monopoly of birth +the more grievous monopoly of wealth. It sought to establish freedom; it +has only established plutocratic tyranny. It has erred because it took +for freedom an abstraction of its own and tried to realize that, just as +Communism erred by taking for equality an abstraction of its own and +trying to realize that. The most perfect state of freedom is not reached +when every man has the power of doing what he likes, any more than the +most perfect state of equality is reached when every man has equal +things with every other; but the greatest possible freedom is attained +in a condition of society where every man has the greatest possible +play-room for the development of his personality, and the greatest +possible equality is attained in exactly the same state of things. Real +freedom and real equality are in fact identical. Every right contains +from the first a social element as well as an individual element, and it +cannot be realized in the actual world without observing a due +adjustment between these two elements. Such an adjustment can only be +discovered by a critical examination of the economic constitution of +society, and must then be expressed in a distinct system of industrial +right, which imposes on individual action its just limits. True liberty +is liberty within these limits; and the true right of property is a +right of property under the same conditions. The fundamental fault of +Liberalism, the cause of its failure, is simply that it goes to work +without a sound theory of right, or rather perhaps without any clear +theory at all, and merely aims at letting every one do as he likes, +with the understanding that the State can always be called in to +correct accidents and excesses. + +This defect is what Federalism claims to supply. It claims to be the +only theory that abandons abstractions and keeps closely to the nature +of things, and therefore to be the only theory that is able to realize +even approximately the Christian principle of equality of right. The +name furnishes no very precise clue to the conclusion it designates, and +it has no reference to the federative form of State, for which Marlo +expressly disavows having any partiality. He has chosen the word merely +to indicate the fact that society is an organic confederation of many +different kinds of associations--families, churches, academies, +mercantile companies, and so on; that association is not only a natural +form, but the natural form in which man's activity tends to be carried +on; and that in any sound system of industrial right this must be +recognised by an extension of the collective form of property and the +co-operative form of production. Communism, says Marlo, is mechanical, +Liberalism is atomistic, but Federalism is organic. When he +distinguishes his theory from communism, it must be remembered that it +is from the communism which he has criticised, and which he would prefer +to denominate Equalism; it is from the communism of Baboeuf, which would +out of hand give every man according to his needs, and would +consequently, through impairing the motives to industry, leave those +needs themselves in the long run less satisfactorily provided for than +they are now. But his system is nearly identical with the communism of +the Young Hegelians of his own time--that is, with the German socialism +of the present day--although he arrived at it in entire independence of +their agitations, and builds it on deductions peculiar to himself. Like +them, he asks for the compulsory transformation of land and the +instruments of production from private property into collective +property; like them, he asks for this on grounds of social justice, as +the necessary mechanism for giving effect to positive rights that are +set aside under the present system; and he says himself, "If you ask the +question, how is the democratic social republic related to Federalism, +the most suitable answer is, as the riddle to its solution." + +He starts from the position that all men have equally the right to +property. Not merely in the sense, which is commonly acknowledged, that +they have the right to property if they have the opportunity of +acquiring it; but in the further significance, that they have a right to +the opportunity. They are in fact born proprietors--_de jure_ at least, +and they are so for two reasons. First, God has made them persons, and +not things, and they have, therefore, all equally a natural right to +their amplest personal development. If society interferes with this +liberty of personal development--if it suffers any of its members to +become the slaves of others, for example--it robs them of original +rights which belong to them by the mere fact of their manhood. But, +secondly, property, resources of some sort, being indispensable means of +personal development, God, who has imposed the end, has supplied the +means. He has given nature, the earth and the lower creation, into the +dominion of man, not of this or that man, or class of men, but of +mankind, and consequently every man has, equally with every other, a +right to participate in the dominion of nature, a right to use its +bounty to the extent required for his personal development. No +appropriation of nature can be just which excludes this possibility and +robs any man of this natural right. It is, therefore, wrong to allow to +any single person, or to any limited number of persons, an absolute +dominion over natural resources in which everybody else has, by nature, +a right to some extent to share. He who should have complete and +exclusive lordship over all nature, would be lord and master of all his +fellow-men, and in a period after natural agents are all appropriated +the system of complete and absolute property leaves the new-comers at +the mercy of those who are already in possession. They can only work if +the latter give them the productive instruments; they can only reap from +their work so much of its fruits as the latter are pleased to leave with +them; and they must perish altogether unless the latter employ them. +They are slaves, they are beggars; and yet they came into the world with +the rights of a proprietor, of which they can never be divested. Nature +laid covers for them as well as for the rest, and a system of property +is essentially unjust which ousts them from their seat at her table. +The common theory of property starts from the premiss, that all men have +the right to property, and draws the conclusion, that, therefore, some +men have the right to monopolize it. As usually understood, the +proprietary right is as much a right of robbery as a right of property, +and Proudhon would have been quite correct in describing property as +theft, if no better system of property could be devised than the +present. + +But such a system can be devised; one under which the right of +new-comers may be respected without disturbing those of possessors. This +can only be done by putting entirely aside the complete and absolute +form of property which is in so much favour with Liberalism, and by +making the right of property in any actual possession a strictly limited +and circumscribed right from the first--the right not to an arbitrary +control over a thing, but to a just control over it. So long as property +is always thought of as an arbitrary and absolute dominion over a thing, +the proprietary right cannot possibly be explained in a way that does +not make it a right given to some to rob others. Why not, therefore, +define property from the beginning as subject to limitations, and +contrive a new form or system of it, in which these limitations shall +for ever receive due recognition, and no man be thereafter denied the +opportunity of acquiring as much of the bounty of nature as is necessary +for him to carry out his personal development? + +That is Marlo's task, and it would have been an easy one, if all goods, +if everything that satisfies a human want, had been supplied directly by +nature, as air is supplied, without the need of industry to procure it +or the power of industry to multiply it. Then the problem would be +solved very simply as the earlier communists desired to solve it. Every +member of society would be entitled to partake of nature's supplies, as +he now does of air, in the measure of his need, and when those supplies +ran exhausted, just as when the air became vitiated, society would be +entitled, nay obliged, to suppress further propagation. But the question +is far from being so simple. Nature only yields her bounties to us after +labour; they are only converted into means of life by labour; and they +are capable of being vastly multiplied by labour. This element of +labour changes the situation of things considerably, and must be allowed +a leading _rôle_ in determining a just right and system of property. The +only case where a proprietary right can be recognised which is +unmodified by this consideration, is the case of those who are unable to +labour. They fall back on their original right to a share in the bounty +of nature in the measure that their personal development requires; in +other words, according to their needs. Their share does not lie waste, +though they are unable to work it themselves, and their share belongs to +them immediately because they are persons, and not because they may +afterwards become labourers. Marlo recognises, therefore, antecedently +to labour the right to existence, and this right he proposes to realize +for the weak and disabled by means of a compulsory system of national +insurance. + +The other natural proprietary rights are consequent in one way or +another upon labour. First, there is the right to labour. If every man +has a right to a share in the dominion of nature, then every man who is +able to labour has a right to obtain the natural resources that are +necessary to give him employment according to capacity and trade. No +private appropriation of these resources can divest him of his title to +get access to them, and if he cannot find work himself, the State is +bound to provide it for him in public workshops. Second, every man has a +right to the most profitable possible application of labour to natural +resources. He has an interest in seeing the common stock put to the best +account, and he is wronged in this interest when waste is permitted, +when inferior methods are resorted to, or when the distribution of work +and materials is ill arranged. Now the best arrangement is when each man +is equipped according to the measure and quality of his powers. Nature +will be then best worked, and man's personal development will then be +best furthered. If such an arrangement cannot be effected on the system +of property now in vogue, while it may be under another, it is every +man's right to have the former system supplanted by the latter. The most +economical form of property is the most just. Third, the next right is a +right to an almost unlimited control over the fruits of one's own +labour. Not over the means of labour; these can only be justly or +economically held by a circumscribed control; but over the fruits of +labour. These ought to be retained as exclusive property, for the simple +reason that the natural resources will be so turned to the best account. +On any other system of payment the motive to labour is impaired, and the +amount of its produce diminished. Distribution by need defeats its own +end; the very needs of the community would be less amply satisfied after +it than before it. Distribution according to work is the sound economic +principle, and therefore the just one. Marlo here leaves room for the +play of the hereditary principle and of competition to some extent, and +he allows the free choice of occupation on similar grounds. Men will +work best in lines their own tastes and powers lead them to. Everything +is determined by economic utility, and economic utility is supposed to +be at its height when the natural resources of a country are distributed +among its inhabitants according to the requirements of their labouring +powers. + +This condition of things can only be realized, first, if population is +regulated; second, if unproductive labour is suppressed; and third, if +the means of labour are made common property. The necessity for +regulating population comes, of course, from the limitation of the +natural resources at society's command. In any community there is a +certain normal limit of population--the limit at which all the natural +resources are distributed among all the inhabitants according to their +powers--and the community will learn when this limit is reached from the +number of workmen who are unable to obtain private employment, and are +obliged to seek work from the State. Then it can regulate population by +various expedients. It may require the possession of a certain amount of +fortune as a preliminary condition to marriage, and raise this amount +according to necessity. It may encourage emigration. It may forbid +marriages under a fixed age, and to prevent illegitimacy, it might give +natural children the same rights as legitimate ones. But Marlo trusts +most to the strong preventive check that would be supplied by the power +imparted to working men under the Federal _régime_ of improving their +position. + +The same necessity that makes it legitimate, and, indeed, imperative to +regulate population, makes it legitimate and imperative also to suppress +what Marlo calls unproductive acquisition, _i.e._, the acquisition by +persons who are able to work of any other property than they earn as the +fruit of their work; and to suppress likewise all waste of the means of +life and enjoyment, such, for example, as is involved in the maintenance +of unnecessary horses, dogs, or other animals that only eat up the +products of the soil. The obligation to labour and the curtailment of +luxury would come into exercise before the restrictions on population, +and be more and more rigorously enforced as the normal limit of +population was approximated. + +But the most important and the most necessary innovation is the +conversion of land and the instruments of production into the form of +collective property. The form in which property should be held ought to +be strictly determined by considerations of economic utility. From such +considerations the Liberals themselves have introduced important changes +into the system of property; they have abolished fiefs, hereditary +tenancies, entail, servitudes, church and village lands, all the +peculiarities of monopolistic society, because, as they said, they +wished to substitute a good form of property for a bad; and they at +least have no right, Marlo thinks, to turn round now on Communists or +Federalists for proposing to supersede this good form of property by a +better. They have themselves transformed property by law, and they have +transformed it on grounds of economic advantage; they have owned that +the economic superiority of a particular form of property imposes a +public obligation for its compulsory introduction. They asserted the +competency of the State against the monopolists, and they cannot now +deny it against the socialists. If the private form of property is best, +then let the State maintain it; but if the collective form is best, then +the State is bound, even on the principles of Liberals themselves, to +introduce it. The question can only be determined by experience of the +comparative economic utility of the two. Without offering any detailed +proof of his proposition from experience Marlo then affirms that the +most advantageous form of property is reached when the instruments of +production are the collective property of associations, and the +instruments of enjoyment (except wells, bridges, and the like) are the +property of individuals. Each man's house would still be his castle; his +house and the fulness thereof would still belong to him; but outside of +it he could acquire no individual possessions. Of land and the means of +labour, he should be joint-proprietor with others, or rather +joint-tenant with them under the Crown. Industrial property would be +held in common by the associations that worked it, and these +associations would be organized by authority with distinct charters of +powers and functions. + +Marlo thus arrives at the same practical scheme as Marx, though by a +slightly different road. Marx builds his claim on Ricardo's theory of +value and Ricardo's law of necessary wages. Marlo builds his on man's +natural right, as a sharer in the dominion of nature, to the most +advantageous exercise of that dominion. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. + + +The Socialists of the Chair have done themselves injustice and sown +their course with embarrassing misconceptions by adopting too hastily an +infelicitous name. It is more descriptive than most political nicknames, +and therefore more liable to mislead. It was first used in 1872 in a +pamphlet by Oppenheim, then one of the leaders of the National Liberals, +to ridicule a group of young professors of political economy who had +begun to show a certain undefined sympathy with the socialist agitations +of Lassalle and Von Schweitzer, and to write of the wrongs of the +labouring classes and the evils of the existing industrial system with a +flow of emotion which was thought to befit their years better than their +position. A few months later these young professors called together at +Eisenach a Congress of all who shared their general attitude towards +that class of questions. In opening this Congress--which was attended by +almost every economist of note in Germany, and by a number of the +weightiest and most distinguished Liberal politicians--Professor +Schmoller employed the name "Socialists of the Chair" to describe +himself and those present, without adding a single qualifying remark, +just as if it had been their natural and chosen designation. The +nickname was no doubt accepted so readily, partly from a desire to take +the edge off the sneer it was meant to convey, but partly also from the +nobler feeling which makes men stand by a truth that is out of favour. +Not that they approved of the contentions of social democracy out and +out, but they believed there was more basis of truth in them than +persons in authority were inclined to allow, and besides that the truth +they contained was of special and even pressing importance. They held, +as Schmoller said, that "Social Democracy was itself a consequence of +the sins of modern Liberalism." They went entirely with the Social +Democrats in maintaining both that a grave social crisis had arisen, and +that it had been largely brought about by an irrational devotion on the +part of the Liberals to the economic doctrine of _laissez-faire_. But +they went further with them. They believed that the salvation of modern +society was to come, not indeed from the particular scheme of +reconstruction advocated by the Social Democrats, but still from +applications in one form or another of their fundamental principle, the +principle of association. And it was for that reason--it was for the +purpose of marking the value they set upon the associative principle as +the chief source of healing for the existing ills of the nations--that +they chose to risk misunderstanding and obloquy by accepting the +nickname put upon them by their adversaries. The late Professor Held, +who claims as a merit that he was the first to do so, explains very +clearly what he meant by calling himself a socialist. Socialism may +signify many different things, but, as he uses the word, it denotes not +any definite system of opinions or any particular plan of social reform, +but only a general method which may guide various systems, and may be +employed more or less according to circumstances in directing many +different reforms. He is a socialist because he would give much more +place than obtains at present to the associative principle in the +arrangements of economic life, and because he cannot share in the +admiration many economists express for the purely individualistic basis +on which these arrangements have come to stand. A socialist is simply +the opposite of an individualist. The individualist considers that the +perfection of an industrial economy consists in giving to the principles +of self-interest, private property, and free competition, on which the +present order of things is founded, the amplest scope they are capable +of receiving, and that all existing economic evils are due, not to the +operation of these principles, but only to their obstruction, and will +gradually disappear when self-interest comes to be better understood, +when competition is facilitated by easier inter-communication, and when +the law has ceased from troubling and left industry at rest. The +socialist, in Held's sense, is, on the other hand, one who rejects the +comfortable theory of the natural harmony of individual interests, and +instead of deploring the obstructions which embarrass the operations of +the principles of competition, self-interest, and private property, +thinks that it is precisely in consequence of these obstructions that +industrial society contrives to exist at all. Strip these principles, he +argues, of the restraints put upon them now by custom, by conscience, by +public opinion, by a sense of fairness and kind feeling, and the +inequalities of wealth would be immensely aggravated, and the labouring +classes would be unavoidably ground to misery. Industrial society would +fall into general anarchy, into a _bellum omnium contra omnes_, in which +they that have would have more abundantly, and they that have not would +lose even what they have. Held declines to join in the admiration +bestowed by many scientific economists upon this state of war, in which +the battle is always to the rich. He counts it neither the state of +nature, nor the state of perfection, of economic society, but simply an +unhappy play of selfish and opposing forces, which it ought to be one of +the distinct aims of political economy to mitigate and counteract. +Individualism has already had too free a course, and especially in the +immediate past has enjoyed too sovereign a reign. The work of the world +cannot be carried on by a fortuitous concourse of hostile atoms, moving +continually in a strained state of suspended social war, and therefore, +for the very safety of industrial society, we must needs now change our +tack, give up our individualism, and sail in the line of the more +positive and constructive tendencies of socialism. To Held's thinking +accordingly, socialism and individualism are merely two contrary general +principles, ideals, or methods, which may be employed to regulate the +constitution of economic society, and he declares himself a socialist +because he believes that society suffers at present from an excessive +application of the individualistic principle, and can only be cured by +an extensive employment of the socialistic one. + +This is all clear enough, but it is simply giving to the word socialism +another new meaning, and creating a fresh source of ambiguity. That term +has already contracted definite associations which it is impossible to +dispel by mere word of mouth, and which constitute a refracting medium +through which the principles of the Socialists of the Chair cannot fail +to be presented in a very misleading form. These writers assume a +special position in two relations--first, as theoretical economists; +and, second, as practical politicians or social reformers; and in both +respects alike the term socialism is peculiarly inappropriate to +describe their views. In regard to the first point, by adopting that +name they have done what they could to "Nicodemus" themselves into a +sect, whereas they might have claimed, if they chose, to be better +exponents of the catholic tradition of the science than those who found +fault with them. This is a claim, however, which they would be shocked +indeed to think of presenting. With a natural partiality for their own +opinions, they exaggerated immensely the extent and also the value of +their divergence from the traditional or, as it is sometimes called, the +classical economics. In the energy of their recoil from the dogmatism +which had for a generation usurped an excessive sway over economic +science, they were carried too far in the opposite direction, but they +had in their own minds the sensation that they were carried a great deal +farther than they really were. They liked to think of their historical +method as constituting a new epoch, and effecting a complete revolution +in political economy, but, as will subsequently appear, that method, +when reduced to its real worth, amounts to no more than an application, +with somewhat distincter purpose and wider reach, of the method which +Smith himself followed. Of this they are in some degree conscious. +Brentano, who belongs to the extreme right of the school, says that +Smith would have been a Socialist of the Chair to-day if he were alive; +and Samter, who belongs to the extreme left, though he is doubtful +regarding Smith, has no hesitation in claiming Mill, whom he looks upon +as standing more outside than inside the school of Smith. Their position +is, therefore, not the new departure which many of them would fain +represent it to be. They are really as natural and as legitimate a line +of descent from Adam Smith as their adversaries the German Manchester +Party who claimed the authority of his name. Perhaps they are even more +so, for in science the true succession lies with those who carry the +principles of the master to a more fruitful development, and not with +those who embalm them as sacred but sterile simulacra. + +But it is as practical reformers that the Socialists of the Chair suffer +most injustice from their name. Since the word socialism was first used +by Reybaud fifty years ago, it has always been connected with utopian or +revolutionary ideas. Now the Socialists of the Chair are the very +opposite of revolutionaries both by creed and practice. None of the +various parties which occupy themselves with the social problem in +Germany is so eminently and advisedly practical. Their very historical +method, apart from anything else, makes them so. It gives them a special +aversion to political and social experiments, for it requires as the +first essential of any project of reform that it shall issue naturally +and easily out of--or at least be harmonious with--the historical +conditions of the time and place to which it is to be applied. Roscher, +who may be regarded as the founder of the school, says that reformers +ought to take for their model Time, whose reforms are the surest and +most irresistible of all, but yet so gradual that they cannot be +observed at any given moment. They make, therefore, on the whole a very +sparing use of the socialistic principle they invoke. Certainly the +world, in their eyes, is largely out of joint, but its restoration is to +proceed gently, like Solomon's temple, without sound of hammer. Some of +them of course go farther than others, but they would all still leave us +rent, wages, and profits, the three main stems of individualism. They +struck the idea of taxing speculative profits out of their programme, +and so far from having any socialistic thought of abolishing +inheritance, none of them except Von Scheel would even tax it +exceptionally. Samter stands alone in urging the nationalization of the +land; and Wagner stands alone in desiring the abolition of private +property in ground-rents in towns; the other members cannot agree even +about the expediency of nationalizing the railways. They work of set +purpose for a better distribution of wealth--for what Schmoller calls a +progressive equalization of the excessive and even dangerous differences +of culture that exist at present--but they recoil from all suggestion of +schemes of repartition, and they have no fault to find with inequality +in itself. On the contrary they regard inequality as being not merely +an unavoidable result of men's natural endowments, but an indispensable +instrument of their progress and civilization. Schmoller explains that +their political principles are those of Radical Toryism, as portrayed in +Lord Beaconsfield's novels; and he means that they rest on the same +active sympathy with the ripening aspirations of the labouring classes, +and the same zealous confidence in the authority of the State, and in +these respects are distinguished from modern Liberalism, whose governing +sympathies are with the interests and ideas of the _bourgeoisie_, and +which entertains a positive jealousy of the action of the State. The +actual reforms which the Socialists of the Chair have hitherto promoted +have been in the main copied from our own English legislation--our +Factory Acts, our legalization of Trade Unions, our Savings Banks, our +registration of Friendly Societies, our sanitary legislation, etc., +etc.--measures which have been passed, with the concurrence of men of +opposite shades of opinion, out of no social theory but from a plain +regard to the obvious necessities of the hour. So that we have been +simply Socialists of the Chair for a generation without knowing it, +doing from a happy political instinct the works which they deduce out of +an elaborate theory of economic politics. Part of their theory, however, +is, that in practical questions they are not to go by theory, and the +consequence is that while they sometimes lay down general principles in +which communism might steal a shelter, they control these principles so +much in their application by considerations of expediency, that the +measures they end in proposing differ little from such as commend +themselves to the common sense and public spirit of middle-class +Englishmen. + +Their general theory had been taught in Germany for twenty years before +it was forced into importance by the policy it suggested and the +controversies it excited in connection with the socialist movement which +began in 1863. Wilhelm Roscher, the lately deceased professor of +economics in Leipzig, first propounded the historical method in his +"Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die Staatswirthschaft nach +geschichtlicher Methode," published in 1843, though it deserves to be +noticed that in this work he spoke of the historical method as being +the ordinary inductive method of scientific economists, and +distinguished it from the idealistic method proceeding by deduction from +preconceived ideas, which he said was the method of the socialists. He +had no thought as yet of representing his method as diverging from that +of his predecessors, even in detail, much less as being essentially +different in principle. Then the late Bruno Hildebrand, professor of +political science at Jena, in his work on the "National Economy of the +Present and the Future," published in 1847, proclaimed the historical +method as the harbinger and instrument of a new era in the science, but +he speaks of it only as a restoration of the method of diligent +observation which Adam Smith practised, but which his disciples deserted +for pure abstractions. In 1853, a more elaborate defence and exposition +of the historical method appeared in a work on "Political Economy from +the Standpoint of the Historical Method," by Carl G. A. Knies, professor +of national economics at Heidelberg. But it was never dreamt that the +ideas broached in these works had spread beyond the few solitary +thinkers who issued them. The Free Traders were still seen ruling +everything in the high places of the land in the name of political +economy, and they were everywhere apparently accepted as authorized +interpreters of the mysteries of that, to the ordinary public, somewhat +occult science. They preached the freedom of exchange like a religion +which contained at once all they were required to believe in economic +matters, and all they were required to do. There was ground for +Lassalle's well-known taunt: "Get a starling, Herr Schultze, teach it to +pronounce the word 'exchange,' 'exchange,' 'exchange,' and you have +produced a very good modern economist." The German Manchester Party +certainly gave to the principle of _laissez-faire, laissez-aller_, a +much more unconditional and universal application than any party in this +country thought of according to it. They looked on it as a kind of +orthodoxy which it had come to be almost impious to challenge. It had +been hallowed by the consensus of the primitive fathers of the science, +and it seemed now to be confirmed beyond question experimentally by the +success of the practical legislation in which it had been exemplified +during the previous quarter of a century. The adherents of the new +school never raised a murmur against all this up till the eventful time +of the socialist agitation and the formation of the new German Empire, +and the reason is very plain. On the economic questions which came up +before that period, they were entirely at one with the Free Traders, and +gave a hearty support to their energetic lead. They were, for example, +as strenuously opposed to protective duties and to restrictions upon +liberty of migration, settlement, and trading, as Manchester itself. But +with the socialist agitation of 1863, a new class of economic questions +came to the front--questions respecting the condition of the working +classes, the relations of capital and labour, the distribution of +national wealth, and the like--and on these new questions they could not +join the Free Traders in saying "Hands off!" They did not believe with +the Manchester school that the existing distribution of wealth was the +best of all possible distributions, because it was the distribution +which Nature herself produced. They thought, on the contrary, that +Nature had little to do with the matter; but even if it had more, there +was only too good cause for applying strong corrections by art. They +said it was vain for the Manchester party to deny that a social question +existed, and to maintain that the working classes were as well off as it +was practical for economic arrangements to make them. They declared +there was much truth in the charges which socialists were bringing +against the existing order of things, and that there was a decided call +upon all the powers of society, and, among others, especially upon the +State, to intervene with some remedial measures. A good opportunity for +concerted and successful action seemed to be afforded when the German +Empire was established, and this led to the convening of the Eisenach +Congress in 1872, and the organization of the Society for Social +Politics in the following year. + +Men of all shades of opinion were invited to that Congress, provided +they agreed on two points, which were expressly mentioned in the +invitation: 1st, in entertaining an earnest sense of the gravity of the +social crisis which existed; and 2nd, in renouncing the principle of +_laissez-faire_ and all its works. The Congress was attended by 150 +members, including many leading politicians and most of the professors +of political economy at the Universities. Roscher, Knies, and Hildebrand +were there, with their younger disciples Schmoller, professor at +Strasburg and author of the "History of the Small Industries"; Lujo +Brentano, professor at Breslau, well known in this country by his book +on "English Gilds" and his larger work on "English Trade Unions"; +Professors A. Wagner of Berlin and Schönberg of Tübingen. Then there +were men like Max Hirsch and Duncker the publisher, both members of the +Imperial Diet, and the founders of the Hirsch-Duncker Trade Unions; Dr. +Engel, director of the statistical bureau at Berlin; Professor von +Holtzendorff, the criminal jurist; and Professor Gneist, historian of +the English Constitution, who was chosen to preside. After an opening +address by Schmoller, three papers were read and amply discussed, one on +Factory Legislation by Brentano, a second on trade Unions and Strikes by +Schmoller, and a third on Labourers' Dwellings by Engel. This Congress +first gave the German public an idea of the strength of the new +movement; and the Free Trade party were completely, and somewhat +bitterly, disenchanted, when they found themselves deserted, not as they +fancied merely by a few effusive young men, but by almost every +economist of established reputation in the country. A sharp controversy +ensued. The newspapers, with scarcely an exception, attacked the +Socialists of the Chair tooth and nail, and leading members of the +Manchester party, such as Treitschke the historian, Bamberger the +Liberal politician, and others, rushed eagerly into the fray. They were +met with spirit by Schmoller, Held, Von Scheel, Brentano, and other +spokesmen of the Eisenach position, and one result of the polemic is, +that some of the misunderstandings which naturally enough clouded that +position at the beginning have been cleared away, and it is now admitted +by both sides that they are really much nearer one another than either +at first supposed. The Socialists of the Chair did not confine their +labours to controversial pamphlets. They published newspapers, +periodicals, elaborate works of economic investigation; they held +meetings, promoted trade unions, insurance societies, savings banks; +they brought the hours of labour, the workmen's houses, the effects of +speculation and crises, all within the sphere of legislative +consideration. The moderation of their proposals of change has +conciliated to a great extent their Manchester opponents. Even +Oppenheim, the inventor of their nickname, laid aside his scoffing, and +seconded some of their measures energetically. Indeed, their chief +adversaries are now the socialists, who cannot forgive them for going +one mile with them and yet refusing to go twain--for adopting their +diagnosis and yet rejecting their prescription. Brentano, who is one of +the most moderate, as well as one of the ablest of them, takes nearly as +grave a view of the state of modern industrial society as the socialists +themselves do; and he says that if the evils from which it suffers could +not be removed otherwise, it would be impossible to avoid much longer a +socialistic experiment. But then he maintains that they can be removed +otherwise, and one of the chief motives of himself and his allies in +their practical work is to put an end to socialistic agitation by curing +the ills which have excited it. + +The key to the position of the Socialists of the Chair lies in their +historical method. This method has nothing to do with the question +sometimes discussed whether the proper method of political economy is +the inductive or the deductive. On that question the historical school +of economists are entirely agreed with the classical school. Roscher, +for example, adopts Mill's description of political economy as a +concrete deductive science, whose _à priori_ conclusions, based on laws +of human nature, must be tested by experience, and says that an economic +fact can be said to have received a scientific explanation only when its +inductive and deductive explanations have met and agreed. He makes, +indeed, two qualifying remarks. One is, that it ought to be remembered +that even the deductive explanation is based on observation, on the +self-observation of the person who offers it. This will be admitted by +all. The other is, that every explanation is only provisional, and +liable to be superseded in the course of the progress of knowledge, and +of the historical growth of social and economic structure. This will +also be admitted, and it is no peculiarity of political economy. There +is no science whose conclusions are not modified by the advance of +knowledge; and there are many sciences besides political economy whose +phenomena change their type in lapse of time. Roscher's proviso, +therefore, amounts to nothing more than a caution to economic +investigators to build their explanations scrupulously on the facts, the +whole facts, and nothing but the facts, and to be specially on their +guard against applying to the circumstances of one period or nation +explanations and recommendations which are only just regarding another. +The same disease may have different symptoms in a child from what it has +in a man, and a somewhat different type at the present day from what it +had some centuries ago; and it may therefore require a quite different +treatment. That is a very sound principle and a very self-evident one, +and it contains the whole essence of the historical method, which, so +far as it is a method of investigation at all, is simply that of other +economists applied under a more dominating sense of the complexity and +diversity of the phenomena which are subjected to it. There is +consequently with the historical school more rigour of observation and +less rigour of theory, and this peculiarity leads to practical results +of considerable importance, but it has no just pretensions to assume the +dignity of a new economic method, and it is made to appear much bigger +than it is by looming through the scholastic distinctions in which it is +usually set forth. + +The historical school sometimes call their method the _realistic_ and +_ethical_ method, to distinguish it from what they are pleased to term +the _idealistic_, and _selfish_ or _materialistic_ method of the earlier +economists. They are _realists_ because they cannot agree with the +majority of economists who have gone before them in believing there is +one, and only one, ideal of the best economic system. There are, says +Roscher, as many different ideals as there are different types of +peoples, and he completely casts aside the notion, which had generally +prevailed before him, that there is a single normal system of economic +arrangements, which is built on the natural laws of economic life, and +to which all nations may at all times with advantage conform. It is +against this notion that the historical school has revolted with so much +energy that they wish to make their opposition to it the flag and +symbol of a schism. They deny that there are any natural laws in +political economy; they deny that there is any economic solution +absolutely valid, or capable of answering in one economic situation +because it has answered in another. Roscher, Knies, and the older +members of the school make most of the latter point; but Hildebrand, +Schönberg, Schmoller, Brentano, and the younger spirits among them, +direct against the former some of their keenest attacks. They declare it +to be a survival from the exploded metaphysics of the much-abused +_Aufklärung_ of last century. They argue that just as the economists of +that period took self-interest to be the only economic motive, because +the then dominant psychology--that of the selfish or sensual +school--represented it as the only real motive of human action, of which +the other motives were merely modifications; so did they come to count +the reciprocal action and reaction of the self-interest of different +individuals to be a system of natural forces, working according to +natural laws, because they found the whole intellectual air they +breathed at the time filled with the idea that all error in poetry, art, +ethics, and therefore also economics, had come through departing from +nature, and that the true course in everything lay in giving the +supremacy to the nature of things. We need not stop to discuss this +historical question as to the origin of the idea; it is enough here to +say that the Socialists of the Chair maintain that in economic affairs +it is impossible to make any such distinction between what is natural +and what is not so. Everything results from nature, and everything +results from positive institution too. There is in economics either no +nature at all, or there is nothing else. Human will effects or affects +all; and human will is itself influenced, of course, by human nature and +human condition. Roscher says that it is a mistake to speak of industry +being forced into "unnatural" courses by priests or tyrants, for the +priests and tyrants are part and parcel of the people themselves, +deriving all their resources from the people, and in no respect +Archimedeses standing outside of their own world. The action of the +State in economic affairs is just as natural as the action of the farmer +or the manufacturer; and the latter is as much matter of positive +institution as the former. But while Roscher condemns this distinction, +he does not go the length his disciples have gone, and reject the whole +idea of natural law in the sphere of political economy. On the contrary, +he actually makes use of the expression, "the natural laws of political +economy," and asserts that, when they are once sufficiently known, all +that is then needed to guide economic politics is to obtain exact and +reliable statistics of the situation to which they are to be applied. +Now that statement is exactly the position of the classical school on +the subject. Economic politics is, of course, like all other politics, +an affair of times and nations; but economic science belongs to mankind, +and contains principles which may be accurately enough termed, as +Roscher terms them, natural laws, and which may be applied, as he would +apply them, to the improvement of particular economic situations, on +condition that sufficiently complete and correct statistics are obtained +beforehand of the whole actual circumstances. Economic laws are, of +course, of the nature of ethical laws, and not of physical; but they are +none the less on that account natural laws, and the polemic instituted +by the Socialists of the Chair to expel the notion of natural law from +the entire territory of political economy is unjustifiable. Phenomena +which are the result of human action will always exhibit regularities +while human character remains the same; and, moreover, they often +exhibit undesigned regularities which, not being imposed upon them by +man, must be imposed upon them by Nature. While, therefore, the +Socialists of the Chair have made a certain point against the older +economists by showing the futility and mischief of distinguishing +between what is natural in economics and what is not, they have erred in +seeking to convert that point into an argument against the validity of +economic principles and the existence of economic laws. At the same time +their position constitutes a wholesome protest against the tendency to +exaggerate the completeness or finality of current doctrines, and gives +economic investigation a beneficial direction by setting it upon a more +thorough and all-sided observation of facts. + +But when they complain of the earlier economists being so wedded to +abstractions, the fault they chiefly mean to censure is the habit of +solving practical economic problems by the unconditional application of +certain abstract principles. It is the "absolutism of solutions" they +condemn. They think economists were used to act like doctors who had +learnt the principles of medicine by rote and applied them without the +least discrimination of the peculiarities of individual constitutions. +With them the individual peculiarities are everything, and the +principles are too much thrown into the shade. Economic phenomena, they +hold, constitute only one phase of the general life of the particular +nations in which they appear. They are part and parcel of a special +concrete social organism. They are influenced--they are to a great +extent made what they are--by the whole _ethos_ of the people they +pertain to, by their national character, their state of culture, their +habits, customs, laws. Economic problems are consequently always of +necessity problems of the time, and can only be solved for the period +that raises them. Their very nature alters under other skies and in +other ages. They neither appear everywhere in the same shape, nor admit +everywhere of the same answer. They must therefore be treated +historically and empirically, and political economy is always an affair +for the nation and never for the world. The historical school inveigh +against the _cosmopolitanism_ of the current economic theories, and +declare warmly in favour of _nationalism_; according to which every +nation has its own political economy just as it has its own constitution +and its own character. Now here they are right in what they affirm, +wrong in what they deny. They are right in affirming that economic +politics is national, wrong in denying that economic science is +cosmopolitan. In German the word economy denotes the concrete industrial +system as well as the abstract science of industrial systems, and one +therefore readily falls into the error of applying to the latter what is +only true of the former. There may be general principles of engineering, +though every particular project can only be successfully accomplished by +a close regard to its particular conditions. In claiming a cosmopolitan +validity for their principles, economists do not overlook their +essential relativity. On the contrary, they describe their economic +laws as being in reality nothing more than tendencies, which are not +even strictly true as scientific explanations, and are never for a +moment contemplated as unconditional solutions for practical situations. +Moreover Roscher, in defining his task as an economist, virtually takes +up the cosmopolitan standpoint and virtually rejects the national. He +says a political economist has to explain what is or has been, and not +to show what ought to be; he quotes the saying of Dunoyer, _Je n'impose +rien, je ne propose même rien, j'expose_; and states that what he has to +do is to unfold the anatomy and physiology of social and national +economy. He is a scientific man, and not an economic politician, and +naturally assumes the position of science, which is cosmopolitan, and +not that of politics, which is national and even opportunist. + +I pass now to a perhaps more important point, from which it will be seen +that the Socialists of the Chair are far from thinking that political +economy has nothing to do with what ought to be. Next to the _realistic_ +school, the name they prefer to describe themselves by is the _ethical_ +school. By this they mean two things, and some of them lay the stress on +the one and some on the other. They mean, first, to repudiate the idea +of self-interest being the sole economic motive or force. They do not +deny it to be a leading motive in industrial transactions, and they do +not, like some of the earlier socialists, aim at its extinction or +replacement by a social or generous principle of action. But they +maintain that the course of industry never has been and never will be +left to its guidance alone. Many other social forces, national +character, ideas, customs--the whole inherited _ethos_ of the +people--individual peculiarities, love of power, sense of fair dealing, +public opinion, conscience, local ties, family connections, civil +legislation--all exercise upon industrial affairs as real an influence +as personal interest, and, furthermore, they exercise an influence of +precisely the same kind. They all operate ethically, through human will, +judgment, motives, and in this respect one of them has no advantage over +another. It cannot be said, except in a very limited sense, that +self-interest is an essential and abiding economic force and the others +only accidental and passing. For while customs perish, custom remains; +opinions come and go, but opinion abides; and though any particular act +of the State's intervention may be abolished, State intervention itself +cannot possibly be dispensed with. It is all a matter of more or less, +of here or there. The State is not the intruder in industry it is +represented to be. It is planted in the heart of the industrial organism +from the beginning, and constitutes in fact part of the nature of things +from which it is sought to distinguish it. It is not unnatural for us to +wear clothes because we happen to be born naked, for Nature has given us +a principle which guides us to adapt our dress to our climate and +circumstances. Reason is as natural as passion, and the economists who +repel the State's intrusion and think they are thus leaving industry to +take its natural course, commit the same absurdity as the moralist who +recommends men to live according to Nature, and explains living +according to Nature to mean the gratification as much as possible of his +desires, and his abandonment as much as possible of rational and, as he +conceives, artificial plan. The State cannot observe an absolute +neutrality if it would. Non-intervention is only a particular kind of +intervention. There must be laws of property, succession, and the like, +and the influence of these spreads over the whole industrial system, and +affects both the character of its production and the incidence of its +distribution of wealth. + +But, second, by calling their method the _ethical_ method, the +historical school desire to repudiate the idea that in dealing with +economic phenomena they are dealing with things which are morally +indifferent, like the phenomena of physics, and that science has nothing +to do with them but to explain them. They have certainly reason to +complain that the operation of the laws of political economy is +sometimes represented as if it were morally as neutral as the operation +of the law of gravitation, and it is in this conception that they think +the materialism of the dominant economic school to be practically most +offensively exhibited. Economic phenomena are not morally indifferent; +they are ethical in their very being, and ought to be treated as such. +Take, for example, the labour contract. To treat it as a simple exchange +between equals is absurd. The labourer must sell his labour or starve, +and may be obliged to take such terms for it as leave him without the +means of enjoying the rights which society awards him, and discharging +the duties which society claims from him. Look on him as a ware, if you +will, but remember he is a ware that has life, that has connections, +responsibilities, expectations, domestic, social, political. To get his +bread he might sell his freedom, but society will not permit him; he may +sell his health, he may sell his character, for society permits that; he +may go to sea in rotten ships, and be sent to work in unwholesome +workshops; he may be herded in farm bothies where the commonest +decencies of life cannot be observed; and he may suck the strength out +of posterity by putting his children to premature toil to eke out his +precarious living. Transactions which have such direct bearings on +freedom, on health, on morals, on the permanent well-being of the +nation, can never be morally indifferent. They are necessarily within +the sphere of ends and ideals. Their ethical side is one of their most +important ones, and the science that deals with them is therefore +ethical. For the same reason they come within the province of the State, +which is the normal guardian of the general and permanent interests, +moral and economic, of the community. The State does not stand to +industry like a watchman who guards from the outside property in which +he has himself no personal concern. It has a positive industrial office. +It is, says Schmoller, the great educational institute of the human +race, and there is no sense in suspiciously seeking to reduce its action +in industrial affairs to a minimum. His theory of the State is that of +the _Cultur-Staat_, in distinction from the _Polizei-Staat_, and the +_Rechts-Staat_. The State can no longer be regarded as merely an +omnipotent instrument for the maintenance of tranquillity and order in +the name of Heaven; nor even as a constitutional organ of the collective +national authority for securing to all individuals and classes in the +nation, without exception, the rights and privileges which they are +legally recognised to possess; but it must be henceforth looked upon as +a positive agency for the spread of universal culture within its +geographical territory. + +With these views, the Socialists of the Chair could not fail to take an +active concern with the class of topics thrown up by the socialist +movement, and exciting still so much attention in Germany under the name +of the social question. They neither state that question nor answer it +like the socialists, but their first offence, and the fountain of all +their subsequent offending, in the judgment of their Manchester +antagonists, consisted in their acknowledgment that there was a social +question at all. Not that the Manchester party denied the existence of +evils in the present state of industry, but they looked upon these evils +as resulting from obstructions to the freedom of competition which time, +and time alone, would eventually remove, and from moral causes with +which economists had no proper business. The Socialists of the Chair, +however, could not dismiss their responsibility for those evils so +easily. They owned at once that a social crisis had arisen or was near +at hand. The effect of the general adoption of the large system of +production had been to diminish the numbers of the middle classes, to +reduce the great bulk of the lower classes permanently to the position +of wage-labourers, and to introduce some grave elements of peril and +distress into the condition of the wage-labourers themselves. They are +doubtless better fed, better lodged, better clad, than they were say in +the middle and end of last century, when not one in a hundred of them +had shoes to his feet, when seven out of eight on the Continent were +still bondsmen, and when three out of every four in England had to eke +out their wages by parochial relief. But, in spite of these advantages, +their life has now less hope and less security than it had then. +Industry on the great scale has multiplied the vicissitudes of trade, +and rendered the labourer much more liable to be thrown out of work. It +has diminished the avenues to comparative independence and dignity which +were open to the journeyman under the _régime_ of the small industries. +And while thus condemned to live by wages alone all his days, he could +entertain no reasonable hope--at least before the formation of trade +unions--that his wages could be kept up within reach of the measure of +his wants, as these wants were being progressively expanded by the +general advance of culture. Moreover, the twinge of the case lies here, +that while the course which industrial development is taking seems to be +banishing hope and security more and more from the labourer's life, the +progress of general civilization is making these benefits more and more +imperatively demanded. The working classes have been growing steadily in +the scale of moral being. They have acquired complete personal freedom, +legal equality, political rights, general education, a class +consciousness; and they have come to cherish a very natural and +legitimate aspiration that they shall go on progressively sharing in the +increasing blessings of civilization. Brentano says that modern public +opinion concedes this claim of the working man as a right to which he is +entitled, but that modern industrial conditions have been unable as yet +to secure him in the possession of it; hence the Social Question. Now +some persons may be ready enough to admit this claim as a thing which it +is eminently desirable to see realized, who will yet demur to the +representation of it as a right, which puts society under a +corresponding obligation. But this idea is a peculiarity belonging to +the whole way of thinking of the Socialists of the Chair upon these +subjects. Some of them indeed take even higher ground. Schmoller, for +example, declares that the working classes suffer positive wrong in the +present distribution of national wealth, considered from the standpoint +of distributive justice; but his associates as a rule do not agree with +him in applying this abstract standard to the case. Wagner also stands +somewhat out of the ranks of his fellows by throwing the responsibility +of the existing evils directly and definitely upon the State. According +to his view, there can never be anything which may be legitimately +called a Social Question, unless the evils complained of are clearly the +consequences of existing legislation, but he holds that that is so in +the present case. He considers that a mischievous turn has been given to +the distribution of wealth by legalizing industrial freedom without at +the same time imposing certain restrictions upon private property, the +rate of interest, and the speculations of the Stock Exchange. The State +has, therefore, caused the Social Question; and the State is bound to +settle it. The other Socialists of the Chair, however, do not bring the +obligation so dead home to the civil authority alone. The duty rests on +society, and, of course, so far on the State also, which is the chief +organ of society; but it is not to State-help alone, nor to self-help +alone, that the Socialists of the Chair ask working men to look; but it +is to what they term the self-help of society. Society has granted to +the labouring classes the rights of freedom and equality, and has, +therefore, come bound to give them, as far as it legitimately can, the +amplest facilities for practically enjoying these rights. To give a man +an estate mortgaged above its rental is only to mock him; to confer the +status of freedom upon working men merely to leave them overwhelmed in +an unequal struggle with capital is to make their freedom a dead letter. +Personal and civil independence require, as their indispensable +accompaniment, a certain measure of economic independence likewise, and +consequently to bestow the former as an inalienable right, and yet take +no concern to make the latter a possibility, is only to discharge +one-half of an obligation voluntarily undertaken, and to deceive +expectations reasonably entertained. No doubt this independence is a +thing which working men must in the main win for themselves, and day +after day, by labour, by providence, by association; but it is +nevertheless an important point to remember, with Brentano, that it +forms an essential part of an ideal which society has already +acknowledged to be legitimate, and which it is therefore bound to second +every effort to realize. The Social Question, conceived in the light of +these considerations, may accordingly be said to arise from the fact +that a certain material or economic independence has become more +necessary for the working man, and less possible. It is more necessary, +because, with the sanction of modern opinion, he has awoke to a new +sense of personal dignity, and it is less possible, in consequence of +circumstances already mentioned, attendant upon the development of +modern industry. It is not, as Lord Macaulay maintained, that the evils +of man's life are the same now as formerly, and that nothing has changed +but the intelligence which has become conscious of them. The new time +has brought new evils and less right or disposition to submit to them. +It is the conflict of these two tendencies which, in the thinking of the +Socialists of the Chair, constitutes the social crisis of the present +day. Some of them, indeed, describe it in somewhat too abstract formulæ, +which exercise an embarrassing influence on their speculations. For +example, Von Scheel says the Social Question is the effect of the felt +contradiction between the ideal of personal freedom and equality which +hangs before the present age, and the increasing inequality of wealth +which results from existing economic arrangements; and he proposes as +the general principle of solution, that men should now abandon the +exclusive devotion which modern Liberalism has paid to the principle of +freedom, and substitute in its room an adhesion to freedom _plus_ +equality. But then equality may mean a great many different things, and +Von Scheel leaves us with no precise clue to the particular scope he +would give his principle in its application. He certainly seems to +desire more than a mere equality of right, and to aim at some sort or +degree of equality of fact, but what or how he informs us not; just as +Schmoller, while propounding the dogma of distributive justice, condemns +the communistic principle of distribution of wealth as being a purely +animal principle, and offers us no other incorporation of his dogma. In +spite of their antipathy to abstractions, many of the Socialists of the +Chair indulge considerably in barren generalities, which could serve +them nothing in practice, even if they did not make it a point to square +their practice by the historical conditions of the hour. + +Brentano strikes on the whole the most practical keynote, both in his +conception of what the social question is and of how it is to be met. +What is needed, he thinks, very much is to give to modern industry an +organization as suitable to it as the old guilds were to the industry of +earlier times, and this is to be done in great part by adaptations of +that model. He makes comparatively little demand on the power of the +State, while of course agreeing with the rest of his school in the +latitude they give to the lawfulness of its intervention in industrial +matters. He would ask it to bestow a legal status on trade unions and +friendly societies, to appoint courts of conciliation, to regulate the +hours of labour, to institute factory inspection, and to take action of +some sort on the daily more urgent subject of labourers' dwellings. But +the elevation of the labouring classes must be wrought mainly by their +own well-guided and long-continued efforts, and the first step is gained +when they have resolved earnestly to begin. The pith of the problem +turns on the matter of wages, and, so far at any rate, it has already +been solved almost as well as is practicable by the English trade +unions, which have proved to the world that they are always able to +convert the question of wages from the question how little the labourer +can afford to take, into the question how much the employer is able to +give--_i.e._, from the minimum to the maximum which the state of the +market allows. That is, of course, a very important change, and it is +interesting to know that F. A. Lange, the able and distinguished +historian of Materialism, who had written on the labour question with +strong socialist sympathies, stated to Brentano that his account of the +English trade unions had converted him entirely from his belief that a +socialistic experiment was necessary. Brentano admits that the effect of +trade unions is partial only; that they really divide the labouring +class into two different strata--those who belong to the trade unions +being raised to a higher platform, and those who do not being left as +they were in the gall of bitterness. But then, he observes, great gain +has been made when at least a large section of the working class has +been brought more securely within the pale of advancing culture, and it +is only in this gradual way--section by section--that the elevation of +the whole body can be eventually accomplished. The trade union has +imported into the life of the working man something of the element of +hope which it wanted, and a systematic scheme of working-class insurance +is now needed to introduce the element of security. Brentano has +published an excellent little work on that subject; and here again he +asks no material help from the State. The working class must insure +themselves against all the risks of their life by association, just as +they must keep up the rate of their wages by association; and for the +same reasons--first, because they are able to do so under existing +economic conditions, and second, because it is only so the end can be +gained consistently with the modern moral conditions of their +life--_i.e._, with the maintenance of their personal freedom, equality, +and independence. Brentano thinks that the sound principle of +working-class insurance is that every trade union ought to become the +insurance society for its trade, because every trade has its own special +risks and therefore requires its own insurance premium, and because +malingering, feigned sickness, claims for loss of employment through +personal fault, and the like, cannot possibly be checked except by the +fund being administered by the local lodges of the trade to which the +subscribers belong. The insurance fund might be kept separate from the +other funds of the union, but he sees no reason why it should not be +combined with them, as it would only constitute a new obstacle to +ill-considered strikes, and as striking in itself will, he expects, in +course of time, give way to some system of arbitration. Brentano makes +no suggestion regarding the mass of the working class who belong to no +trade union. They cannot be dealt with in the same way, or so +effectively. But this is quite in keeping with the general principle of +the Socialists of the Chair--in which they differ _toto cælo_ from the +socialists--that society is not to be ameliorated by rigidly applying to +every bit of it the same plan, but only by a thousand modifications and +remedies adapted to its thousand varieties of circumstances and +situations. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS. + + +The idea that a radical affinity exists between Christianity and +socialism in their general aim, in their essential principles, in their +pervading spirit, has strong attractions for a certain by no means +inferior order of mind, and we find it frequently maintained in the +course of history by representatives of both systems. Some of the +principal socialists of the earlier part of this century used to declare +that socialism was only Christianity more logically carried out and more +faithfully practised; or, at any rate, that socialism would be an idle +superfluity, if ordinary Christian principles were really to be acted +upon honestly and without reserve. St. Simon published his views under +the title of the "Nouveau Christianisme," and asserted that the +prevailing forms of Christianity were one gigantic heresy; that both the +Catholic and the Protestant Churches had now lost their power, simply +because they had neglected their great temporal mission of raising the +poor, and because their clergy had given themselves up to barren +discussions of theology, and remained absolutely ignorant of the living +social questions of the time; and that the true Christian _régime_ which +he was to introduce was one which should be founded on the Christian +principle that all men are brothers; which should be governed by the +Christian law, "Have ye love one to another," and in which all the +forces of society should be mainly consecrated to the amelioration of +the most numerous and poorest class. Cabet was not less explicit. He +said that "if Christianity had been interpreted and applied in the +spirit of Jesus Christ, if it were rightfully understood and faithfully +obeyed by the numerous sections of Christians who are really filled with +a sincere piety, and need only to know the truth to follow it, then +Christianity would have sufficed, and would still suffice, to establish +a perfect social and political organization, and to deliver mankind from +all its ills." + +The same belief, that Christianity is essentially socialistic, has at +various times appeared in the Church itself. The socialism of the only +other period in modern history besides our own century, in which +socialistic ideas have prevailed to any considerable extent, was, in +fact, a direct outcome of Christian conviction, and was realized among +Christian sects. The socialism of the Anabaptists of the Reformation +epoch was certainly mingled with political ideas of class emancipation, +and contributed to stir the insurrection of the German peasantry; but +its real origin lay in the religious fervour which was abroad at the +time, and which buoyed sanguine and mystical minds on dreams of a reign +of God. When men feel a new and better power arising strongly about +them, they are forward to throw themselves into harmony with it, and +there were people, touched by the religious revival of the Reformation, +who sought to anticipate its progress, as it were, by living together +like brothers. Fraternity is undoubtedly a Christian idea, come into the +world with Christ, spread abroad in it by Christian agencies, and +belonging to the ideal that hovers perpetually over Christian society. +It has already produced social changes of immense consequence, and has +force in it, we cannot doubt, to produce many more in the future; and it +is therefore in nowise strange that in times of religious zeal or of +social distress, this idea of fraternity should appeal to some eager +natures with so urgent an authority, both of condemnation and of +promise, that they would fain take it at once by force and make it king. + +The socialism of the present day is not of a religious origin. On the +contrary, there is some truth in the remark of a distinguished +economist, M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, that the prevalence of socialistic +ideas is largely due to the decline of religious faith among the working +classes. If there is only the one life, they feel they must realize +their ideal here and realize it quickly, or they will never realize it +at all. However this may be, the fact is certain that most contemporary +socialists have turned their backs on religion. They sometimes speak of +it with a kind of suppressed and settled bitterness as of a friend that +has proved faithless: "We are not atheists: we have simply done with +God." They seem to feel that if there be a God, He is, at any rate, no +God for them, that He is the God of the rich, and cares nothing for the +poor, and there is a vein of most touching, though most illogical, +reproach in their hostility towards a Deity whom they yet declare to +have no existence. They say in their heart, There is no God, or only one +whom they decline to serve, for He is no friend to the labouring man, +and has never all these centuries done anything for him. This atheism +seems as much matter of class antipathy as of free-thought; and the +semi-political element in it lends a peculiar bitterness to the +socialistic attacks on religion and the Church, which are regarded as +main pillars of the established order of things, and irreconcileable +obstructives to all socialist dreams. The Church has, therefore, as a +rule looked upon the whole movement with a natural and justifiable +suspicion, and has, for the most part, dispensed to it an indiscriminate +condemnation. Some Churchmen, however, scruple to assume this attitude; +they recognise a soul of good in the agitation, if it could be stripped +of the revolutionary and atheistic elements of its propaganda, which +they hold to be, after all, merely accidental accompaniments of the +system, at once foreign to its essence and pernicious to its purpose. It +is in substance, they say, an economic movement, both in its origin and +its objects, and so far as it stands on this ground they have no +hesitation in declaring that in their judgment there is a great deal +more Christianity in socialism than in the existing industrial _régime_. +Those who take this view, generally find a strong bond of union with +socialists in their common revolt against the mammonism of the +church-going middle classes, and against some current economic +doctrines, which seem almost to canonize what they count the heartless +and un-Christian principles of self-interest and competition. + +Such, for example, was the position maintained by the Christian +Socialists of England thirty years ago--a band of noble patriotic men +who strove hard, by word and deed, to bring all classes of the community +to a knowledge of their duties, as well as their interests, and to +supersede, as far as might be, the system of unlimited competition by a +system of universal co-operation. They inveighed against the Manchester +creed, then in the flush of success, as if it were the special +Antichrist of the nineteenth century. Lassalle himself has not used +harder, more passionate, or more unjust words of it. Maurice said he +dreaded above everything "that horrible catastrophe of a Manchester +ascendancy, which I believe in my soul would be fatal to intellect, +morality, and freedom"; and Kingsley declared that "of all narrow, +conceited, hypocritical, anarchic, and atheistic schemes of the +universe, the Cobden and Bright one was exactly the worst." They agreed +entirely with the socialists in condemning the reigning industrial +system: it was founded on unrighteousness; its principles were not only +un-Christian, but anti-Christian; and in spite of its apparent +commercial victories, it would inevitably end in ruin and disaster. Some +of them had been in Paris and witnessed the Revolution of 1848, and had +brought back with them two firm convictions--one, that a purely +materialistic civilization, like that of the July Monarchy, must sooner +or later lead to a like fate; and the other, that the socialist idea of +co-operation contained the fertilizing germ for developing a really +enduring and Christian civilization. Mr. J. M. Ludlow mentioned the +matter to Maurice, and eventually a Society was formed, with Maurice as +president, for the purpose of promoting co-operation and education among +the working classes. It is beyond the scope of the present work to give +any fuller account of this interesting and not unfruitful movement here; +but it is to the purpose to mark two peculiarities which distinguish it +from other phases of socialism. One is, that they insisted strongly upon +the futility of mere external changes of condition, unattended by +corresponding changes of inner character and life. "There is no +fraternity," said Maurice, finely, "without a common Father." Just as it +is impossible to maintain free institutions among a people who want the +virtues of freemen, so it is impossible to realize fraternity in the +general arrangements of society, unless men possess a sufficient measure +of the industrial and social virtues. Hence the stress the Christian +Socialists of England laid on the education of the working classes. The +other peculiarity is, that they did not seek in any way whatever to +interfere with private property, or to invoke the assistance of the +State. They believed self-help to be a sounder principle, both morally +and politically, and they believed it to be sufficient. They held it to +be sufficient, not merely in course of time, but immediately even, to +effect a change in the face of society. For they loved and believed in +their cause with a generous and touching enthusiasm, and were so +sincerely and absolutely persuaded of its truth themselves, that they +hardly entertained the idea of other minds resisting it. "I certainly +thought," says Mr. I. Hughes, "(and for that matter have never altered +my opinion to this day) that here we had found the solution to the great +labour question; but I was also convinced that we had nothing to do but +just to announce it, and found an association or two, in order to +convert all England, and usher in the millennium at once, so plain did +the whole thing seem to me. I will not undertake to answer for the rest +of the council, but I doubt whether I was at all more sanguine than the +majority." Seventeen co-operative associations in London, and +twenty-four in the provinces (which were all they had established when +they ceased to publish their Journal), may seem a poor result, but their +work is not to be estimated by that alone. The Christian Socialists +undoubtedly gave a very important impetus to the whole movement of +co-operation, and to the general cause of the amelioration of the +labouring classes. + +The general position of Maurice and his allies (though with important +differences, as will appear) has been taken up again by two groups in +Germany at the present day--one Catholic, the other Protestant--in +dealing with the social question which has for many years agitated that +country. In one respect the Christian Socialists of England were more +fortunate than their German brethren. Nobody ever ventured to question +the purity of their motives. The intervention of the clergy in politics +is generally unpopular: they are thought, rightly or wrongly, to be +Churchmen first, and patriots afterwards; but it was impossible to +suspect Maurice and his friends of being influenced in their efforts at +reform by considerations of ecclesiastical or electoral interest, or of +having any object at heart but the social good of the nation. It is +otherwise with the Christian Socialists of Germany. Neither of the two +German groups affects to conceal that one great aim of its work is to +restore and extend the influence of the Church among the labouring +classes; and it is unlikely that the Clerical party in Germany were +insensible to the political advantage of having organizations of working +men under ecclesiastical control, though it ought to be acknowledged +that these organizations were contemplated before the introduction of +universal suffrage. But even though ecclesiastical considerations +mingled with the motives of the Christian Socialists, we see no reason +to doubt the genuineness of their interest in the amelioration of the +masses, or the sincerity of their conviction of the economic soundness +of their programme. + +The Catholic group deserves to be considered first, because it +intervened in the discussion much sooner than the Evangelical, and +because it originated a much more important movement--larger in its +dimensions than the other, and invested with additional consequence from +the circumstance that being promoted under the countenance of +dignitaries, it must be presumed to have received the sanction of the +Roman Curia, and may therefore afford an index to the general attitude +which the Catholic Church is disposed to assume towards Continental +socialism. The socialist agitation had no sooner broken out, in 1863, +than Dr. Döllinger, then a pillar of the Church of Rome, strongly +recommended the Catholic clubs of Germany to take the question up. These +clubs are societies for mutual improvement, recreation, and benefit, and +are composed mainly of working men. Father Kölping, himself at the time +a working man, had, in 1847, founded an extensive organization of +Catholic journeymen, which, in 1872, had a total membership of 70,000, +and consisted of an affiliation of small journeyman clubs, with a +membership of from 50 to 400 each, in the various towns of Germany. Then +there were also Catholic apprentice clubs--in many cases in alliance +with those of the journeymen; there were Catholic master clubs, Catholic +peasant clubs, Catholic benefit clubs, Catholic young men's clubs, +Catholic credit clubs, Catholic book clubs, etc., etc. These clubs +naturally afforded an organization ready to hand for any general purpose +the members might share in common, and being composed of working men, +they seemed reasonably calculated to be of effective service in +forwarding the cause of social amelioration. Early in 1864, accordingly, +Bishop Ketteler, of Mayence, warmly seconded Döllinger's idea, and at +the same time published a remarkable pamphlet on "The Labour Question +and Christianity," in which he unfolded his views of the causes and the +cure of the existing evils. + +William Immanuel, Baron von Ketteler, had been for twenty years a +powerful and impressive figure in the public life of Germany. His high +rank, social and ecclesiastical, his immense energy, his weight of +character, his personal disinterestedness of purpose, and his +intellectual vigour and acuteness, had combined to give him great +importance both in Church and State. Born in 1811, of an ancient +Westphalian family, he was trained in law and politics for the public +service, and actually entered upon it, but resigned his post in 1838, in +consequence of the dispute about the Cologne bishopric, and resolved to +give himself to the work of the Church. After studying theology at +Munich and Münster, he was ordained priest in 1844, and became soon +afterwards pastor at Hopster, in Westphalia. Being sent as member for +Langerich to the German National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848, he at +once made his mark by the vigour with which he strove for the spiritual +independence of the Church, by the lectures and sermons he delivered on +questions of the day, and especially by a bold and generous oration he +pronounced at the grave of the assassinated deputy, Prince Lichnowsky. +This oration excited sensation all over Germany, and Ketteler was +promoted, in 1849, to the Hedwigsburg Church, in Berlin, and in 1850 to +the Bishopric of Mayence. In this position he found scope for all his +powers. He founded a theological seminary at Mayence, erected +orphan-houses and reformatories, introduced various religious orders and +congregationist schools, and entering energetically into the disputes in +Baden regarding the place and rights of the Catholic Church, he +succeeded in establishing an understanding whereby the State gave up +much of its patronage, its supervision of theological seminaries, its +veto on ecclesiastical arrangements, restored episcopal courts, and +assigned the Church extensive influence over popular education. He was +one of the bishops who authorized the dogma of the Immaculate Conception +in 1854, but he belonged to the opposition at the Vatican Council of +1870. He wrote a pamphlet strongly deprecating the promulgation of the +dogma of infallibility, and went, even at the last moment, to the Pope +personally, and implored him to abandon the idea of promulgating it; but +as his objection respected its opportuneness and not its truth, he did +not secede with Döllinger when his opposition failed, but accepted the +dogma himself and demanded the submission of his clergy to it. Bishop +Ketteler was returned to the German Imperial Diet in 1871, and led the +Clerical Faction in opposing the ecclesiastical policy of the +Government. He died at Binghausen, in Bavaria, in 1877, and is buried in +Mayence Cathedral. Ketteler had always been penetrated with the ambition +of making the Catholic Church a factor of practical importance in the +political and social life of Germany, and with the conviction that the +clergy ought to make themselves masters of social and political science +so as to be able to exercise a leading and effective influence over +public opinion on questions of social amelioration. He has himself +written much, though nothing of permanent value, on these subjects, and +did not approach them with unwashed hands when he published his pamphlet +in 1864. + +In this pamphlet, he says the labour question is one which it is his +business, both as a Christian and as a bishop, to deal with: as a +Christian, because Christ, as Saviour of the world, seeks not only to +redeem men's souls, but to heal their sorrows and soften their +condition; and as a bishop, because the Church had, according to her +ancient custom, imposed upon him, as one of his consecration vows, that +he would, "in the name of the Lord, be kind and merciful to the poor and +the stranger, and to all that are in any kind of distress." He considers +the labour question of the present day to be the very serious and plain +question, how the great bulk of the working classes are to get the bread +and clothing necessary to sustain them in life. Things have come to this +pass in consequence of two important economic changes--which he +incorrectly ascribes to the political revolution at the end of last +century, merely because they have taken place mostly since that +date--the spread of industrial freedom, and the ascendancy of the large +capitalists. In consequence of these changes the labourer is now treated +as a commodity, and the rate of his wages settled by the same law that +determines the price of every other commodity--the cost of its +production; and the employer is always able to press wages down to the +least figure which the labourer will take rather than starve. Ketteler +accepts entirely Lassalle's teaching about "the iron and cruel law," and +holds it to have been so conclusively proved in the course of the +controversy that it is no longer possible to dispute it without a +deliberate intention of deceiving the people. Now there is no doubt that +Ricardo's law of value is neither so iron nor so cruel as Lassalle took +it to be; and that when Lassalle alleged that in consequence of this law +96 per cent. of the population of Germany had to support their families +on less than ten shillings a week, and were therefore in a state of +chronic starvation, he based his statement on a calculation of +Dieterici's, which was purely conjectural, and which, besides, +disregarded the fact that in working-class families there were usually +more breadwinners than one. Ketteler, however, adopts this whole +statement of the case implicitly, and says the social problem of our day +is simply how to emancipate the labouring class from the operation of +this economic law. "It is no longer possible to doubt that the whole +material existence of almost the entire labouring population--_i.e._, of +much the greatest part of men in modern states, and of their +families--that the daily question about the necessary bread for man, +wife, and children, is exposed to all the fluctuations of the market and +of the price of commodities. I know nothing more deplorable than this +fact. What sensations must it cause in those poor men who, with all they +hold dear, are day after day at the mercy of the accidents of market +price? That is the slave market of our Liberal Europe, fashioned after +the model of our humanist, rationalistic, anti-Christian Liberalism, and +freemasonry." The bishop never spares an opportunity of attacking +"heathen humanist Liberalism," which he says has pushed the labouring +man into the water, and now stands on the bank spinning fine theories +about his freedom, but calmly seeing him drown. + +After this it might be expected that Ketteler would be all for +abolishing industrial freedom, and for restoring a _régime_ of +compulsory guilds and corporations; but he is not. He acknowledges that +the old system of guilds had its advantages; it was a kind of assured +understanding between the workman and society, according to which the +former adjusted his work and the latter his wages. But it was the abuses +of the compulsory powers of the guilds that led to industrial freedom; +and, on the other hand, industrial freedom has great countervailing +advantages of its own which he scruples to give up. It has immensely +increased production and cheapened commodities, and so enabled the lower +classes to enjoy means of life and enjoyment they had not before. Nor +does Ketteler approve of Lassalle's scheme of establishing productive +associations of working men upon capital supplied by the State. Not that +he objects to productive associations; on the contrary, he declares them +to be a glorious idea, and thinks them the true solution of the problem. +But he objects to supplying their capital by the State, as involving a +direct violation of the law of property. The Catholic Church, he says, +has never maintained an absolute right of property. Her divines have +unanimously taught that the right of property cannot avail against a +neighbour who is in extreme need, because God alone is absolute +proprietor, and no man is more than a limited vassal, holding under God, +and on the conditions which He imposes; and one of these conditions is +that any man in extremities is entitled to satisfy his necessity where +and how he pleases.[1] In such a case, according to Catholic doctrine, +it is not the man in distress that is the thief, but the proprietor who +would gainsay and stop him. The distressed have a positive right to +succour, and the State may therefore, without violating any of the +rights of property, tax the parishes, or the proprietors, for the relief +of the poor. But beyond this the State has no title to go. It may +legitimately tax people for the purpose of saving working men from +extremities, but not for the purpose of bettering their normal position. + +But where the civil authority ends the Christian authority comes in, and +the rich have only escaped the obligation of compulsory legal enactment, +to find themselves under the more far-reaching obligations of moral duty +and Christian love. The Church declares that the man who does not give +alms where he ought to give it stands in the same category as a thief; +and there is no limit to this obligation but his power of giving help, +and his belief that it would be more hurtful to give than to keep it. +Ketteler's plan, accordingly, is that the capital for the productive +associations should be raised by voluntary subscriptions on the part of +Christian people. He thinks he has made out a strong case for +establishing this as a Christian obligation. He has shown that a +perilous crisis prevails, that this crisis can only be removed by +productive associations, that productive associations cannot be started +without capital, and he says it is a vain dream of Huber's to think of +getting the capital from the savings of working men themselves, for most +of the working men are in a distressed condition, and if a few are +better off, their savings could only establish associations so few in +number and so small in scale, as to be little better than trifling with +the evil. He sees no remedy but making productive associations a scheme +of the Church, and appealing to that Christian philanthropy and sense of +duty which had already done great service of a like nature--as, for +example, in producing capital to emancipate slaves in Italy and +elsewhere. + +This remarkable proposal of the bishop seems to have fallen dead. Though +he wrote and laboured much in connection with the labour question +afterwards, he never reverted to it again; and when a Christian +Socialist party was formed, under his countenance, they adopted a +programme which made large demands not only on the intervention, but on +the pecuniary help of the State. It was not till 1868 that any steps +were taken towards the actual organization of such a party. In June of +that year three Catholic clubs met together at Crefeld, and, after +discussing the social question, agreed to publish a journal (the +_Christliche Sociale Blätter_) to promote their views. In September of +the following year the whole subject of the relations of the Church to +the labour question was discussed at a conference of the Catholic +bishops of Germany, held at Fulda, and attended by Ketteler among +others. This conference strongly recommended the clergy to make +themselves thoroughly acquainted with that and other economic questions, +to interest themselves generally in the condition of the working class +they moved among, and even to travel in foreign countries to see the +state of the labourers there and the effects of the institutions +established for their amelioration. The conference also approved of the +formation of Catholic Labourers' Associations, for the promotion of the +general elevation of their own class, but held that the Church had no +call, directly or officially, to take the initiative in founding them. +This duty was undertaken, however, later in the same month, by a general +meeting of the Catholic Clubs of Germany, which appointed a special +committee, including Professor Schulte and Baron Schorlemer-Abst, for +the express purpose of founding and organizing Christian social clubs, +which should strive for the economic and moral amelioration of the +labouring classes. This committee set itself immediately to work, and +the result was the Christian Social Associations, or, as they are +sometimes called from their patron saint, the St. Joseph Associations. +They were composed of, and managed by, working men, though they liked to +have some man of eminence--never a clergyman--at the head of them, and +though they allowed persons, of property, clergymen, and especially +employers of labour, to be honorary members. They met every Sunday +evening to discuss social questions, and politics were excluded, except +questions affecting the Church, and on these a decided partisanship was +encouraged. + +The principles of this party--or what may be called their programme--is +explained in a speech delivered by Canon Moufang to his constituents in +Mayence, in February, 1871, and published with warm approbation, in the +_Christliche Sociale Blätter_ in March. Christoph Moufang is, like +Ketteler, a leader of the German Clerical party, and entitled to the +highest esteem for his character, his intellectual parts, and his public +career. Born in 1817, he was first destined for the medical profession, +and studied physic at Bonn; but he soon abandoned this intention, and +betook himself to theology. After studying at Bonn and Munich, he was +ordained priest in 1839. He was appointed in 1851 professor of moral and +pastoral theology in the new theological seminary which Bishop Ketteler +had founded at Mayence, and in 1854 was made canon of the cathedral. +Moufang entered the First Hessian Chamber in 1862 as representative of +the bishop, and made a name as a powerful champion of High Church views +and of the general ecclesiastical policy of Bishop Ketteler. In 1868 he +was chosen one of the committee to make preparations for the Vatican +Council; but at the Council he belonged to the opponents of the dogma of +infallibility, and left Rome before the dogma was promulgated. He +submitted afterwards, however, and worked sedulously in its sense. +Moufang sat in the Imperial Diet from 1871 to 1877, was a leading member +of the Centre, and stoutly resisted the Falk legislation. He is +joint-editor of the _Katholik_, and is author of various polemical +writings, and of a work on the history of the Jesuits in Germany. + +Moufang takes a different view of the present duty of the Church in +relation to the social question from that which we saw to have been +taken by Ketteler. He asks for no pecuniary help from the Church, nor +for any special and novel kind of activity whatever. The problem cannot, +in his opinion, be effectively and permanently solved without her +co-operation, but then the whole service she is able and required to +render is contained in the course of her ordinary ministrations in +diffusing a spirit of love and justice and fairness among the various +classes of society, in maintaining her charities for the poor and +helpless in dispensing comfort and distress, and in offering to the +weary the hope of a future life. Moufang makes much more demand on the +State than on the Church, in this also disagreeing with Bishop +Ketteler's pamphlet. He says the State can and must help the poorer +classes in four different ways:-- + +1st. By giving legislative protection. Just as the landlord and the +money-lender are legally protected in their rights by the State, so the +labourer ought to be legally protected in his property, which are his +powers and time of labour. The State ought to give him legal security +against being robbed of these, his only property, by the operation of +free competition. With this view, Moufang demands the legalization of +working men's associations of various kinds, the prohibition of Sunday +labour, the legal fixing of a normal day of labour, legal restriction of +labour of women and children, legal provision against unwholesome +workshops, appointment of factory inspectors, and direct legal fixing of +the rate of wages. The last point is an important peculiarity in the +position of the Catholic Socialists. Moufang contends that competition +is a sound enough principle for regulating the price of commodities, but +that it is a very unsound one, and a very unsafe one, for determining +the price of labour, because he holds that labour is not a commodity. +Labour is a man's powers of life; it is the man himself, and the law +must see to its protection. The law protects the capitalist in his right +to his interest, and surely the labouring man's powers of life are +entitled to the same consideration. If an employer says to a capitalist +from whom he has borrowed money: "A crisis has come, a depression in +trade, and I am no longer able to pay such high interest; I will pay you +two-thirds or one-third of the previous rate," what does the capitalist +say? He refuses to take it, and why? Simply because he knows that the +law will sustain him in his claim. But if the employer says to his +labourer: "A depression of trade has come, and I cannot afford you more +than two-thirds or one-third of your present wages," what can the +labourer do? He has no alternative. He must take the wages offered him +or go, and to go means to starve. Why should not the law stand at the +labourer's back, as it does at the capitalist's, in enforcing what is +right and just? There is no more infraction of freedom in the one case +than in the other. Moufang's argument here is based on an illusive +analogy; for in the contract for the use of capital the employer agrees +to pay a fixed rate of interest so long as he retains the principal, and +he can only avail himself of subsequent falls in the money market by +returning the principal and opening a fresh contract; whereas in the +contract for the use of labour the employer engages by the week or the +day, returning the principal, as it were, at the end of that term, and +making a new arrangement. The point to be noted, however, is that +Moufang's object, like Ketteler's, is to deliver working men from their +hand-to-mouth dependence on the current fluctuations of the market; that +he thinks there is something not merely pernicious but radically unjust +in their treatment under the present system; and that he calls upon the +State to institute some regular machinery--a board with compulsory +powers, and composed of labourers and magistrates--for fixing everywhere +and in every trade a fair day's wages for a fair day's work. + +2nd. The State ought to give pecuniary help. It advances money on easy +terms to railway schemes; why should it not offer working men cheap +loans for sound co-operative enterprises? Of course it ought to make a +keen preliminary examination of the projects proposed, and keep a sharp +look-out against swindling or ill-considered schemes; but if the project +is sound and likely, it should be ready to lend the requisite capital at +a low interest. This proposal of starting productive associations on +State credit is an important divergence from Ketteler, who, in his +pamphlet, condemns it as a violation of the rights of property. + +3rd. The State ought to reduce the taxes and military burdens of the +labouring classes. + +4th. The State ought to fetter the domination of the money power, and +especially to check excesses of speculation, and control the operations +of the Stock Exchange. + +From this programme it appears that the Catholic movement goes a long +way with the socialists in their cries of wrong, but only a short way in +their plans of redress. Moufang's proposals may be wise or unwise, but +they contemplate only corrections of the present industrial system, and +not its reconstruction. Many Liberals are disposed to favour the idea of +establishing courts of conciliation with compulsory powers, and Bismarck +himself once said, before the socialists showed themselves unpatriotic +at the time of the French war, that he saw no reason why the State, +which gave large sums for agricultural experiments, should not spend +something in giving co-operative production a fair trial. The plans of +labour courts and of State credit to approved co-operative undertakings +are far from the socialist schemes of the abolition of private property +in the instruments of production, and the systematic regulation of all +industry by the State; and they afford no fair ground for the fear, +which many persons of ability entertain, of "an alliance"--to use +Bismarck's phrase--"between the black International and the red." Bishop +Martensen holds Catholicism to be essentially socialistic, because it +suppresses all individual rights and freedom in the intellectual sphere, +as socialism does in the economic. But men may detest private judgment +without taking the least offence at private property. A bigot need not +be a socialist, any more than a socialist a bigot, though each stifles +the principle of individuality in one department of things. If there is +to be any alliance between the Church and socialism, it will be not +because the former has been trained, under an iron organization, to +cherish a horror of individuality and a passion for an economic +organization as rigid as its own ecclesiastical one, but it will be +because the Church happens to have a distinct political interest at the +time in cultivating good relations with a new political force. How far +Moufang and his associates have been influenced by this kind of +consideration we cannot pretend to judge, but the sympathy they show is +not so much with the socialists as with the labouring classes generally, +and their movement is meant so far to take the wind from socialism, +whether with the mere view of filling their own sails with it or no. + +No voice was raised in the Protestant Churches in Germany on the social +question till 1878. They suffer from their absolute dependence on the +State, and have become churches of doctors and professors, without +effective practical interest or initiative, and without that strong +popular sympathy of a certain kind which almost necessarily pervades the +atmosphere of a Church like the Catholic, which pits itself against +States, and knows that its power of doing so rests, in the last +analysis, on its hold over the hearts of the people. The Home Missionary +Society indeed discussed the question from time to time, but chiefly in +connection with the effects of the socialist propaganda on the religious +condition of the country; and it was this aspect of the subject that +eventually stirred a section of the orthodox Evangelical clergy to take +practical action. They asked themselves how it was that the working +classes were so largely adopting the desolate atheistic opinions which +were found associated with the socialist movement, when the Church +offered to gather them under her wing, and brighten their life with the +comforts and encouragements of Christian faith and hope. They felt +strongly that they must take more interest in the temporal welfare of +the working classes than they had hitherto done, and must apply the +ethical and social principles of Christianity to the solution of +economic problems and the promotion of social reform. In short, they +sought to present Christianity as the labourer's friend. The leaders of +this movement were men of much inferior calibre to those of the +corresponding Catholic movement. The principal of them were Rudolph +Todt, a pastor at Barentheim in Old Preignitz, who published in 1878 a +book on "Radical German Socialism and Christian Society," which created +considerable sensation; and Dr. Stöcker, then one of the Court preachers +at Berlin, a member of the Prussian Diet, and an ardent promoter of +reactionary policy in various directions. He is a warm advocate of +denominational education, and of extending the power of the Crown, of +the State, and of the landed class; and he was a prime mover in the +Jew-baiting movement which excited Germany a few years ago. This +antipathy to the Jews has been for many years a cardinal tendency of the +"Agrarians," a small political group mainly of nobles and great landed +proprietors, with whom Stöcker frequently allies himself, and who +profess to treat all political questions from a strictly Christian +standpoint, but work almost exclusively to assert the interests of the +landowners against the growing ascendancy of the commercial and +financial classes, among whom Jews occupy an eminent place. We mention +this anti-Jewish agitation here to point out that, while no doubt fed by +other passions also, one of its chief ingredients is that same +antagonism to the _bourgeoisie_--compounded of envy of their success, +contempt for their money-seeking spirit, and anger at their supposed +expropriation of the rest of society--which animates all forms of +continental socialism, and has already proved a very dangerous political +force in the French Revolution of 1848. + +Todt's work is designed to set forth the social principles and mission +of Christianity on the basis of a critical investigation of the New +Testament, which he believes to be an authoritative guide on economic as +well as moral and dogmatic questions. He says that to solve the social +problem, we must take political economy in the one hand, the scientific +literature of socialism in the other, and keep the New Testament before +us. As the result of his examination, he condemns the existing +industrial _régime_ as being decidedly unchristian, and declares the +general principles of socialism, and even its main concrete proposals, +to be directly prescribed and countenanced by Holy Writ. Like all who +assume the name of socialist, he cherishes a marked repugnance to the +economic doctrines of modern Liberalism, the leaven of the +_bourgeoisie_; and much of his work is devoted to show the inner +affinity of Christianity and socialism, and the inner antagonism between +Christianity and Manchesterdom. He goes so far as to say that every +active Christian who makes conscience of his faith has a socialistic +vein in him, and that every socialist, however hostile he may be to the +Christian religion, has an unconscious Christianity in his heart; +whereas, on the other hand, the merely nominal Christian, who has never +really got out of his natural state, is always a spiritual Manchestrist, +worshipping _laissez faire, laissez aller_, with his whole soul, and +that a Manchestrist is never in reality a true and sound Christian, +however much he may usurp the name. Christianity and socialism are +engaged in a common work, trying to make the reality of things +correspond better with an ideal state; and in doing their work they rely +on the same ethical principle, the love of our neighbour, and they +repudiate the Manchester idolatry of self-interest. The socialist ideas +of liberty, equality, and fraternity are part and parcel of the +Christian system; and the socialist ideas of solidarity of interests, of +co-operative production, and of democracy have all a direct Biblical +foundation, in the constitution and customs of the Church, and in the +apostolic teaching regarding it. + +Radical socialism, according to Todt, consists of three elements: first, +in economics, communism; second, in politics, republicanism; third, in +religion, atheism. Under the last head, of course, there is no analogy, +but direct contradiction, between Socialism and Christianity; but Todt +deplores the atheism that prevails among the socialists as not merely an +error, but a fatal inconsistency. If socialism would but base its +demands on the Gospel, he says, it would be resistless, and all +labourers would flow to it; but atheistic socialism can never fulfil its +own promises, and issues a draft which Christianity alone has the power +to meet. It is hopeless to think of founding an enduring democratic +State on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, unless +these principles are always sustained and reinvigorated by the Divine +fraternal love that flows from faith in Jesus Christ. + +As to the second principle of socialism, Todt says, that while Holy +Scripture contains no direct prescription on the point, it may be +inferentially established that a republic is the form of government that +is most harmonious with the Christian ideal. His deduction of this is +peculiar. The Divine government of the world, he owns, is monarchical, +but then it is a government which cannot be copied by sinful men, and +therefore cannot have been meant as a pattern for them. But God, he +says, has established His Church on earth as a visible type of His own +invisible providential government, and the Church is a "republic under +an eternal President, sitting by free choice of the people, Jesus +Christ." This is both fanciful and false, for Christ is an absolute +ruler, and no mere minister of the popular will; and there is not the +remotest ground for founding a system of Biblical politics on the +constitution of the Church. But it shows the length Todt is disposed to +go to conciliate the favour of the socialists. + +But the most important element of socialism is its third or economic +principle--communism; and this he represents to be entirely in harmony +with the economic ideal of the New Testament. He describes the +communistic idea as consisting of two parts: first, the general +principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, which he finds directly +involved in the Scriptural doctrines of moral responsibility, of men's +common origin and redemption, and of the law of love; and second, the +transformation of all private property in the instruments of production +into common property, which includes three points: (_a_) the abolition +of the present wages system; (_b_) giving the labourer the full product +of his labour; and (_c_) associated labour. As to the first two of these +points, Todt pronounces the present wages system to be thoroughly +unjust, because it robs the labourer of the full product of his labour; +and because unjust, it is unchristian. He accepts the ordinary socialist +teaching about "the iron and cruel law." He accepts, too, Marx's theory +of value, and declares it to be unanswerable; and he therefore finds no +difficulty in saying that Christianity condemns a system which in his +opinion grinds the faces of the labouring classes with incessant toil, +filches from them the just reward of their work, and leaves them to +hover hopelessly on the margin of destitution. If there is any scheme +that promises effectually to cure this condition of things, Christianity +will also approve of that scheme; and such a scheme he discovers in the +socialist proposal of collective property and associated labour. This +proposal, however, derives direct countenance, he maintains, from the +New Testament. It is supported by the texts which describe the Church as +an organism under the figure of a body with many members, by the example +of the common bag of the twelve, and by the communism of the primitive +Church of Jerusalem. But the texts about the Church as an organism have +no real bearing on the subject at all; for the Church is not meant to be +an authoritative pattern either for political or for economic +organization; and besides, the figure of the body and its members would +apply better to Bastiat's theory of the natural harmony of interests +than to the socialist idea of the solidarity of interests. Then the +common bag of the disciples did not prevent them from having boats and +other instruments of production of their own individual property; and we +know that the communism of the primitive Church of Jerusalem (which was +a decided economic failure, for the poverty of that Church had to be +repeatedly relieved by collections in other parts of Christendom) was +not a community of property, but, what is a higher thing, a community of +use, and that it was not compulsory but spontaneous. + +Todt, however, after seeming thus to commit himself and Christianity +without reserve to socialism, suddenly shrinks from his own boldness, +and draws back. Collective property may be countenanced by Scripture, +but he finds private property to be as much or even more so; and he +cannot on any consideration consent to the abolition of private property +by force. It was right enough to abolish slavery by force, for slavery +is an unchristian institution. But though private property is certainly +founded on selfishness, there are so many examples of it presented +before us in the New Testament without condemnation, that Todt shrinks +from pronouncing it to be an unchristian institution. Collective +property may be better, but private property will never disappear till +selfishness is swallowed up of love; and a triumph of socialism at +present, while its disciples are unbelievers and have not Christ, the +fount of love, in their hearts, would involve society in much more +serious evils than those which it seeks to remove. Todt's socialism, +therefore, is not a thing of the present, but an ideal of the distant +future, to be realized after Christian proprietors have come of their +own accord to give up their estates, and socialists have all been +converted to Christianity. For the present, in spite of his stern view +of the great wrong and injustice the working classes suffer, Todt has no +remedy to suggest, except that things would be better if proprietors +learnt more to regard their wealth as a trust of which they were only +stewards, and if employers treated their workmen with the personal +consideration due to Christian brothers; and he thinks the cultivation +of this spirit ought to be more expressly aimed at in the work of the +Church. This is probably, after all, the sum of what Christianity has to +say on the subject; but it seems a poor result of so much figuring and +flourishing, to end in a general truth which can give no offence even in +Manchester. + +Soon after the publication of Todt's book, Stöcker and some Evangelical +friends founded two associations, for the purpose of dealing with the +social question from a Christian point of view, and established a +newspaper, the _Staats-Socialist_, to advocate their opinions. Of the +two associations, one, the Central Union for Social Reform, was composed +of persons belonging to the educated classes--professors, manufacturers, +landowners, and clergymen; and the other, the Christian Social Working +Men's Party, consisted of working men alone. This movement was received +on all sides with unqualified disapprobation. The press, Liberal and +Conservative alike, spoke with contemptuous dislike of this +_Mucker-Socialismus_, and said they preferred the socialists in blouse +to the socialists in surplice. The Social Democrats rose against it with +virulence, and held meetings, both of men and of women, at which they +glorified atheism and bitterly attacked the clergy and religion. Even +the higher dignitaries of the Church held coldly aloof or were even +openly hostile. Stöcker met all this opposition with unflinching spirit, +convened public meetings in Berlin to promote his cause, and confronted +the socialist leaders on the platform. The movement gave promise of fair +success. In a few months seven hundred pastors, besides many from other +professions, including Dr. Koegel, Court preacher, and Dr. Buchsel, a +German Superintendent, had enrolled themselves in the Central Union for +Social Reform; and the Christian Social Working Men's Party had +seventeen hundred members in Berlin, and a considerable number +throughout the provinces. But its progress was interrupted by the +Anti-Socialist Law, passed soon after the same year, which put an end to +meetings of socialists; and since this measure was supported, though +hesitatingly, by Stöcker and his leading allies, that impaired their +influence with the labouring classes. + +The principles of this party, as stated in their programme, may be said +generally to be that a decided social question exists, in the +increasing gulf between rich and poor, and the increasing want of +economic security in the labourer's life; that this question cannot +possibly be solved by social democracy, because social democracy is +unpractical, unchristian, and unpatriotic; and that it can only be +solved by means of an extensive intervention on the part of a strong and +monarchical State, aided by the religious factors in the national life. +The State ought to provide by statute a regular organization of the +working classes according to their trades, authorizing the trades unions +to represent the labourers as against their employers, rendering these +unions legally liable for the contracts entered into by their members, +assuming a control of their funds, regulating the apprentice system, +creating compulsory insurance funds, etc. Then it ought to protect the +labourers by prohibiting Sunday labour, by fixing a normal day of +labour, and by insisting on the sound sanitary condition of workshops. +Further, it ought to manage the State and communal property in a spirit +favourable to the working class, and to introduce high luxury taxes, a +progressive income-tax, and a progressive legacy duty, both according to +extent of bequest and distance of relationship. These very comprehensive +reforms are, however, held to be inadequate without the spread of a +Christian spirit of mutual consideration into the relations of master +and workman, and of Christian faith, hope, and love into family life. +Moreover they are not to be expected from a parliamentary government in +which the commercial classes have excessive influence, and hence the +Christian Socialists lay great stress on the monarchical element, and +would give the monarch absolute power to introduce social reforms +without parliamentary co-operation and even in face of parliamentary +opposition. We have seen that Todt was disposed to favour a republican +form of government, but probably, like the Czar Nicholas, he has no +positive objection to any other save the constitutional. His party has +certainly adopted a very Radical social programme, but it is above all a +Conservative group, seeking to resist the revolutionary and +materialistic tendencies of socialism, and to rally the great German +working class once more round the standard of God, King, and Fatherland. + +Dr. Stöcker has during the past year resuscitated his Christian +Socialist organization under the name of the Social Monarchical Union, +but without any prospect of much success; for its founder, as the result +of his twelve years' bustling in the troubled waters of politics, has +fallen out of favour alike with court, Church, and people. He has lost +his place as royal chaplain, he is bitterly distrusted by the working +classes, and his socialist opinions are a great rock of offence to his +ecclesiastical brethren. A congress under Church auspices was held at +Berlin on May 28th and 29th, 1890, and it was called the Evangelical +Social Congress, as was explained by Professor A. Wagner, the economist, +in his inaugural speech, to avoid being connected with the Christian +Socialists. Dr. Stöcker read a paper at it on social democracy, which +raised a storm of dissension, mainly for its attack upon the Jews. This +congress, it may be noted, asked nothing from Government but a little +attention to the housing of the poor, and its chief recommendations were +(1) that every parish be organized under the social-political as well as +spiritual supervision of the clergy; (2) that Evangelical Working Men's +Unions be established in all industrial centres; (3) that benevolent or +friendly societies be organized for all trades, such as exist now in +mining; (4) that since social democracy threatened the Divine and human +order of society, and could only be successfully opposed by the power of +the gospel, a responsible mission lay upon the Church to combat and +counteract it. This mission was to be accomplished in two ways: first, +by awakening in all Evangelical circles the conviction that the present +social crisis was due to a universal national guilt, the guilt of +materialistic learning and living; and, second, by awakening masters to +a sense of their duty to their men, as morally their equals, and by +awakening the men to a sense of the moral vocation of the masters. In +other words, the social mission of the Church, according to the dominant +opinion at this congress, was just to do its ordinary work of preaching +repentance, faith, and love, and was much better represented by Dr. +Stöcker's Home Missionary Society than by his Social Monarchical Union. + +On this question of the duty of the Church with regard to the social +amelioration of the people, there are everywhere two opposite +tendencies of opinion. One says there is no specific Christian social +politics, and that the Church can never have a specific social-political +programme. Slavery is undoubtedly inconsistent with the moral spirit of +the gospel, but St. Paul was not an emancipationist in practical life. +He neither raises the question of emancipation as a matter of political +agitation, nor does he bid, or beg, his friend Philemon to set Onesimus +at liberty, but to receive him as a brother beloved; just as any of St. +Paul's successors might enjoin a Christian master to treat his Christian +servant. Christianity is an inspiration, and may be expected to change +the character of social relations as it changes the character of men; +but political programmes are always things of opportunity and temporary +compromise, and it would be very unadvisable to run at any moment a +Christian political party, because it would necessarily make +Christianity responsible for imperfections incident to party politics, +and lessen rather than help the weight of its testimony in the world. + +Then, on the other hand, there are those who hold that there is a +specific Christian social politics; that there is a distinct social and +political system, either directly enjoined by Holy Writ, or +inferentially resulting from it, so as to be truly a system of Divine +right. That is the claim put forward by Dr. Stöcker for his system of +social monarchy, and it is the position of sundry other groups of +socialists, who base their policy on the agrarian ordinances of Moses, +or the communism of the primitive Churches, or the general spirit of the +teaching of Jesus Christ. But Christian Socialism, in any of these +forms, is evidently at a discount in the Evangelical Church in Germany; +and the representative men in that Church, whatever they may do as +private citizens, would seem to refrain, perhaps too jealously, from +formulating in the name of religion any demands for the action of the +State in the social question. + +Indeed, among Protestants, what is called Christian Socialism is little +more than a vagrant opinion in any country; but among Catholics it has +grown into a considerable international movement, and has in several +States--especially in Austria--left its mark on legislation. The +movement was started in Austria by a Protestant, Herr Rudolph Meyer, the +well-known author of the "Emancipationskampf des Arbeit" and other +works; but he was influentially and effectively seconded by Prince von +Liechtenstein, Counts Blome and Kuefstein, and Herr von Vogelsang, who +is now editor of the special organ of the movement, the _Vaterland_, of +Vienna. In France there had long been a school of Catholic social +reformers, the disciples of the Economist Le Play, and they are still +associated in the Society of Social Peace, and advocate their views in +the periodical _La Réforme Sociale_. They are believers in liberty, +however, and would not be called socialists. But there are now two newer +schools of Catholic social reformers, who declare their aim to be the +re-establishment of Christian principles in the world of labour, but are +divided on the point of State intervention. + +The school who believe in State intervention are the more numerous; they +are led by Count Albert de Mun and the Marquis de la Tour de Pin +Chambly, have a separate organ, _L'Association Catholique_, and are +supported by a large organization of Catholic workmen's clubs, founded +by Count de Mun. There were 450 of these clubs in 1880, and they combine +the functions of a religious club, a co-operative store, and a friendly +society. The school who uphold the principle of liberty also publish an +organ, _L'Union Economique_, edited by the Franciscan Father le Basse, +and their best known leaders are two Jesuit priests, Fathers Forbes and +Caudron. There is likewise a Catholic Socialist movement in Switzerland +and Belgium, in both cases strongly in favour of State intervention; +and, indeed, Italy is the only Catholic country in which the Church +holds aloof from the social movement, forgetting the unusual miseries of +the people in an ignoble sulk over the loss of the Pope's temporal +power. + +The friends of this movement have now held three international +congresses at Liège. The third was held in September, 1890, under the +presidency of the bishop of the diocese, and was attended by 1500 +delegates, including eight or ten bishops and many Catholic statesmen +and peers from all countries. Lord Ashburnham and the Bishops of Salford +and Nottingham represented England, and there were representatives from +Germany, Poland, Austria, Spain, and France, but none from Italy. The +Pope himself sent a special envoy with an address, and among letters +from eminent Catholic leaders who were unable to be present in person +was one from Cardinal Manning, which made a little sensation, but was +received with decided sympathy, though the Pope afterwards disavowed it +to some extent. The Cardinal expressed strong approval of trade unions, +and of State intervention to fix the hours of labour to eight hours for +miners and ten hours for less arduous trades, and he declared his +conviction that no pacific solution of the conflict between capital and +labour was possible till the State regulated profits and wages according +to some fixed scale which should be subject to revision every three or +four years, and by which all free contracts between employers and +employed should be adjusted. + +The Congress went over the whole gamut of social questions, and +exhibited the usual conflict of opinion between the party of liberty and +the party of authority; but the party of authority, the "Statolaters" as +they are called, had evidently the great majority of the assembly. The +party of liberty were chiefly Frenchmen and Belgians, men like Fathers +Forbes and Caudron, already mentioned, or M. Woeste, the leader of the +Catholic party in Belgium, who said he believed in moral suasion only, +and that he feared the State and hated Cæsarism. The party of authority +were German and English. But whatever they thought of State +intervention, all parties were one about the necessity of Church +intervention. Without the Catholic Church there could be no solution of +the social question. Cardinal Manning said, a few days before the +Congress, that the labour question now raised everywhere must go on till +it was solved somehow, and that the only universal influence that could +guide it was the presence and prudence of the Catholic Church. The +Congress passed recommendations about technical education, better homes +for working people, shorter hours, intemperance, strikes, prison labour, +international factory legislation. It proposed the institution of trade +unions, comprising both employers and employed, as the best means of +promoting working-class improvement. In the towns these unions might +have distinct sections for the different trades; but in the country this +subdivision was not requisite. Every parish should have its trade +union, and the whole should be united in a federation, like the +Boerenbond, or Peasants' League, lately established in some parts of +Belgium, and which the Congress recommended to the attention of +Catholics. It recommended also the establishment of a pension fund for +aged labourers under State guarantee, but without any compulsory +exaction of premiums, and without any special State subsidy; and it +received with favour a proposal by the Spanish divine, Professor +Rodriguez de Cegrada, of Valencia, for papal arbitration in +international labour questions. + +This Catholic Socialist movement shows no disposition to coquet with +revolutionary socialism; on the contrary, its leaders often say one of +their express objects is to counteract that agitation--to produce the +counter-revolution, as they sometimes put it. They are under no mistake +about the nature or bearing of socialist doctrines. Our Christian +Socialists in London accept the doctrines of Marx, and hold the +labourer's right to the full product of his labour to be a requirement +of Christian ethics, and the orators at English Church Congresses often +speak of socialism as if it were a higher perfection of Christianity. +But Catholic Socialists understand their Christianity and their +socialism better than to make any such identifications, and regard the +doctrines and organizations of revolutionary socialism in the spirit of +the firm judgment expressed in the Pope's encyclical of 28th December, +1878, which said that "so great is the difference between their (the +socialists') wicked dogmas and the pure doctrine of Christ that there +can be no greater; for what participation has justice with injustice, or +what communion has light with darkness?" This plain, gruff renunciation +is on the whole much truer than the amiable patronage of a very +distinguished Irish bishop at the Church Congress of 1887, who said +socialism was only a product of Christian countries, (what of the +socialism of savage tribes, or of the Mahdi, or of the Chinese?) that +the sentiment and aspiration of socialism were distinctly Christian, and +that every Christian is a bit of a socialist, and every socialist a bit +of a Christian. Socialism may proceed from an aspiration after social +justice, but a mistaken view of social justice is, I presume, really +injustice; and, as the Pope says, what communion can there practically +be between justice and injustice? Idolatry is a mistaken view of Divine +things--a distortion of the religious sentiment; but who would on that +account call it Christian? The socialist may be at heart a lover of +justice; he may love it, if you will, above his fellows; but what +matters the presence of the sentiment if the system he would realize it +by is ruled essentially by a principle of injustice? Justice, the +greatest and rarest of the virtues, is also the most difficult and the +most easily perverted. It needs a balance of mind, and in its +application to complicated and wide-reaching social arrangements, an +exactitude of knowledge and clearness of understanding which are ill +replaced by sentimentalism, or even by honest feeling; and the fault of +the current talk about Christian Socialism and the identity of socialism +with Christianity is that it does not conduce to this clearness of +understanding, which is the first requisite for any useful dealing with +such questions. If socialism is just, it is Christian--that seems the +sum of the matter. But do socializing bishops believe it to be just? Do +they believe, as all socialists believe, that it is unjust for one man +to be paid five thousand pounds a year, while his neighbours, with far +harder and more drudging work, cannot make forty pounds? or do they +believe it wrong for a man to live on interest, or rents, or profits? or +would they have the law lay its hands on property and manufactures, in +order to correct this wrong and give every man the income to which he +would be entitled on socialist principles? It is good, no doubt, to have +more equality and simplicity and security of living; but these +aspirations are neither peculiar to Christianity nor to socialism. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] The bishop draws this conclusion from the principle that God has +directed all men to nature to obtain from it the satisfaction of their +necessary wants, and that this original right of the needy cannot be +superseded by the subsequent institution of private property. No doubt, +he admits, that institution is also of God. It is the appointed way by +which man's dominion over nature is to be realized, because it is the +way in which nature is best utilized for the higher civilization of man. +But this purpose is secondary and subordinate to the other. And, +therefore, concludes the bishop, "firmly as theology upholds the right +of private property, it asserts at the same time that the higher right +by which all men are directed to nature's supplies dare not be +infringed, and that, consequently, any one who finds himself in extreme +need is justified, when other means fail, in satisfying this extreme +need where and how he may (wo und wie er es vermag)."--_Die +Arbeiter-frage und das Christenthum_ (p. 78). + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +ANARCHISM. + + +The latest offspring of revolutionary opinion--and the most +misshapen--is anarchism. Seven or eight years ago the word was scarcely +known; but then, as if on a sudden, rumours of the anarchists and their +horrid "propaganda of deed" echoed in, one upon another, from almost +every country in the old world and the new. To-day they were haranguing +mobs of unemployed in Lyons and Brussels under a black flag--the black +flag of hunger, which, they explained, knows no law. To-morrow they were +goading the peasants of Lombardy or Naples to attack the country houses +of the gentry, and lay the vineyards waste. Presently they were found +attempting to assassinate the German Emperor at Niederwald, or laying +dynamite against the Federal Palace at Bern; or a troop of them had set +off over Europe on a quixotic expedition of miscellaneous revenge on +powers that be, and were reported successively as having killed a +_gendarme_ in Strasburg, a policeman in Vienna, and a head of the +constabulary in Frankfort. Before these reports had time to die in our +ears, fresh tales would arrive of anarchists pillaging the bakers' shops +in Paris, or exulting over the murder of a mining manager at +Decazeville, or flinging bombs among the police of Chicago; and it +seemed as if a new party of disorder had broke loose upon the world, +busier and more barbarous than any that went before it. + +It is no new party, however; it is merely the extremer element in the +modern socialist movement. Mr. Hyndman and other socialists would fain +disclaim the anarchists altogether, and are fond of declaring that they +are the very opposite of socialists--that they are individualists of the +boldest stamp. But this contention will not stand. There are +individualist anarchists, no doubt. The anarchists of Boston, in +America, are individualists; one of the two groups of English anarchists +in London is individualist; but these individualist anarchists are very +few in number anywhere, and the mass of the party whose deeds made a +stir on both sides of the Atlantic is undoubtedly more socialist than +the socialists themselves. I have said in a previous chapter that the +socialism of the present day may be correctly described in three words +as Revolutionary Socialist Democracy, and in every one of these three +characteristics the anarchists go beyond other socialists, instead of +falling short of them. They are really more socialist, more democratic, +and more revolutionary than the rest of their comrades. They are more +socialist, because they are disposed to want not only common property +and common production, but common enjoyment of products as well. They +are more democratic, because they will have no government of any kind +over the people except the people themselves--no king or committee, no +representative institutions, either imperial or local, but merely every +little industrial group of people managing its public affairs as it will +manage its industrial work. And they are more revolutionary, for they +have no faith, even temporarily, in constitutional procedure, and think +making a little trouble is always the best way of bringing on a big +revolution. Other socialists prepare the way for revolution by a +propaganda of word; but the anarchists believe they can hasten the day +best by the propaganda of deed. Like the violent sections of all other +parties, they injure and discredit the party they belong to, and they +often attack the more moderate section with greater bitterness than +their common enemy; but they certainly belong to socialism, both in +origin and in principle. There were anarchists among the Young Hegelian +socialists of Germany fifty years ago. The Anti-socialist Laws bred a +swarm of anarchists among the German socialists in 1880, who left under +Most and Hasselmann, and carried to America the seed which led to the +outrages of Chicago. The Russian nihilists were anarchists from the +beginning; they broke up the International with their anarchism twenty +years ago, and they are among the chief disseminators of anarchism in +England and France to-day, because to the Russians anarchism is only the +socialism and the democracy of the rural communes in which they were +born. Socialists themselves are often obliged to admit the embarrassing +affinity. Dr. and Mrs. Aveling complain, in their "Labour Movement in +America," that while "the Chicago capitalist wanted us to be hanged +after we had landed, Herr Most's paper, _Die Freiheit_, was for shooting +us at sight"; that "anarchism ruined the International movement, threw +back the Spanish, Italian, and French movements for many years, has +proved a hindrance in America, and so much or so little of it as exists +in England is found by the revolutionary socialist party a decided +nuisance"; but they admit that "well nigh every word spoken by the chief +defendants at the Chicago trial could be endorsed by socialists, for +they then preached not anarchism, but socialism. Indeed," they add, "he +that will compare the fine speech by Parsons in 1886 with that of +Liebknecht at the high treason trial at Leipzig will find the two +practically identical." + +So far, then, as their socialism goes, there is admittedly no real +difference between Parsons, the Chicago anarchist, and Liebknecht, the +leader of the German socialists. Indeed, as I have said, the anarchists +seem to show a tendency even to outbid the socialists in their +socialism. Socialists generally say that, while committing all +production to the public authority, they have no idea of interfering +with liberty of consumption. Their opponents argue, in reply, that they +would find an interference with consumption to be an inevitable result +of their systematic regulation of production; but they themselves always +repudiate that conclusion. They would make all the instruments of +production common property, but leave all the materials of enjoyment +individual property still. Ground rents, for example, would belong to +the public; but every man would own his own house and furniture, at +least for life, if he had built it by his own labour, or bought it from +his own savings, because a dwelling house is not an instrument of +production, but an article of enjoyment or consumption. But some of the +more representative spokesmen of the anarchists would not leave this +last remnant of private property standing, and strongly contend for the +old primitive plan, still in use among savage tribes, of giving those +who are in want of anything a claim--a right--to share the enjoyment of +it with those who happen to have it. They would municipalize the houses +as well as the ground rents, and no one should be allowed a right to a +spare bed or a disengaged sofa so long as one of the least of his +brethren huddled on straw in a garret in the slums, or slept out on a +bench in Trafalgar Square. In a recent number of _Freedom_, for example, +Prince Krapotkin announces that "the first task of the Revolution will +be to arrange things so as to share the accommodation of available +houses according to the needs of the inhabitants of the city, to clear +out the slums and fully occupy the villas and mansions." Anarchist +opinions are no doubt capricious and variable. There are as many +anarchisms as there are anarchists, it has been said. But this tendency +to go further than other socialists, in superseding individual by common +property, has repeatedly appeared in some of their most representative +utterances. + +The Jurassian Federation of the International adopted a resolution at +their Congress in 1880, in which they say: "We desire collectivism, with +all its logical consequences, not only in the sense of the collective +appropriation of instruments of production, but also of the collective +enjoyment and consumption of products. Anarchist communism will in this +way be the necessary and inevitable consequence of the social +revolution, and the expression of the new civilization which that +revolution will inaugurate." + +Their principal difference with the other branch of the socialists, +however,--and that from which they derive their name--is upon the +government of the socialistic society. Anarchy as a principle of +political philosophy was first advocated by Proudhon, and he meant by +it, not of course a state of chaos or disorder, but merely a state +without separate political or civil institutions,--"a state of order +without a set government." "The expression, anarchic government," he +says, "implies a sort of contradiction. The thing seems impossible, and +the idea absurd; but there is really nothing at fault here but the +language. The idea of anarchy in politics is quite as rational and +positive as any other. It consists in this,--that the political function +be re-absorbed in the industrial, and in that case social order would +ensue spontaneously out of the simple operation of transactions and +exchanges. Every man might then be justly called autocrat of himself, +which is the extreme reverse of monarchical absolutism" ("Die Princip +Federatif," p. 29). He distinguishes anarchy from democracy and from +communistic government, though his distinctions are not easy to +apprehend exactly. Communism, he says, is the government of all by all; +democracy, the government of all by each; and anarchy, the government of +each by each. Anarchy is, in his opinion, the only real form of +self-government. People would manage their own public affairs together +like partners in a business, and no one would be subject to the +authority of another. Government is considered a mere detail of +industrial management; and the industrial management is considered to be +in the hands of all who co-operate in the industry. The specific +preference of anarchism, therefore, seems to be for some form of direct +government by the people, in place of any form of central, superior, or +representative government; and naturally its political communities must +be small in size, though they may be left to league together, if they +choose, in free and somewhat loose federations. The anarchists are +accordingly more democratic in their political theory than the +socialists more strictly so called, inasmuch as they would give the +people more hand in the work of government, though of course they +preposterously underrate the need and difficulty of that work. + +On some minor points they contradict one another, and quite as often +contradict themselves. Proudhon, for example, would still, even in +anarchist society, retain the local policeman and magistrate; but +anarchists of a stricter doctrine would either have every man carry his +own pistol and provide for his own security, or, as the Boston +anarchists prefer, apparently, would have public security supplied like +any other commodity by an ordinary mercantile association--in Proudhon's +words, "by the simple operation of transactions and exchanges." Emerson +said the day was coming when the world would do without the +paraphernalia of courts and parliaments, and a man who liked the +profession would merely put a sign over his door, "John Smith, King." +This is too much division of function however for anarchists generally, +and they would have every industrial group do its government as it did +its business by general co-operation. Just as in Russia every rural +commune has its own trade, and the inhabitants of one are all +shoemakers, while the inhabitants of another are all tailors, so in +anarchist society, according to the more advanced doctrine, every +separate group would have its own separate industry, because, in fact, +the separate industry makes it a separate group. And it would be managed +by all its members together, not by anything in the nature of a board, +for it is important to recollect that anarchists of the purest water +entertain as much objection to the domination of a vestry or a town +council as to that of a king or a cabinet. Some who side with them, +especially old supporters of the French Revolutionary Commune, have +still a certain belief in a municipal council; but the Russian +anarchists, at any rate, look upon this as a piece of faithless +accommodation. Prince Krapotkin, I have already mentioned, thinks the +first business of the contemplated revolution must be to redistribute +the dwelling houses, so as to thin the slums and quarter their surplus +population in the incompletely occupied villas or mansions of the West +End. That is a very large task, which it will seem, to an ordinary mind, +obviously impossible for the vast population of a great city like London +to execute in their own proper persons at an enormous town meeting; yet, +if I understand Prince Krapotkin, it is this preposterous proposal he is +actually offering as a serious contribution to a more perfect system of +government. "For," says he, "sixty elected persons sitting round a table +and calling themselves a Municipal Council cannot arrange the matter on +paper. It must be arranged by the people themselves, freely uniting to +settle the question for each block of houses, each street, and +proceeding by agreement from the single to the compound, from the parts +to the whole; all having their voice in the arrangements, and putting in +their claims with those of their fellow-citizens; just as the Russian +peasants settle the periodical repartition of the communal lands." And +how do the Russian peasants settle the periodical repartition of the +communal lands? Stepniak gives us a very interesting description of a +meeting of a Russian _mir_ in his "Russia Under the Tsars" (vol. i. p. +2). + +"The meetings of the village communes, like those of the +_Landesgemeinde_ of the primitive Swiss cantons, are held under the +vault of heaven, before the Starosta's house, before a tavern, or at any +other convenient place. The thing that most strikes a person who is +present for the first time at one of these meetings is the utter +confusion which seems to characterize its proceedings. Chairman there is +none. The debates are scenes of the wildest disorder. After the convener +has explained his reasons for calling the meeting, everybody rushes in +to express his opinion, and for a while the debate resembles a free +fight of pugilists. The right of speaking belongs to him who can command +attention. If an orator pleases his audience, interrupters are promptly +silenced; but if he says nothing worth hearing, nobody heeds him, and he +is shut up. When the question is somewhat of a burning one, and the +meeting begins to grow warm, all speak at once, and none listen. On +these occasions the assembly breaks up into groups, each of which +discusses the subject on its own account. Everybody shouts his arguments +at the top of his voice. Charges and objurgations, words of contumely +and derision, are heard on every hand, and a wild uproar goes on from +which it does not seem possible that any good can result. + +"But this apparent confusion is of no moment. It is a necessary means to +a certain end. In our village assemblies voting is unknown. +Controversies are never decided by a majority of voices; every question +must be settled unanimously. Hence the general debate, as well as +private discussions, must be continued until a proposal is brought +forward which conciliates all interests, and wins the suffrage of the +entire _mir_. It is, moreover, evident that to reach this consummation +the debates must be thorough and the subject well threshed out; and in +order to overcome isolated opposition, it is essential for the advocates +of conflicting views to be brought face to face, and compelled to fight +out their differences in single combat." + +But beneath all this tough and apparently acrimonious strife a singular +spirit of forbearance reigns. The majority will not force on a premature +decision. Debate may rage fast and furious day after day, but at last +the din dies. A common understanding is somehow attained, and the _mir_ +pronounces its deliverance, which is accepted, in the rude belief of +the peasants, as the decree of God Himself. In this way tens of +thousands of Russian villages have been, no doubt, managing their own +petty business with reasonable amity and success for centuries, and the +political philosophy of Russian writers like Bakunin and Prince +Krapotkin, who have propagated anarchism in the west of Europe, is +merely the naïve suggestion that the form of government which answers +not intolerably for the few trivial concerns of a primitive Russian +village would answer best for the whole complex business of a great +developed modern society. + +The anarchists carry their dislike to authority into other fields +besides the political and industrial. They will have no invisible master +or ruler any more than visible. They renounce both God and the devil, +and generally with an energy beyond all other revolutionists. Some of +the older socialists were believers; St. Simon, Fourier, Leroux and +Louis Blanc were all theists; but it is rare to find one among the +socialists of the present generation, and with the anarchists an +aggressive atheism seems an essential part of their way of thinking. +They will own no superior power or authority of any kind--employer, +ruler, deity, or law. The Anarchist Congress of Geneva in 1882 issued a +manifesto, which began thus:-- + +"Our enemy, it is our master. Anarchists--that is to say, men without +chiefs--we fight against all who are invested or wish to invest +themselves with any kind of power whatsoever. Our enemy is the landlord +who owns the soil and makes the peasant drudge for his profit. Our enemy +is the employer who owns the workshop, and has filled it with +wage-serfs. Our enemy is the State, monarchical, oligarchic, democratic, +working class, with its functionaries and its services of officers, +magistrates, and police. Our enemy is every abstract authority, whether +called Devil or Good God, in the name of which priests have so long +governed good souls. Our enemy is the law, always made for the +oppression of the weak by the strong, and for the justification and +consecration of crime." + +Among other restraints, they entertain often a speculative opposition to +the restraint of the legal family, and sometimes advocate a return to +aboriginal promiscuity and relationship by mothers; but this is only an +occasional element in their agitation. It is plain, however, that when +law is believed to be oppression, crime and lawlessness come to be +humanity. + +I have now shown that the anarchists, so far from representing an +opposite movement to revolutionary social democracy, are really +ultra-socialist and ultra-democratic, and it seems hardly necessary to +show that they are ultra-revolutionary. All social democrats contemplate +an eventual revolution, but some see no objection meanwhile to take part +in current politics; while others, a more witnessing generation, +practise an ostentatious abstention, and call themselves political +abstentionists. Some, again, think and desire that the revolution will +come by peaceful and lawful means; others trust to violence alone. The +anarchists outrun all. They refuse to have anything to do with any +politics but revolution, and with any revolution but a violent one, and +they think the one means of producing revolution now or at any future +time is simply to keep exciting disorder and class hatred, assassinating +State officers, setting fire to buildings, and paralyzing the +_bourgeoisie_ with fear. All anarchists are not of this sanguinary mind, +and it is interesting to remember that Proudhon himself wrote Karl Marx +in 1846, warning him against "making a St. Bartholomew of the +proprietors," and opposed resort to revolutionary action of any kind as +a means of promoting social reform. "Perhaps," he says, "we think no +reform is possible without a _coup de main_, without what used to be +called a revolution, and which is only a shake. I understand that +decision and excuse it, for I held it for a long time myself, but I +confess my latest studies have completely taken it away from me. I +believe we have no need of any such thing in order to succeed, and that +consequently we ought not to postulate revolutionary action as a means +of social reform, because that pretended means is nothing more nor less +than an appeal to force, to arbitrary power, and is therefore a +contradiction. I state the problem thus: to restore to society, by an +economic combination, the wealth which has been taken from society by +another economic combination." ("Proudhon's Correspondence," ii. 198.) + +But whatever individual anarchists may hold or renounce, the general +view of the party is as I have stated. A meeting of 600 +anarchists--chiefly Germans and Austrians, but including also some +Russians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen--was held at Paris on the 20th April, +1884, and passed a resolution urgently recommending the extirpation of +princes, capitalists, and parsons, by means of "the propaganda of +deed."[2] The Congress held at London in 1881, which sought to +re-establish the International on purely anarchist lines, adopted a +declaration of principles, containing, among other things, the +following: "It is matter of strict necessity to make all possible +efforts to propagate by deeds the revolutionary idea and the spirit of +revolt among that great section of the mass of the people which as yet +takes no part in the movement, and entertains illusions about the +morality and efficacy of legal means. In quitting the legal ground on +which we have generally remained hitherto, in order to carry our action +into the domain of illegality which is the only way leading to +revolution, it is necessary to have recourse to means which are in +conformity with that end.... The Congress recommends organizations and +individuals constituting part of the International Working Men's +Association to give great weight to the study of the technical and +chemical sciences as a means of defence and attack."[3] In the first +French revolution Lavoisier and other seven and twenty chemists were put +to the guillotine together, on the express pretence, "We have no need of +_savants_"; but now "Technology" is a standing heading in the anarchist +journals; a revolutionary organization has its chemical department as +well as its press department; and anarchist tracts often end with the +standing exhortation, "Learn the use of dynamite," as socialist tracts +end with the old admonition of 1848, "Proletarians of all nations, +unite." + +The object of this policy of violence is partly, as we see from the +above quotations, to inflame the spirit of revolt and disorder in the +working classes; and it is partly to terrorize the _bourgeoisie_, so +that they may yield in pure panic all they possess. But for its +expressly violent policy, anarchism would be the least formidable or +offensive manifestation of contemporary socialism. For, in the first +place, its specific doctrine is one which it is really difficult to get +the most ordinary common sense puzzled into accepting. Men in their +better mind may be ready enough to listen to specious, or even not very +specious, schemes of reform that hold out a promise of extirpating +misery, and in their worse mind they may be quite as prone to think that +if everybody had his own, there would be fewer rich; but they are not +likely to believe we can get on without law or government of any sort. +Even the vainest will feel that however superfluous these institutions +may be for themselves, they are still unhappily indispensable for some +of their neighbours. Then in the next place this doctrine of the +anarchists is as great a stumbling-block to themselves as it is to other +people, for they carry their objection to government into their own +movement, and can consequently never acquire that concentration and +unity of organization which is necessary for any effectual conspiracy. +They are always found constituted in very small groups very loosely held +together, and small as the several groups may be, they are always much +more likely to subdivide than to consolidate. Even the few anarchist +refugees in London who might be expected to be knit into indissoluble +friendship by their common adversity have broken into separate clubs, +and the "Autonomic" and the "Morgenrothe"--though they have hardly more +than a hundred members between them, and all belong to the same +socialist variety of anarchist doctrine--remain as the Jews and the +Samaritans. It is said to be a subject of speculative discussion among +anarchists whether two members are sufficient to constitute an anarchist +club. This laxity of organization is a natural result of the dislike to +authority which the anarchists cultivate as a cardinal principle. +Subjection to an executive committee is as offensive to their feelings +and as contrary to their principles as subjection to a monarch. The +dread of subjection keeps them disunited and weak. As Machiavelli says, +the many ruin a revolutionary society, and the few are not enough. A +small group may concoct an isolated crime, but it can do little towards +the social revolution. + +The anarchist policy--the propaganda of deed--consists, however, +exactly in this concoction of isolated crimes and outrages. Some of the +continental powers are conferring at this moment on the propriety of +taking international efforts against the anarchists, and the question +may at least be reasonably raised before our own Government, whether a +policy of promiscuous outrage like this should continue to be included +among political offences, securing protection against extradition, and +whether the propaganda of deed and the use of dynamite should not rather +be declared outside the limits of fair and legitimate revolution, as, by +the Geneva Convention, explosive bullets are put outside the limits of +fair or legitimate war. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] Much interesting information on this subject is given from official +sources in a recent anonymous work, "Socialismus und Anarchismus in +Europa und Nordamerika während der Jahre 1883 bis 1886." + +[3] Garin, "L'Anarchie et les Anarchistes," p. 48. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +RUSSIAN NIHILISM. + + +Haxthausen pronounced a confident opinion in 1847, when most of the +continental nations were agitated with rumours of revolution, that +Russia at any rate was safe from the danger, inasmuch as she enjoyed an +absolute protection against all such revolutionary agitation in her +communistic rural institutions. There was no proletariat in Russia, +every man in the country being born to a share in the land of the +township he belonged to; and without a proletariat, concluded the +learned professor, there was neither motive nor material for social +revolt. This belief became generally accepted, and passed, indeed, for +years as a political commonplace; but perhaps never has a political +prognostication so entirely reasonable proved on experience so utterly +fallacious. Instead of sparing or avoiding Russia, revolutionary +agitation has grown positively endemic in that country; it is more +virulent in its type, and apparently more deepseated than elsewhere; +and, stranger still, not the least of its exciting causes has been that +very communistic agrarian system which was thought to be the surest +preservation against it. + +In its earlier period, before the emancipation of the serfs, the Russian +revolutionary movement was largely inspired by an extravagant +idealization of the perfections of the rural commune, and now since the +emancipation it is fed far more formidably by an actual experience of +the commune's defects. The truth is that the communistic land system of +Russia, so far from preventing the birth of a proletariat, is now of +itself begetting the most numerous and the most helpless proletariat in +the world. The emancipation dues would have been a serious burden under +any social arrangements, but they have proved so much heavier under the +communistic system of Russia than they would have been elsewhere that +the system itself is beginning to give way. With an unlimited stock of +good land, all is plain sailing under any social institutions; but when +land is limited in extent and every new-comer has the right to cut in +and get an equal share with those already in possession, excessive +subdivision is inevitable, and the point is soon reached where any fresh +impost or outgoing destroys the profitableness of cultivation, and +converts the right to the land from an asset into a liability. This is +what is now happening in Russia. It appears there are already more +paupers in St. Petersburg proportionally to population than in any other +European capital, and as many as a third of the inhabitants of the +provinces are either entirely landless, or, more unhappy still, find +their land, instead of a benefit, to be only a grievous burden of which +they cannot shake themselves clear. I shall have occasion later on to +recur to this new economic development in rural Russia, which is very +interesting to the student of socialism on its own account, but which +will concern us in the present chapter more particularly in its bearing +on the operations and prospects of the revolutionary party in that +country. + +The revolutionary or nihilist movement in Russia has passed through +several successive phases; but there is no good reason for denying its +continuity, nor any impropriety, as is sometimes alleged, in the +retention of the name of Nihilism, which it bore when it first engaged +the attention of Western Europe, although it may be quite true that the +word is more descriptive of the earlier developments of the movement +than of the later. In its first stage, before the Emancipation Act, it +was scarce more than an intellectual fermentation--an intellectual +revolt all round, if you will--shaping more and more in its political +ideas towards democratic socialism, but as yet entirely unorganized, and +content to expend its force in violent opinions without recourse to +action. Then, second, the Emancipation Act gave it organization, +purpose, malignity, and made it, in short, the nihilism we know, +converting it into the engine of the bitter discontent of the landed +classes, who were seriously straitened and many of them ruined by the +operation of that great reform. Third, while the impoverishment of +thousands of landed families was the first result of the Emancipation +Act, its slower but more serious result has been the impoverishment of +the peasantry, and nihilism is now assuming a more agrarian character, +and promoting the social revolution under the old Russian cry for "the +black division." + +For the origin of nihilism we must go back half a century to a little +company of gifted young men, most of whom rose to great distinction, who +used at that time to meet together at the house of a rich merchant in +Moscow, for the discussion of philosophy and politics and religion. They +were of the most various views. Some of them became Liberal leaders, and +wanted Russia to follow the constitutional development of the Western +nations; others became founders of the new Slavophil party, contending +that Russia should be no imitator, but develop her own native +institutions in her own way; and there were at least two among +them--Alexander Herzen and Michael Bakunin--who were to be prominent +exponents of revolutionary socialism. But they all owned at this period +one common master--Hegel. Their host was an ardent Hegelian, and his +young friends threw themselves into the study of Hegel with the greatest +zeal. Herzen himself tells us in his autobiography how assiduously they +read everything that came from his pen, how they devoted nights and +weeks to clearing up the meaning of single passages in his writings, and +how greedily they devoured every new pamphlet that issued from the +German press on any part of his system. From Hegel, Herzen and Bakunin +were led, exactly like Marx and the German Young Hegelians, to +Feuerbach, and from Feuerbach to socialism. Bakunin, when he retired +from the army, rather than be the instrument of oppressing the Poles +among whom he was stationed, went for some years to Germany, where he +lived among the Young Hegelians and wrote for their organ, the +_Hallische Jahrbücher_; but before either he or Herzen ever had any +personal intercommunication with the members of that school of thought, +they had passed through precisely the same development. Herzen speaks of +socialism almost in the very phrases of the Young Hegelians, as being +the new "terrestrial religion," in which there was to be neither God nor +heaven; as a new system of society which would dispense with an +authoritative government, human or Divine, and which should be at once +the completion of Christianity and the realization of the Revolution. +"Christianity," he said, "made the slave a son of man; the Revolution +has emancipated him into a citizen. Socialism would make him a _man_." + +This tendency of thought was strongly supported in the Russian mind by +Haxthausen's discovery and laudation of the rural commune of Russia. The +Russian State was the most arbitrary, oppressive, and corrupt in Europe, +and the Russian Church was the most ignorant and superstitious; but here +at last was a Russian institution which was regarded with envy even by +wise men of the west, and was really a practical anticipation of that +very social system which was the last work of European philosophy. It +was with no small pride, therefore, that Alexander Herzen declared that +the Muscovite peasant in his dirty sheepskin had solved the social +problem of the nineteenth century, and that for Russia, with this great +problem already solved, the Revolution was obviously a comparatively +simple operation. You had but to remove the Czardom, the services, and +the priesthood, and the great mass of the people would still remain +organized in fifty thousand complete little self-governing communities +living on their common land and ruling their common affairs as they had +been doing long before the Czardom came into being. And what, after all, +was the latest dream of philosophical socialism but a world of +communities like these? The new formula of civilization had merely come +back to the old Russian _mir_. + +All Russian writers draw a kindly and charming picture of the _mir_, the +rude village council, in which the heads of families have for ages +managed their common land, distributed their taxes, and settled all the +burning problems of the hamlet with remarkable freedom, fairness, and +mutual respect. They meet together on some open space--perhaps in front +of the tavern, which is itself one of their common possessions; they +beat out their question there till they are unanimous; for the _mir_ +will know nothing of decision by majorities--the will of the _mir_ is +believed to be the will of God Himself, and it must be no divided +counsel. They argue sometimes long and keenly, and, as their interest +waxes, they will raise many voices at once, or perhaps break up into +separate groups, each discussing the subject apart; but presently, out +of all the apparent disorder, the acceptable decision is somehow found, +and peace reigns again in the village street. In these meetings they +have the deepest feeling and habit of freedom; and even when a political +question arises affecting their interests--a question of taxes or of +administration--they make no scruple to speak in the plainest terms of +the Government and the officials, and they are never interfered with. +"Nobody but God," they say, "dare judge the _mir_," and the Czar, at any +rate, respects the tradition. That rude assembly is the only free +institution in Russia. Even revolutionary manifestoes have been publicly +read at its meetings, and socialist addresses publicly delivered. And +this instinctive spirit of freedom is attended there with the +instinctive spirit of equality. A recent Russian writer observes that a +Russian peasant would be quite unable to understand the sort of respect +the English labourer shows to a gentleman. With its freedom, its +equality, its strong family sentiment, its common property, its +self-government, the _mir_ is really the social democratic republic +political philosophers have projected, and a Russian who dislikes the +State and loves the _mir_ is, without more ado, a social revolutionist +of the anarchist type. The favourite ideal among Russian revolutionists +for the last fifty years has accordingly all along been the anarchist +ideal of a free federation of local industrial communities without any +separate political organization; for the anarchist ideal is natural to +the Russian situation. + +Revolutionary opinions were very rife in Russia during the reign of +Nicholas; but under his iron rule they were never suffered to be spoken +above the breath. His ascension to the throne in 1825 had been greeted +by a revolution--a very abortive one, it is true, but unfortunately +sufficient to set every fibre of the young Czar's strong nature +inflexibly against all the liberal tendencies encouraged by his father, +and to stop the political development of the country for a generation. A +handful of constitutional reformers--united three years before in a +secret society to promote peasant emancipation, the common civil +liberties, and stable instead of arbitrary law--gathered a crowd to a +public place in the capital, and shouted for "the Archduke Constantine +and a Constitution." Most part of the crowd had so little idea why they +had come together that they thought Constitution was the name of the +Archduke Constantine's wife; and the most distinguished man among the +conspirators--Pestel, the poet--said, as he was going to execution, "I +wished to reap the harvest before sowing the seed." He had done +worse--he really kept the seed from being sown for thirty years to come. +All freedom of opinion was ruthlessly suppressed; every means of +influencing the public mind was stopped; there was no liberty of +printing, speaking, or meeting; there was no saving grace but ignorance, +for people of reading and intelligence lived under perpetual liability +to most unreasonable suspicion. Alexander Herzen, for example, was +banished to the Asiatic frontier while still a very young man, merely +because he happened to make the casual remark in a private letter to his +father, which was opened in the post, that a policeman had a few days +before killed a man in the streets of St. Petersburg. + +But this system of lawless and unrighteous repression nursed a deep +spirit of revolt against constituted authority in the heart of the +people, and among the younger minds a kind of passion for the most +extreme and forbidden doctrines. All the wildest phases of nihilist +opinion in the sixties were already raging in Russia in the forties. +Haxthausen says he was astounded, when he visited the Russian +universities and schools, to find the students at every one of them +given over, as he says, to political and religious notions of the most +all-destructive description. "It is a miasma," he says. And although the +only political outbreak of Nicholas's reign, the Petracheffsky +conspiracy of 1849, was little more than a petty street riot, a storm of +serious revolt against the tyranny of the Czar was long gathering, which +would have burst upon his head after the disasters to his army in the +Crimea, had he survived them. He saw it thickening, however, and on his +death-bed said to his son, the noble and unfortunate Alexander II., "I +fear you will find the burden too heavy." The son found it eventually +heavy enough, but in the meantime he wisely bent before the storm, +relaxed the restraints the father had imposed, and gave pledges of the +most liberal reforms in every department of State--judicial +administration, local government, popular education, serf emancipation. +People believed completely in the young Czar's sincerity, awaited with +great expectations the measures he would propose, and meanwhile indulged +to the top of their bent in the practical liberties they were already +provisionally allowed to enjoy, and gave themselves up to a restless +fervour for liberty and reform. + +An independent press was not among the liberties conceded, but Russian +opinion at this period found a most effective voice in a newspaper +started in London by Alexander Herzen, called the _Kolokol_ (Bell), +which for a number of years made a great impression in Russia by the +accuracy of its information on Russian affairs, by the boldness of its +criticisms of the Government, and by the ease with which it got smuggled +into universal circulation. When Herzen was sent to the Urals as a +dangerous person, he was appointed, very anomalously--perhaps it was to +keep him there--to an administrative and judicial post, in which he +would have apparently to sentence others while under sentence himself; +but he grew weary of his banishment, and was permitted to exchange it +for the more complete, but much more agreeable, banishment from Russia +altogether. After visiting Germany and France, and after witnessing, +with deep interest and deeper disappointment, some of the revolutions of +1848, and writing that they had failed because their promoters were not +prepared to follow them up with a positive social programme, as if, he +says, the mere destruction of a Bastile were a revolution, he settled in +England, and learnt there, as his son assures us, that revolution itself +was but a vain expedient, and that gradual reform was the only effectual +method of lasting social amelioration. + +It was probably while he was learning this lesson--it was certainly +entirely in this spirit--that he began his political agitation on the +accession of Alexander II. The moment the new Czar ascended the throne, +Herzen addressed to him a famous letter, demanding amends for the ills +his father, Czar Nicholas, had done the people, a complete breach with +the old system, and the introduction of thoroughgoing Liberal reforms, +and more especially the emancipation of the serfs. It was in the same +spirit he conducted his agitation in the _Kolokol_. Without neglecting +to ventilate his socialist and philosophical views, he welcomed the +contemplated reforms as being in themselves true remedies for popular +grievances, and intended in perfect good faith by the Czar to be so; and +his chief care in all his criticisms always was to secure that these +reforms should be real and thorough, that the judicial body should be +independent, the educational arrangements efficient; above all, that the +peasants should not be deprived, in the emancipation arrangements, of a +foot of the land they then possessed, or made to pay terms for their +emancipation which would be too heavy for them to meet. And perhaps the +most popular and stirring part of his paper was always his exposure of +existing abuses, and his criticism of the conduct of officials. The +journal was written with wit, vigour, and accurate knowledge; and, as it +spoke what most men thought, but few would as yet venture to say, it was +greedily read and distributed, and was for some years a remarkable power +in the country. Herzen was the hero of the young. Herzenism, we are +told, became the rage, and Herzenism appears to have meant, before all, +a free handling of everything in Church or State which was previously +thought too sacred to be touched. This iconoclastic spirit grew more and +more characteristic of Russian society at this period, and presently, +under its influence, Herzenism fell into the shade, and nihilism +occupied the scene. + +We possess various accounts of the meaning and nature of nihilism, and +they all agree substantially in their description of it. The word was +first employed by Turgenieff in his novel "Fathers and Sons," where +Arcadi Petrovitch surprises his father and uncle by describing his +friend Bazaroff as a nihilist. + +"A nihilist," said Nicholas Petrovitch. "This word must come from the +Latin _nihil_, nothing, as far as I can judge, and consequently it +signifies a man who recognises nothing." + +"Or rather who respects nothing," said Paul Petrovitch. + +"A man who looks at everything from a critical point of view," said +Arcadi. + +"Does not that come to the same thing?" asked his uncle. + +"No, not at all. A nihilist is a man who bows before no authority, who +accepts no principle without examination, no matter what credit the +principle has."... + +"Yes, before we had Hegelians; now we have nihilists. We shall see what +you will do to exist in nothingness, in a vacuum, as if under an air +pump." + +Koscheleff, writing in 1874, gives a similar explanation of nihilism. +"Our disease is a disease of character, and the most dangerous possible. +We suffer from a fatal unbelief in everything. We have ceased to believe +in this or in that, not because we have studied the subject thoroughly +and become convinced of the untenability of our views, but only because +some author or another in Germany or England holds this or that doctrine +to be unfounded. Our nihilism is a thing of a quite peculiar character. +It is not, as in the West, the result of long falsely directed +philosophical studies and ways of thinking, nor is it the fruit of an +imperfect social organization. It is an entirely different thing from +that. The wind has blown it to us, and the wind will blow it from us +again. Our nihilists are simply Radicals. Their loud speeches, their +fault-finding, their strong assertions, are grounded on nothing. They +borrow negative views from foreign authors, and repeat them and magnify +them _ad nauseam_, and treat persons of another way of thinking as +absurd and antiquated people who continue to cherish exploded ideas and +customs. The chief cause of the spread of this (I will not say doctrine, +for I cannot honour it with such a name, but) sect is this, that it +imparts its communications in secret conversations, so that, for one +thing, it cannot be publicly criticised and refuted, and, for another, +it charms by the fascination of the forbidden." + +The same view precisely is given by Baron Fircks ("Schedo Ferroti") in +his very elaborate and thoughtful account of nihilism in his _L'Avenir +de la Russie_. It was merely, he said, the critical spirit--the spirit +of intellectual revolt--carried to an extreme and running amuck against +all accepted principles in religion, in politics, in domestic and social +life. It was a common infirmity of contemporary society, and was in no +way peculiar to Russia; but while that may be true, it has +undoubtedly--as perhaps the Baron would admit--been carried into more +extravagant manifestations in Russia than elsewhere. + +Nor are the reasons of this extravagance far to seek. First, the +Russians are, in national character, singularly impressionable, +volatile, and predisposed to run to extremes. Diderot says they were +rotten before they were ripe. Second, they are mere children in +political experience, and even in intellectual training. Their education +is in general shallow, and they are liable to the vagaries of the half +educated. Third, both Baron Fircks and Koscheleff think nihilism was +largely due to the arbitrary government of the country. The Czar and the +bureaucracy have themselves had much to do with destroying respect for +law and authority by their capricious habits of administration. Laws +were proclaimed to-day and repealed to-morrow, or even broken by the +very officials engaged in administering them. Even in the days of +Nicholas, Herzen complained bitterly of this constant inconstancy of the +law; he said the Russian Government was "infatuated with innovation," +that "nothing was allowed to remain as it was," that "everything was +always being changed," that "a new ministry invariably began its work by +upsetting that of its predecessors." Russia being a Functionary State, +not a Law State, to employ a useful German distinction, the decrees of +officials take the place elsewhere filled by fixed laws established by +legislative authority; and where these decrees are continually changing, +reverence for the law is impossible. + +But in all this there was no practical political disaffection before the +Emancipation Act. The nihilists had as yet a vague belief in the Czar +and the coming reforms; they felt that the Russian people were at last +to have a chance of showing the rich genius that lay in them, and their +whole anxiety was to have the people adequately trained for this great +destiny. It was the common talk that the future belonged to Russia; and +that she was already beginning to outshine all other nations in +literature, in art, in science, in music. "Some young people among us," +says Turgenieff, "have discovered even a Russian arithmetic. Two and two +do make four with us as well as elsewhere, but more pompously, it would +seem. All this is nothing but the stammering of men who are just +awaking." + +Under these influences the energies of the nihilists took a different +outlet than plotting. Instead of founding secret societies, they +founded Sunday schools. For to their mind the first need of the time, +above even political liberty, was popular education. As to liberty, the +measure they practically enjoyed at the gracious pleasure of the Czar +for the present contented them, inasmuch as it seemed an earnest of the +better securities that were expected to follow; but they could not with +any satisfaction look round them and see the Russian people, for whom +they were prophesying such a great career, still lying in almost +aboriginal ignorance. The stuff was indeed there which should yet +astonish the world, but it must first be made. To "make the people," as +they phrased it, was the task the nihilists now undertook, and they +threw themselves into it with the zeal of apostles. They put on shabby +clothes to avoid any offensive superiority to their poorer neighbours, +and they wore green spectacles to correct the even more intolerable +inequality of personal beauty, for, as they were fond of saying, they +had put off the old man and were now new men created again by Büchner +and Feuerbach in the gospel of humanity; but with all their +extravagances they carried on for some years a most active and no doubt +useful work in the Sunday schools and reading circles which they rapidly +established everywhere. + +Although this movement fell eventually under the suspicion of the +Government, as in despotic countries any movement will, it seems to have +had no political, or what the authorities call "ill-intentioned" +purpose. It was pervaded with patriotic and humanitarian feeling, and +though no doubt many of the nihilists who took part in it held as +extreme opinions in politics as they did in everything else, yet these +opinions were mere matters of speculation. It is certain that democratic +and revolutionary socialism was a very popular doctrine among the +nihilists, even at that earliest period of their history, for their most +representative man during that period was Tchernycheffsky, the editor of +the _Contemporary_ magazine, and a political economist of some note in +his day; and Tchernycheffsky was undoubtedly a democratic and +revolutionary socialist. He belonged to a younger generation than Herzen +and Bakunin, but, like them, he had been led to socialism through Hegel +and Feuerbach, and he expounded his ideas in a famous romance entitled, +"What is to be done?" which the Government allowed him to write, and +even to publish, while in prison for sedition in 1862, though they +suppressed the book sternly when they saw it beginning to make a +sensation. + +But although revolutionary and socialistic principles may have been very +considerably entertained by the nihilists from the first, there was no +practical revolutionary or socialistic organization before the +emancipation of the serfs. Up till then nihilism may be said to have +been a benignant growth, if I may use a medical expression, and it was +that great historical measure that converted it into the malignant and +deadly trouble which we best know. The Russian Radicals, including the +socialists, were strongly disappointed with that measure from the +outset, because they thought it inflicted serious injustice on the +peasantry. It deprived them, they said, of much of the land they had +hitherto enjoyed as a right, and which was necessary for their +comfortable subsistence, while it imposed on them for what they got +excessive dues which their holdings would never be able to bear; and so +the first Land and Liberty League was founded in 1863. But it was not +the peasants, or the peasants' friends--it was the small landed gentry +who were the first to feel the effects of the Emancipation Act, and to +raise the standard of revolt. The Act made a serious change in their +fortunes. Although the landlords were allowed most liberal terms of +compensation for the enforced emancipation of their serfs, few of them +actually received a kopeck, because they were almost all of them already +deeply indebted to Government, and Government applied the compensation +money to cancel their old debts, and gave up the policy of granting any +more mortgages in the future. Then a great part of the land which was +formerly cultivated by means of the serfs was now found to be too poor +to afford the expense of paid labour; the landlords had neither stock +nor implements to work it, if it were more fertile, the peasantry having +in the old days tilled the field for them with their own horses and +ploughs; nor had they any means of raising the stock on credit, and, +besides, most of them were complete absentees, engaged as Government or +railway officials, or in other professional work, and knew nothing +whatever about the business of agriculture. The smaller landlords have +therefore been compelled to sell their estates to the larger, or to +leave much of their ground entirely uncultivated. In Moscow there were +633 separate estates in 1861, before the emancipation, but only 422 in +1877, and not more than one-fifth of the land that was cultivated in +that province in 1861 continued in cultivation in 1877. Many of the sons +of the smaller proprietors were at the universities studying for one of +the professions, and had either to give up their studies altogether for +want of means, or were put on shorter allowances, which was scarcely +less annoying, and was indeed a great cause of revolutionary opinions at +the universities. Many more of the sons of the gentry were in the army, +and the pay of a Russian officer being extremely small, they had been +accustomed to receive allowances from home, without which, indeed, they +could hardly live; and now in the altered circumstances of the family +these allowances were perforce suddenly stopped. Much of the +revolutionary discontent that exists in the Russian army to such a +serious extent that 200 arrests were made in March, 1885, and Government +appointed a special commission of inquiry into the subject, has come +from the source, and is practically a revolt against insufficient pay. +But what happened at the universities and in the army happened in other +departments of Russian life; the Emancipation Act had left on every +shore some wreckage of the gentry, an upper-class and educated +proletariat, whose distress might be due originally to their own +improvidence or ignorance, but was undoubtedly first driven into an +acute state by an act of Government, and therefore clamoured for +vengeance on the Government that produced it. + +The clamour of the victims of the Emancipation Act naturally woke up all +the earlier discontents of the country. The Poles and the dissenting +sects, with all their ancient wrongs, seem to have contributed but a +small contingent to the nihilist ranks; but the Jews, subject to a +barbarous and often very acute persecution, have filled the secret +societies from the beginning with many of their most determined members, +and have supplied a great part of the "Nihilistesses"; and even though +the Revolutionary Executive Committee has latterly issued a proclamation +against the Jews, mainly on the ground of the extortion practised by +Jewish money-lenders on the peasantry, there are still, as appears very +abundantly from the nihilist trials of 1890, many Jews among the +revolutionists. + +Then there are thirteen millions of native heretics in Russia, sects of +various sorts springing up like the early Quakers from the bosom of the +people, and filled with a rude spirit of freedom and a tendency towards +socialistic ideas in their condemnation of luxury and accumulation, +their hatred of war and military government, and their belief in +fraternity and mutual assistance. Some writers allege that these sects +are an important factor in the revolutionary movement; but though they +certainly have suffered many wrongs from Government, they do not seem to +have furnished any great quota to the revolutionary ranks. They are the +freethinkers of the unlettered classes, however, and their ideas no +doubt have some influence in preparing these classes for socialist +principles. But there is another class very numerous in Russia, who are +the natural allies of revolution--the "illegal men" who, for various +reasons, go about on false passports, and are thus living in revolt +already. And to all these diverse sources of disaffection must be added +the aggravation arising at the moment from the tyrannical and arbitrary +measures to which the Government resorted on the first outburst of +complaints. + +In 1862, perceiving the discontent raised by the Emancipation Act, +Government took alarm, and withdrew or curtailed the liberties it had +for a few years allowed the people to enjoy. It stopped some newspapers +and warned a number more; it prohibited the Sunday schools and reading +clubs altogether; it banished many persons on mere suspicion to remote +provinces; and for a greater example it cast the eminent writer +Tchernycheffsky into prison on a charge of exciting the peasantry to +revolt, and after leaving him there without trial for nearly two years, +brought him out at length to a public square in St. Petersburg, read out +to him a sentence of transportation, broke a sword over his head, and +sent him to the Siberian mines for the rest of his life. There he still +remains, broken now both in mind and body, but probably doing more harm +to the Government by his wrongs than he could ever have done by his pen, +for nihilists have for twenty-seven years been constantly exciting +popular sympathy by descriptions of his martyrdom and demands for his +release. + +It was while this alienation against the Government was thickening that +Michael Bakunin escaped from Siberia, and it was by emissaries sent by +Bakunin to Russia that the first successful attempt was made to incite +and organize all these revolutionary materials into a revolutionary +movement. When Bakunin came back in 1862 and joined Herzen in London, +the two old friends found their ideas had parted far asunder during +their long separation. Herzen had, from his twelve years' observation of +affairs, broadened from revolutionist to statesman, and had no patience +now for the extravagance of the young Russian patriots who visited him +in London. "Our black earth," he would say, "needs a deal of draining." +And there is a remarkable letter which he wrote shortly before his +death, and apparently to Bakunin himself, in which he says:-- + +"I will own that one day, surrounded by dead bodies, by houses destroyed +with balls and bullets, and listening feverishly as prisoners were being +shot down, I called with my whole heart and intelligence upon the savage +force of vengeance to destroy the old criminal world, without thinking +much of what was to come in its place. Since that time twenty years have +gone by; the vengeance has come, but it has come from the other side, +and it is the people who have borne it, because they comprehended +nothing either then or since. A long and painful interval has given time +for passions to calm, for thoughts to deepen; it has given the necessary +time for reflection and observation. Neither you nor I have betrayed our +convictions; but we see the question now from a different point of view. +You rush ahead, as you did before, with a passion of destruction, which +you take for a creative passion; you crush every obstacle; you respect +history only in the future. As for me, on the contrary, I have no faith +in the old revolutionary methods, and I try to comprehend the march of +men in the past and in the present, to know how to advance with them +without falling behind, but without going on so far before as you, for +they would not follow me--they could not follow me!" + +Herzen gradually lost hold over the wilder forces in Russia, he was +even openly denounced as a reactionary by the revolutionist Dolgourouki; +and when he alienated the more moderate parties likewise by his support +of the Polish insurrection of 1863, his spell vanished, and during the +remaining seven years of his life his influence was of little account. + +Bakunin was more in unison with the troubled spirit of the times. While +Herzen had been ripening in political wisdom under the ampler +intellectual life to which his exile introduced him, Bakunin's twelve +years' confinement had maddened him into a fanatic, and instead of +curing him of revolutionary propensities, only fixed the idea of +revolution in his mind like a mania. When he came to London a huge, +haggard man, always excited, always talking, he used to speak of himself +as a Prometheus unbound, and he was to live henceforth for the undoing +of the powers and systems that were. He was never found without a group +of conspirators and refugees of all shades and nationalities about him. +With some reminiscences of socialistic philosophy remaining in the +background of his mind, his only real interest now was revolution, and +he seemed always thenceforth to look on his socialism as a means of +revolution rather than on revolution as a means to socialism. His +socialism itself had grown less sane--it was no longer the anarchism of +the old days: it was what he called "amorphism"--society not merely +without governmental institutions, but without institutions of any kind; +and he was domineered by the thought of a universal revolution, in which +all States and Churches and all institutions religious, political, +judicial, financial, academical, and social should perish in a common +destruction. "Amorphism" and "Pan-destruction" are not articles of a +rational creed, but they were propagated with almost preternatural +energy by Bakunin. The work of exciting revolution and disorder of any +kind was the main business of his life till he died in 1876. Others +might play a waiting game, but for him the work of the revolutionist was +revolution; and he ought to be incessantly promoting it, not by word +only, but by deed, by an unremitting terrorism, by shooting a policeman +when you can't reach a king, and destroying a Bastile if you cannot +overturn an empire. In his "Revolutionary Catechism," written in +cipher, but read by the public prosecutor at a Russian nihilist trial in +1871, he says (I quote the passage from M. de Laveleye):-- + +"The revolutionist is a man under a vow. He ought to have no personal +interests, no business, no sentiments, no property. He ought to occupy +himself entirely with one exclusive interest, with one thought and one +passion: the Revolution.... He has only one aim, one science: +destruction. For that and nothing but that he studied mechanics, +physics, chemistry, and medicine. He observes with the same object, the +men, the characters, the positions and all the conditions of the social +order. He despises and hates existing morality. For him everything is +moral that favours the triumph of the Revolution. Everything is immoral +and criminal that hinders it.... Between him and society there is war to +the death, incessant, irreconcilable. He ought to be prepared to die, to +bear torture, and to kill with his own hands all who obstruct the +revolution. So much the worse for him if he has in this world any ties +of parentage, friendship, or love! He is not a true revolutionist if +these attachments stay his arm. In the meantime he ought to live in the +middle of society, feigning to be what he is not. He ought to penetrate +everywhere, among high and low alike; into the merchant's office, into +the church, into the Government bureaux, into the army, into the +literary world, into the secret police, and even into the Imperial +Palace.... He must make a list of those who are condemned to death, and +expedite their sentence according to the order of their relative +iniquities.... A new member can only be received into the association by +a unanimous vote, and after giving proofs of his merit not in word but +in action. Every 'companion' ought to have under his hand several +revolutionists of the second or third degree, not entirely initiated. He +ought to consider them part of the revolutionary capital placed at his +disposal, and he ought to use them economically, and so as to extract +the greatest possible profit out of them.... The most precious element +of all are women, completely initiated, and accepting our entire +programme. Without their help we can do nothing." + +Bakunin naturally turned his first attention to his own country, and +the subsequent development of Russian affairs show sufficiently distinct +signs of his ideas and influence. + +In 1865 he sent a young medical student named Netchaïeff to Moscow, to +work among the students there, and Netchaïeff had, by 1869, established +a number of secret societies, which he linked together under the name of +the Russian Branch of the International Working Men's Association. This +organization was not very numerous--no Russian secret society is--but in +1873 as many as eighty-seven persons were brought to trial for +connection with it, and in 1866 one of its members, a working man called +Karakasoff, who was suffering from an incurable disease, made the first +attempt on the life of the Czar--an event which had most important +effects on the course of Russian politics. It rang out the era of +reform, and rang in the era of reaction. The popular concessions which +the Czar had already given he now began to withdraw. The people had +never got, as they expected, an independent judiciary--perhaps in an +autocratic country a judiciary independent of the executive is hardly +possible--but they had enjoyed some pretence of public trial, and now +that pretence was done away, and Karakasoff and his companions were not +brought before the court at all, but tried and condemned by an +extraordinary commission, with a military officer of approved ferocity +at its head. Administrative trial and administrative condemnation became +again the regular rule in Russia; and though these things were borne in +the days of Nicholas as almost matters of course, they were now deeply +resented as fresh invasions of right and direct breaches of imperial +promises. Then the bodies to which a certain amount of the local +government of the country, the management of roads, schools, poor, +health, etc., had been entrusted, were obstructed in the exercise of +their powers, or gradually deprived of their powers altogether, and +forced into complete dependence on the imperial executive. The students +at the universities began to be interfered with in their sick and +benefit societies and their reading circles; their studies in the +class-rooms were restricted to what was thought a safe routine; and even +their private lives and motions were watched with an exasperating +espionage. People felt the hand of the despot pressing back upon them +everywhere, and they felt it with a most natural and righteous recoil. +This reactionary policy, which has continued ever since--this return to +the hated old methods of arbitrary and repressive rule--produced, as was +inevitable, deep and general discontent at the very moment when the +great historical measure of serf emancipation was desolating the +families of the landed gentry, province after province; and when the +execution of the Emancipation Act was completed in 1870, Russian society +was already quivering with dangerous elements of revolt. + +From that time evidences of an active revolutionary propaganda +multiplied rapidly every year. In 1871 and 1872 the writings of the +German socialists were translated and ran into great favour. Even of +Marx's far from popular work, "Capital," a large edition was eagerly +bought up, and ladies of position baptized their children in the name of +Lassalle. Secret societies were discovered both north and south. From +1873 to 1877 nihilist arrests, nihilist prosecutions, nihilist conflicts +with the police, were the order of the day, till at length, in 1878, the +young girl, Vera Sassulitch, fired the shot at the head of the Russian +police which began that long vendetta between the revolutionists and the +executive, in which so many officials perished, and eventually, in 1881, +after many unsuccessful attempts, the Czar himself was so cruelly +assassinated. + +The ardent youth of Russia, who, in 1861, were still giving themselves +to the work of Sunday schools and reading circles, were, in 1871, +throwing their careers away to go out, like the first apostles, without +scrip or two coats, and propagate among the rude people of the provinces +the doctrines of modern revolutionary socialism, and by 1881 had become +absorbed in sheer terrorism, in avenging the official murder of comrades +without trial by the revolutionary murder of officials, in contriving +infernal plots and explosions, and trying vainly to cast out devils by +the prince of devils. + +Stepniak attributes the impetus which the socialist agitation received +in 1871 to the impression produced in Russia by the Paris Commune; but +it would perhaps be more correct simply to ascribe it to the exertions +of two active Russian revolutionists, who were themselves associated +with the Communard movement, and who happened to enjoy at this period +unusual facilities of communication with the younger mind of Russia. One +was Bakunin, who had himself organized an insurrection at Lyons on the +principles of the Commune six months before the outbreak at Paris in +March, 1871; and the other was Peter Lavroff, the present Nestor of +Russian nihilism, who actually took part in the Paris Commune itself. +Lavroff, who had been a colonel in the Russian army, and professor in +the military college of St. Petersburg, was compromised in the attempt +of Karakasoff in 1866 and administratively banished to Archangel; but, +as happens so singularly often in Russia, he escaped in 1869, and lived +to edit a revolutionary journal in Zurich, and play for a time no +inconsiderable part in making trouble in Russia. At present, +communications between the active revolutionists who are at work in +Russia and their predecessors who have withdrawn to Western Europe are +entirely interrupted; but they were still abundant twenty years ago. +Partly in consequence of the reactionary educational policy of the +Government, young Russians flocked at that time to Switzerland for their +education, and were there conveniently indoctrinated into the new gospel +of the International. Bakunin and Lavroff were both in Zurich, and in +the year 1872 there were 239 Russian students, male and female, in +Zurich alone. These young people were, of course, in continual +intercourse with the older refugees. Bakunin and Lavroff both held +stated and formal lectures on socialism and revolution, which were +always succeeded by open and animated discussions of the subject treated +in them. A little later there were, according to Professor Thun, four +distinct groups among the Russian revolutionists in Zurich, some of them +caused by personal quarrels. But from the first there were always two, +one of whom swore by Bakunin, and the other by Lavroff. + +Bakunin was an anarchist--an "amorphist" even, as we have seen--and he +believed in the propaganda of deeds. Every little village, he thought, +should make its own revolution; and if it could not make a revolution, +it might always be making a riot, or an explosion, or a fire, or an +assassination of some official, or something else to raise panic or +confusion. All this seemed to Lavroff and his friends to be unmitigated +folly. They too believed in revolution; but in their view revolution, to +be successful, must be organized and simultaneous; it must, above all, +first have the peasantry on its side; and therefore, instead of the mad +and premature propaganda of deed, the true policy for the present was +manifestly "going into the people," as they termed it--that is, an +itinerant mission to indoctrinate the people into the faith of the +coming revolution. Then, again, Lavroff, though, like almost all Russian +revolutionists, an anarchist, was not, like most of them, prepared to +dispense all at once with the State. He thought the new society would +eventually be able to do without any central authority, but not at +first, nor for a considerable time, the length of which could not now be +more precisely determined. In this Lavroff and his party stood much +nearer the Social Democrats of Germany than other Russian nihilists, and +they have come nearer still since then. They have cast off the Russian +commune, of which the early nihilists made so great an idol. They see +that it is an old-world institution doomed to dissolution, and rapidly +undergoing the process. + +The two tendencies--diverging both in principle and in tactics--appeared +in Russia as well as Zurich. At first the more peaceful method +prevailed. Lavroff's idea of "going into the people" was the enthusiasm +of the hour, and brought upon the scene the typical nihilist +missionary--the young man of good birth who laid down station and +prospects, learnt a manual trade, browned his hands with tar and his +face by smearing it with butter and lying in the sun, put on the +peasant's sheepskin, and then, with a forged pass, procured at the +secret nihilist pass factory, and a few forbidden books in his wallet, +set off "without road" to be a peasant with peasants, if by any means he +could win them over to the cause; and the still more remarkable young +woman who went through a marriage ceremony to obtain the right of +independent action, and the moment the ceremony was over, left father +and mother and husband and all in order to work among the peasants of +the Volga as a teacher or nurse, and live on milk and groats according +to Tchernycheffsky's prescription in "What is to be Done?". Stepniak +justly remarks that "the type of propagandist of the first lustre of +1870-80 was religious rather than revolutionary. His hope was +socialism, his God the people. Notwithstanding all the evidence to the +contrary, he firmly believed that from one day to the other the +revolution was about to break out, as in the middle ages people believed +at certain periods in the approach of the day of judgment." +("Underground Russia," p. 30.) + +For some years these ascetic devotees might be found in every corner of +broad Russia, working as shoemakers or joiners most of them (why these +were the favourite trades does not appear), or as hawkers of images or +tea, or, perhaps, like Prince Krapotkin, as painters. Some of them went +as horse-dealers, from a dreamy idea that the horses might prove useful +in the day of revolution. They all belonged to one or other of the +secret societies which, as we have seen, began to spring up about 1863, +and grew numerous in the next ten or fifteen years. None of these +societies, however, was of any great importance. Professor Thun mentions +four varieties of them. First, the Malikowsy, a handful of apparently +harmless and amiable enthusiasts--a kind of Russian Quakers--who +believed in one Malikov, and called themselves "God-men," because they +held every man had a "divine spark" in him, and was therefore every +other man's equal and brother. Second, the Bakunists, who adopted +Bakunin's programme of "deeds," but did not, till 1875, think of putting +it to practice. Third, the Lavrists, who sent the money to print +Lavroff's newspaper in Zurich, the _En Avant_, and who seem to have +gradually imbibed German socialism to the extent of thinking the Russian +commune a reactionary and decaying institution not worth stirring a +finger to preserve, and who called for the nationalization of land and +capital. And fourth,--much the most important society,--the +Tchaikowskists, founded in 1869 by one Tchaikowski, who is now a teacher +in London, but was then a student at St. Petersburg. Prince Krapotkin +belonged to this society, and so did Sophia Perowskaia. It was at first +a convivial and mutual improvement club, but from discussing forbidden +subjects and circulating among its members forbidden books it grew into +natural antagonism to Government, and became a focus of revolutionary +agitation. Most of the 193 socialists who were tried in 1874-7 belonged +to it, and that protracted trial killed the society and put an end to +the mission "into the people." + +Government had marked the new propaganda with great jealousy. In Russia, +no propaganda among the peasants can remain unobserved. When a stranger +arrives at a Russian village, he is immediately the common talk, +whatever he says passes from mouth to mouth, and he may even be invited +to state his views publicly in the _mir_. A mission conducted under +these conditions soon attracted the notice of the authorities, who, in +1874, discovered it in thirty-seven different provinces of Russia, and +arrested as many as 774 of the propagandists. Some of these were at once +banished administratively to Siberia, and of the rest, 193 were, four +years afterwards, brought up for trial and condemned. With these +apprehensions the nihilist movement collapsed for the moment. Thun +states that Lavroff's newspaper during that period adopted a tone of +despair, and the revolutionists who escaped arrest recognised very +clearly that their scheme of "going into the people" was a complete +mistake, and that some safer and more effective system of tactics must +be concocted. They fell upon two different expedients. The first was the +plan of nihilist colonization. To avoid detection by the authorities, a +band of revolutionists settled down in a given district in a body, got +personally acquainted with the peasantry about them, and then, after +acquiring a sufficient knowledge of their characters, proceeded with due +prudence to impart their ideas to those who seemed most trustworthy, +hoping in this way to be able, unobserved, eventually to leaven the +whole lump. The other plan they now resorted to was an approach to the +tactics of Bakunin, and in the very year, 1876, in which that old +revolutionist died, they began a series of socialist demonstrations at +Odessa, Kasan, and elsewhere, which made a little local sensation at the +time. This was the very opposite kind of tactics to the cautious system +of colonization that was pursued simultaneously with it, but there is +always in revolutionary organization only a step between reticence and +rashness. Open demonstrations like those practised at that period were +simply suicidal folly in Russia, where the forces of the Government were +so immeasurably superior to the forces of the demonstrationists. + +In 1878 they changed tactics again, inaugurating that system of +terrorism by which they are best known in the West, and which has given +them a name there at which the world turns pale. The determination to +adopt this system of tactics sprang from an accidental circumstance. The +day after the trial of the 193 ended, one of their comrades, the young +woman Vera Sassulitch, called on General Trepoff, the head of the St. +Petersburg police, on pretence of business, and while he was reading her +papers, shot him with a revolver, flung her weapon on the ground, and +allowed herself to be quietly arrested; and when she was brought up for +trial, pled justification on the ground that her act was merely +retaliation on the General for having subjected a friend of hers, a +young medical student, to a brutal and causeless flogging while in +prison on a political charge. The court having acquitted her, she was +received by the public with every demonstration of enthusiasm, and it +was this remarkable public sympathy that made the revolutionaries +terrorists. They resolved to take up V. Sassulitch's idea of +retaliation, and apply it on a great scale. The whole public of Russia +was at that time considerably flushed with indignation against the +imperial Government. The war in Turkey had revealed, as wars always do, +a great deal of rottenness in the public administration; it had brought +nothing but humiliation and debt upon the country, and it had exacted +cruel sacrifices from the people merely to confer on the Bulgarians the +political and constitutional liberty which was still denied to the +Russians themselves. For the moment the old cry for a constitution rose +again in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and there was a deep feeling far +beyond the circles of the revolutionists that an end should be put to +the autocratic _régime_. The revolutionists found powerful encouragement +in all this outbreak of displeasure. Stepniak, who was himself one of +the most active of them at that period, says their real strength lay, +not in their numbers--which he admits to have been few--but in the +general sympathy they received from what he calls the revolutionary +nation around them. They had however special wrongs of their own to +avenge; hundreds of their friends had been transported without trial; +and in the case of the 193, whose trial was just over, the few who had +been acquitted were nevertheless denied their liberty by the Czar, and +banished administratively to Siberia after all; so that while Russian +society was clamouring on public grounds for the downfall of the +autocratic system, the revolutionists, for revenge, determined upon the +death of the autocrat himself. The various secret societies had united +into a single body, called first the "Troglodytes," and then "Land and +Liberty," for the better prosecution of the nihilist colonization +scheme; but in 1879 they broke again into two parties, one of which, the +Will of the People party, adopted terrorism as its exclusive business +for the time, issued, through its famous executive committee, sentences +of death on the Czar and the State officials; and after making ten +attempts on high officials, five of them fatal, and four attempts on the +Czar himself, finally succeeded in their fifth on the 13th of March, +1881. With this party the political side of their programme overshadowed +the socialistic, and their first demand from the new Czar was for a +constitution. + +The other party--the party of the Black Division--is an agrarian party, +living on the growing discontent of the peasantry, and nursing their cry +for what in Russia is known as the Black Division. It is an old belief +among the Russian people that when the land possessed at any time by the +communes should become too small for the increasing population of the +communes, there would be a new division of all the land of the country, +including, of course, the great estates now owned by the _noblesse_, so +that every inhabitant might be once more accommodated with his proper +share of the soil. This great secular redistribution is the black +division, and it belongs as naturally to the Russian peasants' system of +agrarian ideas as the little local and periodical divisions that take +place within the communes themselves. The Black Division section of the +revolutionists are terrorist in their methods like the other section, +but they care nothing about a constitution, which they say is only a +demand of the _bourgeoisie_, but of no interest or good to the peasant +at all. They have the old aversion to centralized government, which we +have seen to be almost the tradition of Russian revolutionists; they are +all for strengthening the communes, and for a light federal connection; +and of all phases of the Russian revolutionary movement under the reign +of the present Czar theirs is the most important, because it is founding +itself on real and deepening rural discontent, and becoming +substantially a peasants' cry for more land and less rent and taxes. + +I have already referred to the astonishing growth of a Russian +proletariat since the Emancipation Act. Professor Janson, an eminent +Russian statistician, calculated that as many as a fourth of the people +of St. Petersburg--229,000 out of 876,000--got public relief in the year +1884. Stepniak, in his recent work on the Russian peasantry, asserts +that a third of the rural population, or 20,000,000 souls in all, are in +the condition of absolute proletarians, and his account of the situation +is entirely supported by the descriptions of a competent and +unprejudiced German economist, Professor Alphonse Thun, who speaks +partly from the results of official inquiries instituted by the Russian +Government into the subject, and partly from his own personal +observation during a continuous residence of two years in the country. +As the subject is of importance to the student of socialistic +institutions as well as of the nihilist movement, I shall make no +apology for devoting some observations to its explanation. + +In the first place, though it has never been well understood in Western +Europe, some ten per cent. of the Russian rural population have no legal +claim to a share of the land at all; these are old men who are past +working, widows with children too young to be able to work, and men who +at the time of the Emancipation were personal servants of the great +landowners, and consequently not members of any village commune. Men of +this last class may reside in a village, and may keep a shop or practise +a trade there; but not being born villagers, they possess no right to +participate in the distribution of the village land. They are as much +outside the communistic system as the nobles or the foreign residents. +Russian citizenship alone is not enough to give a right to the land; +local birth in a commune is also an essential pre-requisite, and ability +to work is another. A family gets one share for every able-bodied member +it contains; the share is therefore called a "soul" of land; and +although between one distribution and another the widow may still +retain the "soul" that belonged to her husband, and hire a hand to work +it, yet on the next redistribution she must give it up unless she has a +son who in the meantime has grown to man's estate. The landless widow +and orphan must have been an occasional incident of the Russian village +system from all times; but the incursion of dismissed domestic menials +with no birthright in the commune has arisen only in recent years, when, +in consequence of a conspiracy of causes, so many of the nobility have +been obliged to reduce their establishments. + +In the next place, a communistic tenure which gives every new-comer a +right to share in the land of his native village on an equal footing +with those who are already in possession could hardly fail to lead to +excessive subdivision, and in Russia at this moment scarce one family in +a hundred has land enough to furnish its maintenance for half the year. +The usual size of holding is ten acres, of which--cultivated as they are +on the old three-field system--one third is always fallow, and the +remainder, in consequence of the rude method of agriculture that +prevails, yields only two, or at most three, returns of the seed. They +have no pasture, because at the time of the emancipation they preferred +to take out their whole claim in arable; and, having no pasture, they +cannot keep cattle as they formerly did because they cannot get manure. +According to the information of Professor Thun, in 1872 8 per cent. of +the families had no cow, and 4 per cent. no horse; and Stepniak says the +inventory of horses taken for military purposes in 1882 showed that +one-fourth of the peasant families had then no horse. Russia is, in +fact, a vast continent of crofters, practising primitive husbandry on +mere "cat's-plots" of land, and depending for the greater part of their +subsistence on some auxiliary trade. In one respect they have the +advantage over our Scotch crofters; they practise, in many cases, +skilled trades. Of course they work as ploughmen or fishermen when that +sort of work is wanted, or they will hire a piece of waste land from a +neighbouring owner and bring it into rude cultivation; but every variety +of craft is to be found among them. They are weavers, hatters, +cabinet-makers, workers in metals; they make shoes, or images, or +candles, or musical instruments, or grindstones; they dress furs, they +knit lace, they train singing-birds. According to the official inquiry, +most of the goods of some of the best commercial houses of Moscow, +trading in Parisian silk hats and Viennese furniture, are manufactured +by these peasants in their rural villages. A curious and very remarkable +characteristic is mentioned by Thun: not only has every Russian his +bye-industry, but every village has a different bye-industry from its +neighbour. One is a village of coopers--a very thriving trade, it +appears; another a village of tailors--a declining one, in consequence +of the competition of ready-made stuff from the towns; another--and +there are several such--may be a village of beggars, with mendicity for +their second staff; and another a village of seamen, going in a body in +spring to the Baltic or the Volga, and leaving only their women and +children to tend the farm till their return in the autumn. The Russians +always work in artels whether at home or abroad, and to work in artels +they must of course follow the same industry. Their individual earnings +in their auxiliary occupations are comparatively good; they make +three-fourths of their annual income from that source; but it seems +every trade is now overcrowded, and there is some difficulty in +obtaining constant employment. + +Then the burdens of the peasantry are very heavy. In Russia the superior +classes enjoy many exemptions from taxation, and the public revenue is +taken mainly from the peasant classes. The annual redemption money they +have to pay to the State for their land is a most serious obligation, +and between one thing and another the burdens on the land in a vast +number of cases exceed its net return very considerably. Professor Thun +states, that in 2,009 cases of letting holdings which had occurred in +the province of Moscow at the time he wrote, the average rent received +was only 3 roubles 56 kopecks per "soul" (land-share), while the average +taxation was 10 roubles 30 kopecks. Stepniak says that in the +thirty-seven provinces of European Russia the class who were formerly +State peasants pay in taxes of every description no less than 92.75 per +cent. of the average net produce of their land; and that the class who +were formerly serfs of private owners pay as much as 192.25 per cent. of +the net produce of theirs. Landowning on these terms is manifestly a +questionable privilege, and the _moujik_ pays his land taxes as the +Scotch crofter has sometimes to pay his rent, not out of the produce of +his holding, but out of the wages of his auxiliary labour; but the +Scotch crofter, under his system of individual tenure, has one great +resource which is wanting to the other: he can always cut the knot of +his troubles by throwing up his holding, if he chooses, and emigrating. +To the Russian peasant emigration brings no relief. He is born a +proprietor, and cannot escape the obligation of his position wherever he +may go. He may try to let his ground--and in many cases he does--but, as +we see, he cannot often get enough rent to meet the dues. He may leave +his village, if he will, but his village liabilities travel with him +wherever he may settle. He cannot obtain work anywhere in Russia without +showing his pass from his own commune; and since, under the principle of +joint liability that rules in the communistic system, the members of the +commune who remain at home would have to pay the emigrant's arrears if +he failed to pay them himself, they are not likely to renew the pass to +a defaulter. The Russian peasants are thus nearly as much _adstricti +glebæ_ as they ever were; they are now under the power of the commune as +completely as they were before under the power of their masters; and +their difficulty is still how they can possibly obtain emancipation. +Sometimes they will defy the commune, forego the advantage of a lawful +pass, crowd the ranks of that large body in Russia who are known as the +"illegal men," and sometimes, we are assured by Professor Thun, a whole +village, every man and every family, will secretly disappear in a body +and seek refuge from the tax-collector by settling in the steppes. The +natural right of every man to the land is thus, in the principal country +where any attempt is made to realize it, nothing but a harassing +pecuniary debt. + +Now this class of worse than landless emigrants--men who carry their +land as a perpetual burden on their back from which they can get no +respite--is already very numerous in Russia. Thun says there are +millions of them. As far back as 1872, nearly half the town population +of Moscow and more than a fifth of the population of the landward +district were strangers, who were inscribed members of rural communes +elsewhere; and in many purely country districts some 14 per cent. of the +people have no houses because they are not living in the villages they +belong to. Sir Robert Morier says in his report to the Foreign Office in +September, 1887, on Pauperism in Russia (p. 2): "It is officially stated +that in each of the larger provinces, such as Kursk, Tambow, Kostroma, +etc., over 100,000 peasants have abandoned the plot of ground granted to +them (8 acres) on one pretext or another in order to seek means of +subsistence elsewhere. (This probably means flocking to the larger +towns.) The number of beggars in 71 Governments was stated to be +300,000, of which 182,000 were peasant proprietors. This number is, +however, far below the mark." But, as we learn from Stepniak, the bulk +of the landless peasants, _i.e._ those who no longer cultivate their +holdings, do not leave their native villages, but seek employment as +hirelings in the village itself or in its neighbourhood, and wander as +day labourers from one master to another. Their families continue to +live in their old cottage in the village, and the father returns to it +when out of employment. + +Their land is generally taken by a class of small usurers (_koulaks_) +who have grown up in every Russian village since the emancipation. These +koulaks are in most cases fellow-peasants who have saved some money, but +they are frequently strangers who have come and opened a store in the +place, and have no right of their own to a share in the land and in the +councils of the village. Stepniak mentions one province where as much as +from 24 to 36 per cent. of the land is concentrated into the hands of +these rich usurers. Even the peasants who still retain their land in +their own hands are often deeply indebted to them, and in some cases +part with bits of their land without parting with all; and the general +tendency of the present economic situation is to divide the peasantry of +every village into a class of comparatively rich peasants, on the one +hand, holding and cultivating most of the land, and a larger class of +rural proletarians, without land and having nothing to live by but their +manual trade. The tendency, in short, is towards the break-up of the +communal tenure, and instead of the Russian Commune invading Europe, as +Cavour once said there was fear it would do, we are likely to see the +individual tenure of Western Europe invading Russia and superseding +primitive rural institutions in that country, as it has already +superseded them in others. "It is quite evident," says Stepniak, "that +Russia is marching in this direction. If nothing happens to check or +hinder the process of interior disintegration in our villages, in +another generation we shall have on one side an agricultural proletariat +of sixty or seventy millions, and on the other a few thousand landlords, +mostly former koulaks and mir-eaters, in possession of all the land." It +is legally permissible at present for a Russian commune, if it so +choose, to abolish its communal system of property and adopt individual +property instead of it; and although this has been very seldom done as +yet, we are told by Thun that the rich peasants and the very poor +peasants are both strongly in favour of the step, because it would give +the one permanent ownership of the land and the other permanent relief +from its burdens. When a commune gets divided in this way into a rich +class of members and a poor class, the old brotherliness and mutual +helpfulness of the Russian village are said by the same authority always +to disappear and a more selfish spirit to take their place; but then it +should be remembered how much easier it is to assist a neighbour out of +a little difficulty of the way than to meet the unremitting claims of a +class that have sunk into permanent poverty. Anyhow, the temptation is +equally strong on both parties to escape from the worries of their +present situation through the rich buying out the poor. + +Another tendency working in the same direction is the rapid dissolution +of the old system of large house-communities that prevailed before the +emancipation. The average household has been reduced from seven and a +half to five souls, the married children setting up houses of their own +instead of dwelling under one roof with their father and grandfather. +The house is a mere hut, with no furniture but a table and a wooden +bench used by night for a bed, but still the separate _ménage_ has +increased to an embarrassing extent the expenses of the peasant's living +at the very time that other circumstances have reduced his resources. +The reason for the break-up of the house-communities has been the desire +to escape partly from the tyranny of the head of the household, but +chiefly from the incessant quarrels that prevailed between the several +members about the amount they each contributed to the common funds as +compared with the amount they ate and drank out of them. One of the +brothers goes to St. Petersburg during the winter months as a cabman and +brings back a hundred roubles, while another gets work as a forester +near home, and earns no more than twenty-five. Now, according to an +author quoted by Stepniak, who is describing a family among whom he has +lived, the question always is: "Why should he (the forester) consume +with such avidity the tea and sugar dearly purchased with the cabman's +money? And in general, why should this tea be absorbed with such +greediness by all the numerous members of the household--by the elder +brother, for instance, who alone drank something like eighty cups a day +(the whole family consumed about nine hundred cups per diem) whilst he +did not move a finger towards earning all this tea and sugar? Whilst the +cabman was freezing in the cold night air, or busying himself with some +drunken passenger, or was being abused and beaten by a policeman on duty +near some theatre, this elder brother was comfortably stretched upon his +belly, on the warm family oven, pouring out some nonsense about +twenty-seven bears whom he had seen rambling through the country with +their whelps in search of new land for settlement." And so the quarrel +goes round; always the old difficulty of _meum_ and _tuum_, so hard to +reconcile except under a _régime_ of individual property. + +In fact, the shifts to which the Russian peasantry, like other +peasantries elsewhere, have been reduced to solve this difficulty in the +management of their common land constitute one main cause of their +agricultural backwardness and their consequent poverty. Elisée Reclus +calculates that if the Russian fields were cultivated like those of +Great Britain, Russia could produce, instead of six hundred and fifty +million hectolitres of corn annually, about five milliards, which would +be sufficient to feed a population of five hundred million souls. A few +lessons in good husbandry will do much more for the comfort of a people +than many changes of social organization; but good husbandry is +virtually impossible under a system of unstable tenure, which turns a +man necessarily out of his holding every few years for the purpose of a +new distribution of the land, and which compels him to take his holding, +when he gets it, in some thirty or forty scattered plots. +Redistributions, it is true, do not occur so very frequently as we might +suppose. As Russian land is all cultivated on a three years' rotation, +one might be apt to look for a new distribution every three years, but +that almost never occurs. Thun states that in the province of Moscow +during the twenty years 1858-1878 the average interval of distribution +was 12½ years, four rotations; that 49 per cent. of the communes had a +distribution only once in 15 years, and 37 per cent. only once in 20 +years. The dislike to frequent distributions is growing, on the obvious +and very reasonable ground that they either discourage a man from doing +well by his land, or they inflict on him the grave injustice of +depriving him of the ground he has himself improved before he has reaped +from it the due reward of his labour. The tendency towards individual +property is therefore strongly at work here, and as this system of +periodical redistribution is established merely to give every man that +natural right by virtue of his birth to a share in the land, which is +now in so many cases such a delusive irony, the resistance to the new +tendency cannot be expected to be very resolute. The _runrig_ system of +cultivation, which prevails in Russia in the same form as it did in the +Highlands of Scotland, does not give any similar appearance of decay. +Stepniak says the peasants still prefer that arrangement because it +allows room for perfect fairness--perfect reconciliation of the _meum_ +and _tuum_--in the distribution of their most precious commodity, the +land, which always presents great variety as to quality of soil and +situation with respect to roads, water, the village, etc. Under a +communal system with many members this method of arrangement is almost +indispensable to avoid quarrels and prevent the indolent from shirking +their proper share of the work, but its agricultural disadvantages are +so great that it never long resists an improving husbandry. Although an +owner, the Russian peasant, in consequence of the shifting nature of his +subject, is said by Stepniak to have none of that passionate feeling of +ownership and that profound delight in his land which are characteristic +of the peasant proprietors of the West, but he has--what is really the +same thing--a deep sense of personal dignity from its possession, and he +feels himself to have lost caste if he is forced to give up his holding +and become a mere _batrak_, or wage labourer. All the pride of ownership +is already there, and in the changes of the immediate future it will +have plenty of opportunity for asserting its place. + +Under the pressure of this singular economic movement, the nihilist +agitation is now developing largely into a peasants' cry for more land +and less rent and taxes. As I have said, the Russian peasantry look for +the great black division once in an age. The "Old Believers" mix this +idea up with their dreams of a great millennial reign, and keep on +thinking that the day after to-morrow is to bring in the happy period +before the end of the world, when truth is to prevail and the land is to +be equally divided among all; and a feeling easily gets about among the +peasantry generally that the "black division" is at last coming. Such a +feeling was very widespread during the reign of the late Czar, and, +indeed, is still so. Rumours fly every now and then from hamlet to +hamlet like wildfire, no one knows whence or how, that the division is +to be made in a month, or a week, or a year; that the Czar has decreed +it, and when it does not come, that the Czar's wishes have for the time +been thwarted, as they had so often been thwarted before, by the selfish +machinations of the nobility. For the peasant has a profound and +touching belief in his Czar. There may be agrarian socialism in his +creed, but it is not the agrarian socialism of the schools. The first +article of his faith--and it would appear to be the natural faith of the +peasant all the world over--is that the earth is the Lord's and not the +nobility's; but his second is that the Czar is the Lord's steward, sent +for the very purpose of dividing the land justly among his people. If +the peasant hopes for the black division, he hopes for it from the Czar. +The Emancipation Act has been far from giving him the land or the +liberty he looked for, but he believes--and nothing will shake him out +of the belief--that the Emancipation Law which the Czar actually +decreed was a righteous law that would have met all the people's wishes +and claims, but that this law has been altered seriously to their +disadvantage, under the influence of the nobility, in the process of +carrying it into execution. But his confidence always is that the Czar +will still interfere and put everything to rights. And when, only a few +years ago, the revolutionist Stephanovitch stirred up some disturbances +in Southern Russia, which were commonly dignified at the time with the +name of a peasants' insurrection, he was only able to succeed in doing +what he did by first going to St. Petersburg with a petition from the +peasants of the district to the Czar, and then issuing on his return a +false proclamation in the Czar's name, commanding the people to rise +against the nobility, who were declared to be persistently obstructing +and defeating his Majesty's good and just intentions for his loyal +people's welfare. If an imperial proclamation were issued to the +contrary effect--a proclamation condemning or repudiating the operations +of the peasants--the latter would refuse to believe it to be genuine. +That occurs again and again about this very idea of the black division, +which has obtained possession of the brains of the rural population. It +often happens that in a season of excitement, like the time of the +Russo-Turkish war, or of famine, like the winter of 1880-81, the rumours +and expectations of the black division become especially definite and +lively, and lead to meetings and discussions and disturbances which the +Government think it prudent to stop. In 1879 the Minister of the +Interior, with this object in view, issued a circular contradicting the +rumours that were spread abroad, which was read in all the villages and +affixed to the public buildings. It stated, as plainly as it was +possible to state anything, that there would be no redistribution, and +that the landlords would retain their property; but it produced no +effect. Professor Engelhardt wrote one of his published "Letters from a +Village" at that very moment, and states that the _moujiks_ would not +understand the circular to mean anything more than a request that they +would for a time abstain from gossiping at random about the coming +redistribution. One of their reasons for making this odd +misinterpretation is curious. The circular warned the people against +"evil-intentioned" persons who disseminated false reports, and gave +instructions to the authorities to apprehend them. These +evil-intentioned persons were, of course, the nihilist agitators, who +were making use of these reports to foment an agrarian insurrection; but +the peasants took these enemies of the Government to be the landlords +and others who had, they believed, set themselves against the +redistribution movement and prevented the benevolence and righteous +purposes of the Czar from descending upon his people. In some parts of +Russia there has sprung up since 1870 a group of peasantry known as "the +medalmen," who have persuaded themselves that the Czar not only wants to +give them more land, but has long since decreed their exemption from all +taxation except the poll tax. They say, moreover, that he struck a medal +to commemorate this gracious design of his, which has been, as usual, so +wickedly frustrated by his subordinates; and that even, as things are, +one has but to get hold of one of these medals and show it to the +collector, and the collector is bound to give the holder the exemption +he wants. The medals to which so much virtue is ascribed are merely the +medals struck to commemorate the Emancipation of the Serfs; but the +"medalmen," who are generally men that have parted with their land, sold +their houses, and settled at the mines, pay very high prices for one of +these medals, wear it constantly about their necks, and think it will +secure them a genuine respite from the burden of taxation they have to +bear. + +The nihilist propagandists think--and the idea seems very +remarkable--that this childish and ignorant confidence in the Czar will +not be able to stand much longer the strain of the increasing +difficulties of the rural situation. The propagandists make it their +business to keep alive the idea of the black division in the hearts of +the _moujiks_, and make use of every successive disappointment at its +continued delay as an instrument of alienating the affections of the +people from the throne. A peasantry are very slow to throw over old +sentiments, and will suffer long before breaking with the past, but they +take a sure grip of their own interest, and they will turn sometimes +very decisively and very gregariously to new deliverers. The Russian +peasants see themselves settled on plots of ground too small to work +with profit, and overburdened with taxes; they have to pay sixty per +cent. of all their earnings in dues of all kinds on their land; and they +cast their eyes abroad and see two-thirds of the country still +unpossessed by the people, one-half still owned by the State, and +one-sixth by the greater landowners; and with the communistic ideas in +which they have been nursed, they feel that it is time for a new +division of the greater order to take place. A gigantic crofter question +is impending, and this agrarian agitation for more land is likely enough +to make nihilism a more formidable thing in the future than it has been +in the past. Hitherto it has taken little hold of the peasantry. At +first it was a movement of educated young Russia merely, and might be +counted with the ordinary intellectual excesses of youth. It only became +a serious political force after the Emancipation Act; but it was still a +movement of the upper classes, and in spite of immense exertions it has +remained so. The situation, however, is rapidly changing, and with the +rise--so remarkable in many ways--of a numerous rural proletariat in the +country that was supposed to enjoy special protection against it, with +the growing distress and discontent of the peasantry, with the louder +and more persistent cries for the black division, which their hereditary +conception of agrarian justice suggests to them as the only solution of +their troubles, who will say what to-morrow may bring forth? + +Meanwhile the Will of the People party has continued its activity. We +still hear occasionally of murders, and demonstrations, and arrests, and +discoveries of nihilist plots on the life of the Czar or of high +servants of the Crown, and of alarming discoveries of the hold the +movement was taking in the army. But, according to one of the most +recent writers on the subject, the author of "Socialismus und +Anarchismus, 1883-1886," who admits, however, that it is very difficult +to obtain authentic information about it under the rigorous system of +repression at present practised by the Russian authorities, a small +section of this party, whom he calls the followers of Peter Lavroff, +have been developing more in line with German Social Democracy, and have +organized themselves into a society called the Labour Emancipation +League, which prefers peaceful means of agitation, and in March, 1885, +published its programme, demanding (1) a constitution, (2) the +nationalization of land, (3) the handing over of factories to the +possession of societies of productive labourers, (4) free education, (5) +abolition of a standing army, and (6) full liberty of association and +meeting. The same writer states, however, that this socialist group are +not numerous, and that the various robberies, murders, plots against the +Czar's life, incitements of peasant disturbances, seizures of weapons +and printing presses that keep on occurring, show that the nihilists, as +the others still appear to be called, are much the most active and the +most important section of the revolutionary party. He mentions also that +in 1884 considerable sensation was produced by the discovery of an +anarchist secret society in Warsaw, with several magistrates at its +head, which aimed at creating a revolution in Poland,--Prussian and +Austrian Poland, as well as Russian,--and rebuilding the Polish nation +on a socialist basis. On the apprehension of its leaders it dissolved, +but sprang to life again almost immediately in two separate +organizations--one directly allied with the Russian Terrorists, and the +other, under the influence of a Jew named Mendelssohn, suppressing its +Polish nationalism for the present, and linking itself with the Russian +socialists--presumably the followers of Lavroff just mentioned. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +SOCIALISM AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. + + +The renewal of the socialist agitation has not been unproductive of +advantage, for it has led to a general recognition that the economic +position of the people is far from satisfactory and is not free from +peril, and that industrial development, on the lines on which it has +hitherto been running, offers much less prospect than was at one time +believed of effecting any substantial, steady, and progressive +improvement in their condition. It is only too manifest that the immense +increase of wealth which has marked the present century has been +attended with surprisingly little amelioration in the general lot of the +people, and it is in no way remarkable that this fact should tend to +dishearten the labouring classes, and fill reflecting minds with serious +concern. Under the influence of this experience economists of the +present day meet socialism in a very different way from Bastiat and the +economists of 1848. They entertain no longer the same absolute +confidence in the purely beneficent character of the operation of the +principles at present guiding the process of industrial evolution, or in +the sovereign virtue of competition, unassisted and unconnected, as an +agency for the distribution as well as the production of wealth; and +they no longer declare that there is not and cannot possibly be a social +question. On the contrary, some of them take almost as unfavourable a +view of the road we are on as the socialists themselves. Mr. Cairnes, +one of the very ablest of them, says: "The fund available for those who +live by labour tends, in the progress of society, while growing actually +larger, to become a constantly smaller fraction of the entire national +wealth. If, then, the means of any one class of society are to be +permanently limited to this fund, it is evident, assuming that the +progress of its members keeps pace with that of other classes, that its +material condition in relation to theirs cannot but decline. Now, as it +would be futile to expect, on the part of the poorest and most ignorant +of the population, self-denial and prudence greater than that actually +practised by the classes above them, the circumstances of whose life are +so much more favourable than theirs for the cultivation of these +virtues, the conclusion to which I am brought is this, that unequal as +is the distribution of wealth already in this country, the tendency of +industrial progress--on the supposition that the present separation +between industrial classes is maintained--is towards an inequality +greater still. The rich will be growing richer; and the poor, at least +relatively, poorer. It seems to me, apart altogether from the question +of the labourer's interest, that these are not conditions which furnish +a solid basis for a progressive social state; but having regard to that +interest, I think the considerations adduced show that the first and +indispensable step towards any serious amendment of the labourer's lot +is that he should be, in one way or other, lifted out of the groove in +which he at present works, and placed in a position compatible with his +becoming a sharer in equal proportion with others in the general +advantages arising from industrial progress." ("Leading Principles," p. +340.) He thinks it beyond question that the condition of the labouring +population is not so linked to the progress of industrial improvements +that we may count on it rising _pari passu_ with that progress; because, +in the first place, the labourer can only benefit from industrial +inventions which cheapen commodities that enter into his expenditure, +and the bulk of his expenditure is on agricultural products, which are +prevented from being cheapened by the increase of population always +increasing the demand for them; and, second, the labourer is practically +more and more divorced from the control of capital, and reduced to the +position of a recipient of wages, and there is no tendency in wages to +grow _pari passu_ with the growth of wealth, because the demand for +labour, on which, in the last analysis, the rate of wages depends, is +always in an increasing degree supplied by inventions which dispense +with labour. He is thus debarred from participating in the advantages of +industrial progress either as consumer or as producer: as consumer, by +over-population; as producer, by his divorce from capital. Mr. Cairnes, +like most economists, differs from socialists in thinking that the first +requisite for any material improvement in the condition of the labouring +classes lies in effective restraints on population, but he says that +"even a very great change in the habits of the labouring classes as +bearing upon the increase of population--a change far greater than there +seems any solid ground for expecting--would be ineffectual, so long as +the labourer remains a mere receiver of wages, to accomplish any great +improvement in his state; any improvement at all commensurate with what +has taken place and may be expected hereafter to take place in the lot +of those who derive their livelihood from the profits of capital" (p. +335). Here he is entirely at one with socialists in believing that the +only surety for a sound industrial progress lies in checking the further +growth of capitalism by the encouragement of co-operative production, +which, by furnishing the labouring classes with a share in the one fund +that grows with the growth of wealth, the fund of capital, offers them +"the sole means of escape from a harsh and hopeless destiny" (p. 338). +Mr. Cairnes, then, agrees with the socialists in declaring that the +position of the wage-labourer is becoming less and less securely linked +with the progressive improvement of society, and that the only hope of +the labourer's future lies in his becoming a capitalist by virtue of +co-operation; only, of course, he is completely at issue with them in +regard to the means by which this change is to be effected, believing +that its introduction by the direct intervention of the State would be +unnecessary, ineffectual, and pernicious. + +I am disposed to think that Mr. Cairnes takes too despondent a view of +the possibilities of progress that are comprised in the position of the +wage-labourer, but it is precisely that view that has lent force to the +socialist criticism of the present order of things, and to the socialist +calls for a radical transformation by State agency. The main charges +brought by socialists against the existing economy are the three +following, all of which, they allege, are consequences of the +capitalistic management of industry and unregulated competition:--1st, +that it tends to reduce wages to the minimum required to give the +labourer his daily bread, and that it tends to prevent them from rising +above that minimum; 2nd, that it has subjected the labourer's life to +innumerable vicissitudes, made trade insecure, mutable and oscillatory, +and created relative over-population; and, 3rd, that it enables and even +forces the capitalist to rob the labourer of the whole increase of value +which is the fruit of his labour. These are the three great heads of +their philippic against modern society: the hopeless oppression of the +"iron and cruel law" of necessary wages, the mischief of incessant +crises and changes and of the chaotic _régime_ of chance, and the +iniquity of capital in the light of their doctrine of value. Let us +examine them in their order. + + +I. Socialists found their first charge partly on their interpretation of +the actual historical tendency of things, and partly on the teaching of +Ricardo and other economists on natural wages. Now, to begin with the +question of historical fact, the effect which has been produced by the +large system of production on the distribution of wealth and the general +condition of the working class is greatly misconceived by them. So far +as the distribution of wealth is concerned, the principal difference +that has occurred may be described as the decadence of the lower middle +classes, a decline both in the number of persons in proportion to +population who enjoy intermediate incomes, and also in the relative +amount of the average income they enjoy. Their individual income may be +higher than that of the corresponding class 150 or 200 years ago, but it +bears a less ratio to the average income of the nation. The reason of +this decline is, of course, obvious. The yeomanry, once a seventh of our +population, and the small masters in trade have gradually given way +before the economic superiority of the large capital or other causes, +and modern industry has as yet produced no other class that can, by +position and numbers, fill their room; for though, no doubt, the great +industries call into being auxiliary industries of various kinds, which +are still best managed on the small scale by independent tradesmen, the +number of middling incomes which the greater industries have thus +contributed to create has been far short of the number they have +extinguished. The same causes have, of course, exercised very important +effects on the economic condition of the working class. They have +reduced them more and more to the permanent position of wage-labourers, +and have left them relatively fewer openings than they once possessed +for investing their savings in their own line, and fewer opportunities +for the abler and more intelligent of them to rise to a competency. This +want may perhaps be ultimately supplied under existing industrial +conditions by the modern system of co-operation, which combines some of +the advantages of the small capital with some of the advantages of the +large, though it lacks one of the chief advantages of both, the +energetic, uncontrolled initiative of the individual capitalist. But at +present, at any rate, it is premature to expect this, and as things +stand, many of the old pathways that linked class with class are now +closed without being replaced by modern substitutes, and working men are +more purely and permanently wage-labourers than they used to be. But +while the wage-labourer has perhaps less chance than before of becoming +anything else, it is a mistake to suppose, as is sometimes done, that he +is worse off, or even, as is perhaps invariably imagined, that he has a +less share in the wealth of the country than he had when the wealth of +the country was less. On the contrary, the position of the wage-labourer +is really better than it has been for three hundred years. If we turn to +the period of the English Revolution, we find that the income which the +labourer and his family together were able to earn was habitually +insufficient to maintain them in the way they were accustomed to live. +Sir M. Hale, in his "Discourse Touching the Poor," published in 1683, +says the family of a working man, consisting of husband, wife, and four +children, could not be supported in meat, drink, clothing, and +house-rent on less than 10s. a week, and that he might possibly be able +to make that amount, if he got constant employment, and if two of his +children, as well as their mother, could earn something by their labour +too. Gregory King classifies the whole labouring population of the +country in his time, except a few thousand skilled artisans, among the +classes who decrease the wealth of the country, because, not earning +enough to keep them, they had to obtain occasional allowances from +public funds. We do well to grieve over the pauperism that exists now +in England. A few years ago, one person in every twenty received +parochial support, and one in thirty does so yet. These figures, of +course, refer to those in receipt of relief at one time, and not to all +who received relief during a year. But for Scotland we have statistics +of both, and the latter come as nearly as possible to twice as many as +the former. If the same proportion rules in England, then every +fifteenth person receives relief in the course of the year.[4] But in +King's time, out of a population of five millions and a half, 600,000 +were in receipt of alms, _i.e._, more than one in ten; and if their +children under 16 years of age were included, their number would amount +to 900,000, or one in six. Now, while the labourers' wages were then, as +a rule, unequal to maintain them in the way they lived, we know that +their scale of living was much below that which is common among their +class to-day. The only thing which was much cheaper then than now was +butcher meat, mutton being only 2d. a lb., and beef, 1¼d.; but half the +population had meat only twice a week, and a fourth only once. The +labourer lived chiefly on bread and beer, and bread was as dear as it is +now. Potatoes had not come into general use. Butter and milk were +cheaper than now, but were not used to the same extent. Fuel, light, and +clothing were all much dearer, and salt was so much so as to form an +appreciable element in the weekly bill. When so many of the staple +necessaries of life were high in price, the labourer's wages naturally +could not afford a meat diet. Nothing can furnish a more decisive proof +of the rise in the real remuneration of the wage-labourer since the +Revolution than the fact that the wages of that period were insufficient +to maintain the lower standard of comfort prevalent then, without +parochial aid, while the wages of the same classes to-day are generally +able to maintain their higher standard of comfort without such +supplementary assistance. Then the hours of labour were, on the whole, +longer; the death rate in London was 1 in 27, in place of 1 in 40 now; +and all those general advantages of advancing civilization, which are +the heritage of all, were either absent or much inferior. + +These facts sufficiently show that if the rich have got richer since the +Revolution, the poor have not got poorer, and that the circumstances of +the labouring class have substantially improved with the growth of +national wealth. As far as their mere money income is concerned there is +some reason for thinking that the improvement has been as near as may be +proportional with the increase of wealth. The general impression is the +reverse of this. It is usual to hear it said that while the labourers' +circumstances have undoubtedly improved absolutely, they have not +improved relatively, as compared with the progress in the wealth of the +country and the share of it which other classes have succeeded in +obtaining. But this impression must be qualified, if not entirely +rejected, on closer examination. Data exist by which it can be to some +extent tested, and these data show that while considerable alterations +have been made in the distribution of wealth since the rise of the great +industries, these alterations have not been unfavourable to the +labouring classes, but that the proportion of the wealth of the country +which falls to the working man to-day is very much the same--is indeed +rather better than worse--than the proportion which fell to his share +two hundred years ago. Gregory King made an estimate of the distribution +of wealth among the various classes of society in England in 1688, +founded partly on the poll-books, hearth-books, and other official +statistical records, and partly on personal observation and inquiry in +the several towns and counties of England; and Dr. C. Davenant, who says +he had carefully examined King's statistics himself, checking them by +calculations of his own and by the schemes of other persons, pronounces +them to be "very accurate and more perhaps to be relied on than anything +that has been ever done of a like kind." Now, a comparison of King's +figures with the estimate of the distribution of the national income +made by Mr. Dudley Baxter from the returns of 1867, will afford some +sort of idea--though of course only approximately, and perhaps not very +closely so--of the changes that have actually occurred. King takes the +family income as the unit of his calculations. Baxter, on the other +hand, specifies all bread-winners separately--men, women, and children; +but to furnish a basis of comparison, let us take the men as +representing a family each, and if so, that would give us 4,006,260 +working-class families in the country in 1867. This is certainly a high +estimate of their number, because in 1871 there were only five million +of families in England; and according to the calculations of Professor +Leone Levi, the working class comprises no more than two-thirds of the +population, and would consequently consist in 1871 of no more than +3,300,000 families. If we were to take this figure as the ground of our +calculations, the result would be still more striking; but let us take +the number of working-class families to have been four millions in 1867. +The average income of a working-class family in King's time was £12 12s. +(including his artisan and handicraft families along with the other +labourers); the average income of a working class family now is £81. The +average income of English families generally in King's time was £32; the +average income of English families generally now is £162. The average +income of the country has thus increased five-fold, while the average +income of the working class has increased six and a half times. The +ratio of the working class income to the general income stood in King's +time as 1:2½, and now as 1:2. In 1688, 74 per cent. of the whole +population belonged to the working class, and they earned collectively +26 per cent. of the entire income of the country; in 1867--according to +the basis we have adopted, though the proportion is doubtless really +less--80 per cent. of the whole population belonged to the working +class, and they earned collectively 40 per cent. of the entire income of +the country. Their share of the population has increased 6 per cent.; +their share of the income 14 per cent. + +Now, I am far from adducing these considerations with the view of +suggesting that the present condition of the working classes or the +present distribution of wealth is even approximately satisfactory, but I +think they ought to be sufficient to disperse the gloomy apprehensions +which trouble many minds as if, with all our national prosperity, the +condition of the poorer classes were growing ever worse and could not +possibly, under existing industrial conditions, grow any better; to +prevent us from prematurely condemning a system of society, whose +possibilities for answering the legitimate aspirations of the working +class are so far from being exhausted, that it may rather be said that a +real beginning has hardly as yet been made to accomplish them; and to +give ground for the hope that the existing economy, which all admit to +be a most efficient instrument for the production of wealth, may, by +wise correction and management, be made a not inadequate agency for its +distribution. + +The socialists are not more fortunate in their argument from the +teaching of economists than in their account of the actual facts and +tendency of history. The "iron and cruel law" of necessary wages is, as +expounded by economists, neither so iron nor so cruel as Lassalle +represented it to be. They taught that the price of labour, like the +price of everything else, tended to settle at the level of the relative +cost of its production, and that the cost of its production meant the +cost of producing the subsistence required to maintain the labourer in +working vigour and to rear his family to continue the work of society +after his day; but they always represented this as a minimum below which +wages would not permanently settle, but above which they might from +other causes remain for a continuity considerably elevated, and which, +even as a minimum, was in an essential way ruled by the consent of the +labouring classes themselves, and dependent on the standard of living +they chose habitually to adopt. If the rate of wages were forced down +below the amount necessary to maintain that customary standard of +living, the marriage rate of the labouring classes would tend to fall +and the rate of mortality to rise till the supply of labour diminished +sufficiently to restore the rate of wages to its old level. And +conversely, if the price of labour rose above that limit, the marriage +rate among the labouring class would tend to rise and the rate of +mortality to fall, till the numbers of the working population increased +to such an extent as to bring it down again. But the rate of marriage +depended on the will and consent of the labouring class, and their +consent was supposed to be given or withheld according as they +themselves considered the current wages sufficient or insufficient to +support a family upon. The amount of the labourer's "necessary" +subsistence was never thought to be a hard and fast limit inflexibly +fixed by physical conditions. It was not a bare living; it was the +living which had become customary or was considered necessary by the +labourer. Its amount might be permanently raised, if in consequence of a +durable rise of wages a higher standard of comfort came to be habitual +and to be counted essential, and the addition so made to it would then +become as real an element of natural or necessary wages in the economic +sense as the rest. Its amount might also permanently fall, if the +labourers ceased to think it necessary and contentedly accommodated +their habits to the reduced standard, and there might thus ensue a +permanent degradation of the labourer, such as took place in Ireland in +the present century, when the labouring class adjusted themselves to +reduction after reduction till their lower standard of living served, in +the first place, to operate as an inducement to marriage instead of a +check on it, because marriage could not make things worse, and at least +lightened the burdens of life by the sympathy that shared them; and +served, in the second place, to impair the industrial efficiency of the +labourer till he was hardly worth better wages if he could have got +them. So far then was the doctrine of economists from involving any +"iron or cruel" limit that they always drew from it the lesson that it +was in the power of the labouring classes to elevate themselves by the +pleasant, if somewhat paradoxical, expedient of first enlarging their +scale of expenditure. "Pitch your standard of comfort high, and your +income will look after itself," is scarcely an unfair description of the +rule of prudent imprudence they inculcated on working people. They +believed that the chief danger to which that class was exposed was their +own excessive and too rapid multiplication, and they considered the best +protection against this danger to lie in the powerful preventive of a +high scale of habitual requirements. + +Moreover, Ricardo distinctly maintained that though the natural rate of +wages was determined as he had explained, yet the operation of that +natural law might be practically suspended in a progressive community +for an indefinite period, and that the rate of wages actually given +might even keep on advancing the whole time, because capital was capable +of increasing much more rapidly than population. The price of labour, he +taught, would in that case be always settled by the demand for it which +was created by the accumulation of capital, and the sole condition of +the accumulation of capital was the productive power of labour. The rate +of wages in a progressive community might therefore almost never be in +actual fact determined by this "iron and cruel law" at all, and so there +is not the smallest ground for representing economists as teaching that +the present system compels the rate of wages or the labourer's +remuneration to hover to and fro over the margin of indigence. + +Lassalle, then, built his agitation on a combination of errors. He was +wrong in his interpretation of the tendency of actual historical +development; he was wrong in his interpretation of the doctrine of +economists; and now, to complete the confusion, that doctrine is itself +wrong. If we are at all to distinguish a natural or normal rate of wages +from the fluctuating rates of the market, that natural or normal rate +will be found really to depend, not on the cost of producing +subsistence, but on the amount or rate of general production, or the +amount of production _per capita_ in the community, or, in other words, +on the average productivity of labour. It is manifest that this would be +so in a primitive condition of society in which industry was as yet +conducted without the intervention of a special employing class, for +then the wages of labour would consist of its product, and be, in fact, +as Smith says, only another name for it. It would depend, however, not +exclusively on the individual labourer's own efficiency, but also on the +fertility of the soil and the general efficiency of the rest of the +labouring community. While according to his own efficiency he would +possess a greater or smaller stock of articles, which, after providing +for his own wants, he might exchange for other articles produced by his +neighbours; the quantity he would get in exchange for them would be +great or small according to the degree of his neighbour's efficiency. +The average real remuneration of labour, or the average rate of wages, +in such a community would therefore correspond with the average +productivity of its labour. But the same principle holds good in the +more complex organization of industrial society that now exists, though +its operation is more difficult to trace. + +The price of labour is now determined by a struggle between the +labourer and the employer, and the fortunes of the struggle move between +two very real, if not very definitely marked, limits, the lower of which +is constituted by the smallest amount which the labourer can afford to +take, and the higher by the largest amount which the employer can afford +to give. The former is determined by the amount necessary to support +life, and the latter by the amount necessary to secure an adequate +profit. Now the space between these two limits will be always great or +small in proportion to the general productivity of labour in the +community. The general productivity of labour acts upon the rate of +wages in two ways, immediately and mediately. Immediately, because, as +is manifest, efficient labour is worth more to the employer than +inefficient; and mediately, as I shall presently show, because it +conduces to a greater diversion of wealth for productive purposes, and +so increases the general demand for labour. In modern society, as in +primitive, the labourer not only obtains a higher remuneration if he is +efficient himself, but gathers a higher remuneration from the efficiency +of his neighbours. + +This will be obvious at once to any one who reflects on the improved +remuneration of the common unskilled labourers. The man who works with +pick and shovel makes, according to Mr. Mulhall's estimate, £30 a year +now, while he only made £12 a year in 1800, when bread was about twice +as dear, and yet he probably did quite as good a day's work then as he +does now, except so far as his better wages have themselves helped his +powers of labour, through affording him a more liberal diet, and in that +case the same question is raised, How did he come to get these better +wages? It was not on account of an increase in his own production, for +that was the effect, not the cause; it was on account of the general +increase in the productivity of all labour round about him. The great +improvement in industrial processes have brought in more plentiful +times, and he shares in the general plenty, though he may not have +directly contributed to its production. He gets more for the same work, +not merely because people in general, with their larger surplus, can +afford to give him more, but because, having more to devote to +industrial investment, they increase the demand for labour till they are +obliged to give him more. + +The proximate demand for labour is, of course, capital, but the amount +of capital which a community tends to possess--in other words, the +amount of wealth it tends to detach for industrial investment--bears a +constant relation to the amount of its general production. There is a +disposition among economists to speak of the quantity of a nation's +savings, as if it was something given and complete that springs up +independently of industrial conditions, and as irrespectively of the +purpose to which it is to be applied as the number of eggs a fowl lays +or the amount of fruit a tree bears. But, in reality, it is not so. The +amount of a nation's savings is no affair of chance; it is governed much +more by commercial reasons than is sometimes supposed. It is no +sufficient account of the matter to say that men save because they have +a disposition to save, because there is a strong cumulative propensity +in the national character. They save because they think to get a profit +by saving, and the point at which the nation stops saving is the point +at which this expectation ceases to be gratified, the point at which +enough has been accumulated to occupy the entire field of profitable +investment which the community offers at the time. Some part of a +nation's savings will always have originated in a desire to provide +security for the future, but, as this part is less subject to +fluctuation, it exercises less influence in determining the extent of +the whole than the more variable part, which is only saved when there is +sufficient hope of gain from investing it. There may be said to be a +natural amount of capital in a country, in at least as true a sense as +there is a natural price of labour, or a natural price of commodities. +Capital has its bounds in the general industrial conditions and stature +of the community, but it moves and answers these conditions with much +more elasticity than the wage-fund theory used to acknowledge. It is, as +Hermann said, a mere medium of conveyance between consumer and consumer, +and has its size decreed for it by the quantities it has to convey. The +general demand for commodities is a demand for capital. It creates the +expectation of profit which capital is diverted from expenditure to +gratify, and since it is itself in another aspect the general supply of +commodities, it furnishes the possibilities for meeting the demand for +capital which it creates. This whole argument may seem to be reasoning +in a circle or wheeling round a pivot, and so in a sense it may be, for +the wheel of industry is circular. The rate of wages depends on the +demand for labour; the demand for labour depends on the amount of +capital; the amount of capital depends on the aggregate production of +and demand for commodities; and the amount of aggregate production +depends on the average productivity of labour. It is but a more +circuitous way of saying the same thing as the older economists said, +when they declared the rate of wages to depend on the supply of capital, +as compared with population; but it shows that the supply of capital is +a more elastic element than they conceived, that it adjusts and +re-adjusts itself more easily and sensitively to industrial conditions, +including perhaps even those of population, and that it is governed in a +very real way by the great primary factor that determines the whole size +and scale of the industrial system in all its parts, the general +productivity of labour. Taking one country with another, the rate of +wages will be found to observe a certain proportion to the amount of +production _per capita_ in the community. + +This view will be confirmed by a comparison of the actual rate of wages +prevalent in different countries. Lord Brassey has published an +important body of positive evidence tending to show that the cost of +labour is the same all over the world, that for the same wages you get +everywhere the same work, and that the higher price of labour in some +countries than in others is simply due to its higher efficiency. Mr. +Cairnes, who did not accept this conclusion unconditionally, had, +however, himself previously estimated that a day's labour in America +produced as much as a day and a third's in Great Britain, to a day and a +half's in Belgium, a day and three-fourths' or two days' in France and +Germany, and to five days' labour in India. Now, when due regard is had +for the influence of special historical circumstances, it will be found +that the rate of wages observes very similar proportions in these +several countries. In America it is higher than the relative +productivity of the country would explain, because a new country with +boundless natural resources creates a permanently exceptional demand for +labour; because the facilities with which land can be acquired and +wrought, even by men without previous agricultural training, affords a +ready correction to temporary redundancies of labour; and because the +labour itself is more mobile, versatile, and energetic in a nation +largely composed of immigrants. Other modifying influences also +interfere to preclude the possibility of a precise correspondence +between national rates of wages and national amounts of production _per +capita_, for different countries vary much in the extent of the fixed +capital they employ to economize personal labour. But enough has been +said to show that, if a natural rate of wages is to be sought at all, it +must be looked for, not in the cost of the production of subsistence, +but in the rate of the production of commodities; and while the standard +of living and the price of labour tend to some extent to keep one +another up, the higher standard of living prevalent among labourers in +some countries is a consequence much more than a condition of the higher +rate of wages, which the higher productivity of labour in those +countries occasions. + +There is therefore no ground for Lassalle's representation that the law +of necessary wages condemns ninety-six persons in every hundred to an +existence of hopeless misery to enable the other four to ride in luxury. +The principles that govern the rate of wages are much more flexible than +he supposed, and the experience of trade unions has sufficiently +demonstrated that it is within the power of the wage-labourers +themselves to effect by combination a material increase in the price of +their labour. Trade unions have taken away the shadow of despondency +that lay over the hired labourer's lot. Their margin of effective +operation is strictly limited; still such a margin exists, and they have +turned it to account. They have put the labourer in a position to hold +out for his price; they have converted the question of wages from the +question, how little the labourer can afford to take, into the question, +how much the employer can afford to give. They have been able, in trades +not subject to foreign competition, to effect a permanent rise in wages +at the expense of prices, and they can probably, in all trades, succeed +in keeping the rate of wages well up to its superior limit, viz., to the +point at which, while the skilful employers might still afford to give +more, the unskilful could not do so without ceasing to conduct a +profitable business and being driven out of the field altogether. For +unskilful management tells as ill on wages as inefficient labour. On the +other hand, high wages, like many other difficult conditions, +undoubtedly tend to develop skilful management. The employer is put on +his mettle, and all his administrative resource is called into action +and keen play. They who, like socialists, inveigh against this modern +despot, ought to reflect how much less possible it would have been for +wages to have risen, if industry had been in the hands of hired managers +who were not put to their mettle, because they had no personal stake in +the result. It must not be forgotten, however, that while trade unions +are able to keep the rate of wages up to its superior limit, they have +no power to raise that limit itself. This can only be done by an +increase in the general productivity of labour, and, in fact, the action +of trade unions could not have been so effective as it has been, unless +the high production of the country afforded them the conditions for +success. And since, in consequence of their action and vigilance, the +rate of wages in the trades they represent may be now taken as usually +standing close to its superior limit, the chief hope of any further +substantial improvement in the future must now be placed in the +possibility of raising that limit by an increased productivity. + +Of this the prospect is really considerable and promising. Of course +labourers will never benefit to the full from improvements in the +productive arts, until by some arrangement, or by many arrangements, +they are made sharers in industrial capital; but they will benefit from +these improvements, though in less measure, even as pure wage-labourers. +Their unions will be on the watch to prevent the whole advantage of the +improvement from going towards a reduction of the price of the commodity +they produce, and such reduction in the price of the commodity as +actually takes place will enable its consumers to spend so much the more +of their means on commodities made by other labourers, and to that +extent to increase the demand for the labour of the latter. But the +field from which I expect the most direct and extensive harvest to the +working class is the development of their own personal efficiency. At +present neither employers nor labourers seem fully alive to the +resources which this field is capable of yielding, if it were wisely and +fairly cultivated. Both classes are often so bent on immediate advantage +that they lose sight of their real and enduring interest. It is doubtful +whether employers are more slow to see how much inadequate remuneration +and uncomfortable circumstances impair efficiency and retard production, +or labourers to perceive how much limiting the general rate of +production tends to reduce the general rate of wages. In labour +requiring mainly physical strength, contractors sufficiently appreciate +the fact that their navvies must be well fed if they are to stand to +their work, and that an extra shilling a day makes a material difference +in the output. But in all forms of skilled labour, likewise, analogous +conditions prevail. Just as slave-labour is inefficient because it is +reluctantly given, and is wanting in the versatility and resourcefulness +that comes from general intelligence, so is free labour less efficient +or more efficient in exact proportion to its fertility of resource and +to the hopefulness and cheerfulness with which it is exerted; and both +conditions are developed in the working class in precise ratio with +their general comfort. The intelligent workman takes less time to learn +his trade, needs less superintendence at his work, and is less wasteful +of materials; and the cheerful workman, besides these merits, expends +more energy with less exhaustion. But men can have no hope in their work +while they live purely from hand to mouth, and you cannot spread habits +of intelligence among the labouring class, if their means are too poor +or their leisure too short to enable them to participate in the culture +that is going on around them. + +But if employers are apt to take too narrow a view of the worth of good +wages as a positive source of high production, labourers are apt to take +equally narrow views of the worth of high production as a source of good +wages. The policy of limiting production is expressly countenanced by a +few of their trade unions, with the concurrence, I fear, of a +considerable body of working-class opinion. This is shown in their idea +of "making work," in their prohibition of "chasing"--_i.e._, of a +workman exceeding a given average standard of production--and in their +prejudice against piecework. Their notion of making work is irrational. +They think they can make work by simply not doing it, by spinning it +out, by going half speed, under the impression that they are in this way +leaving the more over to constitute a demand for their labour to-morrow. +And so, in the immediate case in hand and for the particular time, it +may sometimes be. But if this practice were to be turned into a law +universal among working men, if all labourers were to act upon it +everywhere, then the general production of the country would be +immediately reduced, and the general demand for labour, and the rate of +wages, would inevitably fall in a corresponding degree. Instead of +making work, they would have unmade half the work there used to be, and +have brought their whole class to comparative poverty by contracting the +ultimate sources from which wages come. The true way to make work for +to-morrow is to do as much as one can to-day. For the produce of one +man's labour is the demand for the produce of another man's. There is +nothing more difficult for any class than to reach an enlightened +perception of its own general interest. + +The objection usually made to "chasing" and piecework is that they +always end in enabling employers to extract more work out of the men +without giving them any more pay, and that they conduce to +overstraining. Now piecework, without a fixed list of prices, is of +course liable to the abuse which, it is alleged, masters have made of +it. But with a fixed list of prices the labourers ought, with the aid of +their unions, to be as able to hold their own against the encroachments +of the masters under piecework as under day work, and piecework is so +decidedly advantageous, both to masters and to men, that it would be +foolish for the former to refuse the reasonable concession of a fixed +list of prices; and it would be equally foolish for the latter to oppose +the system under the delusive fear of a danger which it is amply in +their own power to meet. There is a good deal of force in the view of +Mr. William Denny, that piecework will prove the best and most natural +transition from the present system to a _régime_ of co-operative +production, because it furnishes many kinds of actual opportunities for +practising co-operation; but whatever may be the promise of piecework +for the age that is to come, there is no question about its promise for +the life that now is. Mr. Denny, speaking from experience in his own +extensive shipbuilding works at Dumbarton, says that "a workman under +piecework generally increases his output in the long run--partly by +working hard, but principally by exercising more intelligence and +arranging his work better--by about 75 per cent., while the total amount +of his wages increases by about 50 per cent., making a distinct saving +in the wages portion of the cost of a given article of about 14 per +cent." ("The Worth of Wages," p. 19.)[5] Similar testimony is given by +Goltz, Boehmert, and a writer in Engels' _Zeitschrift_ for 1868, as to +the effect of the introduction of piecework into continental industries, +and Roscher ascribes much of the industrial superiority of England to +the prevalence of piecework here. According to Mr. Howell, more than +seventy per cent. of the work of this country is done at present by the +piece, and the Trades' Union Commission found it the accepted rule in +the majority of the industries that came under their investigation; in +fact, in all except engineering, ironfounding, and some of the building +trades. The engineers entertain a strong objection to it, and their +union has sometimes expelled members who have persisted in taking it. +But the system works smoothly enough when an established price-list has +become a recognised practice of the trade. The objection that the piece +system leads to careless, scamped and inferior work, call hardly be +considered a genuine working-class objection. That is the look-out of +the masters, and they find it easier to check quality than to check +quantity. Another reason sometimes given against piecework is that under +it some men get more than their share in the common stock of work, but +there lurks in this reason the same fallacy which lies in the notion of +"making work," the fallacy of seeking to raise the level of wages by +limiting production, and so diminishing the common stock of work of +society. Labourers seem sometimes to harbour an impression as if they +were losing something when their neighbours were making more than +themselves. Work appears to them--no doubt in consequence of the +fluctuations and intermittent activity of modern trade--to come in +bursts and windfalls, nobody knows whence or how, and they are sometimes +uneasy to see the harvest being apparently disproportionately +appropriated by more active and efficient hands. But in the end, and as +a steady general rule, they are gainers and not losers by the efficiency +of the more expert workmen, because productivity, so far from drying up +the sources of work, is the very thing that sets them loose. + +A more important objection is the danger of overstraining, against which +of course the working class are wise to exercise a most jealous +vigilance. But, in the first place, it is easy to exaggerate this +danger. It is not really from any deepened drain on the physical powers +of the workmen, so much as from a quickening of his mental life in his +work, that increase in his productivity is to be expected. Mr. Denny, it +will be observed, attributes the additional output under piecework not +nearly so much to harder labour as to the exercise of more intelligence +and to a better arrangement of the work. But, in the next place, to my +mind the great advantage of piecework is that it affords a sound +economic reason for shortening the day of labour. The work being +intenser, demands a shorter day, and being more productive, justifies +it. If the figures I have quoted from Mr. Denny are at all +representative, then a labourer, working by the piece, can turn out 40 +per cent. more in eight hours than working by the day he can do in ten. +Differences may be expected to obtain in this respect in different +trades and kinds of work, so that there possibly cannot be any normal +day of labour for all trades alike, and each must adjust the term of its +labour to its own circumstances. But wherever piecework can increase the +rate of production to the extent mentioned by Mr. Denny, the day of +labour may be shortened with advantage, and it can apparently do so in +the very trades that most strongly object to it. A fact mentioned by Mr. +Nasmyth, in his remarkable evidence before the Trades Union Commission, +opens a striking view of the possibilities of increasing production +through developing the personal efficiency of the labouring class, and +of doing so without requiring any severe strain. "When I have been +watching men in my own work," he says, "I have noticed that at least +two-thirds of their time, even in the case of the most careful workmen, +is spent, not in work, but in criticising with the square or +straight-edge what they have been working, so as to say whether it is +right or wrong." And he adds--"I have observed that wherever you meet +with a dexterous workman, you will find that he is a man that need not +apply in one case in ten to his straight-edge or square." And why are +not all dexterous, or, at least, why are they not much more dexterous +than they now are? Mr. Nasmyth's answer is, because the faculty of +comparison by the eye is undeveloped in them, and he contends that this +faculty is capable of being educated in every one to a very much higher +degree than exists at present, and that its development ought to be made +a primary object of direct training at school. "If you get a boy," he +says, "to be able to lay a pea in the middle of two other peas, and in a +straight line with these two, that boy is a vast way on in the arts." He +has gone through a most valuable industrial apprenticeship before he has +entered a workshop at all. If, through training the eye, workmen can +save two-thirds of their time, it is manifest that there is abundant +scope for increasing productivity and shortening the day of labour at +the same time. Industrial efficiency is much more a thing of mind than +of muscle. _Jeder Arbeiter ist auch Kopfarbeiter._ All work is also +head work. Skill is but a primary labour-saving apparatus engrafted by +mind on eye and limb, and it is in developing the mental faculties of +the labourers by well-directed training, both general and technical, +that the chief conditions for their further improvement lie. Their +progress in intelligence may therefore be expected to increase their +productivity so as to justify a shortening of their day of labour, and +the leisure so acquired may be expected to be used so as to increase +their intelligence. Any advance men really make in the scale of moral +and mental being tends in this way to create the conditions necessary +for its maintenance. + +We sometimes hear the same pessimist prophecy about shorter hours as we +have heard for centuries about better wages, that they will only seduce +the working class to increased dissipation. But experience is against +this view. Of course more leisure and more pay are merely means which +the labourer may according to his habits use for his destruction as +easily as for his salvation. But the increase in the number of +apprehensions for drunkenness that frequently accompanies a rise in +wages proves neither one thing nor another as to the general effect of +the rise on the whole class of labourers who have obtained it; it proves +only that the more dissipated among them are able to get oftener drunk. +Nor can the singular manifestations which the full hand sometimes takes +with the less instructed sections of the working class, especially when +it has been suddenly acquired, furnish any valid inference as to the way +it would be used by the working class in general, particularly if it +were their permanent possession. The evidence laid before the House of +Lords Committee on Intemperance shows that the skilled labourers of this +country are becoming less drunken as their wages and general position +are improving; and Porter, in his "Progress of the Nation," adduces some +striking cases of a steady rise of wages making a manifest change for +the better in the habits of unskilled labourers. He mentions, on the +authority of a gentleman who had the chief direction of the work, that +"the formation of a canal in the North of Ireland for some time afforded +steady employment to a portion of the peasantry, who before that time +were suffering all the evils so common in that country which result +from precariousness of employment. Such work as they could previously +get came at uncertain intervals, and was sought by so many competitors +that the remuneration was of the scantiest amount. In this condition the +men were improvident to recklessness. Their wages, insufficient for the +comfortable maintenance of their families, were wasted in procuring for +themselves a temporary forgetfulness of their misery at the whisky shop, +and the men appeared to be sunk into a state of hopeless degradation. +From the moment, however, that work was offered to them which was +constant in its nature and certain in its duration, and on which their +weekly earnings would be sufficient to provide for their comfortable +support, men who had been idle and dissolute were converted into sober, +hardworking labourers, and proved themselves kind and careful husbands +and fathers; and it is stated as a fact that, notwithstanding the +distribution of several hundred pounds weekly in wages, the whole of +which, would be considered as so much additional money placed in their +hands, the consumption of whisky was absolutely and permanently +diminished in the district. During the comparatively short period in +which the construction of this canal was in progress, some of the most +careful labourers--men who most probably before then never knew what it +was to possess five shillings at any one time--saved sufficient money to +enable them to emigrate to Canada, where they are now labouring in +independence for the improvement of their own land" (p. 451). It may be +difficult to extirpate drunkenness in our climate even with good wages, +but it is certainly impossible with bad, for bad wages mean insufficient +nourishment, comfortless house accommodation, and a want of that +elasticity after work which enables men to find pleasure in any other +form of enjoyment. As with better wages, so with shorter hours. The +leisure gained may be misused, especially at first; but it is +nevertheless a necessary lever for the social amelioration of the +labouring class, and it will more and more serve this purpose as it +becomes one of their permanent acquisitions. There can be no question +that long hours and hard work are powerful predisposing causes to +drunkenness. Studnitz mentions that several manufacturers in America had +informed him that they had invariably remarked, that with solitary +exceptions here and there, the men who wrought for the longest number of +hours were most prone to dissipation, and that the others were more +intelligent, and formed on the whole a better class. Part of the +prejudice entertained by working men against piecework comes from the +fact that it is very often accompanied with overtime, and when that is +the case, it generally exerts an unfavourable effect on the habits of +the workman. Mr. Applegarth said, in his evidence before the Trades +Union Commission, that nothing degraded the labourer like piecework and +overtime. Mr. George Potter stated, in his evidence before the Select +Committee on Masters and Operatives in 1860, that it was a common saying +among working people with regard to a man who works hard by piecework +and overtime, that such a man is generally a drunkard. He ascribed much +of the intemperance of the labouring class to the practice of working +"spells"--_i.e._, heats of work at high pressure on the piece and +overtime system--instead of steadily; and he says--"When I was at work +at the bench, I worked to a firm where there was much overtime and +piecework, and I found that the men at piecework were men who generally +spent five or six times more money in intoxicating drink, for the +purpose of keeping up their physical strength, than the men at day work. +I find, on close observation, that the men working at piecework are +generally a worse class of men in every way, both in intelligence and +education, and in pecuniary matters." Now, the ill effects which issue +from piecework combined with overtime could not accrue from piecework +combined with shorter hours. Besides, in a case of this kind it is +sometimes difficult to say which is cause and which effect, or how much +the one acts and reacts on the other. For both Mr. Potter and the +manufacturers mentioned by Studnitz represent the men who wrought +longest as being not only more drunken, but less intelligent and +educated, and, in fact, as being every way inferior; and we can easily +understand how men of unsteady habits should prefer to work "spells," +and try to make up by excessive work three days in the week, for +excessive drinking the other three. + +Dissipation and overtime generally go together, but neither of them is +a necessary accompaniment of piecework. The best check to both is +probably the spread of general education among the working class, for +the better educated workmen are even at present usually found against +them; and the spread of general education--I do not speak here of +technical--among the working class is more fruitful than even piecework +itself in opening up fresh reserves of industrial efficiency in our +labouring manhood. Roscher has pointed out how a stimulant like +piecework produces in a fairly well-educated district twice the result +it produces in a comparatively illiterate one. Taking the figures of +Goltz on rural labour in different German States, he shows that while +the earnings of pieceworkers were only 11 per cent. higher than the +earnings of day-workers in Osnabruck, they were as much as 23 per cent. +higher in Hesse. Mr. Peshine Smith mentions that the Board of Education +in Massachusetts procured from overseers of factories in that State a +return of the different amounts of wages paid and the degree of +education of those who received them. Most of the work was done by the +piece, and it was found that the wages earned rose in exact ratio with +the degree of education, from the foreigners at the bottom who made +their mark as the signature of their weekly receipts to the girls at the +top who did school in winter and worked in factories in summer. In some +branches of industry many new improvements remain unused because the +workpeople are too ignorant to work them properly. Moreover, for the +supreme quality of resourcefulness, education is like hands and feet, +and if we may judge from the number of useful labour-saving inventions +which working men give us even now, we cannot set limits to the number +they will give when the whole labouring class will have got the use of +their mind by an adequate measure of general education, and when, as we +may hope, they will have got leisure to use it in through a shortening +of the day of labour. The possibilities of this last source are very +well illustrated by an experiment of Messrs. Denny. In 1880 they +established in their ship-building yard at Dumbarton an award scheme for +recompensing inventions made by their workmen for improving existing +machinery or applying it to a new class of work, or introducing new +machinery in place of hand labour, or discovering any new method of +arranging or securing work that either improved its quality or +economized its cost. Mr. William Denny stated, after the scheme had been +nearly seven years in operation, that in that time as many as 196 awards +had been given for inventions which were thought useful to adopt, that +three times that number had been submitted for consideration, and that +besides being beneficial in causing so many useful improvements to be +made, the scheme had the effect of making the workmen of all departments +into active thinking and planning beings instead of mere flesh and blood +machines. + +I cannot, therefore, take so dark a view as is sometimes entertained of +the futurity of the wage-labourer, even if he were compelled to remain +purely and permanently such. His position has substantially improved in +the past, and contains considerable capabilities for continued +improvement in the future. Of course the action of trade unions, besides +being confined to the limits I have described, is subject to the further +restriction, that it can only avail for the labourers who belong to +them, and is indeed founded on the exclusion or diminution of the +competition of others. They impose limitations on the number of +apprentices, and prescribe a certain standard of efficiency, loosely +ascertained, as a condition of membership. There can be no manner of +objection to the latter measure, nor does the former, though it is +manifestly liable to abuse and is sometimes vexatious in its operation, +seem to be practically worked so as to diminish the labour in any +particular industry beneath the due requirements of trade, or to create +an unhealthy monopoly. Then, though the trade unionists gather their +gains by keeping off the competition of others, it cannot be said that +these others are necessarily in any worse position than they would have +occupied if trade unions had never come into existence. It may even be +that through the operation of custom, which will always have an +influence in settling the price of labour, a certain benefit may be +reflected upon them from a rise in the usual price effected by trade +union agency. But in any case, it is no sound objection to an agency of +social amelioration that its efficiency is only partial, for it is not +so much to any single panacea, as to the application of a multitude of +partial remedies, that we can most wisely trust for the accomplishment +of our great aim. + + +II. The second main count in the socialist indictment of the present +industrial system is that it has multiplied the vicissitudes of trade, +and so imposed an incurable and distressing insecurity upon the +labourer's lot. The rapidity of technical transformation and the +frequency of commercial crises create, it is alleged, a perpetual +over-population, driving ever-increasing proportions of the labourers +out of active employment into what Marx calls the industrial reserve, +the hungry battalions of the half-employed or the altogether unemployed. +In regard to technical transformation, the effects of machinery on the +working class are now tolerably well understood. Individuals suffer in +the first instance, but the class, as a whole, is eventually a great +gainer. Machinery has always been the means of employing far more hands +than it superseded, when it did supersede any (for it has by no means +invariably done so). There is no way of "making work" like producing +wealth. The increased production due to machinery cheapens the +particular commodities produced by it, and thus enables the purchasers +of these commodities to spend more of their income on other things, and +so practically to make work for other labourers. But even in the trades +into which the machinery has been imported, the effect of its +introduction has been to multiply, instead of curtailing, employment. +Take the textile trades--much the most important of the machine +industries. Mr. Mulhall, in his "Dictionary of Statistics" (p. 338), +gives the following statistics of the textile operatives in the United +Kingdom at various dates:-- + + + Year. Men. Women. Children. Total. + 1835 82,000 167,000 104,000 353,000 + 1850 158,000 329,000 109,000 596,000 + 1880 232,000 543,000 201,000 976,000 + + +Marx and others dwell much on the fact, that machinery leads frequently +to the substitution of female for male labour; but the preceding table +shows that while female labour has been largely multiplied, male labour +has been scarcely less so, and besides, a more extensive engagement of +women is in itself no public disadvantage. For half the question of our +pauperism is really the question of employment for women, it being so +much more difficult to find work for unemployed women than for +unemployed men; and if the course of industrial transformation opens up +new occupations that are suitable for them, it is so far entirely a +social gain, and no loss. No doubt, though the good accruing from +industrial transformation far outweighs the evil, yet evil does accrue +from it, and evil of the kind alleged, the tendency to develop local or +temporary redundancies of labour. But then that is an evil with which we +have never yet tried to cope, and it may probably be dealt with as +effectively on the present system as on any other. Socialism would stop +it by stopping the progress which it happens to accompany, and would +therefore envelop society in much more serious distress than it sought +to remove. In Marx's remarkable survey of English industrial history +almost every conquest of modern civilization is viewed with regret; but +it is manifestly idle to think of forcing society back now to a state in +which there should be no producing for profit, but only for private use, +no subdivision of labour, no machinery, no steam, for these are the very +means without which it would be impossible for our vastly increased +population to exist at all. What may be done to meet the redundancies of +labour that are always with us is a difficult but pressing question +which I cannot enter upon here. State provision of work--even in +producing commodities which are imported from abroad, and which might +therefore be produced in State workshops without hurting home +producers--has many drawbacks, but the problem is one that ought to be +faced, and something more must be provided for the case than workhouse +and prison. + +In regard to commercial crises, they are rather lessening than +increasing. They may be more numerous, for trade is more extensive and +ramified, but they are manifestly less violent than they used to be. The +commercial and financial crises of the present century have been +moderate in their effects as compared with the Darien scheme, Law's +speculations in France, or the Tulip mania in the Low Countries, and +under the influence of the beneficial expansion of international +commerce and the equally beneficial principle of free trade, we enjoy +now an absolute immunity from the great periodical visitation of famine +which was so terrible a scourge to our ancestors. Facts like these are +particularly reassuring for this reason, that they are the result, +partly of better acquaintance with the principles of sound commercial +and financial success, and partly of the equalizing effect of +international ramifications of trade, and that these are causes from +which even greater things may be expected in the future, because they +are themselves progressive. There is no social system that can +absolutely abolish vicissitudes, because many of them depend on causes +over which man has no possible control, such as the harvests of the +world, and others on causes over which no single society of men has any +control, such as wars; and, besides, it is possible to do a great deal +more under the existing system than is at present done, to mitigate and +neutralize some of their worst effects. To provide the labouring +population with the security of existence, which is one of their +pressing needs, a sound system of working class insurance must be +devised, which shall indemnify them against all the accidents and +reverses of life, including temporary loss of work as well as sickness +and age, and it is not too much to hope, from the amount of attention +which the subject is at present attracting, that such a system will be +obtained. As far as yet appears, the scheme proposed by Professor Lujo +Brentano, to which I have already referred, is, on the whole, the +soundest and most satisfactory in its general principles that has been +advanced. + +Again, much of the instability of trade arises from the want of +commercial statistics, and the consequent ignorance and darkness in +which it must be conducted. More light would lessen at once the mistakes +of well-meaning manufacturers and the opportunities of illegitimate and +designing speculation. Socialists count all speculation illegitimate, +because they fail to see that speculation, conducted in good faith, +exercises a moderating influence upon the oscillations of prices, +preventing them from falling so low, or rising so high, as they would +otherwise do. Speculation has thus a legitimate and beneficial work to +perform in the industrial system, and if it performed its work rightly, +it ought to have the opposite effect from that ascribed to it by +socialists, and to conduce to the stability of trade, instead of shaking +it. But unhappily an unscrupulous and fraudulent spirit too often +presides over this work. Schaeffle, who is not only an eminent political +economist, but has been Minister of Commerce to one of the great powers +of Europe, says that when he got acquainted with the bourse, he gave up +believing any longer in the economic harmonies, and declared theft to be +the principle of modern European commerce. Socialists always take the +bourse to be the type of capitalistic society, and the fraudulent +speculator to be the type of the bourse, and however they may err in +this, there is one point at any rate which it is almost impossible for +them to exaggerate, and that is the mischief accruing to the whole +community--and, as is usual with all general evils, to the working class +more than any other--from the prevalence of unsound trading and inflated +speculation. Confidence is the very quick of modern trade. The least +vibration of distrust paralyzes some of its movements and depresses its +circulation. Enterprise in opening new investments is indeed more and +more indispensable to the vitality of modern industry, but the mischiefs +of misdirected enterprise are as great as the benefits of well-directed. +Illegitimate speculation is very difficult to deal with. It can never be +reached by a public opinion which worships success and bows to wealth +with questionless devotion. Nor is it practicable for the State to put +it down by direct measures. But the State may perhaps mitigate it +somewhat by helping to procure a good system of commercial statistics, +for unsound speculation thrives in ignorance, and may be to some extent +prevented by better knowledge. The socialist demand for commercial +statistics is therefore to be approved. They would benefit everybody but +the dishonest dealer. They would not only be a corrective against +unsound speculation, but they would tend to smooth the conflicts between +capital and labour about the rate of wages, and the working class in +America press the demand on the ground of their experience of the +benefits they have already derived from the Labour Statistical Bureaux +established in certain of the States there. Some of our own most weighty +economic authorities are strongly in favour of a measure of this kind. +Mr. Jevons, for example, says: "So essential is a knowledge of the real +state of supply and demand to the smooth procedure of trade, and the +real good of the community, that I conceive it would be quite legitimate +to compel the publication of requisite statistics. Secrecy can only +conduce to the profit of speculators who gain from great fluctuations of +prices. Speculation is advantageous to the public only so far as it +tends to equalize prices, and it is therefore against the public good to +allow speculators to foster artificially the inequalities of prices by +which they profit. The welfare of millions, both of consumers and +producers, depends on an accurate knowledge of the stocks of cattle and +corn, and it would therefore be no unwarrantable interference with the +liberty of the subject to require any information as to the stock in +hand. In Billingsgate fish-market it has been a regulation that salesmen +shall fix up in a conspicuous place every morning a statement of the +kind and amount of their stock; and such a regulation, whenever it could +be enforced on other markets, would always be to the advantage of every +one except a few traders." ("Theory of Political Economy," p. 88.) + + +III. The next principal charge brought by socialists against the present +order of things is that it commits a signal injustice against the +labouring class, by suffering the capitalists who employ them to +appropriate the whole increase of value which results from the process +of production, and which, as is alleged, is contributed entirely by the +labour of the artizans engaged in the process. I have already exposed +the fallacy of the theory of value on which this claim is founded, and I +need not repeat here what for convenience sake has been stated in +another place. (See chap. iii. pp. 160-6). Value is not constituted by +time of labour alone, except in the case of commodities admitting of +indefinite multiplication; it is constituted in all other cases by +social utility; and the importance of this distinction is especially +manifest in treating of the very point that comes before us here--the +value of labour. Why is one kind of labour paid dearer than another? Why +is an organizer of manual labour better paid than the manual labourer +himself? Why is the railway chairman better paid than the railway +porter? Or why has the judge a better salary than the policeman? Is it +because he exerts more labour, more socially necessary time of labour? +No; the porter works as long as the chairman, and the policeman as long +as the judge. Is it because more time of labour has been expended in the +preparation and apprenticeship of the higher paid functionaries? No; +because the railway chairman may have undergone no special training that +thousands of persons with much poorer incomes have not also undergone, +and the education of the judge cost no more than the education of other +barristers who do not earn a twentieth part of his salary. The +explanation of differences of remuneration like these is not to be found +in different quantities of labour, but in different qualities of labour. +One man's work is higher, rarer, more excellent, possesses, in short, +more social utility than another's, and for that reason is more +valuable, as value is at present constituted. It is thus manifest that +the theory which declares value to be nothing but quantity of labour, +nothing but time of labour, is inconsistent with some of the most +obvious and important phenomena of the value of different kinds of +labour. Many forms of labour are much more remunerative than others, +nay, much more remunerative than many applications of capital, and the +difference of remuneration is in no way whatever connected with the +quantity of labour or the time of labour undergone in earning it. +Socialists may perhaps answer that this _ought not_ to be so; that if +things were as they should be, the railway chairman, the station-master, +the inspector, the guard, and the porter would be paid by the same +simple standard of the duration of their labour in the service of the +line--a standard which would probably reverse the present gradation of +their respective salaries; but if they make that answer, they change +their ground; they no longer base their claim for justice to the +labourer on value _as it is constituted_, but on value _as they think it +ought to be constituted_. Their theory of value would in that case not +be what it pretends to be, a scientific theory of the actual +constitution of value, but a utopian theory of its proper and just +constitution. It would be tantamount to saying, Every man, according to +our ideas of of justice, ought to be paid according to the value of his +work, and the value of his work, according to our ideas of justice, +ought to be measured by the time--the socially necessary time--it +occupied. But this whole argument is manifestly based on nothing better +than their own arbitrary conceptions of justice, and it needs no great +perspicacity to perceive that these conceptions of justice are entirely +wrong. In fact, the common sense of men everywhere would unhesitatingly +pronounce it unjust to requite the manager who contrives, organizes, +directs, with only the same salary as the labourer who executes under +his direction, because, while both may spend the same time of labour, +the service rendered by the one is much more _valuable_ than the service +rendered by the other. Let every man have according to his work, if you +will; but then, in measuring work, the true standard of its value is not +its duration but its social utility, the social importance of the +service it is calculated to render. + +This criterion of social utility is the principle that ought to guide us +in answering the question that is really raised by the particular +socialist charge now under consideration, the question of the justice of +interest on capital. Interest is just because capital is socially +useful, and because the owner of capital, in applying it to productive +purposes, renders a service to society which is valuable in the measure +of its social utility. Of course the State might perform this service +itself. It might compulsorily abstract from the produce of each year a +sufficient portion to constitute the raw materials and instruments of +future production; but, as a matter of fact, the State does not do so. +It leaves the service to be rendered spontaneously by private persons +out of their private means. The service rendered by these persons to +production is as indispensable as the service rendered by the labourers, +and the justice of interest stands on exactly the same ground as the +justice of wages. The labourer cannot produce by labour alone, without +materials and implements, any more than the capitalist can produce by +materials and implements alone, without labour; and the possessor of +capital needs a reward to induce him to advance materials and implements +just as much as the labourer needs a reward to induce him to labour. +Nobody will set aside a portion of his property to provide for future +production if he is to reap no advantage from doing so, and if the +produce will be distributed in exactly the same way whether he sets it +apart or not. It would be as unjust as it would be suicidal to withhold +the recompense to which this service is entitled, and without which +nobody would do it. + +The real question for socialists to answer is, not whether it is just to +pay private capitalists for the service society accepts at their hands, +but whether society can perform this service better, or more +economically, without them; whether, in short, the abolition of interest +would conduce to any real saving in the end? This practical question, +crucial though it be, is one, however, to which they seldom address +themselves--they prefer expatiating in cloudier regions. The question +may not, with our present experience, admit of a definitive and +authoritative answer; but the probabilities all point to the conclusion +that capitalistic management of production, costly as it may seem to be, +is really cheaper than that by which socialism would supersede it. +Capitalistic management is proverbially unrivalled for two qualities in +which bureaucratic management is as proverbially deficient--economy and +enterprise. Socialists complain much of the hosts of middlemen who are +nourished on the present system, the heartless parasites who eat the +bread of society without doing a hand's turn of real good; but their own +plan would multiply vastly the number of unnecessary intermediaries +depending on industry. Under the _régime_ of the capitalist there are, +we may feel sure, no useless clerks or overseers, for he has the +strongest personal interest in working his business as economically as +possible. But with the socialist mandarinate, the interest lies the +other way, and the tendency of the head officials would be to multiply +their subordinates and assistants, so that by abolishing the capitalist, +society would not by any means have got rid of middlemen and parasites. +There would be as much waste of labour as before. Lord Brassey is +certainly right in attributing the industrial superiority of Great +Britain as much to the administrative skill and economy of her employers +as to the efficiency of her labourers. Individual capitalists are more +enterprising, as well as more economical managers, than boards. Their +keenly interested eyes and ears are ever on the watch for opportunities, +for improvements, for new openings; and having to consult nothing but +their own judgment, they are much quicker in adapting themselves to +situations and taking advantage of turns of trade. They will undertake +risks that a board would not agree to, and they will have entered the +field and established a footing long before a manager can get his +directors to stir a finger. Now this habit of being always on the alert +for new extensions, and new processes, and new investments, is of the +utmost value to a progressive community, and it cannot be found to such +purpose anywhere as with the capitalistic despot the socialists +denounce, whose zeal and judgment are alike sharpened by his hope of +personal gain and risk of personal loss. Studnitz informs us that in +1878 he found the mills of New York standing idle, but those of +Philadelphia all going, and his explanation is that the former were +under joint-stock management and the latter belonged to private owners. +The present tendency towards a multiplication of joint-stock companies +is a perfectly good one, because, for one thing, it helps to a better +distribution of wealth; but society would suffer if this tendency were +to be carried so far as to supersede independent private enterprise +altogether, and if joint-stock companies were to become the only form of +conducting business. And if private enterprise is more advantageous than +joint-stock management, because it has more initiative and adaptability, +so joint-stock management is for the same reason more advantageous than +the official centralized management of all industry.[6] + +If there is any force in these considerations, it seems likely that we +should make a bad bargain, if we dismissed our capitalists and private +employers, in the expectation that we could do the work more cheaply by +our own public administration. And the mistake would be especially +disappointing for this reason, that in the ordinary progress of society +in wealth and security the rate of interest always tends to fall, and +that various forces are already in operation that may not unreasonably +be expected to reduce the rate of profits as well. Profits, as +distinguished from interest, are the earnings of management, and the +minimum which employers will be content to take is at present largely +determined by the entirely wrong principle that their amount ought to +bear a direct proportion to the amount of capital invested in the +business. In spite of competition, customary standards of this kind are +very influential in the adjustment of such matters; they are the usual +criteria of what are called fair profits and fair wages; they always +carry with them strong persuasives to acquiescence; and then, from their +very nature, they are very dependent on public opinion. I am not +sanguine enough to believe with the American economist, President F. A. +Walker, that employers will ever come to be content with no other reward +than the gratification of power in the management of a great industrial +undertaking; but there is nothing extravagant in expecting that, through +the influence of public opinion and the constant pressure of trade +unions, a fairer standard of profits may be generally adopted, with the +natural consequence of allowing a rise of wages. + +But whether these expectations are well grounded or no, one thing is +plain,--the only thing really material to the precise issue at present +before us,--and that is, that while interest and profits may be both +unfair in amount, just as rent may be, or wages, or judicial penalties, +neither of them is unjust in essence, because they are merely particular +forms of remunerating particular services, which are now actually +performed by the persons who receive the remuneration, and which, under +the socialist scheme, would have to be performed--and in all probability +neither so well nor so cheaply--by salaried functionaries. + + +With these remarks, we may dismiss the specific charge of injustice +brought by socialists against the present order of things, and the +specific claim of right for the labouring class which they prefer. Let +us now submit their proposals to a more practical and decisive +test--will they or will they not realize the legitimate aspirations, the +ideal of the working class? Does socialism offer a better guarantee for +the realization of that ideal than the existing economy? I believe it +does not. What is the ideal of the working class? It may be said to be +that they shall share _pari passu_ in the progressive conquests of +civilization, and grow in comfort and refinement of life as other +classes of the community have done. Now this involves two things--first, +progress; second, diffusion of progress; and socialism is so intent on +the second that it fails to see how completely it would cut the springs +of the first. Some of its adherents do assert that production would be +increased and progress accelerated under a socialistic economy, but they +offer nothing in support of the assertion, and certainly our past +experience of human nature would lead us to expect precisely the +opposite result. The incentives and energy of production would be +relaxed. I have already spoken of the loss that would probably be +sustained in exchanging the interested zeal and keen eye of the +responsible capitalist employer for the perfunctory administration of a +State officer. A like loss would be suffered from lightening the +responsibility of the labourers and lessening their power of +acquisition. Under a socialist _régime_ they cannot by any merit acquire +more property than they enjoy in daily use, and they cannot by any fault +fail to possess that. Now socialist labourers are not supposed, any more +than socialist officials, to be angels from heaven; they are to carry on +the work of society with the ordinary human nature which we at present +possess; and in circumstances like those just described, unstirred +either by hope or fear, our ordinary human nature would undoubtedly take +its ease and bask contentedly in the kind providence of the State which +relieved it of all necessity for taking thought or pains. The inevitable +result would be a great diminution of production, which, with a rapidly +increasing population (and socialism generally scouts the idea of +restraining it), would soon prove seriously embarrassing, and could only +be obviated by a resort to the lash; in a word, by a return to +industrial slavery. Now, with a lessening production, progress is +clearly impossible, and the more evenly the produce was distributed, the +more certain would be the general decline. + +Socialists ignore the civilizing value of private property and +inheritance, because they think of property only as a means of immediate +enjoyment, and not as a means of progress and moral development. They +would allow private property only in what is sometimes termed consumers' +wealth. You might still own your clothes, or even purchase your house +and garden. But producers' wealth, they hold, should be common property, +and neither be owned nor inherited by individuals. If this theory were +to be enforced, it would be fatal to progress. Private property has all +along been a great factor in civilization, but the private property that +has been so has been much more producers' than consumers'. Consumers' +wealth is a limited instrument of enjoyment; producers' is a power of +immense capability in the hands of the competent. Socialists are really +more individualistic than their opponents in the view they take of the +function of property. They look upon it purely as a means for gratifying +the desires of individuals, and ignore the immense social value it +possesses as a nurse of the industrial virtues and an agency in the +progressive development of society from generation to generation. + +There is still another and even more important spring of progress that +would be stifled by socialism--freedom. Freedom is, of course, a direct +and integral element in any worthy human ideal, for it is an +indispensable condition for individual development, but here it comes +into consideration as an equally indispensable condition of social +progress. Political philosophers, like W. von Humboldt and J. S. Mill, +who have pled strongly for the widest possible extension of individual +freedom, have made their plea in the interests of society itself. They +looked on individuality as the living seed of progress; without +individuality no variation of type or differentiation of function would +be possible; and without freedom there could be no individuality. Under +a _régime_ of socialism freedom would be choked. Take, for example, a +point of great importance both for personal and for social development, +the choice of occupations. Socialism promises a free choice of +occupations; but that is vain, for the relative numbers that are now +required in any particular occupation are necessarily determined by the +demands of consumers for the particular commodity the occupation in +question sets itself to supply. Freedom of choice is, therefore, limited +at present by natural conditions, which cause no murmuring; but these +natural conditions would still exist under the socialist _régime_, and +yet they would perforce appear in the guise of legal and artificial +restrictions. It would be the choice of the State that would determine +who should enter the more desirable occupations, and not the choice of +the individuals themselves. The accepted would seem favourites; the +rejected would complain of tyranny and wrong. Selection could not be +made by competitive examination without treason against the principles +of a socialist state, nor by lot without a sacrifice of efficiency. The +same difficulties would attend the distribution of the fertile and the +poor soils. Even consumption would not escape State inquisition and +guidance, for an economy that pretended to do away with commercial +vicissitudes must take care that a change of fashion does not extinguish +a particular industry by superseding the articles it produces. Socialism +would introduce, indeed, the most vexatious and all-encompassing +absolutist government ever invented. It would impose on its central +executive functions that would require omniscience for their discharge, +and an authority so excessive that E. von Hartmann is probably right in +thinking that obedience could only be secured by fabricating for it the +illusion of a Divine origin and reinforcing loyalty by superstition. The +extensive centralized authority given to government in France has +undoubtedly been one of the main causes of the instability of the +political system of that State, and a socialist rule, with its vastly +greater prerogatives, could only maintain its ascendancy by being +fabulously hedged with the divinity of a Grand Lama. A military +despotism would be at least more consistent with modern conditions; but +a military despotism socialists abjure, and yet believe that they can +exact from free and equal citizens an almost animal submission to an +authority they elect themselves. + +Progress is only possible on the basis of industrial freedom and private +property; and in the socialist controversy there is no question about +the necessity of progress. That is an assumption common to both sides; +socialists of the present day acknowledge it as implicitly as the +general opinion of the time. They are no sharers in Mill's admiration +for the stationary state; they utterly ridicule his Malthusian horror of +a progressive population; and, profoundly impressed as they are with +the vital need for a better distribution of wealth, they hesitate to +sacrifice for it an increasing production. On the contrary, they claim +for their system that it would stimulate progress, as well as spread its +blessings, better than the system that exists, and Lassalle at all +events frankly declared that unless socialism increased production, it +would not be economically justifiable. But tried by this test, we have +seen reason to find it wanting. The problem to which it addresses +itself, the institution of a sound and healthy distribution of wealth, +is probably the greatest social problem of the time; but socialism fails +to solve it, because no distribution can be sound and healthy which +destroys the conditions of further progress. The true solution must +adhere to the lines of the present industrial system, the lines of +industrial freedom and private property. + +It is one thing, however, to say that the principles of industrial +freedom and private property are essential to a healthy distribution, +and it is quite another thing to hold that the distribution is then +healthiest and most perfect when these principles enjoy the most +absolute and unconditional operation. If socialism errs by suppressing +them, _laissez-faire_ runs into the opposite error of giving them +unlimited authority. _Laissez-faire_ is perhaps hardly any longer a +living faith. But even when men still believed in the economic +harmonies, they always taught that the best and justest distribution of +wealth was that which issued out of the free competition of individuals, +and that if this distribution ever turned out to be really faulty or +partial, it was only because the competition was not free or perfect +enough; because some of the competitors were not sufficiently +enlightened as compared with others, or not sufficiently mobile with +their labour or capital; in other words, because the competition was not +conducted on equal terms. This theory manifestly makes the justice of +the distribution effected by free competition to depend on the false +assumption of the natural equality of the competitors, and therefore as +manifestly implies that unless men are equal in talents and +opportunities, the system of unlimited freedom may produce a +distribution that is seriously unjust. _Laissez-faire_ thus had a germ +of socialism in its being, and even when its ascendancy seemed to be +highest, it was already being practically replaced by a larger and more +energetic theory of social politics which imposed on the State the duty +of correcting many of the evils of the present distribution of wealth, +and promoting, if not equality of all conditions, yet certainly +amelioration of the inferior conditions. Instead of maintaining equal +freedom for weak and strong, the State was to take the part of the weak +against the strong, in order to secure to all citizens a real +participation in progressive civilization. It is said truly enough that +the effect of such interferences is not to destroy liberty, but to +fulfil it, because, apart from them, the labour contract is no more a +free contract for labourers living from hand to mouth than the +capitulation of a beleaguered garrison when their provisions have run +down is a free capitulation, and the legal intervention is necessary in +order to make the men first really free. Legal freedom is no more an end +in itself than legal intervention; both are merely means of giving men +real freedom and enabling them effectually to work out their complete +and normal vocation as human beings. I shall treat more fully of the +true theory of social politics in a subsequent chapter on State +Socialism; but here, in connection with its relation to industrial +freedom, it will be enough to say that the restraints it proposes are +neither meant nor calculated to impair real freedom, and that it is +separated from socialism by its constant care to develop rather than +supersede individual responsibility, to facilitate the spread of private +property rather than suppress it, and to remove obstacles that are +making men's own efforts a nullity rather than to substitute for those +efforts the providence of the State. + + +If, then, there is any truth in these considerations--if the general +acquisition of private property, and not its universal abolition, is the +demand of the working-class ideal--then the business of social reform at +present ought to be to facilitate the acquisition of private property; +to multiply the opportunities of industrial investment open to the +labouring classes, and to devise means for credit, for saving, for +insurance, and the like. While, for reasons already explained, I have +been unable to agree with Mr. Cairnes' despondent view of the economic +position of the wage-paid labourers, I am entirely at one with him in +conceiving the surest means to their progressive amelioration to lie in +participation, by one means or another, in industrial capital. Much good +may be done by a wider extension of trade unions, and a better +organization of working class insurance; but the labourers must not rest +content till they have found their way, under the new conditions of +modern trade, to become capitalists as well as labourers. Co-operative +production seems the most obvious solution of this problem; but it is a +mischievous, though a common mistake, to regard it as the only solution. +The fortunes of the working class are not all embarked in one bottom, +and their salvation may be expected to fulfil itself in many ways. I +cannot share in the lamentation sometimes made because some of the +earlier productive associations have departed from the strict and +original form of co-operation, under which all the shareholders in the +business were labourers and all the labourers shareholders. In the +present situation of affairs, variety of experiment is desirable, for +only out of many various experiments can we eventually discover which +are most suitable to the conditions and fittest to survive. Co-operative +production would perhaps have been further advanced to-day, if +co-operators had not been so faithful in their idolatry of their +original ideal, and had fostered instead of discouraging variations of +type, which may yet justify their superiority by persisting and +multiplying. As it is, co-operative production has not been such a +complete failure as it is sometimes represented; it can show at least a +few very signal tokens of success and great promise. It is often +declared to be inapplicable to the great industries, because they +require more capital and better management than co-operative working men +are usually able to furnish. But in the town and neighbourhood of Oldham +there are 100 co-operative spinning mills, with a capital of close on +£8,000,000. They are managed entirely by working men, their capital is +contributed in £5 shares by working men, and they have during the last +ten years paid dividends varying from 10 to 45 per cent. These are +joint-stock companies rather than co-operative societies in the stricter +sense; but they are joint-stock companies of working men, and they +furnish to working men in an effective and successful way that +participation in the industrial capital of the country which is really +what is wanted. The Oldham workman prefers to hold shares in a different +mill from that he works in, because he feels himself more free to +exercise his voice as a shareholder there, and he prefers to carry his +labour to the mill where he gets the best wages and the best treatment, +without being obliged to change his investment when he changes his +workshop. The advantage of the Oldham system over the stricter +co-operative type is therefore the old advantage of freedom. It suits +the English character better, and the only wonder is why it is still, +after more than sixteen years' successful experience, confined +exclusively to a single locality. It has been stated that there are a +thousand operatives working at these mills who are worth £1000 to £2000, +and besides the mills, there are co-operative stores, building +societies, and other working-class companies in Oldham, with a combined +capital of £3,500,000. In all these ways the zone of participators in +property broadens, and hope and stimulus are introduced into the +labourer's life. The truth seems to be that the great need of the +working man is not so much money to invest as opportunity and motive for +investment. The amount lodged in savings banks, the amount raised by +trade unions, the amount wasted in drink, the amount wasted in +inefficient household economy, which might be much lessened by better +instruction in the arts of cookery and household management--all show +that large numbers of the working class possess means at their disposal +to constitute at least the beginnings of their emancipation, if good +opportunities were open to them of using it advantageously in productive +enterprise. Co-operation and profit-sharing are not the only means by +which this might be realized. Private firms might initiate a practice of +reserving a certain amount of their capital to constitute a kind of +stock for their workmen to invest their savings in, under--if that were +legalized--limited liability. One advantage of this plan over the +ordinary industrial partnership would be, that while, like it, it would +enhance the workmen's zeal in their work, it could not possibly have the +effect of reducing wages, because the stock would be a free investment, +and would probably not be taken up by all or by more than a majority of +the workmen. Again, with a reform of our land laws, small investments in +land will certainly be facilitated, especially among the agricultural +class. + +Socialists would no doubt condemn all such investments for the same +reason as they generally condemn the co-operative movement, because they +would tend to create "a new class with one foot in the camp of the +_bourgeoisie_ and the other in the camp of the proletariat." But that is +precisely one of their chief advantages, and in making this objection +socialists only betray how completely they ignore the operation of those +portions of human nature that are the real forces and factors of social +progress. It is only by linking a lower class to a higher that you can +raise the level of the whole, and every pathway the working class makes +into a comfortable equality with the lower _bourgeoisie_ will constitute +at once an opportunity and a spur for others to follow them, which will +exercise an elevating effect upon the entire body. If it were generally +open to all the labouring classes to begin by being wage-labourers and +end by sharing in some degree in the industrial capital of the country, +this would raise the level of the whole--of those who after all remained +wage-labourers still, as well as of those who succeeded in gaining a +better competency. It would give them all something to keep looking +forward to during their working life, something to save for and strive +after, and a higher standard of comfort would get diffused and +considered necessary in the class generally through the example of the +better off. For the more comfortably situated working men--whether they +have won their comfort by co-operation or otherwise--have not passed out +of their class. They have, as is alleged, one foot in the camp of the +proletariat still. They live and move and have their being among working +people, and constitute by their presence and social connections a +stimulating and elevating agency. It is through connections like these +that the ideas of comfort and culture that prevail among an upper class +permeate through to a lower, and thus elevate the general standard of +living upon which the level of wages so much depends. Even the minor +inequalities in the ranks of the working class are not without their use +in quickening their exertions to maintain the standard of respectability +which they have won or inherited. Economists were not wrong in ascribing +so much influence as they always have done to men's tenacity in adhering +to their customary standard of life. Many striking illustrations of its +beneficial operation might be mentioned. I select one, because it +concerns an aspect of the condition of the labouring classes of this +country that is at present attracting much attention--their house +accommodation. In all our large cities, the house accommodation of the +working class has hitherto been about as bad as bad could be, but there +is one singular exception--it is Sheffield. Porter drew attention to the +fact many years ago. "The town itself," he says, "is ill built and dirty +beyond the usual condition of English towns, but it is the custom for +each family among the labouring population to occupy a separate +dwelling, the rooms of which are furnished in a very comfortable manner. +The floors are carpeted, and the tables are usually of mahogany. Chests +of drawers of the same material are commonly seen, and so in many cases +is a clock also, the possession of which article of furniture has often +been pointed out as the certain indication of prosperity and of personal +responsibility on the part of the working man." ("Progress of the +Nation," p. 523.) The same condition of things still prevails, for at +the meeting of the British Association in Sheffield in 1879 Dr. Hime +read a paper on the vital statistics of the town, in which he +says:--"Although handsome public buildings are not a prominent feature +in the town, still there are few towns in England where the great bulk +of the population is so well provided for in the way of domestic +architecture. Overcrowding is very rare; cellar dwellings are unknown; +and almost every family has an entire house, a most important agent in +securing physical as well as moral health." (Transactions of British +Association, 1879.) Now this is a fact of the highest interest, and we +naturally ask what peculiarity there is in the trade or circumstances of +Sheffield, in the first place, to create such an exceptional excellence +in the standard of working class house accommodation, and, in the next +place, to maintain it. One thing is certain: it is not due to better +wages. There are trades in Sheffield very highly paid, but the labourers +belonging to them are described by the anonymous author of "An Inquiry +into the Moral, Social, and Intellectual Condition of the Industrious +Classes of Sheffield" (London, 1839), as being much less comfortable in +their circumstances than the others. This writer speaks of some trades +in which "the workmen are steady, intelligent, and orderly, seldom the +recipients of charity or parochial relief. They depend on their own +exertions for the respectable maintenance of their families, and when +trade is depressed they strive to live on diminished wages, or fall back +on resources secured by industry and economy. This healthy and vigorous +condition is not attributable to high wages. The workmen in the +edge-tool trade are extravagantly remunerated, and yet, as a body, they +are perhaps as irregular and dissipated in their habits as any in the +town. Their families, in time of good trade, feel few of the advantages +of prosperity, and when labour is little in demand, they are the first +to need the aid of charity. These differences are familiar to the most +superficial observer of the social and moral condition of the workmen in +the several branches" (p. 14). But the same writer mentions a +peculiarity in the trade of Sheffield which, he says, marks it off from +every other manufacturing town, and that peculiarity may serve to +provide us with the explanation we are seeking. "With us," he says, "the +distinctions between masters and men are not always well marked. Persons +are to a great extent both. The transition from the one to the other is +easy and frequent in those branches where the tools are few and simple, +and the capital required extremely small, which applies to the whole of +the cutlery department." "The facility with which men become masters +causes extraordinary competition, and its inevitable result, +insufficient remuneration." "Here merchants and manufacturers cannot +become princes.... There is not sufficient play for large fortunes. The +making of fortunes is with us a slow process. It is, however, far from +being partial.... The longer period required in the making of them +allows the mind time to adapt itself to its improved circumstances, not +merely the speculative and money-getting part of the understanding, but +the whole of its social, moral, and intellectual powers, without which +means are a questionable good. Wealth and intelligence are accordingly +with us more generally associated than in towns where immense fortunes +are rapidly made. In the latter case, there is no time for adaptation, +nor is it deemed necessary or at all important, where money is the +measure by which all things are estimated. Another evil dependent on +this sudden elevation in life is the great distance which is immediately +placed between employer and employed" (p. 15). Class and class are thus +better knit together in Sheffield than elsewhere. The exceptional +facility of becoming masters seems to be the particular instrumentality +which has brought down the ideas and habits of comfort of the +_bourgeoisie_ and spread them among the working class, and which has +always prevented the great mass of the latter from sinking contentedly +into a lower general standard of life. It introduced among them that +social ambition, which is the most effective spur to progress, and the +best preservative against decline. The fact that the exceptionally good +house accommodation which prevails among the labouring population of +Sheffield is not owing to exceptional, or even at all superior, wages, +is one of much hope and encouragement. What is possible in Sheffield +cannot be impossible elsewhere; and what is possible in the matter of +house accommodation cannot be hopeless in other branches of consumption. + +I shall be told that in all this I am only repeating the foolish idea of +the French princess, who heard the people complain they could not get +bread, and asked why then they did not buy cake. Where combinations are +possible, it will be said, investments may be also possible; but the +great majority of the working class are not in a position to combine, +and it is mere mockery to tell people to save and invest who can hardly +contrive to cover their backs. To this I reply, that there is no reason +to assume that trade unions have reached the utmost extension of which +they are susceptible, or to despair of their introduction into the +hitherto unorganized trades. It was only lately common to deny the +possibility of combination among agricultural labourers, and yet, +scattered as they are, they have shown themselves not only able to +combine, but to raise wages effectively by means of their combinations. +We have now very powerful unions of unskilled day labourers, and a +beginning has been made of an efficient organization even among +needlewomen. It is true that, even when organization has spoken its last +word, much of the distressing poverty that now exists would probably +still remain, because we must not disguise from ourselves the fact that +much of that poverty is the direct fruit of vice, disease, or indolence. +But socialism could not cope with this mass of misery any better than +the present system, for men don't drink and loaf and enter into +improvident marriages or illicit alliances because they happen to be +paid for their labour by contract with a capitalist instead of valuation +by a State officer, and they certainly would not cease doing any of +these things because an indulgent State undertook to save them from the +natural penalties of doing them. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[4] The proportion in England for 1857, according to official figures, +was 3½ times the number for one day, but whether that proportion +continues still we have no means of knowing. + +[5] Mr. Denny was led by subsequent experience to a much less favourable +view of the efficacy of piecework as an instrument of working-class +progress. He wrote me in June, 1886 (ten years after the publication of +the pamphlet I have quoted above) an interesting and valuable letter on +this subject, which is published in full in Dr. Bruce's biography of him +("Life of William Denny," p. 113). A larger experience of piecework, he +said, had convinced him that, excepting in cases where rates can be +fixed and made a matter of agreement between the whole body of the men +in any works and their employers, piecework prices have not a +self-regulating power, and are liable, under the pressure of +competition, to be depressed below what he would consider a proper +level. And this was chiefly, if not, indeed, exclusively, the case with +those lump jobs which were undertaken by little copartneries of workmen, +and afforded the occasions for practising co-operation from which he had +drawn the hopes I have mentioned above. He came to see that in all kinds +of work for which it was difficult to fix regular rates, the beneficial +operation of payment by the piece on wages was much more uncertain than +he previously supposed, except in the hands of a good master, who was +not an absentee. But for ordinary work, I think he still adhered to his +favourable opinion of the effect of the piece system in increasing the +worker's earnings. He said he had nothing to modify about the figures +adduced in his pamphlet, and I understood him to continue to count them +representative of the general operation of pieceworking. + +[6] More will be found on this subject in the chapter on "State +Socialism," under the sub-heading "State Socialism and State +Management." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +STATE SOCIALISM. + + +I. _State Socialism and English Economics._ + +State socialism has been described by M. Léon Say as a German philosophy +which was natural enough to a people with the political history and +habits of the Germans, but which, in his opinion, was ill calculated to +cross the French frontier, and was contrary to the very nature of the +Anglo-Saxons. Sovereign and trader may be incompatible occupations, as +Adam Smith asserts, but in Germany, at least, they have never seemed so. +There, Governments have always been accustomed to enter very +considerably into trade and manufactures, partly to provide the public +revenue, partly to supply deficiencies of private enterprise, and +partly, within more recent times, for reasons of a so-called "strategic" +order, connected with the defence or consolidation of the new Empire. +The German States possess, every one of them, more Crown lands and +forests, in proportion to their size, than any other countries in +Europe, some of them, indeed, being able to meet half their public +expenditure from this source alone; and besides their territorial +domain, most of them have an even more extensive industrial domain of +State mines, or State breweries, or State banks, or State foundries, or +State potteries, or State railways, and their rulers are still +projecting fresh conquests in the same direction by means of brandy and +tobacco monopolies. But in England things stand far otherwise. She has +sold off most of her Crown lands, and is slowly parting with, rather +than adding to, the remainder. She abolished State monopolies in the +days of the Stuarts, as instruments of political oppression, and she has +abandoned State bounties more recently as nurses of commercial +incompetency. She owes her whole industrial greatness, her +manufactures, her banks, her shipping, her railways, to some extent her +very colonial possessions, to the unassisted energy of her private +citizens. England has been reared on the principle of freedom, and could +never be brought, M. Say might not unreasonably conclude, to espouse the +opposite principle of State socialism, unless the national character +underwent a radical change. And yet, while he was still writing, he was +confounded to see signs, as he thought, of this alien philosophy +obtaining, not simply an asylum, but really an ascendancy in this +country. It appeared to M. Say to be striking every whit as strong a +root in our soil and climate as it had done in its native habitat, and +he is disposed to join in the alarm, then recently sounded at Edinburgh +by Mr. Goschen, that the soil and climate had changed, that the whole +policy, opinion, and feeling of the English people with respect to the +intervention of the public authority had undergone a revolution. + +Mr. Goschen had, in raising the alarm, shown some perplexity how far to +condemn the change and how far to praise it, but he was quite clear upon +its reality, and was possessed by a most anxious sense of its magnitude +and gravity. "We cannot," said he, "see universal State action enthroned +as a principle of government without misgiving." Mr. Herbert Spencer +took up the cry with more vehemence, declaring that the age of British +freedom was gone, and warning us to prepare for "the coming slavery." M. +de Laveleye, who is unquestionably one of the most careful and competent +foreign observers of our affairs, followed Mr. Spencer, and although, +being himself a State socialist, he welcomed this alleged new era as +much as Mr. Spencer deprecated it, he gave substantially the same +description of the facts; he said, England, once so jealous for liberty, +was now running ahead of all other nations on the career of State +socialism. And that seems to have become an established impression both +at home and abroad. The French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences +has devoted several successive sittings to the subject; the eminent +German economist, Professor Nasse, has discussed it--and with much +excellent discrimination--in an article on the decline of economic +individualism in England; and it is now the current assumption of the +journals and of popular conversation in this country, that a profound +change has come over the spirit of English politics in the course of the +present generation--a change from the old trust in liberty to a new +trust in State regulation, and from the French doctrine of +_laissez-faire_ to the German doctrine of State socialism. + +But this assumption, notwithstanding the currency it has obtained and +the distinguished authorities by whom it is supported, is in reality +exaggerated and undiscriminating. While marking the growing frequency of +Government interventions, it makes no attempt to distinguish between +interventions of one kind and interventions of another kind, and it +utterly fails to recognise that English opinion--whether exhibited in +legislative work or economic writings--was not dominated by the +principle of _laissez-faire_ in the past any more than in the present, +but that it really has all along obeyed a fairly well-defined positive +doctrine of social politics, which gave the State a considerable +concurrent _rôle_ in the social and industrial development of the +community. The increasing frequency of Government interventions is in +itself a simple and unavoidable concomitant of the growth of society. +With the rapid transformations of modern industrial life, the increase +and concentration of population, and the general spread of +enlightenment, we cannot expect to retain the political or legislative +inactivity of stationary ages. As Mr. Hearn remarks, "All the volumes of +the statutes, from their beginning under Henry III. to the close of the +reign of George II., do not equal the quantity of legislative work done +in a decade of any subsequent reign." ("Theory of Legal Duties and +Rights," p. 21.) The process has been continuous and progressive, and it +suffered no interruption in the period which is usually supposed to have +been peculiarly sacred to _laissez-faire_. On the contrary, that period +will be found to exceed the period that went before it in legislative +activity, exactly as it has in turn been itself exceeded by our own +time. On any theory of the State's functions, an increase in the number +of laws and regulations was inevitable; it was only part and portion of +the natural growth of things; but such an increase affords no evidence, +not even a presumption, of any change in the principles by which +legislation is governed, or in the purposes or functions for which the +power of the State is habitually invoked. A mere growth of work is not +a multiplication of functions; to get a result, we must first analyze +the work done and discriminate this from that. + +Now, in the first place, when compared with other nations, England has +been doing singularly little in the direction--the distinctively +socialistic direction--of multiplying State industries and enlarging the +public property in the means of production. Municipalities, indeed, have +widened their industrial domain considerably; it has become common for +them to take into their own hands things like the gas and water supply +of the community which would in any case be monopolies, and their +management, being exposed to an extremely effective local opinion, is +generally very advantageous. But while local authorities have done so +much, the central Government has held back. Many new industries have +come into being during the present reign, but we have nationalized none +of them except the telegraphs. We have added to the Post-Office the +departments of the Savings Bank and the Parcels Post; we have, for +purely military reasons, extended our national dockyards and arms +factories since the Crimean war, but without thereby enhancing national +confidence in Government management; we have, for diplomatic purposes, +bought shares in the Suez Canal; we have undertaken a few small jobs of +testing and stamping, such as the branding of herrings; but we are now +the only European nation that has no State railway; we have refrained +from nationalizing the telephones, though legally entitled to do so; and +we very rarely give subventions to private enterprises. This is much +less the effect of deliberate political conviction than the natural +fruit of the character and circumstances of the people, of their +powerful private resources and those habits of commercial association +which M. Chevalier speaks of with so much friendly envy, complaining +that his own countrymen could never be a great industrial nation because +they had no taste for acquiring them. In the English colonies, where +capital is more scarce, Government is required to do very much more; +most of them have State railways, and some--New Zealand, for +instance--State insurance offices for fire and life. These colonial +experiments will have great weight with the English public in settling +the problem of Government management under a democracy, and if they +prove successful, will undoubtedly influence opinion at home to follow +their example; but as things are at present, there is no appearance of +any great body of English opinion moving in that direction. + +But while England has lagged behind other nations in this particular +class of Government intervention, there is another class in which she +has undoubtedly run far before them all. If we have not been multiplying +State industries, we have been very active in extending and establishing +popular rights, by means of new laws, new administrative regulations, or +new systems of industrial police. In fact, the greater part of our +recent social legislation has been of this order, and it is of that +legislation M. de Laveleye is thinking when he says England is taking +the lead of the nations in the career of State socialism. But that is +nothing new; if we are in advance of other nations in establishing +popular rights to-day, we have been in advance of them in that work for +centuries already. That peculiarity also has its roots in our national +history and character, and is no upstart fashion of the hour. Now, +without raising the question whether the rights which our recent social +legislation has seen fit to establish, are in all cases and respects +rights that ought to have been established, it is sufficient for our +present purpose to observe that at least this is obviously a very +different class of intervention from the last, because if it does not +belong to, it is certainly closely allied with, those primary duties +which are everywhere included among the necessary functions of all +government, the protection of the citizen from force and fraud. To +protect a right, you must first establish it; you must first recognise +it, define its scope, and invest it with the sanction of authority. With +the progress of society fresh perils emerge and fresh protections must +be devised; the old legal right needs to be reconstructed to meet the +new situation, or a new right must be created hitherto unknown perhaps, +unless by analogy, to the law. But even here the novelty lies, not in +the principle--for all right is a protection of the weak, or ought to be +so--but in the situation alone; in the rise of the factory system, which +called for the Factory Acts; in the growth of large towns, which called +for Health and Dwellings Acts; in the extension of joint-stock +companies, which called for the Limited Liability Acts; in the monopoly +of railway transportation, which called for the regulation of rates; or +in the spread of scientific agriculture, which required the constitution +of a new sort of property, the property of a tenant-farmer in his own +unexhausted improvements. + +This peculiarity of the industrial and social legislation of England has +not escaped the acute intelligence of Mr. Goschen. Mistrustful as he is +of Government intervention, Mr. Goschen observes with satisfaction that +the great majority of recent Government interventions in England have +been undertaken for moral rather than economic ends. After quoting Mr. +Thorold Rogers' remark, that these interventions generally had the good +economic aim of preventing the waste of national resources, he says: +"But I believe that certainly in the case of the Factory Acts, and to a +great extent in the case of the Education Acts, it was a moral rather +than an economic influence--the conscientious feeling of what was right +rather than the intellectual feeling of ultimate material gain--it was +the public imagination touched by obligations of our higher +nature--which supplied the tremendous motive-power for passing laws +which put the State and its inspectors in the place of father or mother +as guardians of a child's education, labour, and health." ("Addresses," +p. 62.) + +The State interfered not because the child had a certain capital value +as an instrument of future production which it would be imprudent to +lose, but because the child had certain rights--certain broad moral +claims--as a human being which the parents' natural authority must not +be suffered to violate or endanger, and which the State, as the supreme +protector of all rights, really lay under a simple moral obligation to +secure. Reforms of this character are naturally inspired by moral +influences, by sentiments of justice or of humanity, by a feeling that +wrong is being done to a class of the community who are placed in a +situation of comparative weakness, inasmuch as they are +deprived--whether through the force of circumstances or the selfish +neglect of their superiors--of what public opinion recognises to be +essential conditions of normal human existence. Now, most of the +legislation which has led Mr. Goschen to declare that universal State +action is now enthroned in England has belonged to this order. It has +been guided by ethical and not by economic considerations. It has been +employed mainly in readjusting rights, in establishing fresh securities +for just dealing and humane living; but it has been very chary of +following Continental countries in nationalizing industries. When +therefore Mr. Spencer tells M. de Laveleye that the reason why England +is extending the functions of her Government so much more than other +nations "is obviously because there is great scope for the further +extension of them here, while abroad there is little scope for the +further extension of them," his explanation is singularly inappropriate. +England has not been extending the functions of Government all round, +but she has moved in the direction where she had less scope to move, and +has stood still in the direction where she had more scope to move than +other countries. And it is important to keep this distinction in mind +when we hear it so often stated in too general terms that we have +discarded our old belief in individual liberty and set up "universal +State action" in its place. + +But those who complain of England having broken off from her old +moorings, not only exaggerate her leanings to authority in the present, +but they also ignore her concessions to authority in the past. English +statesmen and economists have never entertained the rigid aversion to +Government interference that is vulgarly attributed to them, but with +all their profound belief in individual liberty they have always +reserved for the Government a concurrent sphere of social and economic +activity--what may even be designated a specific social and economic +mission. A few words may be usefully devoted to this English doctrine of +social politics here, not merely because they may serve to dispel a +prevailing error, but because they will furnish a good vantage-ground +for seizing and judging of a principle of government which is to-day in +every mouth, but unfortunately bears in every mouth a different +meaning--the principle of State socialism. + +It is commonly believed that the English doctrine of social politics is +the doctrine of _laissez-faire_, and our economists are continually +reviled as if they sought to leave the world to the play of +self-interest and competition, unchecked by any ideas of social justice +or individual human right. But in truth the doctrine of _laissez-faire_ +has never been held by any English thinker, unless, perhaps, Mr. Herbert +Spencer. Mr. Spencer's first work, "Social Statics," was an exposition +of the theory that the end of all government was the liberty of the +individual, the realization for every citizen of the greatest amount of +liberty it was possible for him to enjoy without interfering with the +corresponding claims of his fellow-citizens. The individual had only one +right--the right to equal freedom with everybody else, and the State had +only one duty--the duty of protecting that right against violence and +fraud. It could not stir beyond that task without treading on the right +of some one, and therefore it ought not to stir at all. It had nothing +to do with health, or religion, or morals, or education, or relief of +distress, or public convenience of any sort, except to leave them +sternly alone. It must, of course, renounce the thought of bounties and +protective duties, but it must also give up marking plate, minting coin, +and stamping butter; it must take no part in building harbours or +lighthouses or roads or canals; and even a town council cannot without +offence undertake to pave or clean or light the streets under its +jurisdiction. It is only fair to say that Mr. Spencer refuses to be +bound now by every detail of his youthful theory, but he has repeated +the substance of it in his recent work, "The Man _versus_ The State," +which is written to prove that the only thing we want from the State is +protection, and that the protection we want most of late is protection +against our protector. + +This theory is certainly about as extreme a development of individualism +as could well be entertained; and though it has been even distanced in +one or two points by Wilhelm von Humboldt--who objected, for example, to +marriage laws[7]--no important English writer has ventured near it. The +description of the State's business as the business of protecting the +citizens from force and fraud, has indeed been familiar in our +literature since the days of Locke, and isolated passages may be cited +from the works of various political thinkers, which, if taken by +themselves, would seem to deny to the State any right to act except for +purposes of self-protection. John Stuart Mill himself speaks sometimes +in that way, although we know, from the chapter he devotes to the +subject of Government interference in his "Principles of Political +Economy," that he really assigned to the State much wider functions. +When we examine the writings of English economists and statesmen, and +the principles they employ in the discussion of the social and +industrial questions of their time, it seems truly strange how they ever +came to be credited with any scruple on ground of principle to invoke +the power of the State for the solution of such questions when that +seemed to them likely to prove of effectual assistance. + +The social doctrine which has prevailed in England for the last century +is "the simple and obvious system of natural liberty" taught by Adam +Smith; but the simple and obvious system of natural liberty is a very +different thing from the system of _laissez-faire_ with which it is so +commonly confounded. Its main principle, it is true, is this: "Every +man," says Smith, "as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, +is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to +bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any +other man or order of men. The Sovereign is completely discharged from a +duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to +innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human +wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient: the duty of superintending +the industry of private people and of directing it towards the +employments most suitable to the interests of the society." ("Wealth of +Nations," book iv., chap. ix.) But while the Sovereign is discharged +from an industrial duty which he is incapable of performing +satisfactorily, he is far from being discharged from all industrial +responsibility whatsoever, for Smith immediately proceeds to map out the +limits of his functions as follows: "According to the system of natural +liberty, the Sovereign has only three duties to attend to--three duties +of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common +understandings: first, the duty of protecting the society from the +violence or invasion of other independent societies; second, the duty of +protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the +injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of +establishing an exact administration of justice; and thirdly, the duty +of erecting and maintaining certain works and certain public +institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual or +small number of individuals to erect and maintain; because the profit +could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of +individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a +great society." + +The State is required to protect us from other evils besides the evils +of force and fraud--infectious diseases, for example, are in the context +mentioned expressly--and to supply us with many other advantages besides +the advantage of protection. Some of these advantages are of a material +or economic order, and others of an intellectual or moral. The material +advantages consist for the most part of provisions for facilitating the +general commerce of the country--such things as roads, canals, harbours, +the post, the mint--or provisions for facilitating particular branches +of commerce; and among these he instances the incorporation of +joint-stock companies endowed by charter with exclusive trading +privileges; and the reason which, according to Smith, entitles the State +to intervene in this class of cases, and which at the same time +prescribes the length to which its intervention may legitimately go, is +that individuals are unable to do the work satisfactorily themselves, or +that the State has from its nature superior qualifications for the task. +The intellectual or moral advantages which Smith asks from the State are +mostly provisions for sustaining the national manhood and character, +such as a system of compulsory military training or a system of +compulsory--and if not gratuitous, still cheap--education; and it is +important to mark that he asks for these measures, not on the ground of +their political or military expediency, but on the broad ground that +cowardice and ignorance are in themselves public evils, from which the +State is as much bound, if it can, to save the people, as it is bound to +save them from violence or fraud. Of military training he observes: "To +prevent that sort of mental mutilation, deformity, and wretchedness +which cowardice necessarily involves in it from spreading themselves +through the great body of the people, would deserve the serious +attention of Government, in the same manner as it would deserve its most +serious attention to prevent a leprosy or any other loathsome and +offensive disease, though neither mortal nor dangerous, from spreading +itself among them, though perhaps no other public good might result from +such attention besides the prevention of so great a public evil." +("Wealth of Nations," book v., chap. i.) And he proceeds to speak of +education: "The same thing may be said of the gross ignorance and +stupidity which in a civilized society seems so frequently to benumb the +understanding of all the inferior ranks of people. A man without the +proper use of the intellectual faculties of a man is, if possible, more +contemptible than even a coward, and seems to be mutilated and deformed +in a still more essential part of the character of human nature. Though +the State was to derive no advantage from the instruction of the +inferior ranks of people, it would still deserve its attention that they +should not be altogether uninstructed." Compulsory military training and +a system of national education would no doubt be conducive to the +stricter ends of all government; the one would strengthen the defences +of the nation against foreign enemies and the other would tend to the +diminution of crime at home; but Smith, it will be seen, explicitly +refuses to take that ground. The State's duty in the case would be the +same, though no such results were to follow, for the State has other +duties to perform besides the maintenance of peace and the repression of +crime. It would probably be admitted, he thinks, that it was as +incumbent on the State to take steps to arrest the progress of a "mortal +and dangerous" disease as it was to stop a foreign invasion; but he goes +further, and contends that it was equally incumbent on the State to +arrest the progress of a merely "loathsome and offensive" disease, for +the simple reason that such a disease was a mutilation or deformity of +our physical manhood. And just as the State ought to prevent the +mutilation and deformity of our physical manhood, so the State ought to +prevent the mutilation and deformity of our moral and intellectual +manhood, and was bound accordingly to provide a system of military +training and a system of popular education, to prevent people growing up +ignorant and cowardly, because the ignorant man and the coward were men +without the proper use of the faculties of a man, and were mutilated and +deformed in essential parts of the character of human nature. At bottom +Smith's principle is this--that men have an original claim--a claim as +original as the claim to safety of life and property--to all the +essential conditions of an unmutilated and undeformed manhood, and that +is really only another expression for the principle that lies at the +foundation of all civil and human right, that men have a right to the +essential conditions of a normal humanity, to the presuppositions of all +humane living, to the indispensable securities for the proper +realization of our common vocation as human beings. The right to +personal liberty--to the power of working for ends of our own +prescribing, and the right to property--to the power of retaining what +we have made, to be the instrument of further activities for the ends we +have prescribed for ourselves--rest really on no other ground than that +the privileges claimed are essential conditions of a normal, an +unmutilated and undeformed manhood, and it is on this broad ground that +Adam Smith justifies the State's intervention to stop disease and supply +education. + +Smith held but a poor opinion of the capacities of Government +management, and especially of English Government management, which, he +asserted, was characterized in times of peace by "the slothful and +negligent profusion that was natural to monarchies," and in times of war +by "all the thoughtless extravagance" that was peculiar to democracies; +but nevertheless he had no hesitation in asking Government to undertake +a considerable number of industrial enterprises, because he believed +that these were enterprises which Government with all its faults was +better fitted to conduct successfully than private adventurers were. On +the other hand, Smith entertained the highest possible belief in +individual liberty, but he had never any scruple about sacrificing +liberty of contract where the sacrifice was demanded by the great moral +end of Government--the maintenance of just and humane dealing between +man and man. For example, the suppression of the truck system, which is +sometimes condemned as an undue interference with freedom of contract, +was strongly supported by Smith, who declared it to be "quite just and +equitable," inasmuch as it merely secured to the workmen the pay they +were entitled to receive and "imposed no real hardship on the +masters--it only obliged them to pay that value in money which they +pretended to pay, but did not really pay, in goods." It was only a just +and necessary protection of the weaker party to a contract against an +oppressive exaction to which, like the apothecary in "Romeo and Juliet," +his poverty might have consented, but not his will. Precisely analogous +is Smith's position concerning usury laws. Usury laws are seldom +defended now; for one thing, money has become so abundant that the +competition of lender with lender may be trusted to as a better security +for fair and reasonable treatment of borrowers than a Government +enactment could provide. But Smith in his day was strongly in favour of +fixing a legal rate of interest, because he thought it was necessary to +prevent the practice of extortion by unscrupulous dealers on necessitous +clients. His views on truck and usury show that he had no sympathy with +those who contend that the State must on no account interfere with +grown-up people in the bargains they may make, inasmuch as grown-up +people may be expected to be quite capable of looking effectively after +their own interest. Smith recognised that grown-up people were often in +natural circumstances where it was practically impossible for them to +assert effectively not their interests merely, but even their essential +claims as fellow-citizens; and that therefore it was the State's duty to +come to the aid of those whose own economic position was weak, and to +force upon the strong certain responsibilities--or at least secure for +the weak certain broad, positive conditions--which just and humane +dealing might demand. + +Now, in these ideas about truck and usury, as in the proposals +previously touched upon for checking the growth of disease or cowardice +or ignorance, is not the principle of social politics that is applied by +Smith precisely the principle that runs through our whole recent social +legislation--factory, sanitary, and educational--the principle of the +State's obligation to secure the people in the essential conditions of +all normal manhood? German writers often take Smith for an exponent, if +not for the founder, of what they call the _Rechtstaat_ theory--the +theory that the State is mainly the protector of right; but in reality +Smith's doctrine corresponded pretty closely with their own +_Kultur-und-Wohlfahrtstaat_ theory--the theory that the State is a +promoter of culture and welfare; and if further proof were wanted, it +might be found in the fact that in his doctrine of taxation he departs +altogether from the economic principle, which is popularly associated +with the _Rechtstaat_ idea, and is supposed to be a corollary of it, +that a tax is a _quid pro quo_, a price paid for a service rendered, and +ought therefore to be imposed on individuals in proportion to the +service they respectively receive from the State; and instead of this +economic principle he lays down the broad ethical one, that a tax is a +public obligation which individuals ought to be called upon to discharge +in proportion to their respective abilities. The rich cannot fairly be +said to _get_ more good from the State than the poor; they probably get +less, because they are better capable of providing for their own +defence; but the rich are able to _do_ more good to the State than the +poor, and because they are able, they are bound. + +Such is the social doctrine of Adam Smith, and it is manifestly no +doctrine of rigid individualism, calling out for freedom at any price, +or banning all interference with the natural play of self-interest and +competition. The natural liberty for which the great English economist +contended was not the mere ghost of liberty worshipped by Mr. Spencer. +An ignorant man might be free, as an imprisoned man was free, within +limits, but he was not free within normal human limits. He had not the +use of his mind; he was wanting in an essential part of his manhood. +First make him a man--a whole, complete, competent man, fit for man's +vocation--then make him free. There is a common metaphysical distinction +between the formal freedom of the will and the material freedom of the +will. The drunkard, the lunatic, is formally free, for he exerts his +choice, but he is materially enslaved. The difference between liberty +according to Mr. Spencer and liberty according to Adam Smith is +something analogous. The liberty Smith desires is a substantial liberty; +it is clothed with a body--a definite body of universal human +rights--which the State is bound to realize as it would realize liberty +itself. The reason of his difference from the _laissez-faire_ theory of +Mr. Spencer, which is so often erroneously attributed to him, is that he +takes a much broader and more practical view of the original moral +rights of individuals than such ultra-individualists are accustomed to +do. While they hold that the State is there only to secure to +individuals reality and equality of freedom, he holds it is there to +secure them reality and equality of all moral rights. He would supply +all alike, therefore, with certain material securities--the material +conditions necessary to secure their moral rights with equal +completeness,--and he would protect them in the enjoyment of those +conditions against the assaults of poverty and misfortune no less than +the assaults of murderers and thieves. But beyond this line he would +refuse to go; if he stands clearly out in advance of the _laissez-faire_ +position of equality of legal freedom, he stands equally clearly far +short of the socialistic position of equality of material conditions. + +Now this doctrine of the great founder of English political economy has +been substantially the doctrine of his successors as well. It would be +beyond my present scope to trace the history of the doctrine of social +politics through the writings of the whole succession of English +economists, nor is it necessary. I shall choose a representative +economist from the group who are generally reckoned the most narrow and +unsympathetic, who are accused of having shifted political economy off +the broader lines on which it had been launched by Smith, who are +counted the great idolaters of self-interest and natural law, and the +scientific associates of the much-abused Manchester school--viz., the +disciples of Ricardo. Ricardo himself touches only incidentally on the +functions of the State, but he then does so to defend interventions, +such as minting money, marking plate, testing drugs, examining medical +candidates, and the like, which are meant to guard people against +deceptions they are themselves incompetent to detect. Moreover, he was +a strong advocate for at least one important extension of the State's +industrial _rôle_--he would establish a National Bank of issue with +exclusive privileges; and it is not uninteresting to remember that in +his place in Parliament he brought forward the suggestion of a system of +Government annuities for the accommodation of working men, which was +introduced by Mr. Gladstone half a century later, and has been denounced +in certain quarters as that statesman's first step in socialism, and +that he was one of a very small minority who voted for a Parliamentary +inquiry into the social system of Robert Owen. + +But if Ricardo is comparatively silent on the subject, we fortunately +possess a very ample discussion of it by one of his leading disciples, +J. E. McCulloch. When Ricardo died, James Mill wrote to McCulloch, "As +you and I are his two and only genuine disciples, his memory must be a +point of connection between us;" and it was on McCulloch that the mantle +of the master descended. His "Principles of Political Economy," which +may be said to be an exposition of the system of economics according to +Ricardo, was for many years the principal textbook of the science, and +will still be admitted to be the best and most complete statement of +what, in the cant of the present day, is called orthodox political +economy. McCulloch, indeed, is more than merely the expositor of that +system; he is really one of its founders, the author of one of its most +famous dogmas, at least in its current form, the now exploded doctrine +of the Wages fund; and of all the adherents of this orthodox tradition, +McCulloch is commonly considered the hardest and most narrow. There are +economists who are supposed to show a native generous warmth which all +the severities of their science are unable to quell. John Stuart Mill is +known to have come under St. Simonian influences in his younger days, +and to have been fond ever afterwards of calling himself a socialist; +and Professor Sidgwick, in our own day, is often credited--and not +unjustly--with a like breadth of heart, and in publishing his views of +Government interference, he gives them the name of "Economic Socialism." +But in selecting McCulloch, I select an economist the rigour of whose +principles has never been suspected, and yet so striking is the +uniformity of the English tradition on this subject, that in reality +neither Mill nor Mr. Sidgwick professes a broader doctrine of social +politics, or goes a step further, or more heartily on the road to +socialism than that accredited champion of individualism, John Ramsay +McCulloch. + +McCulloch's "Principles" contains--from the second edition in 1830 +onward to the last author's edition in 1849--a special chapter on the +limits of Government interference; and the chapter starts with an +explicit repudiation of the doctrine of _laissez-faire_, which was then +apparently only beginning to come into vogue in England. + +"An idea," says McCulloch, "seems however to have been recently gaining +ground that the duty of the Government with regard to the domestic +policy of the country is almost entirely of a negative kind, and that it +has merely to maintain the security of property and the freedom of +industry. But its duty is by no means so simple and easily defined as +those who support this opinion would have us to believe. It is certainly +true that its interference with the pursuits of individuals has been, in +very many instances, exerted in a wrong direction, and carried to a +ruinous excess. Still, however, it is easy to see that we should fall +into a very great error if we supposed that it might be entirely +dispensed with. Freedom is not, as some appear to think, the end of +government; the advancement of the public prosperity and happiness is +its end; and freedom is valuable in so far only as it contributes to +bring it about. In laying it down, for example, that individuals should +be permitted, without let or hindrance, to engage in any business or +profession they may prefer, the condition that it is not injurious to +others is always understood. No one doubts the propriety of a Government +interfering to suppress what is or might otherwise become a public +nuisance; nor does any one doubt that it may advantageously interfere to +give facilities to commerce by negotiating treaties with foreign powers, +and by removing such obstacles as cannot be removed by individuals. But +the interference of Government cannot be limited to cases of this sort. +However disinclined, it is obliged to interfere in an infinite variety +of ways and for an infinite variety of purposes. It must, to notice +only one or two of the _classes_ of objects requiring its interference, +decide as to the species of contract to which it will lend its sanction, +and the means to be adopted to enforce true performance; it must decide +in regard to the distribution of the property of those who die +intestate, and the effect to be given to the directions in wills and +testaments; and it must frequently engage itself, or authorize +individuals or associations to engage, in various sorts of undertakings +deeply affecting the rights and interests of others and of society. The +furnishing of elementary instruction in the ordinary branches of +education for all classes of persons and the establishment of a +compulsory provision for the support of the destitute poor are generally +also included, and apparently with the greatest propriety, among the +duties incumbent on administration" (p. 262). + +He allows State ownership and State management of industrial works, +wherever State ownership and management are more efficient for the +purpose than private enterprise--in other words, where they are more +economical--as in the cases of the coinage, roads, harbours, postal +communication, etc. He would expropriate land for railway purposes, +grant a monopoly to the railway company, and then subject it to +Government control in the public interest; he would impose many sorts of +restrictions on freedom of contract, freedom of industry, freedom of +trade, freedom of property, and freedom of bequest; and, what is more +important, he recognises clearly that with the growth of society fresh +interferences of a serious character will be constantly called for, +which may in some cases involve the application of entirely new +principles, or throw on the Government work of an entirely new +character. + +For example, he is profoundly impressed with the dangers of the +manufacturing system, which he saw growing and multiplying all around +him, and so far from dreaming that the course of industry should remain +uncontrolled, he even ventures, in a remarkable passage, to express the +doubt whether it may not "in the end be found that it was unwise to +allow the manufacturing system to gain so great an ascendancy as it has +done in this country, and that measures should have been early adopted +to check and moderate its growth" (p. 191). He admits that a decisive +answer to this question could only be given by the economists of a +future generation, after a longer experience of the system than was +possible when he wrote, but he cannot conceal the gravest apprehension +at the preponderance which manufactures were rapidly gaining in our +industrial economy. And his reasons are worthy of attention. The first +is the destruction of the old moral ties that knit masters and men +together. + +"But we doubt whether any country, how wealthy soever, should be looked +upon as in a healthy, sound state, where the leading interest consists +of a small number of great capitalists, and of vast numbers of +workpeople in their employment, but unconnected with them by any ties of +gratitude, sympathy, or affection. This estrangement is occasioned by +the great scale on which labour is now carried on in most businesses; +and by the consequent impossibility of the masters becoming acquainted, +even if they desired it, with the great bulk of their workpeople.... The +kindlier feelings have no share in an intercourse of this sort; speaking +generally, everything is regulated on both sides by the narrowest and +most selfish views and considerations; a man and a machine being treated +with about the same sympathy and regard" (p. 193). + +The second reason is the suppression of the facilities of advancement +enjoyed by labourers under the previous _régime_. "Owing to the greater +scale on which employments are now mostly carried on, workmen have less +chance than formerly of advancing themselves or their families to any +higher situation, or of exchanging the character of labourers for that +of masters" (p. 188). For the majority of the working-class to be thus, +as he expresses it, "condemned as it were to perpetual helotism," is not +conducive to the health of a nation. The third reason is the comparative +instability of manufacturing business. It becomes a matter of the most +serious concern for a State, "when a very large proportion of the +population has been, through their agency, rendered dependent on foreign +demand, and on the caprices and mutations of fashion" (p. 192). That +also is a state of things fraught with danger to the health of a +community. McCulloch always treats political economy as if he defined +it--and the definition would be better than his own--as the science of +the working of industrial society in health and disease; and he always +throws on the State a considerable responsibility in the business of +social hygiene; going so far, we have seen in the passages just quoted, +as to suggest whether a legal check ought not to have been imposed on +the free growth of the factory system, on account of its bad effects on +the economic position of the labouring class. We had suffered the system +to advance too far to impose that check now, but there were other +measures which, in his opinion, the Legislature might judiciously take +in the same interest. It is of course impossible, by Act of Parliament, +to infuse higher views of duty or warmer feelings of ordinary human +regard into the relations between manufacturers and their workmen; but +the State might, according to McCulloch, do something to mitigate the +modern plague of commercial crises, by a policy of free trade, by +adopting a sound monetary system, by securing a continuance of peace, +and by "such a scheme of public charity as might fully relieve the +distresses without insulting the feelings or lessening the industry of +the labouring classes" (p. 192). + +As with commercial crises, so with other features of the modern +industrial system; wherever they tend to the deterioration of the +labouring class, McCulloch always holds the State bound to intervene, if +it can, to prevent such a result. He would stop the immigration of what +is sometimes called pauper labour--of bodies of workpeople brought up in +an inferior standard of life--because their example and their +competition tend to pull down the native population to their own level. +The example he chooses is not the Jewish element in the East End of +London, but the much more important case of the Irish immigration into +Liverpool and Glasgow; and while he would prefer to see Government +taking steps to improve the Irish people in Ireland itself, he declares +that, if that is not practicable, then "justice to our own people +requires that measures should be adopted to hinder Great Britain from +being overrun with the outpourings of this _officina pauperum_, to +hinder Ireland from dragging us down to the same hopeless abyss of +pauperism and wretchedness in which she is sunk" (p. 422). This policy +may be wise, or it may not, but it shows very plainly--what appears so +often in his writings--how deeply McCulloch's mind was penetrated with +the conviction that one of the greatest of all the dangers from which +the State ought to do what it well can to preserve the people, was the +danger of falling to a lower standard of tastes and requirements, and +thereby losing ambition and industry, and the very possibility of rising +again. + +"This lowering of the opinions of the labouring class with respect to +the mode in which they should live is perhaps the most serious of all +the evils that can befall them.... The example of such individuals or +bodies of individuals as submit quietly to have their wages reduced, and +who are content if they get only mere necessaries, should never be held +up for public imitation. On the contrary, everything should be done to +make such apathy be esteemed discreditable. The best interests of +society require that the rate of wages should be elevated as high as +possible--that a taste for comforts and enjoyments should be widely +diffused, and, if possible, interwoven with national habits and +prejudices. Very low wages, by rendering it impossible for increased +exertions to obtain any considerable increase of advantages, effectually +hinder them from being made, and are of all others the most powerful +cause of that idleness and apathy that contents itself with what can +barely continue animal existence" (p. 415). + +And he goes on to refute the idea of Benjamin Franklin, that high wages +breed indolent and dissipated habits, and to contend that they not only +improve the character and efficiency of the labourer, but are in the end +a source of gain, instead of loss, to the employer. But, although the +maintenance of a high rate of wages is so great an object of public +solicitude, it was an object which it was, in McCulloch's judgment, +outside the State's province, simply because it was outside its power, +to do anything directly to promote, because while authority could fix a +price for labour, it could never compel employers to engage labour at +that price; and consequently its interference in such a way would only +end in injury to the class it sought to befriend, as well as to the +trade of the country in general. Still, McCulloch is far from wishing to +repel the State's offices or the offices of public opinion in +connection with the business altogether. In the passage just quoted he +expressly makes an appeal to public opinion for an active interference +in a direction where, he believes, its interference might be useful; and +as for the action of the State, he approves, for one thing, of the +legalization of trades unions, and, for another, of the special +instruction of the public, at the national expense, in the principles on +which a high rate of wages depend. + +In regard to the Factory Acts, while he would have the hours of labour +in the case of grown-up men settled by the parties themselves, because +he thought them the only persons competent to settle them +satisfactorily, he strongly supported the interference of the +Legislature, on grounds of ordinary humanity, to limit the working day +of children and women, because "the former are naturally, and the latter +have been rendered, through custom and the institutions of society, +unable to protect themselves" (p. 426); and he seconded all Lord +Shaftesbury's labours down to the Ten Hours Act of 1847, to which he +objected on the ground that it involved a practical interference with +all adult factory labour. On the other hand, he was in favour of the +principle of employers' liability for accidents in mines and workshops, +because there seemed no other way of saving the labourers from their own +carelessness, except by making the masters responsible for the +enforcement of the necessary regulations (p. 307). + +But McCulloch's general position on this class of questions is still +better exemplified in the view he takes of the State's duty on a matter +of great present interest, the housing of the poor. Here he has no +hesitation in throwing the principal blame for the bad accommodation of +the working-classes of that day, for the underground cellar dwellings of +Liverpool and Manchester, the overcrowded lodging-houses of London, and +the streets of cottages unsupplied with water or drainage, on "the +culpable inattention of the authorities." Mr. Goschen vindicates the +legitimacy of Government interference with the housing of the people, on +the ground that it is the business of Government to see justice done +between man and man. When a man hired a house, Government had a right to +see that he got a house, and a house meant a dwelling fit for human +habitation. The inspection of houses is, according to this idea, only a +case of necessary protection against fraud, like the institution of +medical examinations, the assaying of metals, or the testing of drugs; +and protection against fraud is admitted everywhere to be the proper +business of Government. McCulloch bases his justification of the +intervention on much broader grounds. Government needs no other warrant +for condemning a house that is unfit for human habitation but the simple +fact that the house is unfit for human habitation, and it makes no +difference whether the tenant is cheated into taking the bad house, or +takes it openly because he prefers it. In fact, the strongest reason, in +McCulloch's opinion, for invoking Government interference in the case at +all, is precisely the circumstance that so many people actually prefer +unwholesome houses from motives of economy. + +"Such cottages," he says, "being cheap, are always sure to find +occupiers. Nothing, however, can be more obvious than that it is the +duty of Government to take measures for the prevention and repair of an +abuse of this sort. Its injurious influence is not confined to the +occupiers of the houses referred to, though if it were, that would be no +good reason for declining to introduce a better system. But the diseases +engendered in these unhealthy abodes frequently extend their ravages +through all classes of the community, so that the best interests of the +middle and higher orders, as well as of the lowest, are involved in this +question. And, on the same principle that we adopt measures to guard +against the plague, we should endeavour to secure ourselves against +typhus, and against the brutalizing influence, over any considerable +portion of the population, of a residence amid filth and disease" (p. +308). + +The last clause is remarkable. The State is required to protect the +people from degrading influences, to prevent them from being brutalized +through the avarice or apathy of others, and to prevent them being +brutalized through the avarice or apathy of themselves. It is not what +many persons would expect, but here we have political economy, and the +most "orthodox" political economy, forcing people to go to a dearer +market for their houses, in order to satisfy a sentiment of humanity, +and imposing on the State a social mission of a broad positive +character--the mission of extirpating brutalizing influences. Yet, +expected or not, this is really the ordinary tradition of English +economists--it is the principle laid down by Smith of obliging the State +to secure for the people an unmutilated and undeformed manhood, to +provide for them by public means the fundamental conditions of a humane +existence. + +McCulloch's position comes out more clearly still in the reasons he +gives for advocating a compulsory provision for the able-bodied poor, +and a national system of popular education. With regard to the impotent +poor, he is content with saying that it would be inhumanity to deny them +support, and injustice to throw their support exclusively on the +benevolent. A poor-rate is sometimes defended on what are professed to +be strictly economical grounds, by showing that it is both less +mischievous and less expensive than mendicity; but what strikes +McCulloch is not so much the wastefulness of private charity in the +hands of the benevolent as the injustice of suffering the avaricious to +escape their natural obligations. Few, however, have much difficulty in +finding one good reason or another for making a public provision for the +impotent poor; the crux of the question of public assistance is the case +of the able-bodied poor. A provision for the able-bodied poor is +practically a recognition in a particular form of "the right to labour," +and the right to labour resounds with many revolutionary terrors in our +English ears, although it has, as a matter of fact, been practised +quietly, and most of the time in one of its most pernicious forms, in +every parish of England for nearly three hundred years. + +Now on this question McCulloch was a convert. He confessed to the +Committee on the State of the Poor in Ireland, in 1830, that he had +changed his views on the subject entirely since his previous evidence in +1825. He had formerly been, he said, "too much imbued with mere theory, +with the opinions of Malthus and Townsend"; but he had become a firm +believer in the necessity and the public advantage of a legal provision +for the able-bodied poor, and he strongly recommended the introduction +of such a system into Ireland, in the first instance as an instrument of +individual relief, but also as an effectual engine of social +improvement. He gives the reasons for his conversion partly in his +evidence, and partly in a more systematic form in his "Principles of +Political Economy." First, Malthus had attributed to the Poor Law itself +effects which really sprang from certain bad arrangements that had been +engrafted on the English system of relief, but were not essential to +it--viz., the allowance system, and the law known as Gilbert's Act, +which deprived parishes of the right to refuse relief except in +workhouses, and forced them to provide work for paupers, if paupers +desired it, at or near their own houses. These two arrangements, in +McCulloch's opinion, converted the English provision for the able-bodied +poor from what we may term a wise and conditional right of labour into +an unwise and dangerous one. In the second place, he had come to see +that a legal provision for the poor, instead of having, as was alleged, +a necessary tendency to multiply pauperism, had in reality a natural +tendency to prevent its growth, because it gave the landlords and +influential ratepayers a strong pecuniary as well as moral interest in +producing that result. Its effect was thus to establish in every parish +a new local stimulus to social improvement, and it was on account of +this effect of a Poor Law that McCulloch thought it would be specially +beneficial to Ireland, because there was nothing Ireland needed more +than just such a local stimulus. In the third place, he had become more +and more profoundly impressed with the increasing gravity of the +vicissitudes and fluctuations of employment to which English labourers +were subject since England became mainly a manufacturing country, and +that unhappy feature of manufacturing industry was his principal reason +for invoking legislative assistance. A purely agricultural country, he +thought, might be able to do without a Poor Law, because agricultural +employment was comparatively steady; but in a manufacturing country a +Poor Law was indispensable, on account of the long periods of depression +or privation which were normal incidents in the life of labour in such a +country, and on account of the pernicious effect which these periods of +privation would, if unchecked, be certain to exercise upon the character +and habits of the labouring classes, through "lowering their estimate of +what is required for their comfortable and decent subsistence." +("Political Economy," p. 448.) + +"During these periods of extraordinary privation the labourer, if not +effectually relieved, would imperceptibly lose that taste for order, +decency, and cleanliness which had been gradually formed and accumulated +in better times by the insensible operation of habit and example, and no +strength of argument, no force of authority, could again instil into the +minds of a new generation, growing up under more prosperous +circumstances, the sentiments and tastes thus uprooted and destroyed by +the cold breath of penury. Every return of temporary distress would +therefore vitiate the feelings and lower the sensibilities of the +labouring classes" (p. 449). + +McCulloch quotes these words from Barton, but he quotes them to express +his own view, and their teaching is very explicit on the duty of +Government to the unemployed in seasons of commercial distress. In such +seasons of "extraordinary privation" the State is called upon to take +"effectual" measures--extraordinary measures, we may infer, if +extraordinary measures were necessary--for the relief of the unemployed, +not merely to save them from starvation, but to prevent them from losing +established habits of "order, decency, and cleanliness"; from getting +their feelings vitiated, their sensibilities impaired, so that they were +in danger of remaining content with a worse standard of living, and +sinking to a lower scale in the dignity of social and civilized being. +In a word, it is held to be the duty of the State to prevent, if it can, +the temporary reverses of the labouring class from resulting in its +permanent moral decadence; and as the object of the State's intervention +is to preserve the dignity, the self-respect, the moral independence and +energy of the labouring class, the manner of the intervention, the +choice of actual means and steps for administering the relief, must, of +course, be governed by the same considerations. "The true secret of +assisting the poor," says McCulloch, borrowing the words of Archbishop +Sumner, "is to make them agents in bettering their own condition, and to +supply them, not with a temporary stimulus, but with a permanent energy" +(p. 475). + +The same principles come out even more strongly in McCulloch's remarks +on national education. He says, "the providing of elementary instruction +for all classes is one of the most pressing duties of Government" (p. +473); and the elementary instruction he would provide would not stop at +reading and writing, but would include even a knowledge of so much +political economy as would explain "the circumstances which elevate and +depress the rate of wages" (p. 474). It was the duty of Government to +extirpate ignorance, because, "of all obstacles to improvement, +ignorance was the most formidable"; and it was its duty to establish +Government schools for the purpose, because charity schools impaired the +self-respect and sense of independence which were themselves first +essentials of all social improvement. + +"No extension of the system of charity and subscription schools can ever +fully compensate for the want of a statutory provision for the education +of the public. Something of degradation always attaches to the fact of +one's having been brought up in a charity school. The parents who send +children to such an institution, and even the children, know that they +have been received only because they are paupers unable to pay for their +education; and this consciousness has a tendency to weaken that state of +independence and self-respect, for the want of which the best education +may be but an imperfect substitute. But no such feeling could operate on +the pupils of schools established by the State" (p. 476). + +There is no question with McCulloch about the right of the State to take +steps to forward the moral progress, or to prevent the moral decadence, +of the community--or any part of the community--under its care; that is +simply its plain and primary duty, though there may be question with the +State, as with other agencies, whether particular measures proposed for +the purpose are really calculated to effect it. + +After this long, and I fear tedious, account of the opinions of +McCulloch, it would be needless to call more witnesses to refute those +who so commonly accuse English economists of teaching an extreme +individualism. For McCulloch may be said to be their own witness; they +hold him up as the hardest and narrowest of a hard and narrow school; +one of the ablest of them, Mr. J. K. Ingram, who writes McCulloch's +memoir in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, going so far as to accuse him +of exhibiting "a habitual deadness in the study of social questions to +all but material considerations." We have adduced enough to disprove +that statement. The reader of McCulloch's writings is constantly struck +to observe how habitually his judgment of a social question is governed +by ethical rather than economic considerations, and how his supreme +concern always seems to be to guard the labouring poor from falling into +any sort of permanent decadence, and to place them securely on the lines +of progressive elevation. But perhaps a word may be required about the +Manchester school. Mr. Ingram states--and again his statement probably +agrees with current prepossessions--that McCulloch occupied +"substantially the same theoretic position as was occupied at a somewhat +later period by the Manchester school" (_Encyc. Brit._, art. "Political +Economy"). We have seen what McCulloch's theoretic position really was, +and it is certainly not the Manchester doctrine of popular anathema; it +is not the _Manchesterismus_ of the German schools. But the Manchester +men can scarcely be said to have properly had anything in the nature of +a general theoretic position. They were not a school of political +philosophy--they were a band of practical politicians leagued to promote +particular reforms, especially two reforms in international policy which +involved large curtailments of the _rôle_ of Government--viz., free +trade with other countries, and nonintervention in their internal +affairs; but they were far from thinking that, because it would be well +for the State to abstain from certain specific interferences, it would +be well for it to abstain from all; or that if the State had no +civilizing mission towards the people of other countries, it had +therefore no civilizing mission towards its own. Cobden, for example--to +go no farther--was a lifelong advocate of a national system of +education; he was a friend of factory legislation for women and +children, and, with respect to the poor, he taught in one of his +speeches the semi-socialistic doctrine that the poor had the first right +to maintenance from the land--that they are, as it were, the first +mortgagees. The Manchester school is really nothing but a stage +convention, a convenient polemical device for marking off a particular +theoretical extreme regarding the task of the State; but the persons in +actual life who were presumed to compose the school were no more, all +of them, adherents of that theory than Scotchmen, off the stage, have +all short kilts and red hair. And as for that theory itself, the theory +of _laissez-faire_, it has never in England been really anything more +than it is now, the plea of alarmed vested interests stealing an +unwarranted, and I believe an unwelcome, shelter under the ægis of +economic science. English economists, from Smith to McCulloch, from +McCulloch to Mr. Sidgwick, have adhered with a truly remarkable +steadiness to a social doctrine of a precisely contrary character--a +social doctrine which, instead of exhibiting any unreasonable aversion +to Government interference, expressly assigns to Government a just and +proper place in promoting the social and industrial development of the +community. In the first place, in the department of production, they +freely allow that just as there are many industrial enterprises in the +conduct of which individual initiative must, for want of resources or +other reasons, yield to joint-stock companies, so there are others for +which individuals and companies alike must give place to the State, +because the State is by nature or circumstances better fitted than +either to conduct them satisfactorily; and in the next place, in the +department of distribution, while rating the moral or personal +independence of the individual as a supreme blessing and claim, they +have no scruple in calling on the State to interfere with the natural +liberty of contract between man and man, wherever such interference +seems requisite to secure just and equitable dealing, to guard that +personal independence itself from being sapped, or to establish the +people better in any of the other elementary conditions of all humane +living. We sometimes take pride at the present day in professing a +distrust for doctrinaire or metaphysical politics, and we are no doubt +right; but that reproach cannot justly be levelled against the English +economists. They were not Dutch gardeners trying to dress the world +after an artificial scheme; that is more distinctive of the social +systems they opposed. Their own system indeed was to study Nature, to +discover the principles of sound natural social growth, and to follow +them; but they had no idea on that account of leaving things to grow +merely as they would, or of renouncing the help of good husbandry. They +had, as we have seen, a positive doctrine of social politics, which +required from the State much more than the protection of liberty and the +repression of crime; they asked the State to undertake such industrial +work as it was naturally better fitted to perform than individuals or +associations of individuals, and they asked the State to secure to the +body of the citizens the essential conditions of a normal and +progressive manhood. + +Now this doctrine--which may be called the English doctrine of social +politics--seems to furnish a basis of considerable practical value for +discriminating between a wholesome and effective participation by +Government in the work of social reform, on the one hand, and those +pernicious and dangerous forms of intervention on the other, which may +be correctly known by the name of State socialism. + + +II. _The Nature and Principle of State Socialism._ + +Few words are at present more wantonly abused than the words socialism +and State socialism. They are tossed about at random, as if their +meaning, as was said of the spelling of former generations, was a mere +affair of private judgment. There is, in truth, a great deal of +socialism in the employment of the word; little respect is paid to the +previous appropriation of it; and especially since it has become, as has +been said, _hoffähig_, men press forward from the most unlikely +quarters, claim kindred with the socialists, and strive for the honour +of being called by their name. Many excellent persons, for example, have +no better pretext to advance for their claim than that they also feel a +warm sentiment of interest in the cause of the poor. Churchmen whose +duties bring them among the poor are very naturally touched with a sense +of the miseries they observe, and certain of them, who may perhaps +without offence be said to love the cause well more than wisely, come to +public platforms and declare themselves socialists--socialists, they +will sometimes explain, of an older and purer confession than the Social +Democratic Federation, but still good and genuine socialists--merely +because the religion they preach is a gospel of moral equality before +God, and of fraternal responsibility among men, whose very test in the +end is the test of human kindness--"Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of +the least of these My brethren, ye did it not to Me." But socialism is +not a feeling for the poor, nor yet for the responsibilities of society +in connection with their poverty; it is neither what is called +humanitarianism, nor what is called altruism; it is not an affair of +feeling at all, but of organization, and the feeling it breathes may not +be altruistic. The revolutionary socialists of the Continent, for +instance, are animated by as vigorous a spirit of self-interest and an +even more bitter class antagonism than a trade union or a land league. +They fight for a particular claim of right--the utterly unjustifiable +claim to the whole product of labour--and they propose to turn the world +upside down by a vast scheme of social reconstruction in order to get +their unjust, delusive, and mischievous idea realized. The gauge of +their socialism, therefore, must, after all, be looked for in their +claim and their remedy, and not in the vague sympathies of a benevolent +spectator who, without scrutinizing either the one or the other, thinks +he will call himself a socialist because he feels that there is much in +the lot of the poor man that might be mended, and that the rich might be +very properly and reasonably asked to make some sacrifices for their +brethren's sake out of their abundance. The philanthropic spectator +suffers from no scarcity of words to express his particular attitude if +he desires to do so; why then should he not leave socialists the +enjoyment of their vocable? + +There is often at the bottom of this sentimental patronage of socialism +the not unchivalrous but mistaken idea that the ordinary self-interest +of the world has been glorified by economists into a sacred and +all-sufficing principle which it would be interfering with the designs +of Providence to restrict, and that therefore it is only right to side +with socialism as a protest against the position taken by the apologists +of the present system of things, without being understood to commit +one's self thereby to the particular system which socialism may propose +to put in its place. But while the economists think very rightly that +self-interest must always be regarded as the ordinary guide of life, and +that the world cannot be reasonably expected to become either better, or +better off, if everybody were to look after other people's interests +(which he knows nothing about) instead of looking after his own (of +which he at least knows something), they are far from showing any +indifference to the danger of self-interest running into selfishness. On +the contrary, they have constantly insisted--as the evidence I have +already produced abundantly proves--that where the self-interest of the +strongly placed failed to subject itself spontaneously to the restraints +of social justice and the responsibilities of our common humanity, it +was for society to step in and impose the restraints that were just and +requisite, and to do so either by public opinion or by public authority +in the way most likely to be practicable and effectual. Another thing +our sentimental friends forget is that the socialists of the present day +have no thought of substituting any other general economic motive in the +room of self-interest. If they had their schemes realized to-morrow, men +would still be paid according to the amount of their individual work, +and each would work so far for his own hand. His daily motive would be +his individual interest, though his scope of achievement would be +severely limited by law with the view of securing a better general level +of happiness in the community. The question between economists and +socialists is not whether the claims of social justice are entitled to +be respected, but whether the claims which one or other of them make +really are claims of social justice or no. Still, so firm is the hold +taken by the notion that the socialists are the special champions of +social justice, that one of our most respected prelates has actually +defined socialism in that sense. The Bishop of Rochester (now of +Winchester), in his Pastoral Letter to his Clergy at the new year of +1888, takes occasion, while warning the younger brethren against the too +headlong philanthropy which "scouts what is known as the science of +political economy," to describe socialism as "the science of maintaining +the right proportion of equity and kindness while adjudicating the +various claims which individuals and society mutually make upon each +other." In reality, socialism would be better defined as a system that +outsteps the right proportion of equity and kindness, and sets up for +the masses claims that are devoid of proportion and measure of any kind, +and whose injustice and peril often arise from that very circumstance. + +If bishops carry the term off to one quarter, philosophers carry it to +another. Some identify socialism with the associative principle +generally, and see it manifested in the growth of one form of +organization as much as in the growth of another, or at most they may +limit it to the intervention of the associative principle in things +industrial, and in that event they would consider a joint-stock company, +or a co-operative store, or perhaps a building like Queen Anne's +Mansions, or the common-stair system of Scotland, to be as genuine +exhibitions of socialism as the collectivism or anarchism of the +Continental factions or the State monopolies of Prince Bismarck. But a +joint-stock company is no departure from--it is rather an extension +of--the present _régime_ of private property, free competition, and +self-interest; and why should it be described by the same name as a +system whose chief pretension is to supersede that _régime_ by a better? +Another very common definition of socialism--perhaps the most common of +all, and the last to which I shall refer here--is that socialism is the +general principle of giving society the greatest possible control over +the life of the individual, in contradistinction to the opposite +principle of individualism, which is taken to be the principle of giving +the individual the greatest possible immunity from the control of +society. Any extension of the authority of the State, any fresh +regulation of the transactions of individual citizens, is often +pronounced to be socialistic without asking what the object or nature of +the regulations may be. Socialism is identified with any enlargement, +and individualism with any contraction, of the functions of government. +But the world has not been made on this socialist principle alone, nor +on this individualist principle alone, and it can neither be explained +nor amended by means of the one without the other. Abstractions of that +order afford us little practical guidance. The socialists of real life +are not men who are bent on increasing Government control for the mere +sake of increasing Government control. There are broad tracts of the +individual's life they would leave free from social control; they would +give him, for example, full property in his house and furniture during +his lifetime, and the right to spend his income, once he had earned it, +in his own way. Their scheme, if carried out, might be found to compel +them to restrict this latter right, but their own desire and belief +undoubtedly is that the individual would have more freedom of the kind +then than he has now. They seek to extend Government control only +because, and only so far as, they believe Government control to be +necessary and fitted to realize certain theories of right and well-being +which they think it incumbent on organized society to realize; and +consequently the thing that properly characterizes their position is not +so much the degree of their confidence in the powers of the State as the +nature of the theories of right for which they invoke its intervention. +And just as socialists do not enlarge the bounds of authority from the +mere love of authority, so their opponents do not resist the enlargement +from the mere hatred of authority. They raise no controversy about the +abstract legitimacy of Government encroachments on the sphere of private +capital or of legal enlargements of the rights or privileges of labour. +There is no socialism in that; the socialism only comes in when the +encroachments are made on a field where Government administration is +unlikely to answer, and where the rights conferred are rights to which +labour can present no just and reasonable claim. + +It will be objected that this is to reduce socialism to a mere matter of +more or less. The English economists, it will be said, practised a +little socialism, because they allowed the use of State means to elevate +the condition of the working classes, or to provide for the wants of the +general community; and the Continental Social Democrats only practise a +little more socialism when they cry for a working-class State or for the +progressive nationalization of all industries. But in practical life the +measure is everything. So many grains of opium will cure; so many more +will kill. The important thing for adjusting claims must always be to +get the right measure, and the objection to socialistic schemes is +precisely this, that they take up a theory of distributive justice which +is an absolutely wrong measure, or else some vague theory of +disinheritance which contains no measure at all. They would nationalize +industries without paying any respect to their suitability for +Government management, simply because they want to see all industries +nationalized; and they would grant all manner of compensating +advantages to the working class as instalments of some vague claim, +either of economic right from which they are alleged to have been ousted +by the system of capitalism, or of aboriginal natural right from which +they are said to have been disinherited by the general arrangements of +society itself. What distinguishes their position and makes it socialism +is therefore precisely this absence of measure or of the right measure, +and one great advantage of the English doctrine of social politics which +I have expounded, is that it is able to supply this indispensable +criterion. That doctrine would limit the industrial undertakings of the +State to such as it possessed natural advantages for conducting +successfully, and the State's part in social reform to securing for the +people the essential conditions of all humane living, of all normal and +progressive manhood. It would interfere, indeed, as little as possible +with liberty of speculation, because it recognises that the best way of +promoting social progress and prosperity is to multiply the +opportunities, and with the opportunities the incentives, of talent and +capital; but, while giving the strong their head, in the belief that +they will carry on the world so far after them, it would insist on the +public authority taking sharp heed that no large section of the common +people be suffered to fall permanently behind in the race, to lose the +very conditions of further progress, and to lapse into ways of living +which the opinion of the time thinks unworthy of our common humanity. +Now State socialism disregards these limits, straying generally far +beyond them, and it may not improperly be defined as the system which +requires the State to do work it is unfit to do in order to invest the +working classes with privileges they have no right to get. + +The term State socialism originated in Germany a few years ago to +express the antithesis not of free, voluntary, or Christian socialism, +as seems frequently to be imagined here, but of revolutionary socialism, +which is always considered to be socialism proper, because it is the +only form of the system that is of any serious moment at the present +day. State socialism has the same general aims as socialism proper, only +it would carry out its plans gradually by means of the existing State, +instead of first overturning the existing State by revolution and +establishing in its place a new political organization for the purpose, +the Social Democratic Republic. There are socialists who fancy they have +but at any moment to choose a government and issue a decree, as Napoleon +once did--"Let misery be abolished this day fortnight"--and misery would +be abolished that day fortnight. But the State socialists are unable to +share this simple faith. They are State socialists not because they have +more confidence in the State than other socialists, but because they +have less. They consider it utterly futile to expect a democratic +community ever to be able to create a political executive that should be +powerful enough to carry through the entire socialistic programme. Like +the Social Conservatives of all countries, like our own Young England +party, for example, or the Tory Democrats of the present generation, +they combine a warm zeal for popular amelioration with a profound +distrust of popular government; but when compared with other socialists, +they take a very sober view of the capacity of government of any kind; +and although they believe implicitly in the "Social Monarchy of the +Hohenzollerns," they doubt whether the strongest monarchy the world has +ever seen would be strong enough to effect a socialistic reconstruction +of the industrial system without retaining the existence for many +centuries to come of the ancient institutions of private property and +inheritance. + +All that is at least very frankly acknowledged by Rodbertus, the +remarkable but overrated thinker whom the State socialists of Germany +have chosen for their father. Rodbertus was always regarded as a great +oracle by Lassalle, the originator of the present socialist agitation, +and his authority is constantly quoted by the most eminent luminary +among the State socialists of those latter days, Professor Adolph +Wagner, who says it was Rodbertus that first shed on him "the Damascus +light that tore from his eyes the scales of economic individualism." +Rodbertus had lived for a quarter of a century in a political sulk +against the Hohenzollerns. Though he had served as a Minister of State, +he threw up his political career rather than accept a constitution as a +mere royal favour; he refused to work under it or recognise it by so +much as a vote at the polls. But when the power of the Hohenzollerns +became established by the victories of Königgrätz and Sedan, and when +they embarked on their new policy of State socialism, Rodbertus +developed into one of their most ardent worshippers. Their new social +policy, it is true, was avowedly adopted as a corrective of socialism, +as a kind of inoculation with a milder type of the disease in order to +procure immunity from a more malignant; but Bismarck contended at the +same time that it was nothing but the old traditional policy of the +House of Prussia, who had long before placed the right of existence and +the right of labour in the statute-book of the country, and whose most +illustrious member, Frederick the Great, used to be fond of calling +himself "the beggars' king." Under these circumstances Rodbertus came to +place the whole hope of the future in the "Social Monarchy of the +Hohenzollerns," and ventured to prophesy that a socialist emperor would +yet be born to that House who would rule possibly with a rod of iron, +but would always rule for the greatest good of the labouring class. +Still, even under a dynasty of socialist emperors Rodbertus gave five +hundred years for the completion of the economic revolution he +contemplated, because he acknowledged it would take all that time for +society to acquire the moral principle and habitual firmness of will +which would alone enable it to dispense with the institutions of private +property and inheritance without suffering serious injury. + +In theory Rodbertus was a believer in the modern social democratic +doctrine of the labourer's right to the full product of his labour--the +doctrine which gives itself out as "scientific socialism," because it is +got by combining a misunderstanding of Ricardo's theory of wages with a +misunderstanding of the same economist's theory of value--and which +would abolish rent, interest, profit, and all forms of "labourless +income," and give the entire gross product to the labourer, because by +that union of scientific blunders it is made to appear that the labourer +has produced the whole product himself. Rodbertus, in fact, claimed to +be the author of that doctrine, and fought for the priority with Marx, +though in reality the English socialists had drawn the same conclusions +from the same blunders long before either of them; but author or no +author of it, his sole reason for touching the work of social reform at +all was to get that particular claim of right recognised. Yet for five +hundred years Rodbertus will not wrong the labourers by granting them +their full rights. He admits that without the assistance of the private +capitalist during that interval labourers would not produce so much +work, and therefore could not earn so much wages as they do now; and +consequently, in spite of his theories, he declines to suppress rent and +interest in the meantime, and practically tells the labourers they must +wait for the full product of labour till the time comes when they can +produce the full product themselves. That is virtually to confess that +while the claim may be just then, it is unjust now; and although +Rodbertus never makes that acknowledgment, he is content to leave the +claim in abeyance and to put forward in its place, as a provisional +ideal of just distribution more conformable to the present situation of +things, the claim of the labourer to a progressive share, step for step +with the capitalist, in the results of the increasing productivity given +to labour by inventions and machinery. He thought that at present, so +far from getting the whole product of labour, the labourer was getting a +less and less share of its products every day, and though this can be +easily shown to be a delusive fear, Rodbertus's State socialism was +devised to counteract it. + +For this purpose the first requisite was the systematic management of +all industries by the State. The final goal was to be State property as +well as State management, but for the greater part of five centuries the +system would be private property and State management. Sir Rowland Hill +and the English railway nationalizers proposed that the State should own +the lines, but that the companies should continue to work them; +Rodbertus's idea, on the contrary, is that the State should work, but +not own. But then the State should manage everything and everywhere. +Co-operation and joint-stock management were as objectionable to him as +individual management. He thought it a mere delusion to suppose, as some +socialists did, that the growth of joint-stock companies and +co-operative societies is a step in historical evolution towards a +socialist _régime_. It was just the opposite; it was individual property +in a worse form, and he always told his friend Lassalle that it was a +hopeless dream to expect to bring in the reign of justice and +brotherhood by his plan of founding productive associations on State +credit, because productive societies really led the other way, and +created batches of joint-stock property, which he said would make itself +a thousand times more bitterly hated than the individual property of +to-day. One association would compete with another, and the group on a +rich mine would use their advantage over the group on a poor one as +mercilessly as private capitalists do now. Nothing would answer the end +but State property, and nothing would conduce to State property but +State management. + +The object of all this intervention, as we have said, is to realize a +certain ideal or standard of fair wages--the standard according to which +a fair wage is one that grows step by step with the productive capacity +of the country; and the plan Rodbertus proposes to realize it by is +practically a scheme of compulsory profit-sharing. He would convert all +land and capital into an irredeemable national stock, of which the +present owners would be constituted the first or original holders, which +they might sell or transfer at pleasure but not call up, and on which +they should receive, not a fixed rent or rate of interest, but an annual +dividend varying with the produce or profits of the year. The produce of +the year was to be divided into three parts: one for the landowners, to +be shared according to the amount of stock they respectively held; a +second for the capitalists, to be shared in the same way; and the third +for the labourers, to be shared by them according to the quantity of +work they did, measured by the time occupied and the relative strain of +their several trades. This division was necessarily very arbitrary in +its nature; there was no principle whatever to decide how much should go +to the landowners, and how much to capitalists, and how much to +labourers; and although there was a rule for settling the price of +labour in one trade as compared with the price of labour in another, it +is a rule that would afford very little practical guidance if one came +to apply it in actual life. At all events, Rodbertus himself toiled for +years at a working plan for his scheme of wages, but though he always +gave out that he had succeeded in preparing one, he steadily refused to +disclose it even to trusted admirers like Lassalle and Rudolph Meyer, +on the singular pretext that the world knew too little political +economy as yet to receive it, and at his death nothing of the sort seems +to have been discovered among his papers. Is it doing him any injustice +to infer that he had never been able to arrive at a plan that satisfied +his own mind as to its being neither arbitrary nor impracticable? + +Now this is a good specimen of State socialism, because it is so +complete and brings out so decisively the broad characteristics of the +system. In the first place, it desires a progressive and indiscriminate +nationalization of all industries, not because it thinks they will be +more efficiently or more economically managed in consequence of the +change, but merely as a preliminary step towards a particular scheme of +social reform; in the next place, that scheme of social reform is an +ideal of equitable distribution which is demonstrably false, and is +admittedly incapable of immediate realization; in the third place, a +provisional policy is adopted in the meanwhile by pitching arbitrarily +on a certain measure of privileges and advantages that are to be +guaranteed to the labouring classes by law as partial instalments of +rights deferred or compensations for rights alleged to be taken away. + +It may be that not many State socialists are so thoroughgoing as +Rodbertus. Few of them possibly accept his theory of the labourer's +right--which is virtually that the labourer has a right to everything, +all existing wealth being considered merely an accumulation of unpaid +labour--and few of them may throw so heavy a burden on the State as the +whole production and the whole distribution of the country. But they all +start from some theory of right that is just as false, and they all +impose work on the State which the State cannot creditably perform. They +all think of the mass of mankind as being disinherited in one way or +another by the present social system, perhaps through the permission of +private property at all, perhaps through permission of its inequalities. +M. de Laveleye, indeed, goes a step further back still. In an article he +has contributed on this subject to the _Contemporary Review_, he uses as +his motto the saying of M. Renan that Nature is injustice itself, and he +would have society to correct not merely the inequalities which society +may have itself had a share in establishing, but also the inequalities +of talent or opportunity which are Nature's own work. Accordingly, M. de +Laveleye describes himself as a State socialist, because he thinks "the +State ought to make use of its legitimate powers for the establishment +of the equality of conditions among men in proportion to their personal +merit." Equality of conditions and personal merit are inconsistent +standards, but if they were harmonious, it would be beyond the power of +the State to realize them for want of an effective calculus of either. + +Few State socialists, however, profess the purpose of correcting the +differences of native endowment; for the most part, when they found +their policy on any theoretic idea at all, they found it on some idea of +historical reparation. In this country, socialist notions always crop up +out of the land. German socialists direct their attack mainly on +capital, but English socialism fastens very naturally on property in +land, which in England is concentrated into unnaturally few hands: and a +claim is very commonly advanced for more or less indefinite compensation +to the labouring class on account of their alleged disinheritance, +through the institution of private property, from their aboriginal or +natural rights to the use of the earth, the common possession of the +race. That is the ground, for example, which Mr. Spencer takes for +advocating land nationalization, and Mr. Chamberlain for his various +claims for "ransom." The last-comer is held to have as good a right to +the free use of the earth as the first occupant; and if society deprives +him of that right for purposes of its own, he is maintained to be +entitled to receive some equivalent, as if society does not already give +the new-comer vastly more than it took away. His chances of obtaining a +decent living in the world, instead of being reduced, have been +immensely multiplied through the social system that has resulted from +the private appropriation of land. The primitive economic rights whose +loss socialists make the subject of so much lamentation are generally +considered to be these four: (1) the right to hunt; (2) the right to +fish; (3) the right to gather nuts and berries; and (4) the right to +feed a cow or sheep on the waste land. Fourier added a fifth--which was +certainly a right much utilized in early times--the right of theft from +people over the border of the territory of one's own tribe. Let that +right be thrown in with the rest; then the claim with which every +English child is alleged to be born, and for which compensation is +asked, is the claim to a thirty-millionth part of the value of these +five aboriginal uses of the soil of England; and what is that worth? +Why, if the "prairie value" of the soil is estimated at the high figure +of a shilling the acre per annum, it would only give every inhabitant +something under half a crown, and when compensation is demanded for the +loss of this ridiculous pittance, one calls to mind what immensely +greater compensations the modern child is born to. Civilization is +itself a social property, a common fund, a people's heritage, +accumulating from one generation to another, and opening to the +new-comer economic opportunities and careers incomparably better and +more numerous than the ancient liberties of fishing in the stream or +nutting in the forest. The things actually demanded for the poor in +liquidation of this alleged claim may often be admissible on other +grounds altogether, but to ask them in the name of compensation for the +loss of those primitive economic rights--even though it was done by +Spencer or Cobden--is certainly State socialism. + +Mr. Chamberlain's famous "ransom" speeches are an example of that. There +was nothing socialist about the substance of his proposals. He expressly +disclaimed all sympathy with the idea of equality of conditions; he +hesitated about applying the graduated taxation principle to anything +but legacies; he explicitly said he would do nothing to discourage the +cumulative principle in the rich, or the habit of industry in the poor; +he asked mainly for free schools, free libraries, free parks, and other +things of a like character; but then he asked for them as a penalty for +wrong-doing, instead of an obligation of ability--as a ransom to be paid +by the rich, or by society generally, for having ousted the poor out of +their aboriginal rights. Mr. Chamberlain merely pled for useful social +reforms in a socialistic spirit. + +The favourite theory on which the German State socialists proceed seems +to be that men are entitled to an equalization of opportunities, to an +immunity, as far as human power can secure it, from the interposition of +chance and change. That at least is the view of Professor Adolph +Wagner, whose position on the subject is of considerable consequence, +because he is the economist-in-ordinary to the German Government, and +has been Prince Bismarck's principal adviser in connection with all his +recent social legislation. Professor Wagner may be taken as the most +eminent and most authoritative exponent of the theory of State +socialism, and he recently developed his views on the subject afresh in +some articles in the Tübingen _Zeitschrift für die Gesammten +Staatswissenschaften_ for 1887, on "Finanz-politik und +Staatsozialismus." According to Wagner, the chief aim of the State at +present--in taxation and in every other form of its activity--ought to +be to alter the national distribution of wealth to the advantage of the +working class. All politics must become social politics; the State must +turn workman's friend. For we have arrived at a new historical period; +and just as the feudal period gave way to the absolutist period, and the +absolutist period to the constitutional, so now the constitutional +period is merging in what ought to be called the social period, because +social ideas are very properly coming more and more to influence and +control everything, alike in the region of production, in the region of +distribution, and in the region of consumption. Now, according to +Wagner, the business of the State socialist is simply to facilitate the +development of this change--to work out the transition from the +constitutional to the social epoch in the best, wisest, and most +wholesome way for all parties concerned. He rejects the so-called +"scientific socialism" of Marx and Rodbertus and Lassalle, and the +practical policy of the social democratic agitation; and he will not +believe either that a false theory like theirs can obtain a lasting +influence, or that a party that builds itself on such a theory can ever +become a real power. But, at the same time, he cannot set down the +socialistic theory as a mere philosophical speculation, or the +socialistic movement as merely an artificial product of agitation. The +evils of both lie in the actual situation of things; they are +products--necessary products, he says--of our modern social development; +and they will never be effectually quieted till that development is put +on more salutary lines. They have a soul of truth in them, and that soul +of truth in the doctrines and demands of radical socialism is what +State socialism seeks to disengage, to formulate, to realize. It is +quite true, for example, that the present distribution of wealth, with +its startling inequalities of accumulation and want, is historically the +effect, first, of class legislation and class administration of law; and +second, of mere blind chance operating on a legal _régime_ of private +property and industrial freedom, and a state of the arts which gave the +large scale of production decided technical advantages. In one of his +former writings, Professor Wagner contended that German peasants lived +to this day in mean thatched huts, simply because their ancestors had +been impoverished by feudal exactions and ruined by wars which they had +no voice in declaring; and he seems to be now as profoundly impressed +with the belief that the present liberty allowed to unscrupulous +speculators to utilize the chances and opportunities of trade at the +cost of others is producing evils in no way less serious, which ought to +be checked effectively while there is yet time. So long as such +tendencies are left at work, he says it is idle trying to treat +socialism with any cunning admixture of cakes and blows, or charging +State socialists with heating the oven of social democracy. State +socialists, he continues, comprehend the disease which Radical +socialists only feel wildly and call down fire to cure, and they are as +much opposed to the purely working-class State of the latter, as they +are to the purely constitutional State of our modern _Liberalismus +vulgaris_, as Wagner calls it. + +The true Social State lies, in his opinion, between the two. What the +new social era demands--the era which is already, he thinks, well in +course of development, but which it is the business of State socialism +to help Providence to develop aright--is the effective participation of +poor and rich alike in the civilization which the increased productive +resources of society afford the means of enjoying; and this is to be +brought about in two ways: first, by a systematic education of the whole +people according to a well-planned ideal of culture, and second, by a +better distribution of the income of society among the masses. Now, to +carry out these requirements, the idea of liberty proper to the +constitutional era must naturally be finally discarded, and a very +large hand must be allowed to the public authority in every department +of human activity, whether relating to the production, distribution, or +consumption of wealth. In the first place, in order to destroy the +effect of chance and of the utilization of chances in creating the +present accumulations in private hands, it is necessary to divert into +the public treasury as far as possible the whole of that part of the +national income which goes now, in the form of rent, interest, or +profit, into the pockets of the owners of land and capital, and the +conductors of business enterprises. Wagner would accordingly nationalize +(or municipalize) gradually so much of the land, capital, and industrial +undertakings of the country as could be efficiently managed as public +property or public enterprises, and that would include all undertakings +which tend to become monopolies even in private hands, or which, being +conducted best on the large scale, are already managed under a form of +organization which, in his opinion, has most of the faults and most of +the merits of State management--viz., the form of joint-stock companies. +He would in this way throw on the Government all the great means of +communication and transport, railways and canals, telegraphs and post, +and all banking and insurance; and on the municipalities all such things +as the gas, light, and water supply. Although he recognises the +suitability of Government management as a consideration to be weighed in +nationalizing an industry, he states explicitly that the reason for the +change he proposes is not in the least the fiscal or economic one that +the industry can be more advantageously conducted by the Government, but +is a theory of social politics which requires that the whole economic +work of the people ought to be more and more converted from the form of +private into the form of public organization, so that every working man +might be a public servant and enjoy the same assured existence that +other public servants at present possess. + +In the next place, since many industries must remain in private hands, +the State is bound to see the existence of the labourers engaged in +private works guaranteed as securely as those engaged in public works. +It must take steps to provide them with both an absolute and a relative +increase of wages by instituting a compulsory system of paying wages as +a percentage of the gross produce; it must guarantee them a certain +continuity of employment; must limit the hours of their labour to the +length prescribed by the present state of the arts in the several +trades; and supply a system of public insurance against accidents, +sickness, infirmity, and age, together with a provision for widows and +orphans. + +In the third place, all public works are to be managed on the +socialistic principle of supplying manual labourers with commodities at +a cheaper rate than their social superiors. They are to have advantages +in the matters of gas and water supply, railway fares, school fees, and +everything else that is provided by the public authority. + +In the fourth place, taxation is to be employed directly to mitigate the +inequalities of wealth resulting from the present commercial system, and +to save and even increase the labourer's income at the expense of the +income of other classes. This is to be done by the progressive +income-tax, and by the application of the product of indirect taxation +on certain articles of working-class consumption to special +working-class ends. For example, he thinks Prince Bismarck's proposed +tobacco monopoly might be made "the patrimony of the disinherited." + +In the fifth place, the State ought to take measures to wean the people +not only from noxious forms of expenditure, like the expenditure on +strong drink, but from useless and wasteful expenditure, and to guide +them into a more economic, far-going, and beneficial employment of the +earnings they make. + +Now for all this work, involving as it does so large an amount of +interference with the natural liberty of things, Wagner not unreasonably +thinks that a strong Government is absolutely indispensable--a +Government that knows its own mind, and has the power and the will to +carry it out; a Government whose authority is established on the history +and opinion of the nation, and stands high above all the contending +political factions of the hour. And in Germany, such an executive can +only be found in the present Empire, which is merely following +"Frederician and Josephine traditions" in coming forward, as it did in +the Imperial message of November, 1881, as a genuine "social monarchy." + +In this doctrine of Professor Wagner we find the same general features +we have already seen in the doctrine of Rodbertus. It is true he would +not nationalize all industries whatsoever; he would only nationalize +such industries as the State is really fit to manage successfully. He +admits that uneconomic management can never contribute to the public +good, and so far he accepts a very sound principle of limitation. But +then he applies the principle with too great laxity. He has an excessive +idea of the State's capacities. He thinks that every business now +conducted by a joint-stock company could be just as well conducted by +the Government, and ought therefore to be nationalized; but experience +shows--railway experience, for example--that joint-stock management, +when it is good, is better than Government management at its best. Then +Professor Wagner thinks every industry which has a natural tendency to +become in any case a practical monopoly would be better in the hands of +the Government; but Government might interfere enough to restrain the +mischiefs of monopoly--as it does in the case of railways in this +country, for example--without incurring the liabilities of complete +management. Professor Wagner would in these ways throw a great deal of +work on Government which Government is not very fit to accomplish +successfully, and he would like to throw everything on it, if he could +overcome his scruples about its capabilities, because he thinks +industrial nationalization would facilitate the realization of his +particular views of the equitable distribution of wealth. It is true, +again, that Wagner's theory of equitable distribution is not the theory +of Rodbertus--he rejects the right of labour to the whole product; but +his theory, if less definite, is not less unjustifiable. It is virtually +the theory of equality of conditions which considers all inequalities of +fortune wrong, because they are held to come either from chance, +or--what is worse--from an unjust utilization of chance, and which, on +that account, takes comparative poverty to constitute of itself a +righteous claim for compensation as against comparative wealth. Now, a +state of enforced equality of conditions would probably be found neither +possible nor desirable, but it is in its very conception unjust. It may +be well, as far as it can be done, to check refined methods of deceit, +or cruel utilizations of an advantageous position, but it can never be +right to deprive energy, talent, and character of the natural reward and +incentive of their exertions. The world would soon be poor if it +discouraged the skill of the skilful, as it would soon cease to be +virtuous if it ostracized those who were pre-eminently honest or just. +The idea of equality has been a great factor in human progress, but it +requires no such outcome as this. Equality is but the respect we owe to +human dignity, and that very respect for human dignity demands security +for the fruits of industry to the successful, and security against the +loss of the spirit of personal independence in the mass of the people. +But while that is so, there is one broad requirement of that same +fundamental respect for human dignity which must be admitted to be +wholly just and reasonable--the requirement which we have seen to have +been recognised by the English economists--that the citizens be, as far +as possible, secured, if necessary by public compulsion and public +money, in the elementary conditions of all humane living. The State +might not be right if it gave the aged a comfortable superannuation +allowance, or the unemployed agreeable work at good wages; but it is +only doing its duty when, with the English law, it gives them enough to +keep them, without taking away from the one the motives for making a +voluntary provision against age, or from the other the spur to look out +for work for themselves. + +It will be said that this is a standard that is subject to a certain +variability; that a house may be considered unfit for habitation now +that our fathers would have been fain to occupy; that shoes seem an +indispensable element of humane living now, though, as Adam Smith +informs us, they were still only an optional decency in some parts of +Scotland in his time. But differences of this nature lead to no +practical difficulty, and the standard is fixity of measure itself when +compared with the indefinite claims that may be made in the name of +historical compensation, or wild theories of distributive justice, and +it makes a wholesome appeal to recognised obligations of humanity +instead of feeding a violent sense of unbounded hereditary wrong. At +all events, it presents the true equality--equality of moral +rights--over against the false equality of State socialism--equality of +material conditions; and it is able to present a better face against +that system, because it recognises a certain measure of material +conditions among the original moral rights. For this reason the English +theory of social politics is the best practical criterion for +discriminating between socialistic legislation and wholesome social +reforms. The State socialistic position cannot be advantageously +attacked from the ground of Mr. Spencer and the adherents of +_laissez-faire_, who merely say, Let misfortune and poverty alone; +whether remediable or irremediable, they are not the State's affairs. +The two theories nowhere come within range; but the English theory meets +State socialism at every point, almost hand to hand, for it admits the +State's competency to deal with poverty and misfortune, and to alter +men's material conditions to the extent needed for the practical +realization of their full moral rights. + + +III. _State Socialism and Social Reform._ + +On this English theory of social politics, the State, though not +socialist, is very frankly social reformer, and those schools of +opinion, which are usually thought to have been most averse to +Government intervention, have been among the most earnest in pressing +that _rôle_ upon the State. Cobden, I presume, may be taken as a fair +representative of the Manchester school, and Cobden, with all his love +of liberty, loved progress more, and thought the best Government was the +Government that did most for social reform. When he visited Prussia in +1838, he was struck with admiration at the paternal but improving rule +he found in operation there. "I very much suspect," he said, "that at +present for the great mass of the people Prussia possesses the best +Government in Europe. I would gladly give up my taste for talking +politics, to secure such a state of things in England. Had our people +such a simple and economical Government, so deeply imbued with justice +to all, and aiming so constantly to elevate mentally and morally its +population, how much better would it be for the twelve or fifteen +millions in the British Empire, who, while they possess no electoral +rights, are yet persuaded they are freemen!" So far from thinking, as +the Manchester man of polemics is always made to think, that the State +goes far enough when it secures to every man liberty to pursue his own +interest his own way, as long as he does not interfere with the +corresponding right of his neighbours, the Manchester man of reality +takes the State severely to task for neglecting to promote the mental +and moral elevation of the people; the chief end of Government being to +establish not liberty alone, but every other necessary security for +rational progress. The theory of _laissez-faire_ would of course permit +measures required for the public safety, but what Cobden calls for are +measures of social amelioration. Provisions for the better protection of +person and property, as they exist, against violence or fraud, make up +but a small part of legitimate State duty, compared with provisions for +their better development, for enlarging the powers of the national +manhood, or the product of the national resources. The institution of +property itself is a provision for progress, and could never have +originated under the system of _laissez-faire_, which now makes it a +main branch of State work to defend it. In the form of permanent and +exclusive possession, it is undoubtedly a contravention of the equal +freedom of all to the use of their common inheritance, committed for the +purpose of securing their more productive use of it. It interferes with +their access to the land, and with the equality of their opportunities, +but then it enhances and concentrates the energies of the occupants, and +it doubles the yield of the soil. It promotes two objects, which are +quite as paramount concerns of the State as liberty itself--it improves +the industrial manhood of the nation, and it increases the productivity +of the natural resources; and institutions that conduce to such results +are not really infractions of liberty, but rather complements of it, +because they give people an ampler use of their own powers, and create, +by means of the increase of production they work, more and better +opportunities than those they take away. + +Now the lines of legitimate intervention prescribed by the necessities +of progress, and already followed in the original institution of +property, will naturally, when extended through our complicated +civilization, include a very considerable and varied field of social and +industrial activity, and this has been all along recognised by the +English economists and statesmen. While opposed to the State doing +anything either moral or material for individuals, which individuals +could do better, or with better results, for themselves, they agreed in +requiring the State, first, to undertake any industrial work it had +superior natural advantages for conducting successfully; and second, to +protect the weaker classes effectively in the essentials of all rational +and humane living--in what Adam Smith calls "an undeformed and +unmutilated manhood"--not only against the ravages of violence or fear +or insecurity, but against those of ignorance, disease, and want. Smith, +we know, would even save them from cowardice by a system of military +training, and from fanaticism by an established Church, because, he +said, cowardice and fanaticism were as great deformities of manhood as +ignorance or disease, and prevented a man from having command of himself +and his own powers quite as effectually as violence or oppression. Laws +which give every man better command and use of his own energies are in +manifest harmony with liberty, and for the State to do such industrial +work as it has special natural advantages for doing is conformable with +the principle of free-trade itself, which has always prescribed to men +and nations as the best rule for their prosperity, that they should +concentrate their strength on the branches of industry they possess +natural advantages for cultivating, and give up wasting their labour on +less productive employment. Mr. Chamberlain is certainly wrong in +thinking over-government an extinct danger under democratic +institutions, a mere survival from times of oppression which haunts the +people still, though they are their own masters, with foolish fears of +over-governing themselves. In reality, the danger has much more probably +increased, as John Stuart Mill believed, for if we cannot over-govern +ourselves, we can very easily and cheerfully over-govern one another, +and a majority may impose its brute will with even less scruple than a +monarch; but however that may be, those who tremble most sincerely for +the ark of liberty cannot see any undue contraction of the field of +individual action in an extension of authority for either of the two +purposes here specified, for the purpose of undertaking industrial work +which private initiative cannot prosecute so advantageously, or of +making more secure to the weaker citizens those primary conditions of +normal humanity, which are really their natural right. The first of +these purposes is quite consistent with the principles of men like W. +von Humboldt, who contend that the best means of national prosperity is +the cultivation to the utmost of the individual energy of the people, +and who are opposed to Government interference because it represses or +supplants that energy. They welcome everything that tends to economize +and develop energy, to place things in the hands of those that can do +them best, and generally to increase the productive capacity of the +whole community. They believe that machinery, division of labour, +factory systems, keenest conditions of competition, however they may at +first seem to contract men's opportunities of employment, always end in +multiplying them, and, because they increase or economize the productive +powers of those actually employed, really expand the field of employment +for all. Now Government management would of course have a like operation +wherever Government management effected a like economy or increase in +the productive powers of society, and would really expand the field of +individual initiative which it appeared to contract; and those who +believe most in individual energy and its power of seeking out for +itself the most advantageous new outlets, will find least to complain of +in an intervention of authority which releases men from work ill-suited +to their powers to do, and sends them into work where their powers can +be more fruitfully occupied. + +The second purpose of legitimate intervention seems even less open to +objection from that side. The State is asked to go in social reform only +as far as it goes in judicial administration--it is asked to secure for +every man as effectively as it can those essentials of all rational and +humane living which are really every man's right, because without them +he would be something less than man, his manhood would be wanting, +maimed, mutilated, deformed, incapable of fulfilling the ends of its +being. Those original requirements of humane existence are dues of the +common nature we wear, which, we cannot see extinguished in others +without an injury to our own self-respect, and the State is bound to +provide adequate securities for one of them as much as for another. The +same reason which justified the State at first in protecting person and +property against violence, justified it yesterday in abolishing slavery, +justifies it to-day in abolishing ignorance, and will justify it +to-morrow in abolishing other degrading conditions of life. The public +sense of human dignity may grow from age to age and be offended +to-morrow by what it tolerates to-day, but the principle of sound +intervention is all through the same--that the proposed measure is +necessary to enable men to live the true life of a man and fulfil the +proper ends of rational being. A thoughtful French writer defends State +intervention for the purpose of social amelioration as being a mere duty +of what he calls reparative justice. Popular misery and decadence, he +would say, is always very largely the result of bad laws and other bad +civil conditions, as we see it plainly to have been in the case of the +Irish cottiers, the Scotch crofters, and the rural labourers of England, +and when the community has really inflicted the injury, the community is +bound in the merest justice to repair it. And the obligation would not +be exhausted with the repeal of bad laws; it would require the positive +restoration to the declining populations of the conditions of real +prosperity from which they fell. But though this is a specific ground +which may occasionally quicken the State's remedial action with +something of the energy of remorse, it is no extension of its natural +and legitimate sphere of intervention, and the State might properly take +every measure necessary for the effectual restoration of a declining +section of the population to conditions of real prosperity on the broad +and simple principle already laid down, that the measure is necessary to +put those people in a position to fulfil their vocation as human beings. +Hopeless conditions of labour are as contrary to sound nature, and as +fatal to any proper use of man's energies, as slavery itself, and their +mere existence constitutes a sufficient cause for the State's +intervention, apart from any special responsibility the State may bear +for their historical origin. Even the measure of the required +intervention is no way less, for if its purpose is to preserve some +essential of full normal manhood, its only limit is that of being +effectual to serve the purpose. The original natural obligation of the +State needs no expansion then from historical responsibilities to cover +any effectual form of remedial action against the social decadence of +particular classes of the population, whether it be the constitution of +a new right like the right to a fair rent, the adoption of +administrative measures like the migration of redundant inhabitants, or +the provision of wise facilities for the rest by the loan of public +money. + +It is plain, therefore, that we have here within the lines of accepted +and even "orthodox" English theory a doctrine of social politics which +gives the Government an ample and perfectly adequate place in the +promotion of all necessary social reform; and if we are all socialists +now, as is so often said, it is not because we have undergone any change +of principles on social legislation, but only a public awakening to our +social miseries. The Churches, for example, while they left Lord +Shaftesbury to fight his battles for the helpless alone, have now shared +in this social awakening, and show not only a general ardour to agitate +social questions, but even some pains to understand them; but the +Churches did not neglect Lord Shaftesbury fifty years ago, because they +thought his Factory Bills proceeded from unsound views of the State's +functions, but merely because their interest was not then sufficiently +aroused in the temporal welfare of the poor, and with all their +individual charities they responded little to the grievances of social +classes. We are all socialists now, only in feeling as much interest in +these grievances as the socialists are in the habit of doing, but we +have not departed from our old lines of social policy, and there is no +need we should, for they are broad enough to satisfy every claim of +sound social reform. + +It is only when these lines are transgressed that, strictly speaking, +socialism begins; and though it is hopeless to think of confining the +vulgar use of the word to its strict signification, it is at least +essential to do so if we desire any clear or firm grasp of principle. +The socialism of the present time extends the State's intervention from +those industrial undertakings it is fitted to manage well to all +industrial undertakings whatever, and from establishing securities for +the full use of men's energies to attempting to equalize in some way the +results of their use of them. It may be shortly described as aiming at +the progressive nationalization of industries with a view to the +progressive equalization of incomes. The common pleas for this policy +are, first, the necessity of introducing a distribution of wealth more +in accordance with personal merit by neutralizing the effects of chance, +which at present throw some into opulence without any co-operation from +their own labour, and press thousands into penury in spite of their most +honest exertions; and second, the advantage society would reap from the +mere economy of the resources at present wasted in unnecessary +competition. Both pleas are, however delusive; it is neither good nor +possible to suppress chance, and if competition involves some loss, it +yields a much more abounding gain. + +A sense of the blind play of chance in all things human lies indeed +beneath all work of social relief. "Hodie mihi, cras tibi," wrote the +good Regent Murray over his lintel to avert the grudge of envy, and the +same feeling of the uncertainty of fortune quickens the thought of pity. +Men reflect how much of their own comfort they owe to good circumstances +rather than good deserts, and how much more bad circumstances have often +to do with poverty than bad guiding. To change these bad conditions so +far as to preserve for every man intact the essentials of common +progressive manhood is a proper object of social work. But while +mitigating the operation of chance to that extent is well, to try and +suppress its operation altogether would be injurious, even if it were +possible. For there is no pursuit under the sun in which chance has not +its part as well as skill, and skill itself is often nothing but a quick +grasp of happy chance. To discourage the alert from seizing good +opportunities on the wing, by confiscating the results and distributing +them among the languid and inactive, is the same thing as to discourage +them by like means from exerting all their industry in any other way. It +violates their individual right with no better effect than to cripple +the national production. They are entitled to the best conditions for +the successful use of their individual energies, and the best conditions +for the use of individual energies are the true securities for national +progress. The sound policy is not the greater equalization of +opportunities, but their greater utilization. It may be right to make +ships seaworthy and their masters competent navigators, but if one of +them gets delayed in a calm or disabled by a storm, while another has +caught a fair wind and is carried on to port, it would answer no good +purpose to equalize their gains for the mere correction of the +inequality in their opportunities. It would relax in both masters alike +the supreme essentials of all successful labour--activity, vigilance, +enterprise. State action with respect to the quips and arrows of fortune +ought to go as far but no farther than State action with respect to the +crimes and hostilities of men, or with respect to evil forces of nature +like those of infectious diseases--it ought to content itself with +effectually protecting the primary conditions of sound manhood against +their outrages. It may do what it can, not merely to relieve the +unfortunate in their extremity, but to prevent their coming to +extremity, to arrest, if possible, their decline, to check or soften the +trade fluctuations that often swamp them, and to facilitate their +self-recovery; but, when it goes on to suppress or equalize the +operation of fortune, it destroys the good with the evil, and even if it +removed the tares, would find it had only spoiled the harvest of wheat. +The present industrial system has its defects, but it certainly has one +immense advantage which would be forfeited under socialism--it tends to +elicit to their utmost the talents and energies alike of employers and +employed. The languor of the "Government stroke" and the slow mechanism +of a State department are unfavourable to an abundant production. The +general slackening of industry, and the extinction of those innumerable +sources of active initiative which at present are so busy pushing out +new and fruitful developments, are too great a price to pay for the +suppression of the evils of competition. To effect some economies in the +use of capital, we damage or destroy the forces by which capital is +produced, and really lose the pound to save the penny. + +Even from the standing-point of a good distribution of wealth, if by a +good distribution we mean, not an equal distribution of the produce, +however small the individual share, but, what is surely much better, a +high general level of comfort, though considerable inequalities may +remain, then an abundant production is still the most indispensable +thing, for it is the most certain of all means to that high general +level of comfort. Even in those agricultural countries where this result +is promoted by a land system favouring peasant properties, the result is +largely due to the fact that occupying ownership is itself the best +condition for high production; and if we compare the principal modern +industrial nations, we shall find labour enjoying the best real +remuneration in those where the rate of production is highest, where +employers are most competent, machinery most perfected, and labour +itself personally most efficient. And, on the other hand, while the +general level of comfort rises under a policy that develops productivity +even at the risk of widening inequality, the general level of comfort +always sinks under the contrary policy which sacrifices productivity to +socialistic ideas and claims. + +We have practical experience of the working of socialism in various +forms, and under the most opposite conditions of culture, and the +experience is everywhere the same. Custom in Samoa, for example, gives a +man a pretty strict right to go to his neighbour and requisition what he +wants, or even to quarter himself in the house without payment, as long +as he pleases. No one dares to refuse, for fear of losing credit and +suffering reproach. Originating as a well-meant refuge for the +distressed, the system has become still more a subterfuge for the lazy, +and Dr. Turner sums up his account of it by saying, "This communistic +system is a sad hindrance to the industrious, and eats like a +canker-worm at the roots of individual and national progress." The +disheartening of the industrious has an even worse effect than the +encouragement of the indolent; the more they make, the more subject they +are to the imposition. The English agricultural labourers belong to a +very different state of society from the savages of Samoa. They are of +an energetic race, which if it does not positively love work, has +probably as little aversion to it as any nation in the world, and seems +often really to delight in the hardest exertion; but in England the +effect of giving the poor a similar socialistic right was precisely the +same as in Samoa. While we are supposed to have been advancing in +socialism with our Factory Acts, we were really retreating from it in +our Poor Law. The old English laws which for centuries first fixed +labourers' wages, and then made up the deficiencies of the wages, if +such occurred, out of the poor rates, were certainly socialistic, and +the commission that inquired into their working sixty years ago reported +that their worst effect had been to make the labourers such poor workers +that they were hardly worth the wages they got. The men were by law +unable to earn more if they worked more, or to lose anything if they +worked less, and so their very working powers drooped and withered. As +most modern socialists put their trust entirely in the old motive of +self-interest, and propose to pay every man according to his work, their +only resource against such a result would be a stern system of poor-law +administration, like the English, and that would of course involve a +departure from their favourite ideal of furnishing the dependent poor +with as decent and comfortable a living as the independent poor gain for +themselves by their work. The change from Samoa to rural England is +probably not so great as the change from rural England to Brook Farm and +the other experimental communities of the United States, companies of +cultivated and earnest people, coming from one of the best civilized +stocks, and settling under the favourable material conditions of a new +country for the very purpose of working out a socialist ideal. Yet in +these American communities, socialistic institutions led to precisely +the same results as they did in England and in Samoa, a slackening of +industry, and a deterioration of the general level of comfort. No doubt, +as Horace Greeley said, who knew these communities well, and lived for a +time in more than one of them, there came to them along with the lofty +souls, who are willing to labour and endure, "scores of whom the world +is quite worthy, the conceited, the crotchety, the selfish, the +headstrong, the pugnacious, the unappreciated, the played-out, the idle, +the good-for-nothing generally, who, finding themselves utterly out of +place, and at a discount in the world as it is, rashly conclude that +they are exactly fitted for the world as it ought to be." But the +proportion of difficult subjects would not be larger in Brook Farm or +New Harmony than it is in the ordinary world outside, and in these +communities they would be under the constant influence of leaders of +the highest character and an almost religious enthusiasm. If the new and +better economic motives, which romantic socialists like Mr. Bellamy +always assure us are to carry us to such great things as soon as the +suppression of the present pecuniary motive allows them to rise into +operation--if the love of work for its own sake, the sense of public +duty, the desire of public appreciation, could be expected to prevail +anywhere to any purpose, it would be among the gifted and noble spirits +who founded the community of Brook Farm. But the late W. H. Channing, +who was a member of the community and looked back upon it with the +tenderest feelings, explains its failure by saying: "The great evil, the +radical, practical danger, seemed to be a willingness to do work half +thorough, to rest in poor results, to be content amidst comparatively +squalid conditions, and to form habits of indolence."[8] + +The idleness of the idle was one of the chief standing troubles in all +the socialistic experiments of the United States. Mr. Noyes gives us an +account of forty-seven communistic experiments which had been made under +modern socialist influences in the United States and had failed, while +Mr. Nordhoff, on the other hand, furnishes a like account of seventy-two +communities, established mainly under religious influences (fifty-eight +of them belonging to the Shakers alone), which have been not merely +social but economic successes, some of them for more than a hundred +years; and one is struck with the degree in which the idler difficulty +has contributed to the failure of the forty-seven, and in which the +continual and comparatively successful conflict with that difficulty by +means of their peculiar system of religious discipline has aided in the +success of the other seventy-two. Mr. Noyes is himself founder of the +Oneida community, and bases his descriptions of the rest on information +supplied by men who were members of the communities he describes, or on +the materials collected by Mr. Macdonald, a Scotch Owenite, who visited +most of the American communities for the purpose of describing them. No +causes of failure are more often mentioned by him than "too many +idlers" and "bad management." Not that industry was relaxed all round. +On the contrary, it seems to have been a peculiarity of the Owenite and +Fourierist communities, that the industrious wrought much harder (and in +most of them for much poorer fare) than labourers of ordinary life. +Macdonald was surprised at the marvellous industry he saw as he watched +them, and would say to himself: "If you fail, I will give it up, for +never did I see men work so well and so brotherly with each other." But +then a little way off he would come on people who "merely crawled about, +probably sick (he charitably suggests), just looking on like myself at +anything which fell in their way." A very common feeling among members +of these communities seems to have been that they were far more troubled +with idlers than the rest of the world, because their system itself +presented special attractions to that unwelcome class. "Men came," says +one of the Trumbull Phalanx, "with the idea that they could live in +idleness at the expense of the purchasers of the estate, and their ideas +were practically carried out, while others came with good heart for the +work." The same testimony is given about the Sylvania Association. "Idle +and greedy people," says the writer of this testimony, "find their way +into such attempts, and soon show forth their character by burdening +others with too much labour, and in times of scarcity supplying +themselves with more than their allowance of various necessaries, +instead of taking less." Idle and greedy people, no doubt, did get into +these communities, but these idle and greedy people constitute, I fear, +a very large proportion of mankind, and the point is that socialistic +institutions unfortunately offer them encouragement and opportunity. The +experience of American communism directly contradicts John Stuart Mill's +opinion, that men are not more likely to evade their fair share of the +work under a socialistic system than they are now. That difficulty in +one form or another was their constant vexation. The members of Owen's +community at Yellow Springs belonged in general to a superior class; but +one of them, in stating the causes of the failure of that community, +says: "The industrious, the skilful, and the strong saw the products of +their labour enjoyed by the indolent, and the unskilled, and the +improvident, and self-love rose against benevolence. A band of musicians +insisted that their brassy harmony was as necessary to the common +happiness as bread and meat, and declined to enter the harvest field or +the workshop. A lecturer upon Natural Science insisted upon talking only +while others worked. Mechanics whose day's labour brought two dollars +into the common stock insisted that they should in justice work only +half as long as the agriculturist, whose day's work brought only one." +The same evil, according to R. D. Owen, contributed to the fall of New +Harmony; "there was not disinterested industry," he says, "there was not +mutual confidence." A lady who was a member of the Marlboro' Association +in Ohio, a socialistic experiment that lasted four years and then +failed, attributes the failure to "the complicated state of the business +concerns, the amount of debt contracted, and the feeling that each would +work with more energy, for a time at least, if thrown upon his own +resources, with plenty of elbow-room, and nothing to distract his +attention." + +The magnitude of this difficulty only appears the greater when we turn +from the forty-seven socialistic experiments which have failed to the +seventy-two which have thriven. The Shakers and Rappists are undoubtedly +very industrious people, who, by producing a good article, have won and +kept for years a firm hold of the American market, and being, in +consequence of their institution of celibacy, a community of adult +workers exclusively, every man and every woman being a productive +labourer, the wonder is they are not wealthier and more prosperous even +than they are. Their economic prosperity is based, as economic +prosperity always is and must be, on their general habits of industry, +and the natural tendency of socialistic arrangements to relax these +habits is in their case effectually, though not without difficulty, +counteracted by their religious discipline. Idleness is a sin; next to +disobedience to the elders, no other sin is more reprobated among them, +because no other sin is at once so besetting and so dangerous there, and +the conquest and suppression of idleness is a continual object of their +vigilance, and of their ordinary devotional practice. Mr. Nordhoff +publishes a few of their most popular hymns, and one is struck with the +space the cultivation of personal industry seems to occupy in their +thoughts. "Old Slug," as they delight to nickname the idler, is the "Old +Adam" of the Shakers, and a public sentiment of hatred and contempt for +the indolent man is sedulously fostered by them. As they not only work, +but also live under one another's constant supervision, and within +earshot of one another's criticism, they more than replace the eye of +the master by the keener and more sleepless eye of moral and social +police. And if all this discipline fails, they have the last resource of +expulsion. They easily make the idler too uncomfortable to remain. "They +have," says Mr. Nordhoff, "no difficulty in sloughing off persons who +come with bad or low motives." They exercise, in short, the power of +dismissal, the last sanction in ordinary use in the old state of +society. Not that they make any virtue of strenuous labour. They work +moderately, and avoid anything like fatigue or exhaustion. They frankly +acknowledged to Mr. Nordhoff, once and again, that three hired men taken +in from the ordinary world would do as much work as five or six of their +members. Their wants are few and simple, and they are satisfied with the +moderate exertion that suffices to supply them; but they will tolerate +no shirking of that in any shape or form, and this alone saves them from +disaster. The experiences of these successful Shaker and Rappist +communities serve, therefore, to show, even better than the experiences +of the unsuccessful Owenite and Fourierist communities, the gravity that +the idleness difficulty would assume in a general socialistic _régime_, +which possessed nothing in the nature of the power of dismissal, and in +which we could not calculate either on the formation of an effective +public opinion against idleness, or on its effective application if it +were formed. The men who founded the unsuccessful communities were far +superior to the Shakers in business ability and education, and they had +more money to begin their experiments with, but where they failed the +Shakers have succeeded through the indirect economic effects of their +rigorous religious discipline. But the evidence is as plain in the one +case as in the other as to the natural, and even powerful, effect of +socialistic arrangements in relaxing the industry of many sorts and +conditions of men. + +The same sources of evidence prove with equal clearness the development +under socialistic institutions of two other concurrent causes of +decline. I have already quoted Mr. Channing's statement that the Brook +Farm community showed a disposition to be content with comparatively +squalid conditions of life. Mr. Nordhoff would probably not use the word +squalid of anything he saw in the Shaker and Rappist communities he +describes, except perhaps in certain instances of the state of the +public streets; and in some points, such as the scrupulous cleanness of +the interior of their houses, he would set them far above their +neighbours--you could eat your dinner, he says, off their floors. Still +the people he found everywhere content, if not exactly with squalid, +certainly with poor and dull and rough conditions of life, much poorer, +duller, and rougher than they might easily be. They enjoyed equality, +security from harassing anxiety for the morrow, abundance even for their +limited wants, independence from subjection to a master, but they were +weak in the ordinary springs of progress. The spirit of material +improvement was not much abroad among them. Give me the stationary state +of society and contentment, you may exclaim; but then even this +stationary state is only maintained in these sequestered communities by +the constant play of peculiar religious influences which cannot be +counted on everywhere, and it would soon change into a declining state +in the great seething world outside if it were not effectively +counter-worked by the most powerful incentives to progress. Now the same +equalizing social arrangements which destroy one of the most essential +of these incentives by guaranteeing men the results of industry without +its exertion, enfeeble a second by predisposing them to rest content +with the lower conditions of life to which they are reduced. + +A third cause of decline to which the American experience shows +socialistic institutions to be incident is a certain weakness in the +management, produced sometimes by divided counsels, sometimes by the +delay involved in getting the sanction of a Board to every little detail +of business, and sometimes by a difficulty which we find also +shattering similar experiments in France, that men were raised to the +Committee by their gifts of persuasion rather than their gifts of +administration. Well-meaning persons, with a great itch for managing +things, and a great turn for bungling them, for whom there is, under the +present order of society, a considerable safety-valve in philanthropy, +contrive in a socialistic community to get appointed on the Council of +Industry, and play sad havoc with the common good. While they preached +and wasted, the really practical men who, with better power of talk, +might have confounded them, could only sulk and grumble, and eventually +lost heart in their work, and all interest and confidence in the +concern. This had much to do, according to Mr. Meeker, an old +Fourierist, with the ruin of the North American Phalanx, one of the most +important of the transatlantic experiments, and it was the main cause +apparently of the downfall of the community of Coxsackie--"They had many +persons engaged in talking and law-making who did not work at any useful +employment; the consequences were that after struggling on for between +one and two years the experiment came to an end." A socialist State +would probably have as many difficulties with this bustling but +unsatisfactory class of persons as a socialist Phalanx, nor would the +evils of divided counsels and departmental delays be a whit milder; and +the extension of State management to branches of work for which it had +not otherwise some sort of special natural qualification would have the +same kind of ruinous operation. + +In spirit and effect, therefore, as may be palpably seen from these +actual experiments, the equalizing institutions of socialism stand quite +apart from the very restricted use of State management and the remedial +or invigorating legislation that a sound social policy prescribes. When +England is accused of heading the nations in the race of State +socialism, because England has nationalized the post and telegraph +service, and passed a series of factory and agrarian Acts for the +protection of the weaker classes of the people, the accusation is made +without proper discrimination. It is not the frequency of the +intervention, but its purpose and consequences that make it socialistic. +If the post is better managed by the State than by private initiative, +if the factory and agrarian laws merely reinstate weaker classes in the +conditions essential for a normal human life, and neither seek nor +produce that equalization of the differences of fortune or skill which +is fatal to any high and progressive general level of comfort, then +there is no State socialism in it at all. State management is not pushed +beyond the limit of efficiency, nor popular rights beyond the positive +claims of social justice. Let us go a little further into detail. + + +IV. _State Socialism and State Management._ + +What are the conditions of efficient State administration? The State +possesses several natural characteristics which give it a decided +advantage as an industrial manager, some for one branch of work, some +for another. It has stability, it has permanency, and it has--what is +perhaps its principal industrial superiority--unrivalled power of +securing unity of administration, since it is the only agency that can +use force for the purpose. On the other hand, it has one great natural +defect, its want of a personal stake in the produce of the business it +conducts, its want of that keen check on waste and that pushing +incentive to exertion which private undertakings enjoy in the eye and +energy of the master. This is the great taproot from which all the usual +faults of Government management spring--its routine, red-tape spirit, +its sluggishness in noting changes in the market, in adapting itself to +changes in the public taste, and in introducing improved methods of +production. Government servants may very generally be men of a higher +stamp and training than the servants of a private company, but they are +proverbial, on the one hand, for a certain lofty disdain of the humble +but valuable virtue of parsimony, and, on the other, for an +unprogressive, unenterprising, uninventive administration of business. + +Now the branches of industry which the State is fitted to carry on are +of course those in which its great fault happens to have small scope for +play, and in which its great merit or merits have great scope for play; +those, for example, which gain largely in efficiency or economy by a +centralized administration, and suffer little harm comparatively from a +routine one. That is the reason Governments always manage the postal +service well. In post-office work the specific industrial superiority of +Government carries its maximum of advantage, and its specific industrial +defect does its minimum of injury. The carrying and delivery of letters +from one part of the empire to another require, for efficiency, a single +co-ordinated system, and, on the other hand, those operations themselves +are of so unvariable and routine a character that little harm is done by +their being carried on in a routine spirit; they involve so little +capital expenditure--the entire capital of the department in England is +only £80,000--that the opportunity for waste and corruption is slight; +and being conducted much more largely under the public eye than the +affairs of other departments of State, they are consequently subject to +the constant and interested criticism of the people whose wants they are +meant to satisfy. The same reason explains why Government dockyards and +arms factories are always managed so unsatisfactorily. There is, on the +one hand, no need in them for any higher unity of administration than is +wanted in any ordinary single business establishment; but, on the other, +progressiveness and adaptability are of the first moment, routine and +obstruction to improvement being indeed among their worst dangers. Then +the risk of prodigality and corruption is high, for their capital +expenditure is great, and the check of public criticism very distant and +ineffectual. So exceptional a business is the post, that the telegraphs, +though managed by the same department, have never been managed with the +same success. They were bought at first at a ransom, they have involved +an increasing loss nearly ever since, and the public have to pay +practically as much for their telegrams--perhaps more--than the public +of the United States pay to their telegraph companies. Even in the +postal department, Government administration shows the usual official +slowness in adopting much-needed and even lucrative reforms. Of this, a +good example occurred only the other day. It was not until a Boys' +Messenger Company was already in the field and doing the work, that the +Postmaster-General was brought to recognise, as he said, "the +desirability of providing a more rapid means of transmitting single +letters for short distances and under special circumstances than at +present exists." + +It ought of course to be acknowledged that State management in England +is tried under the very worst possible conditions, inasmuch as it is +tied to the fortunes and exigencies of political party. No business +could be expected to thrive where the supreme control is placed in the +hands of a good parliamentary debater, who knows nothing about the +special work of the department he undertakes; where, even at that, this +inexperienced hand is changed for another inexperienced hand every three +or four years; where policy shifts without continuity, to dodge the +popular breeze of to-day, or to catch the popular breeze of to-morrow; +and where the actual incumbent of office, is always able to evade +censure by throwing the responsibility on his predecessors, who are out +of office. Well may a sagacious man like Mr. Samuel Laing, with large +experience of administration both in the affairs of State and of private +companies, exclaim: "I often think what the result would be if the +railway companies managed their affairs on the same principles as the +nation applies to its naval and military expenditure. Suppose the +Brighton Board were turned out every three years, and a new Board came +in with new views and a new policy, and new men at the head of the +locomotive, traffic, and other spending departments, how long would it +be before expenses went up and dividends down?" If State management is +to succeed--if it is to have fair play--it must be entirely divorced +from party fortunes, while subject, of course, to the criticism of +Parliament, under some system like that adopted in Victoria for the +management of the railways. In such circumstances the question of the +advisability of Government assuming the management of any industry, is a +question of balancing the probable gains from the greater unity of the +administration against the probable losses from its greater inertia. + +There are some exceptional branches of industry in which Government does +better than private persons, because private persons have too little +interest to do the work well, or even to do it at all, and there are +others in which the State's very want of personal interest is its +advantage instead of its drawback. Forestry is the best example of the +first sort. One generation must plant, and another cut down, so that the +present owner is often unwilling to incur the expense of a speculation +of which he is unlikely to live to reap the fruits; but the natural +permanence of the State leads it to do more justice to this important +branch of production, and experience everywhere shows that State forests +are more productive than private ones. In Prussia and Belgium they are +nearly twice as productive. The average annual produce of all forests in +Prussia (including State forests) is 0.36 thaler per Morgen, but the +produce of State forests alone is 0.66 thaler per Morgen. In Belgium the +produce of all forests is 19.33 francs per hectare, and of State forests +34.42 francs.[9] The erection of lighthouses is also a public service, +which falls to the State because of individual inability; it cannot be +undertaken in any way to make it remunerative to private adventurers. + +The best example of an industrial work for which the State's want of +personal interest is its advantage is the Mint. Nobody would trust the +stamp of a private assayer as he trusts the stamp of the Government, +because the private assayer could never succeed in placing his personal +disinterestedness so absolutely above the suspicion of fraud. The policy +of the official attestation of the quality of commodities is often +disputed on the ground that it discourages improvement above the pass +standard, but it is never doubted that if a brand is wanted, the brand +to command most confidence is the brand of the Crown. Our own +Government, out of the infinity of commodities offered for sale, attests +none but six--butter, herrings, plate, gun barrels, chains, and +anchors--articles in which the dangers of deterioration probably exceed +the chances of improvement, and in the case of some of these six there +is a strong feeling abroad that the State's intervention is doing more +harm than good. Scotch herrings have suffered lately in the German +markets, because they were worse cured than the Norwegian, and the +herring brand was blamed for the unprogressiveness of the cure. This +class of interventions, therefore, is neither numerous now, nor likely +to become very numerous in the future. + +A more important class of undertakings in which the State's industrial +advantage lies in its superiority to the temptations of self-interest, +is that of industries which naturally assume something of the character +of a monopoly, and in which self-interest lacks both the check on its +rapacity, and the spur to its activity supplied by effective +competition. It is true of more things than railways that when +combination is possible, competition is impossible, and the growth of +syndicates, trusts and pooling arrangements at the present day has led +to considerable agitation for State interference, especially in the case +of commodities like salt and coal, which are necessaries of life. Our +experience of these things is as yet limited, but so far as it has gone +it seems to show that the public dangers dreaded from them are apt to be +exaggerated. The combinations fear to raise the price to the public so +high as to provoke competition, and in most cases in America have not +raised it at all, drawing their advantage rather from the reduction in +expense of management, and the saving of capital; and the State would +not be likely to manage industries producing for the markets any better +than, or even so well as, the more keenly interested board of private +directors. But if the balance of evidence seems against public +management in this class of monopolies, it stands, I think, decidedly in +favour of public management in another and not unimportant class. The +gas and water supply of towns is a monopoly, and though the point is not +undisputed, it appears to answer better on the whole in public than in +private hands, because the management has no interest to serve except +the interest of the public. Experience has not been everywhere the same, +but usually it has been that under municipal control the quality of the +gas has been improved and the price reduced. But this is municipal +management of course, not State management, and the difference is +material, inasmuch as municipal management, in the case of gas and water +supply, is the management of the production of things of general +consumption under the direct control of the very people who consume +them, so that it is constantly exposed to effective public criticism, +perhaps as good a substitute as things admit of for the eye of the +master. The natural defect of public management is so mitigated by this +circumstance, that probably of all forms of public management, municipal +management is the best, and when applied to branches of production that +tend to become monopolies at any rate, it answers well. The question is +entirely different with proposals that are sometimes made for converting +into municipal monopolies branches of production--such, for example, as +the bread supply of the community--which are carried on by individual +management under effective competition. To do as well as joint-stock +management uncontrolled by competition is one thing; to do as well as +individual management subject to competition is another; and so long as +public management replaces nothing but the former class of enterprises, +which are in any case a sort of natural monopolies, it will never +contract the vast field of individual enterprise to any very serious +extent. + +When we pass from municipal monopolies to State monopolies, the problem +becomes more grave. The two largest current proposals of this kind are +those of land nationalization and railway nationalization. The former +proposal, though much more noisily advocated than the other, has +incomparably the weaker case. For apart altogether from the mischief of +making every rent settlement a political question, and looking at the +matter merely in its economic aspect, land, of all things, is that which +is least suited for centralized administration, and yields its best +results under the minute concentrated supervision of individual and +occupying ownership. The magic of property is now a proverbial phrase; +it is truer of land than anything else, and it merely means that for +land interested administration is everything, comprehensive +administration nothing, that the zeal of the resident owner to improve +his own land knows no limit, whereas the obstructive forces of routine +and official inertia have nowhere more power to blight than in land +management. In Adam Smith's time, as he mentions in the "Wealth of +Nations," the Crown lands were everywhere the least productive lands in +their respective countries, and the experience is the same still. It is +so even in Prussia, in spite of its economical and skilled bureaucracy. +Professor Roscher says it is a common remark in Germany that Crown lands +sell for a greater number of years' purchase than other lands, because +they are known to be less improved, and are therefore expected to yield +better results to the energy of the purchaser, and he quotes official +figures for 1857, showing that the domain land of Prussia had not risen +in value so much as the other land in the country. Great expectations +are often entertained from the unearned increment, though there is not +likely to be much of that in agricultural land for years to come; but +what is a much more important consideration for the community is the +earned increment, and under State management the earned increment would +infallibly decline. Of course, this does not exclude the necessity of +strict State control, so far as required by justice, humanity, and the +growth and comfort of the general community. Under land nationalization +here I have not considered schemes which do not give the State any real +ownership in the land more than it at present enjoys, or, at any rate, +place no real management of the land in its hands. The rival schemes of +Mr. A. R. Wallace and Mr. Henry George are really only more or less +objectionable methods of increasing the land-tax. + +The question of a State railway is not so easily determined. There are +certainly few branches of business where unity of administration is more +advantageous, or where the public would benefit more from affairs being +conducted from the public point of view of developing the greatest +amount of gross traffic, instead of from the private point of view of +making the greatest amount of net profit. A railway differs from other +enterprises, because it affects all others very seriously for good or +ill; it may for the sake of more profit give preferences that are +hurtful to industrial development, or deny facilities that are essential +to it. A private company may find it more profitable to carry a less +quantity at a high rate than a greater quantity at a low, and it cannot +be expected to run a line that does not pay, though the general +community might benefit greatly more by the increase of traffic which +the line creates than covers the loss incurred by running it. Now it is +impossible to exaggerate the importance of having a public work like a +railway, which can help or hinder every trade in the land, conducted +from a public point of view instead of a private, and the present +discussion in this country on rates and fares points to the desirability +of changes to which private companies are not likely to resort of their +own accord, nor the railway commission to be able to compel them. But, +on the other hand, it is equally impossible to exaggerate the risks of +the undertaking. The post office, with its capital of £80,000, is a +plaything to the railways with their capital of £800,000,000, and their +revenue little short of that of the State itself. The operations are of +a most varied nature, and only some of them could be exposed to +effective criticism. The mere transaction of purchase excites in many +minds a not unreasonable fear. If Government made a bad bargain with the +telegraph companies, it would be sure to make a worse with the railway +companies, who are fifty times more powerful; and besides, it would very +likely have to borrow its money at a higher figure, for though it could +borrow two millions at 3 per cent., it could not therefore borrow eight +hundred millions, for the simple reason that the number of people who +want 3 per cent. is limited, most holders of stock preferring +investments which, though more risky, offer a prospect of more gain. If +in trying to balance these weighty _pros_ and equally weighty _cons_ one +turns to the experience of State railways, he will find that as yet it +affords few very sure or decisive data, because it varies in the +different countries and times, and has been very differently +interpreted. + +Of the Continental State railways, those of Belgium and Germany are +usually counted the most favourable examples. But Mr. Hadley, in his +excellent work on Railway Transportation, shows that the State lines of +Belgium were conducted in an extremely slovenly, perfunctory way until +1853, when private lines began to increase and compete with them, and +that though the low rates which this competition was the means of +introducing still remain after the private lines have been largely +bought out, there has been, on the other hand, latterly a decline in the +profits of the State system, an increasing tendency to slackness and +inertia in the management, and growing complaints of creating posts to +reward political services, and manipulating accounts to suit Government +exigencies. In Germany the rates are certainly low and the management +economical, but complaints are made that less is done for the +encouragement of the national resources, and unprofitable traffic is +more severely declined than by the private railways. On the whole, +probably the best State railway system is that of Victoria; charging low +rates, self-supporting, offering every encouragement to industrial +development; and the opinion of England will probably be largely +determined by further observation of that experiment. + +The sister colony of New Zealand has made a successful experiment in +another department of industrial enterprise, life insurance, for which +Government management indeed is highly adapted, because, in the first +place, it is a business in which absolute security is of the last +consequence, and there is no security like Government guarantee; and in +the second, it is a business in which the calculations of the whole +administration are virtually matters of mechanical routine. The +Government office was only opened in 1871, under the influence of a +widespread distrust of private offices, caused by recent bankruptcies, +and it now transacts one-third of the life insurance business of the +colony; it has probably tended to encourage life insurance, for while +there are only 26 policies per 1000 of population in the United Kingdom, +there are 80 per 1000 in New Zealand, and its management is much cheaper +than that of any other insurance company in the colony, except the +Australian United. The proportion of expenses to revenue in the +Australian United is 13.66 per cent., in the Government Office 17.23, +and in none of the other companies (whose gross business, however, is +much smaller) is it under 43.02. + +Adam Smith thought there were only four branches of enterprise which +were fitted to be profitably conducted by a joint-stock company. We have +seen in our day almost every branch of industry conducted by such +companies, and an idea is often expressed that whatever a joint-stock +company can do, Government can do at least quite as well, because the +defect of both is the same. The defect is the same, but Government has +it in larger measure. Joint-stock management is certainly much less +productive in most industries than private management. The Report of the +Massachusetts Labour Bureau for 1878 contains some curious statistics on +the subject. There were then in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, +10,395 private manufacturing establishments, employing in all 166,588 +persons, and 520 joint-stock manufacturing establishments, employing +101,337 persons, and the private establishments, while they paid a much +higher average rate of wages than the joint-stock, produced at the same +time not far from twice as much for the capital invested. The average +wages per head in the private establishments was 474.37 dollars a year, +and in the joint-stock was 383.47 dollars a year; while the produce per +dollar of capital was 2.58 dollars' worth in the private, and 1.37 +dollars' worth in the joint-stock, and though part of this difference is +attributed to the circumstance that private manufacturers sometimes hire +their factories and companies do not, the substance of it is believed to +be due to the inferiority of the joint-stock management. Anyhow, that +circumstance could have no influence in producing the very marked +difference in the wages given by the two classes of enterprise, and the +higher wages would not, and could not, be given unless the production +was higher. If all the industries of the country, then, were put under +joint-stock management, the result would be (1) a general reduction in +the amount produced, and (2) a consequent reduction in the general +remuneration of the working classes, and the general level of natural +comfort; and the result would be still worse under universal Government +management. One of the labourer's greatest interests is efficient +management, and if he suffers from the replacement of individual +employers by joint-stock companies, he would suffer much more by the +replacement of both by the State, excepting only in those few +departments of business for which the State happens to possess peculiar +advantages and aptitude. + + +V. _State Socialism and Popular Right._ + +The limits of the legitimate intervention of the public authority with +respect to the moral development of the community are prescribed by a +different rule from those with respect to its material development. +Efficiency is still, indeed, a governing consideration, for perhaps more +measures for popular improvement fail from sheer ineffectuality than +from any other reason. The history of social reform is strewn thick with +these dead-letter measures. There is a cry and a lamentation, and a +feeling that something must be done; and an Act of Parliament is passed +containing injunctions which no Act of Parliament can enforce, or which +address themselves to mere accidental circumstances, and leave the real +causes of the evil entirely unaffected. And there would be no +impropriety in describing impracticable or ill-directed legislation of +this kind as being socialistic, for, besides the old association of +socialism with impracticable schemes, impracticable legislation is +always unjust legislation, and unjust legislation for behoof of the +labouring class is essentially socialistic. Every State interference +necessarily involves a certain restriction of the liberty or other +general rights of some class of persons; and although this restriction +would be perfectly justifiable if it actually secured the prior or more +urgent right of another and perhaps much more numerous class of persons, +it is injustice, and nothing but injustice, when it merely hurts the +former class without doing any good to the latter. It may hurt both +classes even--well-meaning meddling often does; but what I desire to +bring out here is that labour legislation, which may have been entirely +just and free from socialism in its intention, may be unjust and full of +socialism in its result. We may therefore, without any fault, include +under the head of State socialism that common sort of proposal which, +without urging any wrong claim, merely asks the State to do the wrong +thing--to do either something it cannot do at all, or something that +will not answer the purpose intended. It is socialistic not because it +is impracticable, but because it is unjust. + +Since well-meant legislation may thus become urgent, and therefore +socialistic for want of result, it is plain that the efficiency of the +intervention is a very important consideration in determining the +State's duty with respect to popular rights. But the primary +consideration here is the extent of the moral claim which the +individual, by reason of his weakness, has upon the resources of +society, and it is upon that consideration that the division of +conflicting political theories on the subject turns. All the several +theories are agreed that the enlargement of popular rights, when the +enlargement is required by a just popular claim, is entirely within the +proper and natural province of the State; where they differ, and differ +seriously, is partly in their views of the justice of particular +elements in the popular claim of the time being, but more especially in +their whole conception of the nature and extent of the popular claim in +general. There are still some persons to be found contending that there +are no such things as natural rights, and there are plenty who cannot +hear the words without a sensation of alarm. But it is now generally +admitted, even by those who adopt the narrowest political theories, that +legal rights are merely the ratification of moral rights already +existing, and that the creation of new legal rights for securing the +just aspirations of ill-protected classes of the people belongs to the +ordinary daily duties of all civil government. Mr. Spencer very readily +admits that some of the latest constituted rights in this country--the +new seamen's right of the Merchant Shipping Act, and the new women's +right of the Married Women's Property Act--are perfectly justifiable for +the prevention in the one case of seamen being fraudulently betrayed +into unseaworthy ships, and in the other of women being robbed of their +own personal earnings. But then the new rights which he would most +condemn--the right to public assistance, the right to education, the +right to a habitable dwelling, the right to a fair rent--are quite as +susceptible of justification on the ground of natural justice as either +the right to a seaworthy ship or the right to one's own earnings. Mr. +Spencer's theory errs by unduly contracting men's natural claim. They +have a right to more than equal freedom; they have a right, to use +Smith's phrase, to an undeformed and unmutilated humanity, to that +original basis of human dignity which it is the business of organized +society to defend for its weaker members against the assaults of fortune +as well as the assaults of men. That is what I have called, for the sake +of distinction, the English theory of social politics. On the other +hand, socialism unduly extends this claim. The right to fair wages is +one thing; the State could not realize it, but it at least represents no +unjust aspiration; but the right to an equal dividend of the national +income, claimed by utopian socialists, including Mr. Bellamy at the +present day, and the right to the full produce of labour claimed by the +revolutionary socialists, and meaning, as explained by them, the right +to the entire product of labour and capital together, are really rights +to unfair wages, and the whole objection to them is that they are at +variance with social justice. If we keep these distinctions in view, we +shall be able to discriminate between interventions of authority which +are innocent, and interventions which are tainted with State socialism. +Take an illustration or two, 1st, of interventions for settling the +claims of the poor in society in general, and 2nd, of interventions for +adjusting the differences between one class and another, between +employer and labourer, between landlord and tenant, and the like. + +1. Under the first head, the most important question is the question of +public assistance. Prince Bismarck created a considerable European +sensation when he first announced his new social policy in 1884, by +declaring in favour of the three claims of labour, which have been so +commonly regarded as the very alpha and omega of social revolution--the +right to existence for the infirm, the right to labour for the +able-bodied, and the right to superannuation for the aged. "Give the +labourer," he said, "the right to labour when he is able-bodied; give +him the right to relief when he is sick; give him the right to +maintenance when he is old; and if you do so--if you do not shrink from +the sacrifice, and do not cry out about State socialism whenever the +State does anything for the labourer in the way of Christian +charity--then I believe you will destroy the charm of the Wyden (_i.e._, +Social Democratic) programme." These three rights are really two, the +right of relief when one is sick and of maintenance when one is old +being only different phases of the right to existence. Now the right to +existence and the right to labour are in themselves both perfectly just +claims, but the construction Prince Bismarck gave them passed decidedly +over into State socialism. + +The right to existence is seldom called in question. Malthus, it is +true, said a man had a right to live only as he had a right to live a +hundred years--_if he could_. He might as well have argued that a man +had a right to escape murder only as he had a right to escape murder for +a hundred years--_if he could_. It is really because he cannot that he +has the right--it is because he cannot protect himself against violence +that he has a right to protection from the State, and because, and as +far as, he cannot protect himself against starvation that he has a just +claim upon the State for food. And his claim is obviously bounded in the +one case as in the other by the ability of society. If society cannot +protect him, it is of course absurd to talk of any right to its +protection, but if society can, society ought. To suffer a +fellow-citizen to die of hunger is felt by a civilized community to be +at least as just a disgrace to its government as it would be to leave +him a prey to the knife of the assassin, or to the incursions of +marauders from over the enemy's border. But as the State furnishes +protection against human violence by its courts of justice, and against +disease by its sanitary laws, so it furnishes protection against famine +and indigence by its legal provision of relief. The claim of the +perishing stands on the same footing as any other claim which is an +admitted right of man to-day; it is a claim to an essential condition of +normal manhood--to existence itself. But then, if the right to existence +must be admitted, it can only be admitted where the individual is, for +whatever reason, unable to make provision for himself, and it can only +be admitted in such measure and form as will not discourage other +individuals from trying to make independent provision for themselves +before their day of disability comes, because that, in turn, is the way +prescribed by normal manhood and true human dignity. + +What State socialists claim, however, is not the right to existence, but +the right to decent and comfortable existence--the right to the style of +living which is customary among the independent poor. The labourer +ought, in their eyes, to be treated as a public servant, and his sick +pay and his pension ought both to be commensurate with the claims and +dignity of honest labour. Now it is of course impossible not to +sympathize much with this view, but the difficulty is that if you make +assisted labour as good as independent labour, you shall soon have more +assisted labour than you can manage, you shall have weakened the push, +energy, and forethought of your labouring class, you shall have really +done much to destroy that very dignity of labour which you desire to +establish. The State may probably, with great advantage, do more for +working-class insurance than it at present does. It could conduct the +business of the burial benefit and the superannuation benefit better +than any private company or friendly society, because it could offer a +surer guarantee and the business is routine; Mr. Gladstone's excellent +annuity scheme has remained sterile only because it has not been pushed, +and the canvasser and collector are indispensable in working-class +insurance. But the socialist proposal is that the State ought to give +every man a pension after a certain age, irrespectively altogether of +his own contributions. Mr. Webb is one of its most recent advocates, +and, according to the useful figures he has taken the trouble to obtain, +there are in the United Kingdom 1,700,000 persons over sixty-five years +of age, of whom 1,300,000 contrive to pension themselves, either by +their own savings or the assistance of their families, while the +remaining 400,000 are supported by the rates at an average cost of ten +guineas a year. Mr. Webb's proposal is that in order to save the +feelings of the 400,000 dependants you are to make the other 1,300,000 +persons dependants along with them, and give ten guineas a year all +round. But you cannot make a public dole a pension by merely calling it +a pension. A pension is a payment made by one's actual employer for work +done--it is wages, and the man who has earned his own pension, or has +provided it by his own saving, feels himself and is an independent man. +It is right to maintain the 400,000--whether out of national or +parochial funds is a detail--but sound policy would rather aim at +raising the 400,000 to be as the 1,300,000, than at lowering the +1,300,000 to the level of the 400,000. With Mr. Webb it is not a +question of giving the 400,000 better allowances than they receive at +present--which might be most reasonably entertained--but it is a mere +question of not suffering them to be looked down on by the 1,300,000 who +have fought their own way, and that is not possible, nor, with all +respect for them, is it, from a public point of view, desirable. It is +right to support those who cannot support themselves, but it is neither +right nor wise to remove all distinction between the dependent poor and +the independent. + +But the line between State socialism and sound social politics in the +matter of public assistance may perhaps be better shown in another +branch of Poor Law administration--the right to labour for the +able-bodied. The socialist right to labour is the right of the +unemployed to get labour in their own trades and at good or current +rates of wages. That is the right which Bismarck substantially admitted +in his famous speech. He said there was a crowd of suitable undertakings +which the State could establish to furnish the unemployed with a fair +day's wage for a fair day's work. It is also practically the right which +prevailed in England between 1782, when Gilbert's Act abolished the old +workhouse test, and 1835, when the new Poor Law restored it. Gilbert's +Act gave the able-bodied poor the right (1) to obtain from the guardians +work near their own residence and suited to their respective strength +and capacity; (2) to receive for their labour all the money earned by +it; and (3) if that sum fell short of their requirements, to have the +difference made up out of the parochial funds. The effect of that, as we +know, was, that public relief became too desirable, the dependants on it +multiplied, the poor rate rose, the wages of labour fell, the very +efficiency of the labourer himself withered, and the new Poor Law +reverted to the workhouse test, which, harsh though it was considered to +be, was in reality a necessary defence of the character and comfort of +the labouring class from further decadence. + +To provide the unemployed with work in their own trades is only to +increase the evil you wish to remedy, for the very existence of the +unemployed shows that those particular trades are slack at the time, +that there is no demand for the articles they produce, and consequently +any attempt by the State to throw fresh supplies of these articles on +the already over-stocked market can have no other effect than to +increase the depression and turn out of employ the men that are still at +work. Paying relief work at the common market rate of wages is attended +with the same objection. The remedy only aggravates the disease, and +what ought to be merely the labourer's temporary resource against +adversity tends to grow into his regular staff of life. Relief wages, +while sufficient for the family's support, should remain below the +current rates so as to give the labourer an effective inducement to seek +better employment as soon as better employment can possibly be obtained. +The true and natural defence against misfortune is the man's own +personal exertion and provision, and the purpose of the public +intervention is to stimulate and assist, not to supplant, that _vis +medicatrix naturæ_. + +But under these limitations a right to labour is a just claim of the +unfortunate. It is admitted in the English Poor Law, and it is admitted +in the Scotch parochial practice, which constructively considers want of +employment a form of sickness or accident, and it requires in both +countries to be better realized than it is. 1st: although it is +unadvisable to give every man work at his own trade, and although the +choice of trades for relief purposes is attended with as much difficulty +as the choice of those for prison labour is found to be, yet certainly +the circle of relief trades ought to be extended beyond stone-breaking +and oakum-picking. Socialists themselves are among the foremost in +complaining of the competition of prison labour with honest labour, +although they fail to see that precisely the same objection attends the +competition of relieved labor in public workshops with unrelieved labour +in regular private employment. The kind of work most free from objection +on this score would probably be the production of articles now imported +from abroad, and there are a great many trades in which, while we make +most of their products at home, we import particular articles or sorts +of articles for one reason or another. Some of these might be found +suitable for the purpose in view. Or the men in the public workshops +might be employed in making a variety of things used in public offices, +imperial or local. 2nd: what is even more important, a distinction ought +to be made between the industrious poor and that residuum of confirmed +failures for whom the stoneyard test is really intended, and the former +ought not to be made to feel themselves any way degraded in their work, +their small remuneration being trusted to act as a sufficient preventive +against their permanent dependence on the public for employment. 3rd: +then a third and most important requisite is to supplement the public +provision of work with a public provision of information about the +demand for labour over the country from day to day, so as not merely to +support the men in adversity, but to facilitate their restoration to +their normal condition of prosperity. + +For we ought to recognise that though the problem of the unemployed is +not, as many persons imagine, one of increasing gravity in our +time--although, on the contrary, if we go back thirty years, sixty +years, or a hundred years, we always find worse complaints and more +distressing sufferings from that cause than at present, yet it is +certainly a constant problem. The unemployed we have always with us, and +even their numbers vary less from time to time than we are apt to +suppose. Trades dependent on fine weather are, of course, slack in +winter, but then trades dependent on fashion are slack in summer, while +there are some large trades--such as the shoemakers--that are made brisk +by bad weather. Even a general commercial crisis which throws the +workpeople of many trades idle, makes those of others busy. The building +trades are always busy in bad times, because money and labour are then +cheap, and the opportunity is seized of building or extending factories, +and laying down plant of every description. It was so to a very +remarkable extent during the Lancashire cotton distress of 1862; it was +so all over England in the depression of 1877-78, and the same fact was +observed again in Scotland, and commented upon by the factory inspector +in 1886. Other trades are brisker in a crisis for less happy causes, +_e.g._, the bakers for the melancholy reason that the working classes +are more generally driven from meat to bread. These natural corrections +or compensations elicited by the depression itself prevent the numbers +of the unemployed from growing so very much larger in a crisis than in +ordinary times that their case would not be overtaken satisfactorily by +the general systematic provision of relief work, if that were once +established. The excess is met now so effectually by a few special local +efforts, that we have sometimes far fewer able-bodied paupers in bad +years than in good. The number of able-bodied paupers was very much less +in the bad years 1876-1878 than in the good years immediately after +them, or in the still better years immediately before them. The problem +being, then, so largely constant from season to season, and from cycle +to cycle, ought clearly to be solved by a permanent and systematic +provision. + +The same principle which governs this right to labour--the principle of +preventing degradation and facilitating self-recovery--governs other +social legislation for the unfortunate besides the Poor Law. It lies at +the bottom of the homestead exemptions of America, and our own +prohibition of arrestment of tools and wages for debt, and our +occasional measures for cancelling arrears. It is the principle laid +down by Pitt when he said that no temporary occasion should be suffered +to force a British subject to part with his last shilling. He had a +right to his last shilling, because he had a right to an undegraded +humanity. The last shilling stopped his fall, and perhaps helped him to +rise again. + +Many persons will admit the right to public assistance, because it seems +limited to saving men from extremities, who will see nothing but +socialism of a perilous sort in other public provisions, for which +popular claims are advanced. Schools, museums, libraries, parks, open +spaces, footpaths, baths, are certainly means of intellectual and +physical life, which keep the manhood of a community in normal vigour; +but, it will be asked, if the State once begins to supply such things, +where is it to stop? Is free education to go beyond the primary +branches? What length are you to go? is the question Mr. Spencer always +raises as a bar to your going at all. But the same question of degree +can be raised about everything, about the duties Mr. Spencer himself +imposes upon the State as really as about those he refuses to sanction. +In the matter of protection, for instance, how many policemen are we +required to detail to a district? Or how great an army and navy are we +to maintain? During the excitement about the Jack the Ripper murders +there was much clamour about the police being too few, and we are +subject to periodical panics as to our imperial defences, in the course +of which no two persons agree in answering the question, what length are +we to go? The question can only be settled of course by measuring the +length of our necessities with the length of our purse, and the same +class of considerations rules in the other case, the importance and cost +of the given provision to a community of such education and culture, +together with the impossibility of getting it adequately supplied +without public agency. The opinion of the time may vary as to what is +essential for a whole and wholesome manhood, and its resources may vary +as to what may be easily borne to supply it; but the same variation +takes place with respect to the duties of national defence, or the +administration of justice. The objection is therefore nothing more or +less than the very ancient and famous logical fallacy with which the +Greek sophists used to nonplus their antagonists. As in other affairs, +the problem so far will settle itself practically as it goes along, and +the important distinction to bear in mind is that to give every man the +essential conditions of all humane living is a very different kind of +aim from giving every man the same share in the national production, or +a lien on his neighbour's luck or industry or alertness. + +2. From rights realizing general claims of the unfortunate on society at +large, let us now pass to rights realizing special claims of certain +weaker classes of society against certain stronger classes. The most +typical examples of this sort of legislation are the intervention of the +State between buyer and seller, between landlord and tenant, between +employer and labourer, for the judicial determination of a fair price, a +fair rent, or fair wages, or for the regulation of the conditions of +labour, and tenure of land. Professor Sidgwick declares the Irish and +Scotch Land Acts, which provide for the judicial determination of a fair +rent, to be the most distinctively socialistic measures the English +Legislature has yet passed; but in reality these Land Acts are not a bit +more socialistic than the laws which fix a fair price for railway rates +and fares, and much less socialistic than the old usury Acts which +sought to determine fair interest. Such interferences with freedom of +contract as these are, of course, only justifiable when the absence of +effective competition places the real power of settlement of terms +practically in the hands of one side alone, and conduces, therefore, +inevitably to the serious injury and oppression of the other. Parliament +controls railway charges because the railway companies enjoy a monopoly +of most important business, and might use their monopoly to wrong the +public, and when Parliament is asked, as it sometimes is, to discourage +corners, rings, syndicates, or pooling combinations, it is on the ground +that these various agencies are attempts, more or less successful, to +exclude competition for the purpose of exacting from the public more +than a fair price. On the other hand, the reason why we have given up +fixing fair interest now is because we have come to see that +competition, being very effective among money-lenders, fixes it far +better for us without the intervention of the law, and, of course, an +unnecessary interference with freedom of contract is nothing but +pernicious. But, although for ordinary commercial loans the competition +of lenders is a sufficient security for the fair treatment of borrowers, +it affords no protection against extortion to the very necessitous man, +who must accept any terms or starve. His poverty leaves him no proper +freedom to make a contract, and the law still condemns oppressive rates +of usury, to which, as the Apothecary says in "Romeo and Juliet," the +poor man's poverty, but not his will, consents. In such a case, +accordingly, an authoritative prescription of fair interest is only a +necessary requirement of justice and humanity. + +The public determination of fair rent stands on precisely the same +ground. The rent of large farms, like the interest on ordinary +commercial loans, may be safely left to be settled by commercial +competition, because large farms are taken by men of capital as a +business speculation, and landlords cannot exact more rent than the +farms will bear without driving capital out of agriculture into other +branches of production, and so reducing the demand for that class of +farms to an extent that will bring the rent down to its proper level +again. But the rent of small holdings, like the interest on loans to +persons in extremity, is ruled by other considerations. Cottier tenants, +between their numbers and their necessities, are continually driven into +offering rents the land can never be made to pay, and thereby incurring +for the rest of their days the burden of a lengthening chain of arrears +little better than Oriental debt-slavery. Other work is hard to find; +the land being limited in supply is a natural monopoly; and the State +merely steps in to save the tenantry from the injurious effects of their +own over-competition for an essential instrument of their labour, and, +through their labour, of their very existence. The interference, +therefore, is perfectly justifiable if the machinery it institutes can +carry out the purpose efficiently, and there is this difference between +a court for fixing rent and a court for fixing the price of bread, or +beer, or labour, that it is only doing work which in the natural course +of things is very usually done by periodical and independent valuation, +instead of by the ordinary higgling of the market. It has always been +the custom on many large estates to call in a valuator from the outside +for the revision of the rents, and a valuator appointed by the Crown +cannot be expected to do the work any less effectively than a valuator +appointed by the landlord. Moreover, the tendency of opinion seems to be +towards the simplication of the process by some self-working scheme, a +sliding scale for apportioning an annual rent to the annual production. + +State intervention in the determination of the rate of wages is often +proposed either for the purpose of settling trade disputes on the +subject, or for the purpose of suppressing what is called starvation +wages and fixing a legal minimum rate. As for arbitration in trade +disputes, the object is, of course, in no way socialistic, for it is +strictly allied with the ordinary judicial work of the State, and a +public and permanent tribunal would probably answer the purpose much +better than a private and merely occasional one; for even although it +might not be able to enforce its judgments in all cases by compulsion on +the parties, it would be more likely than the other to command their +confidence and secure by its moral authority their voluntary submission, +and this authority would increase with the experience of the court. + +In certain cases compulsory arbitration seems to be required. There are +trades in which the public interest may require strikes to be +prohibited, in order to prevent a whole community suffering grave +privations, perhaps being starved of its supply of a necessary of life. +The Trades Union Act imposes express restrictions on combinations among +the labourers at gas and water works, and the recent railway strike in +Scotland, which not only paralyzed trade for a time, but stopped the +supply of coal to whole districts in the middle of the severest winter +of the last part of the century, suggested to many minds the propriety +of similar interference in railway disputes. But if the State interfered +to stop the strike, the State must needs in equity interfere to decide +upon the cause of quarrel. And happily these are the very cases which +are best fitted for compulsory arbitration, because the trades concerned +are not subject to the market fluctuations to which other trades are +liable, and are therefore better suited for fixed settlements of +definite and considerable duration. + +But what socialists claim is a universal determination of normal wages, +so as to give every man the full product of his labour, as the full +product of his labour is understood upon their theory. For the present, +however, they are content to ask for at least the establishment of a +legal minimum rate of wages; in fact, an international minimum rate of +wages and an international eight hours working day are the two demands +on which their agitation is in the meantime most strenuously +concentrated. In their recent policy they have reverted to the kind of +remedies they used to speak of with such lofty disdain as mere +palliatives, and have only preserved their separate identity from other +reformers by asking for these palliatives in their least practicable +form. An international compulsory minimum wage is impossible, for even a +national one is so, and that is the only objection, but a very +sufficient one, to the proposal. If you could wipe out starvation wages +by passing an Act of Parliament, let the Act be passed to-morrow, for +starvation wages is surely the worst and most exasperating of all the +enemies of humane living. To starve for want of power to work is bad; to +starve for want of work is worse; but to work and yet starve, to work a +long, long day without obtaining the bread that should be its natural +reward, is a third and worst degree of misfortune, for it mocks the +fitness and equity of things, and seizes the mind like a wrong. If it is +right to suppress starvation by law, it would seem more right still to +suppress starvation wages; and if the socialist contention were in the +least true, that in consequence of the "iron and cruel law" all wages +are starvation wages, and all work sweaters' work, that work and starve +is the inevitable rule under the present system of things, there would +be no good answer to their demand for the abolition of the present +system of things. But as a matter of fact working and starving is the +condition of only exceptional groups of workpeople, and the right to a +minimum wage, in the sense of a wage above starvation point, would have +no bearing on the great majority of the labouring classes, inasmuch as +they stand already on a considerably higher level of remuneration. + +Ought the State, however, to fix a legal minimum of wages for the +protection of the exceptional groups of workpeople to whose situation +such a measure might have relation? The objection to this course comes +less from want of justice in the claim than from want of power in the +State to realize it. The fixing of a legal minimum rate of wages is a +task which it is beyond the State's power to accomplish, except by +paying up the minimum out of its own funds; for, though the law fixed a +minimum to-morrow, it could not compel employers to engage workmen at +that minimum; and if employers found it unprofitable to do so, the only +effect of the legislation would be to throw numbers of men out of work, +and make their maintenance at the legal minimum an obligation of the +public treasury. Of the results of paying wages out of the rates we have +had plenty of experience. To suppress starvation wages in this way by +direct statute is merely impossible, however, and there would be no +taint of socialism in it, if it could be done. Much less can the like +objection be made against any milder remedies. The only danger is that +they would not prove effectual, and would address themselves to false +causes. Take the sweating system of the East End of London, in which, +bad conditions of labour always going together, we find starvation wages +combined with long hours and unwholesome work-rooms. Two of the +favourite remedies are the abolition of sub-contracting and the +prohibition of pauper Jewish immigration; but neither of these things is +the cause of sweating. The sweating contractor of the East End is not a +sub-contractor at all; he is the only contractor in the business, and +even if he were a sub-contractor, we know that sub-contractors often pay +far better wages than the chief contractor can, because they know their +men better, and get better work out of them. + +A temporary increase in the Jewish immigration may occasion a temporary +aggravation of the difficulty, but the permanent causes lie elsewhere, +and even in the way of aggravation a matter of a thousand Jews more, or +a thousand Jews less, cannot play an all-important part in a system +affecting some hundred thousand workpeople. Sweating is no more incident +to Jewish labour than to English labour. The cheap clothing trade of +Birmingham is certainly in the hands of Jews, yet sweating is--or at +least was when the factory inspector reported in 1879--absolutely +unknown. The wages, he said, were good, the hours were not long, and +there were no overcrowded dens. On the other hand, sweating has not only +been for years endemic in the East End of London, but has even appeared +in a very acute form, apart from any alien influence, in the tailoring +trade in Melbourne, the paradise of working people, as it is sometimes +not unjustly denominated. The sweating there was conducted largely by +ladies who took in bands of learners, and, according to the evidence +before the Shopkeepers' Commission, of 1883, every second house in some +of the suburbs was a shop of that kind. There was an excessive influx of +labour into that trade, because little other work could be found for +women who entertained, as they do generally in that colony, a prejudice +against both factory labour and domestic service. On the other hand, +this overflow was diverted in Birmingham into other channels by the +comparative abundance of light employments the district afforded. But +apart from temporary or local circumstances that serve to aggravate +things or alleviate them, the tailor trade is everywhere naturally +subject beyond all others to over-competition: (1) because the work can +be done at home; (2) because it can be learnt in a few weeks or months +well enough to earn starvation wages in a long day at some sorts of +work; (3) because it needs as little capital for the contractor to start +business as it needs training for the operatives; and (4) because the +operatives being scattered about in their own homes, or in small +workshops here and there, have a natural difficulty in coming to any +concerted action that might otherwise mitigate the effects of the +over-competition, and if there is any general remedy for sweating, it +must deal with these causes. To replace homework by common work in +wholesome workshops, as far as that can be done, might interfere with +what some poor persons found a convenient resource, but would do no harm +to the working class generally. The work it was less convenient for some +to do would be done by others. The change would remove at once one of +the evils of sweating--the unhealthy work-places--and it would +contribute to remove the others, first by facilitating combination, and +second by improving the personal efficiency of the labourer and the +amount of his production. Dr. Watts, of Manchester, speaking from long +experience, tells us in his "Facts of the Cotton Famine" (p. 44) that +"men often care more about being employed in a good mill (_i.e._, a mill +with plenty of room, air, and light) than about the exact price per +pound for spinning, or per piece for weaving, for they know practically +what is the effect of these conditions upon the weekly wages." Various +measures have been suggested which have some such end in view--the +compulsory registration of the contractor's workrooms and his +outworkers, the requiring him to provide workshops for all his hands, +the joint liability of the clothier with him for the wholesomeness of +the workplaces, the erection of public workshops where workpeople may be +accommodated for hire; they may be open to various objections--and there +is no space to indicate or discuss them here--but if they are effectual +for the purpose contemplated, that purpose saves them at least from the +reproach of socialism. + +The international compulsory eight hours day is attended with like +difficulty. The eight hours day is no necessary plank of socialism, +though socialists have at present united to demand it. Rodbertus, the +most learned and scientific of modern socialists, always contended that +the normal working-day ought not to be of uniform length, but should +vary inversely with the relative strain of the several trades, and Mr. +Bellamy, under his system of absolute equality of income, makes +differences in the hours of labour answer the purpose of regulating the +choice of occupation, and preventing too many persons running into the +easier trades, and too few into the harder. Nor, indeed, apart from the +element of universal compulsion, has the eight hours day anything of +socialism in it at all. In some trades it is probably a simple necessity +for protecting the workpeople in normal conditions of health; but above +all its sanitary benefits it would confer upon the workpeople of every +trade alike the much grander blessing of admitting them to a reasonable +share of the intellectual, social, domestic, religious, and political +life of their time. If the State could bestow upon them this sovereign +blessing without forcing them to accept a reduction of wages, which +might deprive them of things even more essential for their elevation, +and which would only breed among them an intolerable discontent, by all +means let the State declare the glad decree. But experience shows that +in matters of this kind the State--and especially the democratic +State--is a very limited agent, and cannot successfully enforce its +decrees upon unwilling trades. In certain special cases, when the short +day is demanded for the purpose of averting admitted dangers to health, +as with the miners, or for the safety of the public, as with the railway +service, there is a recognised stringency of obligation which is +exceptional; but in the great run of trades the question is virtually +one of mere preference between an hour's leisure and an hour's pay, and +in these circumstances a law has too little moral authority behind it to +be practically enforceable by penalties in the absence of decided +working-class opinion in its favour in the affected trades. In Victoria +more than fifty separate trades have obtained the eight hours day +without any parliamentary assistance, and almost the only remaining +trades which do not yet enjoy it are the very trades which have been +protected by an eight hours Factory Act since 1874. As soon as the Act +was passed, the operatives, men and women both, petitioned the Chief +Secretary for its suspension, and it has remained in suspended animation +to this day. A democratic government cannot risk incurring the +discontent of a body of the people merely to prevent them from working +an hour more when they want to earn a little more. California has had an +Eight Hours Act on the statute-book for even a longer period, but it has +remained a mere dead letter, because employers began to pay wages by the +hour or the piece, and the men found they did not earn so much in the +short day as they used to earn in the long. The same thing has happened +in others of the American States, and the friends of the eight hours +movement in that country are beginning to think that the reason their +long and often hot struggle has hitherto been so fruitless is because +they have been wasting their strength in political agitation when they +ought to have been cultivating and organizing opinion among the working +class themselves trade by trade. The weakness of statutory eight hours +movements has generally flowed from two sources. One is that what their +promoters really wanted was not shorter hours, but more wages. Numbers +of them sought only to shorten regular time in order to lengthen +overtime, and numbers more got themselves persuaded that a general +reduction of hours was the grand means of effecting a general rise of +wages, either by removing the competition of the unemployed, or in some +other way; and it has often been only the few--always the very _élite_ +of labour--who fought for the eight hours day because they valued the +leisure enough to make, if necessary, some little sacrifice for so noble +a boon. When, therefore, wages, instead of rising, begin to get reduced, +general disappointment is inevitable, and they get reduced--and reduced +lower than they otherwise might be--through the second weakness of such +movements, which is simply this, that a trades union which is not strong +enough to get an eight hours day by their own unaided efforts, without +the assistance of the law, is not strong enough to prevent their wages +from sinking, and in this matter the law can do nothing to help them. +The eight hours day can only be an abiding possession if it come through +the successive growth of opinion and organization in one trade after +another. The history of the movement in Victoria is the history of such +successive triumphs of opinion and organization; as soon as a trade has +come to want the eight hours day earnestly enough to be willing to +sacrifice something for it, the trade has always got it. In the result +they have had to sacrifice very little; scarce one of them suffered a +fall of wages by the change, for the simple reason that there was no +serious fall in their daily production. The difference between the ten +hours day and the eight hours day in Victoria was not two hours, but +only three-quarters of an hour, for--at least in the important +trades--the old day was ten hours, with an hour and a quarter off for +meals; and in eight hours with only one break the men probably did near +as much as they did before in the eight hours and three-quarters with a +double break. Still, most of the trades took twenty or five-and-twenty +years before they ventured to join the movement; and though no country +in the world is so much under the control of working-class opinion as +Victoria, the proposal of a general legal eight hours day which has +repeatedly come before the Legislature has never been carried into law. + +In one sense the eight hours day is the least socialistic of all reforms +proposed in the interest of the working class, for it is impossible to +make the other classes of society pay for the boon. It may not, perhaps, +be quite certain that there will be anything to pay for it at all, for +many people assure us production will suffer nothing by the change, and +some promise us it will be even increased. But one thing at least is +certain: if there is anything to pay, it is the working classes +themselves who in the end will and must pay it. The reduction can make +no great difference to employers, except on running contracts, or where +for any reason they refuse to keep their plant in use by an extra shift, +for in the matter of wages they will do under an eight hours system +exactly what they do now--pay the men for the amount of work they get +out of them and no more; and as they thus produce their goods at the old +cost, they can export them at the old price. It need not, therefore, +have any permanent effect worth speaking of on the general trade of the +country. But if the men do less, their wages will be less too,[10] and +nothing can long keep them what they were. This wages question is the +eight hours question; and while it is a question for the men more than +for the masters, it is essential they should keep clear of all +misconception in deciding it. + +There is no way of getting ten hours' pay for eight hours' work except +by doing the work of ten hours in the eight. An Eight Hours Act would +give working men no new power to raise the rate of wages; and if they +cannot by combination get twelve hours' pay for ten hours' work to-day, +they cannot by combination get ten hours' pay for eight hours' work +to-morrow. It is, indeed, a very current delusion, that a restriction of +production must increase wages by necessitating the employment of the +unemployed, whose competition tends at present to prevent wages from +rising. But that effect could only occur if the same demand for +commodities remained, and although that might be the case if the +restriction were confined to a single branch of industry, while all the +rest continued to produce as much as before, it would not be so if the +restriction were carried out simultaneously all round. The various +trades are one another's customers; the commodities one supplies +constitute the demand for the labour of the others; and if the supply is +reduced all round, the demand will be reduced all round. To say there is +at any moment a fixed amount of work that has to be done whatever the +produce of the labour, is, as Professor Marshall very happily observes, +to set up a Work Fund Dogma exactly analogous to the old Wages Fund +Doctrine of the schools, and, he might have added, a dogma even more +dangerous to the prosperity of the working-man. Yet the idea is abroad; +it appears in the trade-union policy of "making work"--that is, making +work for to-morrow by not doing it to-day; it is a kind of mercantilist +delusion of the present century, by which each trade is to cut some +advantage for itself out of the sides of the others until they all come +to practise the trick in turn and fall to mysterious ruin together. + +If the eight hours day is to raise wages, it will not be by limiting +production, but by improving it. That the productivity of labour is +capable of improving--nay, that it is certain to improve to such an +extent as to earn by-and-by more wages in an eight hours day than it now +does in a ten--is scarce matter of doubt. Apart from the influence of +machinery and invention, there is a great reserve of personal +efficiency, especially in English labour, still capable of development. +Mr. Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam-hammer, said that he noticed when +watching his men at work, that most of them spent at least two-thirds of +their time, not in working, but in criticising their work with the +square and the straight-edge, which the few dexterous workmen among them +almost never required to use. An increase of dexterity might, therefore, +make up for a reduction of the day in these trades even to four hours. +But the present question is about the probable effect of the reduction +itself upon the efficiency of labour, and experience certainly does not +justify those who declare that it would increase the daily product. The +effect of a reduction from ten hours or nine to eight is, of course, an +entirely different question from the effect of a reduction from twelve +or thirteen to ten, because the last two hours' labour in a very long +and exhausting day may bear little comparison with the last two hours of +a shorter day; and of the exact effect of the particular reduction from +ten to eight we possess but scanty evidence, though much might easily be +obtained, one would think, from establishments that run, as many do, ten +hours in summer and eight hours in winter, or ten hours in busy times +and eight hours in slack. We have some American evidence of this sort, +but it is very contradictory, a few employers saying that quite as much +work was done in the eight hours as in the ten, and others that as much +would have been done had the men made a better use of their leisure, +while several more complained that the men really did less, and that +their energies were positively slackened under the short hours--this +also perhaps being a result of the use they made of their leisure. In +Victoria the production seems to have been reduced a little, but really +so little as to have no very perceptible results, and the leisure is +used so well that the working class have made a distinct rise in the +scale of being, and have developed a remarkable love of outdoor sports, +and spare energy enough to produce some of the most famous cricketers +and scullers in the world. There are some trades in which it is possible +for production to diminish and yet wages to remain the same, because the +difference can be thrown into the price of the product. These are trades +supplying a commodity in general and necessary demand of which the +consumers will stand a very considerable rise in the price before they +will seriously shorten their purchases. Coal is a good example of such a +commodity, and the miners are therefore very happily situated for the +adoption of an eight hours day. They are more able than most other +trades to prevent such a measure from resulting in any fall of wages, +and consequently a legal enactment on the subject is less likely with +them to create subsequent disappointment, and remain dead letter. They +need State help in the matter less than most trades, for they are strong +and well organized; but an Eight Hours Act would be more easily enforced +among them. Very few trades, however, are in this exceptional position. +On the whole, the risk of material loss incurred by the reduction is +slight compared with the certainty and greatness of the moral gain; the +material loss will, in any case, be soon made up by industrial +improvements, if things progress as they are doing; and if the reduction +is more likely to come through the union and organization of the trades +themselves rather than by either national or international action, the +trades at least need have no serious fear to make the venture. + +The idea of settling questions of this kind by international action, +which was started at first from the side of the employers as a +convenient obstructive, but has since been taken up with great zeal by +the young German Emperor and the socialists, is obviously delusive. It +ignores the possibilities of the case, for who, in the first place, is +to adjust the complicated details of this international handicap, and if +they were adjusted, who is to enforce them? No country is likely to be +very strict in enforcing those parts of the settlement by which it lost +some point of advantage, and those are the only parts for which any such +settlement was wanted at all. Besides, international labour treaties are +quite unnecessary. Experience all over the world shows that a short-hour +State suffers nothing in the competition with a long-hour State. When +Massachusetts became a ten-hour State, her manufacturers never found +themselves at any disadvantage in competing with those of the +neighbouring eleven-hour States of New England, and they would have +still less to fear from rivals who employed, not the same Anglo-Saxon +labour as they did themselves, but the less efficient labour of Germany +or France. The ten-hour day was its own reward. It improved the +efficiency of the workpeople to the degree where, in concert with +improvements in the management, also due to the shortening of the day, +the product of ten hours in Massachusetts was equal to the product of +eleven elsewhere. If the same result were to follow the adoption of an +eight hours day, which, however, has still to be tested by experiment, +there is of course no more reason why one country should wait for +another in adopting the eight hours day than in adopting the policy of +free trade. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] It is only fair to this eminent man to remember that his mature +opinions must not be looked for in his essay, "Ideen zu einem Versuch +die Gränzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen," which was written +in his early youth, and never published until after its author's death. +Although in this work he condemns all State education, he lived to be a +famous Minister of Education himself, and to take a great part in +establishing the Prussian system of public instruction. + +[8] Frothingham's "W. H. Channing: a Memoir," p. 18. + +[9] Roscher's "Finanz-Wissenschaft," p. 63. + +[10] For proof of the position that the rate of wages is determined by +the amount of production, see pp. 307-11. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE AGRARIAN SOCIALISM OF HENRY GEORGE. + + +Mr. George sent his "Progress and Poverty" into the world with the +remarkable prediction that it would find not only readers but apostles. +"Whatever be its fate," he says, "it will be read by some who in their +heart of hearts have taken the cross of a new crusade.... The truth I +have tried to make clear will not find easy acceptance. If that could +be, it would have been accepted long ago. If that could be, it would +never have been obscured. But it will find friends--those who will toil +for it, suffer for it: if need be, die for it. This is the power of the +truth" (p. 393). Mr. George's prediction is not more remarkable than its +fulfilment. His work has had an unusually extensive sale; a hundred +editions in America, and an edition of 60,000 copies in this country are +sufficient evidences of that; but the most striking feature in its +reception is precisely that which its author foretold; it created an +army of apostles, and was enthusiastically circulated, like the +testament of a new dispensation. Societies were formed, journals were +devised to propagate its saving doctrines, and little companies of the +faithful held stated meetings for its reading and exposition. It was +carried as a message of consolation to the homes of labour. The author +was hailed as a new and better Adam Smith, as at once a reformer of +science and a renovator of society. Smith unfolded "The Nature and +Causes of the Wealth of Nations," but to Mr. George, we were told, was +reserved the greater part of unravelling "the nature and causes of the +poverty of nations," and if the obsolete science of wealth had served to +make England rich, the young science of poverty was at length to make +her people happy with the money. Justice and Liberty were to begin their +reign, and our eyes were to see--to quote Mr. George's own words--"the +City of God on earth, with its walls of jasper and its gates of pearl" +(p. 392). + +The fervour of this first reception may--as was perhaps only +natural--have suffered some abatement since, but it affords a striking +proof how largely modern society is disquieted by the results of our +vaunted industrial civilization. Even those amongst us who are most +unwilling to disparage the improvement that has really taken place +during the last hundred years in the circumstances of the people, still +cannot help feeling that the improvement has fallen far short of what +might have been reasonably expected from the contemporaneous growth of +resources and productive power. But numbers of people will not allow +that any improvement has occurred at all, and deliver themselves to an +unhappy and unwarranted pessimism on the whole subject. Because +industrial progress has not extinguished poverty, they conclude that it +has not even lessened it; that it has no power to lessen it; nay, that +its real tendency is to aggravate it, that it increases wealth with the +one hand, but increases want with the other, so that civilization has +developed into a purely upper-class feast, where the rich are grossly +overfilled with good things, and the poor are sent always emptier and +emptier away. Invention, they tell us, has followed invention; machinery +has multiplied the labourer's productivity at least tenfold; new +colonies have been founded, new markets and channels of commerce opened +in every quarter of the globe; gold-fields have been discovered, free +trade has been introduced, railways and ocean steamers have shortened +time and space themselves in our service. Each and all of these things +have excited hopes of introducing an era of popular improvement, and +each and all of them have left these hopes unfulfilled. They think, +therefore, they now do well to despair, and they fortify themselves in +their gloom by citing the opinion of Mr. Mill, that "it is questionable +whether all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's +toil of any human being," without observing that Mr. Mill immediately +follows up that opinion by expressing the confident assurance that it +was "in the nature and the futurity" of these inventions to effect that +improvement. These gloomy views have in France received the name of +_Sisyphism_, because they represent the working class under the present +industrial system as being struck with a curse like that of Sisyphus, +always encouraged by fresh technical advantages to renewed expectations, +and always doomed to see their expectations perish for ever. + +Now, it was upon these despondent and burdened souls that Mr. George +counted so confidently, and, as time has shown, so correctly, for his +apostles and martyrs; and he counted so confidently upon them because he +had himself borne their sorrows, and drunk of their despair, and because +he now believed most entirely that his discoveries would bring +"inexpressible cheer" to their minds, as, in the same circumstances, +they had already brought inexpressible cheer to his own. "When I first +realized," he says, "the squalid misery of a great city"--that is, of +the latest and most characteristic product of industrial +development--"it appalled and tormented me, and would not let me rest +for thinking of what caused it and how it could be cured" (p. 395). +Poverty seemed to him to be most abounding and most intense in precisely +the most advanced countries in the world. "Where the conditions to which +material progress everywhere tends are most fully realized--that is to +say, where population is densest, wealth greatest, and the machinery of +production and exchange most highly developed--we find the deepest +poverty, the sharpest struggle for existence, and the most enforced +idleness" (p. 4). Nay, poverty, he thought, seemed "to take a darker +aspect" in every community at the very moment when it might be +reasonably expected to brighten--at the moment when the community made a +distinct advance in material civilization, when "closer settlements and +a more intimate connection with the rest of the world and greater +utilization of labour-saving machinery make possible greater economies +in production and exchange, and wealth increases in consequence, not +merely in the aggregate, but in proportion to population" (p. 4). This +process of impoverishment might, he says, escape observation in an old +country, because such a country has generally contained from time +immemorial a completely impoverished class, who could not be further +impoverished without going out of existence altogether, but in a new +settlement like California, where he resided, poverty might be seen +almost in the act of being produced by progress before one's very eyes. +While the colony had nothing better than log cabins or cloth shanties, +"there was no destitution," though there might be no luxury. But "the +tramp comes with the locomotive, and alm-houses and prisons are as +surely the marks of 'material progress' as are costly dwellings, rich +warehouses, and magnificent churches" (p. 4). "In the United States it +is clear that squalor and misery, and the vices and crimes that spring +from them everywhere, increase as the village grows to the city, and the +march of development brings the advantages of improved methods of +production and exchange. It is in the older and richer sections of the +Union that pauperism and distress are becoming most painfully apparent. +If there is less deep poverty in San Francisco than in New York, it is +not because San Francisco is yet behind New York in all that both cities +are striving for? When San Francisco reaches the point where New York +now is, who can doubt that there will also be ragged and barefooted +children in her streets?" (p. 6). The prospect alarmed and agitated him +profoundly. It deprived him, as it has deprived so many of the +continental socialists, of all religious belief, for if the real order +of things make an ever-deepening poverty to be the only destiny of the +mass of mankind, it seemed vain to dream of a controlling Providence or +an immortal life. "It is difficult," says he, "to reconcile the idea of +human immortality with the idea that nature wastes men by constantly +bringing them into being where there is no room for them. It is +impossible to reconcile the idea of an intelligent and beneficent +Creator with the belief that the wretchedness and degradation, which are +the lot of such a large proportion of human kind, result from His +enactments; while the idea that man mentally and physically is the +result of slow modifications perpetuated by heredity, irresistibly +suggests the idea that it is the race life, not the individual life, +which is the object of human existence. Thus has vanished with many of +us, and is still vanishing with more of us, that belief which in the +battles and ills of life affords the strongest support and deepest +consolation" (p. 396). + +The inquiry Mr. George undertook was consequently one of the most vital +personal concern to himself, and we are glad to think that it has been +the means of restoring to him the faith and hope he prizes so much. "Out +of this inquiry," he tells us, "has come to me something I did not think +to find, and a faith that was dead revives" (p. 395). + +It may be ungracious to disturb a peace won so sorely and offered so +sincerely to others, but the truth is, Mr. George has simply lost his +faith by one illusion and recovered it again by another. He first +tormented his brain with imaginary facts, and has then restored it with +erroneous theories. His argument is really little better than a +prolonged and, we will own, athletic beating of the air; but since both +the imaginary facts and the erroneous theories of which it is composed +have obtained considerable vogue, it is well to subject it to a critical +examination. I shall therefore take up successively, first, his problem; +second, his scientific explanation; and third, his practical remedy. + + +I. _Mr. George's Problem._ + +He states his problem thus:--"I propose to seek the law which associates +poverty with progress and increases want with advancing wealth" (p. 8). +The first rule of scientific investigation is to prove one's fact before +proceeding to explain it. "There are more false facts than false +theories in the world," and a short examination whether a phenomenon +actually exists may often relieve us from a long search after its law. +Mr. George, however, does not observe this rule. He seeks for the law of +a phenomenon without first verifying the phenomenon itself--nay, +apparently without so much as suspecting that it ought to be verified. +He assumes a particular view of the social situation to be correct, +because he assumes it. But his assumption is a purely subjective and, as +will presently be shown, delusive impression. We imagine our train to be +going back when a parallel train is going faster forward, and we are apt +to take the general condition of mankind to be retrograding when we fix +our eyes exclusively on the rapid and remarkable enrichment of the +fortunate few. What Mr. George calls "the great enigma of our time" is +just the enigma of the apparently receding train, and he proceeds to +solve it by coiling himself in a corner and working out an elaborate +explanation from his own inner consciousness "by the methods of +political economy," instead of taking the simple and obvious precaution +of looking out of the opposite carriage-window and testing, by hard +facts, whether his impression was correct. Had he taken this precaution, +had he resorted to an examination of the actual state of the facts, he +would have found good reason to change his impression; he would have +found that on the whole poverty is not increasing, that in proportion to +population it is considerably less in the more advanced industrial +countries than in the less advanced ones, and that he had simply +mistaken unequal rates of progress for simultaneous movements of +progress and decline. His impression, it must be admitted, is a +prejudice of considerable currency; there are many who tell us, as he +does, that want is growing _pari passu_ with wealth, and even gaining on +it; that if the rich are getting richer, the poor are at the same time +getting poorer; but it is a question of fact, and yet no one has ever +seriously tried to prove the assertion by an appeal to fact. That Mr. +George should have neglected to submit it to such a test is the more +remarkable, because he was, as he has told us, "tormented" in mind by +it, and because he acknowledges that it is a "paradox"--_i.e._, against +the reason of the case, and that it is also, to some extent at least, +against appearances. He owns, for example, that "the average of comfort, +leisure, and refinement has been raised," and that though the lowest +class may not share in these gains, yet even they have in some ways +improved. "I do not mean," he says, "that the condition of the lowest +class has nowhere nor in anything been improved, but that there is +nowhere any improvement which can be credited to increased productive +power. I mean that the tendency of what we call material progress is in +no wise to improve the condition of the lowest class in the essentials +of healthy, happy human life. Nay, more, that it is to still further +depress the condition of the lowest class. The new forces, elevating in +their nature though they be, do not act upon the social fabric from +underneath, as was for a long time hoped and believed, but strike it at +a point intermediate between top and bottom. It is as though an immense +wedge were being forced, not underneath society, but through society. +Those who are above the point of separation are elevated, but those who +are below are crushed down" (p. 5). From this passage it would appear +that, according to Mr. George, the condition of all except the lowest +class has improved _in consequence of_ material progress, and that the +condition of the lowest class has improved _in spite of_ it. He does not +undertake, it seems, to affirm of any class that it has, as a matter of +actual fact, become impoverished in the course of social development, +but only that there is a tendency in the increase of productive +power--in "the new productive forces"--in "material progress"--to +impoverish the lower strata of society. But then he contends that these +forces are practising exactly the same tendency on some of the highest +strata, on classes that we know have been growing richer and richer +every day. For he tells us that these new forces, entering our social +system like a wedge, depress all who happen to be on the wrong side; and +we shall presently discover that this unhappy company on the wrong side +of the wedge embraces many groups of persons who will be excessively +astonished to learn that they are there. It includes, not only the poor +labourers who live on wages, but the great capitalists who live on +profits; the great cotton spinners, ironmasters, brewers, bankers, +contractors; the very men, in short, of all the world, whom the new +productive forces have most conspicuously and enormously enriched. I +shall revert to this preposterous conclusion later on, but at present it +is enough to say that a tide, which so many have swum against and swum +to fortune, cannot be very formidable, and at all events can furnish no +clue whatever to the possible condition of those who are exposed to it. +For that we have only one resort. It is a plain question of fact--is +poverty really increasing? Are the poor really getting poorer? And this +can only be competently decided by the ordinary inductive evidence of +facts. The data of this kind which we possess for settling the question +may not be so exact as would be desirable, but there is no higher +tribunal to which we can appeal. The question must be answered by them, +or not answered at all. + +Now any data we have all conduct to the conclusion that poverty is not +increasing. If poverty were increasing with the increase of wealth, it +would show itself either in an increase of pauperism, or in a decline in +the general standard of living among the labouring classes, or in a fall +in the average duration of life, and these symptoms would be most acute +in the countries that are most wealthy and progressive. Now, let us take +England as a crucial case of a country in a very advanced stage of +industrial development. Is English pauperism greater now than it was +before the "new productive forces" entered the country? Is the general +standard of living among the labouring classes lower? Is the average +duration of life less? Are poverty and the various symptoms of poverty +more acute in England than in more backward countries? + +In a foot-note to the passage last quoted from his book, Mr. George +explains that the improvement he recognises in the lot of the lowest +class does not consist in greater ability to obtain the necessaries of +life. Does he mean, because more things are now reckoned among the +necessaries of life? If so, we fear there is no chance of that +difficulty being removed, nor indeed is there any reason for desiring it +to be so. Men's wants will always increase with their incomes, and the +struggle to make both ends meet may in that case indefinitely continue. +But the fact remains that they have more wants satisfied than before, +that they realize a higher standard of life, and that is the mark, and +indeed the substance, of a more diffused comfort and civilization. It is +true that as the general standard of living rises, people feel the pinch +of poverty at a higher level than before, and become pauperized for the +want of comforts that are now necessary, but which formerly few ever +dreamt of possessing. To have no shoes is a mark of extreme indigence +to-day; it was the common lot a century ago. People may be growing in +general comfort, and yet their ability to obtain necessaries remain +stationary, because their customary circle of necessaries may be always +widening. The real sign of an advancing poverty is when the circle of +recognised necessaries is getting narrow, and yet men have more +difficulty in obtaining them than before; in other words, 1st, when the +average scale of living falls; and 2nd, when a larger proportion of the +people are unable to obtain it, reduced though it be. Now, in England, +the contrary has happened; the general standard of living has risen, and +the proportion of those who are unable to obtain it has declined. + +In a preceding chapter I adduced evidence to show how greatly improved +the working-class standard of living now is from what it was two hundred +years ago, in the good old times socialist writers like to sing of, when +men had not yet sought out many inventions and the world was not +oppressed by the large system of production. But let us tap the line +between then and now at what point we may, and we find the same result; +the tendency is always to a better style of living. Mr. Giffen, for +example, in his address, as President of the Statistical Society, on +20th November, 1883, compares the condition of the working classes +to-day with their condition half a century since, and concludes from +official returns that while the sovereign goes as far as it did then in +the purchase of commodities, money wages have increased from 30 to 100 +per cent., and, at the same time, the hours of labour have been reduced +some 20 per cent. Except butcher-meat and house-rent, every other +element of the working man's expenditure is cheaper, and butcher-meat +was fifty years ago hardly an element of his expenditure at all, and the +kind of house he then occupied was much inferior, as a rule, to what he +occupies now, bad as the latter may in many cases be. + +But while the general standard of comfort has been rising, the +proportion of the population who are unable to obtain it has been +diminishing. I have already stated that King estimated the number of +persons in receipt of relief in England and Wales in 1688 at 900,000. +Now in 1882 the average number in receipt of relief at one and the same +time was, according to official returns, 803,719; and if we are right in +doubling that figure to find the whole number of paupers relieved in the +course of the year (that being the proportion borne in Scotland), then +we may conclude that there are some 1,600,000 paupers in England and +Wales at the present day. That is to say, with nearly five times the +population, we have less than twice the pauperism. The result is far +from being entirely gratifying; a million and a half of paupers (with +more than half as many again in Ireland and Scotland) constitute a very +grave problem, or rather ganglion of problems; but the fact supplies a +decisive enough refutation of the pessimist idea that the actual +movement of pauperism has been one of increase instead of one of +decrease. + +During these two hundred years there is no period in which wealth and +productive power multiplied more rapidly than the last thirty years, +and, therefore, if Mr. George's ideas were correct, there is no period +that should show such a marked increase of pauperism. What do we find? +We find that pauperism has steadily declined in England during that +period. The decrease has been gradual and attended with no such striking +interruptions as were frequently exhibited in former times. But the most +remarkable feature about it is that the number of able-bodied paupers +has diminished by nearly a half; from 201,644 in 1849 to 106,280 in +1882. That is the very class of paupers whom Mr. George represents it to +be the special effect of increasing productive power to multiply, and +yet, though wealth and productive power have made almost unexampled +progress, and though the population has also considerably risen in the +interval, we have not more than half as many of this class of paupers +now as we had thirty years ago. No doubt this result is due in part to a +better system of administering relief, just as it is due in part to the +growth of trade unions and friendly societies, to the extension of +savings banks, and to other agencies. But if Mr. George's principle is +true, could such a result have taken place at all? If "material +progress" has a tendency to multiply "tramps" or able-bodied paupers, +the tendency must be weak, indeed, when a little judicious management on +the part of public bodies, or of working men themselves, would not only +counteract it, but turn the current so strongly the other way. But the +truth is that the "tramp" has never been so little of a care in this +country as at the present hour, and that it is to material progress we +owe his disappearance. He was a very serious problem to our ancestors +for centuries and centuries. The whole history of our social legislation +is a history of ineffectual attempts to deal with vagrants and sturdy +beggars, and we are less troubled with them now mainly because +industrial progress has given them immensely more opportunities of +making an honest and regular living. Industrial progress has all along +been creating work and annihilating tramps, but it has all along been +followed by absurd and perverse complaints like Mr. George's, that it +was only creating tramps and annihilating opportunities of work. Mr. +George says the tramp comes with the locomotive, but a writer in 1673 +(quoted by Sir F. Eden, "State of the Poor," I., 190) declared that he +came with the stage-coach. He pictures the happy age before +stage-coaches, when (as Mr. George says of California) there might be no +luxury, but there was no destitution, when every man kept one horse for +himself and another for his groom. But with the introduction of the +stage-coach the scene was changed. People got anywhere for a few +shillings, and ceased to keep horses. They were so much the richer +themselves, but their grooms were ruined and thrown upon the world +without horse or home. Now class privations like these are incidental to +industrial transformations, and in an age of unusual industrial +transitions like ours, they may be expected to be unusually numerous. +But the effect of material progress on the whole is to prevent such +privations rather than cause them. It multiplies temporary redundancies +of labour, but it multiplies still more the opportunities for +permanently relieving them. Why are we now free from the old scourges of +famine and famine prices? Partly because of free trade, but mainly +because of improved communications, because of the steamer and the +locomotive. Even commercial crises are getting less severe in their +effects. The distress among our labouring classes during the American +Civil War was nothing compared with the suffering under the complete +paralysis of industry that followed the close of the great continental +war in 1815. Miss Martineau tells us of that time:--"The poor abandoned +their residences, whole parishes were deserted, and crowds of paupers, +increasing in numbers as they went from parish to parish, spread wider +and wider this awful desolation." (History of England, I. 39.) No such +severe redundancy of labour has taken place since then, and the +redundancies that attend changes of fashion or of mechanical agency, +though they undoubtedly constitute a serious difficulty, are yet +lightened and not aggravated by the various and complex ramifications of +modern industry. Except a new colony, there is no place where new-comers +are so easily taken on as in a highly developed industrial country. +There are more poor in Norway than in England, and they are increasing; +yet in Norway there is no rent and no great cities. Mr. George may say, +and in fact he does say, that in old countries the number of paupers is +reduced by simple starvation; but if that were so, the death-rate would +be increasing. But in England the death-rate is really diminishing. Let +us again quote from Mr. Giffen's address:--"Mr. Humphreys, in his able +paper on 'The Recent Decline in the English Death-Rate,' showed +conclusively that the decline in the death-rate in the last five years, +1876-80, as compared with the rates on which Dr. Farr's English Life +Table was based--rates obtained in the years 1841-45--amounted to from +28 to 32 per cent. in males at each quinquennial of the 20 years, 5-25, +and in females at each quinquennial from 5-25, to between 24 and 35 per +cent.; and that the effect of this decline in the death-rate was to +raise the mean duration of life among males from 39.9 to 41.9 years, a +gain of two years in the average duration of life. Mr. Humphreys also +showed that by far the larger proportion of the increased duration of +human life in England was lived at useful ages, and not at the dependent +ages of either childhood or old age. No such change could have taken +place without a great increase in the vitality of the people. Not only +had fewer died, but the masses who had lived must have been healthier +and suffered less from sickness than they did. From the nature of the +figures also the improvement must also have been among the masses, and +not among a select class whose figures threw up the average. The +improvement, too, actually recorded obviously related to a transition +stage. Many of the improvements in the condition of the working classes +had only taken place quite recently. They had not, therefore, affected +all through their existence any but the youngest lives. When the +improvements had been in existence for a longer period, so that the +lives of all who are living had been affected from birth by the changed +conditions, we might infer that even a greater gain in the mean +duration of life will be shown. As it was the gain was enormous. Whether +it was due to better and more abundant food and clothing, to better +sanitation, to better knowledge of medicine, or to these and other +causes combined, improvement had beyond all question occurred." The +decline of pauperism in this country then is not due to any increasing +mortality in the classes from which the majority of the paupers come; +but it is one among many other proofs that these classes have profited, +like their neighbours, by the course of material progress. They may not +have profited in the same degree as some others, or in the degree we +think desirable and believe to be yet possible for themselves. But they +have profited. The situation is really, as we have said, one of unequal +rates of progress, and not one of simultaneous progress and decline. + +And this Mr. George seems, at a later stage of his argument, freely to +admit. For when he comes to state "the law which associates poverty with +progress and increases want with advancing wealth," he explains that he +does not contend that poverty is associated with progress at all, but +only that a lessening proportion of the gross produce of society falls +to some classes; that want may possibly not in the least increase with +advancing wealth; that all classes may be the wealthier for the growth +of wealth; and practically, that the only evidence of the poverty of the +poor is the greater richness of the rich. It seems he is not explaining +in any wise why the poor are getting poorer, but only why they are not +getting rich so fast as some of their neighbours. We must quote chapter +and verse for this extraordinary vacillation about the very problem he +wants to solve. "Perhaps," he says, in the last paragraph of Book III., +chapter vi. (p. 154), "it may be well to remind the reader, before +closing this chapter, of what has been before stated--that I am using +the word wages, not in the sense of a quantity, but in the sense of a +proportion. When I say that wages fall as rent rises, I do not mean that +the quantity of wealth obtained by labourers as wages is necessarily +less, but that the proportion which it bears to the whole produce is +necessarily less. The proportion may diminish while the quantity remains +the same, or even increases. If the margin of cultivation descends from +the productive point, which we will call twenty-five, to the productive +point we will call twenty, the rent of all lands that before paid rent +will increase by this difference, and the proportion of the whole +produce which goes to labourers as wages will to the same extent +diminish; but if in the meantime the advance of the arts or economies +that become possible with greater population have so increased the +productive power of labour that at twenty the same exertion will produce +as much wealth as before at twenty-five, labourers will get as wages as +great a quantity as before, and the relative fall of wages will not be +noticeable in any diminution of the necessaries or comforts of the +labourer, but only in the increased value of land and the greater +comforts and more lavish expenditure of the rent-receiving class." It +thus turns out that the alleged impoverishment of the labouring classes +through the increasing wealth of society--the sad and desolating +spectacle that "tormented" Mr. George, "so that he could not rest"--the +cruel mystery that robbed him even of his religious faith, and moved him +to write his powerful but inconclusive book--this was no real +impoverishment at all, but only an apparent one. It is not so much as +"noticeable" in "any diminution of the necessaries or comforts of the +labourer"; it is noticeable only in "the greater comforts and more +lavish expenditure of the rent-receiving class." The poverty of the +labourer consists in the greater wealth of the landlord. The poor are +not poorer; they only seem poorer, because certain of the rich have got +so much richer. The problem is thus, on Mr. George's own showing, just +the mock problem of the apparently receding train. + +But let us take up this new issue. Mr. George's assertion now is that +wages are a less proportion of the gross produce of the country than +they were, because rent absorbs a correspondingly larger proportion than +it did. Is that so? Mr. George does not think of showing that it is: he +assumes it, without apparently having the smallest pretence of fact for +his assertion. His assumption is entirely wrong. Rent is a much smaller +proportion of the gross produce of the country than it was, and wages +are not only in their aggregate a larger proportion of the aggregate +produce of the country, but in their average a larger proportion of the +_per capita_ production. There is no need to rest in random assumptions +on the matter. The gross annual produce of the United Kingdom is +reckoned at present at twelve hundred millions sterling, and the rent of +the land at less than seventy millions, or about one seventeenth of the +whole. In the time of King and Davenant, 200 years ago or so, the annual +produce of England and Wales was forty-three millions, and the rent of +land ten millions--little less than one-fourth. (Davenant's Works, iv., +71.) It is hardly worth while, however, making a formal assertion of so +self-evident a proposition as that rent constitutes a much smaller +fraction of the national income now that wealth is invested so vastly in +trade and manufactures, than it did when agriculture was the one great +business of life: but it is perhaps better worth showing that rent does +not absorb a greater proportion even of the agricultural produce of the +country than it used to do. Rent has risen nearly 200 per cent. in the +course of the last hundred years, but it does not take one whit a larger +share of the gross produce of the land than it took then. + +According to the calculations of Davenant and King, the gross produce of +agriculture amounted, at the time of the Revolution, to four rents, or, +allowing for tithes, to three rents; but this was only on the arable. +The produce of other land, natural pasture and forest land and the like, +came to less than two rents; so that while the rent of arable was not +more than a third of the produce (or, to state it exactly, 27 per +cent.), the rent of land generally was more nearly a half. The figures +are-- + + + Gross Produce. Rent. + Arable Land £9,079,000 £2,480,000 + Other Land 12,000,000 7,000,000 + ----------- ---------- + Total £21,079,000 £9,480,000 + + +(Davenant's Works, iv., 70.) Arthur Young, a century later, declares +that the doctrine of three rents was already exploded, and that farmers +had begun to expend so much on high cultivation that they would be very +ill content if they produced no more than three rents. In fact, he +declares that even in former times rent could never have amounted to a +third of the produce, except on lands of the very first quality, and +that a fourth was more probably the average proportion. In his +"Political Arithmetic," published in 1779 (Part II., pp. 27, 31), he +estimated the gross agricultural produce of England (exclusive of Wales) +at £72,826,827, and the gross agricultural rental at £19,200,000, or 26 +per cent.,--very nearly one-fourth of the produce. To come down nearer +our own time, M'Culloch estimated the gross agricultural produce of +England and Wales in 1842-3 to have been £141,606,857, and the gross +agricultural rental £37,795,906, or 26 per cent. of the produce. +("Statistical Account of the British Empire," 3rd Edition, p. 553.) The +gross, agricultural produce of the United Kingdom is now 270 millions +sterling, and the gross agricultural rental 70 millions. Mr. Mulhall, +indeed, estimates it at only 58 millions; but at 70 millions it would +be, as nearly as possible, 26 per cent.,--curiously enough the same +figure exactly as in 1843 and in 1779, and almost the same as in 1689. + +So far of rent; now as to wages. I have already, in a former chapter (p. +301), produced some evidence to show that the average labourer's wages +bears a higher proportion to the average income of the country than it +did in former times, or, in other words, that the labourer enjoys a +higher _per capita_ share of the gross annual produce of the country as +measured in money, and I need not repeat that evidence here. Mr. Mulhall +has made some calculations which confirm the conclusions there drawn. +("Dictionary of Statistics," p. 246.) He compares the income of the +people of the United Kingdom at the three epochs of 1688, 1800, and +1883. He divides the people into classes and numbers them by families, +stating the total income of each class and the total number of families +among whom it was divided. I select the two columns containing the +results for the whole population and the results for the working class. + + + (1) Number of Families:-- + + A.D. 1688. A.D. 1800. A.D. 1883. + Whole Nation 1,200,000 1,780,000 6,575,000 + Working Class 759,000 1,117,000 4,629,000 + + (2) Earnings:-- + + A.D. 1688. A.D. 1880. A.D. 1883. + Whole } + Nation} £45,000,000 £230,000,000 £1,265,000,000 + + Working} + Class } 11,000,000 78,000,000 447,000,000 + + +A single glance at these tables will show that the aggregate wages of +the country constitutes a slightly better proportion of its aggregate +annual income at present than in 1800, and a decidedly better proportion +than in 1688. But if we look, not to the aggregate income of the class, +but to the average income of the individual families it contains, the +result is in nowise more favourable to Mr. George's assumption. The +following table will show that:-- + + + (3) Average Income of Families:-- + + A.D. 1688. A.D. 1880. A.D. 1883. + Whole Nation £37 £129 £189 + Working Class 14 69 96 + + +The average working-class income was thus 37 per cent. of the average +income of the country in 1688; 53 per cent. of it in 1800; and 51 per +cent. of it in 1883. The difference between the last two epochs is so +indecisive that we may count them practically identical. The real +position of affairs then as to the proportion of wages to national +produce is this, that wages enjoy a considerably larger share of that +produce now than they did at the end of the seventeenth century, and +about the same proportion as they enjoyed at the end of the eighteenth. +If, accordingly, Mr. George resolves to stick by the point of +proportion, he would therefore have no more solid ground to stand on +than on the point of quantity. Rent, as a proportion of the entire +wealth of the country, has enormously declined, and even as a +proportion, of agricultural wealth has not increased. Wages as a +proportion have not declined, but rather risen. + +These, among other things, are indications that we have been concluding +too hastily that concentration of wealth is the characteristic tendency +of the time, and ignoring the existence of many minor and less +conspicuous forces which have been working in the contrary direction. +The real prospect at present is towards diffusion. The enormous +accumulations that have marked the last hundred and fifty years have +owed their existence largely to causes that cannot be expected to +endure; in the case of land, to vicious laws directly favouring +aggregations; and in the case of trade, to the unparalleled rapidity of +the transformations and extensions industry has undergone during the +period. Great inequalities are natural to such a time. Huge fortunes are +made by pioneers, and will not be easily made by their successors. +Railway contracting will never produce again a millionaire like Mr. +Brassey, but it will continue to furnish the means of many moderate +fortunes and competencies. So with every other new branch of industry, +or new field of investment. The lucky person who is the first to occupy +it may rise to great riches, but his successors will divide the custom, +and instead of one large fortune, there will be a considerable number of +small ones. Mr. George himself admits that the opportunities of making +large fortunes are growing more limited, but oddly enough he considers +the fact to be a signal evidence of "the march of concentration." In his +"Social Problems" (p. 59) he writes: "An English friend, a wealthy +retired Manchester manufacturer, once told me the story of his life. How +he went to work at eight years of age, helping to make twine, when twine +was made entirely by hand. How, when a young man, he walked to +Manchester, and having got credit for a bale of flax, made it into twine +and sold it. How, building up a little trade, he got others to work for +him. How, when machinery began to be invented, and steam was introduced, +he took advantage of them, until he had a big factory and made a +fortune, when he withdrew to spend the rest of his days at ease, leaving +his business to his son. 'Supposing you were a young man now,' said I, +'could you walk into Manchester and do that again?' 'No,' replied he, +'no one could. I couldn't with fifty thousand pounds in place of my five +shillings.'" The true moral of this little story is of course that it is +more difficult to amass a huge fortune in that particular line now than +when machinery was young, and that a man with £50,000 to start with must +now content himself with a much poorer figure than Mr. George's lucky +friend made out of nothing. Would Mr. George compute what limit could be +set to the sum his friend might have amassed, had he started in those +golden days with £50,000 instead of five shillings? Even as things +stood, his solitary success did not distribute the wealth of Manchester +any the better among his fellow-spinners who were not fortunate enough +to get credit for a bale of flax, or pushing enough to ask for it, and +were not in a position to take advantage of the first introduction of a +new power, and rise with it to great wealth. That the stream of things +is now making for more moderate fortunes, and more of them, is confirmed +by the testamentary statistics of the previous ten years published some +time ago by the _Spectator_ newspaper. These figures show that the +number of fortunes of the first rank left during that period has been +very much less than it was in the preceding ten years, but that the +number of moderate fortunes has been very much larger. + +What the future may hide in it I shall not venture to divine. It will no +doubt bring upon industry fresh transformations, but we can hardly +expect them to be so numerous or so rapid as in the brilliant era of +industrial progress and colonial development we have passed through, and +some at least of the changes that are in store for us point, as I have +shown in the introductory chapter of this book, to a greater diffusion +rather than a greater concentration in the future. Mr. George says: "All +the currents of the time run to concentration. To successfully resist it +we must throttle steam and discharge electricity from human service" (p. +232). Now steam has undoubtedly been a great concentrator, but +electricity, which is likely to take its place in the future, will to +all appearance be as great a distributor. Mr. George is equally mistaken +regarding the real effect of the other "currents of the time." "That +concentration is the order of development," says he, "there can be no +mistaking--the concentration of people in large cities, the +concentration of handicrafts in large factories, the concentration of +transportation by railroad and steamship lines, and of agricultural +operations in large fields. The most trivial businesses are being +concentrated in the same way--errands are run and carpet sacks are +carried by corporations" (p. 232). The concentration of people in cities +is not the same thing as the concentration of the wealth of those cities +in the hands of a few individuals. The centralization of labour in +cities has assisted the birth of the trade union and the co-operative +society, which are among the best agencies for diffusing wealth; and +the growth of joint-stock companies is a strange proof of a tendency to +greater concentration of wealth, for the joint-stock company is really +an instrument of the small capital, enabling it by combination to +compete successfully with the larger; and as to agriculture, the real +tendency, in this country at any rate, seems to be to lesser holdings. +When we complain of the inequalities of our time--and I am far from +desiring to underrate their extent or to palliate their +mischievousness--we are apt to forget how largely the real and natural +process of evolution is after all one of distribution, how much the most +conspicuous of the inequalities have been incidental to a transition +period, and due to causes of a temporary nature, and how many +indications we possess that they are not unlikely to be corrected and +moderated in the future course of social development. Some of the +official returns made in connection with the income tax show that the +immense increase of wealth of the last thirty years has been far from +being reaped by any single class, but has been shared pretty evenly by +all the classes included in those returns. We possess detailed accounts +of the number of persons paying income tax in each grade of income under +Schedule D, from the year 1849, and if we compare the figures of that +year with those of 1879, we shall obtain a fair index to the movement of +distribution during those thirty years. Schedule D, it is true, includes +only incomes derived from trades and professions, but these incomes may +fairly enough be taken as sufficiently characteristic to afford a +trustworthy indication of the general movement. While population +increased in the thirty years by 22 per cent., the number of incomes +liable to income-tax increased by 161 per cent., and of these, the +incomes that have increased in much the largest proportion are precisely +those middling or lower middling incomes which I have before shown to +have unfortunately declined since 1688. While the number of incomes over +£1,000 a year has increased by 165 per cent., the number of incomes +between £150 and £400 a year has increased by 256 per cent. Mr. Goschen, +in his inaugural address as President of the Royal Statistical Society +in December, 1887, produced later evidence showing the continuance, and +even growth of the same tendency. He showed from the Income Tax Returns +that, in spite of the increase of population between 1877 and 1886, the +number of incomes over £1,000 a year had decreased by 2.40 per cent., +and the number of incomes between £500 and £1,000 had remained the same, +while the number of incomes between £150 and £500 had increased 21.4 per +cent. He showed from the statistics of certain selected public +companies, that in the ten years from 1876 to 1886 the number of their +shareholders had increased by 72 per cent., while the average capital +per shareholder had decreased from £443 to £323. He drew similar +conclusions from the probate and inhabited house duty figures, and from +several other sources. (See _Journal of Statistical Society_, December, +1887.) These figures prove that the tendency of things, so far as it +concerns the classes above the labourers, is not to further and +exclusive concentration, but rather towards a wider and beneficial +diffusion; and in regard to the labouring classes, it is admitted by +all--even by the extremest social pessimists--that the upper and middle +strata of them have participated in the progress of wealth equally with +their neighbours. There remains only the lowest class of all, and their +emancipation is the serious task of social reform in the immediate +future; but that class is even now not increasing in the ratio of +population; its misery comes from many causes, most of them moral and +physical rather than economic; and though it presents difficult and +trying problems, there is no reason for renouncing the hope which alone +can sustain social reformers to success. + + +II. _Mr. George's Explanation._ + +If there is any force in the foregoing observations, it is plain that +there is no such problem as Mr. George has undertaken to explain, and we +are therefore exempted from all necessity of examining his explanation. +But to Mr. George's own mind his explanation of the appearance that +troubled him really constitutes the demonstration of it; at any rate, he +offers no other. The question of the increase of poverty is of course a +question of fact, that cannot be settled by a _priori_ deduction alone; +but Mr. George seems to think otherwise. He is too bent on proving it +to be _necessary_ to think of asking whether it is _actual_, and even a +man of science like Mr. A. R. Wallace, while regretting that Mr. George +had not chosen to build his proposals on ground of fact, declares that +he adopted an equally legitimate method in deducing his results "from +the admitted principles and data of political economy." ("Land +Nationalization," p. 19.) Moreover, most of the social pessimism of the +present time draws its chief support, exactly like Mr. George's, from +the supposed bearing of certain received economic doctrines; and our +task would therefore be incomplete if we did not follow Mr. George on +this "high _priori_ road" on which he so boldly fares forth, and +performs, as will presently be seen, many a remarkable feat. + +Before beginning his explanation, he throws the problem itself into what +he conceives to be a more suitable scientific form. "The cause," says +he, "which produces poverty in the midst of advancing wealth is +evidently the cause which exhibits itself in the tendency everywhere +recognised of wages to a minimum. Let us therefore put our inquiry into +this compact form: Why, in spite of increase in productive power, do +wages tend to a minimum which will give but a bare living?" (p. 10). The +problem, as thus restated, is clearly, be it observed, one of quantity, +not of proportion. A bare living is not a relative share, but a definite +amount, of produce. But the tendency in wages to such a minimum, which +he asserts to be everywhere recognised, is really not recognised at all. +In alleging that it is so, Mr. George evidently alludes to the doctrine +of wages taught by Ricardo and his school; but what they recognised in +wages was a tendency, not to a minimum that would give but a bare +living, but to a minimum that would give a customary living; in other +words, that would sustain the labourers in the standard of comfort +customary among their own class. The economic minimum is not the +absolute minimum of a bare living; it is, as Mr. George himself +elsewhere puts it, "the lowest amount on which labourers will consent to +live and reproduce,"--that is, not the lowest amount on which any +individual labourer will do so, but the lowest amount which labouring +people in general consider it necessary to earn before they will +undertake the responsibility of marriage. If they were to get less than +this, it was contended, they would refrain from marrying to an extent +that would tell sufficiently on the supply of labour to force wages up +again to their old level. This level was the minimum to which wages +constantly tended, but then it was always higher than a bare living; it +was determined by the standard of requirements current among the +labouring class at the time; and it was recognised to be capable of +rising if that standard rose. True, Ricardo and the economists of his +generation entertained very poor hopes of any such rise, because the +working classes of their time, being without the intelligence, the ideas +of comfort, the higher wants that are powerfully operative among the +working classes of our day, were generally seen to "take out" their +better wages when they chanced to get them in nothing but earlier +marriages, which in the end brought their wages down again. We have +happily now to do with a more aspiring and a less uniformly composed +working class. It is perhaps more aspiring in some measure because it is +less uniformly composed. It contains many ranks and inequalities and +standards of social refinement and comfort, and the presence of these +side by side develops a more active tendency upward, which, by supplying +a stronger check than before on improvident marriages, will enable the +labourers, class after class of them, to appropriate securely more and +more of the common domain of advancing civilization. We have had +abundant experience of a rise in the standard of life, and a rise in the +rate of wages, both remaining as permanent possessions of sections of +the labouring class. But if Ricardo and his school had less faith than +they reasonably might have had in the possibility of a permanent upward +tendency in wages, they certainly never dreamt of believing in any +permanent downward tendency. According to their doctrine the rate of +wages moved up and down within certain limits, but always tended to come +back to a particular figure--the amount necessary to give the labourer +the living customary among his class. This figure was really no more a +minimum than it was a maximum; wages were supposed to fall sometimes +below it, as they were supposed to rise sometimes above it; and to speak +of it as a minimum that would give but a bare living is completely to +misrepresent its nature. + +The assumption from which Mr. George starts is thus in no wise an +admitted principle of political economy, and would therefore not answer +the test of legitimacy laid down by Mr. Wallace. It has no ground +outside of Mr. George's own imagination. Economists would solve his +problem, "why in spite of increased productive power wages tend to a +minimum that will give but a bare living?" by simply denying his fact, +and having done with it. But Mr. George persuades himself that they +would answer it otherwise, and devotes the next section of his book to +an elaborate confutation of the false answers he supposes they would +return to it. They would either explain it, he thinks, by their theory +of the wages fund, or they would explain it by their theory of +population; and so before confiding to us his own explanation, he +considers it necessary to stop and clear these two venerable theories +out of his way. I am not concerned to defend these theories; their truth +would not make Mr. George's own view any the falser, nor their falsehood +make it any the truer. One of them indeed was dead and buried before Mr. +George attacked it, though I am bound to say it would never have fallen +before the particular line of attack he directs against it. The wages +fund doctrine, which played a considerable _rôle_ both in its original +form as taught by Senior, and in its subsequent form as modified by +M'Culloch, was refuted by Mr. Thornton in 1869, was almost instantly +abandoned by the candid mind of Mr. Mill, and is now rarely met with as +a living economic doctrine. The wages fund is still regarded of course +as having its limit in capital, and in the conditions which generate +capital, but since these conditions include among other things the +number and efficiency of the labourers, the amount of the wages fund is +no longer represented as at any given moment a fixed and predetermined +quantity susceptible of no possible alteration to meet the exigencies of +the labour market, and when once this characteristic was given up, the +wages fund doctrine was seen to have degenerated into little more than a +stately truism. The Malthusian theory of population is not in the same +way discredited, but it likewise is now generally stated with some +reserve. It has become well understood that the earlier economists +assigned it too absolute and universal a validity, and that it is not, +as they thought, a law for all ages, and especially and happily not a +law for our own. It is true of an era of progressive population and +diminishing return from agriculture, but for our day it has been robbed +of its terrors by free trade and steam navigation, which have connected +our markets with continents of virgin soil, and carried us virtually +into an era of increasing return of indefinite duration. The population +question was one of serious practical import for our fathers, and as +they saw people marrying and giving in marriage, while every fresh +bushel of food was extracted with increasing difficulty from an +exhaustible soil, they looked with a reasonable dread to the future, and +saw no way of hope except in the practice of a heroic continence. But we +live in another time. We find population increasing and yet bread +cheapening, simply because the locomotive which alarmed Mr. George by +taking the tramp to California has brought back plenty to the rest of +the world. It is due to the material progress he preaches against that +we are the first generation who can afford to make light of the +population question, and leave our remote posterity to deal with the +peril when it shall actually arrive. + +Mr. George, however, is not content with disputing these doctrines; he +insists on replacing them with others exactly opposite to them in +purport, and for which he claims a like universal validity. He propounds +a new population theory, and a new wages fund theory of his own. The +more population abounds, the more will subsistence superabound, is his +comfortable counter-proposition to Malthusianism. "I assert," says he, +"that in any given state of civilization a greater number of people can +collectively be better provided for than a smaller.... I assert that the +new mouths which an increasing population calls into existence, require +no more food than the old ones, while the hands they bring with them can +in the natural order of things produce more. I assert that, other things +being equal, the greater the population, the greater the comfort which +an equitable distribution of wealth would give to each individual" (p. +99). In a word, his teaching is that "other things being equal" +over-population is a ridiculous impossibility. What may be all concealed +under the reservation, "other things being equal," he does not +enlighten us, but it avowedly contains at least one presupposition of +decisive importance to the question, the presupposition of the unlimited +productiveness of the soil. Mr. George denies the law of diminishing +return. We shall presently find him, in his doctrine about rent, basing +his whole book on the operation of this law. But here in his doctrine +about population it suits him to deny it, and he does so on singularly +fantastical grounds (p. 93). He denies it on the ground that "matter is +eternal, and force must for ever continue to act," as if the +indestructibility of matter was the same thing as its infinite +productiveness. "As the water that we take from the ocean must again +return to the ocean, so the food we take from the reservoirs of nature +is, from the moment we take it, on its way back to those reservoirs. +What we draw from a limited extent of land may temporarily reduce the +productiveness of that land, because the return may be to other land or +may be divided between that land and other land, or perhaps all land; +but this possibility lessens with increasing area, and ceases when the +whole globe is considered. That the earth could maintain a thousand +billions of people as easily as a thousand millions is a necessary +deduction from the manifest truths that at least, as far as our agency +is concerned, matter is eternal and force must for ever continue to +act.... And from this it follows that the limit to the population of the +globe can only be the limit of space. Now this limitation of space--this +danger that the human race may increase beyond the possibility of +finding elbow-room--is so far off as to have for us no more practical +interest than the recurrence of the glacial period or the final +extinguishment of the sun" (p. 94-5). If this passage means anything, it +means that the race may go on multiplying as long as it finds room to +stand on, and that even when that limit is reached it can only be +squeezed to death and not starved. It can in no case apparently be +starved. Subsistence cannot possibly run short, for the inherent powers +of the soil are not permanently destructible. But he might as well argue +that man must be omnipotent because he is immortal. The question is not +one of the durability of the productive powers of the earth--it is one +of their limited or unlimited productive capacity. Up to a certain point +they may yield the same return at the same cost year after year in +_sæcula sæculorum_, but will they yield more? Manifestly not. Every +bushel they give after that is got at continuously increasing cost. Now +of course wherever population increases so much, compared with the land +at its disposal, that this increasing cost must be incurred in order to +find them food, the epoch of diminishing return in agriculture has +arrived, and the peril of over-population is already present. Happily, +as we have said, that time is not yet, but it will come long, long +before the human race fails to find elbow-room in this planet. + +Mr. George himself admits that in a country of inconsiderable extent, or +in a small island, such as Pitcairn's Island, over-population is quite +possible before elbow-room is near exhausted--(p. 74)--and in making the +admission he virtually surrenders his case. He admits in detail what he +denies in gross. For is not the soil of a small island or an +inconsiderable country as eternal as the soil of a continent? The only +difference is that it is not so extensive, and therefore comes to the +epoch of diminishing return sooner. That is all. The reason why he makes +an exception of such an island is because its inhabitants "are cut off +from communication with the rest of the world, and consequently from the +exchanges which are necessary to the improved modes of production +resorted to as population becomes dense" (p. 74). But if density of +population is such a sure improver of production as Mr. George +represents it to be elsewhere, why should it fail here? And if it fail +anywhere, how can he argue that it must succeed everywhere? Once he +admits, as he does in this passage, that subsistence has a definite +limit in the modes of production that happen to be known in any age and +country, and that population has a definite limit for such age and +country in the amount of subsistence which the known modes of production +are capable of extracting from the soil, he really admits all that +Malthusians generally contend for, and coming to curse, he has really +blessed them altogether. The limit of subsistence which he here +recognises--the limit imposed by the state of the arts--is far within +the limit which he has just been denying, the natural limit to the +inherent fertility of the soil, on which economists base their law of +diminishing return. The former point is far sooner reached than the +latter. Men will starve because they don't know how to make the best use +of nature long before they will starve because nature is used up; and it +is exactly that earlier limit on which Malthusians lay stress. + +But except for this inconsistent admission in the case of a petty +isolated island, Mr. George persistently refuses to recognise any kind +of limit to subsistence, either in the productive capacity of the soil +or in the state of the arts. He seems to fancy that land will go on +yielding larger and larger harvests _ad infinitum_ to accommodate an +increasing population, and that even if it failed to do so, new +inventions or improved processes of production would be constantly +discovered when they were needed, and keep the supply of food always +equal to the demand. With these crude assumptions in his head, he +arrives very easily at his own peculiar theory, which is, that +subsistence tends to increase faster than population, because the growth +of population itself affords the means of such economies and +organization of labour as multiply immensely the productive capacity of +each individual labourer. A hundred labourers, he is fond of arguing, +will produce much more than a hundred times the amount that one will, +and it is therefore clear folly to think of population as capable of +encroaching on subsistence. On the contrary, it seems almost fitter to +speak of it as a means of positively economizing subsistence. Mr. +George's mistake arises from ignoring the fact that subsistence depends +on the productive capacity of land as well as on the productive capacity +of labour, and the productive capacity of land is not indefinitely +progressive. + +Mr. George's new wages fund theory is based on a precisely analogous +misconception of the real conditions of the case, and is just as much in +the air as his population theory. "Wages," he says, "cannot be +diminished by the increase of labourers, but on the contrary, as the +efficiency of labour manifestly increases with the number of labourers, +the more labourers, other things being equal, the higher wages should +be" (p. 62). Just as he has already argued that food can never run short +before an advancing population, because the new hands can produce much +more than the new mouths can consume, as if the hands span it out of +their own finger nails; so he now argues that wages can never decline +for want of capital to employ labourers, because the capital that +employs them is made by the labourers themselves. They are paid, he +declares, not out of the capital of their employers, but out of the +product of their own labour. Mr. F. A. Walker, the eminent American +economist, had already taught a similar doctrine, but with the +reservation that while wages were really paid out of the produce of the +labour they remunerated, they were usually advanced out of the +employer's capital. But Mr. George throws aside this reservation, and +declares boldly that wages are neither paid nor advanced out of capital, +and that if any advance is made in the transaction at all, it is the +labourer who makes it to the employer, not the employer to the labourer. +"In performing his labour, he (the labourer) is advancing in exchange; +when he gets his wages, the exchange is completed. During the time he is +earning the wages, he is advancing capital to his employer; but at no +time, unless wages are paid before work is done, is the employer +advancing capital to him" (p. 49). + +In this contention Mr. George relies much on the analogy of the +"self-employing" labour of primitive society. When men live by gathering +eggs, he tells us, the eggs they gather are their wages. No doubt; but +in our complicated civilization we don't live by gathering eggs from day +to day, but by sowing the seed in spring which is to yield us food only +in harvest--by preparing work for the market which may take weeks, +months, even years before it is marketable. The energetic Sir John +Sinclair is said to have once danced at a ball in the evening dressed in +a suit the wool of which was still growing on the sheep's back in the +morning; but rapidity like that is naturally foreign to ordinary +commerce. The successive operations of clipping, fulling, teasing, +spinning, dying, weaving, cutting, sewing, occupy considerable time. So +with other things. Houses, ships, railways, are not built in a day, or +by a single workman. The product of a single workman's work for a day at +any of these things has no value apart from the product of the other +workmen's work, nor has the work of them all any value unless the work +is, or is to be, completed. The wages paid during the period of +construction, therefore, cannot possibly have come out of the work for +which they were paid, but must have been advanced otherwise. Who +advances them? Clearly not the labourer himself, for he receives them. +And yet that is what Mr. George unhesitatingly asserts, and his argument +is as courageous as it is ingenious. He does not shrink from applying it +to the extremest case you like to suggest--the Great Eastern, the +Gothard Tunnel, the Suez Canal; even in these cases the labourers, who +spent months and years in doing the work, were paid out of the work +itself, out of the Great Eastern, out of the Gothard Tunnel, out of the +Suez Canal. "For," says Mr. George, "a work that is incomplete is not +valueless, it is not unexchangeable; money may be raised on it by +mortgage or otherwise, and as this money is raised on the product of the +labourer's work, the wages it is employed to pay are really paid out of +that product." But this only shifts the question a little: it does not +answer it. Where does this lent money come from? Certainly not from the +work it is lent on. Perhaps not, Mr. George will rejoin, again shifting +his ground, but it comes from the product of the contemporaneous work of +other labourers. "It is not necessary to the production of things that +cannot be used as subsistence or cannot be immediately utilized that +there should have been a previous production of the wealth required for +the maintenance of the labourers while the production is going on. It is +only necessary that there should be, somewhere within the circle of +exchange, a contemporaneous production of subsistence for the labourers, +and a willingness to exchange this subsistence for the thing on which +the labour is being bestowed" (p. 51). But this is only passing round +the dilemma. For this contemporaneous production has itself the same +difficulty to face; it has to sustain its labourers during the time +taken to complete their work; and it can only do so, according to Mr. +George's explanation, by raising the means through a mortgage on the +unfinished work. It borrows to pay its own wages, but is apparently able +to lend to pay other people's. Mr. George has a happy method of carrying +on the affairs of society by mutual accommodation. Peter is a shoemaker +who wants money to buy leather to make shoes and food to maintain him +till the shoes are made. Paul is a carpenter who is in a like case, and +wants money to buy food and timber. Peter borrows the money he needs +from Paul on mortgage, and then Paul in turn borrows what he needs from +Peter, on the same terms. Utopia is a pleasanter world than ours, and an +IOU probably goes a long way in it; but here on this hard earth Peter +would certainly make no shoes nor Paul any chairs, unless he had either +himself saved enough to purchase the materials, or found a neighbour who +had done so and was ready to make him an advance. Except for this +neighbour he could not work at all, and could not therefore "create any +wages," and the amount of work he got and wages he earned would +manifestly depend greatly on the amount of capital this stranger +possessed and was disposed to invest in such an enterprise. + +It is true that the wages of labour will be guided in amount by the +quantity of the product, but they are not on that account actually paid +out of the product. And it is true that the labourer gives value for his +wages--certainly he would not otherwise be employed--but that value is +not usually marketable until some time, in many cases years, after the +wages have been enjoyed, and therefore cannot have been the source +whence these wages came. The wages were paid out of the saved results of +previous labour--that is, out of capital--and Mr. George has absolutely +no conception of the amount of capital that is necessary to carry on the +work of industry. He says we live from hand to mouth, and so in a sense +we do. Our capital is being constantly consumed and constantly +reproduced again, and economists are fond of showing, from the speedy +recovery of a civilized state after a devastating war, how short a time +it would really take to replace it entirely. But until it is replaced +every inhabitant undergoes considerable privations, which simply means +that the rate of wages has fallen for want of it. There are some trades, +like the baker's, where the product is actually sold before the wages +are paid; and there are many, like the whaler's mentioned by Mr. George, +where the labourers can afford to wait long terms for part at least of +their remuneration (no great sign, by the way, of the minimum of a bare +living); but even in these much capital must be set aside before a +single hand is engaged. The whalers, for example, must be furnished with +a ship to start with, and be provisioned for the voyage; and if these +requisites are not forthcoming, they must go without work and wages +altogether, or take work at inferior terms in a market glutted by their +own arrival in it. Mr. George speaks lightly of the labourers who +excavated the Suez Canal advancing value to the company who employed +them, and yet before a single pick or spade was stuck into the sand of +the Isthmus the company had laid out, in preliminary expenses and +machinery, as much as six millions sterling--more than a third of the +whole cost of the Canal. They had then to pay other five or six millions +in wages before the work fetched a single fee; and yet Mr. George will +have us believe that those five or six millions actually came out of the +profits, merely because the projectors hoped and believed they might +eventually come out of them. Labourers give an equivalent to the +capitalists for their wages, but their wages are really paid out of the +capital which their employers have saved for the purpose of purchasing +that equivalent. I may have bought a cow in the hope of recouping myself +by selling her milk, but I did not therefore pay her price out of the +milk money--for nobody would have sold her to me if he had to wait for +that; I bought her out of money I had previously saved, and from the +same source exactly, and no other, do capitalists buy labour. + +But, objects Mr. George, that cannot be; wages cannot be paid out of +capital, because they are often lowest when, as shown by the low rate of +interest, capital is most abundant. But Mr. George here confounds +existent capital with employed capital. It is only the capital actually +employed that tells on wages; the low rate of interest merely shows that +there has been an increase in unemployed capital, and since that is +generally a correlative of a diminution of employed capital, it is but +natural that low interest should be attended by low wages. Low wages are +a consequence of unemployed labour, unemployed labour a consequence of +unemployed capital, and unemployed capital a consequence of unfavourable +industrial conditions which labour, either with capital or without it, +cannot evade or reverse. + + +So far then of Mr. George's views on population and the wages fund, for +which much value, as well as originality, has been claimed. The chapters +in which he states them are certainly among the most impressive and +characteristic in his book. Nowhere else does he display more strikingly +his remarkable acuteness, fertility, and literary power, and nowhere +else are these high qualities employed more fruitlessly from sheer want +of grasp of the elements of the problems he discusses. These chapters +are after all, however, something of a digression from the main business +of the book, and they have perhaps detained us too long from Mr. +George's own explanation of the supposed growth of poverty. + +His explanation is this: "The reason why, in spite of the increase of +productive power, wages constantly tend to a minimum which will give but +a bare living is that with increase in productive power, rent tends to +even greater increase" (p. 199). "Rent swallows up the whole gain, and +pauperism accompanies progress" (p. 158). "The magic of property," it +seems, has an unsuspected malignancy; but, in the present case, its +spell is really exercised only over Mr. George's own vision. For who, +with his eyes open, would believe for a moment what Mr. George so +gravely asserts, that of the whole gain won by our multiplied productive +power, none whatever has gone to the great bankers, and brewers, and +cotton spinners, and ironmasters, and corn factors, and shipbuilders, +and stockbrokers, and railway contractors; that our Rothschilds, and +Brasseys, and Barings, and Bairds, the great plutocrats of the time, the +possessors of the largest fortunes in the country, the very men and +classes who have been most conspicuously enriched through the material +progress of the nation, have all the while been conducting a hard +struggle against a fatal tendency in their incomes to sink to a bare +living, and had to feed, exactly like the manual labourers, from the +crumbs that fall from the landowners' table. The assertion is too +violent and preposterous to merit serious refutation. Everybody knows +that the greatest part of the wealth of modern society is not +concentrated in the hands of the landlords at all, that it has not +accrued from rent and that it would not be a farthing the less though +private property in land were abolished to-morrow. + +But violent and preposterous as Mr. George's conclusion is, it has not +been arrived at without the exercise of much perverse ingenuity. Having +been brought by his examination of the wages fund and population +theories to the conviction that the key to his riddle was not to be +discovered in the conditions that regulated production, he concludes +that it must, therefore, be sought in the conditions that regulate +distribution. His problem is thus one in the distribution of wealth, and +it must be explained, if it is to be explained at all, by the laws of +distribution. To investigate these laws, therefore, becomes now his +object, and the first step he takes is a truly amazing one. At the very +outset he throws the most important class of participators in the +distribution--the class that appropriates the largest share--out of +court altogether, and he proceeds to settle the whole question as if +they never got a penny, and as if the entire spoil were divided among +their neighbours. People who live on profits, it seems, have no _locus +standi_ in a question of distribution, and the case must be considered +as if the parties exclusively concerned were the people who live on +wages, the people who live on interest, and the people who live on rent. +"With profits," he says, "this inquiry has manifestly nothing to do. We +want to find what it is that determines the division of their joint +produce between land, labour, and capital, and profits is not a term +that refers exclusively to any one of these three divisions. Of the +three parts into which profits are divided by political economists, +namely compensation for risk, wages of superintendence, and returns for +the use of capital, the latter falls under the term interest, which +includes all the returns for the use of capital and excludes everything +else; wages of superintendence falls under the term wages, which +includes all returns for human exertions and excludes everything else; +and compensation for risk has no place whatever, as risk is eliminated +when all the transactions of a community are taken together" (pp. +113-4). + +Now we have to do here with no mere difference of terminology. Profits +may be employers' wages, if you like to call them so; but it is a fatal +confusion to suppose that, because you have called them employers' +wages, you are therefore entitled to treat them as if they were governed +by the same laws and conditions as labourers' wages. The truth is that +they are governed by opposite conditions, and that the pith of the +labour question is just the conflict between these two kinds of wages +for the better share in the distribution. The battle of labour is not +against the employer receiving fair interest on his capital in +proportion to its quantity, but against the amount of additional profit +which the employer claims as wages of superintendence, and which he also +rates in proportion to capital invested instead of rating it in +proportion to his own trouble or efficiency. One of the chief hopes of +the workman resides in the possibility of breaking down this erroneous +criterion of fair remuneration for superintendence, and so getting the +employers to content themselves with smaller profits than they have been +in the habit of considering indispensable. Profits and wages have thus +opposite and conflicting interests in the distribution, but Mr. George, +having once disguised the one in the garb of the other, is imposed on by +the disguise himself, and treats them in his subsequent speculations as +if they were the same thing, or at any rate--what in the present +connection is equally pernicious in its effects--as if their respective +shares in the distribution were determined by precisely the same +conditions. The result is, as might be expected, a series of singular +_contretemps_ springing from mistaken identity, like those we are +familiar with on the comic stage. The manufacturing millionaire appears +before us as the victim of the same harsh destiny as the penniless +crossing-sweeper, and the banker of Lombard Street is overshadowed by +the same blighting poverty as the lumper of Wapping. Proudhon, in a +powerful passage, describes pauperism as invading modern society at both +extremes; it invaded the poor in the positive form of natural hunger; it +invaded the rich in the unnatural but more devouring form of insatiable +voracity. The burden of Mr. George's prophetic vision contains no such +refinements. He sees a huge wedge driven through the middle of society; +and on the underside of that enchanted wedge he sees the merchant +princes of the world eating the bread of poverty with their lowest +dependents. Mr. George's classification of profits under wages +therefore involves much more than a mere change of nomenclature, for it +has led him to pass off this absurd vision as a literal description of +things as they are. By that classification he has really put out of his +own sight the most important factor in the settlement of the question he +is discussing, and so he begins playing Hamlet by leaving the part of +Hamlet out. + +Having simplified matters by throwing profits out of the cast, Mr. +George's next step is to assign the leading _rôle_ to rent. In the whole +drama of the modern distribution of wealth, no part is more striking or +more often misunderstood than the part played by rent. Wages never cease +to cost much and to be worth little, but rent seems to have the property +of going on growing while the landlords themselves sleep or play. This +fact has impressed Mr. George so profoundly that, losing sight of things +in their true connection and proportions, he declares that the growth of +rent is the key to the whole situation, and that neither wages nor any +other kind of income, not derived from land, can ever draw any advantage +from the increase of prosperity, because rent always steps in before +them and runs off with the spoil. He professes to found this conclusion +on Ricardo's theory of rent, which he accepts, not only as being +absolutely true, but as being too self-evident to need discussion. +Indeed, he seems disposed, like some others, to have his fling at Mill +for calling it the _pons asinorum_ of political economy; but we shall +presently discover various grounds for suspecting that he has not +crossed the bridge successfully himself, and that here, as elsewhere, he +has been led seriously astray by looking at things through the mist of +doctrines he has only imperfectly mastered. Anyhow, he offers his theory +as a deduction from Ricardo's law of rent, and this deduction claims +particular attention because it is the corner-stone of his speculations, +and constitutes what he would consider his most original and important +contribution to economic science. He says that the law of rent itself +"has ever since the time of Ricardo ... been clearly apprehended and +fully recognised. But not so its corollaries. Plain as they are, the +accepted doctrine of wages ... has hitherto prevented their recognition. +Yet, is it not as plain as the simplest geometrical demonstration that +the corollary of the law of rent is the law of wages, when the division +of the produce is simply between rent and wages; or the law of wages and +interest together, when the division is into rent, wages, and interest" +(p. 120). It is really plainer. It is a mere truism. In any simple +division, if you know how much one of the factors gets, you know how +much is left for the others, and if you like to dignify your conclusion +by the name of corollary, you are free to do so. But the real point is +this, whether the share obtained by rent is fixed irrespectively of the +share obtained by wages and interest, or whether, on the contrary, it +does not presuppose the previous determination of the latter. There is +no doubt, at any rate, as to how Ricardo--Mr. George's own +authority--regarded the matter. According to his celebrated theory, +wages and interest are satisfied first, and then rent is just what is +over. Rent is simply surplus profit. In hiring land, the farmer hires a +productive machine, and under the influence of competition gives, for +the use of that productive machine for a year, the whole amount of its +annual produce which remains as a surplus after paying the wages of his +labourers, and allowing interest on his capital, and what he considers a +fair profit for his own work of superintendence. A certain current rate +of wages and a certain current rate of profit are presupposed, and after +these demands are met, then if the land has yielded anything more, that +surplus is what is paid as rent. Ricardo always presumes that land that +cannot produce enough to meet these demands will not be cultivated at +all, and that the poorest land actually under cultivation is land that +meets them and does no more; in other words, that leaves nothing over +for rent. Let us take Ricardo's law as it is stated by Mr. George +himself (p. 118): "The rent of land is determined by the excess of its +produce over that which the same application can secure from the least +productive land in use." The standard by which, according to this law, +the amount of rent is supposed to be determined, is the produce of the +least productive land in use. Now, what is the least productive land in +use? It is land that produces just enough to pay the wages the labourers +upon it are content to work for, and the profits the farmer of it is +content to farm for. How that rate of wages and that rate of profits are +fixed is no matter here; but one thing is clear--and it is enough for +our present purpose--that they cannot be determined, as Mr. George +represents them as being, by a law of rent which presumes and is +conditioned by their operation. Ricardo's law virtually explains rent in +terms of wages and profits, and it would therefore be the height of +absurdity to re-explain wages and profits in terms of rent. And if that +is so, the circumstance which excites Mr. George's surprise, that +economists have always so clearly apprehended the law of rent itself, +and yet failed so completely to recognise the corollaries which he +plumes himself on being the first to deduce from it, admits of a very +simple explanation: the economists understood the law they expounded, +and were better reasoners than to employ it as a demonstration of its +own postulates. + +This will become still plainer, if we look more closely at the fact +which has struck Mr. George so much--the constant rise of rent in modern +society. He attributes that rise to many causes; in fact, there are few +things that will not, in his opinion, raise rent. Progress of population +will do so; but if population is stationary, it will be done all the +same by progress in the arts; the spread of education will do it; +retrenchment of public expenditure will do it; extending the margin of +cultivation will do it; and so will artificial contraction of that +margin by speculation. In short, he is so haunted by the idea, that he +seems to believe that so long as rent is suffered to survive at all, +whatever we do will only conduce to its increase. Every step of progress +we take extends its evil reign, and if progress were to reach +perfection, rent would drive wages and interest completely off the field +and appropriate "the whole produce" (p. 179). These fears are not sober, +but they could never have risen had Mr. George first mastered the theory +of rent he founds them on. For rent, being the price paid by producers +for the use of a productive machine, cannot rise unless the price of the +product rises first (or its quantity, if so be that it does not increase +so much as to reduce its price), for unless the price of agricultural +produce rises, the farmer cannot afford to pay a higher rent for the +land than he paid before. No part of Ricardo's theory is more elementary +or more unchallenged than this, that the rent of land constitutes no +part of the price of bread, and that high rent is not the cause of dear +bread, but dear bread the cause of high rent. Rent cannot rise further +or faster than the price of bread (or meat, of course) will allow it, +and the price of bread is beyond the landowner's control. He cannot +raise it, but once it rises, he can easily raise rent in a corresponding +degree. If a rise of rent depends on a rise in the price of bread, what +does a rise in the price of bread depend on? On two things which Mr. +George ignores or misunderstands--the progress of population and the +diminishing return in agricultural production. The growth of population +increases the demand for food so much as to raise its price, and renders +it profitable to resort to more difficult soils or more expensive +methods for additional supplies. The price will then remain at the +figure fixed by the cost of the costliest portion that is brought to +market. + +Now Mr. George laughs at the idea of increase of population causing any +difficulty about the supply of food--population, which he is never tired +of telling us, is the very thing most wanted to multiply that supply, +and possesses a power of multiplying it in even a progressive ratio to +its numbers. "The labour of 100 men," he says, "other things being +equal, will produce much more than one hundred times as much as the +labour of one man" (p. 163). And he laughs in the same way at the idea +of a diminishing return in agriculture, as if, says he, matter were not +eternal, and as if an increasing population did not of itself increase +the productive capacity of the land through increasing the productive +capacity of the labour upon it. These two misunderstandings lie at the +bottom of all Mr. George's vagaries about rent, and they are perhaps +natural to a speculator, resident in a rich new colony, which, as he +describes it himself, "with greater natural resources than France, has +not yet a million people." No doubt in a country at that particular +stage of its historical development, increase of population may involve +an increase, and even a more than proportional increase, of food as well +as of other commodities; but that particular stage is a temporary and +fleeting one, and the world in general is very differently situated from +the State of California thirty years ago. Where there is plenty of good +land, the increase of population occasions no increase in the cost of +producing food, because there is no need to resort to poorer land for +the purpose; and while food is got as cheaply as before, other things +are got much more easily and abundantly in consequence of the economies +of labour and the many mutual services which result from the increased +numbers of the community. But that state of matters only continues so +long as there remains no occasion to resort to poorer soils for the +production of food, and that time is long past in most countries of the +world. Mr. George no doubt contends that in all countries it is just the +same as in California, because even though it may have become more +difficult in some places to produce food, it has become everywhere much +easier to produce other commodities, and (so he argues) the production +of any kind of commodity is practically equivalent to the production of +food, for it can always be exchanged for food. So it can, if food is +there to exchange for it; but the very question is whether food is +there, or is there in the same relative quantity. If I say it is more +difficult to get food, it is no answer to tell me that it is much easier +to get other things. And because other things may be multiplied +indefinitely at the same cost, that is no reason for denying that food +can only be multiplied indefinitely at increasing cost. Yet Mr. George +reasons as if it were. This confusion is repeated again and again in the +course of his book, and has evidently had much influence on his whole +speculations. He describes the advantages which the colonist derives +from the arrival of other settlers. "His land yields no more wheat or +potatoes than before, but it does yield far more of all the necessaries +and comforts of life. His labour upon it will bring no heavier crops, +and we will suppose no more valuable crops, but it will bring far more +of all the other things for which men work" (p. 168). That is true, but +it is not to the purpose. The new settler required a market, and +population brought it; but although population up to a certain point is +beneficial, you cannot for that reason declare that beyond that point it +cannot possibly become embarrassing; for on Mr. George's own hypothesis +the ground yields no more wheat and potatoes than before, and the limit +to convenient population is prescribed by the amount of food the ground +yields, and not by the quantity of other commodities which skilled +labour can produce. If population were to exceed what that stock of food +would adequately serve, then new-comers would find little comfort in Mr. +George's rhetorical commonplace that they had two hands and only one +mouth. His simple confidence, that they never can be at a loss, because +they can get food by exchange as well as by direct production, is a mere +dream, because he forgets that the people they are to exchange with are +in the same case as themselves. They can only give food in exchange for +other things so long as they raise more food than serves their own +numbers, and when their numbers increase beyond that point, they will +have no food to sell. The limit to subsistence is not the productive +capacity of labour, but the productive capacity of land. + +Mr. George's argument rests on another very curious fallacy. He builds +his whole theory of distribution on the fact of the extension of the +margin of cultivation from better to worse soils, but in the same breath +he denies the existence of the very conditions that alone make that fact +possible. Nobody would resort to worse land unless the better were +unable to furnish indefinite supplies at the old cost, _i.e._, unless +the principle of diminishing return prevailed in agriculture. Nor would +any one resort to worse land until it paid him to do so, _i.e._, until +the produce of this worse land became, through a rise in its price or +through improvements in the art of agriculture, equal in net value to +the produce previously yielded by the worst land then in cultivation. +Mr. George denies the principle of diminishing return. He denies "that +the recourse to lower points of production involves a smaller aggregate +of produce in proportion to the labour expended." He denies this, "even +where there is no advance in the arts and the recourse to lower points +of production is clearly the result of the increased demand of an +increased population. For," says he, "increased population of itself, +and without any advance of the arts, implies an increase in the +productive power of labour" (p. 163). But the question is, does it imply +any increase in the productive power of the soil? Mr. George contends +that it does, but only on the superior soils, not on the inferior. +Increasing population, in his opinion, renders all labour so much more +effective that "the gain in the superior qualities of land will more +than compensate for the diminished production on the land last brought +in" (p. 165). Now to all this there is one simple answer: why then +resort to inferior soils at all? If crowding on the superior soils can +make those soils indefinitely productive, why go farther and fare worse? +There can be no reason for having recourse to worse land, but that the +better has ceased to yield enough at the old cost. Organization and +economy of labour are excellent things, but they cannot press from the +udder more milk than it contains, or rear on the meadow more sheep than +it will carry, or grow on a limited area available for cultivation more +than a definite store of food. + +But while Mr. George denies that there is anything to force people to +poorer soils, he supposes at the same time that they go freely in order +to get a less profit. He holds the amount of return obtained from +cultivating the least productive land in use to be the lowest rate of +return for which anybody will invest his capital, and therefore to serve +in some sense as a standard rate of remuneration for all applications of +capital and labour. Nobody, he declares, will work for less than he can +make on land that pays no rent. But will any one work such land for less +than he can make in other industries? That is what Mr. George supposes +to be done every day, although he laughs at the idea of there being any +necessity for doing it. It need not be said that men are not such +lunatics. They are really forced to go to worse soils because the better +cannot increase their yield indefinitely at the same cost, and they +never go till they possess a reasonable expectation of making as much +out of the worse land as they did before out of the better. + +From all these remarkable misconceptions of the working of rent, and of +the theory of Ricardo on the subject, which he professes to follow, he +draws his first law of distribution, which is nevertheless, so far as it +goes, undoubtedly correct: "Rent depends on the margin of cultivation, +rising as it falls and falling as it rises" (p. 155). + +To find the law of rent, he has told us, is to find at the same time its +correlatives, the laws of wages and interest, and these laws accordingly +he states thus: "Wages depend on the margin of cultivation, falling as +it falls and rising as it rises. Interest (its ratio with wages being +fixed by the net power of increase which attaches to capital) depends on +the margin of cultivation, falling as it falls and rising as it rises" +(p. 156). He is not content, however, with merely inferring these two +laws as corollaries from the law of rent, but thinks it necessary to +construct for wages and interest a certain independent connection with +the movement of the margin of cultivation. To do so, he first reduces +interest, as he had already reduced profits, to a form of wages; he then +erects all the different forms of wages (_i.e._, every form of income +except rent) into a single hierarchical system, in which there are many +different rates of remuneration, occasioned by the necessity of +compensating different risks and exertions, but all moving up and down +concurrently with a certain general rate of wages at the bottom of the +scale; and he finally connects this general or standard rate of wages +with the margin of cultivation, by saying that no one would work at +anything else for less than he can make on land open to him free of +rent, and that therefore the income made by cultivating such land must +be the lowest going. + +Mr. George's view of the nature of interest is peculiar. He considers it +to be the natural increase of capital, the fruit of inherent +reproductive powers, like the increase of a calf into a cow, or of a hen +into a hen and chickens; and because interest comes in this way freely +from nature, he believes the private appropriation of it to be +thoroughly just, although he presently gives precisely the same reason +for declaring rent to be theft. It is unnecessary to discuss either the +truth or the consistency of this doctrine here, and I refer to it now +merely to explain that although Mr. George thus justifies interest as +being the price of a natural force, he introduces it into his theory of +the origin of poverty, as the price of human labour. "The primary +division of wealth," he says, "is dual, not tripartite. Capital is but a +form of labour, and its distinction from labour is in reality but a +subdivision, just as the division of labour into skilled and unskilled +would be. In our examination we have reached the same point as would +have been attained had we simply treated capital as a form of labour, +and sought the law which divides the produce between rent and wages; +that is to say between the possessors of the two factors, natural +substance and powers and human exertion--which two factors, by their +union, produce all wealth" (p. 144). The difference between interest and +wages is but as the difference between the wages of skilled labour and +the wages of unskilled; the wages of skilled labour is only the wages of +unskilled, _plus_ some consideration for the skill, or for the time +spent in training, or for drawbacks of various kinds; and the wages of +unskilled labour is fixed by the amount that can be made on land that +pays no rent. Profits, salaries, stipends, fees are, in the same way as +interest, declared to be modes of wages. The £50,000 a year of the +merchant prince, it seems, is just the £50 of the day-labourer, with +£49,950 added to compensate him for the additional perils or drawbacks +or discomforts of his life. All incomes, except the landowner's, row in +the same boat, and the day-labourer's sets the stroke. When the margin +of cultivation descends, he is the first to suffer, and then all the +rest suffer with him. If he loses £10 a year, they successively lose £10 +too; the doctor or bank-agent will have £490, instead of £500; the +railway chairman, £4,990, instead of £5,000; the merchant prince, +£49,990, instead of £50,000; and their loss is the landlord's gain. Here +then we see the whole mystery of iniquity as Mr. George professes to +unravel it. "The wealth produced in every community is divided into two +parts by what may be termed the rent line, which is fixed by the margin +of cultivation, or the return which labour and capital could obtain from +such natural opportunities as are free to them without payment of rent. +From the part of produce below this line, wages and interest must be +paid. All that is above goes to the owners of land" (p. 121). + +Mr. George here confounds the margin of cultivation with the margin of +appropriation. When economists speak of an extension of the margin of +cultivation, they mean a resort to less productive land, and that is +always accompanied by a rise of rent; but an extension of the margin of +appropriation may be a resort to more productive land, and may occasion +a fall of rent, as has been done in Europe to-day through appropriation +in America. But what in reality he builds his argument on is neither +the movement of the margin of cultivation, nor the movement of the +margin of appropriation, but simply the existence of abundance of +unappropriated land. Where that exists, rent will, of course, be low, +and wages will be high, for nobody will give much for land when he can +get plenty for nothing at a little distance off, and nobody will work at +anything else for less than he can make on land that he may have for +nothing. For such land supplies labourers with an alternative. It is not +the best of alternatives, for it needs capital before one can make use +of it, and it takes time before any return is made from it. A diversity +of national industries, for example, is better, and raises wages more +effectively. Agricultural wages are higher in the manufacturing counties +of England than in the purely agricultural; and they are higher in the +manufacturing Eastern States of Mr. George's own country than in the +purely agricultural States of the West, which possess the largest amount +of unappropriated land. The reason of this is twofold: other industries +increase the competition for labour generally, and create, at the same +time, a better market for farm produce. Unoccupied land would +act--though less effectually--in the same way as an alternative; but few +countries are fortunate enough to possess much of it, and as Mr. George +does not propose to interfere with the occupation of land, but only to +tax the occupiers, he has no scheme for showing how countries that have +it not are to get it. It is easy, of course, to call it from the vasty +deep. "Put to any one capable of thought," says Mr. George, "this +question: 'Suppose there should arise from the English Channel or the +German Ocean a Noman's land on which common labour to an unlimited +amount should be able to make ten shillings a day, and which would +remain unappropriated and of free access like the commons which once +comprised so large a part of English soil. What would be the effect upon +wages in England?' He would at once tell you that common wages +throughout England must soon increase to ten shillings a day" (p. 207). +Perhaps so; but a little more thought would teach him that "a Noman's +land on which common labour to an _unlimited_ amount should be able to +make ten shillings a day" must be itself unlimited in extent, and could +not be accommodated in the English Channel. Apart from preternatural +conditions, it could not afford remunerative employment to more than a +definite number of occupants and cultivators, and when it came to be +entirely occupied, England would stand exactly as it does at present. If +the millennium of the working class is to depend on the discovery of a +Noman's land of infinite expansibility, it must be indefinitely +postponed. + +But supposing such an alternative existed and did influence the amount +employers pay their workmen, how is it to influence in the same +direction the amount they reserve to themselves? It is true, as a matter +of fact, that wages and interest generally rise and fall together, for +the simple reason that they are generally subject to the same +influences. When capital is busily employed, so is necessarily labour, +and then both wages and interest are high; when capital is largely +unemployed, so is naturally labour also, and then both wages and +interest are low. But an influence like that which is now adduced by Mr. +George does not act on labourer and employer alike. It supplies the +labourer with an alternative which strengthens his hands in his battle +for wages with employers. Does it then at the same time strengthen the +employer in his battle with the labourer? Does it first raise wages at +the expense of profits, and then raise profits at the expense of wages? +It clearly cannot. To argue as if the existence of alternative work +which benefits the labourer, must benefit the employer in the same +degree, and as if the want of it must injure the employer because it +injures the labourer, is simply to misunderstand the very elements of +the case. One might as well argue that because the heights of Alma were +a decided strategical advantage to the Russians, who were posted on +them, they were therefore an equal advantage to the Allies, who had to +scale them. + +Laws of distribution, which are founded on a series of such arbitrary +absurdities as those which I have successively exposed, are manifestly +incapable of throwing any rational light on the causes of poverty, or +giving any practical guidance to its amelioration. But, absurd as they +may be, they are at least propounded with considerable parade, and we +are therefore quite unprepared for the strange turn Mr. George next +chooses to take. It will be remembered that the only reason why he +undertook to search for these laws at all was, that by means of them he +might explain why wages tended to sink to a minimum that would give but +a bare living; but now that he has discovered those laws, he declines to +apply them to the solution of this problem. He will not draw the very +conclusion he has laid down all his apparatus to establish. He will not +solve the problem he has promised us to solve; in fact, he tells us he +never meant to solve it; he never thought or said wages tended to sink +to a minimum that would give a bare living; he never said they tended to +sink at all; all he meant to assert was that if they increased, they did +not increase so fast as the national wealth generally. He used "the word +wages not in the sense of a quantity, but in the sense of a proportion" +(p. 154). He will not therefore, after all, show us why the poor are +getting poorer; but he will read for us, if we like, another riddle, why +they are not growing rich so fast as some of their neighbours. In the +name of the patient reader, I may be permitted to lodge a humble but +firm protest against this eccentric and sudden change of front. Mr. +George ought really to have decided what problem he was to write about +before he began to write at all, and we may therefore for the present +dismiss both his problem and his explanation till he makes up his mind. + + +III. _Mr. George's Remedy._ + +After our experience of his problem and his explanation, we cannot +indulge expectations of finding any serious or genuine worth in the +practical remedy Mr. George has to prescribe; and we hear, without a +thought of incongruity, the lofty terms in which, like other medicines +we know of, it is advertised to the world by its inventor as a panacea +for every disease society is heir to. "What I propose," he says, "as the +simple yet sovereign remedy which will raise wages, increase the +earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give +remunerative employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human +powers, lessen crimes, elevate morals and taste and intelligence, purify +government, and carry civilization to yet nobler heights, is--to +appropriate rent by taxation" (p. 288). And the direction for applying +the remedy is equally simple: it is to "abolish all taxation save that +upon land values" (_ibid._). This remedy is currently described as the +nationalization of land; but nationalization of land is a phrase which +stands for several very different and even conflicting ideas. With the +usual fatality of revolutionary parties, the English land nationalizers +are already broken into three separate organizations, and represent at +least three mutually incompatible schemes of opinion. There is first the +socialist idea of abolishing both individual ownership and individual +occupation of land, and cultivating the soil of the country by means of +productive associations or rural communes. Then there is the exactly +opposite principle of Mr. A. R. Wallace and his friends, who are so much +in love with both individual ownership and individual occupation that +their whole aim is to compel us all by law to become occupying owners of +land, whether we have any mind to be so or no. And, finally, we have the +scheme of Mr. George, which must be carefully distinguished from the +others, because he would destroy individual ownership but leave +individual occupation perfectly intact. His non-interference with +individual occupation is remarkable, because, as we have seen, he +declares the cause of poverty to be the exclusion of unemployed labour +from the opportunity of cultivating land, and because that exclusion is +chiefly due to the prior occupation of the land by earlier settlers. Mr. +George, however, thinks he can provide a plentiful supply of unoccupied +land, at a nominal price, for an indefinite number of new-comers without +disturbing any prior occupant. He would do it by merely abolishing the +private owner and asking the occupant to pay his rent to the State +instead of to a landlord, and he explains to us how it is that this +simple expedient is to effect the purpose he desires. "The selling price +of land would fall; land speculation would receive its death-blow; land +monopolization would no longer pay. Millions and millions of acres, from +which settlers are now shut out by high prices, would be abandoned by +their present owners, or sold to settlers upon nominal terms. And this +not merely on the frontiers, but within what are now considered +profitable districts.... And even in densely populated England would +such a policy throw open to cultivation many hundreds of thousands of +acres now held as private parks, deer preserves, and shooting grounds. +For this simple device of placing all taxes on the value of land would +be in effect putting up the land at auction to whoever would pay the +highest rent to the State. The demand for land fixes its value, and +hence if taxes were placed so as to very nearly consume that value, the +man who wished to hold land without using it would have to pay very +nearly what it would be worth to any one who wanted to use it." (p. +309). + +Putting up land to auction will not secure cheap or nominally rented +farms to an indefinite number of new-comers, unless there is an +indefinite supply of land to divide into farms, but in the present world +that is not so; and when the existing stock of agricultural land is +exhausted, and every man has his farm, but there is no more for any +new-comer, what is Mr. George's remedy then? Abolition of property in +land will of course abolish all trading in such property; but trading in +landed property does not restrict its occupation. The land speculator, +while he holds the land, of course keeps out another competitor from the +ownership, but he keeps nobody from its occupation and cultivation. He +is surely as ready as anybody else to make money, if money is to be +made, by letting it, even by putting it up to auction, if Mr. George +prefers that mode of letting. The transfer of the power of letting to +the State will not secure a tenant any faster. And as to the private +parks, deer forests and shootings of England, Mr. George forgets that +they are, most of them, at present rented, and not, as he seems to +fancy, owned by their occupants, and that it would not make a straw of +difference to them whether they paid their rents to the Crown factor or +to the landlord's agent. Since Mr. George does not prohibit the making +of fortunes, he cannot prevent commercial kings from America or great +brewers from England hiring forests in the Scotch Highlands. And since, +in spite of his celebrated declaration, that "to the landed estates of +the Duke of Westminster the poorest child that is born in London to-day +has as much right as has his eldest son," he would still leave the Duke +a princely income from the rents of the buildings upon his estates, and +would suffer him to enjoy it without paying a single tax or rate on it +all (p. 320), why should the Duke give up his forest in Assynt, merely +because the Crown is to draw the rent instead of the Duke of Sutherland? +Mr. George accordingly proposes a remedy that would remedy nothing, but +leave things just as they are. Deer forests and the like may not be the +best use of the land, but the particular change Mr. George suggests +would not suppress them or even in the slightest degree check their +spread, and would not throw the ground now occupied by them into the +ordinary market for cultivation. And, besides, even if it did, the land +so provided for new-comers would necessarily soon come to an end, and +with it Mr. George's "simple and sovereign remedy," at least in its +specific operation. + +But it is noteworthy that in his lectures in this country in 1884, Mr. +George made little account of the specific operation of his remedy as a +means of furnishing unemployed labourers with a practicable alternative +in agricultural production, to which they might continue indefinitely to +resort, and that he preferred for the most part drawing his cure for +poverty from the public revenue which the confiscation of rent would +place at the disposal of the community. Now as to this aspect of his +remedy, it is surely one of the oddest of his delusions to dream of +curing pauperism by multiplying the recipients of poor relief, and +taking away from it, as he claims credit for doing, through the +countenance of numbers, that reproach which has hitherto been the +strongest preventive against it. Besides, he and his friends greatly +exaggerate the amount of the fund the country would derive from the rent +of its ground. It would really fall far short of paying the whole of our +present taxation, not to speak of leaving anything over for wild schemes +of speculative beneficence. The rural rent of the country is only +seventy millions, and that sum includes the rent of buildings, which Mr. +George does not propose to touch, and which would probably in the +aggregate balance the ground rent of towns, which he includes in his +confiscation project. Now our local taxation alone comes very near that +figure, and certainly the people generally can scarcely be expected to +rise from a condition of alleged poverty to one of substantial wealth, +or even comfort, through merely having their local rates paid for them. + +The result would therefore be poor, even if no compensation were to be +made to the present receivers of the rent; but with the compensation +price to pay, it would be really too ridiculously small to throw a whole +nation into labour and disorder for. Much may be done--much must be +done--to make the land of the country more available and more profitable +for the wants of the body of the people, but not one jot of what is +required would be done by mere nationalization of the ownership, or even +done better on such a basis than on that which exists. The things that +are requisite and necessary would remain still to be done, though land +were nationalized to-morrow, and they can be equally well done without +introducing that cumbrous innovation at all. With compensation the +scheme is futile; without it, it is repugnant to a healthy moral sense. +Mr. George indeed regards confiscation as an article of faith. It is of +the essence of the message he keeps on preaching with so much conviction +and courage and fervour. Private property in land, he tells us, is +robbery, and rent is theft, and the reason he offers for these strong +assertions is that nothing can rightly be private property which is not +the fruit of human labour, and that land is not the fruit of human +labour, but the gift of God. As the gift of God, it was, he believes, +intended for all men alike, and therefore its private appropriation +seems to him unjust. Under these circumstances he considers it as +preposterous to compensate landowners for the loss of their land, as it +would be to compensate thieves for the restitution of their spoil. To +confiscate land is only to take one's own, Mr. George has no difficulty +about the sound of the word, nor is he troubled by any subtleties as to +the length it is proper to go in the work. Mr. Mill, whose writings +probably put Mr. George first on this track, proposed to intercept for +national purposes only the future unearned increase of the rent of land, +only that portion of the future increase of rent which should not be due +to the expenditure of labour and capital on the soil. Mr. George would +appropriate the entire rent, the earned increase as well as the +unearned, the past as well as the future; with this exception, that +interest on such improvements as are the fruit of human exertion, and +are clearly distinguishable from the land itself, would be allowed for a +moderate period. He says in one place, "But it will be said: These are +improvements which in time become indistinguishable from the land +itself! Very well; then the title to the improvements becomes blended +with the title to the land; the individual right is lost in the common +right. It is the greater that swallows up the less, not the less that +swallows up the greater. Nature does not proceed from man, but man from +nature, and it is into the bosom of nature that he and all his works +must return again" (p. 242). And in another place, speaking of the +separation of the value of the land from the value of the improvements, +he says: "In the oldest country in the world no difficulty whatever can +attend the separation, if all that be attempted is to separate the value +of the clearly distinguishable improvements made within a moderate +period, from the value of the land, should they be destroyed. This +manifestly is all that justice or policy requires. Absolute accuracy is +impossible in any system, and to attempt to separate all the human race +has done from what nature originally provided would be as absurd as +impracticable. A swamp drained, or a hill terraced by the Romans, +constitutes now as much a part of the natural advantages of the British +Isles as though the work had been done by earthquake or glacier. The +fact that after a certain lapse of time the value of such permanent +improvements would be considered as having lapsed into that of the land, +and would be taxed accordingly, could have no deterrent effect on such +improvements, for such works are frequently undertaken upon leases for +years" (p. 302). The sum of this teaching seems to be that Mr. George +would recognise no separate value in any improvements except buildings, +and would be disposed to appropriate even them after such lapse of time +as would make it not absolutely unprofitable to erect them. + +What Mr. George fails to perceive is that agricultural land is in no +sense more a gift of God, and in no sense less an artificial product of +human labour, than other commodities--than gold, for example, or cattle, +or furniture, in which he owns private property to be indisputably just. +Some of the richest land in England lies in the fen country, and that +land is as much the product of engineering skill and prolonged labour +as Portland Harbour or Menai Bridge. Before the days of Sir Cornelius +Vermuyden it was part of the bottom of the sea, and its inhabitants, as +they are described by Camden, trode about on stilts, and lived by +snaring waterfowl. Some of the best land in Belgium was barren +sand-heaps a hundred years ago, and has been made what it is only by the +continuous and untiring labour of its small proprietors. "God made the +sea, man made the dry land," is a proverb among the Dutch, who have +certainly made their own country as much as Mr. George has made his +book. In these cases the labour and the results of the labour are +obvious, but no cultivated land exists anywhere that is not the product +of much labour--certainly much more labour than Mr. George seems to have +any idea of. In the evidence taken before the recent Crofters' +Commission, Mr. Greig, who conducted the Duke of Sutherland's +improvements in the Strath of Kildonan, stated that the cost of +reclaiming 1,300 acres of land there, and furnishing them with the +requisite buildings for nine variously sized farms, was £46,000. Apart +from the buildings, the mere work of reclamation alone is generally +estimated to have cost £20 an acre, and in another part of the same +estates an equally extensive piece of reclamation is said to have cost +£30 an acre. By means of this great expenditure of capital and labour, +land that would hardly fetch a rent of a shilling an acre before was +worth twenty or thirty shillings an acre after. Not the buildings only, +but the land itself has been made what it is by labour. It has been +adapted to a useful office by human skill as really as the clay is by +the potter, or the timber by the wright. Deduct from the rent of these +reclaimed acres the value contributed by human labour, and how much +would remain to represent the gift of God? And would it be greater or +less than would remain after a like process applied, say, to a sovereign +or to a nugget of gold? Mr. George has no scruple about the justice of +private property and inheritance in the nugget, and indeed in all kinds +of movable wealth. "The pen with which I am writing," he says, for +example, "is justly mine. No other human being can rightfully lay claim +to it, for in me is the title of the original producers who made it" +(p. 236). The original producer of the nugget appropriated what was +surely a gift of God as much as the clays or loams of husbandry; and if +he, as Mr. George admits, has "a clear and indefeasible title to the +exclusive possession and enjoyment" of his nugget, and may transmit that +title by bequest or sale unimpaired for an unrestricted period of time, +why is the original producer of agricultural land to be held up as more +than half a thief, and the present possessor as one entirely? And if a +proprietor has spent £20,000 in buildings, and £26,000 in reclamations, +in order to convert the surface of the earth into useful arable soil, +why is he to be allowed rent on the £20,000, and denied it on the +£26,000? + +So far as the distinction between gifts of nature and products of labour +goes, movable wealth and immovable stand on precisely the same footing. +Both are alike gifts of nature, and both are alike products of labour. +In thinking otherwise Mr. George is certainly supported by the high +authority of Mr. Mill, who has also failed to recognise how far arable +land was really an artificial product. He says: "The land is not of +man's creation, and for a person to appropriate to himself a mere gift +of nature, not made to him in particular, but which belonged to all +others until he took possession of it, is _prima facie_ an injustice to +all the rest" (Dissert. iv., 289). But what is of man's creation? He +finds his materials already created, and he merely appropriates them, +and adapts them to his own uses by labour, exactly as he does with the +soil that in his hands becomes fruitful fields. Land is as much a +creation of man as anything else is, and everything is as much a gift of +God as land. That distinction is therefore of no possible help to us. +The true ground for observing a difference between the right of property +in land and the right of property in other things must be sought for +elsewhere. It is not because land is a gift of nature, while other +things are products of labour, but because land is at once limited in +quantity, and essential to the production of the general necessaries of +life. These are the characteristics that make land a unique and +exceptional commodity, and require the right of property in it to be +subject to different conditions from the right of property in other +products of labour. The justification of the restriction of that right +in the case of land accordingly rests neither on theological dogma nor +on metaphysical distinction, but on a plain practical social necessity. +Where land is still abundant, where population is yet scanty as compared +with the land it occupies, there is no occasion for interference; the +proprietor might enjoy as absolute a title as Mr. George claims over his +pen, without any public inconvenience, but, on the contrary, with all +the public benefit that belongs to absolute ownership in other things. +But as soon as population has increased so much as to compel recourse to +inferior soils for its subsistence, it becomes the duty of society to +see that the most productive use possible is being made of its land, and +to introduce such a mode of tenure as seems most likely effectually to +secure that end. Under these circumstances private property in land +requires an additional justification, besides that which is sufficient +for other things; it must be conducive to the best use of the land. +Society has become obliged to husband its resources; if it will do so +most efficiently by means of private property, private property will +stand; if not, then it must fall. Of course land is not the only kind of +property that is subject to this social claim. All property is so held, +but in the case of other things the claim seldom comes into open view, +because it is only on exceptional occasions that it is necessary to call +it into active operation. Provisions are among the things Mr. George +considers not gifts of God but products of labour, but in a siege +private property in provisions would absolutely cease, and the social +right would be all in all. These products of labour would be +nationalized at that time because in the circumstances the general +interests of the community required them to be so, and the reason why +they are not nationalized at other times is at bottom really this, that +the general interest of the community is better served by leaving them +as they are. In some parts of the world all products of labour actually +are nationalized; in Samoa, for example, a man who wants anything has a +latent but recognised claim to obtain it from any man who has it; but +Dr. Turner explains that the result is most pernicious, because while it +has extinguished absolute destitution, it has lowered the level of +prosperity and prevented all progress, no man caring to labour when he +cannot retain the fruits of his labour. Civilized communities, however, +have always perceived the immense public advantage of the institution of +private property, and the right to such property, of whatever kind, +really rests in the last analysis on a social justification, and is held +subject to a social claim, if any reason occurred to exert it. In this +respect there is nothing peculiar about land. The only peculiarity about +land is that a necessity exists for the practical exercise of the claim, +because landed property involves the control of the national food +supply, and of other primary and essential needs of the community. The +growth of population forces more and more imperatively upon us the +necessity of making the most of our land, and consequently raises the +question how far private property in such a subject is conducive to that +end. + +Now, in regard to capital invested in trade or manufactures, it has +always been justly considered that the private interest of its possessor +constitutes the best guarantee for its most productive use, because the +trader or manufacturer is animated by the purely commercial motive of +gaining the greatest possible increase out of the employment of his +capital. But it must be admitted that the private interest of the +landlord does not supply us with so sure a guarantee. He desires wealth +no doubt as well as the trader, but he is not so purely influenced by +that desire in his use of his property. He is apt to sacrifice the most +productive use of land--or, in other words, his purely pecuniary +interest--to considerations of ease or pleasure, or social importance, +or political influence. He may consolidate farms, to the distress of the +small tenants and the injury of the country generally, merely because +there is less trouble in managing a few large farmers than a number of +small; or he may refuse to give his tenants those conditions of tenure +that are essential to efficient cultivation of the land, merely to keep +them more dependent on himself in political conflicts. Mr. George, +however, has a strong conviction that even the purely pecuniary interest +of the private owner tends to keep land out of cultivation, but he +builds his conclusion on the special experiences of land speculation +rather than on the general facts of land-owning. Of course if there were +no land-owning, there would be no land speculation; but to abolish +land-owning merely to cure the evils of land speculation is, if I may +borrow an illustration of his own, tantamount to burning a house to +roast a joint. Besides, all that is alleged is that speculation keeps a +certain amount of land in America out of the market. In other countries +it suffers from a contrary reproach. The evil of the _bandes noires_ of +France and the _Landmetzger_ of Germany is their excessive activity in +bringing land into the market, by which they have aggravated the +pernicious subdivision of estates that exist. In America the effect of +speculation may be different, but at any rate keeping land out of the +market is one thing, keeping it out of cultivation is another; and it is +hard to see how speculation should prevent the extension of cultivation, +because cultivation may be as well undertaken by tenant as proprietor, +and why should a speculator, who buys land to sell it in a few years at +a high profit, object to taking an annual rent in the interval from any +one who thought it would pay him to hire the land? It would not be fair +to condemn the landlord for the sins of the land speculator, even if the +latter were all that Mr. George's curious horror of him represents him +to be, and if he exercised any of the irrationally extravagant effects +which Mr. George ascribes to his influence over the economy of things; +but as a matter of fact a sober judgment can discover no possible reason +why the private interest of a land speculator as such should stand in +the way of the cultivation of the soil he happens to hold. What concerns +us here, however, is not the private interest of the speculator, but the +private interest of the landlord, whether a speculative purchaser or +not. Now, much land lies waste at present through the operation of the +Game Laws, which establish an artificial protection of sport as an +alternative industry against agriculture, but then the general +institution of private property in land must not be credited with the +specific effects of the Game Laws, and need not be suppressed in order +to get rid of them. The abolition of these laws would place the culture +of wild animals and the culture of domestic animals on more equal terms +in the commercial competition, and would probably restore the balance of +the landlord's pecuniary advantage in favour of the latter. Besides, it +is not a question of ownership but of occupation of land that is really +involved. If the land were nationalized to-morrow, the State would have +to decide whether it would let as much land as had hitherto been let to +sporting tenants; and of course it can decide that, if it chooses, now. + +So far as I am able to judge, there is only one respect in which the +pecuniary interest of the landlord appears to be unfavourable to an +extension of cultivation. There is probably a considerable quantity of +land that might be cultivated with advantage to the community generally +by labourers who expected nothing from it but the equivalent of ordinary +wages, and which is at present suffered to lie waste, because its +produce would be insufficient to yield anything more than wages, and +would afford nothing to the capitalist farmer as profit or to the +landlord as rent. How far this operates I have, of course, no means of +knowing; but here again one may deal with waste ground if it were judged +requisite to do so, without resorting to any revolutionary schemes of +general land nationalization. Of course much land is kept in an inferior +condition, or perhaps absolutely waste, through want of capital on the +part of its owners, but the same result would happen under the +nationalization plan, through want of capital on the part of the +tenants. Mr. George does not propose to supply any of the necessary +capital out of public funds, but trusts to the enterprise and ability of +the tenants themselves to furnish it; so that the occupier would be no +better situated under the State than he would be under an embarrassed +landlord, if he enjoyed compensation for his improvements. In either +case he would improve as far as his own means allowed, and he would +improve no further. But if by nationalization of land we get rid of the +embarrassed landlord, we lose at the same time the wealthy one, and the +tenants of the latter would be decidedly worse off under the State, +which only drew rents, but laid out no expenses. The community, too, and +the general cultivation of the country would be greatly the losers. Mr. +George has probably little conception of the amount of money an +improving landlord thinks it necessary to invest in maintaining or +increasing the productive capacity of his land. A convenient +illustration of it is furnished by the evidence of Sir Arnold Kemball, +commissioner of the Duke of Sutherland, before the recent Crofters' +Commission. Sir Arnold gave in an abstract of the revenue and +expenditure on the Sutherland estates for the thirty years 1853-1882, +and it appears that the total revenue for that period was £1,039,748, +and the total expenditure (exclusive of the expenses of the ducal +establishment in Sutherland) was £1,285,122, or a quarter of a million +more than the entire rental. Here, then, is a dilemma for Mr. George: +With equally liberal management of the land on the part of the State, +how is he to endow widows and pay the taxes of the _bourgeoisie_ out of +the rents? And without such liberal management how is he to promote the +spread of cultivation better than the present owners? + +The production of food, however, is only one of those uses of the land +in which the public have a necessary and growing interest. They require +sites for houses, for churches, for means of communication, for a +thousand purposes, and the landlord often refuses to grant such +altogether, or charges an exorbitant price for the privilege. He has +refused sites to churches from sectarian reasons; for labourers' +cottages in rural districts for fear of increasing the poor-rate; in +small towns with a growing trade from purely sentimental objections to +their growth; he has refused rights of way to people in search of pure +air, for fear they disturbed his game, and he has enclosed ancient paths +and commons which had been the enjoyment of all from immemorial time. I +do not speak of the ground rent in large cities where owners are +numerous, because that, though a question of great magnitude, involves +peculiarities that separate it from the allied question of rural +ground-rent, and make it more advantageously treated on its own basis. +But in country districts where owners are few, and the possession of +land therefore confers on one man power of many sorts over the growth +and comfort of a whole community, that power ought certainly to be +closely controlled by the State. Its tyrannical exercise has probably +done more than anything else to excite popular hostility against +landlordism, and to lend strength to the present crusade for the total +abolition of private property in land. But here again the cure is far +too drastic for the disease. What is needed is merely the prevention of +abuses in the management of land, and that will be accomplished better +by regulations in the interest of the community than by any scheme of +complete nationalization. A sound land reform must--in this country at +least--set its face in precisely the contrary direction. It must aim at +multiplying, instead of extirpating, the private owners of land, and at +nursing by all wise and legitimate means the growth of a numerous +occupying proprietary. State ownership by itself is no better guarantee +than private ownership by itself for the most productive possible use of +the land; indeed, if we judge from the experience of countries where it +is practised, it is a much worse one; but by universal consent the best +and surest of all guarantees for the highest utilization of the land is +private ownership, coupled with occupation by the owner. + + + + +INDEX. + + +A. + +Agriculture, Russian, 291. + +Albrecht, the Prophet, 137. + +Alexander II., Czar, 264, 265; + death, 283. + +Alliance, Republican Socialist, 47. + +Amorphism, 274. + +Anabaptist Socialism, 219. + +Anarchism, 4; + in France, 47; + Austria, 55; + Italy, 58; + Spain, 62; + Portugal, 66; + Belgium, 70; + Holland, 73; + Switzerland, 74; + Boston, 77, 248; + United States, 80; + London, 86; + Melbourne, 91; + ultra-socialistic, 249; + ultra-democratic, 250; + ultra-revolutionary, 255; + anti-religious, 254; + Warsaw, 296. + +_Anarchist, The_, 86. + +Anarchists, Congress at Geneva, 254. + +Applegarth, Mr., 320. + +Arbitration, Papal, 245; + courts of, 431. + +Arendal Congress, 66. + +Ashburnham, Lord, 243. + +Austria, Socialism in, 54; + condition of people in, 56. + +Aveling, Dr. and Mrs., on America, 81; + on Knights of Labor, 84; + on Anarchists, 249. + + +B. + +Babbage, C., 26. + +Baboeuf, C. G., 17, 188. + +Bakunin, M., in Italy, 57; + Hegelian, 261; + with German Hegelians, 261; + escape, 273; + in London, 274; + Amorphism, 274; + Lyons insurrection, 278; + in Zurich, 278. + +Bamberger, M., 203. + +Barton, Mr., 370. + +Bastiat, M., 297. + +Bax, Belfort, 84. + +Baxter, Dudley, 303. + +Beaconsfield, Lord, 210. + +Bebel, A., 34; + on armaments, 37, 41, 125. + +Becker, B., 108. + +Beesley, Professor, 149. + +Beggars in Russia, 286. + +Belgium, Socialism, 45, 70; + forests, 412; + railways, 416. + +Bellamy, E., 79, 403, 434. + +Besant, Mrs., 88. + +Bismarck, Prince, State Socialism, 12; + Rodbertus on, 34; + peasant-catching, 52; + right to labour, 421. + +Black Division Party, The, 283. + +Black Division, The, 292. + +Black Hand, The, 62. + +Blanc, Louis, 2, 3, 95, 122; + theist, 254. + +Blanquists, 53. + +Boeckh, Professor, 97. + +Boehmert, V., 315. + +Boerenbond, The, 245. + +Bonar, Mr., quoted, 75. + +Boston Anarchists, 77. + +Boycotting, 42. + +Birmingham, 433. + +Brassey, Lord, 310, 330. + +Brentano, Professor L., on A. Smith, 198; + on condition of people, 204; + working-class claims, 213; + trade unions, 216; + working class insurance, 216. + +Brimstone League, 148. + +Brissot, M., 16. + +Brook Farm, 402. + +Brousse, M., 50. + +Broussists, 51, 52. + +Buchsel, Dr., 239. + +Buda Pest Congress, 54. + +Burns, John, 85. + +Burt, T., M.P., 86. + + +C. + +Cabet, 3. + +Cairnes, Professor, on Mill, 5; + on working-class prospects, 297; + cost of labour, 310. + +California, 435. + +Carpenter, E., 89. + +Castelar, E., 61. + +Catholic Church on employer's responsibility, 72. + +Catholic Socialists, 223. + +Catholic Workmen's Clubs, 223, 229; + in France, 243. + +Caudron, Father, 243, 244. + +Cavour, Count, 288. + +Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J., M.P., ransom, 385, 386; + overgovernment, 395. + +Channing, W. H., 403. + +Chevalier, Michel, 348. + +China, Socialist Clubs, 92. + +Christian Socialism in England, 87, 220; + Germany, 223; + Austria, 242; + France, 243. + +Christian Social Association, 229. + +Christian Social Politics, 242. + +Church, Primitive Communism of, 237. + +Clemenceau, M., 47. + +Coaches, Stage, 451. + +Cobden, R., 221; + on Government intervention, 372; + on Prussian Government, 393. + +Colins, M., 2. + +Colinsian Socialists, 2, 72. + +Colonization, Nihilist, 281. + +Companies, Joint Stock, 417. + +Communards, 46. + +Commune, Paris, 277; + Russian, 259, 289. + +Communist League, 142, 144. + +Conciliation Courts, 35. + +Congress at Halle, 33, 37; + Gotha, 88; + Havre, 47, 48; + Wyden, 44, 126, 421; + Zurich, 76; + Eisenach, 202; + D'Etienne, 50; + Buda Pest, 54; + Lisbon, 66; + Arendal, 86; + Stockholm, 67; + Copenhagen, 69; + Newark, U.S.A., 80; + Leipzig, 103, 179; + Geneva, 150. + +Co-operative production, 338, 339. + +Copenhagen Congress, 59. + +Costa, A., 58. + +Councils of Labour, 35. + +Crises, Commercial, 323, 451. + + +D. + +Dave, V., 86. + +Davenant, Dr., 303, 455. + +Davitt, Michael, 90. + +Dawes, Mr., quoted, 60. + +Day of labour, Normal, 240, 434. + +Day of labour, Eight hours, 36, 52; + Cardinal Manning on, 244; + international compulsory, 434; + in Victoria, 435; + California, 435. + +Death-rate, 452. + +Delitzsch. _See_ Schultze-Delitzsch. + +Democracy, relation to socialism, 16, 18; + American and Continental, 20. + +Denmark, socialism, 67. + +Denny, William, 315, 322. + +Distribution of incomes, 456. + +Dockyards, English, 410. + +Dolgourouki, the revolutionist, 274. + +Döllinger, Dr. von, 223. + +Dönnigsen, Helena von, 106. + +Dynamite, 256. + + +E. + +_Egaux_, Conspiracy of, 17. + +Eight Hour Day. _See_ Day of labour. + +Eisenach Congress, 202. + +Ely, Professor, 77, 80. + +Emancipation of serfs, 270, 284, 286. + +Engel, Dr., 31, 203. + +Engelhardt, Professor, 293. + +Engels, F., 93, 131, 142, 146. + +England, Socialism in, 83. + +Equality, Love of, 24. + +Equality of conditions, 385. + +Ethical School of Economics, 209. + +Eudes, General, 53. + + +F. + +Fabian Society, 88. + +Familistère of Guise, 2. + +Farmer, Small, 27, 28, 30. + +Federalism of C. Marlo, 178. + +Ferroti (Schedo), 267. + +Ferroul, M., 52. + +Feuerbach, Friedrich, 133. + +Feuerbach, L., 131, 132. + +Fleischmann, M., 42. + +Fluctuations, Commercial, 323. + +Forbes, Father, 243. + +Forestry, 412. + +Fourier, 23, 254. + +France, Liberty in, 21; + socialism, 45; + municipal socialism, 50. + +Franklin, B., 13; + on high wages, 365. + +Fraternity, 269. + +Freiligrath, F., 146. + +Froebel, F., 130. + +Frohme, M., 35. + +Fulda Conference, 229. + + +G. + +Gallenga, A., on unemployed in Italy, 59. + +Game Laws, 497. + +Geneva Congress, 150. + +George, Henry, United Labour Party, 78; + a semi-socialist, 78; + Mayoralty of New York, 79; + in Australia, 90; + "Progress and Poverty," 440; + his problem, 445; + his explanation, 461; + theory of population, 464; + of wages, 465; + profits, 474; + rent, 476; + his remedy, 486; + land nationalization, 485. + +Germany, Socialism in, 33; + Crown lands and industries, 345. + +Giffen, R., 449, 452. + +Gilbert's Act, 424. + +Glennie, J. S., 34. + +Gneist, Professor, 203. + +Goethe, 127. + +Goltz, T. von der, on piecework, 315. + +Goschen, Right Hon. G. J., State intervention, 346; + rationale of Factory Acts, 350; + distribution of wealth, 460. + +Gotha Congress, 38. + +Gotha Programme, 38, 40. + +Graham, Mr. Cunninghame, M.P., 85. + +Greig, George, 490. + +Greeley, Horace, on socialist communities, 402. + +Gronlund, L., 81. + +Guesde, J., 48, 50, 73. + +Guesdists, 51, 52. + + +H. + +Hadley, Professor, 416. + +Hale, Sir M., 301. + +Halle Congress, 33, 37, 41. + +Hartmann, E. von, 355. + +Hasselmann, 45, 72. + +Havre Congress, 47. + +Haxthausen, Professor, 259, 262. + +Headlam, Rev. S., 84, 88. + +Hearn, Professor, 347. + +Hegel, 131, 261. + +Hegelians, Young, 3, 5, 130, 139. + +Heine, H., on Lassalle, 96, 98; + on parties, 126. + +Held, Professor, 196. + +Herder, 127. + +Hermann, 309. + +Herring brand, 412. + +Herzen, Alexander, 261, 262, 264, 265; + letter renouncing revolutionism, 273, 274. + +Herzenism, 266. + +Hildebrand, Professor B., 201, 203. + +Hill, Sir R., 382. + +Hime, Dr., Sheffield, quoted, 341. + +Hirsch, Max, 203. + +Hoedel, 33. + +Holland, Socialism in, 72. + +House Communities of Russia, Dissolution of, 289. + +Housing of poor, in Sheffield, 341; + McCulloch's view, 367. + +Howell, G., M.P., on piecework, 315. + +Hughes, Thomas, 222. + +Humboldt, A. von, 98, 102. + +Humboldt, W. von, on freedom, 334; + on marriage, 353; + on energy, 396. + +Humphreys, Mr., 482. + +Hyndman, H. M., 84. + + +I. + +Icarians, 2, 77. + +"Illegal Men," 257. + +Incomes, Distribution of, 486. + +Increment, Unearned, 488. + +Ingram, Dr. J. K., 371. + +Insurance, National, 423; + in New Zealand, 417. + +International Working Men's Association, in France, 46; + Italy, 57; + Spain, 60, 62; + Denmark, 68; + Belgium, 70; + Holland, 70; + Jurassian Federation, 73; + origin, 147; + Paris Commune, 152; + disruption, 153; + in Russia, 276. + +International Working People's Association, U.S.A., 80. + +Internationality, 126. + +Ireland, Poor Law, 385. + +Irish labour, 365. + +"Iron and Cruel Law," view of Lassalle, 121; + of Ketteler, 226; + of Todt, 237; + refuted, 300. + +Italy, Socialism in, 57. + + +J. + +Jacobites, 126. + +Janson, Professor, pauperism in St. Petersburg, 284. + +Jevons, Professor W. Stanley, commercial statistics, 327. + +Jews become Nihilists, 271, 296. + +Jurassian Federation, 73, 250. + +_Justice_, 84. + + +K. + +Karakasoff's attempt, 276. + +Kemball, Sir Arnold, 495. + +Ketteler, Bishop, 224; + iron and cruel law, 226; + right of property, 227; + part of Church in Social Question, 228. + +Kildonan Strath improvements, 490. + +King, Gregory, occupiers of land, 29; + classes of population, 301; + distribution of wealth, 303; + rent of land, 454. + +Kingsley, Charles, 221. + +Knies, Professor, 201. + +Knights of Labor, 82. + +Koegel, Dr., 139. + +Kölping, Father, 223. + +Koscheleff, 267. + +Krapotkin, Prince, 45; + Lyons anarchist, 48; + English anarchism, 86; + housing the poor, 250; + the Municipal Councils, 252; + painter, 280. + + +L. + +Labour, Cost of, in different countries, 310. + +Labour Department of State, 35. + +Labour Emancipation League of Russia, 295. + +Labouring class prospects, 297, 312. + +Labour, Knights of, 82. + +Labour Party of Belgium, 71. + +Labour Statistical Bureaux, 326. + +Lafargue, P., 52. + +"Land and Liberty" Society, 283. + +Land, diminishing return, 467; + an artificial product, 489; + Mill on, 491: + speculation in, 493; + reform, 496. + +_Landmetzger_, 484. + +Land Nationalization in Belgium, 72; + in England, 89. + +Land Restoration League, 90. + +Laing, Samuel, 411. + +Laisant, M., 64. + +_Laissez-faire_, 336, 352; + repudiated by McCulloch, 361; + never adopted in England, 373; + and property, 394. + +Lange, F. A., 216. + +Laveleye, E. de, on Italian peasantry, 59; + no revolutionary Metropolis in Italy, 60; + Spanish socialist clubs, 61; + the Portuguese, 65; + the Scandinavians, 67; + Belgian socialism, 71; + State Socialism in England, 346; + professes State Socialism, 384. + +Lavergne, M. de, on French and English rural population, 46. + +Lavrists, 280. + +Lavroff, P., 278; + his principles, 279; + followers, 295. + +Lassalle, F., 92; + Heine, 96; + character, 96; + epitaph, 97; + a revolution, 97; + Humboldt, 98; + Countess Hatzfeldt's defence, 99; + theft of _cassette_, 100; + conviction for treason, 101; + literary work, 102; + "Working Men's Programme," 103; + summary of, 109; + General Working Men's Association, 105; + progress of propaganda, 105; + Helena von Dönnigsen, 106; + death, 108; + apotheosis, 108; + reply to Schultze-Delitzsch, 114; + new socialistic constitution of property, 116; + anarchic socialism of existing _régime_, 117; + Ricardo's doctrine of value, 119; + "iron and cruel law," 121; + productive societies, 122; + a national socialist, 124; + letter to Feuerbach, 172; + on the modern economists, 201; + popularity in Russia, 277; + on increase of production, 336. + +Le Basse, Father, 243. + +Ledru-Rollin, quoted, 22. + +Leipzig Congress, 103, 179. + +Leo XIII., 243; + encyclical, 245. + +Le Play, 284. + +Leroux, P., 3. + +Leroy-Beaulieu, Paul, 219. + +Lessing, 127. + +Levi, Professor Leone, 304. + +Liberalism, Marlo on, 185. + +Liberty in America, 20; + in France, 21; + under democracy, 24. + +Lichtenstein, Prince, 243. + +Liebknecht, W., 34; + on revolution, 42; + peasant catching, 42; + religion, 42; + future socialist State, 43; + expulsion from General Working Men's Association of Germany, 125; + foundation of Social Democratic Labour Party, 125; + speech at Leipzig, 249. + +Liège, Congress, 243. + +Lilyenkrantz, Jacquette, 69. + +Limitation of production, 313. + +Limousin, M., minimum of socialism, 14. + +Lisbon Congress, 66. + +Locke, John, 353. + +London, death-rate, 302. + +Ludlow, Edmund, 127. + +Ludlow, J. M., 221. + + +M. + +Mably, 161. + +Macaulay, Lord, quoted, 214. + +Macdonald, Mr., Owenite, 403. + +Machiavelli, secret societies, 257. + +Malet, Mr., 45. + +Malikowsy, 280. + +Malthus, T. R., 369, 421. + +Malthusianism, 17. + +Manchester Party of Germany, 201, 212. + +Manchester School, view of Maurice, 221; + of Kingsley, 221; + of Todt, 235; + their real doctrine, 372. + +Manning, Cardinal, Liège letter, 244. + +Marlboro' Association, 405. + +Marlo, Carl, 178. + +Marr, W., 136, 137. + +Marshall, Professor A., 437. + +Martensen, Bishop, Catholicism and socialism, 233. + +Marx, Karl, historical necessity of socialism, 23; + social revolution impossible without English participation, 83; + despair of English participation, 84; + reception of _Das Kapital_, 127; + life, 129; + Young Hegelian, 130; + early views, 139; + Communist League, 142; + communist manifesto, 144; + International, 149; + inaugural address to, 151; + summary of _Das Kapital_, 156; + value, 160; + wages, 161; + normal workday, 161; + machinery, 170; + piecework, 172; + over-population, 174; + letter from Proudhon, 255; + popularity in Russia, 277. + +Massachusetts, Joint Stock management in, 417. + +Maurice, F. D., 11, 221. + +McCulloch, J. R., disciple of Ricardo, 360; + Wages fund, 360; + _laissez-faire_, 361; + State management, 362; + factory system, 363; + pauper labour, 364; + factory legislation, 366; + housing the poor, 366; + poor law, 368; + agricultural produce, 456. + +"Medalmen," 294. + +Meeker, Mr., Fourierist, 408. + +Melbourne anarchists, 91. + +Menger, Prof. A., historical necessity of socialism, 23. + +Meyer, Rudolph, 242, 383. + +Michel, Louise, 48. + +Mill, James, 360. + +Mill, John Stuart, profession of socialism, 5; + liberty, 334; + province of Government, 353; + over-government in democracy, 395; + industrial habits under socialism, 404; + unearned increment, 488; + land, 472. + +Ministry of Labour, 35. + +Mint, The, 412. + +_Mir_, The, 252, 262. + +Molinari, G. de, 3, 45. + +Montefiore, L., 97. + +Morelly, 16. + +Morier, Sir R., 288. + +Morris, William, 84, 85. + +Most, John, 44, 80, 248. + +Moufang, Canon, 230, 231. + +Mulhall, M., wages, 308; + textile workers, 323; + agricultural rent, 456. + +Mun, Count A., de, 243. + +Municipal management, 413. + +Municipal socialism in France, 51. + +Mutualists, 3. + + +N. + +Napoleon I., 380. + +Nasmyth, James, manual dexterity, 317, 440. + +Nasse, Professor E., economic individualism in England, 346. + +Neale, E. Vansittart, 87. + +Netchaïeff, 276. + +Newark Congress, 80. + +New Zealand, State insurance, 348. + +Nicholas, Czar, 263, 264. + +Niewenhuis, D., 72. + +Nihilism, Russian, 45, 259; + name, 266. + +Nobiling, 33. + +No Man's land, 482. + +Nordhoff, Mr., 403. + +North American Phalanx, 408. + +Norway, Socialism in, 66; + the poor, 452. + +Noyes, Mr., 403. + + +O. + +Oldham, co-operative mills, 338. + +Old Believers, 292. + +Oppenheim, M., 195. + +Overtime, 320. + +Owen, R. D., 405. + +Owen, Robert, 77, 360. + +Owenites, 2, 11, 77, 148; + in America, 404. + + +P. + +Palm, 67. + +Pan-destruction, 274. + +Parsons, 249. + +Patriotism, disparaged by socialists, 126; + by great writers, 127. + +Paul, St., slave emancipation, 242. + +Pauperism, St. Petersburg, 260; + aged, 423; + England, 449; + able-bodied, 450; + Norway, 452. + +Peasant proprietary, prospects, 27; + in the International, 46. + +Peasants' League in Belgium, 245. + +Pensions, National, 423. + +Perowskaia, Sophia, 280. + +Pestel, 264. + +Peukert, 55. + +Piecework, 314. + +Pio, 68. + +Poles, The, 271. + +Poor Law, England, 402; + McCulloch, 368; + S. Webb, 423. + +Population theory, 464. + +Porter, G. R., good wages and temperance, 318; + working class houses in Sheffield, 341. + +Portugal, Socialism in, 65. + +Possibilists, 50, 51. + +Post-office management, 410. + +Potter, George, piecework, 320. + +Production, Limitation of, 313. + +Productive associations, 79. + +Profit-sharing, 339. + +Propaganda of Deed, 256. + +Property, diffusion, 23; + advantages of institution, 333. + +Proudhon, anarchy, 250; + letter to Marx, 255; + pauperism, 475. + +Prussia, socialism, 31; + condition of people, 31; + occupation of land, 32; + forests, 42. + + +R. + +Railways, State, 416. + +Rappists, 405. + +Realistic School of Economics, 205. + +Reclus, Elisée, anarchist, 48; + on Russian agriculture, 290. + +Renan, E., 384. + +Rent, Fair, 429; + agricultural, 456; + H. George, 476. + +Republican Socialist Alliance in France, 54. + +Revolutionist, The complete, 275. + +Reybaud, M., 179. + +Ricardo, D., law of value, 226; + "iron law of wages," 300; + real theory of wages, 306; + province of Government, 359; + National Bank, 360; + working class annuities, 360; + rent, 477. + +Right to existence, 421. + +Right to labour, in Convention of 1793, 22; + Bismarck on, 421; + in English Poor Law, 424. + +Rights, Natural, 420; + Primitive economic, 385. + +Rodbertus on Bismarck's social policy, 34; + differences from Lassalle, 123; + social question, 127; + relation to socialist movement, 178; + converts Wagner, 380; + acknowledges Hohenzollerns, 381; + views, 381. + +Rodriguez de Capada, Professor, 245. + +Rogers, Professor Thorold, 350. + +Roscher, Professor W., time as reformer, 199; + historical method, 200, 204; + Eisenach Congress, 203; + economic ideal, 205; + task as economist, 207; + piecework, 321. + +Rousseau, J. J., 16. + +Ruge, Arnold, 131. + +Ruskin, John, 88. + +Russia, Nihilism in, 259. + +Russo-Turkish war, 282. + + +S. + +St. Etienne Congress, 50. + +St. Joseph associations, 229. + +St. Petersburg pauperism, 260. + +St. Simon, 218, 254. + +Samoa, Socialist customs in, 401, 492. + +Samter, V., on Mill, 198. + +Sassulitch, Vera, 277, 282. + +Say, Leon, State Socialism, 345. + +Schæffle, Professor, 326. + +Scheel, Professor von., social question, 215. + +Schmoller, Professor, 195; + on Socialists of Chair, 200; + Eisenach Congress, 203; + Province of Government, 211; + distributive justice, 213 + +Schönberg, Professor, 203, 213. + +Schorlemer-Abst, Baron, 229. + +Schulte, Professor, 229. + +Schultze-Delitzsch, 4; + co-operative societies, 103; + Lassalle's reply, 114. + +Schweitzer, Dr. von, 124. + +Self-interest, 375. + +Senior, N. W., 464. + +Shakers, 405. + +Shaw, G., Bernard, 88. + +Sheffield, socialists, 89; + housing of working-class, 341. + +Shuttleworth, Canon, 88. + +Sidgwick, Professor, 360, 428. + +Sinclair, Sir John, 469. + +Sisyphism, 443. + +Smith, Adam, as viewed by Socialists of the Chair, 198; + on Government trading, 345; + his theory of social politics, 353; + national education, 354; + military training, 355; + English Government management, 356; + truck, 357; + usury, 357; + corporate management, 417. + +Smith, E. Peshine, effect of education on wages, 321. + +Social Democratic Party in Germany, 33; + in Reichstag, 34; + France, 48; + programme, 49; + Italy, 58; + Spain, 61; + Norway, 66; + Denmark, 69; + Belgium, 70; + Holland, 73; + Switzerland, 74; + U.S.A., 80; + England, 84; + Scotland, 90; + Sydney, 91. + +Social Monarchical Union, 241. + +Social Politics, English theory, 373; + Christian, 242. + +Social Reform, Central Union for, 239. + +Socialism, before 1848, 2; + contemporary, 3; + labourers' claim of right, 7; + variable use of word, 8; + inequitableness its ruling characteristic, 9; + old and new, 10; + minimum of, 14; + relation to democracy, 15; + Christian, 224; + State, 345; + meanings of word, 374. + +Socialist Laws of Germany, 33. + +Socialists of the Chair, 195. + +Society of Public Utility in Switzerland, 76. + +Society of Social Peace, 243. + +Spain, Socialism in, 60; + anarchism, 62; + condition of people, 64. + +_Spectator, The_, testamentary statistics, 459. + +Speculation, 493. + +Spencer, Herbert, believes in socialist ideal of society, 8; + the coming slavery, 346; + functions of Government, 351, 352; + land nationalization, 385; + natural rights, 420. + +Stahl, quoted, 16. + +State management, 409. + +State railways, 415. + +State Socialism, 345; + in Germany, 379 + +State, The, 211. + +Statistics, Commercial, 326. + +Stein, Professor L. von, 94, 132. + +Stephanovitch, 293. + +Stepniak, on _mir_, 252; + Paris Commune, 277; + Russian proletariat, 284; + Russian peasantry, 285, 286, 288; + break-up of the Russian Commune, 289; + Russian agriculture, 291. + +Stöcker, Dr., 234, 236, 241, 242. + +Stockholm Congress, 67. + +Strachey, Mr., 68. + +Strikes, 44. + +Studnitz, A., 320, 331. + +Suez Canal, 348. + +Sumner, Archbishop, 370. + +Sunday Schools, Nihilist, 269, 272. + +Surplus Value, Marx's doctrine, 167. + +Sweating System, 432. + +Sweden, Socialism in, 66. + +Switzerland, Socialism in, 73; + Society of Public Utility, 76; + secret societies, 136. + +Sylvania Association, 404. + + +T. + +Taylor, Helen, 84. + +Tchaikowsky, 280. + +Tchernycheffsky, 269, 272. + +Telegraphs, State management of, 410. + +Thompson, William, anticipation of Marx's doctrine, 148. + +Thornton, W. T., 464. + +Thuenen, J. von, natural wages, 121. + +Thun, Professor A., 278, 281, 284, 285, 287. + +Tocqueville, A. de, socialism and democracy, 19; + democratic passion for equality, 24; + middle-class materialization, 24; + political necessity of religion, 25; + the plutocracy, 186. + +Todt, R., 234. + +Trade Unions, 311. + +Tramps, 450. + +Treitschke, H., 203. + +Trepoff, Assassination of General, 282. + +Trial of the, 193, 280. + +Troglodytes, Secret Society, 283. + +Trumbull Phalanx, 404. + +Tucker, B. R., 91. + +Turgenieff, 266. + +Turner, Dr., Samoa, 401, 492. + + +U. + +Unemployed, 424. + +Unionism, The New, 85, 86. + +United States, Liberty in, 20; + socialism, 77; + nationalism, 79; + anarchism, 80. + + +V. + +Vaillant, M., 53. + +Value, Marx's doctrine, 160; + true theory, 327. + +"Versaillais," The, 126. + +Victoria, State railways, 411, 417; + eight hours day, 436. + +Volmar, Herr von, 35. + +Vogt, K., 148. + + +W. + +Wages Fund, 464, 465. + +Wages, "iron law," 226, 237, 300; + rise since English Revolution, 301; + Ricardo's theory, 306; + true theory, 307; + fair, 430; + minimum, 431. + +Wagner, Professor A., ground-rents, 199; + State and the social question, 213; + Evangelical Social Congress, 241; + converted by Rodbertus, 380; + his State Socialism, 387. + +Walker, President F. A., 332, 469. + +Wallace, A. R., 89, 485. + +Warren, Josiah, 77. + +Watts, Dr. J., 434. + +Webb, Sidney, 88; + State pensions for the aged, 423. + +Weitling, W., 80, 137. + +Westminster, Duke of, 486. + +Wieland, 127. + +Will of the People Party, 283, 295. + +Winchester, Bishop of, definition of socialism, 376. + +Winkelblech, Professor, 180. + +Woeste, M., 244. + +Working classes, prospects, 297, 312; + habits, 318; + legitimate aspirations, 333. + +Workmen's Chambers, 35. + +Wyden Congress, 44, 126. + + +Y. + +Yellow Springs, 404. + +Young, Arthur, 455. + +Young England Party, 380. + + +Z. + +Zurich Congress, 76. + + * * * * * + +OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE FIRST EDITION. + + +"A work of commanding ability and great practical value. It deserves to +be studied by everybody who wishes to understand a series of questions +which are just now attracting a large share of attention.... Admirably +adapted to dissipate erroneous impressions on the subject."--_Scotsman._ + +"The reader will find much to interest him in Mr. Rae's volume. His +introductory chapter is well worth studying, as are also his sketches of +Lassalle, Karl Marx, and Professor Winkelblech."--_Times._ + +"Mr. Rae has made a special study of the various phases of Continental +socialism, and has therefore peculiar qualifications for this part of +his task.... With a special recommendation of the last chapter, we take +leave of a useful and ably written book."--_Saturday Review._ + +"Mr. John Rae has already won his spurs as a writer on socialism. The +book on that subject which he has just published is the best of its +kind, in English at least, that we have seen. Holding an intermediate +position between the socialists and the Manchester School, Mr. Rae has +just that amount of sympathy with the aims of the socialists which +enables him to look at the problems involved from their point of view, +and thus to meet their errors fully and directly while doing justice to +them in some respects in which hitherto they have hardly received +it."--_Westminster Review._ + +"In Mr. Rae's interesting volume full information will be found +respecting the leaders of the socialistic movement in Europe, and a +clear statement of their teaching."--_Literary World._ + +"A very admirable piece of work, displaying thorough research in the +presentation of the various forms of socialistic theory, keen +discrimination in their analysis, and a masterly comprehension of the +whole economic situation. Mr. Rae's essay on Nihilism is as good as +anything that we have seen on this mysterious subject, but there are few +persons who are interested in the history of the present century that +will not be glad to read the whole book, and some parts of it more than +once. We will only add that the analysis of Mr. Henry George's theories +is extremely well done. It undermines the very foundations on which Mr. +George's structure is built, and the whole fabric dissolves before our +eyes."--_Evening Post_ (New York). + +"These studies attracted much attention when they first appeared, and +readers will be glad to meet them again in this book. A short analysis +could not do justice to Mr. Rae's work. What characterizes the work +most, is the impression derived from it as a whole; it is the +conscientiousness and sincerity with which the author has studied the +writers he discusses. The judgments he pronounces are his own. Those who +wish, if not a new, yet a more enlarged idea of the principle +socialistic theories, will find pleasure in following the effect which +they produce on an enlightened mind, the remarks they suggest to him, +and the objections he makes to them."--_Journal des Economistes_ +(Paris). + +"It is the best English text-book on the important subject of which it +treats, and like all good text-books, it whets the reader's +appetite."--_Glasgow Herald._ + + * * * * * + + POLITICAL SCIENCE AND ECONOMY. + + + +POLITICAL SCIENCE; Or, The State Theoretically and Practically + Considered. By THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D.D., LL.D.; late President of + Yale College. 2 vols., 8vo, $5.00.+ + + + THE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT.--"No work on Political Science has ever been + published in America which covers so wide a ground and which treats + the subject so fairly and impartially, and with so thorough + knowledge and judgment." + + THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE.--"This work is indeed one of the most + important contributions of the century to the science of natural + and national law and ethics." + + THE N. Y. TRIBUNE.--"In the discussion of the manifold questions + suggested by the general theme of the work Dr. Woolsey exhibits the + same cautiousness of judgment, moderation of tone, and vigor of + expression which characterize his previous writings. His volumes + abound with the signs of profound study and copious erudition as + well as of original thought." + + + +INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. Designed as an Aid + in Teaching and in Historical Studies. By THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, + D.D., LL.D., late President of Yale College. Fifth edition, revised + and enlarged. Crown 8vo, $2.50.+ + + + A complete outline of that grand system of ethical jurisprudence + Which holds, as it were, in one community the nations of + Christendom. Its appendix contains a most useful list of the + principal treaties since the Reformation. The work has no rival as + a text book. + + Special attention is directed to the fact that this FIFTH EDITION + of Dr. Woolsey's International Law is entirely re-written and + enlarged, and is printed from new plates. + + THE ST. LOUIS REPUBLICAN.--"A compendium treatise, intended not for + lawyers nor for those having the profession of law in view, but for + young men who are cultivating themselves by the study of historical + and political Science. While the work gives the state of the law of + nations as it is, it compares the actual law with the standard of + justice, and, by exhibiting the progress of science in a historical + way, brings it into connection with the advances of humanity and + civilization." + + + _STANDARD TEXT BOOKS._ + + + +POLITICAL ECONOMY. By ARTHUR LATHAM PERRY, Professor of History and + Political Economy in Williams College. Crown 8vo, $2.50.+ + + + Professor Perry's book has passed through many editions and has + recently been subjected to a thorough revision and recasting. His + work is a complete exposition of the Science of Political Economy + both historically and topically, his style is admirably clear and + racy; his illustrations are forcible and well chosen, and he has + made a subject interesting and open to the comprehension of any + diligent student, which has often been left by writers vague and + befogged and bewildering. This work has stood excellently the test + of the class room, and has been adopted by many of the chief + educational institutions in this country. Among them are Yale + College, Bowdoin College, Dartmouth, Trinity, Wesleyan, University + of Wooster, Denison University, Rutgers College, New York + University, Union College, and many other colleges and normal and + high schools. + + T. D. WOOLSEY, _President of Yale College_.--"Your book interests + students more than any I have ever instructed from." + + THE NEW YORK TIMES.--"As a manual for general reading and popular + instruction, Prof. Perry's book is far superior to any work on the + subject before issued in the United States." + + THE NATION.--"We cordially recommend this book to all, of whatever + school of political economy, who enjoy candid statement and full + and logical discussion." + + THE INDEPENDENT.--"There is more common sense in this book than in + any of the more elaborate works on the same subject that have + preceded it. It Is the most interesting and valuable one that has + been given to the American public on this important subject." + + + +INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL ECONOMY. By ARTHUR LATHAM PERRY, + Professor of History and Political Economy in Williams College. + Revised edition. 12mo, $1.50.+ + + + FROM THE PREFACE.--"I have endeavored in this book so to lay the + foundations of Political Economy in their whole circuit, that they + will never need to be disturbed afterwards by persons resorting to + it for their early instruction, however long and however far these + persons may pursue their studies in this science." + + THE N. Y. EVENING POST.--"This work is not meant in any way to take + the place of its author's larger treatise, but rather to occupy a + field which, in the nature of the case, that work cannot occupy. It + is not an abridgment of that work but a separate treatise, intended + primarily for the use of students and readers whose time for study + is small, but who wish to learn the broad principles of the science + thoroughly and well, especially with reference to the scientific + principles which are involved in the practical discussions of our + time. * * * We need scarcely add, with respect to a writer so well + known as he, that his thinking is sound as well as acute, or that + his doctrines are those which the greatest masters of political + science have approved." + + + +AMERICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY. By FRANCIS BOWEN, Professor of Natural + Religion and Moral Philosophy in Harvard College. 8vo, $2.50.+ + + + This treatise presents views compatible with the idea that "every + country has a political economy of its own, suitable to its own + physical circumstances of position on the globe, and to the + character, habits, and institutions of the people." + + THE PHILADELPHIA AGE.--"If our members of Congress would vote + themselves a copy of this book, and read it, fewer wild schemes + would be concocted by them, and a great saving of time and the + people's money would be secured." + + THE SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN.--"His arguments are worth considering, + and his whole book is of high value to any American to study + economical questions." + + + +CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM. By JOHN RAE, M.A. 8vo, $2.50.+ + + + Such a book as this which Mr. Rae has written--a thorough history + and analysis by a man of singularly candid and liberal mind, + equally without prejudice and fanaticism--has long been needed and + earnestly wished for by every student of socialism, and in all + countries. + + THE LONDON SATURDAY REVIEW.--"A useful and ably written book." + + THE CONGREGATIONALIST.--"No subject more needs thorough and + impartial discussion at present than this, and the work before us + by John Rae is eminently able and helpful. It is distinguished in a + remarkable degree by breadth of view and the grasp of underlying + and widely reaching principles, and also by his minuteness of + detail and the careful relation of facts and figures in support of + its position." + + + +COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM. In their History and Theory. A Sketch. By + THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D.D., LL.D., late President of Yale College. + 12mo, $1.50.+ + + + This book is the only comprehensive review of its subject, within + small compass, yet exactly meeting the needs of the reader, that is + accessible in English. The candor of the discussion is remarkable; + the book is the argument of a perfectly fair reasoner, painting + nothing in too dark colors, but taking his opponents at their best. + + THE N. Y. COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER.--"The work is an epitome of the + history of the socialistic and communistic movement, and will prove + a most valuable text book to all who have not made themselves + familiar with this great subject." + + + _AN ADDITION TO THEODOR MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME._ + + + +THE PROVINCES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. From Cæsar to Diocletian. By + THEODOR MOMMSEN. Translated with the author's sanction and + additions, by William P. Dickson D.D., LL.D. With ten maps, by + Professor Kiepert. 2 vols., 8vo, $6.00.+ + + CONTENTS: The Northern Frontier of Italy--Spain--The Gallic + Provinces--Roman Germany and the Free Germans--Britain--The + Danubian Lands and the Wars on the Danube--Greek + Europe--Asia Minor--The Euphrates Frontier and the + Parthians--Syria and the Land of the Nabatæans--Judea and the + Jews--Egypt--The African Provinces. + + + N. Y. SUN.--"Professor Mommsen's work goes further than any other + extant, or now looked for, to provide us with a key to the mediæval + history of the Mediterranean world." + + PROF. W. A. PACKARD, _in Presbyterian Review_.--"The author draws + the wonderfully rich and varied picture of the conquest and + administration of that great circle of peoples and lands which + formed the empire of Rome outside of Italy, their agriculture, + trade, and manufactures, their artistic and scientific life, + through all degrees of civilization, with such detail and + completeness as could have come from no other hand than that of + this great master of historical research in all its departments, + guided by that gift of historical imagination, for which he is + equally eminent." + + + +THE HISTORY OF GREECE. By Prof. Dr. ERNST CURTIUS. Translated by + Adolphus William Ward, M. A., Fellow of St. Peter's College, + Cambridge, Prof. of History in Owen's College, Manchester. Uniform + with Mommsen's History of Rome. Five volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top. + Price per set, $10.00.+ + + + LONDON ATHENÆUM.--"Professor Curtius' eminent scholarship is a + sufficient guarantee for the trustworthiness of his history, while + the skill with which he groups his facts, and his effective mode of + narrating them, combine to render it no less readable than sound. + Prof. Curtius everywhere maintains the true dignity and + impartiality of history, and it is evident his sympathies are on + the side of justice, humanity, and progress." + + LONDON SPECTATOR.--"We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius' + book better than by saying that it may be fitly ranked with Theodor + Mommsen's great work." + + N. Y. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Contemporary Socialism + +Author: John Rae + +Release Date: September 8, 2011 [EBook #37351] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p> + +<h1><span class="smcap">Contemporary Socialism</span><br /><br /><span id="id1">BY</span> <span>JOHN RAE, M.A.</span></h1> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center"><i>SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED</i></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">New York<br />CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<br />1891</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>PREFACE.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<p>In the present edition the original work has not only been carefully +revised, but very considerably enlarged. The chapters on "The Progress +and Present Position of Socialism" and "Russian Nihilism" contain a few +sentences retained from the first edition, but otherwise they are +entirely new—the former necessarily so on account of the nature of its +subject, and the latter on account of the importance of the fresh +materials that have been recently given to the world. A new chapter has +been added on "Anarchism," and another, of considerable extent, on +"State Socialism." No apology is required for the length of the latter, +for though State socialism is only a growth of yesterday, it has already +spread everywhere, and if it is not superseding socialism proper, it is +certainly eclipsing it in practical importance, and to some extent even +modifying it in character. Revolutionary socialism, growing more +opportunist of late years, seems losing much of its old phrenzy, and +getting domesticated into a shifty State socialism, fighting a +parliamentary battle for minor, though still probably mischievous, +changes within the lines of existing society, instead of the old war <i>à +l'outrance</i> against existing society in whatever shape or form. Anyhow +the socialistic controversy in the immediate future will evidently be +fought along the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> lines of State socialism. It is there the hostile +parties meet, and it is well therefore to get, if we can, some more +exact knowledge of the ground. Some of the other chapters in the work +have been altered here and there for the purpose of bringing their +matter, where necessary, down to date, or embodying fresh illustrative +evidence, or occasionally of making the exposition itself more lucid and +effective; but it is unnecessary to specify these alterations in detail.</p> + +<p><i>April, 1891.</i></p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CONTENTS.</span></h2> + +<p class="bold">CHAPTER I.</p> + +<p class="center">INTRODUCTORY.</p> + +<blockquote><p>Revival of Socialism, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>—Extinction of Old Types, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>—Main Surviving +Type, Social Democracy, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>—Its Two Varieties, Socialist and Anarchist, +<a href="#Page_4">4</a>—Its Relations to Political Democracy, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>—Definition of Socialism, +<a href="#Page_5">5</a>—Cairnes on Mill's Profession of Socialism, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>—Ruling Characteristic +common to Old and New Socialism, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>—State Socialism, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>—Conservative +Socialism, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>—The Minimum of Socialism, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>—First Rise of +Social Democracy, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>—Rousseau, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>—Baboeuf, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>—Connection of +Socialism with Democracy, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>—The Danger to Free Institutions, +<a href="#Page_24">24</a>—Necessity and Probability of Wider Diffusion of Property, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</p> + +<p class="bold">CHAPTER II.</p> + +<p class="center">THE PROGRESS AND PRESENT POSITION OF SOCIALISM.</p> + +<p>National Conditions Favourable to Socialism, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>—Germany, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>—Progress +of Socialist Vote, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>—Action of Socialist Party in Reichstag, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>—Party +Programme, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>—Halle Congress of 1891, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>—France, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>—Anarchists, +<a href="#Page_47">47</a>—Socialist Revolutionary Party, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>—Possibilists, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>—Blanquists, +<a href="#Page_53">53</a>—The Socialist Group in the Chamber, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>—Austria, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>—Italy, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>—Spain, +<a href="#Page_60">60</a>—Portugal, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>—Norway and Sweden, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>—Denmark, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>—Belgium, +<a href="#Page_70">70</a>—Holland, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>—Switzerland, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>—United States, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>—Boston +Anarchists, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>—Mr. Henry George, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>—Mr. Bellamy's Nationalism, +<a href="#Page_79">79</a>—Anarchists, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>—Socialistic Labour Party, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>—Knights of Labor, +<a href="#Page_82">82</a>—England, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>—Social Democrats, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>—Anarchists, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>—Christian +Socialists, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>—Fabians, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>—Land Nationalization, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>—Scotland, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>—Australia, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</p> + +<p class="bold">CHAPTER III.</p> + +<p class="center">FERDINAND LASSALLE.</p> + +<p>German Socialists before Lassalle, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>—Favourable Conditions for Socialist +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>Agitation in Germany, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>—Character of Lassalle, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>—The Hatzfeldt +Case, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>—Theft of the <i>Cassette</i>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>—Trial for Sedition, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>—Literary +Activity, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>—Letter to Leipzig Working Men, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>—Foundation of +General Working Men's Association, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>—Lassalle's Agitation, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>—His +Death, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>—Funeral, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>—Political Views, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>—Idea and Position +of the Working Class, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>—Functions of the State, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>—Economic +Doctrines, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>—Anarchic Socialism of the present Industrial +<i>Régime</i>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>—Ricardo's "Iron Law" of Wages, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>—A National, not +an International Socialist, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>—Internationally not Peculiar to +Socialist Parties, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>—Reason of Socialist Condemnation of Patriotism, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</p> + +<p class="bold">CHAPTER IV.</p> + +<p class="center">KARL MARX.</p> + +<p>Reception of his Work on Capital, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>—The Young Hegelians, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>—Feuerbach's +Humanism, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>—"Young Germany," <a href="#Page_136">136</a>—Weitling and +Albrecht, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>—Early Socialistic Leanings of Marx, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>—Marx in +Paris, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>—in Brussels, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>—The Communist League, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>—Communist +Manifesto of 1847, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>—<i>New Rhenish Gazette</i>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>—Marx +in London, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>—The International, its Rise and Fall, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>—Tendency +to Division in Revolutionary Parties, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>—"Das Capital," <a href="#Page_155">155</a>—Historical +Rise of Capitalism, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>—Origin of Surplus Value, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>—Theory +of Value, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>—Price, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>—Criticism of his Theory of Value, +165—Wages, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>—Normal Day of Labour, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>—Machinery, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>—Piecework, +<a href="#Page_172">172</a>—Relative Over-population, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</p> + +<p class="bold">CHAPTER V.</p> + +<p class="center">THE FEDERALISM OF CARL MARLO.</p> + +<p>Rodbertus, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>—Professor Winkelblech (Marlo), <a href="#Page_180">180</a>—His Awakening to +Social Misery, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>—Application to Economic Study for Solution, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>—View +of Social Problem, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>—Heathen Idea of Right (Monopolism) +to be replaced by Christian Idea of Right (Panpolism), <a href="#Page_183">183</a>—Liberalism +and Communism both Utopias, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>—Federalism alone realizes +Christian Idea of Right, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>—Natural Right of all to Property, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>—Right +to Labour and to Fruits of Labour, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>—Necessity of Controlling +Increase of Population, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>—Of Suppressing Unproductive +Acquisition, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>—Collectivization of Land and Productive Capital, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</p> + +<p class="bold">CHAPTER VI.</p> + +<p class="center">THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR.</p> + +<p>The Name, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>—Held's Vindication of it, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>—Objections to it, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>—Founders +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span>of the Historical School, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>—Their Departure from Manchester +Party, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>—Eisenach Congress, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>—The Historical Method, +<a href="#Page_204">204</a>—The Historical School a Realist School, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>—An Ethical School, +<a href="#Page_209">209</a>—Their Theory of the State, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>—The Social Question, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>—Von +Scheel, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>—Brentano, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</p> + +<p class="bold">CHAPTER VII.</p> + +<p class="center">THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS.</p> + +<p>Socialism and Christianity, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>—Views of St. Simon and Cabet, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>—Irreligious +Character of Contemporary Socialism, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>—The Christian +Socialists of England in 1850, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>—Those of Germany now, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>—The +Catholic Group, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>—Ketteler, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>—Moufang, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>—Protestant Group, +<a href="#Page_233">233</a>—Stöcker, Todt, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>—Christian Social Working Men's Party, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>—The +Social Monarchical Union, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>—The Evangelical Social Congress +of 1890, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>—Is there a Specific Christian Social Politics? <a href="#Page_242">242</a>—Christian +Socialism in Austria, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>—In France, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>—International +Catholic Social Congress of 1890 at Liège, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>—The Pope's Encyclical, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</p> + +<p class="bold">CHAPTER VIII.</p> + +<p class="center">ANARCHISM.</p> + +<p>Recent Activity of Anarchists, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>—Individualist Anarchists and Communist +Anarchists, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>—Latter are Ultra-Socialist, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>—Ultra-Democratic, +<a href="#Page_250">250</a>—Proudhon's Anarchic Government, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>—No Representative +Institutions, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>—Prince Krapotkin's Plan for Housing the Poor, +<a href="#Page_252">252</a>—The Russian <i>Mir</i> the Anarchist Model of Government, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>—Anarchism +Atheistic, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>—Ultra-revolutionary, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>—Propaganda of +Deed, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>—Disunity and Weakness of Anarchism, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</p> + +<p class="bold">CHAPTER IX.</p> + +<p class="center">RUSSIAN NIHILISM.</p> + +<p>Haxthausen's Opinion of Russia's Safety from Socialism, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>—Successive +Phases of Nihilism, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>—Origin of Nihilism, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>—Influence of the +Rural Commune on Revolutionary Thought, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>—Decabrist Conspiracy +of 1825, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>—Extreme Opinions at Russian Universities in Reign +of Nicholas, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>—Ascension of Alexander II., <a href="#Page_264">264</a>—Alexander Herzen, +<a href="#Page_265">265</a>—Turgenieff and the word Nihilist, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>—Koscheleff and Fircks's +Accounts of Nihilism, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>—Causes of it, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>—Nihilist Sunday Schools, +Tchernycheffsky, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>—Effect of Emancipation of Serfs, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>—Ruined +Landlords, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>—Jews, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>—Heretics, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>—Bakunin, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>—Herzen's +Recantation of Revolutionism, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>—Bakunin in London, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>—His +"Amorphism," <a href="#Page_274">274</a>—His Picture of the Good Revolutionist, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>—Netchaïeff +founds Branches of the International in Russia, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>—The +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>first Attempt on the Czar, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>—Reversion to Arbitrary and Despotic +Government, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>—Bakunin and Lavroff at Zurich, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>—"Going into +the People," <a href="#Page_279">279</a>—Secret Societies, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>—Nihilist Arrests and Trials, +<a href="#Page_281">281</a>—Terrorism, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>—Assassination of Czar, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>—Present Socialist +Parties, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>—The Black Division Party, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>—Alarming Growth of a +Proletariat in Russia, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>—Impoverishment of Peasantry, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>—Break +up of Communistic System, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>—Dissolution of House Communities, +<a href="#Page_289">289</a>—The Black Division, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>—The Labour Emancipation League, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</p> + +<p class="bold">CHAPTER X.</p> + +<p class="center">SOCIALISM AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION.</p> + +<p>A Social Question recognised by Contemporary Economists, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>—Mr. +Cairnes on the Situation, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>—Socialist Indictment of Existing +<i>Régime</i>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>—1st, the "Iron Law of Wages," <a href="#Page_300">300</a>—Alleged Deterioration +of Wage-Labourers' Position Unfounded, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>—Their Standard +of Living Better, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>—Their Individual Share in the National Wealth +more, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>—The "Iron Law" Misunderstood by Socialists, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>—The +"Iron Law" Itself Unsound, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>—The Rate of Wages really Depends +on the <i>per capita</i> Production, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>—Prospects of Increasing <i>per +capita</i> Production, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>—Piecework, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>—Shorter Day of Labour, +<a href="#Page_318">318</a>—2nd, Alleged Multiplication of Vicissitudes, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>—Effects of +Machinery, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>—Temporary Redundancies, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>—Serious Redundancies +Lessening, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>—Value of Good System of Commercial Statistics, +<a href="#Page_325">325</a>—3rd, Alleged Expropriation of the Value of the Labourer's +Work, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>—How Value is Constituted, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>—Justice of Interest, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>—Social +Importance of Work of Capitalist Employer, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>—Public +Value of Private Property, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>—Value of Freedom, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>—<i>Laissez-faire</i>, +<a href="#Page_336">336</a>—Necessity for Opportunities of Investment, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>—Co-operative +Production, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>—Advantage of Interlacing of Classes, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>—Reason +of exceptionally good House Accommodation among Working +Classes of Sheffield, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>.</p> + +<p class="bold">CHAPTER XI.</p> + +<p class="center">STATE SOCIALISM.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>1. State Socialism and English Economics.</i></p> + +<p>M. Léon Say on State Socialism, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>—State Property and State Industries +in Germany, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>—Mr. Goschen and others on Change in English +Opinion regarding State Intervention, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>—Their Views Exaggerated +and undiscriminating, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>—Little done in England in Nationalizing +Industries, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>—Much done in enlarging Popular Rights, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>—English +Thinkers never Believers in <i>Laissez-faire</i>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>—Except Mr. H. Spencer, +<a href="#Page_352">352</a>—Adam Smith's "Simple and Obvious System of Natural +Liberty," <a href="#Page_353">353</a>—His Theory of Social Politics, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>—Ricardo's Views, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span><a href="#Page_359">359</a>—McCulloch's, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>—On the Manufacturing System, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>—On +Crises, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>—On Irish Pauper Labour, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>—On Factory Legislation, +<a href="#Page_366">366</a>—On Housing the Poor, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>—On the Poor Law, 368—The So-called +Manchester School, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>—The English Theory of Social Politics, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>2. The Nature and Principle of State Socialism.</i></p> + +<p>Different Definitions of Socialism, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>—Origin and Meaning of State +Socialism, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>—The Social Monarchists, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>—Rodbertus, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>—His +Theory of Social Politics, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>—M. de Laveleye and Establishment of +Equality of Conditions, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>—Alleged Disinheritance of the People +from the Primitive Economic Rights, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>—Mr. Chamberlain's Doctrine +of "Ransom," <a href="#Page_386">386</a>—Professor A. Wagner's State Socialism, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>3. State Socialism and Social Reform.</i></p> + +<p>Cobden's Praise of the Prussian Government for its Social Work, +<a href="#Page_393">393</a>—Property, a Requisite of Progress, not of Freedom, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>—Limits +of Legitimate Intervention, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>—Short Definition of State Socialism, +<a href="#Page_399">399</a>—Error of Plea for State Socialism as Extinguisher of Chance, +<a href="#Page_399">399</a>—As Saving the Waste from Competition, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>—Wastefulness of +Socialism, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>—As shown in Samoa, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>—In England under Old Poor +Law, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>—In Brook Farm, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>—Idleness the Destroyer of the American +Owenite and Fourierist Communities, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>—Idleness, the Great +Difficulty in the Shaker and Rappist Communities, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>—"Old Slug," +<a href="#Page_406">406</a>—Contentment with Squalid Conditions, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>—Special Liability to +Mismanagement, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>4. State Socialism and State Management.</i></p> + +<p>Natural Qualities and Defects of State as Industrial Manager, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>—Post +Office, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>—Dockyards, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>—Forestry, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>—Mint and other +Forms of Attesting, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>—Monopolies, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>—Municipal Management +of Gas and Water Supply, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>—Land Nationalization, <a href="#Page_414">414</a>—State +Railways, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>—State Insurance in New Zealand, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>—Results of +Joint-Stock Management and Private Management in Massachusetts, <a href="#Page_417">417</a>.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>5. State Socialism and Popular Right.</i></p> + +<p>Why Impracticable Legislation is Socialistic, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>—Rule of Intervention +for Realizing Rights, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>—Right to Existence, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>—Right to +Superannuation, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>—Right to Labour, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>—Problem of the Unemployed, +<a href="#Page_425">425</a>—Free Education, Libraries, Parks, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>—Where Stop? +<a href="#Page_427">427</a>—Legal Fixing of Prices, as in Fares and Rates, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>—Of Fair Rent, +<a href="#Page_429">429</a>—Of Fair Wages, <a href="#Page_430">430</a>—Compulsory Arbitration, <a href="#Page_430">430</a>—Legal +Minimum Wages, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>—Sweating System and Starvation Wages, +<a href="#Page_432">432</a>—International Compulsory Eight Hours Day, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span></p> + +<p class="bold">CHAPTER XII.</p> + +<p class="center">THE AGRARIAN SOCIALISM OF HENRY GEORGE.</p> + +<p>Mr. George Predicts that his Book would find Apostles, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>—Fulfilment +of the Prediction, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>—Sisyphism, <a href="#Page_442">442</a>—Loses His Religious Belief +through Perception of Poverty, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>—Recovers it again, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>—1st, His +Problem, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>—Its unverified Assumption, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>—Evidence of Facts +against it, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>—Average Scale of Living has Risen, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>—Proportion +of Paupers, unable to obtain it, has Declined, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>—Special Decline of +Able-bodied Pauperism, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>—Increase of Length of Life, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>—Mr. +George Changes his Problem from one of Quantity to one of Proportion, +<a href="#Page_453">453</a>—Rent really no larger Proportion of National Wealth or +even of Agricultural Produce than before, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>—Wages no Smaller +Proportion, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>—Indications of Increasing Distribution of Wealth, +<a href="#Page_457">457</a>—2nd, Mr. George's Explanation, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>—Alleged Tendency of +Wages to a Minimum that gives but a Bare Living, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>—The Wages +Fund and Population Theories, <a href="#Page_464">464</a>—Mr. George's New Population +Theory, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>—His New Wages Fund Theory, <a href="#Page_468">468</a>—His Explanation +of the Distribution of Wealth without taking Profits into Account, +<a href="#Page_474">474</a>—Views on Rent, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>—on Interest, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>—Wages, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>—Margin of +Cultivation, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>—Absurdities of his Explanation, <a href="#Page_485">485</a>—3rd, Mr. +George's Remedy, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>—Land Nationalization Movement in England, +<a href="#Page_488">488</a>—Futility of Mr. George's Remedy, <a href="#Page_489">489</a>—Confiscation, <a href="#Page_490">490</a>—Difference +of Mr. George's Proposal from Mr. Mill's, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>—Agricultural +Land as truly the Fruit of Labour as other Commodities, <a href="#Page_492">492</a>—Real +Distinction between Land and other Property, <a href="#Page_494">494</a>—Social Claim on +all Property, <a href="#Page_495">495</a>—Is Private Property the best Guarantee for the +most Productive use of Land? <a href="#Page_496">496</a>—Land Nationalization no Assistance +to the Reforms that are Needed, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>.</p></blockquote> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER I.</span> <span class="smaller">INTRODUCTORY.</span></h2> + +<p>It was a common topic of congratulation at the Exhibition of 1862 that +the political atmosphere of Europe was then entirely free from the +revolutionary alarms which overclouded the first Exhibition in 1851; but +in that very year the old clouds began to gather once more at different +quarters of the horizon. It was in 1862 that Lassalle delivered to a +club of working men in Berlin his address on "The Present Epoch of the +World, and the Idea of the Working Class," which was published shortly +afterwards under the title of "The Working Man's Programme," and which +has been called by his friends "The Wittenberg Theses" of the new +socialist movement; and it was at the Exhibition itself that those +relations were established between the delegates of English and French +trade societies which issued eventually in the organization of the +International. The double train thus laid has put in motion a propaganda +of social revolution more vigorous, widespread, and dangerous than any +which has preceded it.</p> + +<p>But though the reappearance of socialism was not immediately looked for +at the time, it could cause no serious surprise to any one who +considered how nearly the socialist theory is allied with some of the +ruling ideas of modern times, and how many points of attraction it +presents at once to the impatient philanthropy of enthusiasts, to the +passions of the multitude, and to the narrow but insistent logic of the +numerous class of minds that make little account of the complexity of +life. Socialism will probably never keep long away during the present +transitional period of society, and there is therefore less interest in +the mere fact of its reappearance than in marking the particular form in +which, after a prolonged retirement, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> has actually returned; for this +may perhaps be reasonably taken to be its most vital and enduring type, +and consequently that with which we shall mainly have to reckon in the future.</p> + +<p>Now the present movement is, before all, political and revolutionary. +The philanthropic and experimental forms of socialism, which played a +conspicuous <i>rôle</i> before 1848, perished then in the wreck of the +Revolution, and have never risen to life again. The old schools have +dispersed. Their doctrines, their works, their very hopes have gone. The +theories of man's entire dependence on circumstances, of the +rehabilitation of the flesh, of the passional attraction, once in +everybody's mouth, have sunk into oblivion. The communities of Owenites, +St. Simonians, Fourierists, Icarians, which multiplied for a time on +both sides of the Atlantic, are extinct. The socialists of the present +day have discarded all belief in the possibility of effecting any social +regeneration except by means of political authority, and the first +object of their endeavours is therefore the conquest of the powers of +the State. There are some exceptions, but these are very unimportant. +The communistic societies of the United States, for instance, are mostly +organizations of eccentric religious sects which have no part or +influence in the life of the century. The Colinsian Collectivists, +followers of the Belgian socialist Colins, are a mere handful; and the +Familistère of Guise in France—a remarkable institution, founded since +1848 by an old disciple of Fourier, though not on Fourier's plan—stands +quite alone, and has no imitators. Non-political socialism may +accordingly be said to have practically disappeared.</p> + +<p>Not only so, but out of the several sorts and varieties of political +socialism, only one has revived in any strength, and that is the +extremest and most revolutionary. It is the democratic communism of the +Young Hegelians, and it scouts the very suggestion of State-help, and +will content itself with nothing short of State-transformation. Schemes +such as were popular and noisy thirty years ago—schemes, involving +indeed organic changes, but organic changes of only a partial +character—have gone to their rest. Louis Blanc, for example, was then a +name of some power; but, remarkably enough, though Louis Blanc was but +the other year buried with great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> honour, his Organization of Labour +seems to be as completely forgotten as the Circulus of Leroux. M. G. de +Molinari writes an interesting account of the debates that took place in +the working men's clubs of Paris in the year 1868-9—the first year they +were granted liberty of meeting after the establishment of the Second +Empire—and he states that while Fourier and Cabet were still quoted by +old disciples, though without any idea of their systems being of +practical moment, Louis Blanc's name was not even mentioned. Proudhon's +gospel of a State bank of mutual credit for furnishing labourers with +capital, by issuing inconvertible notes without money and without price, +has still a sprinkling of faithful believers, who call themselves +Mutualists; but they are extremely few, and, as a rule, the socialists +of France at the present day, like those of Germany, put their faith in +iron rather than paper. What they want is a democracy of labour, to use +one of their own phrases—that is, a State in which power and property +shall be based on labour; where citizenship shall depend on a labour +qualification, instead of a qualification of birth or of property; where +there shall be no citizen who enjoys without labouring, and no citizen +who labours without enjoying; where every one who is able to work shall +have employment, and every one who has wrought shall retain the whole +produce of his labour; and where accordingly, as the indispensable +prerequisite of the whole scheme, the land of the country and all other +instruments of production shall be made the joint property of the +community, and the conduct of all industrial operations be placed under +the direct administration of the State. Furthermore, all this is +contended for as a matter of simple right and justice to the labouring +classes, on the ground that the wealth of the nation belongs to the +hands that made it; it is contended for as an obligation of the State, +because the State is held to be merely the organized will of the people, +and the people is the labouring class; and it is contended for as an +object of immediate accomplishment—if possible, by ordinary +constitutional means; but, if not, by revolution.</p> + +<p>This is the form in which socialism has reappeared, and it may be +described in three words as Revolutionary Socialist Democracy. The +movement is divided into two main branches<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>—socialism proper, or +collectivism, as it is sometimes called, and anarchism. There are +anarchists who are not socialists, but hold strongly by an individualist +constitution of property. They are very few, however, and the great mass +of the party known by that name in our day, including the Russian +Nihilists, are as ardent believers in the economic socialism of Karl +Marx as the Social Democrats of Germany themselves. They diverge from +the latter on a question of future government; but the differences +between the two are only such as the same movement might be expected to +exhibit in passing through different media, personal or national. Modern +democrats have been long divided into Centralists and Federalists—the +one party seeking to give to the democratic republic they contemplate a +strongly centralized form of government, and the other preferring to +leave the local communes comparatively independent and sovereign, and +free, if they choose, to unite themselves in convenient federations. The +federal republic has always been the favourite ideal of the Democrats of +Spain and of the Communards of Paris, and there is generally a tendency +among Federalists, in their impatience of all central authority, to drop +the element of federation out of their ideal altogether, and to advocate +the form of opinion known as "anarchy"—that is, the abolition of all +superior government. It was very natural that this ancient feud among +the democrats should appear in the ranks of socialist democracy, and it +was equally natural that the Russian Radicals, hating the autocracy of +their country and idealizing its rural communes, should become the chief +adherents of the federalist and even the anarchic tradition.</p> + +<p>This is the only point of principle that separates anarchism from +socialism. In other respects anarchism may be said to be but an extremer +phase of socialism. It indulges in more violent methods, and in a more +omnivorous spirit of destruction. Its fury takes a wider sweep; it +attacks all current beliefs and all existing institutions; it puts its +hopes in universal chaos. I shall endeavour in a future chapter to +explain, from peculiarities of the national character and culture, why +this gospel of chaos should find so much acceptance in Russia; but it is +no exclusively Russian product. It was preached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> with singular coolness, +as will be subsequently shown, by some of the young Hegelians of Germany +before 1848, and it obtains among the more volatile members of most +socialist organizations still. Attacks on religion, patriotism, the +family, are very usual accessories of their practical agitations +everywhere. As institutions and beliefs are seen to lend strength to +each other, teeth set on edge against one are easily brought to gnash at +all. A sharp check from the public authority generally brings out to the +front this extremer element in German socialism. After the repressive +legislation of 1878 the German socialists struck the restriction of +proceeding "by legal methods" out of their programme, and the wilder +spirits among them would be content with nothing short of a policy of +general destruction, and, being expelled from the party, started an +organization of their own on thoroughly anarchist lines.</p> + +<p>Under these influences, the word socialism has come to contract a new +meaning, and is now generally defined in a way that would exclude the +very theories it was originally invented to denote. Its political +element—its demand on the public power in behalf of the labouring +class—is taken to be the pith and essence of the system. Mr. Cairnes, +for example, says that the circumstance which distinguishes socialism +from all other modes of social speculation is its invocation of the +powers of the State, and he finds fault with Mr. Mill for describing +himself in his "Autobiography" as a socialist, merely because his ideal +of ultimate improvement had more in common with the ideal of socialistic +reformers than with the views of those who in contradistinction would be +called orthodox. The passage from the "Autobiography" runs as +follows:—"While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of +society over the individual which most socialistic systems are supposed +to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer +be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they +who do not work shall not eat will be applied, not to paupers only, but +impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead +of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of +birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; +and when it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible +for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits +which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the +society they belong to." ("Autobiography," pp. 231-232). On this passage +Mr. Cairnes observes:—"If to look forward to such a state of things as +an ideal to be striven for is socialism, I at once acknowledge myself a +socialist; but it seems to me that the idea which 'socialism' conveys to +most minds is not that of any particular form of society to be realized +at a future time when the character of human beings and the conditions +of human life are widely different from what they now are, but rather +certain modes of action, more especially the employment of the powers of +the State for the instant accomplishment of ideal schemes, which is the +invariable attribute of all projects generally regarded as socialistic. +So entirely is this the case that it is common to hear any proposal +which is thought to involve an undue extension of the power of the State +branded as socialistic, whatever be the object it may seek to +accomplish. After all, the question is one of nomenclature merely; but +people are so greatly governed by words that I cannot but regret that a +philosophy of social life with which I so deeply sympathize should be +prejudiced by verbal associations fitted, as it seems to me, only to +mislead." ("Leading Principles of Political Economy," p. 316.)</p> + +<p>Mr. Cairnes's objection is just; for a reformer's position ought to be +determined, not by the distant ideal he may think best, if the +conditions were ripe for its realization, but by the policy which he +counts to be of present importance under the conditions that exist. He +may cherish, as many orthodox economists do, the socialist hope. He may +look for a time when comfort and civilization shall be more universally +and securely diffused; when heads and hands in the world of labour shall +work together in amity; when competition and exclusive private property +and self-interest shall be swallowed up in love and common labour. But +he knows that the transformation must be gradual, and that the material +conditions of it must never be pushed on in advance of the intellectual +and moral. And this cuts him off by a whole diameter, from those who are +now known as socialists. In every question of the day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> he will be found +in an opposite camp from them. For he makes the ideal what it is and +ought to be—the goal of his action; they make it their starting-point, +and the peculiarity of the case is that with their view of the situation +they cannot make it anything else. For to their mind the struggle they +are engaged in is not a struggle for amelioration, but for plain and +elementary right. It is not a question of providing greater happiness +for the greatest number; it is a question of doing them bare justice, of +giving them their own, of protecting them against a disguised but very +real expropriation. They declare that, under the present industrial +arrangements, the labouring classes are in effect robbed of most of the +value of the work of their hands, and of course the suppression of +systematic robbery is an immediate obligation of the present. Justice is +a basis to start from now, if possible, and not a dream to await +hereafter. First let the labouring man have his rights, they cry, and +then, and then only, shall you have the way clear for any further parley +about his future. It is true that he is not the victim of individual +rapacity so much as of the system, and that he cannot get his rights +till the system is completely changed; but the system, they argue, can +never be completely changed except by the power of the State, and why +then not change it at once? Now, it is obvious how, to people who take +this view of the matter, there should seem no other alternative but an +instant reconstruction of industrial society at the hands of the State. +For if it is justice that has to be done, then it appears only natural +to conclude that it falls upon the State, as the organ of justice, to do +it, and that it cannot do it too soon. The demand for the immediate +accomplishment of their scheme by public authority is thus no accidental +accessory of it merely, but is really inseparable from the ideas on +which the scheme is founded. It is, in fact, so much, if I may use the +word, the <i>note</i> of socialism wherever socialism makes itself heard in +the world now, that it can only produce confusion to give the name of +socialist to persons who hold this note in abhorrence, and virtually +desire no more than the gradual triumph of co-operation.</p> + +<p>It may be answered that the latter, like the former, aim not at a mere +reform of the present industrial system, but at an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> essential change in +its fundamental principles—at an eventual suppression of exclusive +property and unrestricted competition—and that it is therefore only +proper to classify them with those who seek the like important end, +however they may differ from the latter as to the means and seasons of +action. This might be right, perhaps, if our only consideration were to +furnish a philosophical classification of opinions; but we have to deal +with a living and agitating party whose name and work are much +canvassed, and there is at any rate great practical inconvenience in +extending the current designation of that party so as to include persons +who object strongly to its whole immediate work.</p> + +<p>The inconvenience has doubled since Mill's time, because socialism has +now become a much more definite programme of a much more definite party. +Even in the old romantic schools the ruling characteristic of socialism +was always its effort to realize some wrong view of distributive +justice. It was more than merely an impracticable plan for the +extinction of poverty, or the more equable diffusion of wealth, or the +correction of excessive inequalities, although that seems to be so +prevailing an impression that persons who have what they conceive more +feasible proposals to offer for these purposes put them forward under +the name of Practicable Socialism. But so far as these purposes go, they +are common to almost all schools of social reformers, even the most +individualist. If socialism meant only feeling earnestly about those +inequalities, or desiring earnestly their redress, or even strongly +resenting their inconsistency with an ideal of justice, then Mr. Herbert +Spencer is as much a socialist as either Marx or Lassalle. "The fates of +the great majority," says he, "have ever been, and doubtless still are, +so sad that it is painful to think of them. Unquestionably the existing +type of social organization is one which none who care for their kind +can contemplate with satisfaction; and unquestionably men's activities +accompanying this type are far from being admirable. The strong +divisions of rank and the immense inequalities of means are at variance +with that ideal of human relations on which the sympathetic imagination +likes to dwell; and the average conduct, under the pressure and +excitement of social life as at present carried on, is in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> sundry +respects repulsive." ("A Plea for Liberty," p. 4.) Socialists are far +from being the only persons whose sense of justice is offended by much +in the existing <i>régime</i>, and many very moderate politicians have held +that the policy of the law should always favour the diffusion of wealth +rather than its concentration; that it should always favour the active +business interest rather than the idle interest; that it should always +favour the weaker and more unprotected interest rather than the more +powerful and the more contumelious. The socialism comes in not with the +condemnation of the existing order of things, but with the policy +recommended for its correction. There is no socialism in recognising the +plain fact that the gifts of fortune, whether riches or talents, are not +distributed in the world according to merit. There is no socialism in +declaring that the rich, by reason of their riches, have +responsibilities towards the poor; or that the poor, by reason of their +poverty, have claims upon the rich. Nor is there any socialism in +holding that the State has responsibilities towards the poor, and that +the law ought, when necessary, to assert the reasonable claims of +poverty, or enforce the reasonable duties and obligations of wealth. All +that merely says that justice and humanity ought to govern in economic +affairs, as they ought to govern in all other affairs of life; and this +is an axiomatic position which nobody in the world denies. Only, +axiomatic though it is, it seems to dawn on many minds like a revelation +late in life, and they feel they are no longer as other men, and that +they must henceforth call themselves socialists. This awakening to the +injustice or inhumanity of things is not socialism, though socialism may +often proceed out of it. Socialism is always some scheme for the removal +of one injustice by the infliction of a greater—some scheme which, by +mistaking the rights and wrongs of the actual situation, or the natural +operation of its own provisions, or any other cause, would leave things +more inequitable and more offensive to a sound sense of justice than it +found them. The rich idler, for example, is always a great offence to +the socialist, because, according to the socialist sense of justice, no +man ought to be rich without working for his riches; and many other +people will possibly agree with the socialist in that. But then the +socialist<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> proposes to abolish the rich idler by a scheme which would +breed the poor idler in overwhelming abundance, and for the sake of +equalizing poverty and wealth, would really equalize indolence and +industry—at once a more fatal and a more offensive form of injustice +than that which it was designed to redress. Socialists find fault with +the present order of things because the many workers support the few +idlers; but most of the old socialist communities of France and America +failed because of the opposite and greater injustice, that the few +workers found themselves supporting the many idlers, and the consequence +was a more harrowing sense of unfairness and a more universal +impoverishment than prevailed under the old system. The rich idler who +merely lives on what he has inherited may not belong to an ideal state +of society; but the poor idler, who shirks and dawdles and malingers, +because an indulgent community relieves him of the necessity of harder +exertion, is equally unideal, and he is much more hurtful in the reality.</p> + +<p>But the socialists, in their mistaken ideas of justice, do not stop at +the rich idler. The rich idler is, in their view, a robber; but the rich +worker is a greater robber still. It is characteristic of socialist +thought to hold the accumulations of the rich to be in some sort of way +unjustly acquired by spoiling the poor. The poor are always represented +as the disinherited; their property is declared to have been taken from +them perforce by bad laws and bad economic arrangements and delivered +without lien into the hands of the capitalists. This view lived and +moved in the old socialism, but it has been worked into a reasoned and +professedly scientific argument as a basis and justification for the +new. The old socialism usually exclaimed against the justice of +interest, rent, property, and all forms of labourless income; but the +new socialism pretends to prove the charge by economic principles. It +alleges that all these forms of income are so many different forms of +plundering the working classes, who are the real producers of wealth, +and it sets up a claim on behalf of those classes to the whole value of +the things they produce without any deductions for rent, interest, or +profit—the right, as they call it, of the labourer to the whole produce +of his labour. Now this is a very distinct<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> and definite claim of right +and justice, and the whole final object of the socialist organizations +of the present day is to get it realized, and realized at once, as +claims of right and justice ought, and must, by the powers of the State. +I shall have better opportunities at a later part of this work of +proving how absolutely unfounded and unjust is this claim; but I mention +it here merely to show that the essence of modern socialism is more and +more unmistakably revealing itself as an effort to realize some false +ideal of social or distributive justice. This is the deepest and most +ruling feature of socialism, and it really necessitated the advance of +the movement from the philanthropic to the political stage. The Owenites +were content with the idea of a voluntary equality of wealth; but that +is now dismissed as the mere children's dream, for popular rights are +things to be enforced by law, and questions of justice are for the +State. The political character of the movement has only brought forward +into stronger relief the distorted ideal of justice which gave it being; +and it has therefore become much more confusing than it formerly was for +one to call himself a socialist merely because he dreams of better +things to come, or because he would like to extinguish poverty, or to +diffuse property, or to extend the principle of progressive taxation, or +promote co-operation or profit-sharing, or any other just or useful +measures of practical social reform. That is shown very well by a simple +little tidemark. In the old days it was still possible, though it never +was a happy choice, for Maurice and the promoters of the new +co-operation movement to assume the designation of Christian Socialists; +but although Schultze-Delitzsch was working on the same lines with even +greater <i>éclat</i> at the time when the present socialistic movement began +in Germany, he was left so far behind that he was thought the great +anti-socialist, and the people to whom it was now considered appropriate +to transfer the name of socialists were a set of university professors +and others who advocated a more extended use of the powers of the State +for the solution of the social question and the satisfaction of working-class claims.</p> + +<p>The Socialists of the Chair and the Christian Socialists of Germany +contemplate nothing beyond correctives and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>palliatives of existing +evils; but then they ask the State to administer them. They ask the +State to inspect factories, or to legalize trades unions, or to organize +working-class insurance, or to fix fair wages. Their requests may be +wise or foolish, but none of them, nor all of them together, would +either subvert or transform the existing industrial system; and those +who propound them are called socialists merely because they make it part +of the State's business to deal with social questions, or perhaps more +particularly because they make it the State's business to deal with +social questions in the interest of the working class. This idea of +socialism seems largely to govern the current employment of the term. We +often hear any fresh extension of the functions of the State condemned +as socialistic even when the extension is not supposed to be made in the +interests of the working class, or to be conducive to them. The purchase +of the telegraphs was socialistic; the proposal to purchase the railways +is socialistic; a national system of education is socialistic; and an +ecclesiastical establishment, if it were now brought forward as a new +suggestion, would be pronounced socialistic too. Since, in a socialistic +community, all power is assigned to the State, any measure which now +increases the power of the State gets easily represented as an approach +to socialism, especially in the want—and it is one of our chief wants +at present—of a rational and discriminating theory of the proper limits +and sphere of public authority.</p> + +<p>But in the prevailing use of the word, there is generally the idea that +the intervention of authority to which it is applied is undertaken to +promote the well-being of the less fortunate classes of society. Since +socialism seeks to construct what may be called a working class State, +where the material welfare of each shall be the great object of the +organization of all, it is common to represent as socialistic any +proposal that asks the State to do something for the material well-being +of the working class, and to describe any group of such proposals, or +any theory that favours them, by the name of socialism. The so-called +State-socialism of Prince Bismarck, for example, is only, as he has +himself declared, a following-out of the traditions of the House of +Hohenzollern, the princes of that dynasty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> having always counted it one +of their first duties as rulers to exercise a special protection and +solicitude over the poorer classes of their subjects. The old ideas of +feudal protection and paternal government have charms for many minds +that deplore the democratic spirit of modern society. In Germany they +have been maintained by the feudal classes, the court, and the clergy; +their presence in the general intellectual atmosphere there has probably +facilitated the diffusion of socialistic views; and they have certainly +led to the curious phenomenon of a Conservative socialism, in which the +most obstinately Conservative interests in the country go to meet the +Social Democrats half way, and promise to do everything to get them +better wages if they will but come to church again and pray for the +Kaiser. The days of feudal protection and paternal government are gone; +as idealized by Carlyle, they perhaps never existed; at any rate, in an +age of equality they are no longer possible, but their modern +counterparts are precisely the ideas of social protection and fraternal +government which find their home among socialists. On the strength of +this analogy, Prince Bismarck and the German Emperor are sometimes +spoken of as socialists, because they believe, like the latter, that the +State should exercise a general or even a particular providence over the +industrial classes. But socialism is more than such a belief. It is not +only a theory of the State's action, but a theory of the State's action +founded on a theory of the labourer's right. It is at bottom, as I have +said, a mistaken demand for social justice. It tells us that an +enlargement of social justice was made when it was declared that every +man shall be free—or, in other words, that every man shall possess +completely his own powers of labour; and it claims that a new +enlargement of social justice shall be made now, to declare that every +man shall possess the whole produce of his labour. Now those who are +known as Conservative Socialists, in patronizing the working people, do +not dream of countenancing any such claim, or even of admitting in the +least that there is anything positively unjust in the present industrial +system. None of them would go further than to say that the economic +position of the labourer is insufficient to satisfy his legitimate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +aspirations in a civilized community; few of them would go so far. It is +therefore highly confusing to class them among socialists.</p> + +<p>M. Limousin, again, speaks of a "minimum of socialism." He would call no +man a socialist who does not hold this minimum, and he would call every +man a socialist who does hold it. And the minimum of socialism, in his +opinion, is this, that the State owes a special duty of protection to +labourers because they are poor, and that this duty consists in securing +to them a more equitable part in the product of general labour. The +latter clause might have been better expressed in less general terms, +but that may pass. The definition recognises at any rate that the +paternal or the fraternal theory of government does not of itself +constitute socialism, and that this must be combined with the demand for +a new distribution of wealth, on supposed grounds of justice or equity, +before we have even the minimum of socialism. But it would have been +more correct if it had recognised that the demand for a better +distribution must be made not merely on <i>supposed</i>, but on <i>erroneous</i> +grounds of justice or equity. If the proposed distribution is really +just and equitable, nothing can surely be more proper than to ask the +State to do its best to realize it and any practicable intervention for +that purpose is only a matter of the ordinary expansion of the law. What +is law, what is right, but a protection of the weak? and all legal +reform is a transition from a less equitable to a more equitable system +of arrangements. The equitable requirements of the poor are the natural +concern of the State on the narrowest theory of its functions, and M. +Limousin's definition would really include all rational social reformers +under the name of socialist.</p> + +<p>If we are in this way to stretch the word socialism first to the one +side, till it takes in J. S. Mill and Maurice and the co-operators, who +repudiate authority and State help, and then on the other side, till it +takes in Prince Bismarck, and our own aristocratic Conservative Young +England Party, and all social reformers who want the State to do its +ordinary duty of supplying the working classes with better securities +for the essentials of all humane living, how can there be any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> rational +and intelligible use of the word at all? Mill holds a more or less +socialistic idea of what a just society would be; Bismarck holds a more +or less socialistic view of the functions of the State; but neither of +these ideas separately make up the minimum of socialism; and it would +therefore be misleading to call either of them by that name, while to +call both by it would be hopeless confusion, since the one politician +holds exactly what the other rejects, and no more. But, after all, it is +of less importance to define socialism in the abstract than to describe +the actual concrete socialism that has organization and life, especially +as the name is only transferred in common speech to all these varying +shades of opinion, because they are thought to resemble that concrete +socialism in one feature or another.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Having now ascertained the general nature of the contemporary +socialistic movement, we shall be in a better position to judge of its +bearings and importance. We have seen that the only form of socialism +which has come to life again since 1848 is the political and +revolutionary phase of Social Democracy. Now, this was also the original +form in which socialism first appeared in modern Europe at the time of +the earlier Revolution of 1789. The tradition it represents is +consequently one of apparently vigorous vitality. It has kept its place +in European opinion for a hundred years, it seems to have grown with the +growth of the democratic spirit, and it has in our own day broken out +simultaneously in most of the countries of the Continent, and in some of +them with remarkable energy. A movement like this, which seems to have +taken a continuous and extensive hold of the popular mind, and which +moreover has a consciousness of right, a passion for social justice, +however mistaken, at the heart of it, cannot be treated lightly as a +political force; but at the same time its consequence is apt to be +greatly overrated both by the hopes of sanguine adherents and by the +apprehensions of opponents. Socialists are incessantly telling us that +their system is the last word of the Revolution, that the current which +broke loose over Europe in 1789 is setting, as it could not help +setting, in their direction, and that it can only find its final level +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> repose in a democratic communism. Conservative Cassandras tell us +the same thing, for the Extreme Right takes the same view as the Extreme +Left does of the logical tendency of measures. They feel things about +them moving everywhere towards equality, they feel themselves helpless +to resist the movement, and they are sure they shall waken one morning +in a social revolution. Stahl, for example, thought democracy +necessarily conducted to socialism, and that wherever democracy entered, +socialism was already at the door. A few words will therefore be still +necessary towards explaining, first, the historical origin of modern +socialism; second, the relations of socialism to democracy, and, +finally, the extent and character of the spread of the present movement.</p> + +<p>Respecting the first of these three points, modern socialism was +generated out of the notions about property and the State which appeared +towards the close of last century in the course of the speculations then +in vogue on the origin and objects of civil society, and which were +proclaimed about the same time by many different writers—by Brissot, by +Mably, by Morelly, and above all by Rousseau. Their great idea was to +restore what they called the state of nature, when primitive equality +still reigned, and the earth belonged to none, and the fruits to all. +They taught that there was no foundation for property but need. He who +needed a thing had a right to it, and he who had more than he needed was +a thief. Rousseau said every man had naturally a right to whatever he +needed; and Brissot, anticipating the famous words of Proudhon, declared +that in a state of nature "exclusive property was theft." It was so in a +state of nature, but it was so also in a state of society, for society +was built on a social contract, "the clauses of which reduce themselves +to one, viz., the total transfer of each associate, with all his rights, +to the community." The individual is thus nothing; the State is all in +all. Property is only so much of the national estate conditionally +conceded to the individual. He has the right to use it, because the +State permits him, while the State permits him, and how the State +permits him. So with every other right; he is to think, speak, train his +children, or even beget them, as the State directs and allows, in the +interest of the common good.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p><p>These ideas circulated in a diffuse state till 1793. They formed as yet +neither system nor party. But when Joseph Baboeuf, discarding his +Christian name of Joseph (because, as he said, he had no wish for +Joseph's virtues, and so saw no good in having him for his patron +saint), and taking instead the ominous name of Caius Gracchus, organized +the conspiracy of the <i>Egaux</i> in that year, then modern socialism began, +and it began in the form in which it still survives. Baboeuf's ambition +was to found what he called a true democratic republic, and by a true +democratic republic he meant one in which all inequalities, whether of +right or of fact, should be abolished, and every citizen should have +enough and none too much. It was vain, he held, to dream of making an +end of privilege or oppression until all property came into the hands of +the Government, and was statedly distributed by the Government to the +citizens on a principle of scrupulous equality. Misled by the name Caius +Gracchus, people thought he wanted an agrarian law and equal division. +But he told them an agrarian law was folly, and equal division would not +last a twelvemonth, if the participants got the property to themselves. +What he wanted, he said, was something much more sublime—it was +community of goods. Equality could only be made enduring through the +abolition of private property. The State must be sole proprietor and +sole employer, and dispense to every man his work according to his +particular skill, and his subsistence in honourable sufficiency +according to his wants. An individual who monopolized anything over and +above such a sufficiency committed a social theft. Appropriation was to +be strictly limited to and by personal need.</p> + +<p>Baboeuf saw no difficulty in working the scheme; was it not practised +every day in the army, with 1,200,000 men? If it were said, the soil of +France is too small to sustain its population in the standard of +sufficiency contemplated, then so much the worse for the superfluous +population; let the greater landlords first, and then as many +sansculottes as were redundant, be put out of the way for their +country's good. He actually ascribed this intention to Robespierre, and +spoke of the Terror as if it were an excellent anticipation of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>Malthusianism. Did any one say that, without inequalities, progress +would cease and arts and civilization decay, Baboeuf was equally +prepared to take the consequences. "Perish the arts," said a manifesto +discovered with him at his apprehension, "but let us have real +equality." "All evils," he said in his newspaper, "are on their trial. +Let them all be confounded. Let everything return to chaos, and from +chaos let there rise a new and regenerated world."</p> + +<p>We have here just the revolutionary socialist democracy that is still +rampant over Europe. Socialists now, indeed, generally make light of the +difficulty of over-population which Baboeuf solved so glibly with the +guillotine, and they contend that their system would humanize +civilization instead of destroying it. They follow, too, a different +tradition from Baboeuf regarding the right of property. While he built +that right on need, they build it on labour. He said the man who has +more than he needs is a thief; they say the man who has more than he +wrought for is a thief. He would have the State to give every man an +honourable sufficiency right off, according to his need; they ask the +State to give every man according to his work, or, if unfit for work, +according to his need, and they hold that this rule would afford every +one an honourable sufficiency. But these differences are only +refinements on Baboeuf's plan, and its main features remain—equality of +conditions, nationalization of property, democratic tyranny, a uniform +medium fatal to progress, an omnipresent mandarin control crushing out +of the people that energy of character which W. von Humboldt said was +the first and only virtue of man, because it was the root of all other +excellence and advancement. In short, socialists now seek, like Baboeuf, +to establish a democratic republic—a society built on the equal manhood +of every citizen—and, like Baboeuf, they think a true democratic +republic is necessarily a socialistic one.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>This brings me to the next point I mentioned, the interesting problem of +the true relations of socialism to democracy. Is socialism, as Stahl and +others represent, an inevitable corollary of democracy? If so, our +interest in it is very real and very immediate. For democracy is already +here, and is at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> present engaged in every country of Europe in the very +work of reorganizing the social system into harmony with democratic +requirements. Its hammer may make little sound in some places, but the +work proceeds none the less effectually for the silence, and it will +proceed, slowly or more rapidly, until all the institutions of the +country have been renovated by the democratic spirit. Will the social +system, which will result from the process, be socialism? "The gradual +development of the principle of equality," says De Tocqueville, "is a +providential fact. It has all the characteristics of such a fact. It is +universal; it is durable; it constantly eludes all human interference; +and all events, as well as all men, contribute to its progress. Would it +be wise to imagine that a social movement, the causes of which lie so +far back, can be checked by the efforts of one generation? Can it be +believed that the democracy which has overthrown the feudal system and +vanquished kings will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists? Will it +stop now that it has grown so strong, and its adversaries so weak?" If, +then, the natural tendency of democracy is to socialism, to socialism we +must eventually go.</p> + +<p>But the natural tendency of democracy is not to socialism. A single +plain but remarkable fact suffices to establish that. Democracy has been +in full bloom in America for more than a century, and there are no +traces of socialism there except among some German immigrants of +yesterday; for, of course, the communism of the eccentric religious +sects of America proceeds from religious ideals, and has no bearing one +way or other on the social tendency of democracy. The labouring class is +politically everything in that country—everything, at least, that +electoral power can make them in an elective republic; and they have +never shown any desire to use their political power to become socially +everything or to interfere with the freedom of property. Had this been +in any way the necessary effect of democratic institutions, it must have +by this time made its appearance in the United States. De Tocqueville, +indeed, maintains that so far from there being any natural solidarity +between democracy and socialism, they are absolutely contrary the one to +the other. "Democracy," he said in a speech in the Republican Parliament +of France<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> in 1849, "extends the sphere of individual independence; +socialism contracts it. Democracy gives every individual man his utmost +possible value; socialism makes every man an agent, an instrument, a +cipher. Democracy and socialism coincide only in the single word +equality, but observe the difference: democracy desires equality in +liberty; socialism seeks equality in compulsion and servitude."</p> + +<p>That is so far substantially true, but it cannot be received altogether +without qualification. We have had experience in modern times of two +different forms of democracy, which may be called the American and the +Continental. In America equality came as it were by nature, without +strife and without so much as observation; the colonists started equal. +But freedom was only won by sacrifice; the first pilgrims bought it by +exile; the founders of the Republic bought it a second time by blood. +Liberty therefore was their treasure, their ark, their passion; and +having been long trained in habits of self-government, they acquired in +the daily exercise of their liberty that strong sense of its practical +value, and that subtle instinct of its just limits, which always +constitute its surest bulwarks. With them the State was nothing more +than an association for mutual protection—an association, like any +other, having its own definite work to do and no more, and receiving +from its members the precise powers needed for that work and no more; +and they looked with a jealousy, warm from their history and life, on +any extension of the State's functions or powers beyond those primary +requirements of public safety or utility which they laid upon it. In the +United States property is widely diffused; liberty has been long enjoyed +by the people as a fact, as well as loved by them as an ideal; the +central authority has ever been held in comparative check; and +individual rights are so general a possession that any encroachment upon +them in the name of the majority would always tread on interests +numerous and strong enough to raise an effectual resistance. Democracy +has in America, accordingly, a soil most favourable to its healthy +growth; the history, the training, and the circumstances of the people +all concur to support liberty.</p> + +<p>But on the Continent democracy sprang from very different<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> antecedents, +and possesses a very different character. Equality was introduced into +France by convulsion, and has engrossed an undue share of her attention +since. Freedom, on the other hand, has been really less desired than +power. The Revolution found the affairs of that country administered by +a strong centralized organization, with its hand everywhere and on +everything, and the Revolution left them so. Revolution has succeeded +revolution; dynasties and constitutions have come and gone; almost every +part of the political and social system has suffered change; the form of +government has been republic, empire, monarchy, empire and republic +again; but the authority of government, its sphere, its attributes, have +remained throughout the same. Each party in succession has seized the +power of the State, but none has sought to curb its range. On the +contrary, their temptation lay the other way; they have been always so +bent on using the authority and mechanism of government to impair or +suppress the influence of their adversaries, whom they regarded as at +the same time the adversaries of the State, that they could only wish +that authority to be larger and that mechanism more perfect than they +already were. Even the more popular parties are content to accept the +existing over-government as the normal state of affairs, and always +strive to gain the control of it rather than to restrain its action. And +so it has come about that, while they sought liberty for themselves, +they were afraid to grant it to their opponents, for fear their +opponents should be able to get the authority of this too powerful +administration into their hands and serve them in the same way. The +struggle for freedom has thus been corrupted into a struggle for power. +That is the secret of the pathetic story of modern France. That is why, +with all her marvellous efforts for liberty, she has never fully +possessed it, and that is why she seems condemned to instability.</p> + +<p>A growing minority of the democratic party in France is indeed opposed +to this unfortunate over-government, but the democratic party in general +has always countenanced it, perhaps more than any other party, because +to their minds government represents the will of the people, and the +people cannot be supposed to have any reason to restrain its own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> will. +Besides, they are still dominated by the doctrines of Rousseau and the +other revolutionary writers who looked with the utmost contempt on the +American idea of the State being a kind of joint-stock association +organized for a circumscribed purpose and with limited powers, and who +held the State, on the contrary, to be the organ of society in all its +interests, desires, and needs, and to be invested with all the powers +and rights of all the individuals that compose it. Under the social +contract, by which they conceived the State to be constituted, +individuals gave up all their rights and possessions to the community, +and got them back immediately afterwards as mere State concessions, +which there could be no injustice in withdrawing again next day for the +greater good of the community. Instead of enjoying equal freedom as men, +the great object was to make them enjoy equal completeness as citizens.</p> + +<p>From historical conditions like these there has sprung up on the +Continent—in Germany as well as France—a quite different type of +democracy from the American, and this type of democracy, while it may +not be the best, the truest, or the healthiest type of it, has a +tendency only too natural towards socialism. It contains in its very +build and temperament organic conditions that predispose it to socialism +as to its peculiarly besetting disease. It evinced this tendency very +early in the history of the Revolution. As Ledru-Rollin reminded De +Tocqueville, in replying to his speech, the right to labour on the part +of the strong and the right to assistance on the part of the weak were +already acknowledged by the Convention of 1793. Claims like these +constitute the very A B C of socialism, and they have always moved with +more or less energy in the democratic tradition of the Continent. +Democracy, guided by the spirit of freedom, will resist socialism; but +authoritative democracy, such as finds favour abroad, leans strongly +towards it. A democratic despotism is obviously more dangerous to +property than any other, inasmuch as the despot is, in this case, more +insatiable, and his rapacity is so easily hid and even sanctified under +the general considerations of humanity that always mingle with it.</p> + +<p>It is therefore manifest that the question whether political<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> democracy +must end in social, is one that cannot be answered out of hand by +deduction from the idea. The development will differ in different +countries, for it depends on historical conditions, of which the most +important is that I have now touched on, whether the national character +and circumstances are calculated to guide that development into the form +of democratic liberty, or into the form of democratic tyranny. A second +condition is scarcely less important, viz., whether the laws and +economic situation of the country have conduced to a dispersion or to a +concentration of property. For even in the freest democracy individual +property can only be permanently sustained by diffusion, and, if +existing conditions have isolated it into the hands of the few, the many +will lie under a constant, and, in emergencies, an irresistible +temptation to take freedom in their hand and force the distribution of +property by law, or nationalize it entirely by a socialistic +reconstruction. It used to be a maxim in former days that power must be +distributed in some proportion to property, but with the advent of +democracy the maxim must be converted, and the rule of health will now +be found in having property distributed in some proportion to power. +That is the natural price of stability under a democratic <i>régime</i>. A +penniless omnipotence is an insupportable presence. When supreme power +is vested in a majority of the people, property cannot sit securely till +it becomes so general a possession that a majority of the people has a +stake in its defence, and this point will not be reached until at least +a large minority of them are actually owners, and the rest enjoy a +reasonable prospect of becoming so by the exercise of care and diligence +in their ordinary avocations.</p> + +<p>The belief of Marx and modern socialists, that the large system of +production, with its centralized capital and its aggregation of +workpeople in large centres, must, by necessary historical evolution, +end in the socialist State, is, as Professor A. Menger has pointed out, +not justified by history. The latifundia and slavery of the decline of +the Roman empire were not succeeded by any system of common property, +but by the institutions of mediæval law which made the rights of private +property more absolute and exclusive. And in our own time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> the tendency +to concentration of property in the hands of a few great capitalists is +being corrected by the newer tendency to joint stock management, <i>i.e.</i>, +to the union and multiplication of small capitalists; and this is of +course a tendency back from, and not on towards, the social revolution +Marx conceived to be imminent. But though the modern concentration of +wealth may not for the moment be increasing, and if it were, may not on +that account necessarily spell socialism, it certainly spells social +peril; and the future, therefore, stands before us with a solemn choice: +either property must contrive to get widely diffused peacefully, or it +will be diffused by acts of popular confiscation, or perhaps be +nationalized altogether; and the fate of free institutions hangs upon +the dilemma. For in a democratic community the peril is always near. De +Tocqueville may be right in saying that such communities, if left to +themselves, naturally love liberty; but there are other things they love +more, and this profound political philosopher has himself pointed out +with what exceptional vigour they nourish two powerful passions, either +of which, if it got the mastery, would prove fatal to freedom. One is +the love of equality. "I think," says he, "that democratic communities +have a natural taste for freedom; left to themselves they will seek to +cherish it, and view every privation of it with regret. But for equality +their passion is ardent, insatiable, insistent, invincible; they call +for equality in freedom, and if they cannot obtain that, they still call +for equality in slavery. They will endure poverty, servitude, pauperism, +but they will not endure aristocracy." The other is the unreined love of +material gratification. By this De Tocqueville does not mean sensual +corruption of manners, for he believes that sensuality will be more +moderate in a democracy than in other forms of society. He means the +passion for material comfort above all other things, which he describes +as the peculiar passion of the middle classes; the complete absorption +in the pursuit of material well-being and the means of material +well-being, to the disparagement and disregard of every ideal +consideration and interest, as if the chief end and whole dignity of man +lay in gaining a conventional standard of comfort. When a passion like +this spreads from the classes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> whose vanity it feeds to the classes +whose envy it excites, social revolution is at the gates, and this is +one of De Tocqueville's gravest apprehensions in contemplating the +advance of democracy. For he says that the passion for material +well-being has no check in a democratic community except religion, and +if religion were to decline—and the pursuit of comfort undoubtedly +impairs it—then liberty would perish. "For my part," he declares, "I +doubt whether man can ever support at once complete religious +independence and entire public freedom; and I am inclined to think that +if faith be wanting in him he must serve, and if he be free he must +believe." It is impossible, therefore, in an age when the democratic +spirit has grown so strong and victorious, to avoid taking some +reasonable concern for the future of liberty, more especially as at the +same time the sphere and power of government are being everywhere +continually extended, the devotion to material well-being, and what is +called material civilization, is ever increasing, and religious faith, +particularly among the educated and the working classes, is on the decline.</p> + +<p>This is exactly the rock ahead of the modern State, of which we have +been long warned by keen eyes aloft, and which seems now to stand out +plainly enough to ordinary observers on the deck. Free institutions run +continual risk of shipwreck when power is the possession of the many, +but property—from whatever cause—the enjoyment of the few. With the +advance of democracy a diffusion of wealth becomes almost a necessity of +State. And the difficulty only begins when the necessity is perceived. +For the State cannot accomplish any lasting or effective change in the +matter without impairing or imperilling the freedom which its +intervention is meant to protect—without, in short, becoming socialist, +for fear of socialism; and when it has done its best, it finds that the +solution is still subject to moral and economic conditions which it has +no power to control. In trade and manufactures which occupy such vast +and increasing proportions of the population of modern countries, the +range of the State's beneficial or even possible action is very little; +and in these branches the natural conditions at present strongly favour +concentration or aggregation of capital. The small masters have simply +been worsted in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> ordinary competition with the large producers, and so +long as the large system of production continues the cheapest system of +production, no other result can be expected. The social problem, +therefore, so far as these branches are concerned, is to discover some +form of co-operative arrangement which shall reconcile the large system +of production with the interests of the labouring class, unless, +indeed—what is far from impossible—the large system of production is +itself to be superseded in the further advance of industrial +development. The economic superiority of that system depends greatly on +the circumstance that the power now in use—water or steam—necessitates +the concentration of machinery at one spot. Mr. Babbage predicted fifty +years ago that if a new power were to be discovered that could be +generated in a central place in quantities sufficient for the +requirements of a whole community, and then distributed, as gas is, +wherever it was wanted, the age of domestic manufactures would return. +Every little community might then find it cheaper, by saving carriage, +and availing itself of cheaper local labour, to manufacture for itself +many of the articles now made for it at the large mills; and the small +factory or workshop, so suitable, among other advantages, for +co-operative enterprise, would multiply everywhere. Now, have we such a +power in electricity? If so, not the least important effect of the new +agent will be its influence on the diffusion of wealth, and its aid +towards the solution of the social problem of the nineteenth century.</p> + +<p>With land and agriculture the situation is somewhat different. The +distribution of landed property has always depended largely on legal +conditions; and since these conditions have—in this country at +least—wrought for two centuries in favour of the aggregation of +estates, their relaxation may reasonably be expected to operate to some +extent in the contrary direction. Too much must not be built on this +expectation, however, for the natural conditions are at present, at +least, as partial to the large property as the legal. The abolition of +entail and primogeniture, by emancipating the living proprietor from the +preposterous tyranny of the dead, and by bringing to the burdened the +privilege of sale, must necessarily throw greater quantities of land +into the market than reach it now, but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> redistribution of that land +will as necessarily conform to the existing social and economic +circumstances of the country; and England will never cease to be +characterized by the large property, so long as its social system lends +exceptional consideration to the possession of land, and its commercial +system is continually creating an exceptional number of large fortunes. +The market for the large estate is among the wealthy, who buy land as an +instrument of enjoyment, of power, of social ambition; and what with the +wealth made at home and the wealth made in the colonies, the number of +this class is ever on the increase; the natural market for the small +estate, on the other hand, is among the farming class, to whom land is a +commercial investment, and the farmers of England, unlike those of other +countries, unlike those of our own country in former days, are as a rule +positively indisposed to purchase land, finding it more profitable to +rent it. This aversion, however, is much more influential with large +farmers than with small ones. It is commonly argued as if a small farmer +who has saved money will be certain to employ it in taking a more +extensive holding, but that is not so. On the contrary, he more usually +leaves it in the bank; in some parts of Scotland many small farmers have +deposits of from £500 to £1000 lying there at interest; they studiously +conceal the fact, lest their landlords should hear of it, and raise +their rent, and they submit to much inconvenience rather than withdraw +any portion of it, once it is deposited. Their ruling object is security +and not aggrandisement, and consequently if land were in the market in +lots to suit them, they would be almost certain to become purchasers of +land. In forecasting the possibility of the rise of a peasant +proprietary in this country, it is often forgotten that, whether land is +a profitable investment for the farmer or not, the class of farmers from +whom such a proprietary would be generated is less anxious for a +profitable investment than for a safe one, and that to many of them, as +of other classes, independence will always possess much more than a commercial value.</p> + +<p>But, however this may be, land is distributed by holdings as well as by +estates, and in connection with our present subject the distribution by +holdings is perhaps the more important<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> thing of the two. "The magic of +property" is no exclusive prerogative of the soil; ownership in stock +will carry the same political effects as ownership in anything else; and +a satisfactory system of tenant right may yield all the social and +economic advantages of a peasant proprietary. In fact, tenant right, so +far as it goes, is proprietorship, and it has before now developed into +proprietorship even in name. The old lamented yeomanry of England were, +the great majority of them, copyholders, and a copyholder was simply a +tenant-at-will whose tenant right was consolidated by custom into a +perpetual and hereditary property; and if the soil of England will ever +again become distributed among as numerous a body of owners as held it +in former ages, it will most likely occur through a similar process of +consolidation of tenant right. But as it is—and though this is a +truism, it is often overlooked in discussions on the subject—the +tenants are owners as well as the landlords; their interests enlist them +on the side of stability; they have a stake in the defence of property; +and even though the prevailing tendency to the accumulation of estates +continues unchecked, its peril to the State may be mitigated by the +preservation and multiplication of small and comfortable holdings, which +shall nourish a substantial and independent peasantry, and supply a hope +and ambition to the rural labourers. This is so far well. We know that +it is an axiom with Continental socialists that a revolution has no +chance of success, however well supported it may be by the artisans of +the towns, if the peasantry are contented and take no part in it; and +the most serious feature in more than one of the great countries of +Europe at this moment is the miserable condition into which their +agricultural labourers have been suffered to fall, and their practical +exclusion from all opportunities of raising themselves out of it. The +stability of Europe may be said to rest on the number of its comfortable +peasantry; the dam of the Revolution is the small farm. This is not less +true of England than of the Continent, for although the agricultural +population is vastly outnumbered by the industrial in this country, that +consideration really increases rather than diminishes the political +value of sustaining and multiplying a contented tenantry.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p><p>Now England is the classical country of the large farm as well as of +the large estate. Its holdings have always been larger than those of +other nations; they were so when half of them were owned by their +occupiers, they are so still when they are rented from great landlords. +The large farms have grown larger; a holding of 200 acres was counted a +very large farm in the time of the Commonwealth; it would be considered +a very moderate one in most English counties now. But yet the small farm +has not gone the way of the small estate. The effects of consolidation +have been balanced to such a degree by a simultaneous extension of the +area of cultivation that the number of holdings in England is probably +more considerable than it ever was before. If we may trust Gregory +King's estimate, there were, 200 years ago, 310,000 occupiers of +holdings in England, 160,000 owners, and 150,000 tenants; in 1880 there +were, exclusive of allotments, which are now numerous, 295,313 holdings +of 50 acres and under, and 414,804 holdings altogether. Moreover, the +future of the small farm is much more hopeful than the future of the +small estate or the small factory. All admit the small holding to be +preferable to the large for dairy farming and market gardening; and +dairy farms and market gardens are two classes of holdings that must +continue to multiply with the growth of the great towns. But even with +respect to corn crops, it is now coming to be well understood that the +existing conditions of high farming would be better satisfied by a +smaller size of holding than has been in most favour with agricultural +reformers hitherto; because then, and then only, can the farmer be +expected to bestow upon every rood of his ground that generous +expenditure of capital, and that sedulous and minute care which are now +necessary to make his business profitable. Without entering on the +disputed question of the comparative productiveness of large and small +farms, it ought to be remembered, in the first place, that the economic +advantage of the large farm—the reason why the large farmer has been +able to offer a higher rent than the smaller—is not so much because he +produces more, as because he can afford to produce less; and, in the +next place, that the small farmer has heretofore wrought, not only with +worse appliances than the large—which perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> he must always do—but +also with less knowledge of the theory of his art, and worse conditions +of tenure—in both of which respects we may look for improvement in the +immediate future. Even as it is, we find small farmers equalling the +highest production of the country. In the evidence before the Duke of +Richmond's Commission, there is a case of a farmer of three acres +producing 45 bushels per acre, or about twice the average of the season +in those bad years that impoverished the larger farmers. The same body +of evidence seems to prove that the small farmer has more staying +power—a better capacity of weathering an agricultural crisis—than the +large; for he has much less frequently petitioned for a reduction of +rent—an advantage which landlords may be expected not to overlook. He +enjoys, too, a monopoly of the superior efficiency of interested labour, +and as the personal efficiency of the labourer—his skill, his +knowledge, his watchfulness, his care—are becoming not less, but more +important with the growth of scientific farming, whether in corn raising +or cattle rearing, the small farm system will probably continue to hold, +if not to enlarge, its place in modern agriculture; and if it is able to +do so, it will constitute one of the best buttresses against the social revolution.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>It remains to mark the spread of socialism in the various countries of +Europe and America, and to describe its present position; but this I +shall reserve for next chapter.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER II.</span> <span class="smaller">THE PROGRESS AND PRESENT POSITION OF SOCIALISM.</span></h2> + +<p>Socialism being now revolutionary social democracy, we should expect to +find it most widely and most acutely developed in those countries where, +1st, the social condition of the lower classes is most precarious, or, +in other words, where property and comfort are ill distributed; 2nd, +where political democracy is already a matter of popular agitation; and, +3rd, where previous revolutions have left behind them an unquiet and +revolutionary spirit—a "valetudinary habit," as Burke calls it, "of +making the extreme medicine of the State its daily bread." That is very +much what we do find. All these conditions are present in Germany—the +country in which socialism has made the most remarkable and rapid +advance. Dr. Engel, head of the Statistical Bureau of Prussia, states +that in 1875 six million persons, representing, with their families, +more than half the population of that State, had an income less than £21 +a year each; and only 140,000 persons had incomes above £150. The number +of landed proprietors is indeed comparatively large. In 1861 there were +more than two millions of them out of a population of 23,000,000; and in +a country where half the people are engaged in agriculture this would, +at first sight, seem to offer some assurance of general comfort. But +then the estates of most of them are much too small to keep them in +regular employment or to furnish them with adequate maintenance. More +than a million hold estates of less than three acres each, and averaging +little over an acre, and the soil is poor. The consequence is that the +small proprietor is almost always over head and ears in debt. His +property can hardly be called his own, and he pays to the usurer a much +larger sum annually as interest than he could rent the same land for in +the open market.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> More than half of these small estates lie in the Rhine +provinces alone, and the distressed condition of the peasantry there has +been lately brought again before the attention of the legislature. But +while thus in the west the agricultural population suffers seriously +from the excessive subdivision of landed property, they are straitened +in the eastern and northern provinces by their exclusion from it. Prince +Bismarck, speaking of the spread of socialism in a purely agricultural +district like Lauenburg, which had excited surprise, said that this +would not seem remarkable to any one who reflected that, from the land +legislation in that part of the country, the labourers could never hope +to acquire the smallest spot of ground as their own possession, and were +kept in a state of dependence on the gentry and the peasant proprietors. +Half the land of Prussia is held by 31,000 persons; and emigration, +which used to come chiefly from the eastern provinces, where subdivision +had produced a large class of indigent proprietors, proceeds now +predominantly from the quarters where large estates abound. The +diminution of emigration from the Rhine provinces is indeed one cause of +the increase of distress among the peasant proprietary; but why +emigration has ceased, when there seems more motive for it, is not so +clear. As yet, however, socialism has taken comparatively slight hold of +the rural population of Germany, because they are too scattered in most +parts to combine; but there exists in that country, as in others, a +general conviction that the condition of the agricultural labourers is +really a graver social question than the condition of the other +industrial classes, and must be faced in most countries before long. +Socialism has naturally made most way among the factory operatives of +Germany, who enjoy greatest facilities for combination and mutual +fermentation, and who besides, while better off in respect to wages than +various other sections of workpeople, are yet the most improvident and +discontented class in the community. Then, in considering the +circumstances of the labouring classes in Germany, it must be remembered +that, through customs and indirect taxation of different kinds, they pay +a larger share of the public burdens than they do in some countries, and +that the obligation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> military service is felt to be so great a +hardship that more than a third of the extensive emigration which now +takes place every year from the German Empire is prompted by a desire to +escape it. Before the establishment of the Empire, only about a tenth +part of the emigrants left the country without an official permit; but +the proportion has been rising every year since then, and sometimes +comes to nearly a half.</p> + +<p>Under these circumstances neither the strength nor the progress of the +Social Democratic party in that country affords occasion for surprise. +At the last general election, in February, 1890, this party polled more +votes than any other single party in the Empire, and returned to the +Imperial Diet a body of representatives strong enough, by skilful +alliances, to exercise an effective influence on the course of affairs. +The advance of the party may be seen in the increase of the socialist +vote at the successive elections since the creation of the Empire.</p> + +<table summary="socialist vote"> + <tr> + <td class="left">In 1871 it was</td> + <td>101,927.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"> " 1874 " </td> + <td>351,670.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"> " 1877 " </td> + <td>493,447.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"> " 1878 " </td> + <td>437,438.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"> " 1881 " </td> + <td>311,961.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"> " 1884 " </td> + <td>549,000.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"> " 1887 " </td> + <td>774,128.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"> " 1890 " </td> + <td> 1,427,000.</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>The effect of the coercive laws of 1878, as shown by these figures, is +very noteworthy. In consequence of the successive attempts made in that +year on the life of the Emperor William by two socialists, Hoedel and +Nobiling, Prince Bismarck determined to stamp out the whole agitation +with which the two criminals were connected by obtaining from the Diet +exceptional and temporary powers of repression. The first effect of +these measures was, as was natural, to disorganize the socialist party +for the time. Hundreds of its leaders were expelled from the country; +hundreds were thrown into prison or placed under police restriction; its +clubs and newspapers were suppressed; it was not allowed to hold +meetings, to make speeches, or to circulate literature of any kind. In +the course of the twelve years during which this exceptional legislation +has subsisted, it was stated at the recent Socialist Congress at Halle,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +that 155 socialist journals and 1200 books or pamphlets had been +prohibited; 900 members of the party had been banished without trial; +1500 had been apprehended and 300 punished for contraventions of the +Anti-Socialist Laws. These measures paralyzed the old organization +sufficiently to reduce the Socialist vote at the next election in 1881 +by thirty per cent.; but the party presently recovered its ground. It +adapted itself to the new conditions, and established a secret +propaganda which was manifestly quite as effective for its purposes as +the old, and charged with more danger to the State. Its vote increased +immensely at each successive election thereafter; and now, as Rodbertus +prophesied, the social question has really proved "the Russian campaign +of Bismarck's fame," for his policy of repression has ended in tripling +the strength of the party it was designed to crush, and placing it in +possession of one-fifth of the whole voting power of the nation. It was +high time, therefore, to abandon so ineffectual a policy, and the +socialist coercive laws expired on the 30th September, 1890, and the +socialists inaugurated a new epoch of open and constitutional agitation +by a general congress at Halle in the beginning of October.</p> + +<p>The strength of the party in Parliament has never corresponded with its +strength at the polls. In 1871 it returned only 1 member to the Diet; in +1874, 9; in 1877, 12; in 1878, 9; in 1881, 12; in 1884, 24; in 1887, 11; +and in 1890, with an electoral vote which, under a system of +proportional representation, would have secured for it 80 members, it +has carried only 37. The party has no leaders now, in Parliament or out +of it, of the intellectual rank of Lassalle or Marx; but it is very +efficiently led. Its two chiefs, Liebknecht and Bebel, are well skilled +both in debate and in management, and have for many years maintained +their authority in a party peculiarly subject to jealousy and intrigue, +and have consolidated its organization under very adverse conditions. +Liebknecht, who is a journalist of most respectable talents, character, +and acquirements, is now the veteran of the movement, having been out in +the '48 and passed twelve years of political exile in London in constant +intercourse with Karl Marx. Bebel, a turner in Leipzig, is a much +younger man, and, indeed, is one of Liebknecht's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>converts, for he +opposed the movement when it was first started in Leipzig by Lassalle; +but he has fought so long and so stout a battle for his cause that he +too seems now one of its veterans. The other parliamentary leaders of +the party are for the most part still under thirty. Von Volmar, a +military officer who has left the service for agitation and journalism, +seems to be the older leaders' chief lieutenant; and Frohme, a young +<i>littérateur</i> of repute, may be mentioned because he heads a tendency to +more moderate policy.</p> + +<p>Owing to the paucity of its representatives, the party has hitherto made +little attempt to initiate legislation. No bill can be introduced into +the German Diet unless it is backed by fifteen members; and, except in +the Parliament of 1884-7, the Socialist party never had fifteen members +until last February. The work of its parliamentary representatives, +therefore, has consisted mainly of criticism and opposition, and seizing +every suitable occasion for the ventilation of their general ideas; but +after the election of 1884, when they returned to the Diet twenty-four +strong, they introduced first a bill for the prohibition of Sunday +labour, which was stoutly opposed by Prince Bismarck, and defeated; and +second, a Labourer's Protection Bill, proposing to create an elaborate +organization for securing the general wellbeing of the working class. It +was to create, first, a new Labour Department of State; second, a series +of Workmen's Chambers, one for every district of 200,000 or 400,000 +inhabitants, with the necessary number of local auxiliaries; third, +Local Courts of Conciliation for the settlement of differences between +labourers and employers, from whose decision there should be an appeal +to the Workmen's Chamber of the District. Both the Court of Conciliation +and the Workmen's Chamber were to be composed of an equal number of +employers and employed. The connection between the Workmen's Chambers of +the District and the Minister of Labour would be through District +Councils of Labour, the members of which were to be chosen by the +minister out of a list presented by the Workmen's Chamber of the +District, and containing twice the number of names required to fill the +places. It was to be the duty of these Councils of Labour to send a +report every year to the Labour Department in Berlin on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> the condition +of labour in their respective districts after an annual inspection of +all the factories, workshops, and industrial establishments of any kind +located there. The Workmen's Chambers were to have a wide <i>rôle</i>, and +were the keystone of the system. Besides being the courts of final +appeal in labour disputes, they were to bring to the knowledge of the +competent authorities the existence of any disorders or grievances that +occurred in industrial life; to give advice on the best laws and +regulations for industry; to undertake inquiries into all matters +affecting the conditions of labour, treaties of commerce, taxes, rates +of wages, technical education, housing, prices of subsistence, etc.</p> + +<p>In introducing the bill, its promoters said a chief object of the whole +organization was to obtain for working men higher wages for a shorter +day's work, and they proposed the immediate reduction of the day of +labour to eight hours for miners and ten hours for all other trades, +together with some further limitations on the work of women and +children, the abolition of prison work at ordinary trades, and of Sunday +work, and the requirement of the payment of wages weekly, and their +payment in money. The bill was referred to a committee of the House, and +rejected, after that committee brought up an unfavourable report in +February, 1886, and nothing further has been done in the matter since; +but the Minister of the Interior was so much struck with the +unexpectedly moderate and practical character of its proposals that he +said if these proposals expressed the whole mind of the members who +proposed them, then those members might as well sit on the right side of +the House as on the left. The effect of the bill, as far as it was +workable, would merely be to give the working class a real and +systematic, but not unequal, voice in settling the conditions of their +own labour; and its rejection is to some extent an example of the way +the socialist agitation impedes the cause of labour by creating in the +public mind an unnecessary distrust even of reasonable reforms.</p> + +<p>There are some questions of general policy on which the socialist +deputies take up a position of their own. They always oppose the +military budget, because, like socialists everywhere, they are opposed +to all war and armaments. Wars are merely quarrels of rulers, for +peoples would make for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> peace, and armaments only drain the people's +pockets in order to perpetuate the people's oppression. Then they are +opposed to national debts, because national debts enable rulers to carry +on war. They are opposed to the new colonization policy of the Empire, +because in their opinion it is a policy of aggrandisement and conquest +undertaken under hypocritical pretences. They are opposed to protective +duties, because they dislike indirect taxation, as bearing always +unjustly on the labouring class. They are strong supporters of popular +education, but they opposed the new insurance laws because they feared +these laws would place people too much under the power of the +Government, for their jealousy of the Government that exists corrects +their general partiality for Government control, and tends to keep them +back even from some of the minor excesses of State-socialism.</p> + +<p>The moderate and apparently temporizing policy of the deputies is a +constant source of dissatisfaction to the wilder and more inexperienced +members of the party, who complain, as they did at the recent Halle +Congress, that trying to improve the present system of things is not the +best way of subverting it, and who will either have socialism <i>cum</i> +revolution, or they will have nothing at all. But the older heads merely +smile, and tell them the hour for socialism and revolution is not yet, +that no man knows when it shall be, and that in the meantime it would be +mere folly for socialists to refuse the real comforts they can get +because they think they have ideally a right to a great deal more. +"Why," said Bebel, when he was charged at Halle with countenancing +armaments in violation of socialist principles by voting for a better +uniform to the soldiers,—"why, there are numbers of Social Democrats in +the Reserve, and was I to let them die through inadequate clothing +merely because I object to armaments as a general principle?"</p> + +<p>They of course think of this policy of accommodation as only a temporary +necessity, till they become strong enough to be thoroughgoing; but there +is perhaps better reason to believe it to be an abiding and growing +necessity of their position, for they are finding themselves more and +more obliged, if they are to become stronger at all, or even to keep the +strength they have, to bid for the support of aggrieved classes by +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>working for the immediate removal of their grievances, and thus to keep +on reducing day by day as it rises the volume of that social discontent +which is to turn the wheel of revolution. It is not unlikely that the +socialist party, now that it is sufficiently powerful to do something in +the legislature, but not sufficiently powerful to think of final social +transformation, will occupy themselves much more completely with those +miscellaneous social reforms in the immediate future; that they will +thereby become every day better acquainted with the real conditions on +which social improvement depends; that they will find more and more +satisfying employment in the exercise of their power of securing +palpable, practical benefits, than in agitating uncertain theoretical +schemes; and, in short, that they will settle permanently into what they +are for the present to some extent temporarily, a moderate labour party, +working for the real remedy of real grievances by the means best +adapted, under real conditions, national or political, for effecting the purpose.</p> + +<p>The programme of the party, which was adopted at the Gotha Congress of +1875, after the union of the Marxist socialists and the Lassalleans, and +has remained unaltered ever since, has always consisted of a deferred +part and an actual. It contains, in fact, three programmes—the +programme for to-day, the programme for to-morrow, and the programme for +the day after to-morrow. The last is of course the socialist State of +the future, at present beyond our horizon altogether. Before it appears +there is to be a more or less prolonged period in which individual +management of industry is to be gradually superseded by co-operative +societies founded on State credit; but this intermediate state was only +made an article of the programme to conciliate the Lassalleans, and one +hears less of productive associations to-day from the German socialists +than from the French. The Germans would apparently prefer to go from +private property to public property direct rather than go <i>viâ</i> +corporate property; but in any case their programme leaves the creation +of productive societies to a future period, and their task for the +present is to secure for working men factory and sanitary legislation, +constitutional liberties, and an easier and more equitable system of taxation.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p><p>The programme is as follows:—</p> + +<p>"I. Labour is the source of all wealth and civilization, and since +productive labour as a whole is made possible only in and through +society, the entire produce of labour belongs to society, that is, it +belongs by an equal right to all its members, each according to his +reasonable needs, upon condition of a universal obligation to labour.</p> + +<p>"In existing society the instruments of labour are the monopoly of the +capitalist class; the dependence of the labouring class which results +therefrom is the cause of misery and servitude in all forms.</p> + +<p>"The emancipation of labour requires the conversion of the instruments +of labour into the common property of society, and the management of +labour by association, and the application of the product with a view to +the general good and an equitable distribution.</p> + +<p>"The emancipation of labour must be the work of the labouring class, in +relation to which all other classes are only a reactionary mass.</p> + +<p>"II. Starting from these principles, the Socialistic Labour Party of +Germany seeks by all lawful means to establish a free State and a +socialistic society, to break asunder the iron law of wages by the +abolition of the system of wage-labour, the suppression of every form of +exploitation, and the correction of all political and social inequality.</p> + +<p>"The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany, although at first working +within national limits, is sensible of the international character of +the labour movement, and resolved to fulfil all the duties thereby laid +on working men, in order to realize the brotherhood of all men.</p> + +<p>"The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany demands, in order to pave the +way for the solution of the social question, the establishment by State +help of socialistic productive associations under the democratic control +of the workpeople. Productive associations for industry and agriculture +should be created to such an extent that the socialistic organization of +all labour may arise out of them.</p> + +<p>"The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany demands, as the basis of the +State, (1) Universal, equal, and direct suffrage,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> together with secret +and obligatory voting, for all citizens over twenty years of age, in all +elections in State and commune. The election day must be a Sunday or +holiday. (2) Direct legislation by the people. Decision on peace or war +by the people. (3) Universal liability to military service. Militia +instead of standing army. (4) Abolition of all exceptional laws, +especially laws interfering with liberty of the press, of association, +and of meeting; in general, all laws restricting free expression of +opinion, free thought, and free inquiry. (5) Administration of justice +by the people. Gratuitous justice. (6) Universal, compulsory, +gratuitous, and equal education of the people by the State. Religion to +be declared a private affair.</p> + +<p>"The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany demands within the conditions +of existing society (1) The utmost possible extension of political +rights and liberties in the sense of the above demands. (2) The +replacement of all existing taxes, and especially of indirect taxes, +which peculiarly burden the people, by a single progressive income tax +for State and commune. (3) Unrestricted right of combination. (4) A +normal working day corresponding to the needs of society. Prohibition of +Sunday labour. (5) Prohibition of the labour of children, and of all +labour for women that is injurious to health and morality. (6) Laws for +protection of the life and health of workmen. Sanitary control of +workmen's dwellings. Inspection of mines, factories, workshops, and home +industry by officers chosen by working men. An effective employers' +liability act. (7) Regulation of prison labour. (8) Entire freedom of +management for all funds for the assistance and support of working men."</p> + +<p>A committee was appointed at the recent Halle Congress to revise this +programme and report to the Congress of 1891; but as the revision is +merely intended to place the programme in greater conformity with the +needs of the time, and keep it as it were up to date, only minor +modifications may be expected, and those probably in the direction of a +more practical and effectual dealing with existing grievances. Five +years ago the party thought a ten hours' day corresponded with the needs +of the time; they now ask for an eight hours' one. Instead of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> the +prohibition of Sunday labour, they now prefer to demand, as a more +workable equivalent, a period of thirty-six hours' continuous and +uninterrupted rest every week, irrespective of any particular day; and +they have sometimes taken up new working-class questions not especially +mentioned in their programme, or included directly under any of its +heads, like the abolition of payment of wages in kind. The whole spirit +of the late Congress leads us to look for the contemplated modifications +in this direction of meeting more effectually immediate working-class wants.</p> + +<p>Many eyes were upon that Congress; for it was the first the German +socialists had held since they had recovered their freedom and proved +their strength. They were now clearly stronger than any socialist party +the world had yet seen, and much stronger than most revolutionary +parties who have made successful revolution. Would then the word now be +revolution? people asked. It was not: the word was caution. The first +effect of the victory in February had been otherwise, and in June, Herr +Bebel was still calling, Steady. "The majority of his party colleagues," +he said at a public meeting in Berlin on the 20th of that month, "had +been intoxicated by the result of the elections of February 20th, and +believed they could do what they liked with the middle class, as it was +already on the point of going under." But before October steadier +counsels prevailed, and the spirit of the Congress was moderation +itself. Although the Congress did not agree to the motion to restore to +the party programme the phrase "by lawful means," which had been deleted +from the opening paragraph of the second part of it by the Wyden +Congress of 1880, in consequence of the Anti-Socialist Laws no longer +giving them any choice except recourse to unlawful means, the general +and decided feeling of the Congress certainly was that only lawful means +could now answer their purposes. The controversy was repeatedly raised +by an extreme section of the party from Berlin, who complained that the +work of their parliamentary representatives had hitherto entirely +ignored the real aims of social democracy, and that a return should now +be made to its socialism and its revolution. But the voice of the +meeting was invariably against this Berlin movement. There was a time, +said M.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> Fleischman—and his speech was applauded—when it was counted +the right thing in the party to make revolutionary speeches, and point +to the coming day of account when mankind were to be emancipated at one +blow; but that was not a road they could make any progress by. And as +for boycotting, which had been spoken of, he declared he was all for +boycotting; but it was the boycotting of the military in such a way as +to give them no occasion for the use of their weapons. Liebknecht, the +chief leader of the party, followed, and was quite as emphatic in the +same line. People spoke of revolution, he said; but they should remember +that roast pigeons don't fly into one's mouth by themselves. It was easy +enough to make bitter speeches, and any fool and donkey could throw +bombs; but the misadventures of the anarchists showed plainly enough +that nothing could be done in that way. The socialists had now 20 per +cent. of the population; but what could 20 per cent. do against 80 per +cent. by the use of force? No, it was not force; it was reason they must +use if they would succeed. What, then, he asked, was the Social +Democracy to do? They must avoid divisions among themselves, and go out +and convert the still indifferent masses. The electoral suffrage was +their best weapon of agitation, and their surest means of increasing the +party. Prince Bismarck had been represented in a popular book as +practising peasant-fishery and elector-fishery. "Peasant-fishery and +elector-fishery—" said Liebknecht, amid much applause, "that is the +word for the Social Democrats to-day."</p> + +<p>Another suggestion of the extreme section was that the party should now +assail the Church and religion, as socialist and revolutionary parties +have so generally done; but this bit of their old traditional policy +received scant regard from the Halle Congress. A strong feeling was +expressed that the party had damaged itself in the past by its assaults +on the Church, and that its present policy ought, in self-preservation, +to be one of religious neutrality and toleration. "Instead," said +Liebknecht, "of squandering our strength in a struggle with the Church +and sacerdotalism, let us go to the root of the matter. We desire to +overthrow the State of the classes. When we have done that, the Church +and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>sacerdotalism will fall with it, and in this respect we are much +more radical and much more definite in purpose than our opponents, for +we like neither the priests nor the anti-priests." The old revolutionary +policy of stirring up hatred against all existing institutions is thus +relegated from the present to the distant future, after the present +class-State is overthrown and the working-class or socialist State +established in its place.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," suggested another old-world socialist, "let us, at any +rate, issue a pamphlet describing the glories of this socialist State, +and get the people prepared to flock into it"; but this suggestion was +also frowned down. "For," said Liebknecht, "who could say what the +<i>Zukunft Staat</i>—the socialist State of the future—is to be? Who could +foresee so much as the development of the existing German State for a +single year?" In other words—I think I am not misinterpreting their +meaning—the State of the future is the concern of the future; the +business of a living party is within the needs and within the lines of +the living present.</p> + +<p>What, then, is to be the business of this formidable Social Democratic +party? Peasant-catching is the word. The elections showed that while the +party was very strong in the large towns, it was very weak in the rural +districts, and among special populations like the Poles and Alsatians; +and although previous revolutionists thought everything was gained if +the large towns were gained, the Social Democrats generally admit that +the social revolution is impossible without the adherence of the +peasantry. The peasants, therefore, must be won over to the party. Once +in the party, they may learn socialism and revolution, but they must +first be brought in, and for that purpose there must be started a +special peasants' cry—a cry, that is, for the redress of some immediate +grievance of that class; and one suggestion made at the Congress was, +that the cry for the peasantry should be the abolition of the German +<i>Gesinde</i> (farm-servant) system. In the same spirit the Congress +recommended the parliamentary party to take up the question of seamen's +rights, and agitate for better regulations for securing the wellbeing of +that class. The advance towards practicality is even more evident in +their determination upon strikes. Hitherto, for the most part,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +socialists have either looked on strikes with lofty disdain as poor +attempts to get a petty rise in wages instead of abolishing the present +wages system altogether, or they have thrown themselves into strikes for +the mere purpose of fomenting labour troubles, and breaking perchance +the power of the large capitalist class; and this latter view was not +unrepresented at the Halle Congress. The resolution of the Congress, +however, declared (1st) that strikes and boycotting were often useful +means of improving the social position of the labouring class; but (2nd) +that they were to be resorted to even for that purpose with great +circumspection. "Whereas, however, strikes and boycotting are +double-edged weapons which, when used in unsuitable places and at an +inopportune moment, are calculated to do more harm than good to the +interests of the working class, this Congress recommends German working +men carefully to weigh the circumstances under which they purpose to +make use of those weapons." The revolutionary ideal seems thus to be +retreating—perhaps insensibly—in the socialistic mind into an +eschatological decoration, into a kind of future Advent which is to come +and to be believed in; but the practical concerns of the present must be +more and more treated in their own practical way.</p> + +<p>Since the Congress, the party has issued a manifesto to the peasantry, +in which, after promising a new and happy day that is coming for them, +which is to restore to them the beautiful earth and the poetry of life, +they declare against the patriarchal system, and the increase of brandy +distilling; and then, confessing that few socialists know anything about +agricultural questions, invite information and discussion for the +enlightenment of the party. Here again they forget that they have a +theory which is as applicable to agriculture as to manufactures, and +they want to make practical investigations with a view to practical solutions.</p> + +<p>Of course the movement will always generate revolutionary elements as +occasions arise, and these sometimes of the wildest character. Most and +Hasselman, and their following, who were expelled at the Congress of +Wyden in 1880, were anarchists of a violent type, and Mosts and +Hasselmans may arise again. But at present anarchism hardly exists in +Germany, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> Social Democratic party is peacefully trying to make +people as comfortable as possible till the fulness of time arrives.</p> + +<p>It may be added that the present income of the party, as stated at the +last Congress, is £19,525, and that since February, 1890, they have +established nineteen daily newspapers and forty weekly, with a total +circulation of 254,000.</p> + +<p>The socialist movement in other countries may be disposed of much more +briefly, for in no other country has it worn anything like the same +importance, except in Russia, and of the Russian agitation I shall treat +more fully in a subsequent chapter on "Russian Nihilism." I may observe +here, however, that the Russian agitation has not been without its +influence on the nations of Western Europe. It was Bakunin who first +kindled the socialist movements of Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Holland, +and the anarchist fermentations of the last six years have been due in +no inconsiderable measure to the new leaven of Russian ideas introduced +by men like Prince Krapotkin and the two hundred other Russian refugees +that are scattered abroad in the free countries of Europe.</p> + +<p>In France there is much animated socialist agitation, but no solid and +coherent socialist party such as exists in Germany. The movement is +disunited and fragmentary, and confined almost entirely to the large +towns, where many circumstances conspire to favour its growth. The +French working class are born to revolutionary traditions. The better +portion of them, moreover, though they long since gave up all belief in +the old native forms of socialism, never ceased to be imbued with +socialist ideas and aspirations; and M. de Molinari said in 1869, from +his experience of French working men's clubs, that out of every ten +French working men who had any interest beyond eating and drinking, nine +were Socialists. Then there is in France a larger proportion of the +working class than in most countries, who are kept in constant poverty +and discontent and commotion by their own improvident habits. A pamphlet +called "Le Sublime," which attracted considerable attention some years +ago, stated that only forty per cent. of the working men of Paris were +out of debt; and Mr. Malet reported to the English Foreign Office that +they were, as a body, so dissipated that none of them had grandchildren +or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> grandfathers. But, on the other hand, France enjoys a solid security +against the successful advance of socialism in her peasant proprietors. +Half the French population belong to that class, and their industry, +thrift, and comfort have long been held up to our admiration by +economists. According to M. de Lavergne, they are not so well fed, so +well clad, or so well lodged as the farm labourers of England; but, +living in a different climate, they have fewer wants, and are +undoubtedly more contented. Among people like these, passing their days +in frugal comfort and fruitful industry, and looking with quiet hope and +confidence to the future, socialism finds, of course, no open door. On +the contrary, every man of them feels he has something to lose and +nothing to gain by social revolution; the fear of socialism is, indeed, +one of the chief influences guiding their political action; and as they +are as numerous as all the other classes in the community put together, +their worldly contentment is a bulwark of enormous value to the existing +order of things. The impression of their substantial independence is so +marked that even the Frenchmen who were members of the International +Working Men's Association would not assent to the abolition of a peasant +proprietary, but always insisted, contrary to the principles of the +Association, on the continued maintenance of that system as a necessary +counterpoise to the power of the Government.</p> + +<p>The present socialist groups and sects of France are all believers in +the so-called scientific socialism of Marx and Lassalle, and the most +important of them work for a programme substantially identical with that +of Gotha. Marx's ideas were introduced among the French by the +International, and they were adopted by a section of the Revolutionary +Committee of the Paris Commune, 1871; but after the suppression of the +Commune, they made so little stir for some years that Thiers declared, +in his last manifesto as President of the Republic, that socialism, +which was then busy in Germany, was absolutely dead in France. Its +recrudescence was chiefly due to the activity of the Communards. Some of +them had escaped to London, where they got into closer communion with +Marx and his friends; and in 1874, thirty-four of these refugees, all +military or administrative officers of the Commune, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> most of them +not professed socialists before, issued a manifesto pronouncing entirely +for socialism, and describing the Commune as "the militant form of the +social revolution"; but it was not till after the amnesty of the +Communards, and their return from New Caledonia and elsewhere in 1880, +that the first sensible ripple of socialist agitation was felt in France +since the downfall of the second Republic. Numbers of socialist journals +began to appear, and a general congress of working men, held at Havre in +1880, adopted a programme modelled on the lines of that of the German +Social Democrats, and made preparations for an active propaganda and organization.</p> + +<p>The adoption of the socialistic programme, however, rent the Congress in +three, and the two opposite wings, the Co-operationists and the +Anarchists, withdrew and established separate organizations of their +own. The co-operationists, believing that the amelioration of the +working class would only come by the gradual execution of practicable +and suitable measures, and that these could only be successfully carried +by means of skilful alliances with existing political parties, declared +the Havre programme to be a programme for the year 2000, and that the +true policy of the working-class now was a policy of possibilities. This +last word is said to supply the origin of the term Possibilist, which +has now come to be applied not to this co-operationist party, but to one +of the two divisions into which the third or centre party of the Havre +Congress—the socialists—shortly afterwards split up.</p> + +<p>The co-operationists formed themselves into a body known as the +Republican Socialist Alliance, which, as the name indicates, aims at +social reforms under the existing republican form of State. They have +held several congresses, their membership includes many well-known and +even eminent Radical politicians—M. Clemenceau, for example—and they +were supported by leading Radical journals, like <i>Le Justice</i> and +<i>L'Intransigeant</i>; but their activity and their numbers have both +dwindled away, probably because their work was done sufficiently well +already by other political or working-class organizations.</p> + +<p>The anarchists set up not a single organization, but a number of little +independent clubs, which agree with one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> another mainly in their dislike +of all constituted authority. They want to have all things in common, +somehow or other; but for master or superior of any sort they will have +none, be it king or committee. Their ideas find ready favour in France, +because they are near allied with the theory of the Revolutionary +Commune cherished among the Communards; and although there is no means +of calculating their numbers exactly, they are believed to be pretty +strong—at least, in the South of France. At the time of the Lyons +Anarchist trial, at which Prince Krapotkin was convicted, they claimed +themselves to have 8,000 adherents in Lyons alone. In 1886 the +authorities knew of twenty little anarchist clubs in Paris, which had +between them, however, only a membership of 1,500; and of these a +considerable proportion were foreign immigrants, especially Austrians +and Russians, with a few Spaniards. Some of these clubs are mainly +convivial, with a dash of treason for pungency; but others have an +almost devouring passion for "deeds," and are ever concerting some new +method of waging their strange guerilla against "princes, proprietors, +and parsons." When a new method is discovered, a new club is sometimes +formed to carry it out. For instance, the <i>Anti-propriétaires</i>, which is +said to be one of the best organized of the anarchist clubs, bind their +members (1) to pay no house-rent,—rent, of course, being theft, and +theft being really restitution; and (2) if the landlord at length +resorts to law against any of them for this default, to come to their +brother's help and remove his furniture to safer quarters before the +moment of execution. The group <i>La Panthère</i>, to which Louise Michel +belongs, and which has 500 members, and the group <i>Experimental Chemie</i>, +as their names indicate, prefer less jocular methods. The best known of +the anarchists are old Communards like Louise Michel herself and Élisée +Reclus, the geographer.</p> + +<p>The third section of the Havre Congress contained the majority of the +119 delegates, and they formed themselves into the Socialist +Revolutionary Party of France, with the programme already mentioned, +which was carried on the motion of M. Jules Guesde.</p> + +<p>This programme sets out with the declaration that all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> instruments of +production must be transferred to the possession of the community, and +that this can only result from an act of revolution on the part of the +working class organized as an independent political party, and then it +goes on to say that one of the best means of promoting this end at +present was to take part in the elections with the following platform:—</p> + +<p class="center">A. <i>Political.</i></p> + +<p>1. Abolition of all laws restricting freedom of the press, of +association, or of meeting, and particularly the law against the +International Working Men's Association. Abolition of "work-books."</p> + +<p>2. Abolition of the budget of public worship, and secularization of +ecclesiastical property.</p> + +<p>3. Abolition of national debt.</p> + +<p>4. Universal military service on the part of the people.</p> + +<p>5. Communal independence in police and local affairs.</p> + +<p class="center">B. <i>Economic.</i></p> + +<p>1. One day of rest in the week under legal regulation. Limitation of +working day to eight hours for adults. Prohibition of the labour of +children under fourteen, and limitation of work hours to six for young +persons between fourteen and sixteen.</p> + +<p>2. Legal fixing of minimum wages every year in accordance with the price +of provisions.</p> + +<p>3. Equality of wages of male and female labour.</p> + +<p>4. Scientific and technical training for all children, as well as their +support at the expense of society as represented by the State and the Communes.</p> + +<p>5. Support of the aged and infirm by society.</p> + +<p>6. Prohibition of all interference on the part of employers with the +management of the relief and sustentation funds of the working classes, +to whom the sole control of these funds should be left.</p> + +<p>7. Employers' liability guaranteed by deposit by employers proportioned +to number of workmen.</p> + +<p>8. Participation of the workmen in drawing up factory regulations. +Abolition of employer's claim to punish the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> labourer by fines and +stoppages (according to resolution of the Commune of 27th April, 1871).</p> + +<p>9. Revision of all agreements by which public property has been +alienated (banks, railways, mines, etc.). The management of all State +factories to be committed to the workmen employed in them.</p> + +<p>10. Abolition of all indirect taxes, and change of all direct ones into +a progressive income tax on all incomes above 3,000 francs.</p> + +<p>11. Abolition of the right of inheritance, except in the line of direct +descent, and of the latter in the case of fortunes above 20,000 francs.</p> + +<p>At the congress of the party held at St. Etienne two years after this +programme was adopted, M. Brousse, a medical practitioner in Paris, and +a member of the Town Council, who had already shown signs of disputing +the leadership of M. Guesde, carried by a vote of thirty-six to +twenty-seven a motion for introducing some modifications, and the +minority seceded and set up a separate organization. In spite of +repeated efforts at reconciliation, the two sections of the French +socialists have never united again or been able even to work together +temporarily at an election. Besides personal jealousies, there are most +important differences of tendency keeping them apart. The Guesdists +accept the policy of Karl Marx as well as his economic doctrine: the +universal revolution, and the centralized socialist State, as well as +the theory of surplus value and the right to the full product of labour. +The Broussists, on the other hand, believe in decentralization, and +would prefer municipalizing industries to nationalizing them. They are +for giving the commune control of its own police, its own soldiers, its +own civil administration, its own judiciary; and they think the <i>régime</i> +of collective property can be best brought in and best carried on by +local bodies. They would have the towns take over their own gas, light, +and water supply, their omnibus and tramway traffic; but they would have +them take over also many of the common industries which never tend +towards monopoly or even call for any special control. They would +municipalize, for example, the bakehouses and the mealshops and the +granaries, apparently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> as supplying the necessaries of life, and they +would have various other branches of industry undertaken by the towns to +a certain limited extent, in order to provide suitable work for the +unemployed. Then in 1887 they added a fresh plank to their platform, and +asked for the establishment by municipalities, on public money or +credit, of productive associations to be owned—not, like the other +undertakings, by the municipality, but—by the working men employed in +them. This is a reappearance of the old policy of Lassalle, with the +difference that the productive associations are to be founded on +municipal and not on State credit; and the reappearance is not +surprising in France, because co-operative production has, on the whole, +been more successful in that country than in any other. Then another of +their demands is, that all public contracts should be subjected to such +conditions as to wages and hours of labour as the workmen's syndicates +approve; and in Paris they have already succeeded in obtaining this +concession from the Town Council so far as municipal contracts are +concerned. These workmen's syndicates are trade unions, which aim only +at bettering the position of their members without theoretical +prepossessions, but are quite as bold in their demands on the public +powers as the socialists, and apparently more successful. In 1885 their +claims included, not only an eight hours' day and a normal rate of fair +wages, but the fixing of all salaries under 500 francs, a credit to +themselves of 500,000,000 francs, and the gratuitous use of empty houses +by their members; and in 1886 they obtained from the Town Council of +Paris a furnished room, with free lighting and firing, and a subvention +of 20,000 francs, for the establishment of a Labour Bureau, to be a +centre for all working-class deliberations and intelligence, and a +registry for the unemployed.</p> + +<p>The socialism of the Broussists is thus practically a municipal +socialism: municipal industries, municipal credit for working men's +productive associations, municipal concessions to trade unions; but all +this seems to the Guesdists to be mere tinkering, to be no better than +the possibilities of the Republican Socialist Alliance, and they have +for that reason given their rivals the name of Possibilists, which for +distinction's sake they still commonly bear. Neither section had any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +representative in the Chamber of Deputies till 1889, when the Broussists +succeeded in returning M. Joffrin; but the Broussists have nine in the +Town Council of Paris. The Guesdists have more men of culture among +them; Guesde himself and Lafargue, Karl Marx's son-in-law, are both men +of ability and public position; but they have a smaller following, and +what they have is on the decline. Their sympathy with the principles of +German Socialism, their alliance with the German Socialist party is +against them, for the French working men have a very honest hatred of +the Germans, both from recollections of the war and from the pressure of +German industrial competition; and the feeling seems to be returned by +the Germans, for it appeared even among the socialists at the recent +congress at Halle, international and non-patriotic as socialists often +claim to be. One of the personal accusations that disturbed the sittings +of that congress was, that the leaders of the party had been discovered +in secret conference with the delegates of the French socialists, MM. +Guesde and Ferroul, who had been sent to greet their German comrades.</p> + +<p>The Possibilists have no very eminent members, the most leading persons +among them being Brousse himself and MM. Allemane and Joffrin. But they +are not inconsiderable in number, and they are growing. They have 400 +Circles of Social Studies all over the country, organized into six +regions, each with its regular regional congress, and all working under +a national executive committee and a general national congress, meeting +once a year. The future of French socialism seems to be with the +Possibilists rather than the Guesdists; and the future of the +Possibilists, like the future of the German socialists, seems to lie in +the direction of releasing their limbs from the dead clothes of +socialist theory, in order to take freer and more practical action for +the positive wellbeing of the working class. At the recent congress of +the Possibilists at Châtellèrault in October, 1890, the chief questions +discussed were the reform the system of poor relief and the eight hours' +day. They want an international eight hours' day, but they would be +willing to allow other four hours' overtime, to be paid for by double wages.</p> + +<p>In 1885 the two divisions of socialists combined for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>electioneering +purposes with one another and with a third revolutionary body called the +Blanquists, and they actually formed together an organization known as +the Revolutionary Union; but the three parties quarrelled again before +the election, and the union was dissolved. The Blanquists are disciples +of the veteran conspirator Blanqui, and include some well-known men, +such as General Eudes, and MM. Vaillant and Roche. They are +revolutionists pure and simple, and in some respects stand near the +anarchists; only, being old birds, they move about more cautiously, and +indeed are sometimes for that reason—and because they act as +intermediaries between other revolutionaries—called the "diplomatists +of lawlessness." With all their love for revolution, however, they have +more than the usual democratic aversion to war, and their chief work at +present is in connection with the league they have founded against permanent armies.</p> + +<p>Although revolutionary socialism is so ill represented in the French +Legislature, there is a special parliamentary party, known as the +Socialist Group, which was founded by nineteen deputies in 1887, and +returned thirty candidates to the Chamber at the election of 1889. They +are for communal autonomy; for the transformation of industrial +monopolies into public services, to be directed by the respective +companies under the control of the public administration; and for the +progressive nationalization of property, so as to make the individual +employment of it accessible to free labourers; and they have no lack of +other planks in their platform: international federation and +arbitration; abolition of standing armies; abolition of capital +punishment; universal suffrage; minority representation; sexual +equality; free education, primary, secondary, and technical; suppression +of the budget of public worship; separation of Church and State; +absolute liberty to think, speak, write, meet, associate, and contract; +abolition of indirect taxes and customs, and introduction of a +progressive income tax, and a progressive succession duty; public +<i>crêches</i>; establishment of superannuation, sick and accident insurance +at public expense. Among the deputies who signed the programme in 1887 +were the two Boulangists, MM. Laisant and Laur, and MM. Clovis Hughes, +Basley,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> Bower, etc. The idea of the party seems to be what M. Laisant +recommends in his "L'Anarchie Bourgeoise," published in the same year +1887, a Republican Socialist party, which, accepting the good works of +socialism, without caring for its political or economic theory, shall do +its best to abolish misery by any means open to it under the existing +republican form of government. Republican socialism corresponds +therefore to what is called State socialism in Germany—the abolition of +poverty by means of the power of the present State; and the question +between socialists and other reformers is narrowing in France, as +elsewhere, into a question of the justice and the suitability of the +individual measures proposed.</p> + +<p>There is also a body of Christian Socialists in France, of whom, +however, I shall have more to say in a subsequent chapter on the Christian Socialists.</p> + +<p>Socialism crossed very early from Prussia into Austria and took quick +root among the German-speaking population, but has never to this day +made much way among any of the other nationalities in the Empire. The +Magyars are, on the whole, fairly comfortable and contented in their +worldly circumstances, and they have a strong national aversion to +anything German, even a German utopia; so that they lent no ear to the +socialist agitation till 1880, when a socialist congress of 119 +delegates was held at Buda Pest and founded the Hungarian Labour Party. +The agitation, however, has not assumed any important dimensions. The +Poles of Austria, like the Poles of Russia and the Poles of Prussia, +have all along been a source of much disappointment to socialist +leaders, who expected they would leap into the arms of any revolutionary +scheme, but find them too pre-occupied with their own nationalist cause +to care for any other. The same observation applies to the Czechs. They +are Czechs and Federalists first, and a social system under which they +would cease to be Czechs and Federalists, and become mere atoms under a +powerful centralized government, led possibly by Germans, is naturally +not much to their fancy. But in the German-speaking part of the monarchy +socialism has found a ready and general welcome, and has latterly grown +most popular in the anarchist form. This development is due to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> various +causes. The federalist ideas prevalent in the country would be a bridge +to the general principles of anarchism, while the coercive laws in force +since 1870 would naturally provoke a recourse to revolutionary methods +and an impatience with the sober and Fabian policy of the Austrian +Social Democrats. The Social Democrats of Austria were advised from the +first by Von Schweitzer and Liebknecht, the leaders of German socialism +at the time, to adopt this temporizing policy, as being on the whole the +best for the party in the circumstances existing in their country. They +were advised to give a general support at the elections to the Liberal +party, because nothing could be done for socialism in Austria till the +priestly and feudal ascendancy was abolished, and that could only be +done by strengthening the hands of the Liberals. They have continued to +observe this moderate course. Unlike their German comrades, they looked +with favourable eyes on the labour legislation introduced by Government +for improving the condition of the working classes; and though they have +suffered from coercive legislation much longer and sometimes quite as +severely, they have never struck the qualification "by legal means" out +of their principles, but, on the contrary, have declared, when they were +permitted to hold a meeting—as for example at Brünn in 1884—that they +adhered entirely and exclusively to peaceful methods, and repudiated the +deeds of the anarchists. But then they are apparently not prospering in +number, while the anarchists are. For one thing they have never had good +leaders, and though they sometimes invite Liebknecht or one of the +German socialist leaders to come and rouse them, Government has always +refused liberty for such addresses to be delivered in Austria. The +anarchists, on the other hand, had an energetic and eloquent leader in +Peukert, a house-painter, who is now a chief personage in anarchist +circles in London, and from here no doubt still carries on relations +with his old friends; and their propaganda seems to be spreading, if we +judge from the political trials, and from the fresh measures of +repression directed against it in 1884, when Vienna was put under siege, +and again in the latter part of 1888. They have nine or ten newspapers, +and the socialists six or seven. Neither faction has any representative in Parliament.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p><p>Both parties direct their chief attention to the peasantry, especially +where any germ of an agrarian movement happens already to prevail. The +Galician agitation against great landlords in 1886 was fomented by +anarchist emissaries, and we occasionally hear of anarchist operations +among the people of Northern Bohemia or Styria as well as in Upper +Austria, where rural discontent has long been more or less acute. +Austria is mainly an agricultural country; but greater part of the land +is held in very large estates by the clergy and nobility, and the evils +of the old feudal <i>régime</i> are only now being gradually removed. There +are, it is true, as many as 1,700,000 peasant proprietors in the +Cisleithanian half of the Empire alone; but then their properties are +seriously encumbered by the debt of their redemption from feudal +servitudes and by the severity of the public taxation. The land tax +amounts to 26 per cent. of the proprietor's income, and the indirect +taxes on articles of consumption are numerous and burdensome. But +three-fourths of the rural population are merely farm servants or day +labourers, and are worse off even than the same class elsewhere. The +social question in Austria is largely agrarian, but the spontaneous +movements of the Austrian peasantry seem rather unlikely to run in +harness with social democracy. Unions of free peasants for example have +sprung up of recent years in various provinces. Their great aim is to +procure a reduction in the taxes paid by the peasantry; but then they +add to their programme the principle of State-help to labour, the +abolition of all feudal privileges and all rights of birth, gratuitous +education, and cessation of the policy of contracting national debt, and +they speak vaguely about instituting a peasant State, and requiring +every minister and responsible official to serve an apprenticeship to +peasant labour as a qualification for office, in order that he may +understand the necessities and capacities of the peasantry. This idea of +the peasant State is analogous to the idea of the labour State of the +Social Democrats; but of course this is agreement which is really +conflict. It is like the harmony between Sforza and Charles VIII.: "I +and my cousin Charles are wonderfully at one; we both seek the same +thing—Milan." The class interest of the landed peasant is contrary to +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> class interest of the working man, and would be invaded by social +democracy. The peasantry are simply fighting for their own land, and as +their votes are courted by both political parties they will probably be +able to secure some mitigation of their grievances. Distress is +certainly serious among them when, as happened a few years ago, in a +parish of 135 houses as many as 35 executions were made in one day for +failure to pay taxes, and in another of 250 houses as many as 72; but on +the whole there seems to be little of that hopeless indigence which +appears among the peasant proprietary in countries where the practice of +unrestricted or compulsory subdivision of holdings exists, or has +recently existed, to any considerable extent.</p> + +<p>There is an influential Catholic Socialist movement in Austria, led by +the clergy and nobility, and dealing in an earnest spirit with the +social question as it appears in that country.</p> + +<p>Socialism was introduced into Italy in 1868 by Bakunin, who, in spite of +the opposition of Mazzini, gained wide acceptance for his ideas wherever +he went, and founded many branches of the International in the country, +which survived the extinction of the parent society, and continued to +bear its name. They were, like Bakunin himself, anarchist in their +social and political views, and were marked by an especial violence in +their attacks on Church and State and family. They published a great +number of journals of various sorts, and kept up an incessant and very +successful propaganda; but no heed was paid them by the authorities till +1878, when an attempt on the life of the king led to a thorough +examination being instituted into the whole agitation. The dimensions +and ramifications of the movement were found to be so much more +extensive than any one in power had anticipated, that it was determined +to set a close watch thereafter on all its operations, and its meetings +and congresses were then from time to time proclaimed. But after the +passing of the Franchise Act of 1882, a new socialist movement came into +being which looked to constitutional methods alone. The franchise was +not reduced very low: it only gave a vote to one person in every +fourteen, while in England one in six has a vote; but the reduction was +accompanied with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span><i>scrutin de liste</i> and the ballot, and it was felt +that something could now be done. Accordingly a new Socialist Labour +Party was formed on the usual Marxist lines, under the leadership of a +very capable man, an orator and a good organizer, Andrea Costa, who was +formerly an anarchist. This party obtained 50,000 votes at the first +subsequent election, and returned two candidates to the Legislature, one +of them being Costa. In 1883 it formed a working alliance with the +Italian Democratic Society—an active working-class body of which Costa +was a leading member; and in 1884 it entered into an incorporating union +with another working-class body, the Lombardy Labour Federation, which +had a large number of local branches. With their help it had become, in +1886, an organization of 133 branches, and Government resolved to +suppress it. Most of the branches in the north of Italy were dissolved, +and their funds, flags, and libraries confiscated. But the party is +still active over the country. They returned three members at the late +election in November, 1890. The growth of this party was even more +displeasing to the anarchists than to the Government, and in 1882 they +called back Maletesta, one of their old leaders, from abroad, to conduct +a regular campaign over the whole kingdom against Costa, and to denounce +every man for a traitor to the socialist cause who should take any +manner of part in parliamentary elections, or show the smallest sign of +reconciliation to the existing order of things. His campaign ended in +his arrest in May, 1883, and the condemnation of himself and 53 comrades +to several years' imprisonment for inciting to disturbance of the public +peace. Besides their contentions with the Socialist Labour Party, the +Italian anarchists are much given to contending among themselves, and +split up, even beyond other parties of the kind, upon trifles of +doctrine or procedure. But however divided they may be, socialists and +anarchists in Italy are all united in opposing the new social +legislation of the Government. When the Employers' Liability Bill was +introduced, Costa declared that legislation of that kind was utterly +useless so long as the people were denied electoral rights, because till +the franchise was reduced far enough to give the people a real voice in +public affairs, there could be no security for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> the loyal and faithful +execution of the provisions of such an act.</p> + +<p>The Italian socialists and anarchists have always had a lively brood of +journals, which, however, are generally shorter lived than even +socialist organs elsewhere; but when one dies for want of funds to-day, +another comes out in its place to-morrow. This remarkable fertility in +journals seems to be due to the large literary proletariat that exists +in Italy—the unemployed educated class who could live by their pen if +they only had a paper to use it in. Through their presence among the +socialists new journals are pushed forward without sufficient funds to +carry them on, and as the people are too poor to subscribe to them, and +the party too poor to subsidize them, they soon come to a natural termination.</p> + +<p>The development of socialism in Italy is no matter of surprise. Though +there is no great industry in the country, the whole population seems a +proletariat. There is a distressed nobility, a distressed peasantry, a +distressed working class, a distressed body of university men. Mr. +Gallenga says that for six months of the year Italy is a national +workshop; everybody is out of employment, and has to get work from the +State; and he states as the reason for this, that the employing class +wants enterprise and ability, and are apt to look to the Government for +any profitable undertakings. The Government, however, are no better +financiers than the rest, and the state of the public finances is one of +the chief evils of the country. Taxation is very heavy, and yet property +and life are not secure. "The peasants," says M. de Laveleye, "are +reduced to extreme misery by rent and taxation, both alike excessive. +Wages are completely inadequate. Agricultural labourers live huddled in +bourgades, and obtain only intermittent employment. There is thus a +rural proletariat more wretched than the industrial. Excluded from +property by <i>latifundia</i>, it becomes the enemy of a social order that +crushes it." The situation is scarcely better in parts of the country +which are free from <i>latifundia</i>. In Sicily most of the agricultural +population live on farms owned by themselves; but then these farms are +too small to support them adequately, and their occupiers scorn the idea +of working for hire. There are as many nobles in Sicily as in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> England, +and Mr. Dawes (from whose report on Sicily to the Foreign Office in 1872 +I draw these particulars states) that 25 per cent. of the lower orders +are what he terms drones—idlers who are maintained by their wives and +children. In Italy there is little working-class opinion distinct from +the agricultural. There are few factories, and the artisans who work in +towns have the habit of living in their native villages near by, and +going and coming every day to their work. Two-thirds of the persons +engaged in manufactures do so, or at least go to their rural homes from +Saturday till Monday. Their habits and ways of thinking are those of +agriculturists, and the social question of Italy is substantially the +agricultural labourers' question. The students at the universities, too, +are everywhere leavened with socialism. The advanced men among them seem +to have ceased to cry for a republic, and to place their hope now in +socialism. They have no desire to overturn a king who is as patriotic as +the best president, and they count the form of government of minor +importance as compared with the reconstitution of property. Bakunin +thought Italy the most revolutionary country of Europe except Spain, +because of its exceptionally numerous body of enthusiastic young men +without career or prospects; and certainly revolutionary elements abound +in the peninsula, but, as M. de Laveleye shrewdly remarks, a revolution +is perhaps next to impossible for want of a revolutionary metropolis. +"The malaria," he says, "which makes Rome uninhabitable for part of the +year will long preserve her from the danger of becoming the seat of a new commune."</p> + +<p>In Spain, as in Italy, socialism made its first appearance in 1868 +through the agency of the International, and found an immediate and warm +response among the people. In 1873 the International had an extensive +Spanish organization with 300,000 members and 674 branches planted over +the whole length and breadth of the country, from industrial centres +like Barcelona to remote rural districts like the island of Majorca. M. +de Laveleye was present at several sittings of these socialist clubs +when he visited Spain in 1869, and he says: "They were usually held in +churches erected for worship. From the pulpit the orators attacked all +that had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>previously been exalted there—God, religion, the priests, the +rich. The speeches were white hot, but the audience remained calm. Many +women were seated on the ground, working, nursing their babes, and +listening attentively as to a sermon. It was the very image of '93." He +adds that their journals wrote with unparalleled violence, especially +against religion and the Church.</p> + +<p>On the division of the International in 1872 the Spanish members sided +with Bakunin, supporting the anarchist view of the government of the +future. This was natural for Spaniards, among whom their own central +government had been long thoroughly detested, and their own communal +organization regarded with general satisfaction. The Spanish people, +even the humblest of them, are imbued beyond others with those +sentiments of personal dignity and mutual equality which are at the +bottom of democratic aspirations; and in their local communes, where +every inhabitant who can read and write has a voice in public council, +they have for ages been accustomed to manage their own affairs with +harmony and advantage. The revolutionary tradition of Spain has +accordingly always favoured communal autonomy, and the Federal rather +than the Central Republic. Castelar declares the Federal Republic to be +the most perfect form of State, though he thinks it for the present +impracticable; and the revolution of 1873, in which the International +played an active part, was excited for the purpose of establishing it. +The Federal Republicans are not all socialists. Many of them are for +making the agricultural labourers peasant proprietors, and even for +dividing the communal property among them; but in a country like Spain, +where communal property exists already to a large extent, the idea of +making all other property communal property lies ever at hand as a ready +resource of reformers. Nor, again, are all Spanish socialists +federalists. There is a Social Democratic Labour party in Spain which +broke off from the anarchists in 1882, and published a programme more on +Marxist lines, demanding (1) the acquisition of political power; (2) the +transformation of all private and corporate into the common property of +the nation; and (3) the reorganization of society on the basis of +industrial associations. This body is not very numerous, but at one of +its recent congresses it had delegates from 152<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> different branches, and +it has for the last four years had a party organ, <i>El Socialista</i>, in Madrid.</p> + +<p>The bulk of Spanish socialism still belongs, however, to the anarchist +wing. Little has been heard of the anarchists in Spain since the +revolution of 1873 and the fall of the International. They have usually +been blamed for the attempts on the life of the king in 1878, but they +have certainly never resorted to those promiscuous outrages which have +formed so much of the recent policy of the anarchists of other +countries; and except for participation in a few demonstrations of the +unemployed, they have maintained a surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive +existence. In 1881 they reconstituted themselves as the Spanish +Federation of the International Working Men's Association, which is said +by the author of "Socialismus und Anarchismus, 1883-86," apparently on +their own authority, to have 70,000 members in all Spain, who are +distributed in 800 branches, and hold regular district and national +congresses, but always under cover of secrecy. They have two journals in +Madrid, and others in the larger towns elsewhere. They are sorely +divided into parties and schools on very petty points, and fierce strife +rages between the tweedledums and tweedledees. One party has broken away +altogether and established a society of its own, under the name of the +Autonomists. The anarchists are in close alliance with an agrarian +organization called the Rural Labourers' Union, which has agitated since +1879 for the abolition of <i>latifundia</i> in Andalusia, but they always +disclaim all connection with the more notorious Andalusian society, the +Black Hand, which committed so many outrages in 1881 and 1882, and is +often identified with the anarchists. The Black Hand is a separate +organization from the anarchists, and has, it is said, 40,000 members, +mostly peasants, in Andalusia and the neighbouring provinces; but their +principles are undoubtedly socialistic. Their views are confined to the +subject of land; but they declare that land, like all other property, +has been made by labour, that it therefore cannot in right belong to the +idle and rich class who at present own it, and that any means may be +legitimately employed to deprive this class of usurpers of their +possessions—the sword, fire, slander, perjury.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p><p>In Spain, unlike most other countries, the artisans of the towns show +less inclination to socialistic views than the rural labourers. They +have an active and even powerful labour movement of their own, carried +on through an extensive organization of trade unions which has risen up +rapidly within the last few years, especially in Catalonia, and they put +their whole trust in combination, co-operation, and peaceful agitation +for gradual reform under the present order of things, and will have +nothing to say to socialism or anarchism; so much so, that they +manifested the greatest reluctance to join in the eight hour +demonstrations of May-day, 1890, because they did not wish to be +confounded or in any way identified with the more extreme faction who +were getting those demonstrations up; and they actually held a rival +demonstration of their own on Sunday, the 4th of May, "in favour," as +they stated in the public announcement of it, "of State socialism and of +State legislation, both domestic and international, to improve the +general condition of the working classes without any revolutionary or +sudden change that could alarm the Sovereign and the governing classes."</p> + +<p>Spain made a beginning in factory legislation in 1873, when an act was +passed restricting the labour of children and young people; but the act +remained dead-letter till 1884, when the renewal of agitation on the +social question by the various parties led the cabinet to issue an order +to have this law carried into effect, and a little later in the same +year to appoint a royal commission to institute a thorough inquiry into +the whole circumstances of the labouring classes, and the conditions of +their improvement. This commission, which received nothing but abuse +from the anarchists, who said the labour problem must be settled from +below and not from above, was welcomed very heartily by the trade +unionists, and with favour rather than otherwise even by the Social +Democrats; but it has as yet had little or no result, and men who know +the country express their opinion very freely that it will never lead to +anything but an act or two that will remain dead-letter like their +predecessors. The suffrage is high, only one person in seventeen having +a vote; and working-class legislation will continue lukewarm till the +working class acquires more real<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> political power. A leading Spanish +statesman said lately: "The day for social questions has not yet come in +Spain, and we can afford to look on and see other countries make +experiments which may be of use some day when our politicians and +thinkers can find time to devote attention to these twentieth century problems."</p> + +<p>There seems much truth in the view that socialism, spite of the alarm +its spread caused to the Spanish Government in 1872, is really a disease +of a more advanced stage of industrial development than yet exists in +Spain, and therefore unlikely to grow immediately into anything very +formidable there. The country has few large industrial centres. +Two-thirds of the people are still engaged in agriculture; and though it +is among the agricultural classes socialism has broken out, the outbreak +has been local, and confined to provinces where the conditions of +agricultural labour are decidedly bad. But these conditions vary much +from province to province. In the southern provinces the cereal plains +and also the lower pasturages are generally possessed by large +proprietors, who work them by farmers on the <i>metayer</i> principle, with +the help of bands of migratory labourers in harvest time; but in the +mountainous parts of these provinces the estates belong for the most +part to the communes. They are usually large, and as every member of the +commune has an undivided right of using them, he is able to obtain from +them the main part of his living without rent. Many of the inhabitants +of such districts engage in the carrying trade, to which they conjoin a +little cattle-dealing as opportunities offer; and as they are sober and +industrious, they are usually comparatively well off. In the northern +provinces the situation is in some respects better. Land is much +subdivided, and though the condition of the labouring class is not as a +rule unembarrassed, that result is due more to their own improvidence +and indolence than to anything else. A man of frugal and industrious +habits can always rise without much difficulty from the position of day +labourer to that of <i>metayer</i> tenant, and from tenancy to +proprietorship, and some of the small proprietors are able to amass a +considerable competency. Besides, even the improvident are saved from +the worst by the communal organization. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> have always a right of +pasturage on the commons, and a right to wood for fire, house and +furniture, and they get their children's education and medical +attendance in sickness gratuitously on condition of giving six days' +labour at the roads of the commune. The most active and saving part of +the population, north and south, is the class of migratory workmen, who +stay at home only during seed-time and harvest, and go for the rest of +the year to work in Castile, Andalusia, or Portugal, as masons or +carpenters, or waiters, and always come back with a store of money. +Sometimes they remain abroad for a year or two, and sometimes they go to +Cuba or Mexico for twenty years, and return to settle on a property of +their own in their native village. This class forms the <i>personnel</i> of +the small property in Spain, and they give by their presence a healthy +stimulus to the neighbourhoods they reside in. The small property is in +Spain, as elsewhere, too often turned from a blessing to a curse by its +subdivision, on the death of the proprietor, among the members of his +family, who in Spain are usually numerous, though it is interesting to +learn that in some of the Pyrenean valleys it has been preserved for +five hundred years by the habit of integral transmission to the eldest +child—son or daughter—coupled with the habit of voluntary celibacy on +the part of many of the other children. The economic situation of Spain, +then, is not free from defects; but there always exists a wide margin of +hope in a country where, as Frere said, "God Almighty has so much of the +land in His own holding," and its economic situation would not of itself +be likely to precipitate social revolution.</p> + +<p>From Spain, socialism passed into Portugal; but from the first it has +worked very quietly there. Its adherents formed themselves into an +association in 1872, and held congresses, published newspapers, started +candidates, and actively promoted their views in every legitimate way. +Their programme was anarchism, like that of their Spanish allies; but, +unlike anarchists elsewhere, they repudiated all resort to violence, +for, as M. de Laveleye says, they are naturally "less violent than the +Spaniards, the economic situation of the country is better, and liberty +being very great, prevents the explosion of popular fury, which is worse +when exasperated by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> repression." Portugal is an agricultural country in +a good climate, where the people have few wants, and find it easy to +satisfy them fairly well. In the absence of any manner of acute +discontent, socialism could never have been much better than an abstract +speculation; and Portuguese socialism, if we may trust the complaints +made by the party elsewhere, seems now to have lost even the savour it +had. In March, 1888, one of the socialist newspapers of London reported +that the Portuguese working men's movement had, in the course of the +preceding ten years, given up the straightforward socialist character it +once had; that its leaders had entered into compromises with other +political parties, and threw themselves too much into experiments in +co-operation; that the party press was very lukewarm in its socialism, +and inclined more to mere Radicalism; and that one or two attempts that +had been made to start more extreme journals had completely failed; but +it announced with satisfaction, that at last, in January, 1888, a +frankly anarchist paper was published at Oporto—<i>A Revoluzao Social</i>. +About the same time the editor of a journal which had made some hostile +remarks on anarchism was shot, and anarchists were blamed and arrested +for the deed. There was a Socialist Congress at Lisbon in 1882, composed +of twelve delegates representing eight societies, all in Lisbon or Oporto.</p> + +<p>While the socialist cause has been thus rather retreating in the south +of Europe, it has been making some advances in the north. Of the three +Scandinavian countries, Denmark alone gave any early response to the +socialist agitation; but there are now socialist organizations in Sweden +and Norway, and the movement in Denmark has assumed considerable +dimensions. Attempts were made to introduce socialism into Norway as far +back as 1873 by Danish emissaries, and the International also founded a +small society of thirty-seven members in Christiania; but the society +seems to have died, and nothing more was heard of socialism there till +the commotion in favour of a Republic in 1883. A Social Democratic Club +was then established in Christiania, and a Social Democratic Congress +was held at Arendal in 1887; but even yet Norwegian social democracy is +of so mild a character that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> it would be counted conservatism by Social +Democrats elsewhere, for this Congress issued a programme for a new +labour party without a word of socialism in it, and merely asking for a +normal working day, for factory legislation and reform of taxation. In +Sweden there is more appearance of agitation, because there is one very +active agitator in the country, Palm, a tailor, who keeps socialism <i>en +evidence</i> by making stump speeches, or getting up street processions +with the usual red flags, and sometimes—such was the easy indifference +of the Government to his work at first—with a military band in full +uniform at the head of them. The Swedish socialists had four newspapers +in 1888, but three of them were confiscated by the Government in +December of that year, and their editors arrested for offences against +religion and the throne. In May, 1890, they held their first Congress at +Stockholm, when delegates appeared from twenty-nine unions; but the +movement is very unimportant in Sweden and Norway, and the chief +conditions of success seem wanting to it in those countries. There is no +class of labourers there without property; no town residuum, and no +rural cottagers. There being few great manufacturers in the kingdom, +only fifteen per cent. of the people altogether live in towns. The rest +are spread sparsely over the rural districts on farms belonging to +themselves, and in the absence of roads are obliged to make at home many +of the ordinary articles of consumption. What with the produce of their +small properties and their own general handiness, they are unusually +independent and comfortable. M. de Laveleye considers them the happiest people in Europe.</p> + +<p>The circumstances of Denmark are different. The operatives of the town +are badly off. Mr. Strachey tells us in his report to the Foreign Office +in 1870 that every fourth inhabitant of Copenhagen was in receipt of +parochial relief in 1867, and he says that while the Danish operatives +are sober, and well educated, they fail in industry and thrift. "No fact +in my report," he states, "is more certain than that the Dane has yet to +learn the meaning of the word <i>work</i>; of entireness and thoroughness he +has seldom any adequate notion. This is why the Swedish artisan can so +often take the bread from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> his mouth." In the rural districts, too, the +economic situation, though in some respects highly favourable, is +attended by a shadow. The land is, indeed, widely diffused. There are in +all 280,000 families in the rural districts of Denmark, and of these +170,000 occupy independent freeholds, 30,000 farm hired land, and only +26,000 are agricultural labourers pure and simple. Seven-eighths of the +whole country is held by peasant proprietors, and as a rule no class in +Europe has improved more during the last half century than the Danish +peasant or Bonde. Mr. Strachey says: "The Danish landlord was till +recent times the scourge of the peasantry. Under his paternal care the +Danish Bonde was a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water; his lot was +no better than that of the most miserable ryot of Bengal. The Bonde is +now the freest, the most politically wise, the best educated of European +yeomen." But there is another side to the picture. In Denmark, as in +other places where the small property abounds, the property is often too +small for the proprietor's necessities, and there thus arises a kind of +proprietor-proletariat, unwilling to part with their land and unable to +extract a living out of it. This class, along with the rural labourers +who have no property, constitute a sort of fourth estate in the country, +and there as elsewhere their condition is preparing a serious social +question for the future. Then, among the influences favourable to the +acceptance of socialism in Denmark, must be counted the fact that one of +the two great political parties of the country is democratic. Curiously +enough that party consists of the peasantry, and the Conservatives of +Denmark are the commercial classes of the towns, with the artisans in +their wake, their Conservatism, however, being substantially identical +with the Liberalism of the same classes in other countries. This +democratic party seeks to make everything in the State conduce to the +interests of the peasantry, and keeps alive in the country the idea that +the State exists by the will of the people, and for their good alone.</p> + +<p>The International was introduced into this exclusively Protestant +country by two militant Roman Catholics—Pio, a retired military +officer, who came to Denmark as religious tutor to a baroness who had +joined the Church of Rome, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> Geleff, who wrote for an Ultramontane +journal. They pursued their new mission with great zeal and success. +They opened branches of the association in most of the towns, started a +party newspaper, held open-air meetings, were sent to imprisonment for +sedition in 1873, and on their release in 1877 absconded to America with +the whole of the party funds, and disputed bitterly there over the +spoil. While they were in prison, the International was suppressed in +Denmark; but the members merely reconstituted the organization under the +name of the Socialist Labour Party, and the place of leader was taken +for a time by an authoress, Jacquette Lilyenkrantz, for, as in other +countries, women are in Denmark among the most active propagandists of +socialism. They kept up communications with the socialist leaders in +Germany, and the meeting of the German Socialist Congress at Copenhagen +in 1883 gave the movement a new impetus. They were able to return two +deputies, Holm and Hördun, to the Volkething in 1884, and they took +part, 80,000 strong, in the Copenhagen procession of 1886, in +commemoration of the fundamental law of the State. Their chief party +organ, the <i>Social Demokraten</i>, has a circulation of 26,000 daily, one +of the largest newspaper circulations in Denmark; and there are other +four socialist journals in the kingdom.</p> + +<p>They belong to the moderate wing of social democracy, being opposed to +revolution and terrorism, and placing their confidence in constitutional +agitation. Their programme is substantially that of Gotha—the right of +the labourers to the full product of labour, State management of all +industry, free education, universal suffrage, normal working day, +abolition of class inequalities, single chamber in legislature, free +justice, no standing army, State provision for sick and aged, religions +to be a private affair. They turn their propaganda with most hope to the +land proletariat; and a recent writer, P. Schmidt, in an interesting +paper in the <i>Arbeiterfreund</i> for 1889, says they are succeeding in +their mission, and that socialism is spreading more and more every day +among the rural labourers. At their last Congress, held at Copenhagen, +in June, 1890, and attended by seventy-one delegates from fifty-four +different branches, their attention was chiefly occupied with questions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +about the land; provision of more land for the people by compulsory +acquisition of ecclesiastical property and uncultivated ground; State +advances of capital to agricultural labourers; agricultural schools; +better housing for farm servants, etc. In 1887 they held a socialist +exhibition in Copenhagen—an international exhibition of socialist +pamphlets, newspapers, books, magazines, and pictures; and in 1890 they +returned two members to the Landthing—the first time they secured +representatives in the Upper Chamber.</p> + +<p>Belgium has many of the conditions of soil most favourable for +socialism—a dense population, large towns, an advanced productive +system, and an industrial class at once very numerous, very ill paid, +and very open, through their education, to new social ideas. For a time, +accordingly, socialism spread remarkably in that country. The +International had eight federations of branches in 1869, with 60,000 +members and several newspapers. In the dispute between Marx and Bakunin, +the Belgian Internationalists seem to have sided as a body with Bakunin; +but they presently fell out among themselves, and, in spite of many +repeated efforts at reconciliation, they have never since succeeded in +composing their differences. The German socialist leaders tried to +reorganize them in 1879 at a special Congress at Brussels, under the +name of the Socialist Labour Party of Belgium, and with the Gotha +programme; but they were rent again in 1881 by a division which had then +entered into German socialism itself. The majority of the party adhered +to Liebknecht and Bebel; but an active minority, composed chiefly of +Walloons, followed the anarchist views of Most and Hasselman, withdrew +from the party, and founded another called the Revolutionary Union. The +anarchists have one journal—<i>Ni Dieu, Ni Maître</i>—violent, as the name +indicates, but obscure and unimportant; but they believe most in the +less intellectual propaganda of deed, and make themselves conspicuous +from time to time by dynamite explosions and street fights with the +police or the military, or their own socialist rivals. The Belgian +socialists, on the other hand, look more to constitutional and +parliamentary action, and usually work with the Liberals at the +elections; but the Belgian voting qualification is high, and they have +never succeeded in returning a candidate of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> own. In 1887 their +candidate for Brussels got 1,000 votes, while his successful rival had +3,000. They took an active part in the Republican agitation which was +raised by the School Law in 1884. They have capable leaders, and they +publish two journals, which, however, for want of funds, appear only at +distant and uncertain intervals. They have lately begun to hold many +open-air meetings, which the authorities had long forbidden, and they +held an International Socialist Exhibition at Ghent in 1887 like that +held in the same year at Copenhagen.</p> + +<p>On the whole socialism, after twenty years' work, is making no way in +Belgium, notwithstanding the favourable character of the soil, because +the labour movement is choosing other directions and forms of +organization. Trade unions and co-operative societies have been +multiplying much during these twenty years, and in 1885 a strong Belgian +Labour Party was formed, with 120 branches and 100,000 members, which +aims at promoting the practical wellbeing of the working class by +remedial legislation—by in some cases vicious State-socialistic +legislation, it may be—but has no word of the right to the full product +of labour, of the nationalization of all industry, or of the social +revolution. One of the items of the programme is worded "collective +property"; but whether it contemplates the universal State-property of +collectivism or the corporate property of co-operation does not appear. +The other items are universal suffrage, direct legislation by the people +(presumably the <i>referendum</i>), free undenominational education, +abolition of standing army, abolition of budget of worship, normal work +day, normal wages, regulation of work of women and children, factory +inspection, employers' liability, workmen's chambers, courts of +conciliation, repeal of taxes on means of subsistence, increased income +tax, international labour legislation. M. de Laveleye attributes the ill +success of socialism in Belgium, and no doubt rightly, to the influence +of discussion and free institutions. Government has left it to stand or +fall on its own merits before public opinion. The socialists enjoy full +liberty of the platform and press; they can hold meetings and congresses +and form clubs in any town they please, and the result is that though +the movement, like all new <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>movements, made a certain impression and +advance for a time at first, it got checked under the influence of +discussion and the application of solid practical judgment. Then, though +the Belgian Legislature has not yet done what it can and ought for +ameliorating the condition of the labourers, philanthropy has been very +active and useful in a number of ways in that kingdom. The Catholic +Church has always intervened to keep up a high ideal of employers' +responsibility—the old ideal of a patriarchal care; and there is a +strong organization in Belgium of Catholic Working Men's Clubs, which +were formed into one body in 1867, which were united with the Catholic +Working Men's Clubs of Germany in 1869, and with those of France in +1870, and which now constitute with these the International Catholic +Working Men's Association.</p> + +<p>It ought perhaps to be mentioned that there is an old but small party of +Land Nationalizers in Belgium, the Colinsian Socialists, whose +principles have been warmly endorsed by Mr. Ruskin as "forming the most +complete system of social and political reform yet put forward." They +want the State to own all the soil, and let it out by auction; but they +are opposed to nationalizing any of the other instruments of production.</p> + +<p>In Holland, wealth is very unequally divided, wages are low, and +taxation, being largely indirect, falls heavily on the working class; +but the people are phlegmatic, domestic, religious, and contrive on +small means to maintain a general appearance of comfort and decency. +Above all, they enjoy free institutions; and, under freedom, socialism +has run the same course in Holland as in Belgium. The International made +rapid advances in 1869, founded branches in all the towns, and carried +on, after the Paris Commune, so active and successful an agitation that +the <i>bourgeoisie</i> took alarm, and Government imposed some restrictions +on the disaffected press. But a general rise in wages happened about the +time, a strong co-operative movement was promoted under the lead of the +orthodox divines, a lively polemic against socialism broke out among the +working men themselves, and all interest in the social revolution seemed +to have died away, when, in 1878, it was revived again by D. Niewenhuis, +a retired Protestant minister, a man of capacity and zeal, who has been +unwearied in his advocacy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> of the cause ever since. He started in that +year a journal, <i>Recht Voor Allen</i>, which is still, I believe, the only +socialist organ in Holland, and appears now three times a week; and he +founded the Social Democratic Union in 1884, which is strongest in the +Hague and Amsterdam, but has branches in most of the other towns, and a +membership by no means inconsiderable, though much below the old numbers +of the Dutch International. After being imprisoned in 1887 for political +reasons, Niewenhuis was returned to the Legislature in 1888—the first +socialist who has sat there. The Dutch Socialists, to increase their +numbers, enrol a class of "secret" members, timid spirits who will only +come to them "by night, for fear of the Jews." There is also a handful +of anarchists in Holland, who have a newspaper in Amsterdam, and are +said to live harmoniously with the socialists, and, according to the +reports of the American consuls, nobody in the country thinks any harm of either.</p> + +<p>Switzerland has swarmed for a century with conspirators of all hues and +nations; but the Swiss—thanks again to free institutions—have been +steel against revolution. The "Young Germanys" and "Young Italys" whom +she sheltered in the past sought only, it is true, to win for their own +countries the political freedom which Switzerland already enjoyed; but +the socialist and anarchist refugees of the last twenty years have had +social principles to preach which were as new and as good for the Swiss +as for their own countrymen; and, speaking as they did the languages of +the Confederation, they have never ceased making active efforts for the +conversion of the Swiss. The old Jurassian Federation of the +International, still continues to exist in French-speaking Switzerland, +and to bear witness for the extremest kind of anarchist communism—no +force or authority whatever, and a collective consumption of products as +well as a collective production; but this body is not increasing, and +though Guesde, the French socialist, made a lecturing tour through that +division of Switzerland in 1885, he had quite as little success for his +branch of the revolutionary cause. There are numbers of Social +Democratic Clubs in the German-speaking cantons, but they consist mainly +of German refugees, and contain few native Swiss members. After the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +Anti-Socialist Laws of 1879, the German socialists settled largely in +Switzerland. They transferred to Zurich their party organ, the <i>Social +Democrat</i>, and along with it, to use their own phrase, the entire +Olympus of the party, the body of writers and managers who moved the +shuttle of its operations. These propagandists naturally did not neglect +the country of their adoption, but used every opportunity to forward +their agitation by addresses and even by extended missionary journeys, +and a separate Swiss Social Democratic party was actually founded, with +a separate organ, the <i>Arbeiterstimme</i>; but it collapsed in 1884 from +internal dissensions. No attempt was made to revive it till 1888, when +the action of the Federal Council in May against the foreign socialists +resident in the Confederation led to the organization of a Swiss +socialist party in October. The Federal Government had already, in 1884 +and 1885, taken measures against the political refugees, especially the +anarchists, who were thought to have abused the hospitality they +received by planning and preparing in Switzerland the series of crimes +which shocked all Europe in 1884, and even by trying to explode the +Federal Palace at Berne itself. The Government instituted an inquiry, +and finding the country absolutely riddled with anarchist clubs, +determined to keep the eye of the police on them, and in the meantime +expelled thirty or forty of their leading members from Switzerland +altogether. These were almost without exception either Austrians or +Germans, and included Neve, now a leading anarchist in London. The +Russian anarchists were apparently not thought so dangerous, their great +occupation being to invent new ways and means of smuggling newspapers +into Russia; but they disliked the police supervision to which they were +subjected, and very generally quitted Switzerland of their own accord +for London or Paris. The anarchist organ, the <i>Revolté</i>, was removed at +the same time to Paris, but its place in Geneva was taken by a new +paper—<i>L'Egalitaire</i>. In 1888 the police were ordered to report all +socialist meetings held in the country, and all arrivals or departures +of "foreigners whose means of subsistence was unknown, and whose +presence might, for other reasons, become dangerous to the safety of the +country"; and as this further turn of the screw was believed to be made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +on the instigation of Germany, it provoked considerable opposition, one +result of which was the formation of the new Swiss socialist party.</p> + +<p>This party, however, is not an affair of any magnitude, and does not +appear very likely to become so; for the working men of Switzerland have +the public power in their own hands already, and they have their own +organizations besides to look after their interests; and while they are +by no means averse to the use of the powers of the State, they are +disposed to move with inquiry and caution, and to see every step of +their way before running into speculative schemes of foreign origin. +Their political position satisfies them, because they know they are too +strong for Government to neglect their wishes, because some labour laws +have already been passed for their protection, and because the +authorities always show themselves ready to entertain any new proposals +for the same object, as, for example, they did in May, 1890, by +summoning an International Congress at Berne to discuss the length of +the working day and other conditions of labour.</p> + +<p>Their economic position, moreover, is also comparatively satisfactory +for various reasons, among which Mr. Bonar, in his report to the Foreign +Office in 1870, gives a chief place to the general working of democratic +institutions and the prevalence of benevolent and charitable +associations. "In enumerating," he says, "the favourable circumstances +in which the Swiss working man is placed, prominence must be given to +the immense extension of the principle of democracy, which, whatever, +may be its defects and dangers from a political point of view when +pushed to extremes, serves in Switzerland in its economical effects to +advance the cause of the operative by removing the barriers dividing +class from class, and to establish among all grades the bonds of mutual +sympathy and goodwill, further strengthened by a widely-spread network +of associations organized with the object of securing the common +interests and welfare of the people." Masters and workmen are socially +more equal than in most European countries; they sit side by side at the +board of the Communal Council, they belong to the same choral societies, +they refresh themselves at the same <i>cafés</i>. In most cantons, too, +operatives are either owners of, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> hold from the communes, small +pieces of land which they cultivate in their leisure hours, and which +thus serve them when work gets slack or fails altogether. The favourable +rural economy of the country is well known; its peasant proprietors +rival those of France. The Swiss societies of beneficence are +remarkable, and almost suggest the hope that the voluntary socialism of +a more enlarged and widely organized system of charity may be found to +furnish a substantial solution of the social question. Every canton of +Switzerland has its society of public utility, whose aims take an +extensive range; it gives the start to projects of improvement of every +description, infant schools, schools of design, savings banks, schemes +for the poor, the sick, the dumb, singing classes, halls for Sunday +recreation, popular lectures, workmen's houses, protection of animals, +even industrial undertakings which promise to be ultimately beneficial, +though they may not pay at first. The society of Basle has 900 members +and a capital of £6,000, and the Swiss Society of Public Utility is an +organization for the whole Republic, which holds an annual congress at +Zurich, and general meetings in the different cantons by turns. These +meetings pass off with every mark of enthusiasm, and gather together men +of all religious and political opinions in a common concern for the +progress and prosperity of the masses. One of the institutions which +these societies have largely promoted is what they call a hall of +industry, or a bazaar, where loans may be received by workmen on the +security of their wages, or of goods they may deposit. A labourer who +has made any article which he cannot get immediately sold, may deposit +it at one of these bazaars, and obtain an advance equal to a fixed +proportion of its value, and if the article is sold at the bazaar, the +proceeds are accounted for to the depositor, less the sum advanced and a +small charge for expenses. These institutions, Mr. Bonar says, have had +excellent effects, though he admits that the facilities of borrowing +have led the working men in some places into debt; but they are at any +rate a vast improvement on the pawnbroking system in vogue elsewhere. +The condition of Switzerland shows us clearly enough that democracy +under a <i>régime</i> of freedom lends no ear to socialism, but sets its face +in entirely different directions.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p><p>The United States of America have done more for experimental socialism +than any other country. Owenites, Fourierists, Icarians have all +established communities there, but these communities have failed long +ago, except one of the Icarian, and the only other socialist experiments +now existing in America are seventy or eighty religious communities, +Shakers and Rappists, whose success has been due to their religious +discipline and their celibacy, and whose members amount to no more than +5,000 souls all told. There is indeed a Russian Commune in California, +but it remains a solitary Russian Commune still, the "new formula of +civilization," as Russian reformers used to call it, showing no sign of +further adoption. Nor has the new or political socialism found any +better success in the States. There are various indigenous forms of +it—such as the agrarian socialism of Mr. Henry George, and the +nationalism of Mr. E. Bellamy—but in point of following they are of +little importance, and the socialism of the American socialist and +revolutionary parties is a mere German import, with as yet a purely +German consumption. It has been pushed vigorously in the American market +for twenty years, but taken singularly little hold of the American +taste. There is one revolutionary socialist body composed chiefly of +English-speaking members, the International Workmen's Association, which +was founded in 1881 in one of the western states; but Mr. Ely says its +membership would be generously estimated at 15,000, and it considers the +great work of the present should be popular education, so as to prepare +the people for the revolution when it comes.</p> + +<p>The Boston Anarchists, perhaps, ought not, strictly speaking, to be +included in any account of socialism, for, unlike most contemporary +anarchists, they are not socialist, but extremely individualist; but +historically, it is worth noting, Boston Anarchism is the doctrine of a +disenchanted socialist, Josiah Warren, who had lived with Robert Owen at +New Harmony, and came to the conclusion that that experiment failed +because the individual had been too much sunk in the community, and no +room was left for the play of individual interests, individual rights, +and individual responsibilities. From Owen's communism, Warren ran to +the opposite extreme, and thought it impossible to individualize things +too much. He would abolish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> the State, and have the work of police and +defence done by private enterprise, like any other service. He issued +some books, tried to carry out his views by practical experiment, and, +though they failed, he has still a small band of believing disciples at +Boston, who publish a newspaper called <i>Liberty</i>, but have no +organization and no importance.</p> + +<p>Henry George and his followers, too, perhaps ought not in strictness to +be classified among socialists. He would certainly repudiate such a +classification himself, and the United Labour Party, which he founded in +1886 to promote his views by political action, expelled the socialists +from membership in 1887. His actual practical proposal is nothing more +than a narrow and illusory plan of taxation; but he puts it forward so +expressly as the keystone of a new social system, as the remedy +prescribed by economic science itself for the complete regeneration of +society and the simultaneous removal of all existing social evils, that +he is not improperly placed among Utopian socialists. Does he not +promise us a new heaven and a new earth? And if he believes the State +can call the new heaven and the new earth into being by a mere turn in +the incidence of taxation, while most other contemporary socialists +think the State must first pull down all that now is and reconstruct the +whole on a new plan, is he, on account of this greater credulity of his, +to be considered a more, and not rather a less, sober and rational +speculator than they? He wants to abolish landlordism, while they want +to abolish landlordism and all other capitalism besides; and his views +may fairly be called partial or agrarian socialism. The United Labour +Party was founded mainly to promote Mr. George's panacea of the single +tax on such land values as arise from the growth of society apart from +individual exertion; but it includes other articles in its +programme—the municipalization of the supply of water, light, and heat; +the nationalization of all money, note issue, post, telegraphs, +railways, and savings banks; reduction of the hours of labour, +prohibition of child labour, suppression of the competition of prison +labour with honest labour; sanitary inspection of houses, factories, and +mines; simplification of legal procedure; secret ballot; payment of +election expenses. The United Labour Party is not strong.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> When Mr. +George stood for the Mayoralty of New York, he had 68,000 votes to his +opponent's 90,000; but he had on that occasion the assistance of the +Socialistic Labour Party, who are said by Mr. Ely to number about 25,000 +in New York, and who certainly constituted a very considerable element +in the United Labour Party, for they were expelled at the Party +Convention only by a vote of 94 to 54. On the other hand, Mr. Ely's +estimate of the strength of the socialists is possibly too high, for +they ran a candidate for the Mayoralty of New York themselves in 1888, a +leading man of the party, one Jones, and he only secured 2,000 votes. +However that may be, the United Labour Party was certainly much weakened +by the loss of the socialists, and they were disabled entirely in the +following year by a division on the question of Free Trade and the +secession of Father McGlynn and the Protectionist members.</p> + +<p>Nationalism is the name of a new movement, the fruit of the remarkable +and very popular novel of Mr. Edward Bellamy, "Looking Backward," which +may be said to be the latest description of Utopia as it now stands with +all the most modern improvements. Mr. Bellamy would have all industry +organized and conducted by the nation on the basis of a common +obligation of work and a general guarantee of livelihood, all men to get +exactly the same wages, and to do exactly the same quantity of work, due +allowance being made for differences in severity, and the State to +enlarge indefinitely its free public provision of the means of common +enjoyment and culture. Mr. Bellamy's charming pictures of the new +country naturally engendered a general wish to be there, and many little +societies have been established to hasten the hour; but as the movement +has not been more than a year in being, little account can yet be given +of its success. The Nationalists have quite recently issued an organ, +<i>The New Nation</i>, which announces its programme to be (1) the +nationalization of post, telegraphs, telephone, railways and coal mines; +(2) municipalization of gas and water supply, and the like; and (3) the +equalization of educational opportunities as between rich and poor, and +the promotion of all reforms tending towards humaner, more fraternal, +and more equal conditions. Nationalism out of Utopia, therefore, means +merely a little State-socialism.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p><p>The strongest socialist organizations in the United States are the +Socialistic Labour Party, corresponding to the Social Democrats of +Europe, and the International Working People's Association, +corresponding to the anarchists; but both are composed almost +exclusively of Germans. There are more Germans in the North American +Republic than in any State of Germany except Prussia; and as many of +them have fled from their own country for political reasons—to escape +the conscription, or to escape prosecution for sedition—they bear no +goodwill to the old system of government, and harbour revolutionary +ideas almost from the nature of things. A socialist propaganda began +among them so far back as 1848, when Weitling, of whom more will be said +presently, published a socialist newspaper; and a Socialist Gymnastic +Union was established in New York in 1850, which succeeded in forming a +kind of federal alliance, apparently for socialistic purposes, with a +number of other local German gymnastic societies throughout the States; +but though these societies still exist, they seem to have dropped their +socialism. It was taken up again, however, in 1869, by the +International, which transferred its General Council to New York in +1872, held congresses from time to time in the country, and eventually, +at the Newark Convention of 1877, adopted the name of the Socialistic +Labour Party, with a programme formed after the Gotha lines. The numbers +of the party were strengthened in the years immediately following by the +arrival of German refugees, expelled from their own land by the +Socialist Laws; but the new members brought with them elements of +dissension which speedily came to a head after the arrival of the +incendiary spirit, John Most, in 1882, and led, in 1883, to the entire +separation of the Anarchists from the Social Democrats. The latter held +a separate Congress at Baltimore in the latter year, attended by 16 +delegates, representing 23 branches and 10,000 members, and it reported +that altogether 38 branches adhered to them. The anarchists held a +Congress at Pittsburg, and formed themselves into the International +Working People's Association, with the following principles:—</p> + +<p>"What we would achieve is therefore plainly and simply—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p><p>"1st. Destruction of the existing class rule by all means; <i>i.e.</i>, by +energetic, relentless, revolutionary, and international action.</p> + +<p>"2nd. Establishment of a free society based upon co-operative +organization of production.</p> + +<p>"3rd. Free exchange of equivalent products by and between the productive +organizations without commerce and profit-mongery.</p> + +<p>"4th. Organization of education on a secular, scientific, and equal +basis for both sexes.</p> + +<p>"5th. Equal rights for all without distinction of sex or race.</p> + +<p>"6th. Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between the +autonomous (independent) communes and associations resting on a +federalistic basis." (Ely's "Labour Movement in America," p. 231.)</p> + +<p>They differ from the Socialistic Labour Party, as this programme shows, +in their exclusive devotion to revolution, and their opposition to all central government.</p> + +<p>The Socialistic Labour Party has several newspapers, the principal being +the <i>Sozialist</i> and the <i>Neu Yorker Volkszeitung</i> of New York, and the +<i>Tageblatt</i> of Philadelphia; and the anarchists have more, the best +known being Most's notorious <i>Freiheit</i>. Mr. Ely mentions sixteen +socialist newspapers and ten sympathizing with socialism, and says that +the majority of these support the anarchist side. The anarchists, +moreover, have one journal in English—the <i>Alarm</i>; the Socialistic +Labour Party started one in 1883, but it died. With that exception the +press of both parties is entirely German, and neither party seems to +have done almost anything in the way of an English propaganda from the +platform. Dr. and Mrs. Aveling state that before they made their +lecturing tour on the subject through the States in 1886, the American +public had never heard socialism preached to them in their own tongue; +yet books like Mr. Gronlund's "Co-operative Commonwealth," giving a very +effective exposition of socialism, had already appeared from the +American press. Dr. and Mrs. Aveling say, moreover, they met with more +hostility to their mission from the anarchists than from any other +source in America. The American people, while firmly stamping out the +dynamite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> policy of the anarchists, have naturally nothing to say +against an academic propaganda of any system of doctrine.</p> + +<p>The trend of the labour movement in America seems away from socialism. +That movement is in many respects more powerful there than in any +European country. There are some five hundred labour newspapers in the +United States, and an immense number of trade organizations of all +kinds. Political power, moreover, both in the States and in the Union, +is in the hands of the working class; and that class has now very nearly +the same grievances there as it has in Europe, and the same aspirations +after a better order of things. But their tendencies are not nearer +socialism, but further from it. They simply cannot understand people who +tell them they have no power to work out their own salvation under the +system that is, and that nothing can be done, as Marx assures them, +until every capital in Europe is ready for a simultaneous revolution +with New York and Chicago. The trade unions accordingly ignore +socialism. The Knights of Labour expressly repudiate it, and in the +course of a very long programme they hardly make a demand which has a +taint even of State-socialism. This "Noble Order of the Knights of +Labour" is a general association of working men to promote the cause of +labour, partly by their own efforts and partly through the Government. +By their own efforts they are to promote co-operation till, if possible, +it supersedes the present wages system entirely; equality of wages for +men and women for equal work; a general eight hours day through a +general strike; and a system of arbitration in trade quarrels. From the +Union Legislature they want merely a few general reforms, none bearing +directly on the situation of labour, except the abolition of foreign +contract labour. The others are, reform of the currency, nationalization +of telegraphs and railways, and the institution of banking facilities of +various kinds in connection with the Post Office. From the State +Legislatures they ask the reservation of public lands to actual +settlers, the simplification of the administration of justice, factory +legislation, graduated income tax, and the following provisions for +labour: weekly payment of wages in money, mechanic's lien on the product +of his labour for his wages, compulsory arbitration in trade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> disputes, +prohibition of labour of children under fifteen. In 1886 they were +702,884 strong, but they have declined sorely since then. Their great +weapon was to be an extension of strikes and boycotting beyond what was +possible to single trades; but it was found that this policy was +double-edged, and caused more hurt to some sections of the working class +than any good it could do to others; and people lost faith in the +principle of such huge miscellaneous organizations. Dr. Aveling contends +that the Knights of Labour, in spite of Mr. Powderly's disclaimer, are +really, though it may be unconsciously, socialists, because they want to +supersede the wages system, if they can, by establishing co-operative +institutions without State aid; and this, he holds, "is pure and +unadulterated socialism." Indeed! then where is the man who is not a +pure and unadulterated socialist? and what need for any mission to the +States to preach the socialist message to the Americans for the first +time in their own tongue?</p> + +<p>England was the country last reached by the present wave of +revolutionary socialism, although the system has been largely conceived +upon a study of English circumstances, and is claimed to be peculiarly +adapted to them. England is alternately the hope and the despair of +Continental socialists. Every requisite of revolution is there, and yet +the people will not rise. The yeomanry are gone. The land has come into +the hands of a few. Industry is carried on by great centralized capital. +The large system of production has almost finished its work. The mass of +the people is a proletariat; they are thronged in large towns; every +tenth person is a pauper; and the great mansions of the rich cast an +evil shadow into the crowded dens of the wretched. "The English," says +Eugène Dupont, a leading member of the old International, "possess all +the materials necessary for the social revolution; but they lack the +generalizing spirit and the revolutionary passion." Any proletariat +movement in which the English proletariat takes no part, said Karl Marx, +is "no better than a storm in a glass of water"; yet, though Marx +himself resided in England for most of his life, no organized attempt +was made to gain over the English proletariat to socialism till +1883—the year he died. There was before that, indeed, a small English +section in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> a foreign socialist club in Soho; and, after the fall of the +Paris Commune, hopes were for a time entertained of starting a serious +socialist movement in our larger towns; but these hopes proved so +delusive that Karl Marx said more than once to Mr. Hyndman, as we are +told by the latter, that he despaired "of any great movement in England, +unless in response to some violent impetus from without." But in 1883 a +socialist movement seemed to break out spontaneously in England, the air +hummed for a season with a multifarious social agitation, and we soon +had a fairly complete equipment of socialist organizations—social +democratic, anarchist, dilettante—which have ever since kept up a busy +movement with newspapers, lectures, debates, speeches, and +demonstrations in the streets.</p> + +<p>In 1883 the Democratic Federation, which had been established two years +before to promote measures of Radical reform, including, among other +things, the nationalization of the land, adopted the socialistic +principles of Karl Marx, and changed its name to the Social Democratic +Federation. Its programme is long, and includes, besides the +nationalization of land and all means of production, direct legislation +by the people, direct election of all functionaries by adult suffrage, +gratuitous justice, gratuitous, compulsory, and equal education, +abolition of standing armies, Home Rule for Ireland, an eight hours day, +State erection of workmen's dwellings, to be let at bare cost, +progressive income tax, proportional representation, abolition of House +of Lords, separation of Church and State, etc. Its principal founders +were Mr. William Morris, an artist, a great poet, and a manufacturer +exceptionally excellent in his arrangements with his workpeople; Mr. H. +M. Hyndman, a journalist of standing and ability; Mr. J. Stuart Glennie, +and Mr. Belfort Bax, both authors of repute; Dr. Aveling, a popular +lecturer on science, and son-in-law of Karl Marx; Miss Helen Taylor, +step-daughter of John Stuart Mill; and the Rev. Stewart Headlam. In +January, 1884, they started a weekly newspaper, <i>Justice</i>, and a monthly +magazine, <i>To-Day</i>, both of which still appear, and began the active +work of lecturing and founding branches. But before the year was out, +the old enemy of socialists, the spirit of division, entered among them, +and Mr. Morris, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> Dr. Aveling and Mr. Bax, seceded and set up an +independent organization called the Socialist League, with a separate +weekly organ, <i>The Commonweal</i>. The difference seems to have arisen out +of the common socialist trouble about the propriety of mixing in current +politics. The same disruptive tendency has persisted in the two parts, +and in the end of 1890, Mr. William Morris seceded from the Socialist +League with his local following at Hammersmith.</p> + +<p>Neither of these revolutionary bodies has a complete organization like +those of continental countries. They have never held a Congress, either +national or provincial. They consist of a central committee in London, +and detached local groups in the provinces, and their membership is not +accurately known, but it is not extensive. It is in both cases +declining, and it has always been variable, young men joining for a year +or two, and then leaving. Their chief success has been among the miners +of the North of England, and they have returned three members to the +School Board of Newcastle. There is one socialist member in Parliament, +Mr. Cunningham Graham, but he has not been returned on socialist +principles or by a socialist vote; and hitherto the party has failed to +obtain any serious support at the elections. At the election of 1885, +Mr. John Burns, socialist candidate for Nottingham, had only 598 votes +out of a total poll of 11,064, and Mr. J. Williams, the socialist +candidate for Hampstead, had only 27 out of a total of 4,722. Mr. Burns, +however, has since been returned to the London County Council, and will +not improbably succeed in being returned to Parliament at next election. +He is a working engineer, but is much the strongest leader English +socialism has produced, an orator of great power, an excellent +organizer, and the head and representative of a new labour movement +which is likely to play a considerable part in the immediate future, and +which is certainly fermented with a good measure of socialistic leaven. +The New Unionism, as this movement is sometimes called, represents +mainly the opinion of the new trade unions of unskilled labour—dockers +and others—which have sprung into existence recently, and it was strong +enough at the Trade Union Congress in 1890 to carry the day against the +old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> unionism of the skilled trades by a considerable majority in favour +of the compulsory and universal eight hours day. But, as Mr. T. Burt, +M.P., the miners' parliamentary representative, said in his speech to +the Eighty Club two months afterwards, the New Unionism is, after all, +only the young and inexperienced unionism, and must needs run now +through the same kind of errors which the older trade unions have gone +through before, but will, like the older unions, learn, by discussion +and experiment, to keep within the lines of practicable and beneficial +action. However that may be, for the moment, at any rate, the fortunes +of English socialism seem to lie with Mr. John Burns and his labour +movement, and not with the two socialist organizations which appear to +have already reached their height, and to be now on the decline.</p> + +<p>A well-informed German writer lately warned us that anarchism had +brought its headquarters to London, that it was coming into relations +with the English population through its clubs and newspapers, and he +ventured to prophesy that we should certainly have soon an anarchist +fire to extinguish on our own hearth much more serious than Germany or +Austria has had to encounter. So far, however, there is little to +support such a prophecy. There are four small anarchist clubs in +London—three of them German clubs, which live at strife with one +another, and the fourth a Russian or Polish club, whose members have few +or no dealings with the Germans. The German anarchists publish two +weekly newspapers in German, which it is their great business to smuggle +into the Fatherland, and the Russian or Polish anarchists publish one in +Yedish—the German-Hebrew <i>patois</i> of the Polish Jews—which is printed +for the entertainment of the Polish tailors of the East End. Some of the +principal anarchist leaders, it is true, live amongst us—for example, +Prince Krapotkin and Victor Dave—and under their influence a group of +English anarchists has grown up during the last few years; but this +group has already, after the manner of modern revolutionists, split on a +point of doctrine into two opposite camps, which,—if we may judge from +their respective organs, <i>The Anarchist</i> and <i>Freedom</i>—expend a +considerable share of their destructive energies upon one another. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +English anarchists have no permanent organization of any kind, and the +one group are for socialist anarchism, and the other for individualist +anarchism. On the whole the conversion of the English by the anarchist +refugees is not an idea worthy of serious consideration; a better and +more likely result would be that they would themselves, like Alexander +Herzen, the leading anarchist of the past generation, be converted in +England to more rational ideas of politics. Our safety lies, however, +not so much in the practical character of our people, as in their habits +of free and open discussion. What is called practicality is no safeguard +against delusive ideas outside one's own immediate field of activity, +and there is perhaps no country, except the still more practical country +of America, where more favour is shown than here to fanaticism of any +kind, if there seems to be heart in it. Besides, when we hear it said, +We have indeed an enormous proletariat, but they are too practical to +think of insurrection, we ought to reflect that, to the miserable, the +practical test of a scheme will not be, Shall we be any the better for +the change? but Shall we be any the worse for it? But under free +institutions grievances always come to be ventilated; ventilation leads +to more or less remedial measures, and discontent is removed altogether, +or, at any rate, appeased for the time; and although under free +institutions ill-considered schemes which inflate that discontent with +delusive hopes may raise for a season a boom of earnest discussion, the +discussion eventually kills them. So it seems to be with the fortunes of +revolutionary socialism in England to-day. It has been much discussed +for six years, but the height of the tide has been reached already, and +the movement is now apparently on the ebb.</p> + +<p>Besides these manifestations of revolutionary socialism, we have various +societies representing an amateur and appreciative interest in +socialism. There is the Christian Socialist Society, a small body of +less than 150 adherents, including many clergymen and other members of +the learned professions. They must not be confounded with the Christian +Socialists of forty years ago, Maurice, Kingsley, and their allies, for +the survivors of this earlier movement, such as Judge Thomas Hughes, Mr. +Vansittart Neale, and Mr. J. M. Ludlow, do not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> belong to the present +Christian Socialist Society, and would repudiate its principles. They +wanted to promote co-operation without State interference, and they take +a leading part in the co-operative movement still; but the Christian +Socialist Society of the present day is all for State interference, and +the articles of its organ, the <i>Christian Socialist</i>, strongly support +the doctrines of Karl Marx, and declare that "the command, 'Thou shalt +not steal,' if impartially applied, must absolutely prohibit the +capitalist, as such, from deriving any revenue whatever from the +labourer's toil." But with all their will to believe with the Marxists, +the latter are not sure of them, and the socialist organs, <i>Justice</i> and +<i>To-Day</i>, twit them one day for not being Christians, and the next for +not being socialists. They are not men of the same mark as the earlier +body of English Christian socialists, Canon Shuttleworth and Mr. Stewart +Headlam being the two best known of them. The Guild of St. Matthew, +which is composed to some extent of the same <i>personnel</i> as the +Christian Socialist Society, has published a compendium of Christian +socialism, and strives, among other branches of its activity, to +cultivate good relations between socialists and the Church.</p> + +<p>The Fabian Society, again, is a debating club of mixed socialism. It +contains socialists of all feathers—revolutionary socialists and +philosophical socialists, Christian socialists and un-Christian +socialists—who meet together under its auspices and exchange their +views, without having any recognised end beyond the discussion. They +intervened lately, however, in the eight hours day controversy, and +drafted a bill for a compulsory measure on the subject which attracted +some public attention. Among the principal members are Mr. Sidney Webb, +a well-known writer and lecturer on economic subjects, Mr. G. Bernard +Shaw, journalist, Mrs. Besant, and Mr. W. Clarke. They have published a +volume of Fabian Essays, which has had a large sale.</p> + +<p>No account of English socialism would be complete that made no mention +of the writings of Mr. Ruskin, which have probably done more than any +other single influence to imbue English minds with sentiments and +principles of a socialistic character. But they have produced nothing in +the nature of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> a school or party more than perhaps some detached local +group; such, for example, as the Sheffield Socialists, a small body +formed under Ruskinian inspiration, and the leadership of Mr. E. Carpenter.</p> + +<p>The outburst of socialist agitation in England in 1883 and 1884 was +immediately preceded by a revival of popular interest in an old and +favourite subject of English speculation, the nationalization of the +land. Mr. Henry George had published his "Progress and Poverty" in 1881, +and in the same year the Democratic Federation was established in London +with land nationalization for one of its principles, and Mr. A. R. +Wallace, the eminent naturalist, founded the Land Nationalization +Society. In 1882, Mr. Wallace contributed still further to awaken +discussion of the question by publishing his work on "Land +Nationalization," and the discussion was spread everywhere in 1883 by +the appearance of a sixpenny edition of Mr. George's remarkable work. +Land nationalization in the hands of Mr. Wallace has little in common +with any form of contemporary socialism. He does not contemplate any +interference with the present system of agricultural production; that is +still to be conducted by capitalists and hired labourers, as it is now. +He merely proposes to abolish what is called landlordism by the +compulsory conversion of the present tenant farmers into a body of +yeomanry or occupying owners, and his scheme differs from the more +ordinary proposals for the creation of peasant proprietors merely in two +points: 1st—which is a very good proposal—that he would leave part of +the price of the property to be paid in the form of a permanent annual +quitrent to the State; and 2nd—which is a more doubtful proposal—that +this part should represent, as nearly as it is possible now to calculate +it, the original value of the soil apart from improvements of any +kind—or, in other words, the unearned part of the present value of the +property—and that it should be subject to periodical revision, with a +view to recovering from the holder any further unearned increments of +value that may accrue to his holding from time to time. Mr. Wallace, +like Mr. George, has very utopian expectations from his scheme; but he +would honestly buy up the rights of the existing landlords, while Mr. +George would merely confiscate them by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>exceptional taxation. This +difference broke up the Land Nationalization Society in 1883, and the +partisans of Mr. George's view seceded and formed themselves into the +English Land Restoration League, which has established branches in most +of the larger towns, and has now probably a more numerous membership +than the original society. It is especially strong in Scotland, and ran +three candidates for Glasgow at the last general election; but the three +only got 2,222 votes between them, out of a total of 23,800 polled in +the three divisions they contested. The ideas of the League have a +certain vogue among the Highland crofters, where they blend very readily +with the universal peasant doctrines that the earth is the Lord's, and +that all other lords should be abolished.</p> + +<p>In Scotland there are a good many branches of the two regular socialist +organizations. The Scottish Emancipation League joined the Social +Democratic Federation, and the Scottish Land and Labour League joined +the Socialist League; but it is remarkable that there is no socialism in +Ireland, except in a small branch of the Socialist League in Dublin, +called the Dublin Socialist Club, although it seems a miracle for a +country seething for centuries with political and economic discontent to +escape such a visitation. Probably, as with the Poles, the minds of the +discontented are already too much pre-occupied with other political and +social solutions. The land nationalization views of Mr. George are, of +course, spread widely through the influence of Mr. Michael Davitt in the +agrarian movement of Ireland.</p> + +<p>But while the recent wave of socialism has passed over discontented +Ireland, and left it, like Gideon's fleece, quite dry, much more +susceptibility has been shown by those parts of the Empire where the lot +of labour is, perhaps in all the world, the happiest—the Australian +colonies. Here, too, the susceptibility has been created to some extent +by the land questions of the country. Mr. George, in his recent +lecturing tour through these colonies, met with a warm welcome in almost +all the towns he visited, made many converts to his ideas, and gave rise +to a considerable agitation. In South Australia three of his disciples +were returned to the Legislature in 1887, and their views are supported +by several newspapers in Adelaide.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> In a new colony the argument for +keeping the land in the hands of the State has in some respects more +point and force than in an old. Mr. George's disciples in Sydney publish +a paper called the <i>Land Nationalizer</i>, and his views are advocated by +one of the most influential papers in the colony, the <i>Bulletin</i> of +Sydney. In New Zealand a bill has actually been brought in for the +purpose of nationalizing the land. But apart from Mr. George altogether, +there is a flourishing Australian Socialist League in Sydney, +established in 1887, and with a membership of 7,000 in 1888. It has a +journal called the <i>Radical</i>, and keeps up a busy agitation with +lectures and discussions. As a method of temporary policy it promotes +associations of labourers for the purpose of undertaking Government and +municipal contracts. In Melbourne, again, people are more advanced. They +have no socialist organization, but they have an anarchist club, +established in 1886 for the purpose of aiding social reform on the lines +of liberty, equality, and fraternity. It circulates the works of +Proudhon, Tucker, the Boston anarchist, Bakunin, and Mr. Auberon +Herbert; and it publishes a newspaper called <i>Honesty</i>, which appeared +at first once a month, and latterly once in two months. The ideas of the +party are not easy to ascertain exactly from the pages of their journal. +The State is, of course, the enemy, and land monopoly is one of the +State's worst creations; but some of the writers advocate land +nationalization, while others propound a scheme of what they call +"constructive anarchy," under which every man is to own the land he +occupies. They have started a new form of co-operative store, a kind of +mutual production society, whose members bind themselves to produce for +one another, and exchange their products for the bare cost of +production; and they have started a co-operative home, in which the +members get better and cheaper accommodation through their combination. +Melbourne anarchism, however, has no harm in it: it is a mere spark of +eccentric speculation. The working class of Melbourne is probably the +most powerful and the best organized working class in the world. In +their Trades Hall they have had for thirty years a workmen's chamber of +their own creating like what German socialists are vainly asking from +the State, and much more effective, because more independent. They have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> +secured the eight hours day to fifty-two different trades without +receiving a finger's help from the law, and without losing a shilling of +wages. They have, moreover, the voting power in their own hands. In +fact, they are, as nearly as any working class can be, in the precise +condition socialists require for revolutionary action. They are entirely +dependent on a handful of capitalists for their employment, and they +have the whole power of the State substantially under their own control; +so that they might, if they chose, march to the Parliament House with a +red flag, and instal the socialist State to-morrow. But they do not +choose. They propose no change in the present industrial system, and +make surprisingly few demands of any sort upon the State. The world goes +very well with them as it is, and they will not risk the comforts they +really enjoy to try any sweeping and problematical solutions. While the +socialist movement, in the countries where it is most advanced and +powerful, seems settling into a practical labour movement, the labour +movement, in the countries where it is most advanced and powerful, is +steering furthest and clearest from socialism.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER III.</span> <span class="smaller">FERDINAND LASSALLE.</span></h2> + +<p>German socialism is—it is hardly too much to say—the creation of +Ferdinand Lassalle. Of course there were socialists in Germany before +Lassalle. There are socialists everywhere. A certain rudimentary +socialism is always in latent circulation in what may be called the +"natural heart" of society. The secret clubs of China—"the fraternal +leagues of heaven and earth"—who argue that the world is iniquitously +arranged, that the rich are too rich, and the poor too poor, and that +the wealth of the great has all accrued from the sweat of the masses, +only give a formal expression to ideas that are probably never far from +any one of us who have to work hard and earn little, and they merely +formulate them less systematically than Marx and his disciples do in +their theories of the exploitation of labour by capital. Socialism is +thus so much in the common air we all breathe, that there is force in +the view that the thing to account for is not so much the presence of +socialism, at any time, as its absence. Accordingly it had frequently +appeared in Germany under various forms before Lassalle. Fichte—to go +no farther back—had taught it from the standpoint of the speculative +philosopher and philanthropist. Schleiermacher, it may be remembered, +was brought up in a religious community that practised it. Weitling, +with some allies, preached it in a pithless and hazy way as a gospel to +the poor, and, finding little encouragement, went to America, to work it +out experimentally there. The Young Hegelians made it part of their +philosophic creed. The Silesian weavers, superseded by machinery, and +perishing for want of work, raised it as a wild inarticulate cry for +bread, and dignified it with the sanction of tears and blood. And Karl +Marx and Friedrich Engels, in 1848, summoned the proletariat of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +whole world to make it the aim and instrument of a universal revolution. +But it was Lassalle who first really brought it from the clouds and made +it a living historical force in the common politics of the day. The late +eminent Professor Lorenz von Stein, of Vienna, said, in 1842, in his +acute and thoughtful work on French Communism, that Germany, unlike +France, and particularly England, had nothing to fear from socialism, +because Germany had no proletariat to speak of. Yet, in twenty years, we +find Germany become suddenly the theatre of the most important and +formidable embodiment of socialism that has anywhere appeared. Important +and formidable, for two reasons: it founds its doctrines, as socialism +has never done before, on a thoroughly scientific investigation of the +facts, and criticism of the principles, of the present industrial +<i>régime</i>, and it seeks to carry them out by means of a political +organization, growing singularly in strength, and based on the class +interests of the great majority of the people.</p> + +<p>There were, of course, predisposing conditions for this outburst. A +German proletariat had come into being since Stein wrote, and though +still much smaller, in the aggregate, than the English, it was perhaps +really at this time the more plethoric and distressed of the two. For +the condition of the English working-classes had been greatly relieved +by emigration, by factory legislation, by trades unions, whereas in some +of these directions nothing at all, and in others only the faintest +beginnings, had as yet been effected in Germany. Then, the stir of big +political movement and anticipation was on men's minds. The future of +the German nation, its unity, its freedom, its development, were +practical questions of the hour. The nationality principle is +essentially democratic, and the aspirations for German unity carried +with them in every one of the States strong movements for the extension +of popular freedom and power. This long spasmodic battle for liberty in +Germany, which began with the century, and remains still unsettled, this +long series of revolts and concessions and overridings, and hopes +flattered and again deferred, this long uncertain babble of +<i>Gross-Deutsch</i> and <i>Klein-Deutsch</i>, and Centralist and Federalist and +Particularist, of "Gotha ideas" and "new eras" and "blood and iron,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +had prepared the public ear for bold political solutions, and has +entered from the first as an active and not unimportant factor in the +socialist agitation. Then again, the general political habits and +training of the people must be taken into account. Socialistic ideas +would find a readier vogue in Germany than in this country, because the +people are less rigidly practical, because they have been less used to +the sifting exercise of free discussion, and because they have always +seen the State doing a great deal for them which they could do better +for themselves, and are consequently apt to visit the State with blame +and claims for which it ought not to be made responsible. Then the +decline of religious belief in Germany, which the Church herself did +much to produce when she was rationalistic, without being able to undo +it since she has become orthodox, must certainly have impaired the +patience with which the poor endured the miseries of their lot, when +they still entertained the hope of exchanging it in a few short years +for a happier and an everlasting one hereafter.</p> + +<p>All these circumstances undoubtedly favoured the success of the +socialistic agitation at the period it started; but, when everything is +said, it is still doubtful whether German socialism would ever have come +into being but for Lassalle. Its fermenting principle has been less want +than positive ideas. This is shown by the fact that it was at first +received among the German working classes with an apathy that almost +disheartened Lassalle; and that it is now zealously propagated by them +as a cause, as an evangel, even after they have emigrated to America, +where their circumstances are comparatively comfortable. The ideas it +contains Lassalle found for the most part ready to his hand. The germs +of them may be discovered in the writings of Proudhon, in the projects +of Louis Blanc. Some of them he acknowledges he owes to Rodbertus, +others to Karl Marx, but it was in passing through his mind they first +acquired the stamp and ring that made them current coin. Contentions +about the priority of publishing this bit or that bit of an idea, +especially if the idea be false, need not concern us; and indeed +Lassalle makes no claim to originality in the economical field. He was +not so much an inventive as a critical thinker, and a critical thinker<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +of almost the first rank, with a dialectic power, and a clear, vivid +exposition that have seldom been excelled. Any originality that is +claimed for him lies in the region of interpretation of previous +thought, and that in the departments of metaphysics and jurisprudence, not of economics.</p> + +<p>The peculiarity of his mind was that it hungered with almost equal +intensity for profound study and for exciting action, and that he had +the gifts as well as the impulses for both. As he said of Heraclitus the +Dark, whom he spent some of his best years in expounding, "there was +storm in his nature." Heine, who knew and loved him well as a young man +in Paris, and indeed found his society so delightful during his last +years of haggard suffering, that he said, "No one has ever done so much +for me, and when I receive letters from you, courage rises in me, and I +feel better,"—Heine characterizes him very truly in a letter to +Varnhagen von Ense. He says he was struck with astonishment at the +combination of qualities Lassalle displayed—the union of so much +intellectual power, deep learning, rich exposition on the one hand, with +so much energy of will and capacity for action on the other. With all +this admiration, however, he seems unable to regard him without +misgiving, for his audacious confidence, checked by no thought of +renunciation or tremor of modesty, amazed him as much as his ability. In +this respect he says Lassalle is a genuine son of the modern time, to +which Varnhagen and himself had acted in a way as the midwives, but on +which they could only look like the hen that hatched duck's eggs and +shuddered to see how her brood took to the water and swam about +delighted. Heine here puts his finger on the secret of his young +friend's failure. Lassalle would have been a great man if he had more of +the ordinary restraining perceptions, but he had neither fear nor awe, +nor even—in spite of his vein of satire—a wholesome sense of the +ridiculous,—in this last respect resembling, if we believe Carlyle, all +Jews. Chivalrous, susceptible, with a genuine feeling for the poor man's +case, and a genuine enthusiasm for social reform, a warm friend, a +vindictive enemy, full of ambition both of the nobler and the more +vulgar type, beset with an importunate vanity and given to primitive +lusts; generous qualities and churlish throve and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> strove in him side by +side, and governed or misgoverned a will to which opposition was almost +a native and necessary element, and which yet—or perhaps rather, +therefore—brooked no check. "Ferdinand Lassalle, thinker and fighter," +is the simple epitaph Professor Boeckh put on his tomb. Thinking and +fighting were the craving of his nature; thinking and fighting were the +warp and woof of his actual career, mingled indeed with threads of more +spurious fibre. The philosophical thinker and the political agitator are +parts rarely combined in one person, but to these Lassalle added yet a +third, which seems to agree with neither. He was a fashionable dandy, +noted for his dress, for his dinners, and, it must be added, for his +addiction to pleasure—a man apparently with little of that solidarity +in his own being which he sought to introduce into society at large, and +yet his public career possesses an undoubted unity. It is a mistake to +represent him, as Mr. L. Montefiore has done, as a <i>savan</i> who turned +politician as if by accident and against his will, for the stir of +politics was as essential to him as the absorption of study. It is a +greater mistake, though a more common one, to represent him as having +become a revolutionary agitator because no other political career was +open to him. He felt himself, it is said, like a Cæsar out of employ, +disqualified for all legitimate politics by his previous life, and he +determined, if he could not bend the gods, that he would move Acheron. +But so early as 1848, when yet but a lad of twenty-three, he was tried +for sedition, and he then declared boldly in his defence that he was a +socialist democrat, and that he was "revolutionary on principle." This +he remained throughout. He laughs at those who cannot hear the word +revolution without a shudder. "Revolution," he says, "means merely +transformation, and is accomplished when an entirely new principle +is—either with force or without it—put in the place of an existing +state of things. Reform, on the other hand, is when the principle of the +existing state of things is continued, and only developed to more +logical or just consequences. The means do not signify. A reform may be +carried out by bloodshed, and a revolution in the profoundest +tranquillity. The Peasants' War was an attempt to introduce reform by +arms, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>invention of the spinning-jenny wrought a peaceful +revolution." In this sense he was "revolutionary on principle." His +thought was revolutionary, and it was the lessons he learnt as a +philosopher that he applied and pled for an agitator. His thinking and +his fighting belonged together like powder and shot. His Hegelianism, +which he adopted as a youth at college, is from first to last the +continuous source both of impetus and direction over his public career. +Young Germany was Hegelian and revolutionary at the time he went to the +University (1842), and with the impressionable Lassalle, then a youth of +seventeen, Hegelianism became a passion. He wrote articles on it in +University magazines, preached it right and left in the <i>cafés</i> and +taverns, and resolved to make philosophy his profession and establish +himself as a <i>privat Docent</i> at Berlin University. It was the first +sovereign intellectual influence he came under, and it ruled his spirit +to the end. In adopting it, his intellectual manhood may be said to have +opened with a revolution, for his family were strict Jews, and he was +brought up in their religion.</p> + +<p>Lassalle was born in 1825 at Breslau, where his father was a wholesale +dealer. He was educated at the Universities of Breslau and Berlin, and +at the latter city saw, through the Mendelssohns, a good deal of the +best literary society there, and made the acquaintance, among others, of +Alexander von Humboldt, who used to call him a <i>Wunderkind</i>. On +finishing his curriculum, he went for a time to Paris, and formed there +a close friendship with H. Heine, who was an old acquaintance of his +family. He meant to qualify himself as <i>privat Docent</i> when he returned, +but was diverted from his purpose by the task of redressing a woman's +wrongs, into which he flew with the romantic enterprise of a +knight-errant, and which he carried, through years of patient and +zealous labour, to a successful issue. The Countess Hatzfeldt had been +married when a girl of sixteen to a cousin of her own, one of the great +nobles of Germany; but the marriage turned out most unhappily after a +few years, and she was obliged, on account of the maltreatment she +suffered, to live apart from her husband. His persecution followed her +into her separation. He took child after child from her, and was now +seeking to take the last she had left, her youngest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> son. He allowed her +very scanty and irregular support, while he lavished his money on +mistresses, and was, at this very moment, settling on one of them an +annuity of £1,000. This state of things had continued for twenty years, +and the Countess's own relations had, for family reasons, always +declined to take up her case. Lassalle, who had made her acquaintance in +Berlin, was profoundly touched by her story, and felt that she was +suffering an intolerable wrong, which society permitted only because she +was a woman, and her husband a lord. Though not a lawyer, he resolved to +undertake her case, and after carrying the suit before thirty-six +different courts, during a period of eight years, he at length procured +for her a divorce in 1851, and a princely fortune in 1854, from which +she rewarded him with a considerable annuity for his exertions. +Lassalle's connection with this case not unnaturally gave rise to +sinister construction. It was supposed he must have been in love with +the Countess, and wanted to marry her, but this was disproved by the +event. Darker insinuations were made, but had there been truth in them, +it could not have escaped the spies the Count sent to watch him, and the +servants the Count bribed to inform on him. Chivalry, vanity, and +temerity at the season of life when all three qualities are at their +height, account sufficiently for his whole conduct, and I see no reason +to doubt the explanation he himself gives of it. "Her family," he +states, "were silent, but it is said when men keep silence the stones +will speak. When every human right is violated, when even the voice of +blood is mute, and helpless man is forsaken by his born protectors, +there then rises with right man's first and last relation—man. You have +all read with emotion the monstrous history of the unhappy Duchess of +Praslin. Who is there among you that would not have gone to the death to +defend her? Well, gentlemen, I said to myself, here is Praslin ten times +over. What is the sharp death-agony of an hour compared with the pangs +of death protracted over twenty years? What are the wounds a knife +inflicts compared with the slow murder dispensed with refined cruelty +throughout a being's whole existence? What are they compared with the +immense woe of this woman, every right of whose life has been trampled +under foot, day after day,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> for twenty years, and whom they have first +tried to cover with contempt, that they might then the more securely +overwhelm her with punishment?... The difficulties, the sacrifices, the +dangers did not deter me. I determined to meet false appearances with +the truth, to meet rank with right, to meet the power of money with the +power of mind. But if I had known what infamous calumnies I should have +to encounter, how people turned the purest motives into their +contraries, and what ready credence they gave to the most wretched +lies—well, I hope my purpose would not have been changed, but it would +have cost me a severe and bitter struggle." There seems almost something +unmodern in the whole circumstances of this case, both in the oppression +the victim endured, and in the manner of her rescue.</p> + +<p>In the course of this suit occurred the robbery of Baroness von +Meyerdorff's <i>cassette</i>, on which so much has been said. The Baroness +was the person already mentioned on whom Count Hatzfeldt bestowed the +annuity of £1,000. The Countess, on hearing of this settlement, went +straight to her husband, accompanied by a clergyman, and insisted upon +him cancelling it, in justice to his youngest son, whom it would have +impoverished. The Count at first promised to do so, but after her +departure, refused, and the Baroness set out for Aix to get her bond +effectually secured. Lassalle suspected the object of her journey, and +said to the Countess, in the presence of two young friends, Could we not +obtain possession of this bond? No sooner said than done. The two young +men started for Cologne, and one of them stole the Baroness's +<i>cassette</i>, containing the veritable deed, in her hotel, and gave it to +the other. They and Lassalle were all three successively tried for their +part in this crime. Oppenheim, who actually stole the <i>cassette</i>, was +acquitted; Mendelssohn, who only received it, was sent to prison; and +Lassalle, who certainly suggested the deed, was found guilty by the +jury, but acquitted by the judges. Moral complicity of some sort was +clear, but it did not amount to a legal crime. Our interest with the +transaction is merely to discover the light it reflects on the character +of the man. It was a rash, foolish, and lawless freak, but of course the +ordinary motives of the robber were absent. The theft of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +<i>cassette</i>, however, was a transaction which his enemies never suffered +to be forgotten.</p> + +<p>The theft of the <i>cassette</i> occurred in 1846; Lassalle was tried for it +in 1848, and was no sooner released than he fell into the hands of +justice on a much more serious charge. The dissolution of the first +Prussian National Assembly in 1848, and the gift of a Constitution by +direct royal decree, had excited bitter disappointment and opposition +over the whole country. There was a general agitation for combining to +stop supplies by refusing to pay taxes, in order thus "to meet force +with force," and this agitation was particularly active in the Rhine +provinces, where democratic views had found much favour. Lassalle even +planned an insurrection, and urged the citizens of Dusseldorf to armed +resistance; but the Prussian Government promptly intervened, placed the +town under a state of siege, and threw Lassalle into jail. He was tried +in 1849 for treason, and acquitted by the jury, but was immediately +afterwards brought before a correctional tribunal on the minor charge of +resisting officers of the police, and sent to prison for six months. It +was in his speech at the former of these trials that he declared himself +a partisan of the Socialist Democratic Republic, and claimed for every +citizen the right and duty of active resistance to the State when +necessary. He had nothing but scorn to pour on the passive resistance +policy of the Parliament. "Passive resistance is a contradiction in +itself. It is like Lichtenberg's knife, without blade, and without +handle, or like the fleece which one must wash without wetting. It is +mere inward ill-will without the outward deed. The Crown confiscates the +people's freedom; and the Prussian National Assembly, for the people's +protection, declares ill-will; it would be unintelligible how the +commonest logic should have allowed a legislative assembly to cover +itself with such incomparable ridicule if it were not too intelligible." +These are bold words. He felt himself standing on a principle and +representing a cause; and so he went into prison, he tells us, with as +light a heart as he would have gone to a ball; and when he heard that +his sister had petitioned for his pardon, he wrote instantly and +publicly disclaimed her letter.</p> + +<p>All these trials had brought Lassalle into considerable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> notoriety, not +unmingled with a due recognition of his undoubted <i>verve</i>, eloquence, +and brilliancy. One effect of them was that he was forbidden to come to +Berlin. This prohibition was founded, of course, on his seditious work +at Dusseldorf, but is believed to have been instigated and kept up by +the influence of the Hatzfeldt family. Lassalle felt it a sore +privation, for his ambitions and hopes all centred in Berlin. After +various ineffectual attempts to obtain permission, he arrived in the +capital one day in 1857 disguised as a waggoner, and through the +personal intercession of Alexander von Humboldt with the king, was at +length suffered to remain. His "Heraclitus" had just appeared, and at +once secured him a position in literary circles. One of his first +productions after his return to Berlin was a pamphlet on "The Italian +War and the Mission of Prussia; a Voice from the Democracy," which shows +that his political prosecutions had not soured him against Prussia. His +argument is that freedom and democracy must in Germany, as in Italy, be +first preceded by unity, and that the only power capable of giving unity +to Germany was Prussia, as to Italy, Piedmont. He had more of the +political mind than most revolutionaries and doctrinaires, and knew that +the better might be made the enemy of the good, and that ideals could +only be carried out gradually, and by temporary compromises. He was +monarchical for the present, therefore, no doubt because he thought the +monarchy to be for the time the best and shortest road to the democratic +republic. His friend Rodbertus said there was an esoteric and an +exoteric Lassalle. That may be said of all politicians. Compromise is of +the essence of their work.</p> + +<p>During the next few years Lassalle's literary activity was considerable. +Besides a tragedy of no merit ("Franz von Sickingen," 1859) and various +pamphlets or lectures on Fichte, on Lessing, on the Constitution, on +Might and Right, he published in 1861 the most important work he has +left us, his "System of Acquired Rights," and in 1862 a satirical +commentary on Julian Schmidt's "History of German Literature," which +excited much attention and amusement at the time. His "System of +Acquired Rights" already contains the germs of his socialist views, and +his pamphlet on the Constitution,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> which appeared when the "new era" +ended and the era of Bismarck began, is written to disparage the +Constitutionalism of modern Liberals. A paper constitution was a thing +of no consequence; it was merely declarative, not creative; the thing of +real account was the distribution of power as it existed in actual fact. +The king and army were powers, the court and nobility were powers, the +populace was a power. Society was governed by the relative strength of +these powers, as it existed in reality and not by the paper constitution +that merely chronicled it. Right is regarded as merely declarative of +might. It is thus easy to see why he should have more sympathy with the +policy of Bismarck than with the Liberals; and later in the same year he +expounded his own political position very completely in a lecture he +delivered to a Working Men's Society in Berlin, on "The Connection +between the Present Epoch of History and the Idea of the Working Class." +This lecture, to which I shall again revert, was an epoch in his own +career. It led to a second Government prosecution, and a second +imprisonment for political reasons; and it and the prosecution together +led to his receiving an invitation to address a General Working Men's +Congress at Leipzig, in February, 1863, to which he responded by a +letter, sketching the political programme of the working class, which +was certainly the first step in the socialist movement.</p> + +<p>Attention was already being engaged on the work of industrial +amelioration. The Progressist party, then including the present National +Liberals, had, under the lead of Schultze-Delitzsch, been promoting +trades unions and co-operation in an experimental way, and the working +classes themselves were beginning to think of taking more concerted +action for their own improvement. The Leipzig Congress was projected by +a circle of working men, who considered the Schultze-Delitzsch schemes +inadequate to meet the case. This was exactly Lassalle's view. He begins +his letter by telling the working men that if all they wanted was to +mitigate some of the positive evils of their lot, then the +Schultze-Delitzsch unions, savings banks, and sick funds were quite +sufficient, and there was no need of thinking of anything more. But if +their aim was to elevate the <i>normal</i> condition of their class,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> then +more drastic remedies were requisite; and, in the first instance, a +political agitation was indispensable. The Leipzig working men had +discussed the question of their relation to politics at a previous +congress a few months before, and had been divided between abstaining +from politics altogether, and supporting the Progressist party. Lassalle +disapproved of both these courses. They could never achieve the +elevation they desired till they got universal suffrage, and they would +never get universal suffrage by backing the Progressists who were +opposed to it. He then explains to them how their normal condition is +permanently depressed at present by the essential laws of the existing +economic <i>régime</i>, especially by "the iron and cruel law of necessary +wages." The only real cure was co-operative production, the substitution +of associated labour for wage labour; for it was only so the operation +of this tyrannical law of wages could be escaped. Now co-operative +production, to be of any effective extent, must be introduced by State +help and on State credit. The State gave advances to start railways, to +develop agriculture, to promote manufactures, and nobody called it +socialism to do so. Why, then, should people cry socialism if the State +did a similar service to the great working class, who were, in fact, not +a class, but the State itself. 96½ per cent. of the population were +ground down by "the iron law," and could not possibly lift themselves +above it by their own power. They must ask the State to help them, for +they were themselves the State, and the help of the State was no more a +superseding of their own self-help than reaching a man a ladder +superseded his own climbing. State help was but self-help's means. Now +these State advances could not be expected till the working class +acquired political power by universal suffrage. Their first duty was +therefore to organize themselves and agitate for universal suffrage; for +universal suffrage was a question of the stomach.</p> + +<p>The reception his letter met with at first was most discouraging. The +newspapers with one consent condemned it, except a Feudalist organ here +and there who saw in it an instrument for damaging the Liberals. What +seemed more ominous was the opposition of the working men themselves. +The Leipzig Committee to whom it was addressed did indeed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> approve of +it, and individual voices were raised in its favour elsewhere, but in +Berlin the working men's clubs rejected it with decided warmth, and all +over the country one working men's club after another declared against +it. Leipzig was the only place in which his words seemed to find any +echo, and he went there two months later and addressed a meeting at +which only 7 out of 1,300 voted against him. With this encouragement he +resolved to go forward, and founded, on the 23rd of May, 1863, the +General Working Men's Association for the promotion of universal +suffrage by peaceful agitation, after the model of the English Anti-Corn +Law League. He immediately threw himself with unsparing energy into the +development of this organization. He passed from place to place, +delivering speeches, establishing branches; he started newspapers, wrote +pamphlets, and even larger works, published tracts by Rodbertus, songs +by Herwegh, romances by Von Schweitzer. But it was uphill work. South +Germany was evidently dead to his ideas, and even among those who +followed him in the North there were but few who really understood his +doctrines or concurred in his methods. Some were for more "heroic" +procedure, for raising fighting corps to free Poland, to free +Schleswig-Holstein, to free oppressed nationalities anywhere. Many were +perfectly impracticable persons who knew neither why exactly they had +come together, nor where exactly they would like to go. There were +constant quarrels and rivalries and jealousies among them, and he is +said to have shown remarkable tact and patience, and a genuine governing +faculty in dealing with them. Lassalle's hope was to obtain a membership +of 100,000: with a smaller number nothing could be done, but with +100,000 the movement would be a power. In August, 1863, he had only +enrolled 1,000 after three months' energetic labour, which, he said, +"would have produced colossal results among a people like the French." +He was intensely disappointed, and asked, "When will this foolish people +cast aside their lethargy?" but meanwhile repelled the suggestion of the +secretary of the organization that it should be at once dissolved. In +August, 1864, another year's strenuous work had raised their numbers +only to 4,610, and Lassalle was completely disenchanted, and wrote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +Countess Hatzfeldt from Switzerland, shortly before his death, that he +was continuing President of the Association much against his will, for +he was now tired of politics, which was mere child's play if one had not +power. He seems to have been convinced that the movement was a failure, +and would never become a force in the State. Yet he was wrong; his words +had really taken fire among the working classes, and kindled a movement +which, in its curious history, has shown the remarkable power of +spreading faster with the checks it encounters. It seems to have +profited, not merely from political measures of repression, but even +from the internal dissensions and divisions of its own adherents, and +some persons tell us that it was first stimulated into decided vigour by +the fatal event which might have been expected to crush it—the sudden +and tragical death of its chief.</p> + +<p>In the end of July, 1864, Lassalle went to Switzerland ostensibly for +the Righi whey cure, but really to make the acquaintance of Herr von +Dönnigsen, Bavarian Envoy at Berne, whose daughter he had known in +Berlin, and wished to obtain in marriage. It is one of the fatalities +that entangled this man's life in strange contradictions, that exactly +he, a <i>persona ingratissima</i> to Court circles, their very arch-enemy, as +they believed, should have become bound by deep mutual attachment with +the daughter of exactly a German diplomatist, the courtliest of the +courtly, a Conservative seven times refined. They certainly cherished +for one another a sincere, and latterly a passionate affection, and they +seem to have been well fitted for each other. Helena von Dönnigsen was a +bright, keen-witted, eccentric, adventurous young woman of twenty-five, +and so like Lassalle, even in appearance, that when she was acting a +man's part, years afterwards (in 1874), in some amateur performance in +the theatre of Breslau, Lassalle's native town, many of the audience +said, here was Lassalle again as he was when a boy. Learning from a +common friend in Berlin that Lassalle was at the Righi, she made a visit +to some friends in Berne, and soon after accompanied them on an +excursion to that "popular" mountain. She inquired for Lassalle at the +hotel, and he joined the party to the summit. She knew her parents would +be opposed to the match, but felt certain that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> her lover, with his +gifts and charms, would be able to win them over, and it was accordingly +agreed that when she returned to Geneva, Lassalle should go there too, +and press his suit in person. The parents, however, were inexorable, and +refused to see him; and the young lady in despair fled from her father's +house to her lover's lodging, and urged him to elope with her. Lassalle +calmly led her back to her father's roof, with a control which some +writers think quite inexplicable in him, but which was probably due to +his still believing that he would be able to talk the parents round if +he got the chance, and to his desire to try constitutional means before +resorting to revolutionary. Helena was locked in her room for days alone +with her excited brain and panting heart. For days, father, mother, +sister, brother, all came and laid before her what ruin she was bringing +on the family for a mere selfish whim of her own. If she married a man +so objectionable to people in power, her father would be obliged to +resign his post, her brother could never look for one, and her sister, +who had just been engaged to a Count, would, of course, have to give up +her engagement. She was in despair, but ultimately submitted passively +to write to Lassalle, desiring him to consider the matter ended, and +submitted equally passively (for she informs us herself) to accept the +hand of Herr von Racowitza, a young Wallachian Boyar, whom she had +indeed been previously engaged to, and sincerely liked and respected, +without in the eminent sense loving him. Lassalle had meanwhile wrought +himself into a fury of excitement. Enraged by her parents' opposition, +enraged still more by their refusal even to treat with him, enraged +above all by his belief that their daughter was being illegitimately +constrained, he wrote here, wrote there, tried to get the foreign +minister at Munich to interfere, to get Bishop Ketteler to use his +influence, promised even to turn Catholic to please the Dönnigsens, +forgetting that they were Protestants. All in vain. At last two of his +friends waited by appointment on Herr von Dönnigsen, and heard from +Helena's own lips that she was to be married to the Boyar, and wished +the subject no more mentioned. She now tells us that she did this in +sheer weariness of mind, and with a confused hope that somehow or other +the present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> storm would blow past, and she might have her Lassalle +after all. Lassalle, however, was overcome with chagrin; and though he +always held that a democrat should not fight duels, and had got +Robespierre's stick, which he usually carried, as a present for having +declined one, he now sent a challenge both to the father and the +bridegroom. The latter accepted. The duel was fought. Lassalle was +fatally wounded, and died two days after, on the 31st August, 1864, at +the age of 39. Helena married Herr von Racowitza shortly afterwards, but +he was already seized with consumption, and she says she found great +comfort, after the tumult and excitement of the Lassalle episode, in +nursing him during the few months he lived after their marriage.</p> + +<p>The body was sent back to Germany, after funeral orations from +revolutionists of all countries and colours, and the Countess Hatzfeldt +had made arrangements for similar funeral celebrations at every halting +place along the route to Berlin, where she meant it to be buried, but at +Cologne it was intercepted by the police on behalf of the Lassalle +family, and carried quietly to Breslau, where, after life's fitful +fever, he was laid silently with his fathers in the Jewish +burying-ground of his native place. Fate, however, had not even yet done +with him. It followed him beyond the tomb to throw one more element of +the bizarre into his strangely compounded history. Lest the death of the +leader should prove fatal to the cause, the Committee of the General +Working Men's Association determined to turn it, if possible, into a +source of strength, as B. Becker, his successor in the president's +chair, informs us, "by carrying it into the domain of faith." Lassalle +was not dead, but only translated to a higher and surer leadership. A +Lassalle <i>cultus</i> was instituted, and Becker says that many a German +working man believed that he died for them, and that he was yet to come +again to save them. This singular apotheosis, which is neither +creditable to the honesty of the leaders of the socialist movement, nor +to the intelligence of its rank and file, was kept up by periodical +celebrations among those of the German socialists who are generally +known as the orthodox Lassalleans, down, at least, to the time of the +Anti-Socialist Law of 1878.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p><p>Lassalle's doctrines are mainly contained in his lecture on "The +Present Age and the Idea of the Working Class," which he delivered in +1862, and published in 1863, under the title of the "Working Men's +Programme," and in his "Herr Bastiat-Schultze von Delitzsch, der +Oekonomische Julian; oder Capital und Arbeit," Berlin, 1864.</p> + +<p>In the "Working Men's Programme," the question of the emancipation of +the working class is approached and contemplated from the standpoint of +the Hegelian philosophy of history. There are, it declares, three +successive stages of evolution in modern history. First, the period +before 1789, the feudal period, when all public power was vested in, +exercised by, and employed for the benefit of, the landed class. It was +a period of privileges and exemptions, which were enjoyed by the landed +interests exclusively, and there prevailed a strong social contempt for +all labour and employment not connected with the land. Second, the +period 1789-1848, the <i>bourgeois</i> period, in which personal estate +received equal rights and recognition with real, but in which political +power was still based on property qualifications, and legislation was +governed by the interests of the <i>bourgeoisie</i>. Third, the period since +1848, the age of the working class, which is, however, only yet +struggling to the birth and to legal recognition. The characteristic of +this new period is, that it will for the first time give labour its +rights, and that it will be dominated by the ideas, aspirations, and +interests of the great labouring class. Their time has already come, and +the <i>bourgeois</i> age is already past in fact, though it still lingers in +law. It is always so. The feudal period had in reality come to an end +before the Revolution. A revolution is always declarative and never +creative. It takes place first in the heart of society, and is only +sealed and ratified by the outbreak. "It is impossible to make a +revolution, it is possible only to give external legal sanction and +effect to a revolution already contained in the actual circumstances of +society.... To seek to make a revolution is the folly of immature men +who have no consideration for the laws of history; and for the same +reason it is immature and puerile to try to stem a revolution that has +already completed itself in the interior of society. If a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>revolution +exists in fact, it cannot possibly be prevented from ultimately existing +in law." It is idle, too, to reproach those who desire to effect this +transition with being revolutionary. They are merely midwives who assist +in bringing to the birth a future with which society is already +pregnant. Now, it is this midwife service that Lassalle believed the +working class at present required. He says of the fourth estate what +Sieyès said of the third, What is the fourth estate? Nothing? What ought +the fourth estate to be? Everything. And it ought to be so in law, +because it is so already in fact. The <i>bourgeoisie</i>, in overthrowing the +privileges of the feudal class, had almost immediately become a +privileged class itself. At so early a period of the revolution as the +3rd of September, 1791, a distinction was introduced between active and +passive citizens. The active citizen was the citizen who paid direct +taxes, and had therefore a right to vote; the passive citizen was he who +paid no direct taxes, and had no right to vote. The effect of this +distinction was to exclude the whole labouring classes from the +franchise; and under the July Monarchy, while the real nation consisted +of some thirty millions, the legal nation (<i>pays légal</i>), the people +legally possessed of political rights, amounted to no more than 200,000, +whom the Government found it only too easy to manage and corrupt. The +revolution of 1848 was simply a revolt against this injustice. It was a +revolt of the fourth estate against the privileges of the third, as the +first revolution was a revolt of the third against the privileges of the +other two. Nor were the privileges which the <i>bourgeoisie</i> had contrived +to acquire confined to political rights alone; they included also fiscal +exemptions. According to the latest statistical returns, it appeared +that five-sixths of the revenue of Prussia came from indirect taxation, +and indirect taxes were always taken disproportionately out of the +pockets of the working class. A man might be twenty times richer than +another, but he did not therefore consume twenty times the amount of +bread, salt, or beer. Taxation ought to be in ratio of means, and +indirect taxation—so much favoured by the <i>bourgeoisie</i>—was simply an +expedient for saving the rich at the expense of the poor.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p><p>Now, the revolution of 1848 was a fight for the emancipation of the +working class from this unequal distribution of political rights and +burdens. The working class was really not a class at all, but was the +nation; and the aim of the State should be their amelioration. "What is +the State?" asks Lassalle. "You are the State," he replies. "You are +ninety-six per cent. of the population. All political power ought to be +of you, and through you, and for you; and your good and amelioration +ought to be the aim of the State. It ought to be so, because your good +is not a class interest, but is the national interest." The fourth +estate differs from the feudal interest, and differs from the +<i>bourgeoisie</i>, not merely in that it is not a privileged class, but in +that it cannot possibly become one. It cannot degenerate, as the +<i>bourgeoisie</i> had done, into a privileged and exclusive caste; because, +consisting as it does of the great body of the people, its class +interest and the common good are identical, or at least harmonious. +"Your affair is the affair of mankind; your personal interest moves and +beats with the pulse of history, with the living principle of moral development."</p> + +<p>Such then is the idea of the working class, which is, or is destined to +be, the ruling principle of society in the present era of the world. Its +supremacy will have important consequences, both ethical and political. +Ethically, the working class is less selfish than the classes above it, +simply because it has no exclusive privileges to maintain. The necessity +of maintaining privileges always develops an assertion of personal +interest in exact proportion to the amount of privilege to be defended, +and that is why the selfishness of a class constantly exceeds the +individual selfishness of the members that compose it. Now under the +happier <i>régime</i> of the idea of labour, there would be no exclusive +interests or privileges, and therefore less selfishness. Adam would +delve and Eve would spin, and, consciously or unconsciously, each would +work more for the whole, and the whole would work more for each. +Politically, too, the change would be remarkable and beneficial. The +working class has a quite different idea of the State and its aim from +the <i>bourgeoisie</i>. The latter see no other use in the State but to +protect personal freedom and property. The State is a mere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +night-watchman, and, if there were no thieves and robbers, would be a +superfluity; its occupation would be gone. Its whole duty is exhausted +when it guarantees to every individual the unimpeded exercise of his +activity as far as consistent with the like right of his neighbours. +Even from its own point of view this <i>bourgeois</i> theory of the State +fails to effect its purpose. Instead of securing equality of freedom, it +only secures equality of right to freedom. If all men were equal in +fact, this might answer well enough, but since they are not, the result +is simply to place the weak at the mercy of the powerful. Now the +working class have an entirely different view of the State's mission +from this. They say the protection of an equality of right to freedom is +an insufficient aim for the State in a morally ordered community. It +ought to be supplemented by the securing of solidarity of interests and +community and reciprocity of development. History all along is an +incessant struggle with Nature, a victory over misery, ignorance, +poverty, powerlessness—<i>i.e.</i>, over unfreedom, thraldom, restrictions +of all kinds. The perpetual conquest over these restrictions is the +development of freedom, is the growth of culture. Now this is never +effected by each man for himself. It is the function of the State to do +it. The State is the union of individuals into a moral whole which +multiplies a millionfold the aggregate of the powers of each. The end +and function of the State is not merely to guard freedom, but to develop +it; to put the individuals who compose it in a position to attain and +maintain such objects, such levels of existence, such stages of culture, +power, and freedom, as they would have been incapable of reaching by +their own individual efforts alone. The State is the great agency for +guiding and training the human race to positive and progressive +development; in other words, for bringing human destiny (<i>i.e.</i>, the +culture of which man as man is susceptible) to real shape and form in +actual existence. Not freedom, but development is now the keynote. The +State must take a positive part, proportioned to its immense capacity, +in the great work which, as he has said, constitutes history, and must +forward man's progressive conquest over misery, ignorance, poverty, and +restrictions of every sort. This is the purpose, the essence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> the moral +nature of the State, which she can never entirely abrogate, without +ceasing to be, and which she has indeed always been obliged, by the very +force of things, more or less to fulfil, often without her conscious +consent, and sometimes in spite of the opposition of her leaders. In a +word, the State must, by the union of all, help each to his full +development. This was the earnest and noble idea of 1848. It is the idea +of the new age, the age of labour, and it cannot fail to have a most +important and beneficial bearing on the course of politics and +legislation whenever it is permitted to have free operation in that +sphere by means of universal and direct suffrage.</p> + +<p>This exposition of Lassalle's teaching in his "Working Men's Programme" +already furnishes us with the transition to his economic views. Every +age of the world, he held, has its own ruling idea. The idea of the +working class is the ruling idea of the new epoch we have now entered +on, and that idea implies that every man is entitled to a +<i>menschenwürdiges Dasein</i>, to an existence worthy of his moral destiny, +and that the State is bound to make this a governing consideration in +its legislative and executive work. Man's destiny is to progressive +civilization, and a condition of society which makes progressive +civilization the exclusive property of the few, and practically debars +the vast mass of the people from participation in it, stands in the +present age self-condemned. It no longer corresponds to its own idea. +Society has long since declared no man shall be enslaved; society has +more recently declared no man shall be ignorant; society now declares no +man shall be without property. He cannot be really free without property +any more than he can be really free without knowledge. He has been +released successively from a state of legal dependence and from a state +of intellectual dependence; he must now be released from a state of +economic dependence. This is his final emancipation, which is necessary +to enable him to reap any fruits from the other two, and it cannot take +place without a complete transformation of present industrial +arrangements. It is a common mistake, he said, to think that socialists +take their stand on equality. They really take their stand on freedom. +They argue that the positive side of freedom is development, and if +every man has a right to freedom, then every man has a right<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> to the +possibility of development. From this right, however, they allege the +existing industrial system absolutely excludes the great majority. The +freeman cannot realize his freedom, the individual cannot realize his +individuality, without a certain external economic basis of work and +enjoyment, and the best way to furnish him with this is to clothe him in +various ways with collective property.</p> + +<p>Lassalle's argument, however, is still more specific than this. In the +beginning of his "Herr Bastiat-Schultze," he quotes a passage from his +previous work on "The System of Acquired Rights," which he informs us he +had intended to expand into a systematic treatise on "The Principles of +Scientific National Economy." This intention he was actually preparing +to fulfil when the Leipzig invitation and letter diverted him at once +into practical agitation. He regrets that circumstances had thus not +permitted the practical agitation to be preceded by the theoretical +codex which should be the basis for it, but adds that the substance of +his theory is contained in this polemic against Schultze-Delitzsch, +though the form of its exposition is considerably modified by his plan +of following the ideas of Schultze's "Working Men's Catechism," and by +his purpose of answering Schultze's misplaced taunt of "half knowledge" +by trying to extinguish the economic pretensions of the latter as +completely as he had done the literary pretensions of Julian Schmidt. +"Every line I write," says Lassalle, with a characteristic finality of +self-confidence, "I write armed with the whole culture of my century"; +and at any rate Schultze-Delitzsch was far his inferior in economic as +in other knowledge. In the passage to which I have referred, Lassalle +says, "The world is now face to face with a new social question, the +question whether, since there is no longer any property in the immediate +use of another man, there should still exist property in his mediate +exploitation—<i>i.e.</i>, whether the free realization and development of +one's power and labour should be the exclusive private property of the +owner of the instruments and advances necessary for labour—<i>i.e.</i>, of +capital; and whether the employer as such, and apart from the +remuneration of his own intellectual labour of management, should be +permitted to have property in the value of other people's +labour—<i>i.e.</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> whether he ought to receive what is known as the +premium or profit of capital, consisting of the difference between the +selling price of the product and the sum of the wages and salaries of +all kinds of labour, manual and mental, that have contributed to its production."</p> + +<p>His standing-point here, again, as always, belongs to the philosophy of +history—to the idea of historical evolution with which his Hegelianism +had early penetrated him. The course of legal history has been one of +gradual but steady contraction of the sphere of private property in the +interests of personal freedom and development. The ancient system of +slavery, under which the labourer was the absolute and complete property +of his master, was followed by the feudal system of servitudes, under +which he was still only partially proprietor of himself, but was bound +by law to a particular lord by one or more of a most manifold series of +specific services. These systems have been successively abolished. There +is no longer property in man or in the use of man. No man can now be +either inherited or sold in whole or in part. He is his own, and his +power of labour is his own. But he is still far from being in full +possession of himself or of his labour. He cannot work without materials +to work on and instruments to work with, and for these the modern +labourer is more dependent than ever labourer was before on the private +owners in whose hands they have accumulated. And the consequence is that +under existing industrial arrangements the modern labourer has no more +individual property in his labour than the ancient slave had. He is +obliged to part with the whole value of his labour, and content himself +with bare subsistence in return. It is in this sense that socialist +writers maintain property to be theft—not that subjectively the +proprietors are thieves, but that objectively, under the exigencies of a +system of competition, they cannot help offering workmen, and workmen +cannot help accepting, wages far under the true value of their labour. +Labour is the source of all wealth, for the value of anything—that +which makes it wealth—is, on the economists' own showing, only another +name for the amount of labour put into the making of it; and labour is +the only ground on which modern opponents of socialism—Thiers and +Bastiat, for example—think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> the right of individual property can be +established. Yet on the methods of distribution of wealth that now +exist, individual property is not founded on this its only justifiable +basis, and the aim of socialists is to emancipate the system of +distribution from the influence of certain unconscious forces which, as +they allege, at present disturb it, and to bring back individual +property for the first time to its natural and rightful +foundation—labour. Their aim is not to abolish private property, but to +purify it, by means of some systematic social regulation which shall +give each man a share more conformable with his personal merit and +contribution. Even if no question is raised about the past, it is plain +that labour is every day engaged in making more new property. Millions +of labouring men are, day after day, converting their own brain, muscle, +and sinew into useful commodities, into value, into wealth. Now, the +problem of the age, according to Lassalle, is this, whether this unmade +property of the future should not become genuine labour property, and +its value remain greatly more than at present in the hands that actually produced it.</p> + +<p>This, he holds, can only be done by a fundamental reconstruction of the +present industrial system, and by new methods of determining the +remuneration of the labouring class. For there is a profound +contradiction in the present system. It is unprecedentedly communistic +in production, and unprecedentedly individualistic in distribution. Now +there ought to be as real a joint participation in the product, as there +is already a joint participation in the work. Capital must become the +servant of labour instead of its master, profits must disappear, +industry must be conducted more on the mutual instead of the proprietary +principle, and the instruments of production be taken out of private +hands and turned into collective or even, it may be, national property. +In the old epoch, before 1789, industrial society was governed by the +principle of solidarity without freedom; in the period since 1789, by +freedom without solidarity, which has been even worse; in the epoch now +opening, the principle must be solidarity in freedom.</p> + +<p>Partisans of the present system object to any social <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>interference with +the distribution of wealth, but they forget how much—how entirely—that +distribution is even now effected by social methods. The present +arrangement of property, says Lassalle, is, in fact, nothing but an +anarchic and unjust socialism. How do you define socialism? he asks. +Socialism is a distribution of property by social channels. Now this is +the condition of things that exists to-day. There exists, under the +guise of individual production, a distribution of property by means of +purely objective movements of society. For there is a certain natural +solidarity in things as they are, only being under no rational control, +it operates as a wild natural force, as a kind of fate destroying all +rational freedom and all rational responsibility in economic affairs. In +a sense, there never was more solidarity than there is now; there never +was so much interdependence. Under the large system of production, +masses of workmen are simply so many component parts of a single great +machine driven by the judgment or recklessness of an individual +capitalist. With modern facilities of inter-communication, too, the +trade of the world is one and indivisible. A deficient cotton harvest in +America carries distress into thousands of households in Lyons, in +Elberfeld, in Manchester. A discovery of gold in Australia raises all +prices in Europe. A simple telegram stating that rape prospects are good +in Holland instantly deprives the oilworkers of Prussia of half their +wages. So far from there being any truth in the contention of +Schultze-Delitzsch, that the existing system is the only sound one, +because it is founded on the principle of making every man responsible +for his own doings, the very opposite is the case. The present system +makes every man responsible for what he does not do. In consequence of +the unprecedented interconnection of modern industry, the sum of +conditions needed to be known for its successful guidance have so +immensely increased that rational calculation is scarcely possible, and +men are enriched without any merit, and impoverished without any fault. +According to Lassalle, in the absence as yet of an adequate system of +commercial statistics, the number of known conditions is always much +smaller than the number of unknown, and the consequence is, that trade +is very much a game of chance. Everything in modern <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>industrial economy +is ruled by social connections, by favourable or unfavourable situations +and opportunities. <i>Conjunctur</i> is its great Orphic chain. Chance is its +Providence—Chance and his sole and equally blind counsellor, +Speculation. Every age and condition of society, says Lassalle, tends to +develop some phenomenon that more particularly expresses its type and +spirit, and the purest type of capitalistic society is the financial +speculator. Capital, he maintains, is a historical and not a logical +category, and the capitalist is a modern product. He is the development, +not of the ancient Crœsus or the mediæval lord, but of the usurer, +who has taken their place, but was in their lifetime hardly a +respectable person. Crœsus was a very rich man, but he was not a +capitalist, for he could do anything with his wealth except capitalize +it. The idea of money making money and of capital being self-productive, +which Lassalle takes to be the governing idea of the present order of +things, was, he says, quite foreign to earlier periods. Industry is now +entirely under the control of capitalists speculating for profit. No one +now makes things first of all for his own use—as mythologizing +economists relate—and then exchanges what is over for the like +redundant work of his neighbours. Men make everything first of all, and +last of all, for other people's use, and they make it at the direction +and expense of a capitalist who is speculating for money, and, in the +absence of systematic statistics, is speculating in the dark. Chance and +social connections make him rich, chance and social connections bring +him to ruin. Capital is not the result of saving, it is the result of +<i>Conjunctur</i>; and so are the vicissitudes and crises that have so +immensely increased in modern times. What you have now, therefore, says +Lassalle, is a system of socialism; wealth is at present distributed by +social means, and by nothing else; and all he contends for is, as he +says, to substitute a regulated and rational socialism for this anarchic +and natural socialism that now exists.</p> + +<p>His charge against the present system, however, is more than that it is +anarchic; he maintains it to be unjust—organically and hopelessly +unjust. The labourer's back is the green table on which the whole game +is played, and all losses are in the end sustained by him. A slightly +unfavourable turn of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> things sends him at once into want, while even a +considerably favourable one brings him no corresponding advantage, for, +according to all economists, wages are always the last thing to rise +with a reviving trade. The present system is, in fact, incapable of +doing the labourer justice, and would not suffer employers to do so even +if they wished. Injustice is bred in its very bone and blood. In this +contention Lassalle builds his whole argument on premises drawn from the +accepted economic authorities. Socialist economics, he says, is nothing +but a battle against Ricardo, whom he describes as the last and most +representative development of <i>bourgeois</i> economics; and it fights the +battle with Ricardo's own weapons, and on Ricardo's own ground. There +are two principles in particular of which it makes much use—Ricardo's +law of value and Ricardo's law of natural or necessary wages.</p> + +<p>Ricardo's law of value is that the value of a commodity, or the quantity +of any other commodity for which it will exchange, depends on the +relative quantity of labour which is necessary for its production, and +not on the greater or less compensation which is paid for that labour. +Value is thus resolved into so much labour, or what is the same thing, +so much time consumed in labour, mental and manual, upon the commodity. +This reduction of value to quantity of time is reckoned by Lassalle the +one great merit of Ricardo and the English economists. Ricardo, however, +strictly limited his law to commodities that admitted of indefinite +multiplication, the value of other commodities being, he held, regulated +by their scarcity; and he confined it to the normal value of the +commodities only, the fluctuations of their market-price depending on +other considerations. But Lassalle seeks to make it cover these cases +also by means of a distinction he draws between individual time of +labour, and socially necessary time of labour. According to this +distinction, what constitutes the value of a product is not the time +actually taken or required by the person who made it; for he may have +been indolent or slow, or may not have used the means and appliances +which the age he lived in afforded him. What constitutes value is the +average time of labour socially necessary, the time required by labour +of average efficiency using the methods the age<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> supplies. If the +commodity can be produced in an hour, an hour's work will be its value, +though you have taken ten to produce it by slower methods. So far there +is nothing very remarkable, but Lassalle goes on to argue that you may +waste your time not merely by using methods that society has superseded, +but by producing commodities that society no longer wants. You go on +making shoe-buckles after they have gone out of fashion, and you can get +nothing for them. They have no value. And why? Because, while they +indeed represent labour, they do not represent socially necessary +labour. So again with over-production: you may produce a greater amount +of a commodity than society requires at the time. The value of the +commodity falls. Why? Because while it has cost as much actual labour as +before, it has not cost so much socially necessary labour. In fact, the +labour it has taken has been socially unnecessary, for there was no +demand for the product. On the other hand—and we are entitled to make +this expansion of Lassalle's argument—take the case of +under-production, of deficient supply. Prices rise. What is usually +known as a scarcity value is conferred on commodities. But this scarcity +value Lassalle converts into a labour value; the commodity is produced +by the same individual labour, but the labour is more socially +necessary. In plain English, there is more demand for the product.</p> + +<p>Lassalle's distinction is thus an ingenious invention for expressing +rarity value in terms of labour value. It has no theoretical importance, +but is of some practical service in the socialistic argument. That +argument is not that value is constituted by labour pure and simple, but +by labour modified by certain general conditions of society; only it +holds that these conditions—conditions of productivity, of rarity, of +demand—have been created by nobody in particular, that, therefore, +nobody in particular should profit by them, and that so far as the +problem of the distribution of value goes, the one factor in the +constitution of value which needs to be taken into account in settling +that problem, is labour. All value comes from labour, represents so much +time of labour, is, in fact, so much "labour-jelly," so much preserved labour.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p><p>While one accepted economic law thus declares that all value is +conferred by the labourer, and is simply his sweat, brain, and sinew +incorporated in the product, another economic law declares that he gains +no advantage from the productivity of his own work, and that whatever +value he produces, he earns only the same wages—bare customary +subsistence. In that lies the alleged injustice of the present system. +Von Thuenen, the famous Feudalist landowner and economic +experimentalist, said, many years ago, that when the modern working +class once began to ask the question, What is natural wages? a +revolution might arise which would reduce Europe to barbarism. This is +the question Lassalle asked, and by which mainly he stirred up +socialism. The effect of the previous argument was to raise the +question, What is the labourer entitled to get? and to suggest the +answer, he is entitled to get everything. The next question is, What, +then, does the labourer actually get? and the answer is, that on the +economists' own showing, he gets just enough to keep soul and body +together, and on the present system can never get any more. Ricardo, in +common with other economists, had taught that the value of labour, like +the value of everything else, was determined by the cost of its +production, and that the cost of the production of labour meant the cost +of the labourer's subsistence according to the standard of living +customary among his class at the time. Wages might rise for a season +above this level, or fall for a season below it, but they always tended +to return to it again, and would not permanently settle anywhere else. +When they rose higher, the labouring class were encouraged by their +increased prosperity to marry, and eventually their numbers were thus +multiplied to such a degree that by the force of ordinary competition +the rate of wages was brought down again; when they fell lower, +marriages diminished and mortality increased among the working class, +and the result was such a reduction of their numbers as to raise the +rate of wages again to its old level. This is the economic law of +natural or necessary wages—"the iron and cruel law" which Lassalle +declared absolutely precluded the wage-labourers—<i>i.e.</i>, 96 per cent. +of the population—from all possibility of ever improving their +condition or benefiting in the least from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> growing productivity of +their own work. This law converted industrial freedom into an aggravated +slavery. The labourer was unmanned, taken out of a relationship which, +with all its faults, was still a human and personal one, put under an +impersonal and remorseless economic law, sent like a commodity to be +bought in the cheapest market, and there dispossessed by main force of +competition of the value of the property which his own hands had made. +<i>Das Eigenthum ist Fremdthum geworden.</i></p> + +<p>It is no wonder that teaching like this should move the minds of working +men to an intolerable sense of despair and wrong. Nor was there any +possibility of hope except in a revolution. For the injustice complained +of lay in the essence of the existing economic system, and could not be +removed, except with the complete abolition of the system. The only +solution of the question, therefore, was a socialistic reconstruction +which should make the instruments of production collective property, and +subordinate capital to labour, but such a solution would of course be +the work of generations, and meanwhile, the easiest method of transition +from the old order of things to the new, lay in establishing productive +associations of working men on State credit. These would form the living +seed-corn of the new era. This was just Louis Blanc's scheme, with two +differences—viz., that the associations were to be formed gradually, +and that they were to be formed voluntarily. The State was not asked to +introduce a new organization of labour by force all at once, but merely +to lend capital at interest to one sound and likely association after +another, as they successively claimed its aid. This loan was not to be +gratuitous, as the French socialists used to demand in 1848, and since +there would be eventually only one association of the same trade in each +town, and since, besides, they would also establish a system of mutual +assurance against loss, trade by trade, the State, it was urged, would +really incur no risk. Lassalle, speaking of State help, said he did not +want a hand from the State, but only a little finger, and he actually +sought, in the first instance at least, no more than Mr. Gladstone gave +in the Irish Land Act. The scheme was mainly urged, of course, in the +interests of a sounder distribution of wealth; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> Lassalle contended +that it would also increase production; and it is important to remember +that he says it would not otherwise be economically justifiable, because +"an increase of production is an indispensable condition of every +improvement of our social state." This increase would be effected by a +saving of cost, in abolishing local competition, doing away with +middle-men and private capitalists, and adapting production better to +needs. The business books of the association would form the basis of a +sound and trustworthy system of commercial statistics, so much required +for the purpose of avoiding over-production. The change would, he +thought, also introduce favourable alterations in consumption, and in +the direction of production; inasmuch as the taste of the working class +for the substantial and the beautiful, would more and more supplant the +taste of the <i>bourgeoisie</i> for the cheap and nasty.</p> + +<p>After the death of Lassalle, the movement he began departed somewhat +from the lines on which he launched it. 1st, His plan of replacing +capitalistic industry by productive associations of labourers, founded +on State credit, had always seemed a mockery, or, at least, a makeshift, +to many of the socialists of Germany. It would not destroy competition, +for one association would still of necessity compete with another; and +it would not secure to every man the right to the full product of his +labour, for the members of the stronger productive associations would be +able to exploit the members of the weaker as the ordinary result of +their inter-competition. In other words, Lassalle's plan would not in +their eyes realize the socialist claim, as that claim had been taught to +them by Marx. Their claim could only be realized by the conversion of +all industrial instruments into public property, and the systematic +conduct of all industry by the public authority; and why not aim +straight for that result, they asked, instead of first bringing in a +merely transitional period of productive associations, which would, on +Lassalle's own calculations, take two hundred years to create, and which +might not prove transitional to the socialist state after all? Rodbertus +even had gone against Lassalle on this point, because he wanted to see +individual property converted into national property, and thought +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>converting it first into joint stock property was really to prevent +rather than promote the main end he had in view.</p> + +<p>Then, 2nd, Lassalle was a national, not an international socialist. He +held that every country should solve its own social question for itself, +and that the working-class movement was not, and should not be made, +cosmopolitan. He was even—as Prince Bismarck said in Parliament, when +taxed with having personal relations with him—patriotic. At least he +was an intense believer in Prussia; less, however, because he was a +Prussian than because Prussia was a strong State, and because he thought +that strong States alone could do the world's work in Germany or +elsewhere. By nationality in itself he set but little store; a +nationality had a right to separate existence if it could assert it, but +if it were weak and struggling, its only duty was to submit with +thankfulness to annexation by a stronger power. He wished his followers, +therefore, to keep aloof from the doings of other nations, and to +concentrate their whole exertions upon victory at the elections in their +own country and the gradual development of productive associations on +national loans. This restriction of the range of the movement had from +the first dissatisfied some of its adherents, especially a certain +active section who hated Prussia as much as Lassalle believed in her, +and after the influence of the International began to make itself felt +upon the agitation in Germany, this difference of opinion gathered +gradually to a head. In 1868 a motion was brought before the general +meeting of the League in favour of establishing relations with the +International and accepting its programme. The chief promoters of this +motion were the two present leaders of the Social Democratic party in +the Reichstag, Liebknecht and Bebel, and it was strongly opposed by the +president of the League, Dr. von Schweitzer, an advocate in Frankfort, +and a strong champion of Prussia, who was elected to the presidency in +1866, just at the time the extension of the suffrage gave a fresh +impetus to the movement, and whose energy and gifts of management +contributed greatly to the development of the organization. The motion +was carried by a substantial majority, but before next year Von +Schweitzer had succeeded in turning the tables on his opponents, and at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> +the general meeting in 1869, Liebknecht and Bebel were expelled from the +League, as traitors to the labourers' cause. After their expulsion they +called together in the same year a congress of working men at Eisenach, +which was attended mainly by delegates from Austria and South Germany, +and founded an independent organization on the principles of the +International, and under the name of the Social Democratic Labour Party +of Germany. The two organizations existed side by side till 1874, when a +union was effected between them at a general meeting at Gotha, and they +became henceforth the Socialist Labour Party. This was the burial of the +national socialism of Lassalle, for though in deference to his +followers, the new programme promised in the meantime to work within +national limits, it expressly recognised that the labourers' movement +was international, and that the great aim to be striven after was a +state of society in which every man should be obliged to share in the +general labour according to his powers, and have a right to receive from +the aggregate product of labour according to what was termed his +rational requirements. Some "orthodox Lassalleans," as they called +themselves, held aloof from this compromise, but they are too few to be +of any importance. They still remain apart from the main body of German +socialism, and live in such good odour with the Government, whether on +account of their unimportance or of their supposed loyalty, that they +were never molested by any application of the Socialist Laws which were +enforced for twelve years strenuously against all other socialists.</p> + +<p>Among the causes which brought the others to so much unanimity was +undoubtedly the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, which was +viewed with universal aversion by socialists of every shade. On the +outbreak of the war, Schweitzer and the members of the original League +gave their sympathies warmly to the arms of their country, and the +Social Democratic party was nearly equally divided on the subject; but +after the foundation of the French Republic, they all with one consent +declared that the war ought now to cease, and the socialist deputies, no +matter which organization they belonged to, voted without exception +against granting supplies for its continuance. They were likewise +opposed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> the recognition of the title of Emperor and to the +constitution of the Empire, and indeed as republicans they could not be +anything else. From a recollection mainly of these votes Prince Bismarck +considered the movement to be unpatriotic and hostile to the Empire, and +accordingly suppressed its propaganda in 1878, when its growth seemed +likely to prove a serious danger to an Empire whose stability was still +far from being assured by any experience of its advantages. The +socialists retorted upon this policy at their congress at Wyden, +Switzerland, in 1880, by striking out of their programme the limitation +of proceeding by legal means, on the ground that the action of the +Government having made legal means impracticable, no resource was left +but to meet force by force. They thus threw aside the last shred of the +practical policy of Lassalle, and stood out thenceforth as a party of +international revolution.</p> + +<p>The movement could, however, hardly help becoming international; not, as +some allege, because this is a peculiarity of revolutionary parties; on +the contrary, other parties may also exhibit it. What, for example, was +the Holy Alliance but an international league of the monarchical and +aristocratic parties against the advance of popular rights? Nor is it a +peculiarity of the present time only. No doubt the increased +inter-communication and inter-dependence between countries now +facilitates its development. There are no longer nations in Europe, said +Heine, but only parties. But in reality it has always been nearly as +much so as now. Any party founded on a definite general principle or +interest may in any age become international, and even what may seem +unpatriotic. The Protestants of France in the 16th century sought help +from England, and the Jacobites of England in the 18th sought help from +France; just as the German socialists of 1870 sided with the French +after Sedan, and the French communists of 1871 preferred to see their +country occupied by the Germans rather than governed by the +"Versaillais." In all these cases the party principles were naturally +international, and the party bias overcame the patriotic.</p> + +<p>Besides, the socialist is, almost by necessity of his position and +principles, predisposed to discourage and condemn <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>patriotism. Others, +indeed, condemn it as well as he. Most of the great writers who revived +German literature towards the beginning of this century—Lessing, +Herder, Wieland, Goethe—have all disparaged it. They looked on it as a +narrow and obsolete virtue, useful enough perhaps in rude times, but a +hindrance to rational progress now; the modern virtue was humanity, the +idea of which had just freshly burst upon their age like a new power. +This consideration may no doubt to some extent weigh with socialists +also, for their whole thinking is leavened with the notion of humanity, +but their most immediate objection to patriotism is one of a practical +nature. Their complaint used always to be that the proletarian had no +country, because he was excluded from political rights. He was not a +citizen, and why should he have the feelings of one? But now he has got +political rights, and they still complain. He is in the country, they +say, but not yet of it. He is practically excluded from its +civilization, from all that makes the country worth living or fighting +for. He has no country, for he is denied a man's share in the life that +is going in any. Edmund Ludlow wrote over his door in exile—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Every land is my fatherland,</div> +<div>For all lands are my Father's."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>The modern socialist says, No land is my fatherland, for in none am I a +son. He believes himself to be equally neglected in all, and that is +precisely the severest strain that can try the patriotic sentiment. The +proletarian is taught that in every country he is a slave, and that +patriotism and religion only reconcile him to remaining so. Moreover, as +Rodbertus has remarked, the social question itself is, in a sense, +international because it is social.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER IV.</span> <span class="smaller">KARL MARX.</span></h2> + +<p>In opening the present chapter in the previous edition of this book, I +said it was not a little remarkable that the works of Karl Marx, which +had then excited considerable commotion in other European countries, +were still absolutely unknown in England, though England was the country +where they were written, and to whose circumstances they were, in their +author's judgment, pre-eminently applicable. His principal work, "Das +Kapital," is a criticism of modern industrial development as explained +by English economists and exemplified in English society. It shows a +rare knowledge of English economic literature, even of the most obscure +writers; it goes very fully into the conditions of English labour as +described in our parliamentary reports; and out of four hundred odd +books it quotes, more than three hundred are English books. Its +illustrations are drawn from English industrial life, and its very money +allusions are stated in terms of English coin. Its chief doctrine, +moreover, was an old English doctrine, familiar among the disciples of +Owen; and to crown all, if the author's belief was true, England was the +country ripest for its reception, for the socialist revolution, he +thought, would inevitably come when the working class sunk into the +condition of a proletariat, and the working class of England had been a +proletariat for many years already. Yet Marx's work was not at that time +(1884) translated into English, though it had been into most other +European languages, and had enjoyed a very large sale even in Russia, to +whose circumstances it had admittedly very little adaptation. An English +translation appeared at length, however, in 1887, twenty years after the +publication of the original, and a considerable edition was disposed of +within a year, though the price was high. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> have therefore grown more +familiar of late with the name and importance of Karl Marx.</p> + +<p>Born at Trèves in 1818, the son of a Christian Jew who had a high post +in the civil service, Marx was sent to the University of Bonn, towards +the end of the '30s, won a considerable reputation there in philosophy +and jurisprudence, determined, like Lassalle, to devote himself to the +academic profession, and seemed destined for an eminently successful +career, in which his subsequent marriage with the sister of the Prussian +Minister of State, Von Westphalen, would certainly have facilitated his +advancement. But at the University he came under the spell of Hegel, and +passed, step by step, with the Extreme Left of the Hegelian school, into +the philosophical, religious, and political Radicalism which finally +concentrated into the Humanism of Feuerbach. Just as he had finished his +curriculum, the accession of Frederick William IV. in 1840 stirred a +rustle of most misplaced expectation among the Liberals of Germany, who +thought the day of freedom was at length to break, and who rose with +generous eagerness to the tasks to which it was to summon them. Under +the influence of these hopes and feelings, Marx abandoned the +professorial for an editorial life, and committed himself at the very +outset of his days to a political position which compromised him +hopelessly with German governments, and forced him, step by step, into a +long career of revolutionary agitation and organization. He joined the +staff of the <i>Rhenish Gazette</i>, which was founded at that time in +Cologne by the leading Liberals of the Rhine country, including +Camphausen and Hansemann, and which was the organ of the Young Hegelian, +or Philosophical Radical Party, and he made so great an impression by +his bold and vigorous criticism of the proceedings of the Rhenish +Landtag that he was appointed editor of the newspaper in 1842. In this +post he continued his attacks on the Government, and they were at once +so effective and so carefully worded that a special censor was sent from +Berlin to Cologne to take supervision of his articles, and when this +agency proved ineffectual, the journal was suppressed by order of the +Prussian Ministry in 1843. From Cologne Marx went to Paris to be a joint +editor of the <i>Deutsche Französische Jahrbücher</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>with Arnold Ruge, a +leader of the Hegelian Extreme Left, who had been deprived of his +professorship at the University of Halle by the Prussian Government, and +whose magazine, the <i>Deutsche Jahrbücher</i>, published latterly at Leipzig +to escape the Prussian authority, had just been suppressed by the Saxon. +The <i>Deutsche Französische Jahrbücher</i> were published by the well-known +Julius Froebel, who had some time before given up his professorship at +Zürich to edit a democratic newspaper, and open a shop for the sale of +democratic literature; who professed himself a communist in Switzerland, +and had written some able works, with very radical and socialistic +leanings, but who seems to have gone on a different tack at the time of +the Lassallean movement, for he was—as Meding shows us in his "Memoiren +zur Zeitgeschichte"—the prime promoter of the ill-fated Congress of +Princes at Frankfort in 1865. The new magazine was intended to be a +continuation of the suppressed <i>Deutsche Jahrbücher</i>, on a more extended +plan, embracing French as well as German contributors, and supplying in +some sort a means of uniting the Extreme Left of both nations; but no +French contribution ever appeared in it, and it ceased altogether in a +year's time, probably for commercial reasons, though there is no +unlikelihood in the allegation sometimes made, that it was stopped in +consequence of a difference between the editors as to the treatment of +the question of communism.</p> + +<p>The Young Hegelians had already begun to take the keenest interest in +that question, but were, for a time, curiously perplexed as to the +attitude they should assume towards it. They seem to have been +fascinated and repelled by turns by the system, and to have been equally +unable to cast it aside or to commit themselves fairly to it. Karl Grün, +himself a Young Hegelian, says that at first they feared socialism, and +points, for striking evidence of this, to the fact that the <i>Rhenish +Gazette</i> bestowed an enthusiastic welcome on Stein's book on French +communism, although that book condemned the system from a theologically +orthodox and politically reactionary point of view. But he adds that the +Young Hegelians contributed to the spread of socialism against their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +will, that it was through the interest they took in its speculations and +experiments that socialism acquired credit and support in public opinion +in Germany, and that the earliest traces of avowed socialism are to be +found in the <i>Rhenish Gazette</i>. If we may judge by the extracts from +some of Marx's articles in that journal which are given in Bruno Bauer's +"Vollständige Geschichte der Parthei-Kämpfe in Deutschland während der +Jahre 1842-46," we should say that Marx was even at this early period a +decided socialist, for he often complains of the great wrong "the poor +dumb millions" suffer in being excluded by their poverty from the +possibility of a free development of their powers, "and from any +participation in the fruits of civilization," and maintains that the +State had far other duty towards them than to come in contact with them +only through the police. When Ruge visited Cabet in Paris, he said that +he and his friends (meaning, he explained, the philosophical and +political opposition) stood so far aloof from the question of communism +that they had never yet so much as raised it, and that, while there were +communists in Germany, there was no communistic party. This statement is +probably equivalent to saying that he and his school took as yet a +purely theoretical and Platonic interest in socialism, and had not come +to adopt it as part of their practical programme. Most of them were +already communists by conviction, and the others felt their general +philosophical and political principles forcing them towards communism, +and the reason of their hesitation in accepting it is probably expressed +by Ruge, when he says (in an article in Heinzen's "Die Opposition," p. +103), that the element of truth in communism was its sense of the +necessity of political emancipation, but that there was a great danger +of communists forgetting the political question in their zeal for the +social. It was chiefly under the influence of the Humanism into which +Feuerbach had transformed the Idealism of Hegel, that the Hegelian Left +passed into communism. Humanist and communist became nearly convertible +terms. Friedrich Engels mentions in his book on the condition of the +English working classes, published in 1845, that all the German +communists of that day were followers of Feuerbach, and most of the +followers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> of Feuerbach in Germany (Ruge seems to have remained an +exception) were communists. Lassalle was one of Feuerbach's +correspondents, and after he started the present socialist movement in +Germany, he wrote Feuerbach on 21st October, 1863, saying that the +Progressists were political rationalists of the feeblest type, and that +it was the same battle which Feuerbach was waging in the theological, +and he himself now in the political and economic sphere. Stein +attributed French socialism greatly to the prevailing sensualistic +character of French philosophy, which conceived enjoyment to be man's +only good, and never rose to what he calls the great German conception, +the logical conception of the Ego, the idea of knowing for the sake of +knowing. The inference this contrast suggests is that the metaphysics of +Germany had been her protector, her national guard, against socialism, +but as we see, at the very time he was writing the guard was turning +traitor, and a native socialism was springing up by natural generation +out of the idealistic philosophy. The fact, however, rather confirms the +force of Stein's remark, for the Hegelian idealism first bred the more +sensualistic system of humanism, and then humanism bred socialism.</p> + +<p>Hegel had transformed the transcendental world of current opinion, with +its personal Deity and personal immortality, into a world of reason; and +Feuerbach went a step further, and abolished what he counted the +transcendency of reason itself. Heaven and God, he entirely admitted, +were nothing but subjective illusions, fantastic projections of man's +own being and his own real world into external spheres. But mind, an +abstract entity, and reason, a universal and single principle, were, in +his opinion, illusions too. There was nothing real but man—the concrete +flesh and blood man who thinks and feels. "God," says Feuerbach, +speaking of his mental development, "was my first thought, Reason my +second, Man my third and last." He passed, as Lange points out, through +Comte's three epochs. Theology was swept away, and then metaphysics, and +in its room came a positive and materialistic anthropology which +declared that the senses were the sole sources of real knowledge, that +the body was not only part of man's being, but its totality and essence, +and, in short, that man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> is what he eats—<i>Der Mensch ist was er isst</i>. +Man, therefore, had no other God before man, and the promotion of man's +happiness and culture in this earthly life—which was his only life—was +the sole natural object of his political or religious interest. This +system was popularized by Feuerbach's brother Friedrich, in a little +work called the "Religion of the Future," which enjoyed a high authority +among the German communists, and formed a kind of lectionary they read +and commented on at their stated meetings. The object of the new +religion is thus described in it:—"Man alone is our God, our father, +our judge, our redeemer, our true home, our law and rule, the alpha and +omega of our political, moral, public, and domestic life and work. There +is no salvation but by man." And the cardinal articles of the faith are +that human nature is holy, that the impulse to pleasure is holy, that +everything which gratifies it is holy, that every man is destined and +entitled to be happy, and for the attainment of this end has the right +to claim the greatest possible assistance from others, and the duty to +afford the same to them in turn.</p> + +<p>Now the tendency of this metaphysical and moral teaching was strongly +democratic and socialistic. There was said to be in the existing +political system a false transcendency identical with that of the +current religious system. King and council hovered high and away above +the real life of society in a world of their own, looking on political +power as a kind of private property, and careless of mankind, from whom +it sprang, to whom it belonged, and by whom and for whom it should be +administered. "The princes are gods," says Feuerbach, "and they must +share the same fate. The dissolution of theology into anthropology in +the field of thought is the dissolution of monarchy into republic in the +field of politics. Dualism, separation is the essence of theology; +dualism, separation is the essence of monarchy. There we have the +antithesis of God and world; here we have the antithesis of State and +people." This dualism must be abolished. The State must be +<i>humanized</i>—must be made an instrument in the hands of all for the +welfare of all; and its inhabitants must be <i>politized</i>, for they, all +of them, constitute the <i>polis</i>. Man must no longer be a means, but must +be everywhere and always an end. There was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>nobody above man; there was +neither superhuman person, nor consecrated, person; neither deity, nor +divine right. And, on the other hand, as there is no person who in being +or right is more than man, so there must be no person who is less. There +must be no <i>unmenschen</i>, no slaves, no heretics, no outcasts, no +outlaws, but every being who wears human flesh must be placed in the +enjoyment of the full rights and privileges of man. The will of man be +done, hallowed be his name.</p> + +<p>These principles already bring us to the threshold of socialism, and now +Feuerbach's peculiar ethical principle carries us into its courts. That +principle has been well termed Tuism, to distinguish it from Egoism. The +human unit is not the individual, but man in converse with man, the +sensual Ego with the sensual Tu. The isolated man is incomplete, both as +a moral and as a thinking being. "The nature of man is contained only in +the community, in the unity of man with man. Isolation is finitude and +limitation, community is freedom and infinity. Man by himself is but +man; man with man, the unity of I and Thou, is God." Feuerbach +personally never became a communist, for he says his principle was +neither egoism nor communism, but the combination of both. They were +equally true, for they were inseparable, and to condemn self-love would +be, he declared, to condemn love to others at the same time, for love to +others was nothing but a recognition that their self-love was +justifiable. But it is easy to perceive the natural tendency of the +teaching that the social man was the true human unit and essence, and +was to the individual as a God. With most of his disciples Humanism +meant making the individual disappear in the community, making egoism +disappear in love, and making private property disappear in collective. +Hess flatly declared that "the species was the end, and the individuals +were only means." Ruge disputed this doctrine, and contended that the +empirical individual was the true human unit and the true end; but even +he said that socialism was the humanism of common life. Grün passes into +socialism by simply applying to property Feuerbach's method of dealing +with theology and monarchy. He argues that if the true essence of man is +the social man, then, just as theology is anthropology, so is +anthropology socialism,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> for property is at present entirely alienated, +externalized from the social man. There is a false transcendency in it, +like that of divinity and monarchy. "Deal, therefore," he says, "with +the practical God, money, as Feuerbach dealt with the theoretical"; +humanize it. Make property an inalienable possession of manhood, of +every man as man. For property is a necessary material for his social +activity, and therefore ought to belong as inalienably and essentially +to him as everything which he otherwise possesses of means or materials +for his activity in life; as inalienably, for example, as his body or +his personal acquirements. If man is the social man, some social +possession is then necessary to his manhood, and might be called an +essential part of it; but existing property is something outside, as +separate from him as heaven or the sovereign power. Grün accordingly +says that Feuerbach's "Essence of Christianity" supplies the theoretical +basis for Proudhon's social system, because the latter only applies to +practical life the principles which the former applied to religion and +metaphysics, but he admits that neither Feuerbach nor Proudhon would +acknowledge the connection.</p> + +<p>We thus see how theoretical humanism—a philosophy and a religion—led +easily over into the two important articles of practical humanism, a +democratic transformation of the State and a communistic transformation +of society. This was the ideal of the humanists, and it contains ample +and wide-reaching positive features; but when it came to practical +action they preferred for the present to take up an attitude of simple +but implacable negation to the existing order of things. No doubt +variety of opinion existed among them; but if they are to be judged by +what seemed their dominant interest, they were revolutionaries and +nothing else. They repudiated with one consent the socialist utopias of +France, and refrained on principle from committing themselves to, or +even discussing, any positive scheme of reconstruction whatsoever. They +held it premature to think of positive proposals, which would, moreover, +be sure to sow divisions among themselves. Their first great business +was not to build up, but to destroy, and their work in the meantime was +therefore to develop the revolutionary spirit to its utmost possible +energy, by exciting hatred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> against all existing institutions; in short, +to create an immense reservoir of revolutionary energy which might be +turned to account when its opportunity arrived. Their position is +singularly like the phase of Russian nihilism described by Baron Fircks, +and presented to us in Turgenieff's novels. It is expressed very plainly +by W. Marr, himself an active humanist, who carried Feuerbach's "Essence +of Christianity" as his constant companion, and founded a secret society +for promoting humanistic views. In his interesting book on Secret +Societies in Switzerland, he says, "The masses can only be gathered +under the flag of negation. When you present detailed plans, you excite +controversies and sow divisions; you repeat the mistake of the French +socialists, who have scattered their redoubtable forces because they +tried to carry formulated systems. We are content to lay down the +foundation of the revolution. We shall have deserved well of it if we +stir hatred and contempt against all existing institutions. We make war +against all prevailing ideas, of religion, of the State, of country, of +patriotism. The idea of God is the keystone of a perverted civilization. +It must be destroyed. The true root of liberty, of equality, of culture, +is Atheism. Nothing must restrain the spontaneity of the human mind." +All this work of annihilation could neither be done by reform, nor by +conspiracy, but only by revolution, and "a revolution is never made; it +makes itself." While the revolution was making, Marr founded an +association in Switzerland, "Young Germany," which should prepare +society for taking effective action when the hour came. There was a +"Young Germany" in Switzerland when he arrived there; part of a +federation of secret societies established by Mazzini in 1834, under the +general name of "Young Europe," and comprising three series of +societies:—"Young Italy," composed of Italians; "Young Poland," of +Poles; and "Young Germany," of Germans. But this organization was not at +all to Marr's mind, because it concerned itself with nothing but +politics, and because its method was conspiracy. "Great +transformations," he said, "are never prepared by conspiracies," and it +was a very great transformation indeed that he contemplated. He +therefore formed a "Young Germany" of his own. His plan was to plant a +lodge, or "family," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>wherever there existed a German working men's +association. The members of this family became members of the +association, and formed a leaven which influenced all around them, and, +through the wandering habits of the German working class, was carried to +much wider circles. The family met for political discussion once a week, +read Friedrich Feuerbach together on the Sundays with fresh recruits, +who, when they had mastered him, were said to have put off the old man; +and their very password was <i>humanity</i>, a brother being recognised by +using the half-word <i>human</i>—? interrogatively, and the other replying +by the remaining half—<i>ität</i>. The members were all ardent democrats, +but, as a rule, so national in their sympathies that the leaders made it +one great object of their <i>disciplina arcani</i> to stifle the sentiment of +patriotism by subjecting it to constant ridicule.</p> + +<p>Their relations to communism are not quite easy to determine. Marr +himself sometimes expresses disapproval of the system. He says, +"Communism is the expression of impotence of will. The communists lack +confidence in themselves. They suffer under social oppression, and look +around for consolation instead of seeking for weapons to emancipate +themselves with. It is only a world-weariness desiring illusion as the +condition of its life." He says the belief in the absolute dependence of +man on matter is the shortest and most pregnant definition of communism, +and that it starts from the principle that man is a slave and incapable +of emancipating himself. But, on the other hand, he complains that the +members of "Young Germany" did not sufficiently appreciate the social +question, being disgusted with the fanaticism of the communists. By the +communists, he here means the followers of Weitling and Albrecht, who +were at that time creating a party movement in Switzerland. The prophet +Albrecht, as he is called, was simply a crazy mystic with proclivities +to sedition which brought him at length to prison for six years, and +which took there an eschatological turn from his having, it is said, +nothing to read but the Bible, so that on his release he went about +prophesying that Jehovah had prepared a way in the desert, which was +Switzerland, for bringing into Europe a reign of peace, in which people +should hold all things in common and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> enjoy complete sensuous happiness, +sitting under their common vine and fig-tree, with neither king nor +priest to make them any more afraid. Weitling was not quite so +unimportant, but the attention he excited at the time is certainly not +justified by any of the writings he has left us. He was a tailor from +Magdeburg, who was above his work, believing himself to be a poet and a +man of letters, condemned by hard fate and iniquitous social +arrangements to a dull and cruel lot. Having gone to Paris when +socialism was the rage there, he eagerly embraced that new gospel, and +went to Switzerland to carry its message of hope to his own German +countrymen. There he forsook the needle altogether, and lived as the +paid apostle of the dignity of manual labour, for which he had himself +little mind. His ideas are crude, confused, and arbitrary. His ideal of +society was a community of labourers, with no State, no Church, no +individual property, no distinction of rank or position, no nationality, +no fatherland. All were to have equal rights and duties, and each was to +be put in a position to develop his capacity and gratify his bents as +far as possible. He was moved more by the desire for abstract equality +than German socialists of the humanist or contemporary type, for they do +not build on the justice of a more equal distribution of wealth so much +as on the necessity of the possession of property for the free +development of the human personality. He is entirely German, however, in +his idea of the government of the new society. It was to be governed by +the three greatest philosophers of the age, assisted by a board of +trade, a board of health, and a board of education. In Switzerland he +founded, to promote his views, a secret society, the "Alliance of the +Just," which had branches in most of the Swiss towns. Its members were +chiefly Germans from Germany, for very few of the communists in +Switzerland were born Swiss, and according to Marr, who was present at +some of their meetings, they were three-fourths of them tailors. "I +felt," says Marr, "when I entered one of these clubs, that I was with +the mother of tailors. The tailor sitting and chatting at his work is +always extreme in his opinions. Tailor and communist are synonymous +terms." It was to some of the leaders of this alliance that Weitling +unfolded his wild scheme of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>proletariat raid, according to which an +army of 20,000 brigands was to be raised among the proletariat of the +large towns, to go with torch and sword into all the countries of +Europe, and terrify the <i>bourgeoisie</i> into a recognition of universal +community of goods. It is only fair to add that his proposal met with no +favour. Letters were found in his possession, and subsequently published +in Bluntschli's official report, which show that some of Weitling's +correspondents regarded his scheme with horror, and others treated it +with ridicule. One of them said it was trying to found the kingdom of +heaven with the furies of hell. The relations between "Young Germany" +and Weitling's allies were apparently not cordial, though they had so +much in common that, on the one hand, Weitling's correspondents urge him +to keep on good terms with "Young Germany," and, on the other, Marr says +he actually tried to get a common standing ground with the communists, +and thought he had found it in the negation of the present system of +things—the negation of religion, the negation of patriotism, the +negation of subjection to authority.</p> + +<p>Now the importance of this excursus on the Young Hegelians lies in the +fact that Karl Marx was a humanist, and looked on humanism as the vital +and creative principle in the renovation of political and industrial +society. In the <i>Deutsche Französische Jahrbücher</i> he published an +article on the Hegelian Philosophy of Right, in which he says: "The new +revolution will be introduced by philosophy. The revolutionary tradition +of Germany is theoretical. The Reformation was the work of a monk; the +Revolution will be the work of a philosopher." The particular philosophy +that was to do the work is that of the German critics, whose critique of +religion had ended in the dogma that man is the highest being for man, +and in the categorical imperative, "to destroy everything in the present +order of things that makes a man a degraded, insulted, forsaken, and +despised being." But philosophy cannot work a revolution without +material weapons; and it will find its material weapon in the +proletariat, which he owns, however, was at the time he wrote only +beginning to be formed in Germany. But when it rises in its strength, it +will be irresistible, and the revolution which it will accomplish will +be the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> only one known to history that is not utopian. Other revolutions +have been partial, wrought by a class in the interests of a class; but +this one will be a universal and uniform revolution, effected in the +name of all society, for the proletariat is a class which possesses a +universal character because it dissolves all other separate classes into +itself. It is the only class that takes its stand on a human and not a +historical title. Its very sorrows and grievances have nothing special +or relative in them; they are the broad sorrows and grievances of +humanity. And its claims are like them; for it asks no special +privileges or special prerogatives; it asks nothing but what all the +world will share along with it. The history of the world is the judgment +of the world, and the duration of an order of things founded on the +ascendancy of a limited class possessing money and culture, is +practically condemned and foredoomed by the rapid multiplication of a +large class outside which possess neither. The growth of this latter +body not merely tends to produce, but actually <i>is</i>, the dissolution of +the existing system of things. For the existing system is founded on the +assertion of private property, but the proletariat is forced by society +to take the opposite principle of the negation of private property for +the principle of its own life, and will naturally carry that principle +into all society when it gains the power, as it is rapidly and +inevitably doing. Marx sums up: "The only practical emancipation for +Germany is an emancipation proceeding from the standpoint of the theory +which explains man to be the highest being for man. In Germany the +emancipation from the middle ages is only possible as at the same time +an emancipation from the partial conquests of the middle ages. In +Germany one kind of bond cannot be broken without all other bonds being +broken too. Germany is by nature too thorough to be able to +revolutionize without revolutionizing from a fundamental principle, and +following that principle to its utmost limits; and therefore the +emancipation of Germany will be the emancipation of man. The head of +this emancipation is philosophy; its heart is the proletariat." He adds +that when things are ripe, "when all the inner conditions have been +completed, the German resurrection day will be heralded by the crowing +of the Gallic cock."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p><p>In this essay we mark already Marx's overmastering belief in natural +historical evolution, which he had learnt from Hegel, and which +prevented him from having any sympathy with the utopian projects of the +French socialists. They vainly imagined, he held, that they could create +a new world right off, whereas it was only possible to do so by +observing a rigorous conformity to the laws of the development already +in progress, by making use of the forces already at work, and proceeding +in the direction towards which the stream of things was itself slowly +but mightily moving. Hegel sought the principle of organic development +in the State, but Marx sought it rather in civil society, and believed +he had discovered it in that most mighty though unconscious product of +the large system of industry, the modern proletariat, which was born to +revolution as the sparks fly upward; and in the simultaneous decline of +the middle classes, that is, of the conservative element which could +resist the change. The process which was, as he held, now converting +society into an aggregate of beggars and millionaires was bound +eventually to overleap itself and land in a communism. I shall not +discuss the truth of this conception at present, but it contributes, +along with the sentiments of justice and humanity that animate—rightly +or wrongly—the ideal of the socialists, to lend something of a +religious force to their movement, for they feel that they are +fellow-workers with the nature of things.</p> + +<p>We left Marx in Paris, and on returning to him, we find him engaged—as +indeed we usually do when his history comes into notice—in a threefold +warfare. Besides his general war against the arrangements of modern +society, he is always carrying on a bitter and implacable war against +the Prussian Government, and is often engaged in controversy—sometimes +very personal—with foes of his own philosophical or revolutionary +household. After the cessation of the <i>Deutsche Französische +Jahrbücher</i>, Marx edited a paper called <i>Vorwärts</i>, and in this and +other journals open to him, he attacked the Prussian administration so +strongly that that administration complained to Guizot, who gave him +orders to quit France. His more personal controversy at this time arose +out of one of the schisms of the Young Hegelians, and he and his friend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +Friedrich Engels wrote a pamphlet—"Die Heilige Familie"—against the +Hegelian Idealism, and especially against Bruno Bauer, who had offended +him—says Erdmann, in his "History of Philosophy"—at once as Jew, as +Radical, and as journalist. When expelled from France, he went to +Brussels, where he was allowed to continue his war upon the Prussian +Government without interference, till the revolution of 1848. During +this period he devoted his attention more particularly than hitherto to +commercial subjects, and published in 1846 his "Discours sur le +Libre-échange," and in 1847 his "Misère de la Philosophie," a reply to +Proudhon's "Philosophie de la Misère"—both in French.</p> + +<p>While in Brussels, Marx received an invitation from the London Central +Committee of the Communist League to join that society. This league had +been founded in Paris in 1836, for the purpose of propagating communist +opinions among the working men of Germany. Its organization was +analogous to that of the International and other societies of the same +kind. A certain number of members constituted a <i>Gemeinde</i>, the several +<i>Gemeinden</i> in the same town constituted a <i>Kreis</i>, a number of <i>Kreise</i> +were grouped into a leading <i>Kreis</i>, and at the head of the whole was +the Central Committee, which was chosen at a general congress of +deputies from all the <i>Kreise</i>, and which had since 1840 had its seat in +London. The method of the league was to establish, as a sphere of +operation, German working men's improvement associations everywhere. The +travelling custom of German working men greatly facilitated this work, +and numbers of these associations were soon founded in Switzerland, +England, Belgium, and the United States. The reason its committee +applied to Marx was that he had just published a series of pamphlets in +Brussels, in which, as he tells us, he "submitted to a merciless +criticism the medley of French-English socialism and communism and of +German philosophy, which then constituted the secret doctrine of the +League," and insisted that "their work could have no tenable theoretical +basis except that of a scientific insight into the economic structure of +society, and that this ought to be put into a popular form, not with the +view of carrying out any utopian system, but of promoting among the +working classes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> and other classes a self-conscious participation in the +process of historical transformation of society that was taking place +under their eyes." This is always with Marx the distinctive and ruling +feature of his system. The French schemes were impracticable utopias, +because they ignored the laws of history and the real structure of +economic society; and he claims that his own proposals are not only +practicable but inevitable, because they strictly observe the line of +the actual industrial evolution, and are thus, at worst, plans for +accelerating the day after to-morrow. But, besides this difference of +principle, Marx thought the League should also change its method and +tactics. Its work, being that of social revolution, was different from +the work of the old political conspirators and secret societies, and +therefore needed different weapons; the times, too, were changed, and +offered new instruments. Street insurrections, surprises, intrigues, +<i>pronunciamentos</i> might overturn a dynasty, or oust a government, or +bring them to reason, but were of no avail in the world for introducing +collective property or abolishing wage labour. People would just begin +again the day after to work for hire and rent their farms as they did +before. A social revolution needed other and larger preparation; it +needed to have the whole population first thoroughly leavened with its +principles; nay, it needed to possess an international character, +depending not on detached local outbreaks, but on steady concert in +revolutionary action on the part of the labouring classes everywhere. +The cause was not political, or even national, but social; and +society—which was indeed already pregnant with the change—must be +aroused to a conscious consent to the delivery. What was first to be +done, therefore, was to educate and move public opinion, and in this +work the ordinary secret society went but a little way. A secret +propaganda might still be carried on, but a public and open propaganda +was more effectual and more suitable to the times. There never existed +greater facilities for such a movement, and they ought to make use of +all the abundant means of popular agitation and intercommunication which +modern society allowed. No more secret societies in holes and corners, +no more small risings and petty plots, but a great broad organization +working in open day, and working restlessly by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> tongue and pen to stir +the masses of all European countries to a common international +revolution. Marx sought, in short, to introduce the large system of +production into the art of conspiracy.</p> + +<p>Finding his views well received by the Central Committee of the +Communist League, he acceded to their request to attend their General +Congress at London in 1847, and then, after several weeks of keen +discussion, he prevailed upon the Congress to adopt "the Manifesto of +the Communist party," which was composed by himself and Engels, and +which was afterwards translated from the German into English, French, +Danish, and Italian, and sown broadcast everywhere just before the +Revolution of 1848. This Communist League may be said to be the first +organization—and this Communist Manifesto the first public +declaration—of the International Socialist Democracy that now is. The +Manifesto begins by describing the revolutionary situation into which +the course of industrial development has brought modern society. Classes +were dying out; the yeomanry, the nobility, the small tradesmen, would +soon be no more; and society was drawn up in two widely separated +hostile camps, the large capitalist class or <i>bourgeoisie</i>, who had all +the property and power in the country, and the labouring class, the +proletariat, who had nothing of either. The <i>bourgeoisie</i> had played a +most revolutionary part in history. They had overturned feudalism, and +now they had created proletarianism, which would soon swamp themselves. +They had collected the masses in great towns; they had kept the course +of industry in perpetual flux and insecurity by rapid successive +transformations of the instruments and processes of production, and by +continual recurrences of commercial crises; and while they had reduced +all other classes to a proletariat, they had made the life of the +proletariat one of privation, of uncertainty, of discontent, of +incipient revolution. They exploited the labourer of political power; +they exploited him of property, for they treated him as a ware, buying +him in the cheapest market for the cost of his production, that is to +say, the cost of his living, and taking from him the whole surplus of +his work, after deducting the value of his subsistence. Under the system +of wage labour, it could not be otherwise. Wages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> could never, by +economic laws, rise above subsistence. While wage labour created +property, it created it always for the capitalist, and never for the +labourer; and, in fact, the latter only lived at all, so far as it was +for the interests of the governing class, the <i>bourgeoisie</i>, to permit +him. Class rule and wage labour must be swept away, for they were +radically unjust, and a new reign must be inaugurated which would be +politically democratic and socially communistic, and in which the free +development of each should be the condition for the free development of all.</p> + +<p>The Manifesto went on to say that communism was not the subversion of +existing principles, but their universalization. Communism did not seek +to abolish the State, but only the <i>bourgeois</i> State, in which the +<i>bourgeois</i> exclusively hold and wield political power. Communism did +not seek to abolish property, but only the <i>bourgeois</i> system of +property, under which private property is really already abolished for +nine-tenths of society, and maintained merely for one-tenth. Communism +did not seek to abolish marriage and the family, but only the +<i>bourgeois</i> system of things under which marriage and the family, in any +true sense of those terms, were virtually class institutions, for the +proletariat could not have any family life worthy of the name, so long +as their wages were so low that they were forced to huddle up their +whole family regardless of all decency, in a single room, so long as +their wives and daughters were victims of the seduction of the +<i>bourgeoisie</i>, and so long as their children were taken away prematurely +to labour in mills for <i>bourgeois</i> manufacturers, who yet held up their +hands in horror at the thought of any violation of the institution of +the family. Communism did not tend to abolish fatherland and +nationality—that was abolished already for the proletariat, and was +being abolished for the <i>bourgeoisie</i>, too, by the extensions of their trade.</p> + +<p>As to the way of emancipation, the proletariat must strive to obtain +political power, and use it to deprive the <i>bourgeoisie</i> of all capital +and means of production, and to place them in the hands of the State, +<i>i.e.</i>, of the proletariat itself organized as a governing body. Now, +for this, immediate and various measures interfering with property, and +condemned by our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> current economics, were requisite. Those measures +would naturally be different for different countries, but for the most +advanced countries the following were demanded: (1) Expropriation of +landed property and application of rent to State expenditure; (2) +abolition of inheritance; (3) confiscation of the property of all +emigrants and rebels; (4) centralization of credit in the hands of the +State by means of a national bank, with State capital and exclusive +monopoly; (5) centralization of all means of transport in hands of +State; (6) institution of national factories, and improvement of lands +on a common plan; (7) compulsory obligation of labour upon all equally, +and establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture; (8) +joint prosecution of agriculture and mechanical arts, and gradual +abolition of the distinction of town and country; (9) public and +gratuitous education for all children, abolition of children's labour in +factories, etc. The Manifesto ends by saying:—"The communists do not +seek to conceal their views and aims. They declare openly that their +purpose can only be obtained by a violent overthrow of all existing +arrangements of society. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic +revolution. The proletariat have nothing to lose in it but their chains; +they have a world to win. Proletarians of all countries, unite!"</p> + +<p>When the French Revolution of February, 1848, broke out, Marx was +expelled without circumstance from Brussels, and received an invitation +from the Provisional Government of Paris to return to France. He +accepted this invitation, but was only a few weeks in Paris when the +German revolution of March occurred, and he hastened to the theatre of +affairs. With his friends, Freiligrath, Wolff, Engels, and others, he +established on June 1st in Cologne the <i>New Rhenish Gazette</i>, which was +the soul of the Rhenish revolutionary movement, the most important one +of the year in Germany, and that in which, as we have seen, the young +Lassalle first emerged on the troubled surface of revolutionary +politics. After the <i>coup d'état</i> of November, dissolving the Prussian +Parliament, the <i>New Rhenish Gazette</i> strongly urged the people to stop +paying their taxes, and thus meet force by force. It inserted an +admonition to that effect in a prominent place in every successive +number,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> and Marx was twice tried for sedition on account of this +admonition, but each time acquitted. The newspaper, however, was finally +suppressed by civil authority after the Dresden insurrection of May, +1849, its last number appearing on June 19th in red type, and containing +Freiligrath's well-known "Farewell of the <i>New Rhenish +Gazette</i>"—spiritedly translated for us by Ernest Jones—which declared +that the journal went down with "rebellion" on its lips, but would +reappear when the last of the German Crowns was overturned.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>Farewell, but not for ever farewell!</div> +<div class="i1">They cannot kill the spirit, my brother;</div> +<div>In thunder I'll rise on the field where I fell,</div> +<div class="i1">More boldly to fight out another.</div> +<div>When the last of Crowns, like glass, shall break</div> +<div class="i1">On the scene our sorrows have haunted,</div> +<div>And the people its last dread "Guilty" shall speak,</div> +<div class="i1">By your side you shall find me undaunted.</div> +<div>On Rhine or on Danube, in war and deed,</div> +<div class="i1">You shall witness, true to his vow,</div> +<div>On the wrecks of thrones, in the midst of the field,</div> +<div class="i1">The rebel who greets you now.</div> +</div></div> + +<p>This vow is no mere Parthian flourish of poetical defiance. Freiligrath +and his friends undoubtedly believed at this time that the political +movements of 1848 and 1849 were but preliminary ripples, and would be +presently succeeded by a great flood-wave of revolution which they heard +already sounding along in their dangerously expectant ear. His poem on +the Revolution remains as evidence to us that in 1850 he still clung to +that hope, and it would not have been out of tune with his sanguine +beliefs of the year before if he promised, not merely that the spirit of +the journal would rise again, but that its next number would be +published, after the Deluge.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Marx went to London, where he remained for the rest of his +life. Finding that the revolutionary spirit did not revive, and that +historical societies, which have not lost their moral and economic +vitality, had a greater readjusting power against political disturbance +than he previously believed, he gave up for the next ten or twelve years +the active work of revolutionizing. The Communist League, which had got +disorganized in the revolutionary year, and was rent in two by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> a bitter +schism in 1850, was, with his concurrence, dissolved in 1852, on the +ground that its propaganda was no longer opportune; and the story of the +Brimstone League, with its iron discipline and ogrish desires, of which +Mehring says Marx was, during his London residence, the head-centre, is +simply a fairy tale of Karl Vogt's, whose baselessness Marx has himself +completely exposed. Before leaving the Communist League, two +circumstances may be mentioned, because they repeat themselves +constantly in this revolutionary history. The one is that this schism +took place not on a point of doctrine, but of opportunity; the extremer +members thought the conflict in Germany on the Hessian question offered +a good chance for a fresh revolutionary outbreak, and they left the +League because their views were not adopted. The other is that in one of +its last reports (quoted by Mehring) the League definitely justifies, +and even recommends, assassination and incendiarism—"the so-called +excesses, the inflictions of popular vengeance on hated individuals, or +on public buildings which revive hateful associations." For the next ten +years Marx lived quietly in London, writing for the <i>New York Tribune</i> +and other journals, and studying modern industry on this its "classical +soil." He read much in the British Museum Library, gaining his +remarkable acquaintance with the English economic writers, and it was +probably in this period he elaborated his famous doctrine of surplus +value, with its corollary of the right of the labourer to the full +product of his labour. There can be no doubt that the original +suggestion of this doctrine came from English sources, for it was taught +more than a generation before among the English socialists, notably by +William Thompson in his "Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution +of Wealth," which was published as early as 1824, and is actually quoted +by Marx in his work on Capital. Marx built up the doctrine, however, +into a more systematic form, and it is through him and not through the +Owenites it has come into the present socialist movement in which it +plays so conspicuous a part. During this period of reading and +rumination, Marx published a pamphlet against Louis Napoleon; another +against Lord Palmerston, which was widely circulated by David Urquhart; +a third of a personal and bitter character<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> against his +fellow-socialist, Karl Vogt; and a more solid and important work, the +"Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie" (1859), the first fruits of his new +economic studies. But a revolutionist never permanently gives up +revolutionizing, and after his prolonged abstinence from that +excitement, Marx returned to it again in 1864, on the foundation of the +famous International Working Men's Association.</p> + +<p>The International was simply the Communist League raised again from the +dead. Their principles were the same; their constitution was the same; +and Marx began his inaugural address to the International in 1864 with +the very words that concluded his Communistic Manifesto of 1847, +"Proletarians of all nations, unite!" When the representatives of the +English working men first suggested the formation of an international +working men's association, in the address they presented in the +Freemasons' Tavern to the French working men who were sent over at the +instance of Napoleon III. to the London Exhibition of 1862, they +certainly never dreamt of founding an organization of revolutionary +socialist democracy which in a few years to come was to wear a name at +which the world turned pale. Their address was most moderate and +sensible. They said that some permanent medium of interchanging thoughts +and observations between the working men of different countries was +likely to throw light on the economic secrets of societies, and to help +onwards the solution of the great labour problem. For they declared that +that solution had not yet been discovered, and that the socialist +systems which had hitherto professed to propound it were nothing but +magnificent dreams. Moreover, if the system of competition were to +continue, then some arrangement of concord between employer and labourer +must be devised, and in order to assert the views of the labouring class +effectively in that arrangement, a firm and organized union must be +established among working men, not merely in each country, but in all +countries, for their interests, both as citizens and as labourers, were +everywhere identical. Those ideas would constitute the basis of a very +rational and moderate programme. But when, in the following year, after +a meeting in favour of the Polish insurrection, which was held in St. +Martin's Hall under the presidency of Professor Beesly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> and at which +some of the French delegates of 1862 were present, a committee was +appointed to follow up the suggestion, this committee asked Marx to +prepare a programme and statutes for the proposed association, and he +impressed upon it at its birth the stamp of his own revolutionary +socialism. He never had a higher official position in the International +than corresponding secretary for Germany, for it was determined, +probably with the view of securing a better hold of the great English +working class and their extensive trade organizations, that the +president and secretary should be English working men, and then, after a +time, the office of president was abolished altogether because it had a +monarchical savour. But Marx had the ablest, the best informed, and +probably the most made-up mind in the council; he governed without +reigning; and, with his faithful German following, he exercised an +almost paramount influence on its action from first to last, in spite of +occasional revolts and intrigues against an authority which democratic +jealousy resented as dictatorial, or—worse still—monarchical. The +statutes of the association, which were adopted at the Geneva Congress +of 1866, declared that "the economic subjection of the labourer to the +possessor of the means of labour, <i>i.e.</i> of the sources of life, is the +first cause of his political, moral, and material servitude, and that +the economic emancipation of labour is consequently the great aim to +which every political movement ought to be subordinated." Now no doubt +the "economic emancipation of labour" meant different things to +different sections of the Association's members. To the English trades +unionists it meant practically better wages; to the Russian nihilists it +meant the downfall of the Czar and of all central political authority, +and leaving the socialistic communal organization of their country to +manage itself without interference from above; to some of the French +members (as appeared at the Lausanne Congress in 1867) it meant the +nationalization of credit and all land except that held by peasant +proprietors, a class which it was necessary to maintain as a +counterpoise to the State; while, to the German socialists, it meant the +abolition of wages, the nationalization of land and the instruments of +production, the assumption by the State of a supreme direction of all +trade, commerce, finance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> and agriculture, and the distribution by the +State of land, tools, and materials to guilds and productive +associations as the actual industrial executive. There were thus very +different elements in the composition of the International, but a <i>modus +vivendi</i> was found for some years by nursing an ultimate ideal, which +was desirable, and meanwhile practically working for a proximate and +much narrower ideal, which was more immediately feasible or necessary. +The association could thus hold that nothing could benefit the working +class but an abolition of wages, and could yet, as it sometimes did, +help and encourage strikes which wanted only to raise wages. At its +Congress in Brussels in 1868 it declared that a strike was not a means +of completely emancipating the labourers, but was often a necessity in +the present situation of labour and capital. Most of the other practical +measures to which the association addressed itself—the eight hours +normal day of labour, gratuitous education, gratuitous justice, +universal suffrage, abolition of standing armies, abolition of indirect +taxes, prohibition of children's labour, State credit for productive +associations—contemplated modifications of the existing system of +things, but always contemplated them as aids to and instalments of the +coming transformation of that system. The consciousness was constantly +preserved that a revolution was impending, and that, as Lassalle said, +it was bound to come and could not be checked, whether it approached by +sober advances from concession to concession, or flew, with streaming +hair and shod with steel, right into the central stronghold.</p> + +<p>This was very much the keynote struck by Marx in his inaugural address. +That address was simply a review of the situation since 1848, and an +encouragement of his forces to a renewal of the combat. Wealth had +enormously increased in the interval; colonies had been opened, new +inventions discovered, free trade introduced; but misery was not a whit +the less; class contrasts were even deeper marked, property was more +than ever in the hands of the few; in England the number of landowners +had diminished eleven per cent. in the preceding ten years; and if this +rate were to continue, the country would be rapidly ripe for revolution. +While the old order of things was thus hastening to its doom, the new +order of things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> had made some advances. The Ten Hours Act was "not +merely a great practical result, but was the victory of a principle. For +the first time the political economy of the <i>bourgeoisie</i> had been in +clear broad day put in subjection to the political economy of the +working class." Then, again, the experiment of co-operation had now been +sufficiently tried to show that it was possible to carry on industry +without the intervention of an employing class, and had spread abroad +the hope that wage labour was, like slavery and feudal servitude, only a +transitory and subordinate form, which was destined to be superseded by +associated labour. The International had for its aim to promote this +associated labour; only it sought to do so, not piecemeal and +sporadically, but systematically, on a national scale, and by State +means. And for this end the labouring class must first acquire political +power, so as to obtain possession of the means of production; and to +acquire political power, they must unite.</p> + +<p>The International, though, as we have seen, possessing no real +solidarity in its composition, held together till the outbreak of the +Franco-German war, and of the revolution of the Paris Commune. It was, +of course, strongly opposed to the war, as it was to all war; and +strongly in favour of the revolution, as it was of all revolution. Its +precise complicity in the work of the Commune is not easy to determine, +but there can be no doubt that its importance has been greatly +exaggerated, both by the fears of his enemies and the vanity of its +members. Some of the latter were certainly among those who sat in the +Hôtel de Ville, but none of them were leading minds there; and, as for +the Association itself, it never had a real membership, or +ramifications, of any formidable extent. For example, the English trades +unions were in connection with it, and their members might be, in a +sense, counted among its members, but it is certain they never +recognised it as an authority over them, and they probably subscribed to +it mainly as to a useful auxiliary in a strike. The leaders of the +International, however, were, undoubtedly, heart and soul with the +Commune, and approved probably both of its aims and methods, and Marx, +at the Congress of the International, at the Hague, in 1872, drew, from +its failure the lesson, that "revolution must be solidary" in order to +succeed. A revolution in one capital<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> of Europe must be supported by +simultaneous revolutions in the rest. But, while there is little ground +for the common belief that the International had any important influence +in creating the insurrection of the Commune, it is certain that the +insurrection of the Commune killed the International. The English +members dropped off from it and never returned, and at its first +Congress after the revolution (the Hague, 1872), the Association itself +was rent by a fatal schism arising from differences of opinion on a +question as to the government of the society of the future, which would +probably not have become a subject of such keen present interest at the +time but for the Paris Commune. The question concerned the maintenance +or abolition of the State, of the supreme central political authority, +and the discussion brought to light that the socialists of the +International were divided into two distinct and irreconcilable +camps—the Centralist Democratic Socialists, headed by Marx, and the +Anarchist Socialists, headed by Michael Bakunin, the Russian +revolutionist. The Marxists insisted that the socialist <i>régime</i> of +collective property and systematic co-operative production could not +possibly be introduced, maintained, or regulated, except by means of an +omnipotent and centralized political authority—call it the State, call +it the collectivity, call it what you like—which should have the final +disposal of everything. The Bakunists held that this was just bringing +back the old tyranny and slavery in a more excessive and intolerable +form. They took up the tradition of Proudhon, who said that "the true +form of the State is anarchy," meaning by anarchy, of course, not +positive disorder, but the absence of any supreme ruler, whether king or +convention. They would have property possessed and industry pursued on a +communistic principle by groups or associations of workmen, but these +groups must form themselves freely and voluntarily, without any social +or political compulsion. The Marxists declared that this was simply a +retention of the system of free competition in an aggravated form, that +it would only lead to confusion worse confounded, and that the +Bakunists, even in trying to abolish the evils of <i>laissez-faire</i>, were +still foolishly supposing that the world could go of itself. This +division of opinion—really a broader one than that which parts +socialist from orthodox economist—rent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> the already enfeebled +International into two separate organizations, which languished for a +year or two and passed away. And so, with high thoughts of spreading a +reign of fraternity over the earth, the International Working Men's +Association perished, because, being only human, it could not maintain +fraternity in its own narrow borders. This is a history that repeats +itself again and again in socialist movements. As W. Marr said in the +remark quoted above, revolutionists will only unite on a negation; the +moment they begin to ask what they will put in its place they differ and +dispute and come to nought. Apprehend them, close their meetings, banish +their leaders, and you but knit them by common suffering to common +resistance. You supply them with a negation of engrossing interest, you +preoccupy their minds with a negative programme which keeps them united, +and so you prevent them from raising the fatal question—What next? +which they never discuss without breaking up into rival sects and +factions, fraternal often in nothing but their hatred. "It is the shades +that hate one another, not the colours." Such disruptions and secessions +may—as they did in Germany—by emulation increase for a time the +efficiency of the organization as a propagandist agency, but they +certainly diminish its danger as a possible instrument of insurrection. +A socialist organization seems always to contain two elements of +internal disintegration. One is the prevalence of a singular and almost +pathetic mistrust of their leaders, and of one another. The law of +suspects is always in force among themselves. At meetings of the German +Socialists, Liebknecht denounces Schweitzer as an agent of the Prussian +Government, Schweitzer accuses Liebknecht of being an Austrian spy, and +the frequent hints at bribery, and open charges of treason against the +labourers' cause, disclose to us now duller and now more acute phases of +that unhappy state of mutual suspicion, in which the one supreme, +superhuman virtue, worthy to be worshipped, if haply it could anywhere +be discovered, is the virtue men honoured even in Robespierre—the +incorruptible. The other source of disintegration is the tendency to +intestine divisions on points of doctrine. A reconstruction of society +is necessarily a most extensive programme, and allows room for the +utmost variety of opinion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> and plan. The longer it is discussed, the +more certainly do differences arise, and the movement becomes a strife +of schools in no way formidable to the government. All this only +furnishes another reason for the conclusion that in dealing with +socialist agitations, a government's safest as well as justest policy +is, as much as may be, to leave them alone. Their danger lies in the +cloudiness of their ideas, and that can only be dispersed in the free +breezes of popular discussion. The sword is an idle method of reasoning +with an idea; an idea will eventually yield to nothing but argument. +Repression, too, is absolutely impossible with modern facilities of +inter-communication, and can at best but drive the offensive elements +for a time into subterranean channels, where they gather like a +dangerous choke-damp that may occasion at any moment a serious explosion.</p> + +<p>After the fall of the International, Marx took no further part in public +movements, but occupied his time in completing his work <i>Das Capital</i>, +under frequent interruption from ill-health, and he died in Paris in the +spring of 1883, leaving that work still unfinished.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The <i>Das Capital</i> of Marx may be said to be the sacred book of +contemporary socialism, and though, like other sacred books, it is +probably a sealed one to the body of the faithful, for it is extremely +stiff reading, it is the great source from which socialist agitators +draw their inspiration and arguments. Apart from the representative +authority with which it is thus invested, it must be at once +acknowledged to be an able, learned, and important work, founded on +diligent research, evincing careful elaboration of materials, much +acuteness of logical analysis, and so much solicitude for precision that +a special terminology has been invented to secure it. The author's taste +for logical distinctions, however, as he has actually applied it, serves +rather to darken than to elucidate his exposition. He overloads with +analysis secondary points of his argument which are clear enough without +it, and he assumes without analysis primary positions which it is most +essential for him to make plain. His style and method carries us back to +the ecclesiastical schoolmen. His superabounding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> love of scholastic +formalities is unmodern; and one may be permitted to hope that the odium +more than theological with which he speaks of opponents has become unmodern too.</p> + +<p>Marx's argument takes the form of an inquiry into the origin and social +effects of capital; understanding the word capital, however, in a +peculiar sense. Capital, according to the elementary teaching of +political economy, always means the portion of wealth which is saved +from immediate consumption to be devoted to productive uses, and it +matters not whether it is so saved and devoted by the labourer who is to +use it, or by some other person who lends it to the labourer at interest +or employs the labourer to work with it at a fixed rate of wages. A +fisherman's boat is capital as much as a Cunard Company's steamer, +although the boat is owned by the person who sails it and the steamer by +persons who may never have seen it. The fisherman is labourer and +capitalist in one, but in the case of the steamer the capital is +supplied by one set of people and the labour undertaken by another. Now +Marx speaks of capital only after this division of functions has taken +place. It is, he says, not a logical but a historical category. In +former times men all wrought for the supply of their own wants, the seed +and stock they received was saved and owned by themselves, capital was +an instrument in the hands of labour. But in modern times, especially +since the rise of foreign commerce in the 16th century, this situation +has been gradually reversed. Industry is now conducted by speculators, +who advance the stock and pay the labourer's wages, in order to make +gain out of the excess of the product over the advances, and labour is a +mere instrument in the hands of capital. The capitalist is one who, +without being personally a producer, advances money to producers to +provide them with materials and tools, in the hope of getting a larger +sum of money in return, and capital is the money so advanced. With this +representation of capital as money, so long as it is but a popular form +of speech, no fault need be found, but Marx soon after falls into a +common fallacy and positively identifies capital with money, declaring +them to be only the same thing circulating in a different way. Money as +money, he says, being a mere medium of exchange,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> is a middle term +between two commodities which it helps to barter, and the order of +circulation is C—M—C, i.e. <i>commodity</i> is converted into <i>money</i> and +<i>money</i> is reconverted into <i>commodity</i>. On the other hand, money as +capital stands at the two extremes, and commodity is a middle term, a +medium of converting one sum of money into another and greater; the +order of circulation being expressed as M—C—M. Of course capital, like +other wealth, may be expressed in terms of money, but to identify +capital with money in this way is only to introduce confusion, and the +real confusion is none the less pernicious that it presents itself under +an affectation of mathematical precision.</p> + +<p>Capital, then, as Marx understands it, may be said to be independent +wealth employed or its own increase, and in "societies in which the +capitalistic method of production prevails" all wealth bears +distinctively this character. In more primitive days, wealth was a store +of means of life produced and preserved for the supply of the producer's +future wants, but now it "appears as a huge collection of wares," made +for other people's wants, made for sale in the market, made for its own +increase. What Marx wants to discover is how all this independent wealth +has come to accumulate in hands that do not produce it, and in +particular from whence comes the increase expected from its use, because +it is this increase that enables it to accumulate. What he endeavours to +show is that this increase of value cannot take place anywhere except in +the process of production, that in that process it cannot come from the +dead materials, but only from the living creative power of labour that +works upon them, and that it is accordingly virtually stolen from the +labourers who made it by the superior economic force of the owners of +the dead materials, without which indeed it could not be made, but whose +service is entitled to a much more limited reward.</p> + +<p>No increase of value, he contends, can occur in the process of exchange, +for an exchange is a mere transposition of things of equal value. In one +sense both parties in the transaction are gainers, for each gets a thing +he wants for a thing he does not want. The usefulness of the two +commodities is thus increased by the exchange, but their value is not. +An exchange simply<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> means that each party gives to the other equal value +for equal value, and even if it were possible for one of them to make a +gain in value to-day—to get a more valuable thing for a less valuable +thing—still, as all the world is buyer and seller in turn, they would +lose to-morrow as buyers what they gained to-day as sellers, and the old +level of value would be restored. No increase whatever would be +effected. There is indeed a class of people whom he describes as always +buying and never selling—the unproducing class who live on their money, +and who, he says, receive by legal titles or by force wealth made by +producers without giving anything in exchange for it. And it may be +supposed that perhaps value is created by selling things to this class +of persons, or by selling things to them above their true value, but +that is not so; you would have brought no new value into the world by +such a transaction, and even if you got more for your goods than their +worth, you would only be cheating back from these rich people part of +the money that they had previously received for nothing. Another +supposition remains. Perhaps new value is created in the process of +exchange when one dealer takes advantage of another—when Peter, say, +contrives to induce Paul to take £40 worth of wine for £50 worth of +iron. But in this case there has been no increase of value; the value +has merely changed hands; Peter has £10 more than he had before, and +Paul £10 less. The commodities have between them after the transaction, +as they had before it, a total value of £90, and that total cannot be +increased by a mere change of possessor.</p> + +<p>Having thus established to his satisfaction that commerce, being only a +series of exchanges, cannot produce any increase of value, or what he +terms surplus value, Marx says that that only makes the problem of the +origin of surplus value more enigmatical than ever. For we are thus left +in presence of an apparent contradiction: surplus value cannot spring up +in the circulation of commodities because circulation is nothing but an +exchange of equivalents; and yet surplus value cannot spring up anywhere +except in circulation, because the class of persons who receive it and +live by it do not produce. Here, then, is a riddle, and Marx sets +himself to rede it. True, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> says, value is not created directly in the +market, but a commodity is purchased in the market which has the +remarkable property of creating value. That commodity is the human +powers of labour. The very use of these powers, their consumption, their +expenditure, is the creation of value. But marvellous as they are, their +possessor is obliged to sell them, because while they are yielding their +product he must meanwhile live, and he sells a day's use of them for a +day's means of living. They create in a day far more than the value of +the wages for which they are bought. This excess is surplus value, and +is the secret and fountainhead of all accumulations of capital. Powers +which can create six shillings worth in a day may be procured in the +market for three shillings, because three shillings will pay for their +necessary maintenance. Surplus value is the difference between the value +of the labourer's necessary maintenance and the value of the labourer's +production, and it is in the present system entirely appropriated by the +dealer who advances him his wages.</p> + +<p>Marx thus bases his argument on two principles which he borrows from +current economic writers, without, however, observing the limitations +under which those writers taught them, and introducing besides important +modifications of his own. The one principle is that value comes from +labour, or as economists stated their law, that the natural value of +commodities is determined by the cost of their production. The second is +only a special application of the first; that the natural wages of +labour are determined by the cost of its production, and that the cost +of the production of labour is the cost of the labourer's subsistence. +The fault he finds with the present system is accordingly this, that +while labour creates all value it is paid only by its stated living, no +matter how much value it creates; and he then goes over the phenomena of +modern industrial life to show how each arrangement is invented so as to +extract more and more value out of the labourer by prolonging his hours +of work or enhancing its speed without giving him any advantage whatever +from the increase of value so obtained. We shall get a fair view of +Marx's argument, therefore, if we follow it through the successive +heads: 1st, Value; 2nd, Wages; 3rd, Normal day of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> labour; 4th, +Machinery; 5th, Piecework; 6th, Relative over-population.</p> + +<p>1st. <i>Value.</i> Marx holds that all capital—all industrial advances +except wages—is absolutely unproductive of value, and therefore not +entitled to the acknowledgment known as interest. The original value of +all such capital—the purchase price of the materials, together with a +certain allowance made for tear and wear of machinery—is carried +forward into the value of the product, and preserved in it, and even +that could not be done except by labour. The old value is preserved by +labour, and all new value is conferred by it, and therefore interest is +a consideration entirely out of the question. It is obvious to object +that labour by itself is as unproductive as capital by itself, but Marx +would reply that while labour and capital are equally indispensable to +produce new commodities, it is labour alone that produces new value, for +value is only so much labour preserved, it is merely a register of so +many hours of work. His whole argument thus turns upon his doctrine of +the nature of value, and that doctrine must therefore be closely attended to.</p> + +<p>What, then, is value? Marx considers that most errors on this subject +have arisen from confusing value with utility on the one hand or with +price on the other, and he regards his discrimination of value from +these two ideas as his most important contribution to political economy. +He takes his start from the distinction current since the days of Adam +Smith between value in use and value in exchange, and of course agrees +with Smith in making the value of a commodity in exchange to be +independent of its value in use. Water had great value in use and none +in exchange, and diamonds had great value in exchange and little in use. +Value in use is therefore not value strictly so called, it is utility; +but strictly speaking value in exchange, according to Marx, is not value +either, but only the form under which in our state of society value +manifests itself. There was no exchange in primitive society when every +family produced things to supply its own wants, and there would be no +exchange in a communism, for in an exchange the transacting parties +stand to one another equally as private proprietors of the goods they +barter. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> where there was no exchange there could of course be no +exchange value. No doubt there was value for all that in primitive +times, and there would be value under a communism, though it would +manifest itself in a different form. But as we live in an exchanging +society, where everything is made for the purpose of being exchanged, it +is in exchange alone that we have any experience of value, and it is +only from an examination of the phenomena of exchange that we can learn its nature.</p> + +<p>What, then, is value in exchange? It is the ratio in which one kind of +useful commodity exchanges against another kind of useful commodity. +This ratio, says Marx, does not in the least depend on the usefulness of +the respective commodities, or their capacity of gratifying any +particular want. For, first, that is a matter of quality, whereas value +is a ratio between quantities; and second, two different kinds of +utility cannot be compared, for they have no common measure; but value, +being a ratio, implies comparison, and comparison implies a common +measure. A fiddle charms the musical taste, a loaf satisfies hunger, but +who can calculate how much musical gratification is equivalent to so +much satisfaction of hunger. The loaf and the fiddle may be compared in +value, but not by means of their several uses. Third, there are many +commodities which are useful and yet have no value in exchange: air, for +example, water, and, he adds, virgin soil. In seeking what in the +exchange the value depends on, we must therefore leave the utility of +the commodities exchanged entirely out of account; and if we do so, +there is only one other attribute they all possess in common, and it +must be on that attribute that their value rests. That attribute is that +they are all products of labour. While we looked to the utility of +commodities, they were infinite in their variety, but now they are all +reduced to one sober characteristic they are so many different +quantities of the same material, labour. Diversity vanishes; there are +no longer tables and chairs and houses, there is only this much and that +much and the next amount of preserved human labour. And this labour +itself is not discriminated. It is not joiner work, mason work, or +weaver work; it is merely human labour in the abstract, incorporated, +absorbed, congealed in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>exchangeable commodities. In an exchange +commodities are quantities of labour jelly, and they exchange in the +ratio of the amount of labour they have taken in.</p> + +<p>Value, then, is quantity of abstract labour, and now what is quantity of +labour? How is it to be ascertained? Labour is the exertion or use of +man's natural powers of labour, and the quantity of labour is measured +by the duration of the exertion. Quantity of labour is thus reduced to +time of labour, and is measured by hours and days and weeks. Marx +accordingly defines value to be an immanent relation of a commodity to +time of labour, and the secret of exchange is that "a day's labour of +given length always turns out a product of the same value." Value is +thus something inherent in commodities before they are brought to +market, and is independent of the circumstances of the market.</p> + +<p>Marx has no sooner reduced value to the single uniform element of time +of labour, and excluded from its constitution all considerations of +utility and the state of the market, than he reintroduces those +considerations under a disguised form. In the first place, if a day's +labour of given length always produces the same value, it is obvious to +ask whether then an indolent and unskilful tailor who takes a week to +make a coat has produced as much value as the more expert hand who turns +out six in this time, or, with the help of a machine, perhaps twenty? +Marx answers, Certainly not, for the time of labour which determines +value is not the time actually taken, but the time required in existing +social conditions to produce that particular kind of commodity—the time +taken by labour of average efficiency, using the means which the age +affords—in short, what he calls the socially necessary time of labour. +Value is an immanent relation to socially necessary time of labour. +Marx's standard is thus, after all, not one of quantity of labour pure +and simple; it takes into account, besides, the average productive power +of labour in different branches of industry. "The value of a commodity," +says he, "changes directly as the quantity, and inversely as the +productive power, of the labour which realizes itself in that +commodity." Before we know the value of a commodity we must therefore +know not only the quantity of labour that has gone into it, but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> +productive power of that labour. We gather the quantity from the +duration of exertion, but how is average productive power to be +ascertained? By simply ascertaining the total product of all the labour +engaged in a particular trade, and then striking the average for each +labourer. Diamonds occur rarely in the crust of the earth, and therefore +many seekers spend days and weeks without finding one. Hits and misses +must be taken together; the productive power of the diamond seeker is +low; or, in other words, the time of labour socially necessary to +procure a diamond is high, and its value corresponds. In a good year the +same labour will produce twice as much wheat as in a bad; its productive +power is greater; the time socially necessary to produce wheat is less, +and the price of the bushel falls. The value of a commodity is therefore +influenced by its comparative abundance, whether that be due to nature, +or to machinery, or to personal skill.</p> + +<p>But, in the next place, if value is simply so much labour, it would seem +to follow, on the one hand, that nothing could have value which cost no +labour, and, on the other, that nothing could be devoid of value which +cost labour. Marx's method of dealing with these two objections deserves +close attention, because it is here that the fundamental fallacy of his +argument is brought most clearly out. He answers the first of them by +drawing a distinction between <i>value</i> and <i>price</i>, which he and his +followers count of the highest consequence. Things which cost no labour +may have a <i>price</i>, but they have no <i>value</i>, and, as we have seen, he +mentions among such things conscience and virgin soil. No labour has +touched those things; they have no immanent relation to socially +necessary time of labour; they have not, and cannot have, any value, as +Marx understands value. But then, he says, they command a price. Virgin +soil is actually sold in the market; it may procure things that have +value though it has none itself. Now, this distinction between value and +price has no bearing on the matter at all, for the simple reason that, +as Marx himself admits, price is only a particular form of value. Price, +he says, is "the money form of value"; it is value expressed in money; +it is the exchange value of a commodity for money. To say that +uncultivated land may have a price but not a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> value is, on Marx's own +showing, to say that it has an exchange value which can be definitely +measured in money, and has yet no value. But he has started from the +phenomena of exchange; he has told us that exchange value is the only +form in which we experience value now; and he thus arrives at a theory +of value which will not explain the facts. If he argued that a thing had +value, but no exchange value, his position might be false, but he says +that a thing may have exchange value but no value, and so his position +is contradictory. Moreover, he describes money accurately enough as a +measure of value, and says that it could not serve this function except +it were itself valuable, <i>i.e.</i>, unless it possessed the quality that +makes all objects commensurable, the quality of being a product of +labour. Yet here we find him admitting that virgin soil, which, <i>ex +hypothesi</i>, does not possess that quality, and ought therefore to be +incommensurable with anything that possesses it, is yet measured with +money every day. Such are some of the absurdities to which Marx is +reduced by refusing to admit that utility can confer value independently of labour.</p> + +<p>Let us see now how he deals with the other objection. If labour is just +value-forming substance, and if value is just preserved labour, then +nothing which has cost labour should be destitute of value. But Marx +frankly admits that there are such things which have yet got no value; +and they have no value, he explains, because they have no utility. +"Nothing can have value without being useful. If it is useless, the work +contained in it is useless, and therefore has no value." He goes +further; he says that a thing may be both useful and the product of +labour and yet have no value. "He who by the produce of his labour +satisfies wants of his own produces utility but not value. To produce a +ware, <i>i.e.</i>, a thing which has not merely value in use, but value in +exchange, he must produce something which is not only useful to himself, +but useful to others," <i>i.e.</i>, socially useful. A product of labour +which is useless to the producer and everybody else has no value of any +sort; a product of labour which, while useful to the producer, is +useless to any one else, has no exchange value. It satisfies no want of +others. This would seem to cover the case of over-production, when +commodities lose their value for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> a time because nobody wants them. +Lassalle explained this depreciation of value by saying that the time of +labour socially necessary to produce the articles in question had +diminished. Marx explains it by saying that the labour is less socially +useful or not socially useful at all. And why is the labour not socially +useful? Simply because the product is not so. The social utility or +inutility of the labour is a mere inference from the social utility or +inutility of the product, and it is therefore the latter consideration +that influences value. Marx tries in vain to exclude the influence of +that consideration, or to explain it as a mere subsidiary qualification +of labour. Labour and social utility both enter equally into the +constitution of value, and Marx's radical error lies in defining value +in terms of labour only, ignoring utility.</p> + +<p>For what, after all, is value? Is Marx's definition of it in the least +correct? No. Value is not an inherent relation (whatever that may mean) +of a commodity to labour; it is essentially a social estimate of the +relative importance of commodities to the society that forms the +estimate. It is not an immanent property of an object at all; it is a +social opinion expressed upon an object in comparison with others. This +social opinion is at present collected in an informal but effective way, +through a certain subtle tact acquired in the market, by dealers +representing groups of customers on the one hand, and manufacturers +representing groups of producers on the other; and it may be said to be +pronounced in the verdict of exchange, <i>i.e.</i>, according to Mill's +definition of value, in the quantity of one commodity given in exchange +for a given quantity of another. Now, on what does this social estimate +of the relative importance of commodities turn? In other words, by what +is value and difference in value determined? Value is constituted in +every object by its possession of two characteristics: 1st, that it is +socially useful; 2nd, that it costs some labour or trouble to procure +it. No commodity lacks value which possesses both of these +characteristics; and no commodity has value which lacks either of them. +Now there are two kinds of commodities. Some may be produced to an +indefinite amount by means of labour, and since all who desire them can +obtain them at any time for the labour they cost,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> their social +desirableness, their social utility, has no influence on their value, +which, therefore, always stands in the ratio of their cost of production +alone. Other classes of commodities cannot be in this way indefinitely +multiplied by labour; their quantity is strictly limited by natural or +other causes; those who desire them cannot get them for the mere labour +of producing them; and the value of commodities of this sort will +consequently always stand in excess of their relative cost of +production, and will be really determined by their relative social +utility. In fact, so far from the labour required for their production +being any guide to their value, it is their value that will determine +the amount of labour which will be ventured in their production. A +single word may be added in explanation of the conception of social +utility. Of course a commodity which is of no use to any one but its +owner has no economic value, unless it happens to get lost, and, in any +case, it is of no consequence in the present question. The social +utility of a commodity is its capacity to satisfy the wants of others +than the possessor, and it turns on two considerations: 1st, the +importance of the want the commodity satisfies, and, 2nd, the number of +persons who share the want. All commodities which derive a value from +their rarity or their special excellence belong to this latter class, +and the vice of Marx's theory of value is simply this, that he takes a +law which is true of the first class of commodities only to be true of all classes of them.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>2. <i>Wages.</i> Having concluded by the vicious argument now explained that +all value is the creation of the personal labour of the workman—is but +the registered duration of exertion of his labouring powers—Marx next +proceeds to show that, as things at present exist, the value of these +labouring powers themselves is fixed not by what they create but by what +is necessary to create or at least renovate them. The rate of wages, +economists have taught, is determined by the cost of the production of +labouring powers, and that is identical with the cost of maintaining the +labourer in working vigour. Marx accepts the usual explanations of the +elasticity of this standard of cost of subsistence. It includes, of +course, the maintenance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> of the labourer's family as well as his own, +because he will die some day, and the permanent reproduction of powers +of labour requires the birth of fresh hands to succeed him. It must also +cover the expenses of training and apprenticeship, and Marx would +probably agree to add, though he does not actually do so, a +superannuation allowance for old age. It contains, too, a variable +historical element, differs with climate and country, and is, in fact, +just the customary standard of living among free labourers of the time +and place. The value of a commodity is the time of labour required to +deliver it in <i>normal goodness</i>, and to preserve the powers of labour in +normal goodness a definite quantity of provisions and comforts is +necessary according to time, country, and customs. The part of the +labouring day required to produce this definite quantity of provisions +and comforts for the use of the day may be called the <i>necessary time of +labour</i>—the time during which the workman produces what is necessary +for keeping him in existence—and the value created in this season may +be called <i>necessary value</i>. But the workman's physical powers may hold +on labouring longer than this, and the rest of his working day may +accordingly be called <i>surplus time of labour</i>, and the value created in +it <i>surplus value</i>. This surplus value may be created or increased in +two ways: either by reducing or cheapening the labourer's subsistence, +<i>i.e.</i>, by shortening the term of necessary labour; or by prolonging the +length of the working day, <i>i.e.</i>, by increasing the term of surplus +labour. There are limits indeed within which this kind of action must +stop. The quantity of means of life cannot be reduced below the minimum +that is physically indispensable to sustain the labourer for the day, +and the term of labour cannot be stretched beyond the labourer's +capacity of physical endurance. But within these limits may be played an +important <i>rôle</i>, and the secret of surplus value lies in the simple +plan of giving the labourer as little as he is able to live on, and +working him as long as he is able to stand. A labourer works 12 hours a +day because he cannot work longer and work permanently and well, and he +gets three shillings a day of wages, because three shillings will buy +him the necessities he requires. In six hours' labour he will create +three shillings' worth of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> value, and he works the other six hours for +nothing, creating three shillings' worth of surplus value for the master +who advances him his wages. It is from these causes that we come on the +present system of things to the singular result that powers of labour +which create six shillings a day are themselves worth only three +shillings a day. This absurd conclusion, says Marx, could never have +held ground for an hour, had it not been hid and disguised by the +practice of paying wages in money. This makes it seem as if the labourer +were paid for the whole day when he is only paid for the half. Under the +old system of feudal servitude there were no such disguises. The +labourer wrought for his master one day, and for himself the other five, +and there was no make-believe as if he were working for himself all the +time. But the wages system gives to surplus labour that is really unpaid +the false appearance of being paid. That is the mystery of iniquity of +the whole system, the source of all prevailing legal conceptions of the +relation of employer and employed, and of all the illusions about +industrial freedom. The wages system is the lever of the labourer's +exploitation, because it enables the capitalist to appropriate the +entire surplus value created by the labourer—<i>i.e.</i>, the value he +creates over and above what is necessary to recruit his labouring powers withal.</p> + +<p>Now surplus value, as we have seen, is of two kinds, absolute and +relative. Absolute surplus value is got by lengthening the term of +surplus labour; relative surplus value by shortening the term of +necessary labour, which is chiefly done by inventions that cheapen the +necessaries of life. The consideration of the first of these points +leads Marx into a discussion of the normal length of the day of labour; +and the consideration of the second into a discussion of the effects of +inventions and machinery on the condition of the working classes. We +shall follow him on these points in their order.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>3. <i>Normal day of labour.</i> There is a normal length of the day of +labour, and it ought to be ascertained and fixed by law. Some bounds are +set to it by nature. There is a minimum length, for example, beneath +which it cannot fall; that minimal limit is the time required to create +an equivalent to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> the labourer's living; but as under the capitalistic +system the capitalist has also to be supported out of it, it can never +be actually shortened to this minimum. There is also a maximum length +above which it cannot rise, and this upper limit is fixed by two sorts +of considerations, one physical, the other moral. 1st. <i>Physical +limits.</i> These are set by the physical endurance of the labourer. The +day of labour cannot be protracted beyond the term within which the +labourer can go on from day to day in normal working condition to the +end of his normal labouring career. This is always looked to with +respect to a horse. He cannot be wrought more than eight hours a day +regularly without injury. 2nd. <i>Moral limits.</i> The labourer needs time +(which the horse does not, or he would perhaps get it) for political, +intellectual, and social wants, according to the degree required by +society at the time. Between the maximum and minimum limit there is, +however, considerable play-room, and therefore we find labouring days +prevailing of very different length, 8 hours, 10, 12, 14, 16, and even +18 hours. There is no principle in the existing industrial economy which +fixes the length of the day; it must be fixed by law on a sound view of +the requirements of the case. Marx pitches upon 8 hours as the best +limit, because it affords a security for the permanent physical +efficiency of the labourer, and gives him leisure for satisfying those +intellectual and social wants which are becoming every day more largely +imperative. He makes no use of the reason often urged for the 8 hours +day, that the increased intelligence it would tend to cultivate in the +working class would in many ways conduce to such an increase of +production as would justify the shorter term of work. But he is very +strong for the necessity of having it fixed by law, and points out that +even then employers will need to be carefully watched or they will find +ways and means of extending the day in spite of the law. When the day +was fixed in England at 10 hours in some branches of industry, some +masters gained an extra quarter or half-hour by taking five minutes off +each meal time, and the profit made in these five minutes was often very +considerable. He mentions a manufacturer who said to him, "If you allow +me ten minutes extra time every day, you put £1,000 a year into my +pocket,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> and he says that is a good demonstration of the origin of +surplus value, for how much of this £1,000 would be given to the man +whose extra ten minutes' labour had made it? Marx enters very fully into +the history of English factory legislation, acknowledges the great +benefit it has conferred both upon the labouring class and the +manufacturers, and says that since the Act of 1850 the cotton industry +has become the model industry of the country. As might be expected, he +thinks the gradual course taken by English legislation on the subject +much inferior, as a matter of principle, to the more revolutionary +method taken by France in 1848, when a twelve hours Act was introduced +simultaneously as a matter of principle for every trade in the whole +country; but he admits that the results were more permanent in England.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>4. <i>Effects of machinery, and the growth of fixed capital on the working +classes.</i> The whole progress of industrial improvements is a history of +fresh creations of relative surplus value, and always for the benefit of +the capitalist who advances the money. Everything that economizes labour +or that adds positively to its productivity, contracts the labourer's +own part of the working day and prolongs the master's. Division and +subdivision of labour, combination, co-operation, organization, +inventions, machinery, are all "on the one hand elements of historical +progress and development in the economic civilization of society, but on +the other are all means of civilized and refined exploitation of the +labourer." They not only increase social wealth at his expense, but in +many cases they do him positive injury. These improvements have cost +capitalists nothing, though capitalists derive the whole advantage from +them. Subdivision, combination, organization, are simply natural +resources of social labour, and natural resources of any kind are not +produced by the capitalist. Inventions, again, are the work of science, +and science costs the capitalist nothing. Labour, association, +science—these are the sources of the increase; capital is nowhere, yet +it sits and seizes the whole. Machinery, of course, is capital, but then +Marx will not admit that it creates any value, and contends that it +merely transfers to the product the value it loses by tear and wear in +the process<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> of production. The general effect of industrial +improvements, according to Marx, is—1st, to reduce wages; 2nd, to +prolong the day of labour; 3rd, to overwork one-half of the working +class; 4th, to throw the rest out of employ; and, 5th, to concentrate +the whole surplus return in the hands of a few capitalists who make +their gains by exploiting the labourers, and increase them by exploiting +one another. This last point we need not further explain, and the third +and fourth we shall unfold under the separate heads of Piecework and +Relative Over-population. The remaining two I shall take up now, and +state Marx's views about a little more fully.</p> + +<p>(<i>a</i>). Industrial improvements tend to reduce wages. They do so, says +Marx, through first mutilating the labourer intellectually and +corporeally. As a result of subdivision of labour, workmen are rapidly +becoming mere one-sided specialists. Headwork is being separated more +and more from handwork in the labourer's occupation, and this +differentiation of function leads to a hierarchy of wages which affords +great opportunity for exploiting the labourer. Muscular power is more +easily dispensed with than formerly, and so the cheaper labour of women +and children is largely superseding the dearer labour of men. If this +goes on much further, the manufacturer will get the labour of a whole +family for the wages he used to pay to its head alone, and the labourer +will be converted into a slave-dealer who sells his wife and children +instead of his own labour. That this kind of slavery will find no sort +of resistance from either master or labourer, is to Marx's mind placed +beyond doubt by the fact that though the labour of children under 13 +years of age is restricted in English factories, advertisements appear +in public prints for "children that can pass for 13."</p> + +<p>(<i>b</i>). Industrial improvements tend to lengthen the day of labour. +Machinery can go on for ever, and it is the interest of the capitalist +to make it do so. He finds, moreover, a ready and specious pretext in +the greater lightness of the work as compared with hand labour, for +keeping the labourer employed beyond the normal limits of human +endurance. Capitalists always complain that long hours are a necessity +in consequence of the increasing extent of fixed capital which cannot +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>otherwise be made to pay. But this is a mistake on their part, says +Marx. For, according to the factory inspector's reports, shortening the +day of labour to 10 hours has increased production and not diminished +it, and the explanation is that the men can work harder while they are +at it, if the duration of their labour is shortened. Shortening the day +of labour has not only increased production, but actually increased +wages. Mr. Redgrave, in his Report for 1860, says that during the period +1839-1859 wages rose in the branches of industry that adopted the ten +hours' principle, and fell in trades where men wrought 14 and 15 hours a +day. Small wages and long hours are always found to go together, because +the same causes which enable the employer to reduce wages enable him to +lengthen the labouring day.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>5. <i>Piecework.</i> Industrial improvements tend, Marx maintains, to +overwork, to undue intensification of labour, for machinery can go at +almost any rate all day and all night, and labourers are compelled by +various expedients to work up to it. Among these expedients none is more +strongly condemned by Marx than piecework, as encouraging over-exertion +and overtime. He says that though known so early as the 14th century, +piecework only came into vogue with the large system of production, to +which he thinks it the most suitable form of payment. He states (though +this is not quite accurate) that it is the only form of payment in use +in workshops that are under the factory acts, because in these workshops +the day of labour cannot be lengthened, and the capitalist has no other +way open to him of exploiting the labourer but by increasing the +intensity of the labour. He ridicules the idea of a writer who thought +"the system of piecework marked an epoch in the history of the working +man, because it stood halfway between the position of a mere wage +labourer depending on the will of the capitalist and the position of the +co-operative artisan who in the not distant future promises to combine +the artisan and the capitalist in his own person." Better far, he holds, +for the labourer to stick to day's wages, for he can be much more easily +and extensively exploited by the piece system. He contends that +experience has proved this in trades<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> like the compositors and ship +carpenters, in which both systems of payment are in operation side by +side, and he cites from the factory inspectors' reports of 1860 the case +of a factory employing 400 hands, 200 paid by the piece and 200 by the +day. The piece hands had an interest in working overtime, and the day +hands were obliged to follow suit without receiving a farthing extra for +the additional hour or half-hour. This might be stopped by further +legislation, but then Marx holds that the system of piece payment is so +prone to abuse that when one door of exploitation shuts another only +opens, and legislation will always remain ineffectual. Every peculiarity +of the system furnishes opportunity either for reducing wages or +increasing work. On the piece system the worth of labour is determined +by the worth of the work it does, and unless the work possess average +excellence the stipulated price is withheld. There is thus always a +specious pretext ready to the employer's hand for making deductions from +wages on the ground that the work done did not come up to the stipulated +standard. Then again, it furnishes the employer with a definite measure +for the intensity of labour. He judges from the results of piecework how +much time it generally takes to produce a particular piece, and +labourers who do not possess the average productivity are turned off on +the ground that they are unable to do a minimum day's work. Even those +who are kept on get lower average wages than they would on the day +system. The superior workman earns indeed better pay working by the +piece, but the general body do not. The superior workman can afford to +take a smaller price per piece than the others, because he turns out a +greater number of pieces in the same time, and the employer fixes, from +the case of the superior workman, a standard of payment which is +injurious to the rest. In the end a change from day's wages to piece +wages will thus be found to have merely resulted in the average labourer +working harder for the same money. Marx, however, admits that when a +definite scale of prices has been in long use and has become fixed as a +custom, there are so many difficulties to its reduction that employers +are obliged, when they seek to reduce it, to resort to violent methods +of transforming it into time wages again. He gives an example of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> this +from the strike of the Coventry ribbon-weavers in 1860, in resistance to +a transformation of this kind.</p> + +<p>These are only some of the evils Marx lays at the door of piecework; he +has many more charges. From rendering the superintendence of labour +unnecessary, it leads to abuses like the sub-contracts known in this +country as "the sweating system," or what is a variety of the same, to +contracts of the employer with his manager, whereby the latter becomes +responsible for the whole work, and employs and pays the men. From +making it the pecuniary interest of the labourer to work overtime, +piecework induces him to overstrain his powers, and both to transgress +the legal or normal limits of the day of labour, and to raise or exceed +the normal degree of the intensity of labour. Marx, quoting from +Dunning, says that it was customary in the engineering trade in London +for employers to engage a foreman of exceptional physical powers, and +pay him an extra salary per quarter to keep the men up to his own pace; +an expedient which, he adds, is actually recommended to farmers by +Morton in his "Agricultural Encyclopædia." He attributes to piecework, +especially in its operation on women and children, the degeneration of +the labouring class in the potteries, which is shown in the Report of +the Commission on the Employment of Children. But while Marx thus +objects to piecework because it leads to overwork, he objects to it also +because it leads to underwork. It enables employers to engage more hands +than they require, when they entertain perhaps only an imaginary +expectation of work, for they know they run no risk, since paying by the +piece they pay only for what is done. The men are thus imperfectly +employed and insufficiently paid.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>6. <i>Relative Over-population.</i> One of the worst features of modern +industrial development is the vast number of labourers whom it +constantly leaves out of employ. This Marx calls relative +over-population. Of absolute over-population he has no fear. He is not a +Malthusian. He holds that there is no population law applicable to all +countries and times alike. Social organisms differ from one another as +do animals and plants; they have different laws and conditions. Every +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>country and age has its own law of population. A constant and +increasing over-population is a characteristic of the present age; it is +a necessary consequence of the existing method of carrying on industry; +but it is nothing in the nature of an absolute over-growth; it is only, +to Marx's thinking, a relative superfluity. There is plenty of work for +all, more than plenty. If those who have employment were not allowed to +be overwrought, and if work were to-morrow to be limited to its due +amount for every one according to age and sex, the existing working +population would be quite insufficient to carry on the national +production to its present extent. Even in England, where the technical +means of saving labour are enormous, this could not be done except by +converting most of our present "unproductive" labourers into productive. +There is therefore, Marx conceives, no reason why any one should be out +of work; but at present, what with the introduction of new machinery, +the industrial cycles, the commercial crises, the changes of fashion, +the transitions of every kind, we have always, besides the industrial +army in actual service, a vast industrial reserve who are either +entirely out of employment or very inadequately employed. This relative +over-population is an inevitable consequence of the capitalistic +management of industry, which first compels one-half of the labouring +community to do the work of all, and then makes use of the redundancy of +labour so created to compel the working half to take less pay. Low wages +spring from the excessive competition among labourers caused by this +relative over-population. "Rises and falls in the rate of wages are +universally regulated by extensions and contractions in the industrial +reserve army which correspond with changes in the industrial cycle. They +are not determined by changes in the absolute number of the labouring +population, but through changes in the relative distribution of the +working class into active army and reserve army—through increase or +decrease in the relative numbers of the surplus population—through the +degree in which it is at one time absorbed and at another dismissed." +The fluctuations in the rate of wages are thus traced to expansions or +contractions of capital, and not to variation in the state of +population. Marx ridicules the theory of these fluctuations given by +political economists, that high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> wages lead to their own fall by +encouraging marriages, and so in the end increasing the supply of +labour, and that low wages lead to their own rise by discouraging +marriages and reducing the supply of labour. That, says Marx, is very +fine, but before high wages could have produced a redundant population +(which would take eighteen years to grow up), wages would, with modern +industrial cycles, have been up, down, and up again through ordinary +fluctuations of trade.</p> + +<p>Relative over-population is of three kinds: current, latent, and +stagnant. Current over-population is what comes from incidental causes, +the ordinary changes that take place in the every-day course of +industry. A trade is slack this season and brisk the next, has perhaps +its own seasons, like house-painting in spring, posting in summer. Or +one trade may from temporary reasons be busy, while others are +depressed. In the last half year of 1860 there were 90,000 labourers in +London out of employment, and yet the factory inspectors report that at +that very time much machinery was standing idle for want of hands. This +comes from the labourer being mutilated—that is, specialized—under +modern subdivision of labour, and fit for only a single narrow craft. +Another current cause of over-population is that under the stress of +modern labour the workman is old before his years, and while still in +middle life becomes unfit for full work, and passes into the reserve. +Marx says this is the real reason for the prevalence of early marriages +among the working class. They are generally condemned for being +improvident, but they are really resorted to from considerations of +providence, for working men foresee that they will be prematurely +disabled for work, and desire, when that day comes, to have grown-up +children about them who shall be able to support them. Other current +causes are new inventions and new fashions, which always throw numbers +out of work. Latent over-population is what springs from causes whose +operation is long and slow. The best example of it is the case of the +agricultural labourers. They are being gradually superseded by +machinery, and as they lose work in the country they gather to the towns +to swell the reserve army there. A great part of the farm servants are +always in this process of transition, a few here, and a few there, and a +few everywhere. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> constancy of this flow indicates a latent +over-population in the rural districts, and that is the cause of the low +wages of agricultural labourers. By stagnant over-population Marx means +that which is shown in certain branches of industry, where none of the +workmen are thrown back entirely into the reserve, but none get full regular employment.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER V.</span> <span class="smaller">THE FEDERALISM OF CARL MARLO.</span></h2> + +<p>Marlo and Rodbertus are sometimes spoken of as the precursors of German +socialism. This, however, is a mistake. The socialism which now exists +appeared in Germany among the Young Hegelians forty years ago, before +the writings of either of these economists were published, and their +writings have had very little influence on the present movement. +Rodbertus, it is true, communicated a decided impulse to Lassalle, both +by his published letter to Von Kirchmann in 1853, and by personal +correspondence subsequently. He was a landed proprietor of strongly +liberal opinions, who was appointed Minister of Agriculture in Prussia +in 1848, but after a brief period of office retired to his estates, and +devoted himself to economic and historical study. He took a very decided +view of the defects of the existing industrial system, and held in +particular that, in accordance with Ricardo's law of necessary wages, +the labourer's income could never rise permanently above the level of +supplying him with a bare subsistence, and consequently that, while his +labour was always increasing in productivity, through mechanical +inventions and other means, the share which he obtained of the product +was always decreasing. What was required was simply to get this tendency +counteracted, and to devise arrangements by which the labourer's share +in the product might increase proportionally with the product itself, +for otherwise the whole working population would be left behind by the +general advancement of society. The remedy, he conceives, must lie in +the line of a fresh contraction of the sphere of private property. That +sphere had been again and again contracted in the interests of personal +development, and it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> must be so once more. And the contraction that was +now necessary was to leave nothing whatever in the nature of private +property except income. This proposal is substantially identical with +the scheme of the socialists; it is just the nationalization of all +permanent stock; but then he holds that it could not be satisfactorily +carried out in less than five hundred years. Rodbertus's writings have +never been widely known, but they attracted some attention among the +German working class, and he was invited, along with Lassalle and Lothar +Bucher, to address the Working Men's Congress in Leipzig in 1863. He +promised to come and speak on the law of necessary wages, but the +Congress was never held in consequence of the action of Lassalle in +precipitating his own movement, and from that movement Rodbertus held +entirely aloof. He agreed with Lassalle's complaints against the present +order of things, but he disapproved of his plan of reform. He did not +think the scheme of founding productive associations on State credit +either feasible or desirable, and he would still retain the system of +wages, though with certain improvements introduced by law. He thought, +moreover, that Lassalle erred gravely in making the socialists a +political party, and that they should have remained a purely economic +one. Besides, he looked on it as mere folly to expect, with Lassalle, +the accomplishment in thirty years of changes which, as we have seen, he +believed five centuries little enough time to evolve.</p> + +<p>Rodbertus may thus be said to have had some relations with the present +movement, but Marlo stands completely apart from it: and his large and +important work, "Untersuchungen über die Organization der Arbeit, oder +System der Weltökonomie," published at Kassel in 1850-5—though +original, learned, and lucid—remained so absolutely unknown that none +of the lexicons mention his name, and even an economist like +Schaeffle—who was the first to draw public attention to it, and has +evidently been considerably influenced by it himself—had never read it +till he was writing his own work on socialism (1870). But though Marlo +cannot be said to have contributed in any respect to the present +socialistic movement, his work deserves attentive consideration as a +plea for fundamental social reform, advanced by a detached and +independent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> thinker, who has given years of patient study to the +phenomena of modern economic life, and holds them to indicate the +presence of a deep-seated and widespread social disease. Carl Marlo is +the <i>nom de plume</i> of a German professor of chemistry named Winkelblech, +and he gives us in the preface to his second volume a touching account +of how he came to apply himself to social questions. In 1843 he made a +tour of investigation through Northern Europe in connection with a +technological work he was engaged in writing, and visited among other +places the blue factory of Modum, in Norway, where he remained some +days, charmed with the scenery, which he thought equal to that of the +finest valleys of the Alps. One morning he went up to a neighbouring +height, whence he could see the whole valley, and was calmly enjoying +the view when a German artisan came to ask him to undertake some +commission to friends in the fatherland. They engaged in conversation. +The artisan went over his experiences, and repeated all the privations +he and his fellows had to endure. His tale of sorrow, so alien +apparently to the ravishing beauty around, made a profound impression on +Winkelblech, and altered the purpose and work of his life. "What is the +reason," he asked himself, "that the paradise before my eyes conceals so +much misery? Is nature the source of all this suffering, or is it man +that is to blame for it? I had before, like so many men of science, +looked, while in workshops, only on the forges and the machinery, not on +the men—on the products of human industry, and not on the producers, +and I was quite a stranger to this great empire of misery that lies at +the foundation of our boasted civilization. The touching words of the +artisan made me feel the nullity of my scientific work and life in its +whole extent, and from that moment I resolved to make the sufferings of +our race, with their causes and remedies, the subject of my studies." He +pursued these studies with the greatest industry for several years, and +found the extent of men's sufferings to be greatly beyond his +expectation. Poverty prevailed everywhere—among labourers and among +employers, too—with peoples of the highest industrial development, and +with peoples of the lowest—in luxurious cities, and in the huts of +villagers—in the rich plains<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> of Lombardy, no less than the sterile +wilds of Scandinavia. He arrived at the conclusion that the causes of +all this lay not in nature, but in the fact that human institutions +rested on false economic foundations, and he held the only possible +remedy to consist in improving these institutions. He became convinced +that technical perfection of production, however great, would never be +able to extinguish poverty or lead to the diffusion of general comfort, +and that civilization was now come to a stage in its development at +which further progress depended entirely on the advancement of political +economy. Political economy was, therefore, for our time the most +important of all sciences, and Winkelblech now determined to give +himself thoroughly to its study. Hitherto he had not done so. "During +the progress of my investigations," he says, "the doctrines of +economists, as well as the theories of socialists, remained almost +unknown to me except in name, for I intentionally abstained from seeking +any knowledge of either, in order that I might keep myself as free as +possible from extraneous influences. It was only after I arrived at the +results described that I set myself to a study of economic literature, +and came to perceive that the substance of my thoughts, though many of +them were not new, and stood in need of correction, departed completely +from the accepted principles of the science." He reached the conclusion +that there prevailed everywhere the symptoms of a universal social +disease, and that political economy was the only physician that could +cure it; but that the prevailing system of economy was quite incompetent +for that task, and that a new system was urgently and indispensably +required. To set forth such a system is the aim of his book. He derides +Proudhon's idea of social reforms coming of themselves without design, +and argues strongly that no reform worthy the name can ever be expected +except as the fruit of economic researches. He agrees with the +Socialists in so far as they seek to devise a new economic system, but +he thinks they make a defective diagnosis of the disease, and propose an +utterly inadequate remedy. He counts them entirely mistaken in +attributing all existing evils to the unequal distribution of wealth, a +deficiency of production being, in his opinion, a much more important +source of misery than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> any error of distribution. In fact, his +fundamental objection to the existing distribution is that it is not the +distribution which conduces to the highest production, or to the most +fruitful use of the natural resources at the command of society. He +differs from the German socialists in always looking at the question +from the standpoint of society in general, rather than from that of the +proletariat alone, and he maintains that a new organization of labour is +even more necessary for the interest of the capitalists than for that of +the labourers, because he believes the present system will infallibly +lead, unless amended, to the overthrow of the capitalist class, and the +introduction of communism. His point of view is moreover purely economic +and scientific, entirely free from all partizan admixture, and while he +declares himself to be a zealous member of the republican party, he says +that he purposely abstains from intervention in politics because he +regards the political question as one of very minor rank, and holds +that, with sound social arrangements, people could live more happily +under the Russian autocracy than, with unsound ones, they could do under +the French republic. The organization of labour is, in his opinion, +something quite independent of the form of the State, and its final aim +ought to be to produce the amount of wealth necessary to diffuse +universal comfort among the whole population without robbing the middle +classes. These characteristics sufficiently separate him from the +socialist democrats of the present day.</p> + +<p>His book was published gradually in parts, sometimes after long +intervals, between 1848 and 1856, and it was finally interrupted by his +death in 1865. A second edition appeared in 1885, containing some +additions from his manuscripts, but the work remains incomplete. It was +to have consisted of three parts; 1st, a historical part, containing an +exposition and estimate of the various economic systems; 2nd, an +elementary or doctrinal part, containing an exposition of the principles +of economic science; and, 3rd, a practical part, explaining his plan for +the organization of labour. The first two parts are all we possess; the +third, and most important, never appeared, which must be regretted by +all who recognise the evidences of original power and singular candour +that the other parts present.</p> + +<p>Marlo's account of the social problem is that it arises from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> the fact +that our present industrial organization is not in correspondence with +the idea of right which is recognised by the public opinion of the time. +That idea of right is the Christian one, which takes its stand on the +dignity of manhood, and declares that all men, simply because they are +men, have equal rights to the greatest possible happiness. Up till the +French Revolution, the idea of right that prevailed was the heathen one, +which might be called the divine right of the stronger. The weak might +be made a slave without wrong. He might be treated as a thing and not as +a person or an equal, who had the same right with his master or his +feudal superior to the greatest possible enjoyment. Nature belonged to +the conqueror, and his dominion was transmitted by privilege. Inequality +of right was therefore the characteristic of this period; Marlo calls it +monopolism. But at the French Revolution the Christian idea of right +rose to its due ascendancy over opinion, and the sentiments of love and +justice began to assume a control over public arrangements. Do as you +would be done by, became a rule for politics as well as for private +life, and the weak were supported against the strong. Equality of right +was the mark of the new period; Marlo calls it panpolism. This idea +could not be realized before the present day, because it had never +before taken possession of the public mind, but it has done this now so +thoroughly that it cannot be expected to rest till it has realized +itself in every direction in all the practical applications of which it +is susceptible. The final arbiter of institutions is always the +conception of right prevailing at the time; contemporary industrial +arrangements are out of harmony with the contemporary conception of +right; and stability cannot be looked for until this disturbance is completely adjusted.</p> + +<p>Now the first attempts that society made to effect this adjustment were +not unnaturally attended with imperfection. In the warmth of their +recoil from the evils of monopolism, men ran into extreme and distorted +embodiments of the opposite principle, and they ran contrary ways. These +contrary ways are Liberalism and Communism. Liberalism fixed its +attention mainly on the artificial restrictions, the privileges, the +services, the legal bonds by which monopoly and inequality<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> were kept +up, and it thought a perfect state of society would be brought about if +only every chain were snapped and every fetter stripped away. It +conceived the road to the greatest possible happiness for every man was +the greatest possible freedom; it idolized the principle of abstract +liberty, and it fancied if evil did not disappear, it was always because +something still remained that needed emancipation. Communism, on the +other hand, kept its eyes on the inequalities of monopolistic society; +imagined the true road to the greatest possible happiness was the +greatest possible equality; that all ills would vanish as soon as things +were levelled enough; in short, it idolized the principle of abstract +equality. Modern Liberalism and modern Communism are therefore of equal +birth; they have the same historical origin in the triumph of the +principle of equality of right in 1789; they are only different modes of +attempting to reduce that principle to practice; and Liberalism happens +to be the more widely disseminated of the two, not because it represents +that principle better, but merely because being more purely negative +than the other, it was easier of introduction, and so got the start of +Communism in the struggle of existence. According to Marlo, they are +both equally bad representatives of the principle, and their chief good +lies in their mutual criticism, by means of which they prepare the way +for the true system, the system of Federalism, which will be presently +explained. The history of revolution, he says, begins in the victory of +Liberalism and Communism together over Monopolism; it proceeds by the +conflict of the victors with one another, and it ends in the final +triumph of Federalism over both.</p> + +<p>Marlo next criticises the two systems of Liberalism and Communism with +considerable acuteness. Both the one and the other are utopias; they are +absorbed in realizing an abstract principle, and they, as a matter of +fact, produce exactly the opposite of what they aim at. Communism seeks +to reach the greatest possible happiness by introducing first the +greatest possible equality. But what is equality? Is it equality when +each man gets a coat of the same size, or is it not rather when each man +gets a coat that fits him? Some communists would accept the former +alternative. They would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> measure off the same length to the dwarf and +the giant, to the ploughman and the judge, to the family of three and +the family of thirteen. But this would be clearly not equality, but only +inequality of a more vicious and vexatious kind. Most communists, +however, prefer the second alternative, and assign to every man +according to his needs, to every man the coat that fits him. But then we +must first have the cloth, and that is only got by labour, and every +labourer ought if possible to produce his own coat. The motive to +labour, however, is weakened on the communistic system; and if those who +work less are to be treated exactly like those who work more, then that +would be no abolition of monopoly, but merely the invention of a new +monopoly, the monopoly of indolence and incapacity. The skilful and +industrious would be exploited by the stupid and lazy. Besides, +production would for the same reason, insufficient inducement to labour, +be diminished, progress would be stopped, and therefore the average of +human happiness would decline. Communism thus conducts to the opposite +of everything it seeks. It seeks equality, it ends in inequality; it +seeks the abolition of monopoly, it creates a new monopoly; it seeks to +increase happiness, it actually diminishes it. It is a pure utopia, and +why? Because it misunderstands its own principle. Equality does not mean +giving equal things to every man; it means merely affording the greatest +possible playroom for the development of every personality, and that is +exactly the principle of freedom. The greatest possible equality and the +greatest possible freedom can only be realized together; they must +spring out of the same conditions, and a system of right which shall +adjust these conditions is just what is now wanted.</p> + +<p>Liberalism is a failure from like causes. It seeks to realize happiness +by freedom; it realizes neither. For it mistakes the nature of freedom, +as the Communists mistake the nature of equality. It takes freedom to be +the power of doing what one likes, instead of being the power of doing +what is right. Its whole bent is to exempt as much as possible of life +from authoritative restraint, and to give as much scope as exigencies +will allow to the play of individuality. It is based on no positive +conception of right whatever, and looks on the State<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> as an alien whose +interference is something exceptional, only justified on occasional +grounds of public necessity or general utility. It fails to see that +there are really no affairs in a community which are out of relation to +the general wellbeing, and destitute of political significance. Nothing +demonstrates the error of this better than the effects of the Liberal +<i>régime</i> itself. For half a century the industrial concerns of the +people have been treated as matters of purely private interest, and this +policy has resulted in a political as well as economical revolution. +Industrial freedom, which has produced capitalism in the economic field, +has resulted in political life in the ascendancy of a new class, a +plutocracy, "the worst masters," said De Tocqueville, "the world has yet +seen, though their reign will be short." The change which was effected +by the legislation of the Revolution was not a development of a fourth +estate, as is sometimes said; it was really nothing more than the +creation of a money aristocracy, and the putting of them in the place of +the old hereditary nobility. The system of industrial right that happens +to prevail, therefore, so far from being, as Liberals fancy, outside the +sphere of political interest, is in truth the very element on which the +distribution of political power, in the last analysis, depends. Nothing +is more political than the social question. Liberals think slight of +that question, but it is, says Marlo, the real question of the day, and +it is neither more nor less than the question of the existence or +abolition of Liberalism, the question of the maintenance or subversion +of the principle of industrial freedom, the question of the ascendancy +or overthrow of a money aristocracy. The fight of our age is a fight +against a plutocracy bred of Liberalism. It is not, as some represent +it, a struggle of labourers against employers; it is a joint struggle of +labourers and lower <i>bourgeoisie</i> against the higher <i>bourgeoisie</i>, a +struggle of those who work and produce against those who luxuriate idly +on the fruits of others' labour. As compared with this question, +constitutional questions are of very minor importance, for no matter +whether the State be monarchy or republic, if the system of industrial +right that prevails in it be the system of industrial freedom, the real +power of the country will be in the hands of the capitalist class. He +who fails to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> see this, says Marlo, fails to understand the spirit of +his time. It is always the national idea of right that governs both in +social and political relations, and as long as the national idea of +right is that of Liberalism, we shall continue to have capitalism and a +plutocracy. It is the mind that builds the body up, and it is only when +a new system of right has taken as complete possession of the national +consciousness as Liberalism did in 1789, that the present social +conflict will cease and a better order of things come in.</p> + +<p>From want of such a system of right—from want even of seeing the +necessity for it, Liberalism has defeated its own purpose. It sought to +abolish monopoly; it has only substituted for the old monopoly of birth +the more grievous monopoly of wealth. It sought to establish freedom; it +has only established plutocratic tyranny. It has erred because it took +for freedom an abstraction of its own and tried to realize that, just as +Communism erred by taking for equality an abstraction of its own and +trying to realize that. The most perfect state of freedom is not reached +when every man has the power of doing what he likes, any more than the +most perfect state of equality is reached when every man has equal +things with every other; but the greatest possible freedom is attained +in a condition of society where every man has the greatest possible +play-room for the development of his personality, and the greatest +possible equality is attained in exactly the same state of things. Real +freedom and real equality are in fact identical. Every right contains +from the first a social element as well as an individual element, and it +cannot be realized in the actual world without observing a due +adjustment between these two elements. Such an adjustment can only be +discovered by a critical examination of the economic constitution of +society, and must then be expressed in a distinct system of industrial +right, which imposes on individual action its just limits. True liberty +is liberty within these limits; and the true right of property is a +right of property under the same conditions. The fundamental fault of +Liberalism, the cause of its failure, is simply that it goes to work +without a sound theory of right, or rather perhaps without any clear +theory at all, and merely aims at letting every one do as he likes, +with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> the understanding that the State can always be called in to +correct accidents and excesses.</p> + +<p>This defect is what Federalism claims to supply. It claims to be the +only theory that abandons abstractions and keeps closely to the nature +of things, and therefore to be the only theory that is able to realize +even approximately the Christian principle of equality of right. The +name furnishes no very precise clue to the conclusion it designates, and +it has no reference to the federative form of State, for which Marlo +expressly disavows having any partiality. He has chosen the word merely +to indicate the fact that society is an organic confederation of many +different kinds of associations—families, churches, academies, +mercantile companies, and so on; that association is not only a natural +form, but the natural form in which man's activity tends to be carried +on; and that in any sound system of industrial right this must be +recognised by an extension of the collective form of property and the +co-operative form of production. Communism, says Marlo, is mechanical, +Liberalism is atomistic, but Federalism is organic. When he +distinguishes his theory from communism, it must be remembered that it +is from the communism which he has criticised, and which he would prefer +to denominate Equalism; it is from the communism of Baboeuf, which would +out of hand give every man according to his needs, and would +consequently, through impairing the motives to industry, leave those +needs themselves in the long run less satisfactorily provided for than +they are now. But his system is nearly identical with the communism of +the Young Hegelians of his own time—that is, with the German socialism +of the present day—although he arrived at it in entire independence of +their agitations, and builds it on deductions peculiar to himself. Like +them, he asks for the compulsory transformation of land and the +instruments of production from private property into collective +property; like them, he asks for this on grounds of social justice, as +the necessary mechanism for giving effect to positive rights that are +set aside under the present system; and he says himself, "If you ask the +question, how is the democratic social republic related to Federalism, +the most suitable answer is, as the riddle to its solution."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p><p>He starts from the position that all men have equally the right to +property. Not merely in the sense, which is commonly acknowledged, that +they have the right to property if they have the opportunity of +acquiring it; but in the further significance, that they have a right to +the opportunity. They are in fact born proprietors—<i>de jure</i> at least, +and they are so for two reasons. First, God has made them persons, and +not things, and they have, therefore, all equally a natural right to +their amplest personal development. If society interferes with this +liberty of personal development—if it suffers any of its members to +become the slaves of others, for example—it robs them of original +rights which belong to them by the mere fact of their manhood. But, +secondly, property, resources of some sort, being indispensable means of +personal development, God, who has imposed the end, has supplied the +means. He has given nature, the earth and the lower creation, into the +dominion of man, not of this or that man, or class of men, but of +mankind, and consequently every man has, equally with every other, a +right to participate in the dominion of nature, a right to use its +bounty to the extent required for his personal development. No +appropriation of nature can be just which excludes this possibility and +robs any man of this natural right. It is, therefore, wrong to allow to +any single person, or to any limited number of persons, an absolute +dominion over natural resources in which everybody else has, by nature, +a right to some extent to share. He who should have complete and +exclusive lordship over all nature, would be lord and master of all his +fellow-men, and in a period after natural agents are all appropriated +the system of complete and absolute property leaves the new-comers at +the mercy of those who are already in possession. They can only work if +the latter give them the productive instruments; they can only reap from +their work so much of its fruits as the latter are pleased to leave with +them; and they must perish altogether unless the latter employ them. +They are slaves, they are beggars; and yet they came into the world with +the rights of a proprietor, of which they can never be divested. Nature +laid covers for them as well as for the rest, and a system of property +is essentially unjust which ousts them from their seat at her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> table. +The common theory of property starts from the premiss, that all men have +the right to property, and draws the conclusion, that, therefore, some +men have the right to monopolize it. As usually understood, the +proprietary right is as much a right of robbery as a right of property, +and Proudhon would have been quite correct in describing property as +theft, if no better system of property could be devised than the present.</p> + +<p>But such a system can be devised; one under which the right of +new-comers may be respected without disturbing those of possessors. This +can only be done by putting entirely aside the complete and absolute +form of property which is in so much favour with Liberalism, and by +making the right of property in any actual possession a strictly limited +and circumscribed right from the first—the right not to an arbitrary +control over a thing, but to a just control over it. So long as property +is always thought of as an arbitrary and absolute dominion over a thing, +the proprietary right cannot possibly be explained in a way that does +not make it a right given to some to rob others. Why not, therefore, +define property from the beginning as subject to limitations, and +contrive a new form or system of it, in which these limitations shall +for ever receive due recognition, and no man be thereafter denied the +opportunity of acquiring as much of the bounty of nature as is necessary +for him to carry out his personal development?</p> + +<p>That is Marlo's task, and it would have been an easy one, if all goods, +if everything that satisfies a human want, had been supplied directly by +nature, as air is supplied, without the need of industry to procure it +or the power of industry to multiply it. Then the problem would be +solved very simply as the earlier communists desired to solve it. Every +member of society would be entitled to partake of nature's supplies, as +he now does of air, in the measure of his need, and when those supplies +ran exhausted, just as when the air became vitiated, society would be +entitled, nay obliged, to suppress further propagation. But the question +is far from being so simple. Nature only yields her bounties to us after +labour; they are only converted into means of life by labour; and they +are capable of being vastly multiplied by labour. This element of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +labour changes the situation of things considerably, and must be allowed +a leading <i>rôle</i> in determining a just right and system of property. The +only case where a proprietary right can be recognised which is +unmodified by this consideration, is the case of those who are unable to +labour. They fall back on their original right to a share in the bounty +of nature in the measure that their personal development requires; in +other words, according to their needs. Their share does not lie waste, +though they are unable to work it themselves, and their share belongs to +them immediately because they are persons, and not because they may +afterwards become labourers. Marlo recognises, therefore, antecedently +to labour the right to existence, and this right he proposes to realize +for the weak and disabled by means of a compulsory system of national insurance.</p> + +<p>The other natural proprietary rights are consequent in one way or +another upon labour. First, there is the right to labour. If every man +has a right to a share in the dominion of nature, then every man who is +able to labour has a right to obtain the natural resources that are +necessary to give him employment according to capacity and trade. No +private appropriation of these resources can divest him of his title to +get access to them, and if he cannot find work himself, the State is +bound to provide it for him in public workshops. Second, every man has a +right to the most profitable possible application of labour to natural +resources. He has an interest in seeing the common stock put to the best +account, and he is wronged in this interest when waste is permitted, +when inferior methods are resorted to, or when the distribution of work +and materials is ill arranged. Now the best arrangement is when each man +is equipped according to the measure and quality of his powers. Nature +will be then best worked, and man's personal development will then be +best furthered. If such an arrangement cannot be effected on the system +of property now in vogue, while it may be under another, it is every +man's right to have the former system supplanted by the latter. The most +economical form of property is the most just. Third, the next right is a +right to an almost unlimited control over the fruits of one's own +labour. Not over the means of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> labour; these can only be justly or +economically held by a circumscribed control; but over the fruits of +labour. These ought to be retained as exclusive property, for the simple +reason that the natural resources will be so turned to the best account. +On any other system of payment the motive to labour is impaired, and the +amount of its produce diminished. Distribution by need defeats its own +end; the very needs of the community would be less amply satisfied after +it than before it. Distribution according to work is the sound economic +principle, and therefore the just one. Marlo here leaves room for the +play of the hereditary principle and of competition to some extent, and +he allows the free choice of occupation on similar grounds. Men will +work best in lines their own tastes and powers lead them to. Everything +is determined by economic utility, and economic utility is supposed to +be at its height when the natural resources of a country are distributed +among its inhabitants according to the requirements of their labouring powers.</p> + +<p>This condition of things can only be realized, first, if population is +regulated; second, if unproductive labour is suppressed; and third, if +the means of labour are made common property. The necessity for +regulating population comes, of course, from the limitation of the +natural resources at society's command. In any community there is a +certain normal limit of population—the limit at which all the natural +resources are distributed among all the inhabitants according to their +powers—and the community will learn when this limit is reached from the +number of workmen who are unable to obtain private employment, and are +obliged to seek work from the State. Then it can regulate population by +various expedients. It may require the possession of a certain amount of +fortune as a preliminary condition to marriage, and raise this amount +according to necessity. It may encourage emigration. It may forbid +marriages under a fixed age, and to prevent illegitimacy, it might give +natural children the same rights as legitimate ones. But Marlo trusts +most to the strong preventive check that would be supplied by the power +imparted to working men under the Federal <i>régime</i> of improving their position.</p> + +<p>The same necessity that makes it legitimate, and, indeed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> imperative to +regulate population, makes it legitimate and imperative also to suppress +what Marlo calls unproductive acquisition, <i>i.e.</i>, the acquisition by +persons who are able to work of any other property than they earn as the +fruit of their work; and to suppress likewise all waste of the means of +life and enjoyment, such, for example, as is involved in the maintenance +of unnecessary horses, dogs, or other animals that only eat up the +products of the soil. The obligation to labour and the curtailment of +luxury would come into exercise before the restrictions on population, +and be more and more rigorously enforced as the normal limit of +population was approximated.</p> + +<p>But the most important and the most necessary innovation is the +conversion of land and the instruments of production into the form of +collective property. The form in which property should be held ought to +be strictly determined by considerations of economic utility. From such +considerations the Liberals themselves have introduced important changes +into the system of property; they have abolished fiefs, hereditary +tenancies, entail, servitudes, church and village lands, all the +peculiarities of monopolistic society, because, as they said, they +wished to substitute a good form of property for a bad; and they at +least have no right, Marlo thinks, to turn round now on Communists or +Federalists for proposing to supersede this good form of property by a +better. They have themselves transformed property by law, and they have +transformed it on grounds of economic advantage; they have owned that +the economic superiority of a particular form of property imposes a +public obligation for its compulsory introduction. They asserted the +competency of the State against the monopolists, and they cannot now +deny it against the socialists. If the private form of property is best, +then let the State maintain it; but if the collective form is best, then +the State is bound, even on the principles of Liberals themselves, to +introduce it. The question can only be determined by experience of the +comparative economic utility of the two. Without offering any detailed +proof of his proposition from experience Marlo then affirms that the +most advantageous form of property is reached when the instruments of +production are the collective property of associations, and the +instruments of enjoyment (except wells,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> bridges, and the like) are the +property of individuals. Each man's house would still be his castle; his +house and the fulness thereof would still belong to him; but outside of +it he could acquire no individual possessions. Of land and the means of +labour, he should be joint-proprietor with others, or rather +joint-tenant with them under the Crown. Industrial property would be +held in common by the associations that worked it, and these +associations would be organized by authority with distinct charters of powers and functions.</p> + +<p>Marlo thus arrives at the same practical scheme as Marx, though by a +slightly different road. Marx builds his claim on Ricardo's theory of +value and Ricardo's law of necessary wages. Marlo builds his on man's +natural right, as a sharer in the dominion of nature, to the most +advantageous exercise of that dominion.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER VI.</span> <span class="smaller">THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR.</span></h2> + +<p>The Socialists of the Chair have done themselves injustice and sown +their course with embarrassing misconceptions by adopting too hastily an +infelicitous name. It is more descriptive than most political nicknames, +and therefore more liable to mislead. It was first used in 1872 in a +pamphlet by Oppenheim, then one of the leaders of the National Liberals, +to ridicule a group of young professors of political economy who had +begun to show a certain undefined sympathy with the socialist agitations +of Lassalle and Von Schweitzer, and to write of the wrongs of the +labouring classes and the evils of the existing industrial system with a +flow of emotion which was thought to befit their years better than their +position. A few months later these young professors called together at +Eisenach a Congress of all who shared their general attitude towards +that class of questions. In opening this Congress—which was attended by +almost every economist of note in Germany, and by a number of the +weightiest and most distinguished Liberal politicians—Professor +Schmoller employed the name "Socialists of the Chair" to describe +himself and those present, without adding a single qualifying remark, +just as if it had been their natural and chosen designation. The +nickname was no doubt accepted so readily, partly from a desire to take +the edge off the sneer it was meant to convey, but partly also from the +nobler feeling which makes men stand by a truth that is out of favour. +Not that they approved of the contentions of social democracy out and +out, but they believed there was more basis of truth in them than +persons in authority were inclined to allow, and besides that the truth +they contained was of special and even pressing importance. They held, +as Schmoller said, that "Social Democracy was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> itself a consequence of +the sins of modern Liberalism." They went entirely with the Social +Democrats in maintaining both that a grave social crisis had arisen, and +that it had been largely brought about by an irrational devotion on the +part of the Liberals to the economic doctrine of <i>laissez-faire</i>. But +they went further with them. They believed that the salvation of modern +society was to come, not indeed from the particular scheme of +reconstruction advocated by the Social Democrats, but still from +applications in one form or another of their fundamental principle, the +principle of association. And it was for that reason—it was for the +purpose of marking the value they set upon the associative principle as +the chief source of healing for the existing ills of the nations—that +they chose to risk misunderstanding and obloquy by accepting the +nickname put upon them by their adversaries. The late Professor Held, +who claims as a merit that he was the first to do so, explains very +clearly what he meant by calling himself a socialist. Socialism may +signify many different things, but, as he uses the word, it denotes not +any definite system of opinions or any particular plan of social reform, +but only a general method which may guide various systems, and may be +employed more or less according to circumstances in directing many +different reforms. He is a socialist because he would give much more +place than obtains at present to the associative principle in the +arrangements of economic life, and because he cannot share in the +admiration many economists express for the purely individualistic basis +on which these arrangements have come to stand. A socialist is simply +the opposite of an individualist. The individualist considers that the +perfection of an industrial economy consists in giving to the principles +of self-interest, private property, and free competition, on which the +present order of things is founded, the amplest scope they are capable +of receiving, and that all existing economic evils are due, not to the +operation of these principles, but only to their obstruction, and will +gradually disappear when self-interest comes to be better understood, +when competition is facilitated by easier inter-communication, and when +the law has ceased from troubling and left industry at rest. The +socialist, in Held's sense, is, on the other hand, one who rejects<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> the +comfortable theory of the natural harmony of individual interests, and +instead of deploring the obstructions which embarrass the operations of +the principles of competition, self-interest, and private property, +thinks that it is precisely in consequence of these obstructions that +industrial society contrives to exist at all. Strip these principles, he +argues, of the restraints put upon them now by custom, by conscience, by +public opinion, by a sense of fairness and kind feeling, and the +inequalities of wealth would be immensely aggravated, and the labouring +classes would be unavoidably ground to misery. Industrial society would +fall into general anarchy, into a <i>bellum omnium contra omnes</i>, in which +they that have would have more abundantly, and they that have not would +lose even what they have. Held declines to join in the admiration +bestowed by many scientific economists upon this state of war, in which +the battle is always to the rich. He counts it neither the state of +nature, nor the state of perfection, of economic society, but simply an +unhappy play of selfish and opposing forces, which it ought to be one of +the distinct aims of political economy to mitigate and counteract. +Individualism has already had too free a course, and especially in the +immediate past has enjoyed too sovereign a reign. The work of the world +cannot be carried on by a fortuitous concourse of hostile atoms, moving +continually in a strained state of suspended social war, and therefore, +for the very safety of industrial society, we must needs now change our +tack, give up our individualism, and sail in the line of the more +positive and constructive tendencies of socialism. To Held's thinking +accordingly, socialism and individualism are merely two contrary general +principles, ideals, or methods, which may be employed to regulate the +constitution of economic society, and he declares himself a socialist +because he believes that society suffers at present from an excessive +application of the individualistic principle, and can only be cured by +an extensive employment of the socialistic one.</p> + +<p>This is all clear enough, but it is simply giving to the word socialism +another new meaning, and creating a fresh source of ambiguity. That term +has already contracted definite associations which it is impossible to +dispel by mere word of mouth,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> and which constitute a refracting medium +through which the principles of the Socialists of the Chair cannot fail +to be presented in a very misleading form. These writers assume a +special position in two relations—first, as theoretical economists; +and, second, as practical politicians or social reformers; and in both +respects alike the term socialism is peculiarly inappropriate to +describe their views. In regard to the first point, by adopting that +name they have done what they could to "Nicodemus" themselves into a +sect, whereas they might have claimed, if they chose, to be better +exponents of the catholic tradition of the science than those who found +fault with them. This is a claim, however, which they would be shocked +indeed to think of presenting. With a natural partiality for their own +opinions, they exaggerated immensely the extent and also the value of +their divergence from the traditional or, as it is sometimes called, the +classical economics. In the energy of their recoil from the dogmatism +which had for a generation usurped an excessive sway over economic +science, they were carried too far in the opposite direction, but they +had in their own minds the sensation that they were carried a great deal +farther than they really were. They liked to think of their historical +method as constituting a new epoch, and effecting a complete revolution +in political economy, but, as will subsequently appear, that method, +when reduced to its real worth, amounts to no more than an application, +with somewhat distincter purpose and wider reach, of the method which +Smith himself followed. Of this they are in some degree conscious. +Brentano, who belongs to the extreme right of the school, says that +Smith would have been a Socialist of the Chair to-day if he were alive; +and Samter, who belongs to the extreme left, though he is doubtful +regarding Smith, has no hesitation in claiming Mill, whom he looks upon +as standing more outside than inside the school of Smith. Their position +is, therefore, not the new departure which many of them would fain +represent it to be. They are really as natural and as legitimate a line +of descent from Adam Smith as their adversaries the German Manchester +Party who claimed the authority of his name. Perhaps they are even more +so, for in science the true succession lies with those who carry the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>principles of the master to a more fruitful development, and not with +those who embalm them as sacred but sterile simulacra.</p> + +<p>But it is as practical reformers that the Socialists of the Chair suffer +most injustice from their name. Since the word socialism was first used +by Reybaud fifty years ago, it has always been connected with utopian or +revolutionary ideas. Now the Socialists of the Chair are the very +opposite of revolutionaries both by creed and practice. None of the +various parties which occupy themselves with the social problem in +Germany is so eminently and advisedly practical. Their very historical +method, apart from anything else, makes them so. It gives them a special +aversion to political and social experiments, for it requires as the +first essential of any project of reform that it shall issue naturally +and easily out of—or at least be harmonious with—the historical +conditions of the time and place to which it is to be applied. Roscher, +who may be regarded as the founder of the school, says that reformers +ought to take for their model Time, whose reforms are the surest and +most irresistible of all, but yet so gradual that they cannot be +observed at any given moment. They make, therefore, on the whole a very +sparing use of the socialistic principle they invoke. Certainly the +world, in their eyes, is largely out of joint, but its restoration is to +proceed gently, like Solomon's temple, without sound of hammer. Some of +them of course go farther than others, but they would all still leave us +rent, wages, and profits, the three main stems of individualism. They +struck the idea of taxing speculative profits out of their programme, +and so far from having any socialistic thought of abolishing +inheritance, none of them except Von Scheel would even tax it +exceptionally. Samter stands alone in urging the nationalization of the +land; and Wagner stands alone in desiring the abolition of private +property in ground-rents in towns; the other members cannot agree even +about the expediency of nationalizing the railways. They work of set +purpose for a better distribution of wealth—for what Schmoller calls a +progressive equalization of the excessive and even dangerous differences +of culture that exist at present—but they recoil from all suggestion of +schemes of repartition, and they have no fault to find with inequality +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> itself. On the contrary they regard inequality as being not merely +an unavoidable result of men's natural endowments, but an indispensable +instrument of their progress and civilization. Schmoller explains that +their political principles are those of Radical Toryism, as portrayed in +Lord Beaconsfield's novels; and he means that they rest on the same +active sympathy with the ripening aspirations of the labouring classes, +and the same zealous confidence in the authority of the State, and in +these respects are distinguished from modern Liberalism, whose governing +sympathies are with the interests and ideas of the <i>bourgeoisie</i>, and +which entertains a positive jealousy of the action of the State. The +actual reforms which the Socialists of the Chair have hitherto promoted +have been in the main copied from our own English legislation—our +Factory Acts, our legalization of Trade Unions, our Savings Banks, our +registration of Friendly Societies, our sanitary legislation, etc., +etc.—measures which have been passed, with the concurrence of men of +opposite shades of opinion, out of no social theory but from a plain +regard to the obvious necessities of the hour. So that we have been +simply Socialists of the Chair for a generation without knowing it, +doing from a happy political instinct the works which they deduce out of +an elaborate theory of economic politics. Part of their theory, however, +is, that in practical questions they are not to go by theory, and the +consequence is that while they sometimes lay down general principles in +which communism might steal a shelter, they control these principles so +much in their application by considerations of expediency, that the +measures they end in proposing differ little from such as commend +themselves to the common sense and public spirit of middle-class Englishmen.</p> + +<p>Their general theory had been taught in Germany for twenty years before +it was forced into importance by the policy it suggested and the +controversies it excited in connection with the socialist movement which +began in 1863. Wilhelm Roscher, the lately deceased professor of +economics in Leipzig, first propounded the historical method in his +"Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die Staatswirthschaft nach +geschichtlicher Methode," published in 1843, though it deserves to be +noticed that in this work he spoke of the historical method as being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> +the ordinary inductive method of scientific economists, and +distinguished it from the idealistic method proceeding by deduction from +preconceived ideas, which he said was the method of the socialists. He +had no thought as yet of representing his method as diverging from that +of his predecessors, even in detail, much less as being essentially +different in principle. Then the late Bruno Hildebrand, professor of +political science at Jena, in his work on the "National Economy of the +Present and the Future," published in 1847, proclaimed the historical +method as the harbinger and instrument of a new era in the science, but +he speaks of it only as a restoration of the method of diligent +observation which Adam Smith practised, but which his disciples deserted +for pure abstractions. In 1853, a more elaborate defence and exposition +of the historical method appeared in a work on "Political Economy from +the Standpoint of the Historical Method," by Carl G. A. Knies, professor +of national economics at Heidelberg. But it was never dreamt that the +ideas broached in these works had spread beyond the few solitary +thinkers who issued them. The Free Traders were still seen ruling +everything in the high places of the land in the name of political +economy, and they were everywhere apparently accepted as authorized +interpreters of the mysteries of that, to the ordinary public, somewhat +occult science. They preached the freedom of exchange like a religion +which contained at once all they were required to believe in economic +matters, and all they were required to do. There was ground for +Lassalle's well-known taunt: "Get a starling, Herr Schultze, teach it to +pronounce the word 'exchange,' 'exchange,' 'exchange,' and you have +produced a very good modern economist." The German Manchester Party +certainly gave to the principle of <i>laissez-faire, laissez-aller</i>, a +much more unconditional and universal application than any party in this +country thought of according to it. They looked on it as a kind of +orthodoxy which it had come to be almost impious to challenge. It had +been hallowed by the consensus of the primitive fathers of the science, +and it seemed now to be confirmed beyond question experimentally by the +success of the practical legislation in which it had been exemplified +during the previous quarter of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> a century. The adherents of the new +school never raised a murmur against all this up till the eventful time +of the socialist agitation and the formation of the new German Empire, +and the reason is very plain. On the economic questions which came up +before that period, they were entirely at one with the Free Traders, and +gave a hearty support to their energetic lead. They were, for example, +as strenuously opposed to protective duties and to restrictions upon +liberty of migration, settlement, and trading, as Manchester itself. But +with the socialist agitation of 1863, a new class of economic questions +came to the front—questions respecting the condition of the working +classes, the relations of capital and labour, the distribution of +national wealth, and the like—and on these new questions they could not +join the Free Traders in saying "Hands off!" They did not believe with +the Manchester school that the existing distribution of wealth was the +best of all possible distributions, because it was the distribution +which Nature herself produced. They thought, on the contrary, that +Nature had little to do with the matter; but even if it had more, there +was only too good cause for applying strong corrections by art. They +said it was vain for the Manchester party to deny that a social question +existed, and to maintain that the working classes were as well off as it +was practical for economic arrangements to make them. They declared +there was much truth in the charges which socialists were bringing +against the existing order of things, and that there was a decided call +upon all the powers of society, and, among others, especially upon the +State, to intervene with some remedial measures. A good opportunity for +concerted and successful action seemed to be afforded when the German +Empire was established, and this led to the convening of the Eisenach +Congress in 1872, and the organization of the Society for Social +Politics in the following year.</p> + +<p>Men of all shades of opinion were invited to that Congress, provided +they agreed on two points, which were expressly mentioned in the +invitation: 1st, in entertaining an earnest sense of the gravity of the +social crisis which existed; and 2nd, in renouncing the principle of +<i>laissez-faire</i> and all its works. The Congress was attended by 150 +members, including many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> leading politicians and most of the professors +of political economy at the Universities. Roscher, Knies, and Hildebrand +were there, with their younger disciples Schmoller, professor at +Strasburg and author of the "History of the Small Industries"; Lujo +Brentano, professor at Breslau, well known in this country by his book +on "English Gilds" and his larger work on "English Trade Unions"; +Professors A. Wagner of Berlin and Schönberg of Tübingen. Then there +were men like Max Hirsch and Duncker the publisher, both members of the +Imperial Diet, and the founders of the Hirsch-Duncker Trade Unions; Dr. +Engel, director of the statistical bureau at Berlin; Professor von +Holtzendorff, the criminal jurist; and Professor Gneist, historian of +the English Constitution, who was chosen to preside. After an opening +address by Schmoller, three papers were read and amply discussed, one on +Factory Legislation by Brentano, a second on trade Unions and Strikes by +Schmoller, and a third on Labourers' Dwellings by Engel. This Congress +first gave the German public an idea of the strength of the new +movement; and the Free Trade party were completely, and somewhat +bitterly, disenchanted, when they found themselves deserted, not as they +fancied merely by a few effusive young men, but by almost every +economist of established reputation in the country. A sharp controversy +ensued. The newspapers, with scarcely an exception, attacked the +Socialists of the Chair tooth and nail, and leading members of the +Manchester party, such as Treitschke the historian, Bamberger the +Liberal politician, and others, rushed eagerly into the fray. They were +met with spirit by Schmoller, Held, Von Scheel, Brentano, and other +spokesmen of the Eisenach position, and one result of the polemic is, +that some of the misunderstandings which naturally enough clouded that +position at the beginning have been cleared away, and it is now admitted +by both sides that they are really much nearer one another than either +at first supposed. The Socialists of the Chair did not confine their +labours to controversial pamphlets. They published newspapers, +periodicals, elaborate works of economic investigation; they held +meetings, promoted trade unions, insurance societies, savings banks; +they brought the hours of labour,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> the workmen's houses, the effects of +speculation and crises, all within the sphere of legislative +consideration. The moderation of their proposals of change has +conciliated to a great extent their Manchester opponents. Even +Oppenheim, the inventor of their nickname, laid aside his scoffing, and +seconded some of their measures energetically. Indeed, their chief +adversaries are now the socialists, who cannot forgive them for going +one mile with them and yet refusing to go twain—for adopting their +diagnosis and yet rejecting their prescription. Brentano, who is one of +the most moderate, as well as one of the ablest of them, takes nearly as +grave a view of the state of modern industrial society as the socialists +themselves do; and he says that if the evils from which it suffers could +not be removed otherwise, it would be impossible to avoid much longer a +socialistic experiment. But then he maintains that they can be removed +otherwise, and one of the chief motives of himself and his allies in +their practical work is to put an end to socialistic agitation by curing +the ills which have excited it.</p> + +<p>The key to the position of the Socialists of the Chair lies in their +historical method. This method has nothing to do with the question +sometimes discussed whether the proper method of political economy is +the inductive or the deductive. On that question the historical school +of economists are entirely agreed with the classical school. Roscher, +for example, adopts Mill's description of political economy as a +concrete deductive science, whose <i>à priori</i> conclusions, based on laws +of human nature, must be tested by experience, and says that an economic +fact can be said to have received a scientific explanation only when its +inductive and deductive explanations have met and agreed. He makes, +indeed, two qualifying remarks. One is, that it ought to be remembered +that even the deductive explanation is based on observation, on the +self-observation of the person who offers it. This will be admitted by +all. The other is, that every explanation is only provisional, and +liable to be superseded in the course of the progress of knowledge, and +of the historical growth of social and economic structure. This will +also be admitted, and it is no peculiarity of political economy. There +is no science whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> conclusions are not modified by the advance of +knowledge; and there are many sciences besides political economy whose +phenomena change their type in lapse of time. Roscher's proviso, +therefore, amounts to nothing more than a caution to economic +investigators to build their explanations scrupulously on the facts, the +whole facts, and nothing but the facts, and to be specially on their +guard against applying to the circumstances of one period or nation +explanations and recommendations which are only just regarding another. +The same disease may have different symptoms in a child from what it has +in a man, and a somewhat different type at the present day from what it +had some centuries ago; and it may therefore require a quite different +treatment. That is a very sound principle and a very self-evident one, +and it contains the whole essence of the historical method, which, so +far as it is a method of investigation at all, is simply that of other +economists applied under a more dominating sense of the complexity and +diversity of the phenomena which are subjected to it. There is +consequently with the historical school more rigour of observation and +less rigour of theory, and this peculiarity leads to practical results +of considerable importance, but it has no just pretensions to assume the +dignity of a new economic method, and it is made to appear much bigger +than it is by looming through the scholastic distinctions in which it is +usually set forth.</p> + +<p>The historical school sometimes call their method the <i>realistic</i> and +<i>ethical</i> method, to distinguish it from what they are pleased to term +the <i>idealistic</i>, and <i>selfish</i> or <i>materialistic</i> method of the earlier +economists. They are <i>realists</i> because they cannot agree with the +majority of economists who have gone before them in believing there is +one, and only one, ideal of the best economic system. There are, says +Roscher, as many different ideals as there are different types of +peoples, and he completely casts aside the notion, which had generally +prevailed before him, that there is a single normal system of economic +arrangements, which is built on the natural laws of economic life, and +to which all nations may at all times with advantage conform. It is +against this notion that the historical school has revolted with so much +energy that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> wish to make their opposition to it the flag and +symbol of a schism. They deny that there are any natural laws in +political economy; they deny that there is any economic solution +absolutely valid, or capable of answering in one economic situation +because it has answered in another. Roscher, Knies, and the older +members of the school make most of the latter point; but Hildebrand, +Schönberg, Schmoller, Brentano, and the younger spirits among them, +direct against the former some of their keenest attacks. They declare it +to be a survival from the exploded metaphysics of the much-abused +<i>Aufklärung</i> of last century. They argue that just as the economists of +that period took self-interest to be the only economic motive, because +the then dominant psychology—that of the selfish or sensual +school—represented it as the only real motive of human action, of which +the other motives were merely modifications; so did they come to count +the reciprocal action and reaction of the self-interest of different +individuals to be a system of natural forces, working according to +natural laws, because they found the whole intellectual air they +breathed at the time filled with the idea that all error in poetry, art, +ethics, and therefore also economics, had come through departing from +nature, and that the true course in everything lay in giving the +supremacy to the nature of things. We need not stop to discuss this +historical question as to the origin of the idea; it is enough here to +say that the Socialists of the Chair maintain that in economic affairs +it is impossible to make any such distinction between what is natural +and what is not so. Everything results from nature, and everything +results from positive institution too. There is in economics either no +nature at all, or there is nothing else. Human will effects or affects +all; and human will is itself influenced, of course, by human nature and +human condition. Roscher says that it is a mistake to speak of industry +being forced into "unnatural" courses by priests or tyrants, for the +priests and tyrants are part and parcel of the people themselves, +deriving all their resources from the people, and in no respect +Archimedeses standing outside of their own world. The action of the +State in economic affairs is just as natural as the action of the farmer +or the manufacturer; and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> latter is as much matter of positive +institution as the former. But while Roscher condemns this distinction, +he does not go the length his disciples have gone, and reject the whole +idea of natural law in the sphere of political economy. On the contrary, +he actually makes use of the expression, "the natural laws of political +economy," and asserts that, when they are once sufficiently known, all +that is then needed to guide economic politics is to obtain exact and +reliable statistics of the situation to which they are to be applied. +Now that statement is exactly the position of the classical school on +the subject. Economic politics is, of course, like all other politics, +an affair of times and nations; but economic science belongs to mankind, +and contains principles which may be accurately enough termed, as +Roscher terms them, natural laws, and which may be applied, as he would +apply them, to the improvement of particular economic situations, on +condition that sufficiently complete and correct statistics are obtained +beforehand of the whole actual circumstances. Economic laws are, of +course, of the nature of ethical laws, and not of physical; but they are +none the less on that account natural laws, and the polemic instituted +by the Socialists of the Chair to expel the notion of natural law from +the entire territory of political economy is unjustifiable. Phenomena +which are the result of human action will always exhibit regularities +while human character remains the same; and, moreover, they often +exhibit undesigned regularities which, not being imposed upon them by +man, must be imposed upon them by Nature. While, therefore, the +Socialists of the Chair have made a certain point against the older +economists by showing the futility and mischief of distinguishing +between what is natural in economics and what is not, they have erred in +seeking to convert that point into an argument against the validity of +economic principles and the existence of economic laws. At the same time +their position constitutes a wholesome protest against the tendency to +exaggerate the completeness or finality of current doctrines, and gives +economic investigation a beneficial direction by setting it upon a more +thorough and all-sided observation of facts.</p> + +<p>But when they complain of the earlier economists being so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> wedded to +abstractions, the fault they chiefly mean to censure is the habit of +solving practical economic problems by the unconditional application of +certain abstract principles. It is the "absolutism of solutions" they +condemn. They think economists were used to act like doctors who had +learnt the principles of medicine by rote and applied them without the +least discrimination of the peculiarities of individual constitutions. +With them the individual peculiarities are everything, and the +principles are too much thrown into the shade. Economic phenomena, they +hold, constitute only one phase of the general life of the particular +nations in which they appear. They are part and parcel of a special +concrete social organism. They are influenced—they are to a great +extent made what they are—by the whole <i>ethos</i> of the people they +pertain to, by their national character, their state of culture, their +habits, customs, laws. Economic problems are consequently always of +necessity problems of the time, and can only be solved for the period +that raises them. Their very nature alters under other skies and in +other ages. They neither appear everywhere in the same shape, nor admit +everywhere of the same answer. They must therefore be treated +historically and empirically, and political economy is always an affair +for the nation and never for the world. The historical school inveigh +against the <i>cosmopolitanism</i> of the current economic theories, and +declare warmly in favour of <i>nationalism</i>; according to which every +nation has its own political economy just as it has its own constitution +and its own character. Now here they are right in what they affirm, +wrong in what they deny. They are right in affirming that economic +politics is national, wrong in denying that economic science is +cosmopolitan. In German the word economy denotes the concrete industrial +system as well as the abstract science of industrial systems, and one +therefore readily falls into the error of applying to the latter what is +only true of the former. There may be general principles of engineering, +though every particular project can only be successfully accomplished by +a close regard to its particular conditions. In claiming a cosmopolitan +validity for their principles, economists do not overlook their +essential relativity. On the contrary, they describe their economic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +laws as being in reality nothing more than tendencies, which are not +even strictly true as scientific explanations, and are never for a +moment contemplated as unconditional solutions for practical situations. +Moreover Roscher, in defining his task as an economist, virtually takes +up the cosmopolitan standpoint and virtually rejects the national. He +says a political economist has to explain what is or has been, and not +to show what ought to be; he quotes the saying of Dunoyer, <i>Je n'impose +rien, je ne propose même rien, j'expose</i>; and states that what he has to +do is to unfold the anatomy and physiology of social and national +economy. He is a scientific man, and not an economic politician, and +naturally assumes the position of science, which is cosmopolitan, and +not that of politics, which is national and even opportunist.</p> + +<p>I pass now to a perhaps more important point, from which it will be seen +that the Socialists of the Chair are far from thinking that political +economy has nothing to do with what ought to be. Next to the <i>realistic</i> +school, the name they prefer to describe themselves by is the <i>ethical</i> +school. By this they mean two things, and some of them lay the stress on +the one and some on the other. They mean, first, to repudiate the idea +of self-interest being the sole economic motive or force. They do not +deny it to be a leading motive in industrial transactions, and they do +not, like some of the earlier socialists, aim at its extinction or +replacement by a social or generous principle of action. But they +maintain that the course of industry never has been and never will be +left to its guidance alone. Many other social forces, national +character, ideas, customs—the whole inherited <i>ethos</i> of the +people—individual peculiarities, love of power, sense of fair dealing, +public opinion, conscience, local ties, family connections, civil +legislation—all exercise upon industrial affairs as real an influence +as personal interest, and, furthermore, they exercise an influence of +precisely the same kind. They all operate ethically, through human will, +judgment, motives, and in this respect one of them has no advantage over +another. It cannot be said, except in a very limited sense, that +self-interest is an essential and abiding economic force and the others +only accidental and passing. For while customs perish, custom remains;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +opinions come and go, but opinion abides; and though any particular act +of the State's intervention may be abolished, State intervention itself +cannot possibly be dispensed with. It is all a matter of more or less, +of here or there. The State is not the intruder in industry it is +represented to be. It is planted in the heart of the industrial organism +from the beginning, and constitutes in fact part of the nature of things +from which it is sought to distinguish it. It is not unnatural for us to +wear clothes because we happen to be born naked, for Nature has given us +a principle which guides us to adapt our dress to our climate and +circumstances. Reason is as natural as passion, and the economists who +repel the State's intrusion and think they are thus leaving industry to +take its natural course, commit the same absurdity as the moralist who +recommends men to live according to Nature, and explains living +according to Nature to mean the gratification as much as possible of his +desires, and his abandonment as much as possible of rational and, as he +conceives, artificial plan. The State cannot observe an absolute +neutrality if it would. Non-intervention is only a particular kind of +intervention. There must be laws of property, succession, and the like, +and the influence of these spreads over the whole industrial system, and +affects both the character of its production and the incidence of its +distribution of wealth.</p> + +<p>But, second, by calling their method the <i>ethical</i> method, the +historical school desire to repudiate the idea that in dealing with +economic phenomena they are dealing with things which are morally +indifferent, like the phenomena of physics, and that science has nothing +to do with them but to explain them. They have certainly reason to +complain that the operation of the laws of political economy is +sometimes represented as if it were morally as neutral as the operation +of the law of gravitation, and it is in this conception that they think +the materialism of the dominant economic school to be practically most +offensively exhibited. Economic phenomena are not morally indifferent; +they are ethical in their very being, and ought to be treated as such. +Take, for example, the labour contract. To treat it as a simple exchange +between equals is absurd. The labourer must sell his labour or starve, +and may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> be obliged to take such terms for it as leave him without the +means of enjoying the rights which society awards him, and discharging +the duties which society claims from him. Look on him as a ware, if you +will, but remember he is a ware that has life, that has connections, +responsibilities, expectations, domestic, social, political. To get his +bread he might sell his freedom, but society will not permit him; he may +sell his health, he may sell his character, for society permits that; he +may go to sea in rotten ships, and be sent to work in unwholesome +workshops; he may be herded in farm bothies where the commonest +decencies of life cannot be observed; and he may suck the strength out +of posterity by putting his children to premature toil to eke out his +precarious living. Transactions which have such direct bearings on +freedom, on health, on morals, on the permanent well-being of the +nation, can never be morally indifferent. They are necessarily within +the sphere of ends and ideals. Their ethical side is one of their most +important ones, and the science that deals with them is therefore +ethical. For the same reason they come within the province of the State, +which is the normal guardian of the general and permanent interests, +moral and economic, of the community. The State does not stand to +industry like a watchman who guards from the outside property in which +he has himself no personal concern. It has a positive industrial office. +It is, says Schmoller, the great educational institute of the human +race, and there is no sense in suspiciously seeking to reduce its action +in industrial affairs to a minimum. His theory of the State is that of +the <i>Cultur-Staat</i>, in distinction from the <i>Polizei-Staat</i>, and the +<i>Rechts-Staat</i>. The State can no longer be regarded as merely an +omnipotent instrument for the maintenance of tranquillity and order in +the name of Heaven; nor even as a constitutional organ of the collective +national authority for securing to all individuals and classes in the +nation, without exception, the rights and privileges which they are +legally recognised to possess; but it must be henceforth looked upon as +a positive agency for the spread of universal culture within its +geographical territory.</p> + +<p>With these views, the Socialists of the Chair could not fail to take an +active concern with the class of topics thrown up by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> the socialist +movement, and exciting still so much attention in Germany under the name +of the social question. They neither state that question nor answer it +like the socialists, but their first offence, and the fountain of all +their subsequent offending, in the judgment of their Manchester +antagonists, consisted in their acknowledgment that there was a social +question at all. Not that the Manchester party denied the existence of +evils in the present state of industry, but they looked upon these evils +as resulting from obstructions to the freedom of competition which time, +and time alone, would eventually remove, and from moral causes with +which economists had no proper business. The Socialists of the Chair, +however, could not dismiss their responsibility for those evils so +easily. They owned at once that a social crisis had arisen or was near +at hand. The effect of the general adoption of the large system of +production had been to diminish the numbers of the middle classes, to +reduce the great bulk of the lower classes permanently to the position +of wage-labourers, and to introduce some grave elements of peril and +distress into the condition of the wage-labourers themselves. They are +doubtless better fed, better lodged, better clad, than they were say in +the middle and end of last century, when not one in a hundred of them +had shoes to his feet, when seven out of eight on the Continent were +still bondsmen, and when three out of every four in England had to eke +out their wages by parochial relief. But, in spite of these advantages, +their life has now less hope and less security than it had then. +Industry on the great scale has multiplied the vicissitudes of trade, +and rendered the labourer much more liable to be thrown out of work. It +has diminished the avenues to comparative independence and dignity which +were open to the journeyman under the <i>régime</i> of the small industries. +And while thus condemned to live by wages alone all his days, he could +entertain no reasonable hope—at least before the formation of trade +unions—that his wages could be kept up within reach of the measure of +his wants, as these wants were being progressively expanded by the +general advance of culture. Moreover, the twinge of the case lies here, +that while the course which industrial development is taking seems to be +banishing hope and security more and more from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> the labourer's life, the +progress of general civilization is making these benefits more and more +imperatively demanded. The working classes have been growing steadily in +the scale of moral being. They have acquired complete personal freedom, +legal equality, political rights, general education, a class +consciousness; and they have come to cherish a very natural and +legitimate aspiration that they shall go on progressively sharing in the +increasing blessings of civilization. Brentano says that modern public +opinion concedes this claim of the working man as a right to which he is +entitled, but that modern industrial conditions have been unable as yet +to secure him in the possession of it; hence the Social Question. Now +some persons may be ready enough to admit this claim as a thing which it +is eminently desirable to see realized, who will yet demur to the +representation of it as a right, which puts society under a +corresponding obligation. But this idea is a peculiarity belonging to +the whole way of thinking of the Socialists of the Chair upon these +subjects. Some of them indeed take even higher ground. Schmoller, for +example, declares that the working classes suffer positive wrong in the +present distribution of national wealth, considered from the standpoint +of distributive justice; but his associates as a rule do not agree with +him in applying this abstract standard to the case. Wagner also stands +somewhat out of the ranks of his fellows by throwing the responsibility +of the existing evils directly and definitely upon the State. According +to his view, there can never be anything which may be legitimately +called a Social Question, unless the evils complained of are clearly the +consequences of existing legislation, but he holds that that is so in +the present case. He considers that a mischievous turn has been given to +the distribution of wealth by legalizing industrial freedom without at +the same time imposing certain restrictions upon private property, the +rate of interest, and the speculations of the Stock Exchange. The State +has, therefore, caused the Social Question; and the State is bound to +settle it. The other Socialists of the Chair, however, do not bring the +obligation so dead home to the civil authority alone. The duty rests on +society, and, of course, so far on the State also, which is the chief +organ of society; but it is not to State-help alone,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> nor to self-help +alone, that the Socialists of the Chair ask working men to look; but it +is to what they term the self-help of society. Society has granted to +the labouring classes the rights of freedom and equality, and has, +therefore, come bound to give them, as far as it legitimately can, the +amplest facilities for practically enjoying these rights. To give a man +an estate mortgaged above its rental is only to mock him; to confer the +status of freedom upon working men merely to leave them overwhelmed in +an unequal struggle with capital is to make their freedom a dead letter. +Personal and civil independence require, as their indispensable +accompaniment, a certain measure of economic independence likewise, and +consequently to bestow the former as an inalienable right, and yet take +no concern to make the latter a possibility, is only to discharge +one-half of an obligation voluntarily undertaken, and to deceive +expectations reasonably entertained. No doubt this independence is a +thing which working men must in the main win for themselves, and day +after day, by labour, by providence, by association; but it is +nevertheless an important point to remember, with Brentano, that it +forms an essential part of an ideal which society has already +acknowledged to be legitimate, and which it is therefore bound to second +every effort to realize. The Social Question, conceived in the light of +these considerations, may accordingly be said to arise from the fact +that a certain material or economic independence has become more +necessary for the working man, and less possible. It is more necessary, +because, with the sanction of modern opinion, he has awoke to a new +sense of personal dignity, and it is less possible, in consequence of +circumstances already mentioned, attendant upon the development of +modern industry. It is not, as Lord Macaulay maintained, that the evils +of man's life are the same now as formerly, and that nothing has changed +but the intelligence which has become conscious of them. The new time +has brought new evils and less right or disposition to submit to them. +It is the conflict of these two tendencies which, in the thinking of the +Socialists of the Chair, constitutes the social crisis of the present +day. Some of them, indeed, describe it in somewhat too abstract formulæ, +which exercise an embarrassing influence on their speculations. For +example,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> Von Scheel says the Social Question is the effect of the felt +contradiction between the ideal of personal freedom and equality which +hangs before the present age, and the increasing inequality of wealth +which results from existing economic arrangements; and he proposes as +the general principle of solution, that men should now abandon the +exclusive devotion which modern Liberalism has paid to the principle of +freedom, and substitute in its room an adhesion to freedom <i>plus</i> +equality. But then equality may mean a great many different things, and +Von Scheel leaves us with no precise clue to the particular scope he +would give his principle in its application. He certainly seems to +desire more than a mere equality of right, and to aim at some sort or +degree of equality of fact, but what or how he informs us not; just as +Schmoller, while propounding the dogma of distributive justice, condemns +the communistic principle of distribution of wealth as being a purely +animal principle, and offers us no other incorporation of his dogma. In +spite of their antipathy to abstractions, many of the Socialists of the +Chair indulge considerably in barren generalities, which could serve +them nothing in practice, even if they did not make it a point to square +their practice by the historical conditions of the hour.</p> + +<p>Brentano strikes on the whole the most practical keynote, both in his +conception of what the social question is and of how it is to be met. +What is needed, he thinks, very much is to give to modern industry an +organization as suitable to it as the old guilds were to the industry of +earlier times, and this is to be done in great part by adaptations of +that model. He makes comparatively little demand on the power of the +State, while of course agreeing with the rest of his school in the +latitude they give to the lawfulness of its intervention in industrial +matters. He would ask it to bestow a legal status on trade unions and +friendly societies, to appoint courts of conciliation, to regulate the +hours of labour, to institute factory inspection, and to take action of +some sort on the daily more urgent subject of labourers' dwellings. But +the elevation of the labouring classes must be wrought mainly by their +own well-guided and long-continued efforts, and the first step is gained +when they have resolved earnestly to begin. The pith of the problem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +turns on the matter of wages, and, so far at any rate, it has already +been solved almost as well as is practicable by the English trade +unions, which have proved to the world that they are always able to +convert the question of wages from the question how little the labourer +can afford to take, into the question how much the employer is able to +give—<i>i.e.</i>, from the minimum to the maximum which the state of the +market allows. That is, of course, a very important change, and it is +interesting to know that F. A. Lange, the able and distinguished +historian of Materialism, who had written on the labour question with +strong socialist sympathies, stated to Brentano that his account of the +English trade unions had converted him entirely from his belief that a +socialistic experiment was necessary. Brentano admits that the effect of +trade unions is partial only; that they really divide the labouring +class into two different strata—those who belong to the trade unions +being raised to a higher platform, and those who do not being left as +they were in the gall of bitterness. But then, he observes, great gain +has been made when at least a large section of the working class has +been brought more securely within the pale of advancing culture, and it +is only in this gradual way—section by section—that the elevation of +the whole body can be eventually accomplished. The trade union has +imported into the life of the working man something of the element of +hope which it wanted, and a systematic scheme of working-class insurance +is now needed to introduce the element of security. Brentano has +published an excellent little work on that subject; and here again he +asks no material help from the State. The working class must insure +themselves against all the risks of their life by association, just as +they must keep up the rate of their wages by association; and for the +same reasons—first, because they are able to do so under existing +economic conditions, and second, because it is only so the end can be +gained consistently with the modern moral conditions of their +life—<i>i.e.</i>, with the maintenance of their personal freedom, equality, +and independence. Brentano thinks that the sound principle of +working-class insurance is that every trade union ought to become the +insurance society for its trade, because every trade has its own special +risks and therefore requires its own <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>insurance premium, and because +malingering, feigned sickness, claims for loss of employment through +personal fault, and the like, cannot possibly be checked except by the +fund being administered by the local lodges of the trade to which the +subscribers belong. The insurance fund might be kept separate from the +other funds of the union, but he sees no reason why it should not be +combined with them, as it would only constitute a new obstacle to +ill-considered strikes, and as striking in itself will, he expects, in +course of time, give way to some system of arbitration. Brentano makes +no suggestion regarding the mass of the working class who belong to no +trade union. They cannot be dealt with in the same way, or so +effectively. But this is quite in keeping with the general principle of +the Socialists of the Chair—in which they differ <i>toto cælo</i> from the +socialists—that society is not to be ameliorated by rigidly applying to +every bit of it the same plan, but only by a thousand modifications and +remedies adapted to its thousand varieties of circumstances and situations.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER VII.</span> <span class="smaller">THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS.</span></h2> + +<p>The idea that a radical affinity exists between Christianity and +socialism in their general aim, in their essential principles, in their +pervading spirit, has strong attractions for a certain by no means +inferior order of mind, and we find it frequently maintained in the +course of history by representatives of both systems. Some of the +principal socialists of the earlier part of this century used to declare +that socialism was only Christianity more logically carried out and more +faithfully practised; or, at any rate, that socialism would be an idle +superfluity, if ordinary Christian principles were really to be acted +upon honestly and without reserve. St. Simon published his views under +the title of the "Nouveau Christianisme," and asserted that the +prevailing forms of Christianity were one gigantic heresy; that both the +Catholic and the Protestant Churches had now lost their power, simply +because they had neglected their great temporal mission of raising the +poor, and because their clergy had given themselves up to barren +discussions of theology, and remained absolutely ignorant of the living +social questions of the time; and that the true Christian <i>régime</i> which +he was to introduce was one which should be founded on the Christian +principle that all men are brothers; which should be governed by the +Christian law, "Have ye love one to another," and in which all the +forces of society should be mainly consecrated to the amelioration of +the most numerous and poorest class. Cabet was not less explicit. He +said that "if Christianity had been interpreted and applied in the +spirit of Jesus Christ, if it were rightfully understood and faithfully +obeyed by the numerous sections of Christians who are really filled with +a sincere piety, and need only to know the truth to follow it, then +Christianity would have sufficed, and would still suffice,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> to establish +a perfect social and political organization, and to deliver mankind from all its ills."</p> + +<p>The same belief, that Christianity is essentially socialistic, has at +various times appeared in the Church itself. The socialism of the only +other period in modern history besides our own century, in which +socialistic ideas have prevailed to any considerable extent, was, in +fact, a direct outcome of Christian conviction, and was realized among +Christian sects. The socialism of the Anabaptists of the Reformation +epoch was certainly mingled with political ideas of class emancipation, +and contributed to stir the insurrection of the German peasantry; but +its real origin lay in the religious fervour which was abroad at the +time, and which buoyed sanguine and mystical minds on dreams of a reign +of God. When men feel a new and better power arising strongly about +them, they are forward to throw themselves into harmony with it, and +there were people, touched by the religious revival of the Reformation, +who sought to anticipate its progress, as it were, by living together +like brothers. Fraternity is undoubtedly a Christian idea, come into the +world with Christ, spread abroad in it by Christian agencies, and +belonging to the ideal that hovers perpetually over Christian society. +It has already produced social changes of immense consequence, and has +force in it, we cannot doubt, to produce many more in the future; and it +is therefore in nowise strange that in times of religious zeal or of +social distress, this idea of fraternity should appeal to some eager +natures with so urgent an authority, both of condemnation and of +promise, that they would fain take it at once by force and make it king.</p> + +<p>The socialism of the present day is not of a religious origin. On the +contrary, there is some truth in the remark of a distinguished +economist, M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, that the prevalence of socialistic +ideas is largely due to the decline of religious faith among the working +classes. If there is only the one life, they feel they must realize +their ideal here and realize it quickly, or they will never realize it +at all. However this may be, the fact is certain that most contemporary +socialists have turned their backs on religion. They sometimes speak of +it with a kind of suppressed and settled bitterness as of a friend that +has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> proved faithless: "We are not atheists: we have simply done with +God." They seem to feel that if there be a God, He is, at any rate, no +God for them, that He is the God of the rich, and cares nothing for the +poor, and there is a vein of most touching, though most illogical, +reproach in their hostility towards a Deity whom they yet declare to +have no existence. They say in their heart, There is no God, or only one +whom they decline to serve, for He is no friend to the labouring man, +and has never all these centuries done anything for him. This atheism +seems as much matter of class antipathy as of free-thought; and the +semi-political element in it lends a peculiar bitterness to the +socialistic attacks on religion and the Church, which are regarded as +main pillars of the established order of things, and irreconcileable +obstructives to all socialist dreams. The Church has, therefore, as a +rule looked upon the whole movement with a natural and justifiable +suspicion, and has, for the most part, dispensed to it an indiscriminate +condemnation. Some Churchmen, however, scruple to assume this attitude; +they recognise a soul of good in the agitation, if it could be stripped +of the revolutionary and atheistic elements of its propaganda, which +they hold to be, after all, merely accidental accompaniments of the +system, at once foreign to its essence and pernicious to its purpose. It +is in substance, they say, an economic movement, both in its origin and +its objects, and so far as it stands on this ground they have no +hesitation in declaring that in their judgment there is a great deal +more Christianity in socialism than in the existing industrial <i>régime</i>. +Those who take this view, generally find a strong bond of union with +socialists in their common revolt against the mammonism of the +church-going middle classes, and against some current economic +doctrines, which seem almost to canonize what they count the heartless +and un-Christian principles of self-interest and competition.</p> + +<p>Such, for example, was the position maintained by the Christian +Socialists of England thirty years ago—a band of noble patriotic men +who strove hard, by word and deed, to bring all classes of the community +to a knowledge of their duties, as well as their interests, and to +supersede, as far as might be, the system of unlimited competition by a +system of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> universal co-operation. They inveighed against the Manchester +creed, then in the flush of success, as if it were the special +Antichrist of the nineteenth century. Lassalle himself has not used +harder, more passionate, or more unjust words of it. Maurice said he +dreaded above everything "that horrible catastrophe of a Manchester +ascendancy, which I believe in my soul would be fatal to intellect, +morality, and freedom"; and Kingsley declared that "of all narrow, +conceited, hypocritical, anarchic, and atheistic schemes of the +universe, the Cobden and Bright one was exactly the worst." They agreed +entirely with the socialists in condemning the reigning industrial +system: it was founded on unrighteousness; its principles were not only +un-Christian, but anti-Christian; and in spite of its apparent +commercial victories, it would inevitably end in ruin and disaster. Some +of them had been in Paris and witnessed the Revolution of 1848, and had +brought back with them two firm convictions—one, that a purely +materialistic civilization, like that of the July Monarchy, must sooner +or later lead to a like fate; and the other, that the socialist idea of +co-operation contained the fertilizing germ for developing a really +enduring and Christian civilization. Mr. J. M. Ludlow mentioned the +matter to Maurice, and eventually a Society was formed, with Maurice as +president, for the purpose of promoting co-operation and education among +the working classes. It is beyond the scope of the present work to give +any fuller account of this interesting and not unfruitful movement here; +but it is to the purpose to mark two peculiarities which distinguish it +from other phases of socialism. One is, that they insisted strongly upon +the futility of mere external changes of condition, unattended by +corresponding changes of inner character and life. "There is no +fraternity," said Maurice, finely, "without a common Father." Just as it +is impossible to maintain free institutions among a people who want the +virtues of freemen, so it is impossible to realize fraternity in the +general arrangements of society, unless men possess a sufficient measure +of the industrial and social virtues. Hence the stress the Christian +Socialists of England laid on the education of the working classes. The +other peculiarity is, that they did not seek in any way whatever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> to +interfere with private property, or to invoke the assistance of the +State. They believed self-help to be a sounder principle, both morally +and politically, and they believed it to be sufficient. They held it to +be sufficient, not merely in course of time, but immediately even, to +effect a change in the face of society. For they loved and believed in +their cause with a generous and touching enthusiasm, and were so +sincerely and absolutely persuaded of its truth themselves, that they +hardly entertained the idea of other minds resisting it. "I certainly +thought," says Mr. I. Hughes, "(and for that matter have never altered +my opinion to this day) that here we had found the solution to the great +labour question; but I was also convinced that we had nothing to do but +just to announce it, and found an association or two, in order to +convert all England, and usher in the millennium at once, so plain did +the whole thing seem to me. I will not undertake to answer for the rest +of the council, but I doubt whether I was at all more sanguine than the +majority." Seventeen co-operative associations in London, and +twenty-four in the provinces (which were all they had established when +they ceased to publish their Journal), may seem a poor result, but their +work is not to be estimated by that alone. The Christian Socialists +undoubtedly gave a very important impetus to the whole movement of +co-operation, and to the general cause of the amelioration of the labouring classes.</p> + +<p>The general position of Maurice and his allies (though with important +differences, as will appear) has been taken up again by two groups in +Germany at the present day—one Catholic, the other Protestant—in +dealing with the social question which has for many years agitated that +country. In one respect the Christian Socialists of England were more +fortunate than their German brethren. Nobody ever ventured to question +the purity of their motives. The intervention of the clergy in politics +is generally unpopular: they are thought, rightly or wrongly, to be +Churchmen first, and patriots afterwards; but it was impossible to +suspect Maurice and his friends of being influenced in their efforts at +reform by considerations of ecclesiastical or electoral interest, or of +having any object at heart but the social good of the nation. It is +otherwise with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> the Christian Socialists of Germany. Neither of the two +German groups affects to conceal that one great aim of its work is to +restore and extend the influence of the Church among the labouring +classes; and it is unlikely that the Clerical party in Germany were +insensible to the political advantage of having organizations of working +men under ecclesiastical control, though it ought to be acknowledged +that these organizations were contemplated before the introduction of +universal suffrage. But even though ecclesiastical considerations +mingled with the motives of the Christian Socialists, we see no reason +to doubt the genuineness of their interest in the amelioration of the +masses, or the sincerity of their conviction of the economic soundness +of their programme.</p> + +<p>The Catholic group deserves to be considered first, because it +intervened in the discussion much sooner than the Evangelical, and +because it originated a much more important movement—larger in its +dimensions than the other, and invested with additional consequence from +the circumstance that being promoted under the countenance of +dignitaries, it must be presumed to have received the sanction of the +Roman Curia, and may therefore afford an index to the general attitude +which the Catholic Church is disposed to assume towards Continental +socialism. The socialist agitation had no sooner broken out, in 1863, +than Dr. Döllinger, then a pillar of the Church of Rome, strongly +recommended the Catholic clubs of Germany to take the question up. These +clubs are societies for mutual improvement, recreation, and benefit, and +are composed mainly of working men. Father Kölping, himself at the time +a working man, had, in 1847, founded an extensive organization of +Catholic journeymen, which, in 1872, had a total membership of 70,000, +and consisted of an affiliation of small journeyman clubs, with a +membership of from 50 to 400 each, in the various towns of Germany. Then +there were also Catholic apprentice clubs—in many cases in alliance +with those of the journeymen; there were Catholic master clubs, Catholic +peasant clubs, Catholic benefit clubs, Catholic young men's clubs, +Catholic credit clubs, Catholic book clubs, etc., etc. These clubs +naturally afforded an organization ready to hand for any general purpose +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> members might share in common, and being composed of working men, +they seemed reasonably calculated to be of effective service in +forwarding the cause of social amelioration. Early in 1864, accordingly, +Bishop Ketteler, of Mayence, warmly seconded Döllinger's idea, and at +the same time published a remarkable pamphlet on "The Labour Question +and Christianity," in which he unfolded his views of the causes and the +cure of the existing evils.</p> + +<p>William Immanuel, Baron von Ketteler, had been for twenty years a +powerful and impressive figure in the public life of Germany. His high +rank, social and ecclesiastical, his immense energy, his weight of +character, his personal disinterestedness of purpose, and his +intellectual vigour and acuteness, had combined to give him great +importance both in Church and State. Born in 1811, of an ancient +Westphalian family, he was trained in law and politics for the public +service, and actually entered upon it, but resigned his post in 1838, in +consequence of the dispute about the Cologne bishopric, and resolved to +give himself to the work of the Church. After studying theology at +Munich and Münster, he was ordained priest in 1844, and became soon +afterwards pastor at Hopster, in Westphalia. Being sent as member for +Langerich to the German National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848, he at +once made his mark by the vigour with which he strove for the spiritual +independence of the Church, by the lectures and sermons he delivered on +questions of the day, and especially by a bold and generous oration he +pronounced at the grave of the assassinated deputy, Prince Lichnowsky. +This oration excited sensation all over Germany, and Ketteler was +promoted, in 1849, to the Hedwigsburg Church, in Berlin, and in 1850 to +the Bishopric of Mayence. In this position he found scope for all his +powers. He founded a theological seminary at Mayence, erected +orphan-houses and reformatories, introduced various religious orders and +congregationist schools, and entering energetically into the disputes in +Baden regarding the place and rights of the Catholic Church, he +succeeded in establishing an understanding whereby the State gave up +much of its patronage, its supervision of theological seminaries, its +veto on ecclesiastical arrangements, restored episcopal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> courts, and +assigned the Church extensive influence over popular education. He was +one of the bishops who authorized the dogma of the Immaculate Conception +in 1854, but he belonged to the opposition at the Vatican Council of +1870. He wrote a pamphlet strongly deprecating the promulgation of the +dogma of infallibility, and went, even at the last moment, to the Pope +personally, and implored him to abandon the idea of promulgating it; but +as his objection respected its opportuneness and not its truth, he did +not secede with Döllinger when his opposition failed, but accepted the +dogma himself and demanded the submission of his clergy to it. Bishop +Ketteler was returned to the German Imperial Diet in 1871, and led the +Clerical Faction in opposing the ecclesiastical policy of the +Government. He died at Binghausen, in Bavaria, in 1877, and is buried in +Mayence Cathedral. Ketteler had always been penetrated with the ambition +of making the Catholic Church a factor of practical importance in the +political and social life of Germany, and with the conviction that the +clergy ought to make themselves masters of social and political science +so as to be able to exercise a leading and effective influence over +public opinion on questions of social amelioration. He has himself +written much, though nothing of permanent value, on these subjects, and +did not approach them with unwashed hands when he published his pamphlet in 1864.</p> + +<p>In this pamphlet, he says the labour question is one which it is his +business, both as a Christian and as a bishop, to deal with: as a +Christian, because Christ, as Saviour of the world, seeks not only to +redeem men's souls, but to heal their sorrows and soften their +condition; and as a bishop, because the Church had, according to her +ancient custom, imposed upon him, as one of his consecration vows, that +he would, "in the name of the Lord, be kind and merciful to the poor and +the stranger, and to all that are in any kind of distress." He considers +the labour question of the present day to be the very serious and plain +question, how the great bulk of the working classes are to get the bread +and clothing necessary to sustain them in life. Things have come to this +pass in consequence of two important economic changes—which he +incorrectly ascribes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> to the political revolution at the end of last +century, merely because they have taken place mostly since that +date—the spread of industrial freedom, and the ascendancy of the large +capitalists. In consequence of these changes the labourer is now treated +as a commodity, and the rate of his wages settled by the same law that +determines the price of every other commodity—the cost of its +production; and the employer is always able to press wages down to the +least figure which the labourer will take rather than starve. Ketteler +accepts entirely Lassalle's teaching about "the iron and cruel law," and +holds it to have been so conclusively proved in the course of the +controversy that it is no longer possible to dispute it without a +deliberate intention of deceiving the people. Now there is no doubt that +Ricardo's law of value is neither so iron nor so cruel as Lassalle took +it to be; and that when Lassalle alleged that in consequence of this law +96 per cent. of the population of Germany had to support their families +on less than ten shillings a week, and were therefore in a state of +chronic starvation, he based his statement on a calculation of +Dieterici's, which was purely conjectural, and which, besides, +disregarded the fact that in working-class families there were usually +more breadwinners than one. Ketteler, however, adopts this whole +statement of the case implicitly, and says the social problem of our day +is simply how to emancipate the labouring class from the operation of +this economic law. "It is no longer possible to doubt that the whole +material existence of almost the entire labouring population—<i>i.e.</i>, of +much the greatest part of men in modern states, and of their +families—that the daily question about the necessary bread for man, +wife, and children, is exposed to all the fluctuations of the market and +of the price of commodities. I know nothing more deplorable than this +fact. What sensations must it cause in those poor men who, with all they +hold dear, are day after day at the mercy of the accidents of market +price? That is the slave market of our Liberal Europe, fashioned after +the model of our humanist, rationalistic, anti-Christian Liberalism, and +freemasonry." The bishop never spares an opportunity of attacking +"heathen humanist Liberalism," which he says has pushed the labouring +man into the water,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> and now stands on the bank spinning fine theories +about his freedom, but calmly seeing him drown.</p> + +<p>After this it might be expected that Ketteler would be all for +abolishing industrial freedom, and for restoring a <i>régime</i> of +compulsory guilds and corporations; but he is not. He acknowledges that +the old system of guilds had its advantages; it was a kind of assured +understanding between the workman and society, according to which the +former adjusted his work and the latter his wages. But it was the abuses +of the compulsory powers of the guilds that led to industrial freedom; +and, on the other hand, industrial freedom has great countervailing +advantages of its own which he scruples to give up. It has immensely +increased production and cheapened commodities, and so enabled the lower +classes to enjoy means of life and enjoyment they had not before. Nor +does Ketteler approve of Lassalle's scheme of establishing productive +associations of working men upon capital supplied by the State. Not that +he objects to productive associations; on the contrary, he declares them +to be a glorious idea, and thinks them the true solution of the problem. +But he objects to supplying their capital by the State, as involving a +direct violation of the law of property. The Catholic Church, he says, +has never maintained an absolute right of property. Her divines have +unanimously taught that the right of property cannot avail against a +neighbour who is in extreme need, because God alone is absolute +proprietor, and no man is more than a limited vassal, holding under God, +and on the conditions which He imposes; and one of these conditions is +that any man in extremities is entitled to satisfy his necessity where +and how he pleases.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> In such a case, according to Catholic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> doctrine, +it is not the man in distress that is the thief, but the proprietor who +would gainsay and stop him. The distressed have a positive right to +succour, and the State may therefore, without violating any of the +rights of property, tax the parishes, or the proprietors, for the relief +of the poor. But beyond this the State has no title to go. It may +legitimately tax people for the purpose of saving working men from +extremities, but not for the purpose of bettering their normal position.</p> + +<p>But where the civil authority ends the Christian authority comes in, and +the rich have only escaped the obligation of compulsory legal enactment, +to find themselves under the more far-reaching obligations of moral duty +and Christian love. The Church declares that the man who does not give +alms where he ought to give it stands in the same category as a thief; +and there is no limit to this obligation but his power of giving help, +and his belief that it would be more hurtful to give than to keep it. +Ketteler's plan, accordingly, is that the capital for the productive +associations should be raised by voluntary subscriptions on the part of +Christian people. He thinks he has made out a strong case for +establishing this as a Christian obligation. He has shown that a +perilous crisis prevails, that this crisis can only be removed by +productive associations, that productive associations cannot be started +without capital, and he says it is a vain dream of Huber's to think of +getting the capital from the savings of working men themselves, for most +of the working men are in a distressed condition, and if a few are +better off, their savings could only establish associations so few in +number and so small in scale, as to be little better than trifling with +the evil. He sees no remedy but making productive associations a scheme +of the Church, and appealing to that Christian philanthropy and sense of +duty which had already done great service of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> like nature—as, for +example, in producing capital to emancipate slaves in Italy and elsewhere.</p> + +<p>This remarkable proposal of the bishop seems to have fallen dead. Though +he wrote and laboured much in connection with the labour question +afterwards, he never reverted to it again; and when a Christian +Socialist party was formed, under his countenance, they adopted a +programme which made large demands not only on the intervention, but on +the pecuniary help of the State. It was not till 1868 that any steps +were taken towards the actual organization of such a party. In June of +that year three Catholic clubs met together at Crefeld, and, after +discussing the social question, agreed to publish a journal (the +<i>Christliche Sociale Blätter</i>) to promote their views. In September of +the following year the whole subject of the relations of the Church to +the labour question was discussed at a conference of the Catholic +bishops of Germany, held at Fulda, and attended by Ketteler among +others. This conference strongly recommended the clergy to make +themselves thoroughly acquainted with that and other economic questions, +to interest themselves generally in the condition of the working class +they moved among, and even to travel in foreign countries to see the +state of the labourers there and the effects of the institutions +established for their amelioration. The conference also approved of the +formation of Catholic Labourers' Associations, for the promotion of the +general elevation of their own class, but held that the Church had no +call, directly or officially, to take the initiative in founding them. +This duty was undertaken, however, later in the same month, by a general +meeting of the Catholic Clubs of Germany, which appointed a special +committee, including Professor Schulte and Baron Schorlemer-Abst, for +the express purpose of founding and organizing Christian social clubs, +which should strive for the economic and moral amelioration of the +labouring classes. This committee set itself immediately to work, and +the result was the Christian Social Associations, or, as they are +sometimes called from their patron saint, the St. Joseph Associations. +They were composed of, and managed by, working men, though they liked to +have some man of eminence—never a clergyman—at the head of them, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> +though they allowed persons, of property, clergymen, and especially +employers of labour, to be honorary members. They met every Sunday +evening to discuss social questions, and politics were excluded, except +questions affecting the Church, and on these a decided partisanship was encouraged.</p> + +<p>The principles of this party—or what may be called their programme—is +explained in a speech delivered by Canon Moufang to his constituents in +Mayence, in February, 1871, and published with warm approbation, in the +<i>Christliche Sociale Blätter</i> in March. Christoph Moufang is, like +Ketteler, a leader of the German Clerical party, and entitled to the +highest esteem for his character, his intellectual parts, and his public +career. Born in 1817, he was first destined for the medical profession, +and studied physic at Bonn; but he soon abandoned this intention, and +betook himself to theology. After studying at Bonn and Munich, he was +ordained priest in 1839. He was appointed in 1851 professor of moral and +pastoral theology in the new theological seminary which Bishop Ketteler +had founded at Mayence, and in 1854 was made canon of the cathedral. +Moufang entered the First Hessian Chamber in 1862 as representative of +the bishop, and made a name as a powerful champion of High Church views +and of the general ecclesiastical policy of Bishop Ketteler. In 1868 he +was chosen one of the committee to make preparations for the Vatican +Council; but at the Council he belonged to the opponents of the dogma of +infallibility, and left Rome before the dogma was promulgated. He +submitted afterwards, however, and worked sedulously in its sense. +Moufang sat in the Imperial Diet from 1871 to 1877, was a leading member +of the Centre, and stoutly resisted the Falk legislation. He is +joint-editor of the <i>Katholik</i>, and is author of various polemical +writings, and of a work on the history of the Jesuits in Germany.</p> + +<p>Moufang takes a different view of the present duty of the Church in +relation to the social question from that which we saw to have been +taken by Ketteler. He asks for no pecuniary help from the Church, nor +for any special and novel kind of activity whatever. The problem cannot, +in his opinion, be effectively and permanently solved without her +co-operation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> but then the whole service she is able and required to +render is contained in the course of her ordinary ministrations in +diffusing a spirit of love and justice and fairness among the various +classes of society, in maintaining her charities for the poor and +helpless in dispensing comfort and distress, and in offering to the +weary the hope of a future life. Moufang makes much more demand on the +State than on the Church, in this also disagreeing with Bishop +Ketteler's pamphlet. He says the State can and must help the poorer +classes in four different ways:—</p> + +<p>1st. By giving legislative protection. Just as the landlord and the +money-lender are legally protected in their rights by the State, so the +labourer ought to be legally protected in his property, which are his +powers and time of labour. The State ought to give him legal security +against being robbed of these, his only property, by the operation of +free competition. With this view, Moufang demands the legalization of +working men's associations of various kinds, the prohibition of Sunday +labour, the legal fixing of a normal day of labour, legal restriction of +labour of women and children, legal provision against unwholesome +workshops, appointment of factory inspectors, and direct legal fixing of +the rate of wages. The last point is an important peculiarity in the +position of the Catholic Socialists. Moufang contends that competition +is a sound enough principle for regulating the price of commodities, but +that it is a very unsound one, and a very unsafe one, for determining +the price of labour, because he holds that labour is not a commodity. +Labour is a man's powers of life; it is the man himself, and the law +must see to its protection. The law protects the capitalist in his right +to his interest, and surely the labouring man's powers of life are +entitled to the same consideration. If an employer says to a capitalist +from whom he has borrowed money: "A crisis has come, a depression in +trade, and I am no longer able to pay such high interest; I will pay you +two-thirds or one-third of the previous rate," what does the capitalist +say? He refuses to take it, and why? Simply because he knows that the +law will sustain him in his claim. But if the employer says to his +labourer: "A depression of trade has come, and I cannot afford you more +than two-thirds or one-third of your present wages," what can the +labourer do?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> He has no alternative. He must take the wages offered him +or go, and to go means to starve. Why should not the law stand at the +labourer's back, as it does at the capitalist's, in enforcing what is +right and just? There is no more infraction of freedom in the one case +than in the other. Moufang's argument here is based on an illusive +analogy; for in the contract for the use of capital the employer agrees +to pay a fixed rate of interest so long as he retains the principal, and +he can only avail himself of subsequent falls in the money market by +returning the principal and opening a fresh contract; whereas in the +contract for the use of labour the employer engages by the week or the +day, returning the principal, as it were, at the end of that term, and +making a new arrangement. The point to be noted, however, is that +Moufang's object, like Ketteler's, is to deliver working men from their +hand-to-mouth dependence on the current fluctuations of the market; that +he thinks there is something not merely pernicious but radically unjust +in their treatment under the present system; and that he calls upon the +State to institute some regular machinery—a board with compulsory +powers, and composed of labourers and magistrates—for fixing everywhere +and in every trade a fair day's wages for a fair day's work.</p> + +<p>2nd. The State ought to give pecuniary help. It advances money on easy +terms to railway schemes; why should it not offer working men cheap +loans for sound co-operative enterprises? Of course it ought to make a +keen preliminary examination of the projects proposed, and keep a sharp +look-out against swindling or ill-considered schemes; but if the project +is sound and likely, it should be ready to lend the requisite capital at +a low interest. This proposal of starting productive associations on +State credit is an important divergence from Ketteler, who, in his +pamphlet, condemns it as a violation of the rights of property.</p> + +<p>3rd. The State ought to reduce the taxes and military burdens of the +labouring classes.</p> + +<p>4th. The State ought to fetter the domination of the money power, and +especially to check excesses of speculation, and control the operations +of the Stock Exchange.</p> + +<p>From this programme it appears that the Catholic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>movement goes a long +way with the socialists in their cries of wrong, but only a short way in +their plans of redress. Moufang's proposals may be wise or unwise, but +they contemplate only corrections of the present industrial system, and +not its reconstruction. Many Liberals are disposed to favour the idea of +establishing courts of conciliation with compulsory powers, and Bismarck +himself once said, before the socialists showed themselves unpatriotic +at the time of the French war, that he saw no reason why the State, +which gave large sums for agricultural experiments, should not spend +something in giving co-operative production a fair trial. The plans of +labour courts and of State credit to approved co-operative undertakings +are far from the socialist schemes of the abolition of private property +in the instruments of production, and the systematic regulation of all +industry by the State; and they afford no fair ground for the fear, +which many persons of ability entertain, of "an alliance"—to use +Bismarck's phrase—"between the black International and the red." Bishop +Martensen holds Catholicism to be essentially socialistic, because it +suppresses all individual rights and freedom in the intellectual sphere, +as socialism does in the economic. But men may detest private judgment +without taking the least offence at private property. A bigot need not +be a socialist, any more than a socialist a bigot, though each stifles +the principle of individuality in one department of things. If there is +to be any alliance between the Church and socialism, it will be not +because the former has been trained, under an iron organization, to +cherish a horror of individuality and a passion for an economic +organization as rigid as its own ecclesiastical one, but it will be +because the Church happens to have a distinct political interest at the +time in cultivating good relations with a new political force. How far +Moufang and his associates have been influenced by this kind of +consideration we cannot pretend to judge, but the sympathy they show is +not so much with the socialists as with the labouring classes generally, +and their movement is meant so far to take the wind from socialism, +whether with the mere view of filling their own sails with it or no.</p> + +<p>No voice was raised in the Protestant Churches in Germany<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> on the social +question till 1878. They suffer from their absolute dependence on the +State, and have become churches of doctors and professors, without +effective practical interest or initiative, and without that strong +popular sympathy of a certain kind which almost necessarily pervades the +atmosphere of a Church like the Catholic, which pits itself against +States, and knows that its power of doing so rests, in the last +analysis, on its hold over the hearts of the people. The Home Missionary +Society indeed discussed the question from time to time, but chiefly in +connection with the effects of the socialist propaganda on the religious +condition of the country; and it was this aspect of the subject that +eventually stirred a section of the orthodox Evangelical clergy to take +practical action. They asked themselves how it was that the working +classes were so largely adopting the desolate atheistic opinions which +were found associated with the socialist movement, when the Church +offered to gather them under her wing, and brighten their life with the +comforts and encouragements of Christian faith and hope. They felt +strongly that they must take more interest in the temporal welfare of +the working classes than they had hitherto done, and must apply the +ethical and social principles of Christianity to the solution of +economic problems and the promotion of social reform. In short, they +sought to present Christianity as the labourer's friend. The leaders of +this movement were men of much inferior calibre to those of the +corresponding Catholic movement. The principal of them were Rudolph +Todt, a pastor at Barentheim in Old Preignitz, who published in 1878 a +book on "Radical German Socialism and Christian Society," which created +considerable sensation; and Dr. Stöcker, then one of the Court preachers +at Berlin, a member of the Prussian Diet, and an ardent promoter of +reactionary policy in various directions. He is a warm advocate of +denominational education, and of extending the power of the Crown, of +the State, and of the landed class; and he was a prime mover in the +Jew-baiting movement which excited Germany a few years ago. This +antipathy to the Jews has been for many years a cardinal tendency of the +"Agrarians," a small political group mainly of nobles and great landed +proprietors, with whom Stöcker frequently allies <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>himself, and who +profess to treat all political questions from a strictly Christian +standpoint, but work almost exclusively to assert the interests of the +landowners against the growing ascendancy of the commercial and +financial classes, among whom Jews occupy an eminent place. We mention +this anti-Jewish agitation here to point out that, while no doubt fed by +other passions also, one of its chief ingredients is that same +antagonism to the <i>bourgeoisie</i>—compounded of envy of their success, +contempt for their money-seeking spirit, and anger at their supposed +expropriation of the rest of society—which animates all forms of +continental socialism, and has already proved a very dangerous political +force in the French Revolution of 1848.</p> + +<p>Todt's work is designed to set forth the social principles and mission +of Christianity on the basis of a critical investigation of the New +Testament, which he believes to be an authoritative guide on economic as +well as moral and dogmatic questions. He says that to solve the social +problem, we must take political economy in the one hand, the scientific +literature of socialism in the other, and keep the New Testament before +us. As the result of his examination, he condemns the existing +industrial <i>régime</i> as being decidedly unchristian, and declares the +general principles of socialism, and even its main concrete proposals, +to be directly prescribed and countenanced by Holy Writ. Like all who +assume the name of socialist, he cherishes a marked repugnance to the +economic doctrines of modern Liberalism, the leaven of the +<i>bourgeoisie</i>; and much of his work is devoted to show the inner +affinity of Christianity and socialism, and the inner antagonism between +Christianity and Manchesterdom. He goes so far as to say that every +active Christian who makes conscience of his faith has a socialistic +vein in him, and that every socialist, however hostile he may be to the +Christian religion, has an unconscious Christianity in his heart; +whereas, on the other hand, the merely nominal Christian, who has never +really got out of his natural state, is always a spiritual Manchestrist, +worshipping <i>laissez faire, laissez aller</i>, with his whole soul, and +that a Manchestrist is never in reality a true and sound Christian, +however much he may usurp the name. Christianity and socialism are +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>engaged in a common work, trying to make the reality of things +correspond better with an ideal state; and in doing their work they rely +on the same ethical principle, the love of our neighbour, and they +repudiate the Manchester idolatry of self-interest. The socialist ideas +of liberty, equality, and fraternity are part and parcel of the +Christian system; and the socialist ideas of solidarity of interests, of +co-operative production, and of democracy have all a direct Biblical +foundation, in the constitution and customs of the Church, and in the +apostolic teaching regarding it.</p> + +<p>Radical socialism, according to Todt, consists of three elements: first, +in economics, communism; second, in politics, republicanism; third, in +religion, atheism. Under the last head, of course, there is no analogy, +but direct contradiction, between Socialism and Christianity; but Todt +deplores the atheism that prevails among the socialists as not merely an +error, but a fatal inconsistency. If socialism would but base its +demands on the Gospel, he says, it would be resistless, and all +labourers would flow to it; but atheistic socialism can never fulfil its +own promises, and issues a draft which Christianity alone has the power +to meet. It is hopeless to think of founding an enduring democratic +State on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, unless +these principles are always sustained and reinvigorated by the Divine +fraternal love that flows from faith in Jesus Christ.</p> + +<p>As to the second principle of socialism, Todt says, that while Holy +Scripture contains no direct prescription on the point, it may be +inferentially established that a republic is the form of government that +is most harmonious with the Christian ideal. His deduction of this is +peculiar. The Divine government of the world, he owns, is monarchical, +but then it is a government which cannot be copied by sinful men, and +therefore cannot have been meant as a pattern for them. But God, he +says, has established His Church on earth as a visible type of His own +invisible providential government, and the Church is a "republic under +an eternal President, sitting by free choice of the people, Jesus +Christ." This is both fanciful and false, for Christ is an absolute +ruler, and no mere minister of the popular will; and there is not the +remotest ground for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> founding a system of Biblical politics on the +constitution of the Church. But it shows the length Todt is disposed to +go to conciliate the favour of the socialists.</p> + +<p>But the most important element of socialism is its third or economic +principle—communism; and this he represents to be entirely in harmony +with the economic ideal of the New Testament. He describes the +communistic idea as consisting of two parts: first, the general +principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, which he finds directly +involved in the Scriptural doctrines of moral responsibility, of men's +common origin and redemption, and of the law of love; and second, the +transformation of all private property in the instruments of production +into common property, which includes three points: (<i>a</i>) the abolition +of the present wages system; (<i>b</i>) giving the labourer the full product +of his labour; and (<i>c</i>) associated labour. As to the first two of these +points, Todt pronounces the present wages system to be thoroughly +unjust, because it robs the labourer of the full product of his labour; +and because unjust, it is unchristian. He accepts the ordinary socialist +teaching about "the iron and cruel law." He accepts, too, Marx's theory +of value, and declares it to be unanswerable; and he therefore finds no +difficulty in saying that Christianity condemns a system which in his +opinion grinds the faces of the labouring classes with incessant toil, +filches from them the just reward of their work, and leaves them to +hover hopelessly on the margin of destitution. If there is any scheme +that promises effectually to cure this condition of things, Christianity +will also approve of that scheme; and such a scheme he discovers in the +socialist proposal of collective property and associated labour. This +proposal, however, derives direct countenance, he maintains, from the +New Testament. It is supported by the texts which describe the Church as +an organism under the figure of a body with many members, by the example +of the common bag of the twelve, and by the communism of the primitive +Church of Jerusalem. But the texts about the Church as an organism have +no real bearing on the subject at all; for the Church is not meant to be +an authoritative pattern either for political or for economic +organization; and besides, the figure of the body and its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> members would +apply better to Bastiat's theory of the natural harmony of interests +than to the socialist idea of the solidarity of interests. Then the +common bag of the disciples did not prevent them from having boats and +other instruments of production of their own individual property; and we +know that the communism of the primitive Church of Jerusalem (which was +a decided economic failure, for the poverty of that Church had to be +repeatedly relieved by collections in other parts of Christendom) was +not a community of property, but, what is a higher thing, a community of +use, and that it was not compulsory but spontaneous.</p> + +<p>Todt, however, after seeming thus to commit himself and Christianity +without reserve to socialism, suddenly shrinks from his own boldness, +and draws back. Collective property may be countenanced by Scripture, +but he finds private property to be as much or even more so; and he +cannot on any consideration consent to the abolition of private property +by force. It was right enough to abolish slavery by force, for slavery +is an unchristian institution. But though private property is certainly +founded on selfishness, there are so many examples of it presented +before us in the New Testament without condemnation, that Todt shrinks +from pronouncing it to be an unchristian institution. Collective +property may be better, but private property will never disappear till +selfishness is swallowed up of love; and a triumph of socialism at +present, while its disciples are unbelievers and have not Christ, the +fount of love, in their hearts, would involve society in much more +serious evils than those which it seeks to remove. Todt's socialism, +therefore, is not a thing of the present, but an ideal of the distant +future, to be realized after Christian proprietors have come of their +own accord to give up their estates, and socialists have all been +converted to Christianity. For the present, in spite of his stern view +of the great wrong and injustice the working classes suffer, Todt has no +remedy to suggest, except that things would be better if proprietors +learnt more to regard their wealth as a trust of which they were only +stewards, and if employers treated their workmen with the personal +consideration due to Christian brothers; and he thinks the cultivation +of this spirit ought to be more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>expressly aimed at in the work of the +Church. This is probably, after all, the sum of what Christianity has to +say on the subject; but it seems a poor result of so much figuring and +flourishing, to end in a general truth which can give no offence even in Manchester.</p> + +<p>Soon after the publication of Todt's book, Stöcker and some Evangelical +friends founded two associations, for the purpose of dealing with the +social question from a Christian point of view, and established a +newspaper, the <i>Staats-Socialist</i>, to advocate their opinions. Of the +two associations, one, the Central Union for Social Reform, was composed +of persons belonging to the educated classes—professors, manufacturers, +landowners, and clergymen; and the other, the Christian Social Working +Men's Party, consisted of working men alone. This movement was received +on all sides with unqualified disapprobation. The press, Liberal and +Conservative alike, spoke with contemptuous dislike of this +<i>Mucker-Socialismus</i>, and said they preferred the socialists in blouse +to the socialists in surplice. The Social Democrats rose against it with +virulence, and held meetings, both of men and of women, at which they +glorified atheism and bitterly attacked the clergy and religion. Even +the higher dignitaries of the Church held coldly aloof or were even +openly hostile. Stöcker met all this opposition with unflinching spirit, +convened public meetings in Berlin to promote his cause, and confronted +the socialist leaders on the platform. The movement gave promise of fair +success. In a few months seven hundred pastors, besides many from other +professions, including Dr. Koegel, Court preacher, and Dr. Buchsel, a +German Superintendent, had enrolled themselves in the Central Union for +Social Reform; and the Christian Social Working Men's Party had +seventeen hundred members in Berlin, and a considerable number +throughout the provinces. But its progress was interrupted by the +Anti-Socialist Law, passed soon after the same year, which put an end to +meetings of socialists; and since this measure was supported, though +hesitatingly, by Stöcker and his leading allies, that impaired their +influence with the labouring classes.</p> + +<p>The principles of this party, as stated in their programme, may be said +generally to be that a decided social question<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> exists, in the +increasing gulf between rich and poor, and the increasing want of +economic security in the labourer's life; that this question cannot +possibly be solved by social democracy, because social democracy is +unpractical, unchristian, and unpatriotic; and that it can only be +solved by means of an extensive intervention on the part of a strong and +monarchical State, aided by the religious factors in the national life. +The State ought to provide by statute a regular organization of the +working classes according to their trades, authorizing the trades unions +to represent the labourers as against their employers, rendering these +unions legally liable for the contracts entered into by their members, +assuming a control of their funds, regulating the apprentice system, +creating compulsory insurance funds, etc. Then it ought to protect the +labourers by prohibiting Sunday labour, by fixing a normal day of +labour, and by insisting on the sound sanitary condition of workshops. +Further, it ought to manage the State and communal property in a spirit +favourable to the working class, and to introduce high luxury taxes, a +progressive income-tax, and a progressive legacy duty, both according to +extent of bequest and distance of relationship. These very comprehensive +reforms are, however, held to be inadequate without the spread of a +Christian spirit of mutual consideration into the relations of master +and workman, and of Christian faith, hope, and love into family life. +Moreover they are not to be expected from a parliamentary government in +which the commercial classes have excessive influence, and hence the +Christian Socialists lay great stress on the monarchical element, and +would give the monarch absolute power to introduce social reforms +without parliamentary co-operation and even in face of parliamentary +opposition. We have seen that Todt was disposed to favour a republican +form of government, but probably, like the Czar Nicholas, he has no +positive objection to any other save the constitutional. His party has +certainly adopted a very Radical social programme, but it is above all a +Conservative group, seeking to resist the revolutionary and +materialistic tendencies of socialism, and to rally the great German +working class once more round the standard of God, King, and Fatherland.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p><p>Dr. Stöcker has during the past year resuscitated his Christian +Socialist organization under the name of the Social Monarchical Union, +but without any prospect of much success; for its founder, as the result +of his twelve years' bustling in the troubled waters of politics, has +fallen out of favour alike with court, Church, and people. He has lost +his place as royal chaplain, he is bitterly distrusted by the working +classes, and his socialist opinions are a great rock of offence to his +ecclesiastical brethren. A congress under Church auspices was held at +Berlin on May 28th and 29th, 1890, and it was called the Evangelical +Social Congress, as was explained by Professor A. Wagner, the economist, +in his inaugural speech, to avoid being connected with the Christian +Socialists. Dr. Stöcker read a paper at it on social democracy, which +raised a storm of dissension, mainly for its attack upon the Jews. This +congress, it may be noted, asked nothing from Government but a little +attention to the housing of the poor, and its chief recommendations were +(1) that every parish be organized under the social-political as well as +spiritual supervision of the clergy; (2) that Evangelical Working Men's +Unions be established in all industrial centres; (3) that benevolent or +friendly societies be organized for all trades, such as exist now in +mining; (4) that since social democracy threatened the Divine and human +order of society, and could only be successfully opposed by the power of +the gospel, a responsible mission lay upon the Church to combat and +counteract it. This mission was to be accomplished in two ways: first, +by awakening in all Evangelical circles the conviction that the present +social crisis was due to a universal national guilt, the guilt of +materialistic learning and living; and, second, by awakening masters to +a sense of their duty to their men, as morally their equals, and by +awakening the men to a sense of the moral vocation of the masters. In +other words, the social mission of the Church, according to the dominant +opinion at this congress, was just to do its ordinary work of preaching +repentance, faith, and love, and was much better represented by Dr. +Stöcker's Home Missionary Society than by his Social Monarchical Union.</p> + +<p>On this question of the duty of the Church with regard to the social +amelioration of the people, there are everywhere two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> opposite +tendencies of opinion. One says there is no specific Christian social +politics, and that the Church can never have a specific social-political +programme. Slavery is undoubtedly inconsistent with the moral spirit of +the gospel, but St. Paul was not an emancipationist in practical life. +He neither raises the question of emancipation as a matter of political +agitation, nor does he bid, or beg, his friend Philemon to set Onesimus +at liberty, but to receive him as a brother beloved; just as any of St. +Paul's successors might enjoin a Christian master to treat his Christian +servant. Christianity is an inspiration, and may be expected to change +the character of social relations as it changes the character of men; +but political programmes are always things of opportunity and temporary +compromise, and it would be very unadvisable to run at any moment a +Christian political party, because it would necessarily make +Christianity responsible for imperfections incident to party politics, +and lessen rather than help the weight of its testimony in the world.</p> + +<p>Then, on the other hand, there are those who hold that there is a +specific Christian social politics; that there is a distinct social and +political system, either directly enjoined by Holy Writ, or +inferentially resulting from it, so as to be truly a system of Divine +right. That is the claim put forward by Dr. Stöcker for his system of +social monarchy, and it is the position of sundry other groups of +socialists, who base their policy on the agrarian ordinances of Moses, +or the communism of the primitive Churches, or the general spirit of the +teaching of Jesus Christ. But Christian Socialism, in any of these +forms, is evidently at a discount in the Evangelical Church in Germany; +and the representative men in that Church, whatever they may do as +private citizens, would seem to refrain, perhaps too jealously, from +formulating in the name of religion any demands for the action of the +State in the social question.</p> + +<p>Indeed, among Protestants, what is called Christian Socialism is little +more than a vagrant opinion in any country; but among Catholics it has +grown into a considerable international movement, and has in several +States—especially in Austria—left its mark on legislation. The +movement was started in Austria by a Protestant, Herr Rudolph Meyer, the +well-known<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> author of the "Emancipationskampf des Arbeit" and other +works; but he was influentially and effectively seconded by Prince von +Liechtenstein, Counts Blome and Kuefstein, and Herr von Vogelsang, who +is now editor of the special organ of the movement, the <i>Vaterland</i>, of +Vienna. In France there had long been a school of Catholic social +reformers, the disciples of the Economist Le Play, and they are still +associated in the Society of Social Peace, and advocate their views in +the periodical <i>La Réforme Sociale</i>. They are believers in liberty, +however, and would not be called socialists. But there are now two newer +schools of Catholic social reformers, who declare their aim to be the +re-establishment of Christian principles in the world of labour, but are +divided on the point of State intervention.</p> + +<p>The school who believe in State intervention are the more numerous; they +are led by Count Albert de Mun and the Marquis de la Tour de Pin +Chambly, have a separate organ, <i>L'Association Catholique</i>, and are +supported by a large organization of Catholic workmen's clubs, founded +by Count de Mun. There were 450 of these clubs in 1880, and they combine +the functions of a religious club, a co-operative store, and a friendly +society. The school who uphold the principle of liberty also publish an +organ, <i>L'Union Economique</i>, edited by the Franciscan Father le Basse, +and their best known leaders are two Jesuit priests, Fathers Forbes and +Caudron. There is likewise a Catholic Socialist movement in Switzerland +and Belgium, in both cases strongly in favour of State intervention; +and, indeed, Italy is the only Catholic country in which the Church +holds aloof from the social movement, forgetting the unusual miseries of +the people in an ignoble sulk over the loss of the Pope's temporal power.</p> + +<p>The friends of this movement have now held three international +congresses at Liège. The third was held in September, 1890, under the +presidency of the bishop of the diocese, and was attended by 1500 +delegates, including eight or ten bishops and many Catholic statesmen +and peers from all countries. Lord Ashburnham and the Bishops of Salford +and Nottingham represented England, and there were representatives from +Germany, Poland, Austria, Spain, and France, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> none from Italy. The +Pope himself sent a special envoy with an address, and among letters +from eminent Catholic leaders who were unable to be present in person +was one from Cardinal Manning, which made a little sensation, but was +received with decided sympathy, though the Pope afterwards disavowed it +to some extent. The Cardinal expressed strong approval of trade unions, +and of State intervention to fix the hours of labour to eight hours for +miners and ten hours for less arduous trades, and he declared his +conviction that no pacific solution of the conflict between capital and +labour was possible till the State regulated profits and wages according +to some fixed scale which should be subject to revision every three or +four years, and by which all free contracts between employers and +employed should be adjusted.</p> + +<p>The Congress went over the whole gamut of social questions, and +exhibited the usual conflict of opinion between the party of liberty and +the party of authority; but the party of authority, the "Statolaters" as +they are called, had evidently the great majority of the assembly. The +party of liberty were chiefly Frenchmen and Belgians, men like Fathers +Forbes and Caudron, already mentioned, or M. Woeste, the leader of the +Catholic party in Belgium, who said he believed in moral suasion only, +and that he feared the State and hated Cæsarism. The party of authority +were German and English. But whatever they thought of State +intervention, all parties were one about the necessity of Church +intervention. Without the Catholic Church there could be no solution of +the social question. Cardinal Manning said, a few days before the +Congress, that the labour question now raised everywhere must go on till +it was solved somehow, and that the only universal influence that could +guide it was the presence and prudence of the Catholic Church. The +Congress passed recommendations about technical education, better homes +for working people, shorter hours, intemperance, strikes, prison labour, +international factory legislation. It proposed the institution of trade +unions, comprising both employers and employed, as the best means of +promoting working-class improvement. In the towns these unions might +have distinct sections for the different trades; but in the country this +subdivision was not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> requisite. Every parish should have its trade +union, and the whole should be united in a federation, like the +Boerenbond, or Peasants' League, lately established in some parts of +Belgium, and which the Congress recommended to the attention of +Catholics. It recommended also the establishment of a pension fund for +aged labourers under State guarantee, but without any compulsory +exaction of premiums, and without any special State subsidy; and it +received with favour a proposal by the Spanish divine, Professor +Rodriguez de Cegrada, of Valencia, for papal arbitration in +international labour questions.</p> + +<p>This Catholic Socialist movement shows no disposition to coquet with +revolutionary socialism; on the contrary, its leaders often say one of +their express objects is to counteract that agitation—to produce the +counter-revolution, as they sometimes put it. They are under no mistake +about the nature or bearing of socialist doctrines. Our Christian +Socialists in London accept the doctrines of Marx, and hold the +labourer's right to the full product of his labour to be a requirement +of Christian ethics, and the orators at English Church Congresses often +speak of socialism as if it were a higher perfection of Christianity. +But Catholic Socialists understand their Christianity and their +socialism better than to make any such identifications, and regard the +doctrines and organizations of revolutionary socialism in the spirit of +the firm judgment expressed in the Pope's encyclical of 28th December, +1878, which said that "so great is the difference between their (the +socialists') wicked dogmas and the pure doctrine of Christ that there +can be no greater; for what participation has justice with injustice, or +what communion has light with darkness?" This plain, gruff renunciation +is on the whole much truer than the amiable patronage of a very +distinguished Irish bishop at the Church Congress of 1887, who said +socialism was only a product of Christian countries, (what of the +socialism of savage tribes, or of the Mahdi, or of the Chinese?) that +the sentiment and aspiration of socialism were distinctly Christian, and +that every Christian is a bit of a socialist, and every socialist a bit +of a Christian. Socialism may proceed from an aspiration after social +justice, but a mistaken view of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> social justice is, I presume, really +injustice; and, as the Pope says, what communion can there practically +be between justice and injustice? Idolatry is a mistaken view of Divine +things—a distortion of the religious sentiment; but who would on that +account call it Christian? The socialist may be at heart a lover of +justice; he may love it, if you will, above his fellows; but what +matters the presence of the sentiment if the system he would realize it +by is ruled essentially by a principle of injustice? Justice, the +greatest and rarest of the virtues, is also the most difficult and the +most easily perverted. It needs a balance of mind, and in its +application to complicated and wide-reaching social arrangements, an +exactitude of knowledge and clearness of understanding which are ill +replaced by sentimentalism, or even by honest feeling; and the fault of +the current talk about Christian Socialism and the identity of socialism +with Christianity is that it does not conduce to this clearness of +understanding, which is the first requisite for any useful dealing with +such questions. If socialism is just, it is Christian—that seems the +sum of the matter. But do socializing bishops believe it to be just? Do +they believe, as all socialists believe, that it is unjust for one man +to be paid five thousand pounds a year, while his neighbours, with far +harder and more drudging work, cannot make forty pounds? or do they +believe it wrong for a man to live on interest, or rents, or profits? or +would they have the law lay its hands on property and manufactures, in +order to correct this wrong and give every man the income to which he +would be entitled on socialist principles? It is good, no doubt, to have +more equality and simplicity and security of living; but these +aspirations are neither peculiar to Christianity nor to socialism.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The bishop draws this conclusion from the principle that +God has directed all men to nature to obtain from it the satisfaction of +their necessary wants, and that this original right of the needy cannot +be superseded by the subsequent institution of private property. No +doubt, he admits, that institution is also of God. It is the appointed +way by which man's dominion over nature is to be realized, because it is +the way in which nature is best utilized for the higher civilization of +man. But this purpose is secondary and subordinate to the other. And, +therefore, concludes the bishop, "firmly as theology upholds the right +of private property, it asserts at the same time that the higher right +by which all men are directed to nature's supplies dare not be +infringed, and that, consequently, any one who finds himself in extreme +need is justified, when other means fail, in satisfying this extreme +need where and how he may (wo und wie er es vermag)."—<i>Die +Arbeiter-frage und das Christenthum</i> (p. 78).</p></div></div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER VIII.</span> <span class="smaller">ANARCHISM.</span></h2> + +<p>The latest offspring of revolutionary opinion—and the most +misshapen—is anarchism. Seven or eight years ago the word was scarcely +known; but then, as if on a sudden, rumours of the anarchists and their +horrid "propaganda of deed" echoed in, one upon another, from almost +every country in the old world and the new. To-day they were haranguing +mobs of unemployed in Lyons and Brussels under a black flag—the black +flag of hunger, which, they explained, knows no law. To-morrow they were +goading the peasants of Lombardy or Naples to attack the country houses +of the gentry, and lay the vineyards waste. Presently they were found +attempting to assassinate the German Emperor at Niederwald, or laying +dynamite against the Federal Palace at Bern; or a troop of them had set +off over Europe on a quixotic expedition of miscellaneous revenge on +powers that be, and were reported successively as having killed a +<i>gendarme</i> in Strasburg, a policeman in Vienna, and a head of the +constabulary in Frankfort. Before these reports had time to die in our +ears, fresh tales would arrive of anarchists pillaging the bakers' shops +in Paris, or exulting over the murder of a mining manager at +Decazeville, or flinging bombs among the police of Chicago; and it +seemed as if a new party of disorder had broke loose upon the world, +busier and more barbarous than any that went before it.</p> + +<p>It is no new party, however; it is merely the extremer element in the +modern socialist movement. Mr. Hyndman and other socialists would fain +disclaim the anarchists altogether, and are fond of declaring that they +are the very opposite of socialists—that they are individualists of the +boldest stamp. But this contention will not stand. There are +individualist anarchists, no doubt. The anarchists of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> Boston, in +America, are individualists; one of the two groups of English anarchists +in London is individualist; but these individualist anarchists are very +few in number anywhere, and the mass of the party whose deeds made a +stir on both sides of the Atlantic is undoubtedly more socialist than +the socialists themselves. I have said in a previous chapter that the +socialism of the present day may be correctly described in three words +as Revolutionary Socialist Democracy, and in every one of these three +characteristics the anarchists go beyond other socialists, instead of +falling short of them. They are really more socialist, more democratic, +and more revolutionary than the rest of their comrades. They are more +socialist, because they are disposed to want not only common property +and common production, but common enjoyment of products as well. They +are more democratic, because they will have no government of any kind +over the people except the people themselves—no king or committee, no +representative institutions, either imperial or local, but merely every +little industrial group of people managing its public affairs as it will +manage its industrial work. And they are more revolutionary, for they +have no faith, even temporarily, in constitutional procedure, and think +making a little trouble is always the best way of bringing on a big +revolution. Other socialists prepare the way for revolution by a +propaganda of word; but the anarchists believe they can hasten the day +best by the propaganda of deed. Like the violent sections of all other +parties, they injure and discredit the party they belong to, and they +often attack the more moderate section with greater bitterness than +their common enemy; but they certainly belong to socialism, both in +origin and in principle. There were anarchists among the Young Hegelian +socialists of Germany fifty years ago. The Anti-socialist Laws bred a +swarm of anarchists among the German socialists in 1880, who left under +Most and Hasselmann, and carried to America the seed which led to the +outrages of Chicago. The Russian nihilists were anarchists from the +beginning; they broke up the International with their anarchism twenty +years ago, and they are among the chief disseminators of anarchism in +England and France to-day, because to the Russians anarchism is only the +socialism<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> and the democracy of the rural communes in which they were +born. Socialists themselves are often obliged to admit the embarrassing +affinity. Dr. and Mrs. Aveling complain, in their "Labour Movement in +America," that while "the Chicago capitalist wanted us to be hanged +after we had landed, Herr Most's paper, <i>Die Freiheit</i>, was for shooting +us at sight"; that "anarchism ruined the International movement, threw +back the Spanish, Italian, and French movements for many years, has +proved a hindrance in America, and so much or so little of it as exists +in England is found by the revolutionary socialist party a decided +nuisance"; but they admit that "well nigh every word spoken by the chief +defendants at the Chicago trial could be endorsed by socialists, for +they then preached not anarchism, but socialism. Indeed," they add, "he +that will compare the fine speech by Parsons in 1886 with that of +Liebknecht at the high treason trial at Leipzig will find the two +practically identical."</p> + +<p>So far, then, as their socialism goes, there is admittedly no real +difference between Parsons, the Chicago anarchist, and Liebknecht, the +leader of the German socialists. Indeed, as I have said, the anarchists +seem to show a tendency even to outbid the socialists in their +socialism. Socialists generally say that, while committing all +production to the public authority, they have no idea of interfering +with liberty of consumption. Their opponents argue, in reply, that they +would find an interference with consumption to be an inevitable result +of their systematic regulation of production; but they themselves always +repudiate that conclusion. They would make all the instruments of +production common property, but leave all the materials of enjoyment +individual property still. Ground rents, for example, would belong to +the public; but every man would own his own house and furniture, at +least for life, if he had built it by his own labour, or bought it from +his own savings, because a dwelling house is not an instrument of +production, but an article of enjoyment or consumption. But some of the +more representative spokesmen of the anarchists would not leave this +last remnant of private property standing, and strongly contend for the +old primitive plan, still in use among savage tribes, of giving those +who are in want of anything a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> claim—a right—to share the enjoyment of +it with those who happen to have it. They would municipalize the houses +as well as the ground rents, and no one should be allowed a right to a +spare bed or a disengaged sofa so long as one of the least of his +brethren huddled on straw in a garret in the slums, or slept out on a +bench in Trafalgar Square. In a recent number of <i>Freedom</i>, for example, +Prince Krapotkin announces that "the first task of the Revolution will +be to arrange things so as to share the accommodation of available +houses according to the needs of the inhabitants of the city, to clear +out the slums and fully occupy the villas and mansions." Anarchist +opinions are no doubt capricious and variable. There are as many +anarchisms as there are anarchists, it has been said. But this tendency +to go further than other socialists, in superseding individual by common +property, has repeatedly appeared in some of their most representative utterances.</p> + +<p>The Jurassian Federation of the International adopted a resolution at +their Congress in 1880, in which they say: "We desire collectivism, with +all its logical consequences, not only in the sense of the collective +appropriation of instruments of production, but also of the collective +enjoyment and consumption of products. Anarchist communism will in this +way be the necessary and inevitable consequence of the social +revolution, and the expression of the new civilization which that +revolution will inaugurate."</p> + +<p>Their principal difference with the other branch of the socialists, +however,—and that from which they derive their name—is upon the +government of the socialistic society. Anarchy as a principle of +political philosophy was first advocated by Proudhon, and he meant by +it, not of course a state of chaos or disorder, but merely a state +without separate political or civil institutions,—"a state of order +without a set government." "The expression, anarchic government," he +says, "implies a sort of contradiction. The thing seems impossible, and +the idea absurd; but there is really nothing at fault here but the +language. The idea of anarchy in politics is quite as rational and +positive as any other. It consists in this,—that the political function +be re-absorbed in the industrial, and in that case social order would +ensue spontaneously out of the simple operation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> transactions and +exchanges. Every man might then be justly called autocrat of himself, +which is the extreme reverse of monarchical absolutism" ("Die Princip +Federatif," p. 29). He distinguishes anarchy from democracy and from +communistic government, though his distinctions are not easy to +apprehend exactly. Communism, he says, is the government of all by all; +democracy, the government of all by each; and anarchy, the government of +each by each. Anarchy is, in his opinion, the only real form of +self-government. People would manage their own public affairs together +like partners in a business, and no one would be subject to the +authority of another. Government is considered a mere detail of +industrial management; and the industrial management is considered to be +in the hands of all who co-operate in the industry. The specific +preference of anarchism, therefore, seems to be for some form of direct +government by the people, in place of any form of central, superior, or +representative government; and naturally its political communities must +be small in size, though they may be left to league together, if they +choose, in free and somewhat loose federations. The anarchists are +accordingly more democratic in their political theory than the +socialists more strictly so called, inasmuch as they would give the +people more hand in the work of government, though of course they +preposterously underrate the need and difficulty of that work.</p> + +<p>On some minor points they contradict one another, and quite as often +contradict themselves. Proudhon, for example, would still, even in +anarchist society, retain the local policeman and magistrate; but +anarchists of a stricter doctrine would either have every man carry his +own pistol and provide for his own security, or, as the Boston +anarchists prefer, apparently, would have public security supplied like +any other commodity by an ordinary mercantile association—in Proudhon's +words, "by the simple operation of transactions and exchanges." Emerson +said the day was coming when the world would do without the +paraphernalia of courts and parliaments, and a man who liked the +profession would merely put a sign over his door, "John Smith, King." +This is too much division of function however for anarchists generally, +and they would have every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> industrial group do its government as it did +its business by general co-operation. Just as in Russia every rural +commune has its own trade, and the inhabitants of one are all +shoemakers, while the inhabitants of another are all tailors, so in +anarchist society, according to the more advanced doctrine, every +separate group would have its own separate industry, because, in fact, +the separate industry makes it a separate group. And it would be managed +by all its members together, not by anything in the nature of a board, +for it is important to recollect that anarchists of the purest water +entertain as much objection to the domination of a vestry or a town +council as to that of a king or a cabinet. Some who side with them, +especially old supporters of the French Revolutionary Commune, have +still a certain belief in a municipal council; but the Russian +anarchists, at any rate, look upon this as a piece of faithless +accommodation. Prince Krapotkin, I have already mentioned, thinks the +first business of the contemplated revolution must be to redistribute +the dwelling houses, so as to thin the slums and quarter their surplus +population in the incompletely occupied villas or mansions of the West +End. That is a very large task, which it will seem, to an ordinary mind, +obviously impossible for the vast population of a great city like London +to execute in their own proper persons at an enormous town meeting; yet, +if I understand Prince Krapotkin, it is this preposterous proposal he is +actually offering as a serious contribution to a more perfect system of +government. "For," says he, "sixty elected persons sitting round a table +and calling themselves a Municipal Council cannot arrange the matter on +paper. It must be arranged by the people themselves, freely uniting to +settle the question for each block of houses, each street, and +proceeding by agreement from the single to the compound, from the parts +to the whole; all having their voice in the arrangements, and putting in +their claims with those of their fellow-citizens; just as the Russian +peasants settle the periodical repartition of the communal lands." And +how do the Russian peasants settle the periodical repartition of the +communal lands? Stepniak gives us a very interesting description of a +meeting of a Russian <i>mir</i> in his "Russia Under the Tsars" (vol. i. p. 2).</p> + +<p>"The meetings of the village communes, like those of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> +<i>Landesgemeinde</i> of the primitive Swiss cantons, are held under the +vault of heaven, before the Starosta's house, before a tavern, or at any +other convenient place. The thing that most strikes a person who is +present for the first time at one of these meetings is the utter +confusion which seems to characterize its proceedings. Chairman there is +none. The debates are scenes of the wildest disorder. After the convener +has explained his reasons for calling the meeting, everybody rushes in +to express his opinion, and for a while the debate resembles a free +fight of pugilists. The right of speaking belongs to him who can command +attention. If an orator pleases his audience, interrupters are promptly +silenced; but if he says nothing worth hearing, nobody heeds him, and he +is shut up. When the question is somewhat of a burning one, and the +meeting begins to grow warm, all speak at once, and none listen. On +these occasions the assembly breaks up into groups, each of which +discusses the subject on its own account. Everybody shouts his arguments +at the top of his voice. Charges and objurgations, words of contumely +and derision, are heard on every hand, and a wild uproar goes on from +which it does not seem possible that any good can result.</p> + +<p>"But this apparent confusion is of no moment. It is a necessary means to +a certain end. In our village assemblies voting is unknown. +Controversies are never decided by a majority of voices; every question +must be settled unanimously. Hence the general debate, as well as +private discussions, must be continued until a proposal is brought +forward which conciliates all interests, and wins the suffrage of the +entire <i>mir</i>. It is, moreover, evident that to reach this consummation +the debates must be thorough and the subject well threshed out; and in +order to overcome isolated opposition, it is essential for the advocates +of conflicting views to be brought face to face, and compelled to fight +out their differences in single combat."</p> + +<p>But beneath all this tough and apparently acrimonious strife a singular +spirit of forbearance reigns. The majority will not force on a premature +decision. Debate may rage fast and furious day after day, but at last +the din dies. A common understanding is somehow attained, and the <i>mir</i> +pronounces its deliverance, which is accepted, in the rude belief of +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> peasants, as the decree of God Himself. In this way tens of +thousands of Russian villages have been, no doubt, managing their own +petty business with reasonable amity and success for centuries, and the +political philosophy of Russian writers like Bakunin and Prince +Krapotkin, who have propagated anarchism in the west of Europe, is +merely the naïve suggestion that the form of government which answers +not intolerably for the few trivial concerns of a primitive Russian +village would answer best for the whole complex business of a great +developed modern society.</p> + +<p>The anarchists carry their dislike to authority into other fields +besides the political and industrial. They will have no invisible master +or ruler any more than visible. They renounce both God and the devil, +and generally with an energy beyond all other revolutionists. Some of +the older socialists were believers; St. Simon, Fourier, Leroux and +Louis Blanc were all theists; but it is rare to find one among the +socialists of the present generation, and with the anarchists an +aggressive atheism seems an essential part of their way of thinking. +They will own no superior power or authority of any kind—employer, +ruler, deity, or law. The Anarchist Congress of Geneva in 1882 issued a +manifesto, which began thus:—</p> + +<p>"Our enemy, it is our master. Anarchists—that is to say, men without +chiefs—we fight against all who are invested or wish to invest +themselves with any kind of power whatsoever. Our enemy is the landlord +who owns the soil and makes the peasant drudge for his profit. Our enemy +is the employer who owns the workshop, and has filled it with +wage-serfs. Our enemy is the State, monarchical, oligarchic, democratic, +working class, with its functionaries and its services of officers, +magistrates, and police. Our enemy is every abstract authority, whether +called Devil or Good God, in the name of which priests have so long +governed good souls. Our enemy is the law, always made for the +oppression of the weak by the strong, and for the justification and +consecration of crime."</p> + +<p>Among other restraints, they entertain often a speculative opposition to +the restraint of the legal family, and sometimes advocate a return to +aboriginal promiscuity and relationship by mothers; but this is only an +occasional element in their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>agitation. It is plain, however, that when +law is believed to be oppression, crime and lawlessness come to be humanity.</p> + +<p>I have now shown that the anarchists, so far from representing an +opposite movement to revolutionary social democracy, are really +ultra-socialist and ultra-democratic, and it seems hardly necessary to +show that they are ultra-revolutionary. All social democrats contemplate +an eventual revolution, but some see no objection meanwhile to take part +in current politics; while others, a more witnessing generation, +practise an ostentatious abstention, and call themselves political +abstentionists. Some, again, think and desire that the revolution will +come by peaceful and lawful means; others trust to violence alone. The +anarchists outrun all. They refuse to have anything to do with any +politics but revolution, and with any revolution but a violent one, and +they think the one means of producing revolution now or at any future +time is simply to keep exciting disorder and class hatred, assassinating +State officers, setting fire to buildings, and paralyzing the +<i>bourgeoisie</i> with fear. All anarchists are not of this sanguinary mind, +and it is interesting to remember that Proudhon himself wrote Karl Marx +in 1846, warning him against "making a St. Bartholomew of the +proprietors," and opposed resort to revolutionary action of any kind as +a means of promoting social reform. "Perhaps," he says, "we think no +reform is possible without a <i>coup de main</i>, without what used to be +called a revolution, and which is only a shake. I understand that +decision and excuse it, for I held it for a long time myself, but I +confess my latest studies have completely taken it away from me. I +believe we have no need of any such thing in order to succeed, and that +consequently we ought not to postulate revolutionary action as a means +of social reform, because that pretended means is nothing more nor less +than an appeal to force, to arbitrary power, and is therefore a +contradiction. I state the problem thus: to restore to society, by an +economic combination, the wealth which has been taken from society by +another economic combination." ("Proudhon's Correspondence," ii. 198.)</p> + +<p>But whatever individual anarchists may hold or renounce, the general +view of the party is as I have stated. A meeting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> of 600 +anarchists—chiefly Germans and Austrians, but including also some +Russians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen—was held at Paris on the 20th April, +1884, and passed a resolution urgently recommending the extirpation of +princes, capitalists, and parsons, by means of "the propaganda of +deed."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> The Congress held at London in 1881, which sought to +re-establish the International on purely anarchist lines, adopted a +declaration of principles, containing, among other things, the +following: "It is matter of strict necessity to make all possible +efforts to propagate by deeds the revolutionary idea and the spirit of +revolt among that great section of the mass of the people which as yet +takes no part in the movement, and entertains illusions about the +morality and efficacy of legal means. In quitting the legal ground on +which we have generally remained hitherto, in order to carry our action +into the domain of illegality which is the only way leading to +revolution, it is necessary to have recourse to means which are in +conformity with that end.... The Congress recommends organizations and +individuals constituting part of the International Working Men's +Association to give great weight to the study of the technical and +chemical sciences as a means of defence and attack."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> In the first +French revolution Lavoisier and other seven and twenty chemists were put +to the guillotine together, on the express pretence, "We have no need of +<i>savants</i>"; but now "Technology" is a standing heading in the anarchist +journals; a revolutionary organization has its chemical department as +well as its press department; and anarchist tracts often end with the +standing exhortation, "Learn the use of dynamite," as socialist tracts +end with the old admonition of 1848, "Proletarians of all nations, unite."</p> + +<p>The object of this policy of violence is partly, as we see from the +above quotations, to inflame the spirit of revolt and disorder in the +working classes; and it is partly to terrorize the <i>bourgeoisie</i>, so +that they may yield in pure panic all they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> possess. But for its +expressly violent policy, anarchism would be the least formidable or +offensive manifestation of contemporary socialism. For, in the first +place, its specific doctrine is one which it is really difficult to get +the most ordinary common sense puzzled into accepting. Men in their +better mind may be ready enough to listen to specious, or even not very +specious, schemes of reform that hold out a promise of extirpating +misery, and in their worse mind they may be quite as prone to think that +if everybody had his own, there would be fewer rich; but they are not +likely to believe we can get on without law or government of any sort. +Even the vainest will feel that however superfluous these institutions +may be for themselves, they are still unhappily indispensable for some +of their neighbours. Then in the next place this doctrine of the +anarchists is as great a stumbling-block to themselves as it is to other +people, for they carry their objection to government into their own +movement, and can consequently never acquire that concentration and +unity of organization which is necessary for any effectual conspiracy. +They are always found constituted in very small groups very loosely held +together, and small as the several groups may be, they are always much +more likely to subdivide than to consolidate. Even the few anarchist +refugees in London who might be expected to be knit into indissoluble +friendship by their common adversity have broken into separate clubs, +and the "Autonomic" and the "Morgenrothe"—though they have hardly more +than a hundred members between them, and all belong to the same +socialist variety of anarchist doctrine—remain as the Jews and the +Samaritans. It is said to be a subject of speculative discussion among +anarchists whether two members are sufficient to constitute an anarchist +club. This laxity of organization is a natural result of the dislike to +authority which the anarchists cultivate as a cardinal principle. +Subjection to an executive committee is as offensive to their feelings +and as contrary to their principles as subjection to a monarch. The +dread of subjection keeps them disunited and weak. As Machiavelli says, +the many ruin a revolutionary society, and the few are not enough. A +small group may concoct an isolated crime, but it can do little towards +the social revolution.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p><p>The anarchist policy—the propaganda of deed—consists, however, +exactly in this concoction of isolated crimes and outrages. Some of the +continental powers are conferring at this moment on the propriety of +taking international efforts against the anarchists, and the question +may at least be reasonably raised before our own Government, whether a +policy of promiscuous outrage like this should continue to be included +among political offences, securing protection against extradition, and +whether the propaganda of deed and the use of dynamite should not rather +be declared outside the limits of fair and legitimate revolution, as, by +the Geneva Convention, explosive bullets are put outside the limits of +fair or legitimate war.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Much interesting information on this subject is given from +official sources in a recent anonymous work, "Socialismus und +Anarchismus in Europa und Nordamerika während der Jahre 1883 bis 1886."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Garin, "L'Anarchie et les Anarchistes," p. 48.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER IX.</span> <span class="smaller">RUSSIAN NIHILISM.</span></h2> + +<p>Haxthausen pronounced a confident opinion in 1847, when most of the +continental nations were agitated with rumours of revolution, that +Russia at any rate was safe from the danger, inasmuch as she enjoyed an +absolute protection against all such revolutionary agitation in her +communistic rural institutions. There was no proletariat in Russia, +every man in the country being born to a share in the land of the +township he belonged to; and without a proletariat, concluded the +learned professor, there was neither motive nor material for social +revolt. This belief became generally accepted, and passed, indeed, for +years as a political commonplace; but perhaps never has a political +prognostication so entirely reasonable proved on experience so utterly +fallacious. Instead of sparing or avoiding Russia, revolutionary +agitation has grown positively endemic in that country; it is more +virulent in its type, and apparently more deepseated than elsewhere; +and, stranger still, not the least of its exciting causes has been that +very communistic agrarian system which was thought to be the surest +preservation against it.</p> + +<p>In its earlier period, before the emancipation of the serfs, the Russian +revolutionary movement was largely inspired by an extravagant +idealization of the perfections of the rural commune, and now since the +emancipation it is fed far more formidably by an actual experience of +the commune's defects. The truth is that the communistic land system of +Russia, so far from preventing the birth of a proletariat, is now of +itself begetting the most numerous and the most helpless proletariat in +the world. The emancipation dues would have been a serious burden under +any social arrangements, but they have proved so much heavier under the +communistic system of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> Russia than they would have been elsewhere that +the system itself is beginning to give way. With an unlimited stock of +good land, all is plain sailing under any social institutions; but when +land is limited in extent and every new-comer has the right to cut in +and get an equal share with those already in possession, excessive +subdivision is inevitable, and the point is soon reached where any fresh +impost or outgoing destroys the profitableness of cultivation, and +converts the right to the land from an asset into a liability. This is +what is now happening in Russia. It appears there are already more +paupers in St. Petersburg proportionally to population than in any other +European capital, and as many as a third of the inhabitants of the +provinces are either entirely landless, or, more unhappy still, find +their land, instead of a benefit, to be only a grievous burden of which +they cannot shake themselves clear. I shall have occasion later on to +recur to this new economic development in rural Russia, which is very +interesting to the student of socialism on its own account, but which +will concern us in the present chapter more particularly in its bearing +on the operations and prospects of the revolutionary party in that country.</p> + +<p>The revolutionary or nihilist movement in Russia has passed through +several successive phases; but there is no good reason for denying its +continuity, nor any impropriety, as is sometimes alleged, in the +retention of the name of Nihilism, which it bore when it first engaged +the attention of Western Europe, although it may be quite true that the +word is more descriptive of the earlier developments of the movement +than of the later. In its first stage, before the Emancipation Act, it +was scarce more than an intellectual fermentation—an intellectual +revolt all round, if you will—shaping more and more in its political +ideas towards democratic socialism, but as yet entirely unorganized, and +content to expend its force in violent opinions without recourse to +action. Then, second, the Emancipation Act gave it organization, +purpose, malignity, and made it, in short, the nihilism we know, +converting it into the engine of the bitter discontent of the landed +classes, who were seriously straitened and many of them ruined by the +operation of that great reform. Third, while the impoverishment of +thousands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> of landed families was the first result of the Emancipation +Act, its slower but more serious result has been the impoverishment of +the peasantry, and nihilism is now assuming a more agrarian character, +and promoting the social revolution under the old Russian cry for "the black division."</p> + +<p>For the origin of nihilism we must go back half a century to a little +company of gifted young men, most of whom rose to great distinction, who +used at that time to meet together at the house of a rich merchant in +Moscow, for the discussion of philosophy and politics and religion. They +were of the most various views. Some of them became Liberal leaders, and +wanted Russia to follow the constitutional development of the Western +nations; others became founders of the new Slavophil party, contending +that Russia should be no imitator, but develop her own native +institutions in her own way; and there were at least two among +them—Alexander Herzen and Michael Bakunin—who were to be prominent +exponents of revolutionary socialism. But they all owned at this period +one common master—Hegel. Their host was an ardent Hegelian, and his +young friends threw themselves into the study of Hegel with the greatest +zeal. Herzen himself tells us in his autobiography how assiduously they +read everything that came from his pen, how they devoted nights and +weeks to clearing up the meaning of single passages in his writings, and +how greedily they devoured every new pamphlet that issued from the +German press on any part of his system. From Hegel, Herzen and Bakunin +were led, exactly like Marx and the German Young Hegelians, to +Feuerbach, and from Feuerbach to socialism. Bakunin, when he retired +from the army, rather than be the instrument of oppressing the Poles +among whom he was stationed, went for some years to Germany, where he +lived among the Young Hegelians and wrote for their organ, the +<i>Hallische Jahrbücher</i>; but before either he or Herzen ever had any +personal intercommunication with the members of that school of thought, +they had passed through precisely the same development. Herzen speaks of +socialism almost in the very phrases of the Young Hegelians, as being +the new "terrestrial religion," in which there was to be neither God nor +heaven; as a new system of society which would dispense<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> with an +authoritative government, human or Divine, and which should be at once +the completion of Christianity and the realization of the Revolution. +"Christianity," he said, "made the slave a son of man; the Revolution +has emancipated him into a citizen. Socialism would make him a <i>man</i>."</p> + +<p>This tendency of thought was strongly supported in the Russian mind by +Haxthausen's discovery and laudation of the rural commune of Russia. The +Russian State was the most arbitrary, oppressive, and corrupt in Europe, +and the Russian Church was the most ignorant and superstitious; but here +at last was a Russian institution which was regarded with envy even by +wise men of the west, and was really a practical anticipation of that +very social system which was the last work of European philosophy. It +was with no small pride, therefore, that Alexander Herzen declared that +the Muscovite peasant in his dirty sheepskin had solved the social +problem of the nineteenth century, and that for Russia, with this great +problem already solved, the Revolution was obviously a comparatively +simple operation. You had but to remove the Czardom, the services, and +the priesthood, and the great mass of the people would still remain +organized in fifty thousand complete little self-governing communities +living on their common land and ruling their common affairs as they had +been doing long before the Czardom came into being. And what, after all, +was the latest dream of philosophical socialism but a world of +communities like these? The new formula of civilization had merely come +back to the old Russian <i>mir</i>.</p> + +<p>All Russian writers draw a kindly and charming picture of the <i>mir</i>, the +rude village council, in which the heads of families have for ages +managed their common land, distributed their taxes, and settled all the +burning problems of the hamlet with remarkable freedom, fairness, and +mutual respect. They meet together on some open space—perhaps in front +of the tavern, which is itself one of their common possessions; they +beat out their question there till they are unanimous; for the <i>mir</i> +will know nothing of decision by majorities—the will of the <i>mir</i> is +believed to be the will of God Himself, and it must be no divided +counsel. They argue sometimes long and keenly, and, as their interest +waxes, they will raise many voices at once, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> perhaps break up into +separate groups, each discussing the subject apart; but presently, out +of all the apparent disorder, the acceptable decision is somehow found, +and peace reigns again in the village street. In these meetings they +have the deepest feeling and habit of freedom; and even when a political +question arises affecting their interests—a question of taxes or of +administration—they make no scruple to speak in the plainest terms of +the Government and the officials, and they are never interfered with. +"Nobody but God," they say, "dare judge the <i>mir</i>," and the Czar, at any +rate, respects the tradition. That rude assembly is the only free +institution in Russia. Even revolutionary manifestoes have been publicly +read at its meetings, and socialist addresses publicly delivered. And +this instinctive spirit of freedom is attended there with the +instinctive spirit of equality. A recent Russian writer observes that a +Russian peasant would be quite unable to understand the sort of respect +the English labourer shows to a gentleman. With its freedom, its +equality, its strong family sentiment, its common property, its +self-government, the <i>mir</i> is really the social democratic republic +political philosophers have projected, and a Russian who dislikes the +State and loves the <i>mir</i> is, without more ado, a social revolutionist +of the anarchist type. The favourite ideal among Russian revolutionists +for the last fifty years has accordingly all along been the anarchist +ideal of a free federation of local industrial communities without any +separate political organization; for the anarchist ideal is natural to +the Russian situation.</p> + +<p>Revolutionary opinions were very rife in Russia during the reign of +Nicholas; but under his iron rule they were never suffered to be spoken +above the breath. His ascension to the throne in 1825 had been greeted +by a revolution—a very abortive one, it is true, but unfortunately +sufficient to set every fibre of the young Czar's strong nature +inflexibly against all the liberal tendencies encouraged by his father, +and to stop the political development of the country for a generation. A +handful of constitutional reformers—united three years before in a +secret society to promote peasant emancipation, the common civil +liberties, and stable instead of arbitrary law—gathered a crowd to a +public place in the capital, and shouted for "the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> Archduke Constantine +and a Constitution." Most part of the crowd had so little idea why they +had come together that they thought Constitution was the name of the +Archduke Constantine's wife; and the most distinguished man among the +conspirators—Pestel, the poet—said, as he was going to execution, "I +wished to reap the harvest before sowing the seed." He had done +worse—he really kept the seed from being sown for thirty years to come. +All freedom of opinion was ruthlessly suppressed; every means of +influencing the public mind was stopped; there was no liberty of +printing, speaking, or meeting; there was no saving grace but ignorance, +for people of reading and intelligence lived under perpetual liability +to most unreasonable suspicion. Alexander Herzen, for example, was +banished to the Asiatic frontier while still a very young man, merely +because he happened to make the casual remark in a private letter to his +father, which was opened in the post, that a policeman had a few days +before killed a man in the streets of St. Petersburg.</p> + +<p>But this system of lawless and unrighteous repression nursed a deep +spirit of revolt against constituted authority in the heart of the +people, and among the younger minds a kind of passion for the most +extreme and forbidden doctrines. All the wildest phases of nihilist +opinion in the sixties were already raging in Russia in the forties. +Haxthausen says he was astounded, when he visited the Russian +universities and schools, to find the students at every one of them +given over, as he says, to political and religious notions of the most +all-destructive description. "It is a miasma," he says. And although the +only political outbreak of Nicholas's reign, the Petracheffsky +conspiracy of 1849, was little more than a petty street riot, a storm of +serious revolt against the tyranny of the Czar was long gathering, which +would have burst upon his head after the disasters to his army in the +Crimea, had he survived them. He saw it thickening, however, and on his +death-bed said to his son, the noble and unfortunate Alexander II., "I +fear you will find the burden too heavy." The son found it eventually +heavy enough, but in the meantime he wisely bent before the storm, +relaxed the restraints the father had imposed, and gave pledges of the +most liberal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> reforms in every department of State—judicial +administration, local government, popular education, serf emancipation. +People believed completely in the young Czar's sincerity, awaited with +great expectations the measures he would propose, and meanwhile indulged +to the top of their bent in the practical liberties they were already +provisionally allowed to enjoy, and gave themselves up to a restless +fervour for liberty and reform.</p> + +<p>An independent press was not among the liberties conceded, but Russian +opinion at this period found a most effective voice in a newspaper +started in London by Alexander Herzen, called the <i>Kolokol</i> (Bell), +which for a number of years made a great impression in Russia by the +accuracy of its information on Russian affairs, by the boldness of its +criticisms of the Government, and by the ease with which it got smuggled +into universal circulation. When Herzen was sent to the Urals as a +dangerous person, he was appointed, very anomalously—perhaps it was to +keep him there—to an administrative and judicial post, in which he +would have apparently to sentence others while under sentence himself; +but he grew weary of his banishment, and was permitted to exchange it +for the more complete, but much more agreeable, banishment from Russia +altogether. After visiting Germany and France, and after witnessing, +with deep interest and deeper disappointment, some of the revolutions of +1848, and writing that they had failed because their promoters were not +prepared to follow them up with a positive social programme, as if, he +says, the mere destruction of a Bastile were a revolution, he settled in +England, and learnt there, as his son assures us, that revolution itself +was but a vain expedient, and that gradual reform was the only effectual +method of lasting social amelioration.</p> + +<p>It was probably while he was learning this lesson—it was certainly +entirely in this spirit—that he began his political agitation on the +accession of Alexander II. The moment the new Czar ascended the throne, +Herzen addressed to him a famous letter, demanding amends for the ills +his father, Czar Nicholas, had done the people, a complete breach with +the old system, and the introduction of thoroughgoing Liberal reforms, +and more especially the emancipation of the serfs. It was in the same +spirit he conducted his agitation in the <i>Kolokol</i>. Without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> neglecting +to ventilate his socialist and philosophical views, he welcomed the +contemplated reforms as being in themselves true remedies for popular +grievances, and intended in perfect good faith by the Czar to be so; and +his chief care in all his criticisms always was to secure that these +reforms should be real and thorough, that the judicial body should be +independent, the educational arrangements efficient; above all, that the +peasants should not be deprived, in the emancipation arrangements, of a +foot of the land they then possessed, or made to pay terms for their +emancipation which would be too heavy for them to meet. And perhaps the +most popular and stirring part of his paper was always his exposure of +existing abuses, and his criticism of the conduct of officials. The +journal was written with wit, vigour, and accurate knowledge; and, as it +spoke what most men thought, but few would as yet venture to say, it was +greedily read and distributed, and was for some years a remarkable power +in the country. Herzen was the hero of the young. Herzenism, we are +told, became the rage, and Herzenism appears to have meant, before all, +a free handling of everything in Church or State which was previously +thought too sacred to be touched. This iconoclastic spirit grew more and +more characteristic of Russian society at this period, and presently, +under its influence, Herzenism fell into the shade, and nihilism +occupied the scene.</p> + +<p>We possess various accounts of the meaning and nature of nihilism, and +they all agree substantially in their description of it. The word was +first employed by Turgenieff in his novel "Fathers and Sons," where +Arcadi Petrovitch surprises his father and uncle by describing his +friend Bazaroff as a nihilist.</p> + +<p>"A nihilist," said Nicholas Petrovitch. "This word must come from the +Latin <i>nihil</i>, nothing, as far as I can judge, and consequently it +signifies a man who recognises nothing."</p> + +<p>"Or rather who respects nothing," said Paul Petrovitch.</p> + +<p>"A man who looks at everything from a critical point of view," said Arcadi.</p> + +<p>"Does not that come to the same thing?" asked his uncle.</p> + +<p>"No, not at all. A nihilist is a man who bows before no authority, who +accepts no principle without examination, no matter what credit the principle has."...</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p><p>"Yes, before we had Hegelians; now we have nihilists. We shall see what +you will do to exist in nothingness, in a vacuum, as if under an air pump."</p> + +<p>Koscheleff, writing in 1874, gives a similar explanation of nihilism. +"Our disease is a disease of character, and the most dangerous possible. +We suffer from a fatal unbelief in everything. We have ceased to believe +in this or in that, not because we have studied the subject thoroughly +and become convinced of the untenability of our views, but only because +some author or another in Germany or England holds this or that doctrine +to be unfounded. Our nihilism is a thing of a quite peculiar character. +It is not, as in the West, the result of long falsely directed +philosophical studies and ways of thinking, nor is it the fruit of an +imperfect social organization. It is an entirely different thing from +that. The wind has blown it to us, and the wind will blow it from us +again. Our nihilists are simply Radicals. Their loud speeches, their +fault-finding, their strong assertions, are grounded on nothing. They +borrow negative views from foreign authors, and repeat them and magnify +them <i>ad nauseam</i>, and treat persons of another way of thinking as +absurd and antiquated people who continue to cherish exploded ideas and +customs. The chief cause of the spread of this (I will not say doctrine, +for I cannot honour it with such a name, but) sect is this, that it +imparts its communications in secret conversations, so that, for one +thing, it cannot be publicly criticised and refuted, and, for another, +it charms by the fascination of the forbidden."</p> + +<p>The same view precisely is given by Baron Fircks ("Schedo Ferroti") in +his very elaborate and thoughtful account of nihilism in his <i>L'Avenir +de la Russie</i>. It was merely, he said, the critical spirit—the spirit +of intellectual revolt—carried to an extreme and running amuck against +all accepted principles in religion, in politics, in domestic and social +life. It was a common infirmity of contemporary society, and was in no +way peculiar to Russia; but while that may be true, it has +undoubtedly—as perhaps the Baron would admit—been carried into more +extravagant manifestations in Russia than elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Nor are the reasons of this extravagance far to seek. First,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> the +Russians are, in national character, singularly impressionable, +volatile, and predisposed to run to extremes. Diderot says they were +rotten before they were ripe. Second, they are mere children in +political experience, and even in intellectual training. Their education +is in general shallow, and they are liable to the vagaries of the half +educated. Third, both Baron Fircks and Koscheleff think nihilism was +largely due to the arbitrary government of the country. The Czar and the +bureaucracy have themselves had much to do with destroying respect for +law and authority by their capricious habits of administration. Laws +were proclaimed to-day and repealed to-morrow, or even broken by the +very officials engaged in administering them. Even in the days of +Nicholas, Herzen complained bitterly of this constant inconstancy of the +law; he said the Russian Government was "infatuated with innovation," +that "nothing was allowed to remain as it was," that "everything was +always being changed," that "a new ministry invariably began its work by +upsetting that of its predecessors." Russia being a Functionary State, +not a Law State, to employ a useful German distinction, the decrees of +officials take the place elsewhere filled by fixed laws established by +legislative authority; and where these decrees are continually changing, +reverence for the law is impossible.</p> + +<p>But in all this there was no practical political disaffection before the +Emancipation Act. The nihilists had as yet a vague belief in the Czar +and the coming reforms; they felt that the Russian people were at last +to have a chance of showing the rich genius that lay in them, and their +whole anxiety was to have the people adequately trained for this great +destiny. It was the common talk that the future belonged to Russia; and +that she was already beginning to outshine all other nations in +literature, in art, in science, in music. "Some young people among us," +says Turgenieff, "have discovered even a Russian arithmetic. Two and two +do make four with us as well as elsewhere, but more pompously, it would +seem. All this is nothing but the stammering of men who are just awaking."</p> + +<p>Under these influences the energies of the nihilists took a different +outlet than plotting. Instead of founding secret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> societies, they +founded Sunday schools. For to their mind the first need of the time, +above even political liberty, was popular education. As to liberty, the +measure they practically enjoyed at the gracious pleasure of the Czar +for the present contented them, inasmuch as it seemed an earnest of the +better securities that were expected to follow; but they could not with +any satisfaction look round them and see the Russian people, for whom +they were prophesying such a great career, still lying in almost +aboriginal ignorance. The stuff was indeed there which should yet +astonish the world, but it must first be made. To "make the people," as +they phrased it, was the task the nihilists now undertook, and they +threw themselves into it with the zeal of apostles. They put on shabby +clothes to avoid any offensive superiority to their poorer neighbours, +and they wore green spectacles to correct the even more intolerable +inequality of personal beauty, for, as they were fond of saying, they +had put off the old man and were now new men created again by Büchner +and Feuerbach in the gospel of humanity; but with all their +extravagances they carried on for some years a most active and no doubt +useful work in the Sunday schools and reading circles which they rapidly +established everywhere.</p> + +<p>Although this movement fell eventually under the suspicion of the +Government, as in despotic countries any movement will, it seems to have +had no political, or what the authorities call "ill-intentioned" +purpose. It was pervaded with patriotic and humanitarian feeling, and +though no doubt many of the nihilists who took part in it held as +extreme opinions in politics as they did in everything else, yet these +opinions were mere matters of speculation. It is certain that democratic +and revolutionary socialism was a very popular doctrine among the +nihilists, even at that earliest period of their history, for their most +representative man during that period was Tchernycheffsky, the editor of +the <i>Contemporary</i> magazine, and a political economist of some note in +his day; and Tchernycheffsky was undoubtedly a democratic and +revolutionary socialist. He belonged to a younger generation than Herzen +and Bakunin, but, like them, he had been led to socialism through Hegel +and Feuerbach, and he expounded his ideas in a famous romance entitled, +"What is to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> be done?" which the Government allowed him to write, and +even to publish, while in prison for sedition in 1862, though they +suppressed the book sternly when they saw it beginning to make a sensation.</p> + +<p>But although revolutionary and socialistic principles may have been very +considerably entertained by the nihilists from the first, there was no +practical revolutionary or socialistic organization before the +emancipation of the serfs. Up till then nihilism may be said to have +been a benignant growth, if I may use a medical expression, and it was +that great historical measure that converted it into the malignant and +deadly trouble which we best know. The Russian Radicals, including the +socialists, were strongly disappointed with that measure from the +outset, because they thought it inflicted serious injustice on the +peasantry. It deprived them, they said, of much of the land they had +hitherto enjoyed as a right, and which was necessary for their +comfortable subsistence, while it imposed on them for what they got +excessive dues which their holdings would never be able to bear; and so +the first Land and Liberty League was founded in 1863. But it was not +the peasants, or the peasants' friends—it was the small landed gentry +who were the first to feel the effects of the Emancipation Act, and to +raise the standard of revolt. The Act made a serious change in their +fortunes. Although the landlords were allowed most liberal terms of +compensation for the enforced emancipation of their serfs, few of them +actually received a kopeck, because they were almost all of them already +deeply indebted to Government, and Government applied the compensation +money to cancel their old debts, and gave up the policy of granting any +more mortgages in the future. Then a great part of the land which was +formerly cultivated by means of the serfs was now found to be too poor +to afford the expense of paid labour; the landlords had neither stock +nor implements to work it, if it were more fertile, the peasantry having +in the old days tilled the field for them with their own horses and +ploughs; nor had they any means of raising the stock on credit, and, +besides, most of them were complete absentees, engaged as Government or +railway officials, or in other professional work, and knew nothing +whatever about the business of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> agriculture. The smaller landlords have +therefore been compelled to sell their estates to the larger, or to +leave much of their ground entirely uncultivated. In Moscow there were +633 separate estates in 1861, before the emancipation, but only 422 in +1877, and not more than one-fifth of the land that was cultivated in +that province in 1861 continued in cultivation in 1877. Many of the sons +of the smaller proprietors were at the universities studying for one of +the professions, and had either to give up their studies altogether for +want of means, or were put on shorter allowances, which was scarcely +less annoying, and was indeed a great cause of revolutionary opinions at +the universities. Many more of the sons of the gentry were in the army, +and the pay of a Russian officer being extremely small, they had been +accustomed to receive allowances from home, without which, indeed, they +could hardly live; and now in the altered circumstances of the family +these allowances were perforce suddenly stopped. Much of the +revolutionary discontent that exists in the Russian army to such a +serious extent that 200 arrests were made in March, 1885, and Government +appointed a special commission of inquiry into the subject, has come +from the source, and is practically a revolt against insufficient pay. +But what happened at the universities and in the army happened in other +departments of Russian life; the Emancipation Act had left on every +shore some wreckage of the gentry, an upper-class and educated +proletariat, whose distress might be due originally to their own +improvidence or ignorance, but was undoubtedly first driven into an +acute state by an act of Government, and therefore clamoured for +vengeance on the Government that produced it.</p> + +<p>The clamour of the victims of the Emancipation Act naturally woke up all +the earlier discontents of the country. The Poles and the dissenting +sects, with all their ancient wrongs, seem to have contributed but a +small contingent to the nihilist ranks; but the Jews, subject to a +barbarous and often very acute persecution, have filled the secret +societies from the beginning with many of their most determined members, +and have supplied a great part of the "Nihilistesses"; and even though +the Revolutionary Executive Committee has latterly issued a proclamation +against the Jews, mainly on the ground of the extortion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> practised by +Jewish money-lenders on the peasantry, there are still, as appears very +abundantly from the nihilist trials of 1890, many Jews among the revolutionists.</p> + +<p>Then there are thirteen millions of native heretics in Russia, sects of +various sorts springing up like the early Quakers from the bosom of the +people, and filled with a rude spirit of freedom and a tendency towards +socialistic ideas in their condemnation of luxury and accumulation, +their hatred of war and military government, and their belief in +fraternity and mutual assistance. Some writers allege that these sects +are an important factor in the revolutionary movement; but though they +certainly have suffered many wrongs from Government, they do not seem to +have furnished any great quota to the revolutionary ranks. They are the +freethinkers of the unlettered classes, however, and their ideas no +doubt have some influence in preparing these classes for socialist +principles. But there is another class very numerous in Russia, who are +the natural allies of revolution—the "illegal men" who, for various +reasons, go about on false passports, and are thus living in revolt +already. And to all these diverse sources of disaffection must be added +the aggravation arising at the moment from the tyrannical and arbitrary +measures to which the Government resorted on the first outburst of complaints.</p> + +<p>In 1862, perceiving the discontent raised by the Emancipation Act, +Government took alarm, and withdrew or curtailed the liberties it had +for a few years allowed the people to enjoy. It stopped some newspapers +and warned a number more; it prohibited the Sunday schools and reading +clubs altogether; it banished many persons on mere suspicion to remote +provinces; and for a greater example it cast the eminent writer +Tchernycheffsky into prison on a charge of exciting the peasantry to +revolt, and after leaving him there without trial for nearly two years, +brought him out at length to a public square in St. Petersburg, read out +to him a sentence of transportation, broke a sword over his head, and +sent him to the Siberian mines for the rest of his life. There he still +remains, broken now both in mind and body, but probably doing more harm +to the Government by his wrongs than he could ever have done by his pen, +for nihilists have for twenty-seven years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> been constantly exciting +popular sympathy by descriptions of his martyrdom and demands for his release.</p> + +<p>It was while this alienation against the Government was thickening that +Michael Bakunin escaped from Siberia, and it was by emissaries sent by +Bakunin to Russia that the first successful attempt was made to incite +and organize all these revolutionary materials into a revolutionary +movement. When Bakunin came back in 1862 and joined Herzen in London, +the two old friends found their ideas had parted far asunder during +their long separation. Herzen had, from his twelve years' observation of +affairs, broadened from revolutionist to statesman, and had no patience +now for the extravagance of the young Russian patriots who visited him +in London. "Our black earth," he would say, "needs a deal of draining." +And there is a remarkable letter which he wrote shortly before his +death, and apparently to Bakunin himself, in which he says:—</p> + +<p>"I will own that one day, surrounded by dead bodies, by houses destroyed +with balls and bullets, and listening feverishly as prisoners were being +shot down, I called with my whole heart and intelligence upon the savage +force of vengeance to destroy the old criminal world, without thinking +much of what was to come in its place. Since that time twenty years have +gone by; the vengeance has come, but it has come from the other side, +and it is the people who have borne it, because they comprehended +nothing either then or since. A long and painful interval has given time +for passions to calm, for thoughts to deepen; it has given the necessary +time for reflection and observation. Neither you nor I have betrayed our +convictions; but we see the question now from a different point of view. +You rush ahead, as you did before, with a passion of destruction, which +you take for a creative passion; you crush every obstacle; you respect +history only in the future. As for me, on the contrary, I have no faith +in the old revolutionary methods, and I try to comprehend the march of +men in the past and in the present, to know how to advance with them +without falling behind, but without going on so far before as you, for +they would not follow me—they could not follow me!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p><p>Herzen gradually lost hold over the wilder forces in Russia, he was +even openly denounced as a reactionary by the revolutionist Dolgourouki; +and when he alienated the more moderate parties likewise by his support +of the Polish insurrection of 1863, his spell vanished, and during the +remaining seven years of his life his influence was of little account.</p> + +<p>Bakunin was more in unison with the troubled spirit of the times. While +Herzen had been ripening in political wisdom under the ampler +intellectual life to which his exile introduced him, Bakunin's twelve +years' confinement had maddened him into a fanatic, and instead of +curing him of revolutionary propensities, only fixed the idea of +revolution in his mind like a mania. When he came to London a huge, +haggard man, always excited, always talking, he used to speak of himself +as a Prometheus unbound, and he was to live henceforth for the undoing +of the powers and systems that were. He was never found without a group +of conspirators and refugees of all shades and nationalities about him. +With some reminiscences of socialistic philosophy remaining in the +background of his mind, his only real interest now was revolution, and +he seemed always thenceforth to look on his socialism as a means of +revolution rather than on revolution as a means to socialism. His +socialism itself had grown less sane—it was no longer the anarchism of +the old days: it was what he called "amorphism"—society not merely +without governmental institutions, but without institutions of any kind; +and he was domineered by the thought of a universal revolution, in which +all States and Churches and all institutions religious, political, +judicial, financial, academical, and social should perish in a common +destruction. "Amorphism" and "Pan-destruction" are not articles of a +rational creed, but they were propagated with almost preternatural +energy by Bakunin. The work of exciting revolution and disorder of any +kind was the main business of his life till he died in 1876. Others +might play a waiting game, but for him the work of the revolutionist was +revolution; and he ought to be incessantly promoting it, not by word +only, but by deed, by an unremitting terrorism, by shooting a policeman +when you can't reach a king, and destroying a Bastile if you cannot +overturn an empire. In his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>"Revolutionary Catechism," written in +cipher, but read by the public prosecutor at a Russian nihilist trial in +1871, he says (I quote the passage from M. de Laveleye):—</p> + +<p>"The revolutionist is a man under a vow. He ought to have no personal +interests, no business, no sentiments, no property. He ought to occupy +himself entirely with one exclusive interest, with one thought and one +passion: the Revolution.... He has only one aim, one science: +destruction. For that and nothing but that he studied mechanics, +physics, chemistry, and medicine. He observes with the same object, the +men, the characters, the positions and all the conditions of the social +order. He despises and hates existing morality. For him everything is +moral that favours the triumph of the Revolution. Everything is immoral +and criminal that hinders it.... Between him and society there is war to +the death, incessant, irreconcilable. He ought to be prepared to die, to +bear torture, and to kill with his own hands all who obstruct the +revolution. So much the worse for him if he has in this world any ties +of parentage, friendship, or love! He is not a true revolutionist if +these attachments stay his arm. In the meantime he ought to live in the +middle of society, feigning to be what he is not. He ought to penetrate +everywhere, among high and low alike; into the merchant's office, into +the church, into the Government bureaux, into the army, into the +literary world, into the secret police, and even into the Imperial +Palace.... He must make a list of those who are condemned to death, and +expedite their sentence according to the order of their relative +iniquities.... A new member can only be received into the association by +a unanimous vote, and after giving proofs of his merit not in word but +in action. Every 'companion' ought to have under his hand several +revolutionists of the second or third degree, not entirely initiated. He +ought to consider them part of the revolutionary capital placed at his +disposal, and he ought to use them economically, and so as to extract +the greatest possible profit out of them.... The most precious element +of all are women, completely initiated, and accepting our entire +programme. Without their help we can do nothing."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p><p>Bakunin naturally turned his first attention to his own country, and +the subsequent development of Russian affairs show sufficiently distinct +signs of his ideas and influence.</p> + +<p>In 1865 he sent a young medical student named Netchaïeff to Moscow, to +work among the students there, and Netchaïeff had, by 1869, established +a number of secret societies, which he linked together under the name of +the Russian Branch of the International Working Men's Association. This +organization was not very numerous—no Russian secret society is—but in +1873 as many as eighty-seven persons were brought to trial for +connection with it, and in 1866 one of its members, a working man called +Karakasoff, who was suffering from an incurable disease, made the first +attempt on the life of the Czar—an event which had most important +effects on the course of Russian politics. It rang out the era of +reform, and rang in the era of reaction. The popular concessions which +the Czar had already given he now began to withdraw. The people had +never got, as they expected, an independent judiciary—perhaps in an +autocratic country a judiciary independent of the executive is hardly +possible—but they had enjoyed some pretence of public trial, and now +that pretence was done away, and Karakasoff and his companions were not +brought before the court at all, but tried and condemned by an +extraordinary commission, with a military officer of approved ferocity +at its head. Administrative trial and administrative condemnation became +again the regular rule in Russia; and though these things were borne in +the days of Nicholas as almost matters of course, they were now deeply +resented as fresh invasions of right and direct breaches of imperial +promises. Then the bodies to which a certain amount of the local +government of the country, the management of roads, schools, poor, +health, etc., had been entrusted, were obstructed in the exercise of +their powers, or gradually deprived of their powers altogether, and +forced into complete dependence on the imperial executive. The students +at the universities began to be interfered with in their sick and +benefit societies and their reading circles; their studies in the +class-rooms were restricted to what was thought a safe routine; and even +their private lives and motions were watched with an exasperating +espionage. People felt the hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> of the despot pressing back upon them +everywhere, and they felt it with a most natural and righteous recoil. +This reactionary policy, which has continued ever since—this return to +the hated old methods of arbitrary and repressive rule—produced, as was +inevitable, deep and general discontent at the very moment when the +great historical measure of serf emancipation was desolating the +families of the landed gentry, province after province; and when the +execution of the Emancipation Act was completed in 1870, Russian society +was already quivering with dangerous elements of revolt.</p> + +<p>From that time evidences of an active revolutionary propaganda +multiplied rapidly every year. In 1871 and 1872 the writings of the +German socialists were translated and ran into great favour. Even of +Marx's far from popular work, "Capital," a large edition was eagerly +bought up, and ladies of position baptized their children in the name of +Lassalle. Secret societies were discovered both north and south. From +1873 to 1877 nihilist arrests, nihilist prosecutions, nihilist conflicts +with the police, were the order of the day, till at length, in 1878, the +young girl, Vera Sassulitch, fired the shot at the head of the Russian +police which began that long vendetta between the revolutionists and the +executive, in which so many officials perished, and eventually, in 1881, +after many unsuccessful attempts, the Czar himself was so cruelly assassinated.</p> + +<p>The ardent youth of Russia, who, in 1861, were still giving themselves +to the work of Sunday schools and reading circles, were, in 1871, +throwing their careers away to go out, like the first apostles, without +scrip or two coats, and propagate among the rude people of the provinces +the doctrines of modern revolutionary socialism, and by 1881 had become +absorbed in sheer terrorism, in avenging the official murder of comrades +without trial by the revolutionary murder of officials, in contriving +infernal plots and explosions, and trying vainly to cast out devils by +the prince of devils.</p> + +<p>Stepniak attributes the impetus which the socialist agitation received +in 1871 to the impression produced in Russia by the Paris Commune; but +it would perhaps be more correct simply to ascribe it to the exertions +of two active Russian revolutionists, who were themselves associated +with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>Communard movement, and who happened to enjoy at this period +unusual facilities of communication with the younger mind of Russia. One +was Bakunin, who had himself organized an insurrection at Lyons on the +principles of the Commune six months before the outbreak at Paris in +March, 1871; and the other was Peter Lavroff, the present Nestor of +Russian nihilism, who actually took part in the Paris Commune itself. +Lavroff, who had been a colonel in the Russian army, and professor in +the military college of St. Petersburg, was compromised in the attempt +of Karakasoff in 1866 and administratively banished to Archangel; but, +as happens so singularly often in Russia, he escaped in 1869, and lived +to edit a revolutionary journal in Zurich, and play for a time no +inconsiderable part in making trouble in Russia. At present, +communications between the active revolutionists who are at work in +Russia and their predecessors who have withdrawn to Western Europe are +entirely interrupted; but they were still abundant twenty years ago. +Partly in consequence of the reactionary educational policy of the +Government, young Russians flocked at that time to Switzerland for their +education, and were there conveniently indoctrinated into the new gospel +of the International. Bakunin and Lavroff were both in Zurich, and in +the year 1872 there were 239 Russian students, male and female, in +Zurich alone. These young people were, of course, in continual +intercourse with the older refugees. Bakunin and Lavroff both held +stated and formal lectures on socialism and revolution, which were +always succeeded by open and animated discussions of the subject treated +in them. A little later there were, according to Professor Thun, four +distinct groups among the Russian revolutionists in Zurich, some of them +caused by personal quarrels. But from the first there were always two, +one of whom swore by Bakunin, and the other by Lavroff.</p> + +<p>Bakunin was an anarchist—an "amorphist" even, as we have seen—and he +believed in the propaganda of deeds. Every little village, he thought, +should make its own revolution; and if it could not make a revolution, +it might always be making a riot, or an explosion, or a fire, or an +assassination of some official, or something else to raise panic or +confusion. All this seemed to Lavroff and his friends to be unmitigated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> +folly. They too believed in revolution; but in their view revolution, to +be successful, must be organized and simultaneous; it must, above all, +first have the peasantry on its side; and therefore, instead of the mad +and premature propaganda of deed, the true policy for the present was +manifestly "going into the people," as they termed it—that is, an +itinerant mission to indoctrinate the people into the faith of the +coming revolution. Then, again, Lavroff, though, like almost all Russian +revolutionists, an anarchist, was not, like most of them, prepared to +dispense all at once with the State. He thought the new society would +eventually be able to do without any central authority, but not at +first, nor for a considerable time, the length of which could not now be +more precisely determined. In this Lavroff and his party stood much +nearer the Social Democrats of Germany than other Russian nihilists, and +they have come nearer still since then. They have cast off the Russian +commune, of which the early nihilists made so great an idol. They see +that it is an old-world institution doomed to dissolution, and rapidly +undergoing the process.</p> + +<p>The two tendencies—diverging both in principle and in tactics—appeared +in Russia as well as Zurich. At first the more peaceful method +prevailed. Lavroff's idea of "going into the people" was the enthusiasm +of the hour, and brought upon the scene the typical nihilist +missionary—the young man of good birth who laid down station and +prospects, learnt a manual trade, browned his hands with tar and his +face by smearing it with butter and lying in the sun, put on the +peasant's sheepskin, and then, with a forged pass, procured at the +secret nihilist pass factory, and a few forbidden books in his wallet, +set off "without road" to be a peasant with peasants, if by any means he +could win them over to the cause; and the still more remarkable young +woman who went through a marriage ceremony to obtain the right of +independent action, and the moment the ceremony was over, left father +and mother and husband and all in order to work among the peasants of +the Volga as a teacher or nurse, and live on milk and groats according +to Tchernycheffsky's prescription in "What is to be Done?". Stepniak +justly remarks that "the type of propagandist of the first lustre of +1870-80 was religious rather than revolutionary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> His hope was +socialism, his God the people. Notwithstanding all the evidence to the +contrary, he firmly believed that from one day to the other the +revolution was about to break out, as in the middle ages people believed +at certain periods in the approach of the day of judgment." +("Underground Russia," p. 30.)</p> + +<p>For some years these ascetic devotees might be found in every corner of +broad Russia, working as shoemakers or joiners most of them (why these +were the favourite trades does not appear), or as hawkers of images or +tea, or, perhaps, like Prince Krapotkin, as painters. Some of them went +as horse-dealers, from a dreamy idea that the horses might prove useful +in the day of revolution. They all belonged to one or other of the +secret societies which, as we have seen, began to spring up about 1863, +and grew numerous in the next ten or fifteen years. None of these +societies, however, was of any great importance. Professor Thun mentions +four varieties of them. First, the Malikowsy, a handful of apparently +harmless and amiable enthusiasts—a kind of Russian Quakers—who +believed in one Malikov, and called themselves "God-men," because they +held every man had a "divine spark" in him, and was therefore every +other man's equal and brother. Second, the Bakunists, who adopted +Bakunin's programme of "deeds," but did not, till 1875, think of putting +it to practice. Third, the Lavrists, who sent the money to print +Lavroff's newspaper in Zurich, the <i>En Avant</i>, and who seem to have +gradually imbibed German socialism to the extent of thinking the Russian +commune a reactionary and decaying institution not worth stirring a +finger to preserve, and who called for the nationalization of land and +capital. And fourth,—much the most important society,—the +Tchaikowskists, founded in 1869 by one Tchaikowski, who is now a teacher +in London, but was then a student at St. Petersburg. Prince Krapotkin +belonged to this society, and so did Sophia Perowskaia. It was at first +a convivial and mutual improvement club, but from discussing forbidden +subjects and circulating among its members forbidden books it grew into +natural antagonism to Government, and became a focus of revolutionary +agitation. Most of the 193 socialists who were tried in 1874-7 belonged +to it, and that protracted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> trial killed the society and put an end to +the mission "into the people."</p> + +<p>Government had marked the new propaganda with great jealousy. In Russia, +no propaganda among the peasants can remain unobserved. When a stranger +arrives at a Russian village, he is immediately the common talk, +whatever he says passes from mouth to mouth, and he may even be invited +to state his views publicly in the <i>mir</i>. A mission conducted under +these conditions soon attracted the notice of the authorities, who, in +1874, discovered it in thirty-seven different provinces of Russia, and +arrested as many as 774 of the propagandists. Some of these were at once +banished administratively to Siberia, and of the rest, 193 were, four +years afterwards, brought up for trial and condemned. With these +apprehensions the nihilist movement collapsed for the moment. Thun +states that Lavroff's newspaper during that period adopted a tone of +despair, and the revolutionists who escaped arrest recognised very +clearly that their scheme of "going into the people" was a complete +mistake, and that some safer and more effective system of tactics must +be concocted. They fell upon two different expedients. The first was the +plan of nihilist colonization. To avoid detection by the authorities, a +band of revolutionists settled down in a given district in a body, got +personally acquainted with the peasantry about them, and then, after +acquiring a sufficient knowledge of their characters, proceeded with due +prudence to impart their ideas to those who seemed most trustworthy, +hoping in this way to be able, unobserved, eventually to leaven the +whole lump. The other plan they now resorted to was an approach to the +tactics of Bakunin, and in the very year, 1876, in which that old +revolutionist died, they began a series of socialist demonstrations at +Odessa, Kasan, and elsewhere, which made a little local sensation at the +time. This was the very opposite kind of tactics to the cautious system +of colonization that was pursued simultaneously with it, but there is +always in revolutionary organization only a step between reticence and +rashness. Open demonstrations like those practised at that period were +simply suicidal folly in Russia, where the forces of the Government were +so immeasurably superior to the forces of the demonstrationists.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p><p>In 1878 they changed tactics again, inaugurating that system of +terrorism by which they are best known in the West, and which has given +them a name there at which the world turns pale. The determination to +adopt this system of tactics sprang from an accidental circumstance. The +day after the trial of the 193 ended, one of their comrades, the young +woman Vera Sassulitch, called on General Trepoff, the head of the St. +Petersburg police, on pretence of business, and while he was reading her +papers, shot him with a revolver, flung her weapon on the ground, and +allowed herself to be quietly arrested; and when she was brought up for +trial, pled justification on the ground that her act was merely +retaliation on the General for having subjected a friend of hers, a +young medical student, to a brutal and causeless flogging while in +prison on a political charge. The court having acquitted her, she was +received by the public with every demonstration of enthusiasm, and it +was this remarkable public sympathy that made the revolutionaries +terrorists. They resolved to take up V. Sassulitch's idea of +retaliation, and apply it on a great scale. The whole public of Russia +was at that time considerably flushed with indignation against the +imperial Government. The war in Turkey had revealed, as wars always do, +a great deal of rottenness in the public administration; it had brought +nothing but humiliation and debt upon the country, and it had exacted +cruel sacrifices from the people merely to confer on the Bulgarians the +political and constitutional liberty which was still denied to the +Russians themselves. For the moment the old cry for a constitution rose +again in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and there was a deep feeling far +beyond the circles of the revolutionists that an end should be put to +the autocratic <i>régime</i>. The revolutionists found powerful encouragement +in all this outbreak of displeasure. Stepniak, who was himself one of +the most active of them at that period, says their real strength lay, +not in their numbers—which he admits to have been few—but in the +general sympathy they received from what he calls the revolutionary +nation around them. They had however special wrongs of their own to +avenge; hundreds of their friends had been transported without trial; +and in the case of the 193, whose trial was just over, the few who had +been acquitted were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> nevertheless denied their liberty by the Czar, and +banished administratively to Siberia after all; so that while Russian +society was clamouring on public grounds for the downfall of the +autocratic system, the revolutionists, for revenge, determined upon the +death of the autocrat himself. The various secret societies had united +into a single body, called first the "Troglodytes," and then "Land and +Liberty," for the better prosecution of the nihilist colonization +scheme; but in 1879 they broke again into two parties, one of which, the +Will of the People party, adopted terrorism as its exclusive business +for the time, issued, through its famous executive committee, sentences +of death on the Czar and the State officials; and after making ten +attempts on high officials, five of them fatal, and four attempts on the +Czar himself, finally succeeded in their fifth on the 13th of March, +1881. With this party the political side of their programme overshadowed +the socialistic, and their first demand from the new Czar was for a constitution.</p> + +<p>The other party—the party of the Black Division—is an agrarian party, +living on the growing discontent of the peasantry, and nursing their cry +for what in Russia is known as the Black Division. It is an old belief +among the Russian people that when the land possessed at any time by the +communes should become too small for the increasing population of the +communes, there would be a new division of all the land of the country, +including, of course, the great estates now owned by the <i>noblesse</i>, so +that every inhabitant might be once more accommodated with his proper +share of the soil. This great secular redistribution is the black +division, and it belongs as naturally to the Russian peasants' system of +agrarian ideas as the little local and periodical divisions that take +place within the communes themselves. The Black Division section of the +revolutionists are terrorist in their methods like the other section, +but they care nothing about a constitution, which they say is only a +demand of the <i>bourgeoisie</i>, but of no interest or good to the peasant +at all. They have the old aversion to centralized government, which we +have seen to be almost the tradition of Russian revolutionists; they are +all for strengthening the communes, and for a light federal connection; +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> of all phases of the Russian revolutionary movement under the reign +of the present Czar theirs is the most important, because it is founding +itself on real and deepening rural discontent, and becoming +substantially a peasants' cry for more land and less rent and taxes.</p> + +<p>I have already referred to the astonishing growth of a Russian +proletariat since the Emancipation Act. Professor Janson, an eminent +Russian statistician, calculated that as many as a fourth of the people +of St. Petersburg—229,000 out of 876,000—got public relief in the year +1884. Stepniak, in his recent work on the Russian peasantry, asserts +that a third of the rural population, or 20,000,000 souls in all, are in +the condition of absolute proletarians, and his account of the situation +is entirely supported by the descriptions of a competent and +unprejudiced German economist, Professor Alphonse Thun, who speaks +partly from the results of official inquiries instituted by the Russian +Government into the subject, and partly from his own personal +observation during a continuous residence of two years in the country. +As the subject is of importance to the student of socialistic +institutions as well as of the nihilist movement, I shall make no +apology for devoting some observations to its explanation.</p> + +<p>In the first place, though it has never been well understood in Western +Europe, some ten per cent. of the Russian rural population have no legal +claim to a share of the land at all; these are old men who are past +working, widows with children too young to be able to work, and men who +at the time of the Emancipation were personal servants of the great +landowners, and consequently not members of any village commune. Men of +this last class may reside in a village, and may keep a shop or practise +a trade there; but not being born villagers, they possess no right to +participate in the distribution of the village land. They are as much +outside the communistic system as the nobles or the foreign residents. +Russian citizenship alone is not enough to give a right to the land; +local birth in a commune is also an essential pre-requisite, and ability +to work is another. A family gets one share for every able-bodied member +it contains; the share is therefore called a "soul" of land; and +although between one distribution and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> another the widow may still +retain the "soul" that belonged to her husband, and hire a hand to work +it, yet on the next redistribution she must give it up unless she has a +son who in the meantime has grown to man's estate. The landless widow +and orphan must have been an occasional incident of the Russian village +system from all times; but the incursion of dismissed domestic menials +with no birthright in the commune has arisen only in recent years, when, +in consequence of a conspiracy of causes, so many of the nobility have +been obliged to reduce their establishments.</p> + +<p>In the next place, a communistic tenure which gives every new-comer a +right to share in the land of his native village on an equal footing +with those who are already in possession could hardly fail to lead to +excessive subdivision, and in Russia at this moment scarce one family in +a hundred has land enough to furnish its maintenance for half the year. +The usual size of holding is ten acres, of which—cultivated as they are +on the old three-field system—one third is always fallow, and the +remainder, in consequence of the rude method of agriculture that +prevails, yields only two, or at most three, returns of the seed. They +have no pasture, because at the time of the emancipation they preferred +to take out their whole claim in arable; and, having no pasture, they +cannot keep cattle as they formerly did because they cannot get manure. +According to the information of Professor Thun, in 1872 8 per cent. of +the families had no cow, and 4 per cent. no horse; and Stepniak says the +inventory of horses taken for military purposes in 1882 showed that +one-fourth of the peasant families had then no horse. Russia is, in +fact, a vast continent of crofters, practising primitive husbandry on +mere "cat's-plots" of land, and depending for the greater part of their +subsistence on some auxiliary trade. In one respect they have the +advantage over our Scotch crofters; they practise, in many cases, +skilled trades. Of course they work as ploughmen or fishermen when that +sort of work is wanted, or they will hire a piece of waste land from a +neighbouring owner and bring it into rude cultivation; but every variety +of craft is to be found among them. They are weavers, hatters, +cabinet-makers, workers in metals; they make shoes, or images, or +candles, or musical instruments,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> or grindstones; they dress furs, they +knit lace, they train singing-birds. According to the official inquiry, +most of the goods of some of the best commercial houses of Moscow, +trading in Parisian silk hats and Viennese furniture, are manufactured +by these peasants in their rural villages. A curious and very remarkable +characteristic is mentioned by Thun: not only has every Russian his +bye-industry, but every village has a different bye-industry from its +neighbour. One is a village of coopers—a very thriving trade, it +appears; another a village of tailors—a declining one, in consequence +of the competition of ready-made stuff from the towns; another—and +there are several such—may be a village of beggars, with mendicity for +their second staff; and another a village of seamen, going in a body in +spring to the Baltic or the Volga, and leaving only their women and +children to tend the farm till their return in the autumn. The Russians +always work in artels whether at home or abroad, and to work in artels +they must of course follow the same industry. Their individual earnings +in their auxiliary occupations are comparatively good; they make +three-fourths of their annual income from that source; but it seems +every trade is now overcrowded, and there is some difficulty in +obtaining constant employment.</p> + +<p>Then the burdens of the peasantry are very heavy. In Russia the superior +classes enjoy many exemptions from taxation, and the public revenue is +taken mainly from the peasant classes. The annual redemption money they +have to pay to the State for their land is a most serious obligation, +and between one thing and another the burdens on the land in a vast +number of cases exceed its net return very considerably. Professor Thun +states, that in 2,009 cases of letting holdings which had occurred in +the province of Moscow at the time he wrote, the average rent received +was only 3 roubles 56 kopecks per "soul" (land-share), while the average +taxation was 10 roubles 30 kopecks. Stepniak says that in the +thirty-seven provinces of European Russia the class who were formerly +State peasants pay in taxes of every description no less than 92.75 per +cent. of the average net produce of their land; and that the class who +were formerly serfs of private owners pay as much as 192.25 per cent. of +the net produce of theirs. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>Landowning on these terms is manifestly a +questionable privilege, and the <i>moujik</i> pays his land taxes as the +Scotch crofter has sometimes to pay his rent, not out of the produce of +his holding, but out of the wages of his auxiliary labour; but the +Scotch crofter, under his system of individual tenure, has one great +resource which is wanting to the other: he can always cut the knot of +his troubles by throwing up his holding, if he chooses, and emigrating. +To the Russian peasant emigration brings no relief. He is born a +proprietor, and cannot escape the obligation of his position wherever he +may go. He may try to let his ground—and in many cases he does—but, as +we see, he cannot often get enough rent to meet the dues. He may leave +his village, if he will, but his village liabilities travel with him +wherever he may settle. He cannot obtain work anywhere in Russia without +showing his pass from his own commune; and since, under the principle of +joint liability that rules in the communistic system, the members of the +commune who remain at home would have to pay the emigrant's arrears if +he failed to pay them himself, they are not likely to renew the pass to +a defaulter. The Russian peasants are thus nearly as much <i>adstricti +glebæ</i> as they ever were; they are now under the power of the commune as +completely as they were before under the power of their masters; and +their difficulty is still how they can possibly obtain emancipation. +Sometimes they will defy the commune, forego the advantage of a lawful +pass, crowd the ranks of that large body in Russia who are known as the +"illegal men," and sometimes, we are assured by Professor Thun, a whole +village, every man and every family, will secretly disappear in a body +and seek refuge from the tax-collector by settling in the steppes. The +natural right of every man to the land is thus, in the principal country +where any attempt is made to realize it, nothing but a harassing pecuniary debt.</p> + +<p>Now this class of worse than landless emigrants—men who carry their +land as a perpetual burden on their back from which they can get no +respite—is already very numerous in Russia. Thun says there are +millions of them. As far back as 1872, nearly half the town population +of Moscow and more than a fifth of the population of the landward +district were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> strangers, who were inscribed members of rural communes +elsewhere; and in many purely country districts some 14 per cent. of the +people have no houses because they are not living in the villages they +belong to. Sir Robert Morier says in his report to the Foreign Office in +September, 1887, on Pauperism in Russia (p. 2): "It is officially stated +that in each of the larger provinces, such as Kursk, Tambow, Kostroma, +etc., over 100,000 peasants have abandoned the plot of ground granted to +them (8 acres) on one pretext or another in order to seek means of +subsistence elsewhere. (This probably means flocking to the larger +towns.) The number of beggars in 71 Governments was stated to be +300,000, of which 182,000 were peasant proprietors. This number is, +however, far below the mark." But, as we learn from Stepniak, the bulk +of the landless peasants, <i>i.e.</i> those who no longer cultivate their +holdings, do not leave their native villages, but seek employment as +hirelings in the village itself or in its neighbourhood, and wander as +day labourers from one master to another. Their families continue to +live in their old cottage in the village, and the father returns to it +when out of employment.</p> + +<p>Their land is generally taken by a class of small usurers (<i>koulaks</i>) +who have grown up in every Russian village since the emancipation. These +koulaks are in most cases fellow-peasants who have saved some money, but +they are frequently strangers who have come and opened a store in the +place, and have no right of their own to a share in the land and in the +councils of the village. Stepniak mentions one province where as much as +from 24 to 36 per cent. of the land is concentrated into the hands of +these rich usurers. Even the peasants who still retain their land in +their own hands are often deeply indebted to them, and in some cases +part with bits of their land without parting with all; and the general +tendency of the present economic situation is to divide the peasantry of +every village into a class of comparatively rich peasants, on the one +hand, holding and cultivating most of the land, and a larger class of +rural proletarians, without land and having nothing to live by but their +manual trade. The tendency, in short, is towards the break-up of the +communal tenure, and instead of the Russian Commune invading Europe, as +Cavour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> once said there was fear it would do, we are likely to see the +individual tenure of Western Europe invading Russia and superseding +primitive rural institutions in that country, as it has already +superseded them in others. "It is quite evident," says Stepniak, "that +Russia is marching in this direction. If nothing happens to check or +hinder the process of interior disintegration in our villages, in +another generation we shall have on one side an agricultural proletariat +of sixty or seventy millions, and on the other a few thousand landlords, +mostly former koulaks and mir-eaters, in possession of all the land." It +is legally permissible at present for a Russian commune, if it so +choose, to abolish its communal system of property and adopt individual +property instead of it; and although this has been very seldom done as +yet, we are told by Thun that the rich peasants and the very poor +peasants are both strongly in favour of the step, because it would give +the one permanent ownership of the land and the other permanent relief +from its burdens. When a commune gets divided in this way into a rich +class of members and a poor class, the old brotherliness and mutual +helpfulness of the Russian village are said by the same authority always +to disappear and a more selfish spirit to take their place; but then it +should be remembered how much easier it is to assist a neighbour out of +a little difficulty of the way than to meet the unremitting claims of a +class that have sunk into permanent poverty. Anyhow, the temptation is +equally strong on both parties to escape from the worries of their +present situation through the rich buying out the poor.</p> + +<p>Another tendency working in the same direction is the rapid dissolution +of the old system of large house-communities that prevailed before the +emancipation. The average household has been reduced from seven and a +half to five souls, the married children setting up houses of their own +instead of dwelling under one roof with their father and grandfather. +The house is a mere hut, with no furniture but a table and a wooden +bench used by night for a bed, but still the separate <i>ménage</i> has +increased to an embarrassing extent the expenses of the peasant's living +at the very time that other circumstances have reduced his resources. +The reason for the break-up of the house-communities has been the desire +to escape partly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> from the tyranny of the head of the household, but +chiefly from the incessant quarrels that prevailed between the several +members about the amount they each contributed to the common funds as +compared with the amount they ate and drank out of them. One of the +brothers goes to St. Petersburg during the winter months as a cabman and +brings back a hundred roubles, while another gets work as a forester +near home, and earns no more than twenty-five. Now, according to an +author quoted by Stepniak, who is describing a family among whom he has +lived, the question always is: "Why should he (the forester) consume +with such avidity the tea and sugar dearly purchased with the cabman's +money? And in general, why should this tea be absorbed with such +greediness by all the numerous members of the household—by the elder +brother, for instance, who alone drank something like eighty cups a day +(the whole family consumed about nine hundred cups per diem) whilst he +did not move a finger towards earning all this tea and sugar? Whilst the +cabman was freezing in the cold night air, or busying himself with some +drunken passenger, or was being abused and beaten by a policeman on duty +near some theatre, this elder brother was comfortably stretched upon his +belly, on the warm family oven, pouring out some nonsense about +twenty-seven bears whom he had seen rambling through the country with +their whelps in search of new land for settlement." And so the quarrel +goes round; always the old difficulty of <i>meum</i> and <i>tuum</i>, so hard to +reconcile except under a <i>régime</i> of individual property.</p> + +<p>In fact, the shifts to which the Russian peasantry, like other +peasantries elsewhere, have been reduced to solve this difficulty in the +management of their common land constitute one main cause of their +agricultural backwardness and their consequent poverty. Elisée Reclus +calculates that if the Russian fields were cultivated like those of +Great Britain, Russia could produce, instead of six hundred and fifty +million hectolitres of corn annually, about five milliards, which would +be sufficient to feed a population of five hundred million souls. A few +lessons in good husbandry will do much more for the comfort of a people +than many changes of social organization;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> but good husbandry is +virtually impossible under a system of unstable tenure, which turns a +man necessarily out of his holding every few years for the purpose of a +new distribution of the land, and which compels him to take his holding, +when he gets it, in some thirty or forty scattered plots. +Redistributions, it is true, do not occur so very frequently as we might +suppose. As Russian land is all cultivated on a three years' rotation, +one might be apt to look for a new distribution every three years, but +that almost never occurs. Thun states that in the province of Moscow +during the twenty years 1858-1878 the average interval of distribution +was 12½ years, four rotations; that 49 per cent. of the communes had +a distribution only once in 15 years, and 37 per cent. only once in 20 +years. The dislike to frequent distributions is growing, on the obvious +and very reasonable ground that they either discourage a man from doing +well by his land, or they inflict on him the grave injustice of +depriving him of the ground he has himself improved before he has reaped +from it the due reward of his labour. The tendency towards individual +property is therefore strongly at work here, and as this system of +periodical redistribution is established merely to give every man that +natural right by virtue of his birth to a share in the land, which is +now in so many cases such a delusive irony, the resistance to the new +tendency cannot be expected to be very resolute. The <i>runrig</i> system of +cultivation, which prevails in Russia in the same form as it did in the +Highlands of Scotland, does not give any similar appearance of decay. +Stepniak says the peasants still prefer that arrangement because it +allows room for perfect fairness—perfect reconciliation of the <i>meum</i> +and <i>tuum</i>—in the distribution of their most precious commodity, the +land, which always presents great variety as to quality of soil and +situation with respect to roads, water, the village, etc. Under a +communal system with many members this method of arrangement is almost +indispensable to avoid quarrels and prevent the indolent from shirking +their proper share of the work, but its agricultural disadvantages are +so great that it never long resists an improving husbandry. Although an +owner, the Russian peasant, in consequence of the shifting nature of his +subject, is said by Stepniak to have none of that passionate feeling of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> +ownership and that profound delight in his land which are characteristic +of the peasant proprietors of the West, but he has—what is really the +same thing—a deep sense of personal dignity from its possession, and he +feels himself to have lost caste if he is forced to give up his holding +and become a mere <i>batrak</i>, or wage labourer. All the pride of ownership +is already there, and in the changes of the immediate future it will +have plenty of opportunity for asserting its place.</p> + +<p>Under the pressure of this singular economic movement, the nihilist +agitation is now developing largely into a peasants' cry for more land +and less rent and taxes. As I have said, the Russian peasantry look for +the great black division once in an age. The "Old Believers" mix this +idea up with their dreams of a great millennial reign, and keep on +thinking that the day after to-morrow is to bring in the happy period +before the end of the world, when truth is to prevail and the land is to +be equally divided among all; and a feeling easily gets about among the +peasantry generally that the "black division" is at last coming. Such a +feeling was very widespread during the reign of the late Czar, and, +indeed, is still so. Rumours fly every now and then from hamlet to +hamlet like wildfire, no one knows whence or how, that the division is +to be made in a month, or a week, or a year; that the Czar has decreed +it, and when it does not come, that the Czar's wishes have for the time +been thwarted, as they had so often been thwarted before, by the selfish +machinations of the nobility. For the peasant has a profound and +touching belief in his Czar. There may be agrarian socialism in his +creed, but it is not the agrarian socialism of the schools. The first +article of his faith—and it would appear to be the natural faith of the +peasant all the world over—is that the earth is the Lord's and not the +nobility's; but his second is that the Czar is the Lord's steward, sent +for the very purpose of dividing the land justly among his people. If +the peasant hopes for the black division, he hopes for it from the Czar. +The Emancipation Act has been far from giving him the land or the +liberty he looked for, but he believes—and nothing will shake him out +of the belief—that the Emancipation Law which the Czar actually +decreed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> was a righteous law that would have met all the people's wishes +and claims, but that this law has been altered seriously to their +disadvantage, under the influence of the nobility, in the process of +carrying it into execution. But his confidence always is that the Czar +will still interfere and put everything to rights. And when, only a few +years ago, the revolutionist Stephanovitch stirred up some disturbances +in Southern Russia, which were commonly dignified at the time with the +name of a peasants' insurrection, he was only able to succeed in doing +what he did by first going to St. Petersburg with a petition from the +peasants of the district to the Czar, and then issuing on his return a +false proclamation in the Czar's name, commanding the people to rise +against the nobility, who were declared to be persistently obstructing +and defeating his Majesty's good and just intentions for his loyal +people's welfare. If an imperial proclamation were issued to the +contrary effect—a proclamation condemning or repudiating the operations +of the peasants—the latter would refuse to believe it to be genuine. +That occurs again and again about this very idea of the black division, +which has obtained possession of the brains of the rural population. It +often happens that in a season of excitement, like the time of the +Russo-Turkish war, or of famine, like the winter of 1880-81, the rumours +and expectations of the black division become especially definite and +lively, and lead to meetings and discussions and disturbances which the +Government think it prudent to stop. In 1879 the Minister of the +Interior, with this object in view, issued a circular contradicting the +rumours that were spread abroad, which was read in all the villages and +affixed to the public buildings. It stated, as plainly as it was +possible to state anything, that there would be no redistribution, and +that the landlords would retain their property; but it produced no +effect. Professor Engelhardt wrote one of his published "Letters from a +Village" at that very moment, and states that the <i>moujiks</i> would not +understand the circular to mean anything more than a request that they +would for a time abstain from gossiping at random about the coming +redistribution. One of their reasons for making this odd +misinterpretation is curious. The circular warned the people against +"evil-intentioned" persons who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> disseminated false reports, and gave +instructions to the authorities to apprehend them. These +evil-intentioned persons were, of course, the nihilist agitators, who +were making use of these reports to foment an agrarian insurrection; but +the peasants took these enemies of the Government to be the landlords +and others who had, they believed, set themselves against the +redistribution movement and prevented the benevolence and righteous +purposes of the Czar from descending upon his people. In some parts of +Russia there has sprung up since 1870 a group of peasantry known as "the +medalmen," who have persuaded themselves that the Czar not only wants to +give them more land, but has long since decreed their exemption from all +taxation except the poll tax. They say, moreover, that he struck a medal +to commemorate this gracious design of his, which has been, as usual, so +wickedly frustrated by his subordinates; and that even, as things are, +one has but to get hold of one of these medals and show it to the +collector, and the collector is bound to give the holder the exemption +he wants. The medals to which so much virtue is ascribed are merely the +medals struck to commemorate the Emancipation of the Serfs; but the +"medalmen," who are generally men that have parted with their land, sold +their houses, and settled at the mines, pay very high prices for one of +these medals, wear it constantly about their necks, and think it will +secure them a genuine respite from the burden of taxation they have to bear.</p> + +<p>The nihilist propagandists think—and the idea seems very +remarkable—that this childish and ignorant confidence in the Czar will +not be able to stand much longer the strain of the increasing +difficulties of the rural situation. The propagandists make it their +business to keep alive the idea of the black division in the hearts of +the <i>moujiks</i>, and make use of every successive disappointment at its +continued delay as an instrument of alienating the affections of the +people from the throne. A peasantry are very slow to throw over old +sentiments, and will suffer long before breaking with the past, but they +take a sure grip of their own interest, and they will turn sometimes +very decisively and very gregariously to new deliverers. The Russian +peasants see themselves settled on plots of ground too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> small to work +with profit, and overburdened with taxes; they have to pay sixty per +cent. of all their earnings in dues of all kinds on their land; and they +cast their eyes abroad and see two-thirds of the country still +unpossessed by the people, one-half still owned by the State, and +one-sixth by the greater landowners; and with the communistic ideas in +which they have been nursed, they feel that it is time for a new +division of the greater order to take place. A gigantic crofter question +is impending, and this agrarian agitation for more land is likely enough +to make nihilism a more formidable thing in the future than it has been +in the past. Hitherto it has taken little hold of the peasantry. At +first it was a movement of educated young Russia merely, and might be +counted with the ordinary intellectual excesses of youth. It only became +a serious political force after the Emancipation Act; but it was still a +movement of the upper classes, and in spite of immense exertions it has +remained so. The situation, however, is rapidly changing, and with the +rise—so remarkable in many ways—of a numerous rural proletariat in the +country that was supposed to enjoy special protection against it, with +the growing distress and discontent of the peasantry, with the louder +and more persistent cries for the black division, which their hereditary +conception of agrarian justice suggests to them as the only solution of +their troubles, who will say what to-morrow may bring forth?</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the Will of the People party has continued its activity. We +still hear occasionally of murders, and demonstrations, and arrests, and +discoveries of nihilist plots on the life of the Czar or of high +servants of the Crown, and of alarming discoveries of the hold the +movement was taking in the army. But, according to one of the most +recent writers on the subject, the author of "Socialismus und +Anarchismus, 1883-1886," who admits, however, that it is very difficult +to obtain authentic information about it under the rigorous system of +repression at present practised by the Russian authorities, a small +section of this party, whom he calls the followers of Peter Lavroff, +have been developing more in line with German Social Democracy, and have +organized themselves into a society called the Labour Emancipation +League, which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>prefers peaceful means of agitation, and in March, 1885, +published its programme, demanding (1) a constitution, (2) the +nationalization of land, (3) the handing over of factories to the +possession of societies of productive labourers, (4) free education, (5) +abolition of a standing army, and (6) full liberty of association and +meeting. The same writer states, however, that this socialist group are +not numerous, and that the various robberies, murders, plots against the +Czar's life, incitements of peasant disturbances, seizures of weapons +and printing presses that keep on occurring, show that the nihilists, as +the others still appear to be called, are much the most active and the +most important section of the revolutionary party. He mentions also that +in 1884 considerable sensation was produced by the discovery of an +anarchist secret society in Warsaw, with several magistrates at its +head, which aimed at creating a revolution in Poland,—Prussian and +Austrian Poland, as well as Russian,—and rebuilding the Polish nation +on a socialist basis. On the apprehension of its leaders it dissolved, +but sprang to life again almost immediately in two separate +organizations—one directly allied with the Russian Terrorists, and the +other, under the influence of a Jew named Mendelssohn, suppressing its +Polish nationalism for the present, and linking itself with the Russian +socialists—presumably the followers of Lavroff just mentioned.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER X.</span> <span class="smaller">SOCIALISM AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION.</span></h2> + +<p>The renewal of the socialist agitation has not been unproductive of +advantage, for it has led to a general recognition that the economic +position of the people is far from satisfactory and is not free from +peril, and that industrial development, on the lines on which it has +hitherto been running, offers much less prospect than was at one time +believed of effecting any substantial, steady, and progressive +improvement in their condition. It is only too manifest that the immense +increase of wealth which has marked the present century has been +attended with surprisingly little amelioration in the general lot of the +people, and it is in no way remarkable that this fact should tend to +dishearten the labouring classes, and fill reflecting minds with serious +concern. Under the influence of this experience economists of the +present day meet socialism in a very different way from Bastiat and the +economists of 1848. They entertain no longer the same absolute +confidence in the purely beneficent character of the operation of the +principles at present guiding the process of industrial evolution, or in +the sovereign virtue of competition, unassisted and unconnected, as an +agency for the distribution as well as the production of wealth; and +they no longer declare that there is not and cannot possibly be a social +question. On the contrary, some of them take almost as unfavourable a +view of the road we are on as the socialists themselves. Mr. Cairnes, +one of the very ablest of them, says: "The fund available for those who +live by labour tends, in the progress of society, while growing actually +larger, to become a constantly smaller fraction of the entire national +wealth. If, then, the means of any one class of society are to be +permanently limited to this fund, it is evident, assuming that the +progress of its members keeps pace with that of other classes, that its +material <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>condition in relation to theirs cannot but decline. Now, as it +would be futile to expect, on the part of the poorest and most ignorant +of the population, self-denial and prudence greater than that actually +practised by the classes above them, the circumstances of whose life are +so much more favourable than theirs for the cultivation of these +virtues, the conclusion to which I am brought is this, that unequal as +is the distribution of wealth already in this country, the tendency of +industrial progress—on the supposition that the present separation +between industrial classes is maintained—is towards an inequality +greater still. The rich will be growing richer; and the poor, at least +relatively, poorer. It seems to me, apart altogether from the question +of the labourer's interest, that these are not conditions which furnish +a solid basis for a progressive social state; but having regard to that +interest, I think the considerations adduced show that the first and +indispensable step towards any serious amendment of the labourer's lot +is that he should be, in one way or other, lifted out of the groove in +which he at present works, and placed in a position compatible with his +becoming a sharer in equal proportion with others in the general +advantages arising from industrial progress." ("Leading Principles," p. +340.) He thinks it beyond question that the condition of the labouring +population is not so linked to the progress of industrial improvements +that we may count on it rising <i>pari passu</i> with that progress; because, +in the first place, the labourer can only benefit from industrial +inventions which cheapen commodities that enter into his expenditure, +and the bulk of his expenditure is on agricultural products, which are +prevented from being cheapened by the increase of population always +increasing the demand for them; and, second, the labourer is practically +more and more divorced from the control of capital, and reduced to the +position of a recipient of wages, and there is no tendency in wages to +grow <i>pari passu</i> with the growth of wealth, because the demand for +labour, on which, in the last analysis, the rate of wages depends, is +always in an increasing degree supplied by inventions which dispense +with labour. He is thus debarred from participating in the advantages of +industrial progress either as consumer or as producer:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> as consumer, by +over-population; as producer, by his divorce from capital. Mr. Cairnes, +like most economists, differs from socialists in thinking that the first +requisite for any material improvement in the condition of the labouring +classes lies in effective restraints on population, but he says that +"even a very great change in the habits of the labouring classes as +bearing upon the increase of population—a change far greater than there +seems any solid ground for expecting—would be ineffectual, so long as +the labourer remains a mere receiver of wages, to accomplish any great +improvement in his state; any improvement at all commensurate with what +has taken place and may be expected hereafter to take place in the lot +of those who derive their livelihood from the profits of capital" (p. +335). Here he is entirely at one with socialists in believing that the +only surety for a sound industrial progress lies in checking the further +growth of capitalism by the encouragement of co-operative production, +which, by furnishing the labouring classes with a share in the one fund +that grows with the growth of wealth, the fund of capital, offers them +"the sole means of escape from a harsh and hopeless destiny" (p. 338). +Mr. Cairnes, then, agrees with the socialists in declaring that the +position of the wage-labourer is becoming less and less securely linked +with the progressive improvement of society, and that the only hope of +the labourer's future lies in his becoming a capitalist by virtue of +co-operation; only, of course, he is completely at issue with them in +regard to the means by which this change is to be effected, believing +that its introduction by the direct intervention of the State would be +unnecessary, ineffectual, and pernicious.</p> + +<p>I am disposed to think that Mr. Cairnes takes too despondent a view of +the possibilities of progress that are comprised in the position of the +wage-labourer, but it is precisely that view that has lent force to the +socialist criticism of the present order of things, and to the socialist +calls for a radical transformation by State agency. The main charges +brought by socialists against the existing economy are the three +following, all of which, they allege, are consequences of the +capitalistic management of industry and unregulated competition:—1st, +that it tends to reduce wages to the minimum required to give the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> +labourer his daily bread, and that it tends to prevent them from rising +above that minimum; 2nd, that it has subjected the labourer's life to +innumerable vicissitudes, made trade insecure, mutable and oscillatory, +and created relative over-population; and, 3rd, that it enables and even +forces the capitalist to rob the labourer of the whole increase of value +which is the fruit of his labour. These are the three great heads of +their philippic against modern society: the hopeless oppression of the +"iron and cruel law" of necessary wages, the mischief of incessant +crises and changes and of the chaotic <i>régime</i> of chance, and the +iniquity of capital in the light of their doctrine of value. Let us +examine them in their order.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>I. Socialists found their first charge partly on their interpretation of +the actual historical tendency of things, and partly on the teaching of +Ricardo and other economists on natural wages. Now, to begin with the +question of historical fact, the effect which has been produced by the +large system of production on the distribution of wealth and the general +condition of the working class is greatly misconceived by them. So far +as the distribution of wealth is concerned, the principal difference +that has occurred may be described as the decadence of the lower middle +classes, a decline both in the number of persons in proportion to +population who enjoy intermediate incomes, and also in the relative +amount of the average income they enjoy. Their individual income may be +higher than that of the corresponding class 150 or 200 years ago, but it +bears a less ratio to the average income of the nation. The reason of +this decline is, of course, obvious. The yeomanry, once a seventh of our +population, and the small masters in trade have gradually given way +before the economic superiority of the large capital or other causes, +and modern industry has as yet produced no other class that can, by +position and numbers, fill their room; for though, no doubt, the great +industries call into being auxiliary industries of various kinds, which +are still best managed on the small scale by independent tradesmen, the +number of middling incomes which the greater industries have thus +contributed to create has been far short of the number they have +extinguished. The same causes have, of course,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> exercised very important +effects on the economic condition of the working class. They have +reduced them more and more to the permanent position of wage-labourers, +and have left them relatively fewer openings than they once possessed +for investing their savings in their own line, and fewer opportunities +for the abler and more intelligent of them to rise to a competency. This +want may perhaps be ultimately supplied under existing industrial +conditions by the modern system of co-operation, which combines some of +the advantages of the small capital with some of the advantages of the +large, though it lacks one of the chief advantages of both, the +energetic, uncontrolled initiative of the individual capitalist. But at +present, at any rate, it is premature to expect this, and as things +stand, many of the old pathways that linked class with class are now +closed without being replaced by modern substitutes, and working men are +more purely and permanently wage-labourers than they used to be. But +while the wage-labourer has perhaps less chance than before of becoming +anything else, it is a mistake to suppose, as is sometimes done, that he +is worse off, or even, as is perhaps invariably imagined, that he has a +less share in the wealth of the country than he had when the wealth of +the country was less. On the contrary, the position of the wage-labourer +is really better than it has been for three hundred years. If we turn to +the period of the English Revolution, we find that the income which the +labourer and his family together were able to earn was habitually +insufficient to maintain them in the way they were accustomed to live. +Sir M. Hale, in his "Discourse Touching the Poor," published in 1683, +says the family of a working man, consisting of husband, wife, and four +children, could not be supported in meat, drink, clothing, and +house-rent on less than 10s. a week, and that he might possibly be able +to make that amount, if he got constant employment, and if two of his +children, as well as their mother, could earn something by their labour +too. Gregory King classifies the whole labouring population of the +country in his time, except a few thousand skilled artisans, among the +classes who decrease the wealth of the country, because, not earning +enough to keep them, they had to obtain occasional allowances from +public funds. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> do well to grieve over the pauperism that exists now +in England. A few years ago, one person in every twenty received +parochial support, and one in thirty does so yet. These figures, of +course, refer to those in receipt of relief at one time, and not to all +who received relief during a year. But for Scotland we have statistics +of both, and the latter come as nearly as possible to twice as many as +the former. If the same proportion rules in England, then every +fifteenth person receives relief in the course of the year.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> But in +King's time, out of a population of five millions and a half, 600,000 +were in receipt of alms, <i>i.e.</i>, more than one in ten; and if their +children under 16 years of age were included, their number would amount +to 900,000, or one in six. Now, while the labourers' wages were then, as +a rule, unequal to maintain them in the way they lived, we know that +their scale of living was much below that which is common among their +class to-day. The only thing which was much cheaper then than now was +butcher meat, mutton being only 2d. a lb., and beef, 1¼d.; but half +the population had meat only twice a week, and a fourth only once. The +labourer lived chiefly on bread and beer, and bread was as dear as it is +now. Potatoes had not come into general use. Butter and milk were +cheaper than now, but were not used to the same extent. Fuel, light, and +clothing were all much dearer, and salt was so much so as to form an +appreciable element in the weekly bill. When so many of the staple +necessaries of life were high in price, the labourer's wages naturally +could not afford a meat diet. Nothing can furnish a more decisive proof +of the rise in the real remuneration of the wage-labourer since the +Revolution than the fact that the wages of that period were insufficient +to maintain the lower standard of comfort prevalent then, without +parochial aid, while the wages of the same classes to-day are generally +able to maintain their higher standard of comfort without such +supplementary assistance. Then the hours of labour were, on the whole, +longer; the death rate in London was 1 in 27, in place of 1 in 40 now; +and all those general advantages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> of advancing civilization, which are +the heritage of all, were either absent or much inferior.</p> + +<p>These facts sufficiently show that if the rich have got richer since the +Revolution, the poor have not got poorer, and that the circumstances of +the labouring class have substantially improved with the growth of +national wealth. As far as their mere money income is concerned there is +some reason for thinking that the improvement has been as near as may be +proportional with the increase of wealth. The general impression is the +reverse of this. It is usual to hear it said that while the labourers' +circumstances have undoubtedly improved absolutely, they have not +improved relatively, as compared with the progress in the wealth of the +country and the share of it which other classes have succeeded in +obtaining. But this impression must be qualified, if not entirely +rejected, on closer examination. Data exist by which it can be to some +extent tested, and these data show that while considerable alterations +have been made in the distribution of wealth since the rise of the great +industries, these alterations have not been unfavourable to the +labouring classes, but that the proportion of the wealth of the country +which falls to the working man to-day is very much the same—is indeed +rather better than worse—than the proportion which fell to his share +two hundred years ago. Gregory King made an estimate of the distribution +of wealth among the various classes of society in England in 1688, +founded partly on the poll-books, hearth-books, and other official +statistical records, and partly on personal observation and inquiry in +the several towns and counties of England; and Dr. C. Davenant, who says +he had carefully examined King's statistics himself, checking them by +calculations of his own and by the schemes of other persons, pronounces +them to be "very accurate and more perhaps to be relied on than anything +that has been ever done of a like kind." Now, a comparison of King's +figures with the estimate of the distribution of the national income +made by Mr. Dudley Baxter from the returns of 1867, will afford some +sort of idea—though of course only approximately, and perhaps not very +closely so—of the changes that have actually occurred. King takes the +family income as the unit of his calculations. Baxter, on the other +hand, specifies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> all bread-winners separately—men, women, and children; +but to furnish a basis of comparison, let us take the men as +representing a family each, and if so, that would give us 4,006,260 +working-class families in the country in 1867. This is certainly a high +estimate of their number, because in 1871 there were only five million +of families in England; and according to the calculations of Professor +Leone Levi, the working class comprises no more than two-thirds of the +population, and would consequently consist in 1871 of no more than +3,300,000 families. If we were to take this figure as the ground of our +calculations, the result would be still more striking; but let us take +the number of working-class families to have been four millions in 1867. +The average income of a working-class family in King's time was £12 12s. +(including his artisan and handicraft families along with the other +labourers); the average income of a working class family now is £81. The +average income of English families generally in King's time was £32; the +average income of English families generally now is £162. The average +income of the country has thus increased five-fold, while the average +income of the working class has increased six and a half times. The +ratio of the working class income to the general income stood in King's +time as 1:2½, and now as 1:2. In 1688, 74 per cent. of the whole +population belonged to the working class, and they earned collectively +26 per cent. of the entire income of the country; in 1867—according to +the basis we have adopted, though the proportion is doubtless really +less—80 per cent. of the whole population belonged to the working +class, and they earned collectively 40 per cent. of the entire income of +the country. Their share of the population has increased 6 per cent.; +their share of the income 14 per cent.</p> + +<p>Now, I am far from adducing these considerations with the view of +suggesting that the present condition of the working classes or the +present distribution of wealth is even approximately satisfactory, but I +think they ought to be sufficient to disperse the gloomy apprehensions +which trouble many minds as if, with all our national prosperity, the +condition of the poorer classes were growing ever worse and could not +possibly, under existing industrial conditions, grow any better; to +prevent us from prematurely condemning a system of society,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> whose +possibilities for answering the legitimate aspirations of the working +class are so far from being exhausted, that it may rather be said that a +real beginning has hardly as yet been made to accomplish them; and to +give ground for the hope that the existing economy, which all admit to +be a most efficient instrument for the production of wealth, may, by +wise correction and management, be made a not inadequate agency for its distribution.</p> + +<p>The socialists are not more fortunate in their argument from the +teaching of economists than in their account of the actual facts and +tendency of history. The "iron and cruel law" of necessary wages is, as +expounded by economists, neither so iron nor so cruel as Lassalle +represented it to be. They taught that the price of labour, like the +price of everything else, tended to settle at the level of the relative +cost of its production, and that the cost of its production meant the +cost of producing the subsistence required to maintain the labourer in +working vigour and to rear his family to continue the work of society +after his day; but they always represented this as a minimum below which +wages would not permanently settle, but above which they might from +other causes remain for a continuity considerably elevated, and which, +even as a minimum, was in an essential way ruled by the consent of the +labouring classes themselves, and dependent on the standard of living +they chose habitually to adopt. If the rate of wages were forced down +below the amount necessary to maintain that customary standard of +living, the marriage rate of the labouring classes would tend to fall +and the rate of mortality to rise till the supply of labour diminished +sufficiently to restore the rate of wages to its old level. And +conversely, if the price of labour rose above that limit, the marriage +rate among the labouring class would tend to rise and the rate of +mortality to fall, till the numbers of the working population increased +to such an extent as to bring it down again. But the rate of marriage +depended on the will and consent of the labouring class, and their +consent was supposed to be given or withheld according as they +themselves considered the current wages sufficient or insufficient to +support a family upon. The amount of the labourer's "necessary" +subsistence was never thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> to be a hard and fast limit inflexibly +fixed by physical conditions. It was not a bare living; it was the +living which had become customary or was considered necessary by the +labourer. Its amount might be permanently raised, if in consequence of a +durable rise of wages a higher standard of comfort came to be habitual +and to be counted essential, and the addition so made to it would then +become as real an element of natural or necessary wages in the economic +sense as the rest. Its amount might also permanently fall, if the +labourers ceased to think it necessary and contentedly accommodated +their habits to the reduced standard, and there might thus ensue a +permanent degradation of the labourer, such as took place in Ireland in +the present century, when the labouring class adjusted themselves to +reduction after reduction till their lower standard of living served, in +the first place, to operate as an inducement to marriage instead of a +check on it, because marriage could not make things worse, and at least +lightened the burdens of life by the sympathy that shared them; and +served, in the second place, to impair the industrial efficiency of the +labourer till he was hardly worth better wages if he could have got +them. So far then was the doctrine of economists from involving any +"iron or cruel" limit that they always drew from it the lesson that it +was in the power of the labouring classes to elevate themselves by the +pleasant, if somewhat paradoxical, expedient of first enlarging their +scale of expenditure. "Pitch your standard of comfort high, and your +income will look after itself," is scarcely an unfair description of the +rule of prudent imprudence they inculcated on working people. They +believed that the chief danger to which that class was exposed was their +own excessive and too rapid multiplication, and they considered the best +protection against this danger to lie in the powerful preventive of a +high scale of habitual requirements.</p> + +<p>Moreover, Ricardo distinctly maintained that though the natural rate of +wages was determined as he had explained, yet the operation of that +natural law might be practically suspended in a progressive community +for an indefinite period, and that the rate of wages actually given +might even keep on advancing the whole time, because capital was capable +of increasing much more rapidly than population. The price of labour, he +taught,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> would in that case be always settled by the demand for it which +was created by the accumulation of capital, and the sole condition of +the accumulation of capital was the productive power of labour. The rate +of wages in a progressive community might therefore almost never be in +actual fact determined by this "iron and cruel law" at all, and so there +is not the smallest ground for representing economists as teaching that +the present system compels the rate of wages or the labourer's +remuneration to hover to and fro over the margin of indigence.</p> + +<p>Lassalle, then, built his agitation on a combination of errors. He was +wrong in his interpretation of the tendency of actual historical +development; he was wrong in his interpretation of the doctrine of +economists; and now, to complete the confusion, that doctrine is itself +wrong. If we are at all to distinguish a natural or normal rate of wages +from the fluctuating rates of the market, that natural or normal rate +will be found really to depend, not on the cost of producing +subsistence, but on the amount or rate of general production, or the +amount of production <i>per capita</i> in the community, or, in other words, +on the average productivity of labour. It is manifest that this would be +so in a primitive condition of society in which industry was as yet +conducted without the intervention of a special employing class, for +then the wages of labour would consist of its product, and be, in fact, +as Smith says, only another name for it. It would depend, however, not +exclusively on the individual labourer's own efficiency, but also on the +fertility of the soil and the general efficiency of the rest of the +labouring community. While according to his own efficiency he would +possess a greater or smaller stock of articles, which, after providing +for his own wants, he might exchange for other articles produced by his +neighbours; the quantity he would get in exchange for them would be +great or small according to the degree of his neighbour's efficiency. +The average real remuneration of labour, or the average rate of wages, +in such a community would therefore correspond with the average +productivity of its labour. But the same principle holds good in the +more complex organization of industrial society that now exists, though +its operation is more difficult to trace.</p> + +<p>The price of labour is now determined by a struggle between<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> the +labourer and the employer, and the fortunes of the struggle move between +two very real, if not very definitely marked, limits, the lower of which +is constituted by the smallest amount which the labourer can afford to +take, and the higher by the largest amount which the employer can afford +to give. The former is determined by the amount necessary to support +life, and the latter by the amount necessary to secure an adequate +profit. Now the space between these two limits will be always great or +small in proportion to the general productivity of labour in the +community. The general productivity of labour acts upon the rate of +wages in two ways, immediately and mediately. Immediately, because, as +is manifest, efficient labour is worth more to the employer than +inefficient; and mediately, as I shall presently show, because it +conduces to a greater diversion of wealth for productive purposes, and +so increases the general demand for labour. In modern society, as in +primitive, the labourer not only obtains a higher remuneration if he is +efficient himself, but gathers a higher remuneration from the efficiency +of his neighbours.</p> + +<p>This will be obvious at once to any one who reflects on the improved +remuneration of the common unskilled labourers. The man who works with +pick and shovel makes, according to Mr. Mulhall's estimate, £30 a year +now, while he only made £12 a year in 1800, when bread was about twice +as dear, and yet he probably did quite as good a day's work then as he +does now, except so far as his better wages have themselves helped his +powers of labour, through affording him a more liberal diet, and in that +case the same question is raised, How did he come to get these better +wages? It was not on account of an increase in his own production, for +that was the effect, not the cause; it was on account of the general +increase in the productivity of all labour round about him. The great +improvement in industrial processes have brought in more plentiful +times, and he shares in the general plenty, though he may not have +directly contributed to its production. He gets more for the same work, +not merely because people in general, with their larger surplus, can +afford to give him more, but because, having more to devote to +industrial investment, they increase the demand for labour till they are +obliged to give him more.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p><p>The proximate demand for labour is, of course, capital, but the amount +of capital which a community tends to possess—in other words, the +amount of wealth it tends to detach for industrial investment—bears a +constant relation to the amount of its general production. There is a +disposition among economists to speak of the quantity of a nation's +savings, as if it was something given and complete that springs up +independently of industrial conditions, and as irrespectively of the +purpose to which it is to be applied as the number of eggs a fowl lays +or the amount of fruit a tree bears. But, in reality, it is not so. The +amount of a nation's savings is no affair of chance; it is governed much +more by commercial reasons than is sometimes supposed. It is no +sufficient account of the matter to say that men save because they have +a disposition to save, because there is a strong cumulative propensity +in the national character. They save because they think to get a profit +by saving, and the point at which the nation stops saving is the point +at which this expectation ceases to be gratified, the point at which +enough has been accumulated to occupy the entire field of profitable +investment which the community offers at the time. Some part of a +nation's savings will always have originated in a desire to provide +security for the future, but, as this part is less subject to +fluctuation, it exercises less influence in determining the extent of +the whole than the more variable part, which is only saved when there is +sufficient hope of gain from investing it. There may be said to be a +natural amount of capital in a country, in at least as true a sense as +there is a natural price of labour, or a natural price of commodities. +Capital has its bounds in the general industrial conditions and stature +of the community, but it moves and answers these conditions with much +more elasticity than the wage-fund theory used to acknowledge. It is, as +Hermann said, a mere medium of conveyance between consumer and consumer, +and has its size decreed for it by the quantities it has to convey. The +general demand for commodities is a demand for capital. It creates the +expectation of profit which capital is diverted from expenditure to +gratify, and since it is itself in another aspect the general supply of +commodities, it furnishes the possibilities for meeting the demand for +capital<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> which it creates. This whole argument may seem to be reasoning +in a circle or wheeling round a pivot, and so in a sense it may be, for +the wheel of industry is circular. The rate of wages depends on the +demand for labour; the demand for labour depends on the amount of +capital; the amount of capital depends on the aggregate production of +and demand for commodities; and the amount of aggregate production +depends on the average productivity of labour. It is but a more +circuitous way of saying the same thing as the older economists said, +when they declared the rate of wages to depend on the supply of capital, +as compared with population; but it shows that the supply of capital is +a more elastic element than they conceived, that it adjusts and +re-adjusts itself more easily and sensitively to industrial conditions, +including perhaps even those of population, and that it is governed in a +very real way by the great primary factor that determines the whole size +and scale of the industrial system in all its parts, the general +productivity of labour. Taking one country with another, the rate of +wages will be found to observe a certain proportion to the amount of +production <i>per capita</i> in the community.</p> + +<p>This view will be confirmed by a comparison of the actual rate of wages +prevalent in different countries. Lord Brassey has published an +important body of positive evidence tending to show that the cost of +labour is the same all over the world, that for the same wages you get +everywhere the same work, and that the higher price of labour in some +countries than in others is simply due to its higher efficiency. Mr. +Cairnes, who did not accept this conclusion unconditionally, had, +however, himself previously estimated that a day's labour in America +produced as much as a day and a third's in Great Britain, to a day and a +half's in Belgium, a day and three-fourths' or two days' in France and +Germany, and to five days' labour in India. Now, when due regard is had +for the influence of special historical circumstances, it will be found +that the rate of wages observes very similar proportions in these +several countries. In America it is higher than the relative +productivity of the country would explain, because a new country with +boundless natural resources creates a permanently exceptional demand for +labour; because the facilities<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> with which land can be acquired and +wrought, even by men without previous agricultural training, affords a +ready correction to temporary redundancies of labour; and because the +labour itself is more mobile, versatile, and energetic in a nation +largely composed of immigrants. Other modifying influences also +interfere to preclude the possibility of a precise correspondence +between national rates of wages and national amounts of production <i>per +capita</i>, for different countries vary much in the extent of the fixed +capital they employ to economize personal labour. But enough has been +said to show that, if a natural rate of wages is to be sought at all, it +must be looked for, not in the cost of the production of subsistence, +but in the rate of the production of commodities; and while the standard +of living and the price of labour tend to some extent to keep one +another up, the higher standard of living prevalent among labourers in +some countries is a consequence much more than a condition of the higher +rate of wages, which the higher productivity of labour in those countries occasions.</p> + +<p>There is therefore no ground for Lassalle's representation that the law +of necessary wages condemns ninety-six persons in every hundred to an +existence of hopeless misery to enable the other four to ride in luxury. +The principles that govern the rate of wages are much more flexible than +he supposed, and the experience of trade unions has sufficiently +demonstrated that it is within the power of the wage-labourers +themselves to effect by combination a material increase in the price of +their labour. Trade unions have taken away the shadow of despondency +that lay over the hired labourer's lot. Their margin of effective +operation is strictly limited; still such a margin exists, and they have +turned it to account. They have put the labourer in a position to hold +out for his price; they have converted the question of wages from the +question, how little the labourer can afford to take, into the question, +how much the employer can afford to give. They have been able, in trades +not subject to foreign competition, to effect a permanent rise in wages +at the expense of prices, and they can probably, in all trades, succeed +in keeping the rate of wages well up to its superior limit, viz., to the +point at which, while the skilful employers might still afford to give +more, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>unskilful could not do so without ceasing to conduct a +profitable business and being driven out of the field altogether. For +unskilful management tells as ill on wages as inefficient labour. On the +other hand, high wages, like many other difficult conditions, +undoubtedly tend to develop skilful management. The employer is put on +his mettle, and all his administrative resource is called into action +and keen play. They who, like socialists, inveigh against this modern +despot, ought to reflect how much less possible it would have been for +wages to have risen, if industry had been in the hands of hired managers +who were not put to their mettle, because they had no personal stake in +the result. It must not be forgotten, however, that while trade unions +are able to keep the rate of wages up to its superior limit, they have +no power to raise that limit itself. This can only be done by an +increase in the general productivity of labour, and, in fact, the action +of trade unions could not have been so effective as it has been, unless +the high production of the country afforded them the conditions for +success. And since, in consequence of their action and vigilance, the +rate of wages in the trades they represent may be now taken as usually +standing close to its superior limit, the chief hope of any further +substantial improvement in the future must now be placed in the +possibility of raising that limit by an increased productivity.</p> + +<p>Of this the prospect is really considerable and promising. Of course +labourers will never benefit to the full from improvements in the +productive arts, until by some arrangement, or by many arrangements, +they are made sharers in industrial capital; but they will benefit from +these improvements, though in less measure, even as pure wage-labourers. +Their unions will be on the watch to prevent the whole advantage of the +improvement from going towards a reduction of the price of the commodity +they produce, and such reduction in the price of the commodity as +actually takes place will enable its consumers to spend so much the more +of their means on commodities made by other labourers, and to that +extent to increase the demand for the labour of the latter. But the +field from which I expect the most direct and extensive harvest to the +working class is the development of their own personal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> efficiency. At +present neither employers nor labourers seem fully alive to the +resources which this field is capable of yielding, if it were wisely and +fairly cultivated. Both classes are often so bent on immediate advantage +that they lose sight of their real and enduring interest. It is doubtful +whether employers are more slow to see how much inadequate remuneration +and uncomfortable circumstances impair efficiency and retard production, +or labourers to perceive how much limiting the general rate of +production tends to reduce the general rate of wages. In labour +requiring mainly physical strength, contractors sufficiently appreciate +the fact that their navvies must be well fed if they are to stand to +their work, and that an extra shilling a day makes a material difference +in the output. But in all forms of skilled labour, likewise, analogous +conditions prevail. Just as slave-labour is inefficient because it is +reluctantly given, and is wanting in the versatility and resourcefulness +that comes from general intelligence, so is free labour less efficient +or more efficient in exact proportion to its fertility of resource and +to the hopefulness and cheerfulness with which it is exerted; and both +conditions are developed in the working class in precise ratio with +their general comfort. The intelligent workman takes less time to learn +his trade, needs less superintendence at his work, and is less wasteful +of materials; and the cheerful workman, besides these merits, expends +more energy with less exhaustion. But men can have no hope in their work +while they live purely from hand to mouth, and you cannot spread habits +of intelligence among the labouring class, if their means are too poor +or their leisure too short to enable them to participate in the culture +that is going on around them.</p> + +<p>But if employers are apt to take too narrow a view of the worth of good +wages as a positive source of high production, labourers are apt to take +equally narrow views of the worth of high production as a source of good +wages. The policy of limiting production is expressly countenanced by a +few of their trade unions, with the concurrence, I fear, of a +considerable body of working-class opinion. This is shown in their idea +of "making work," in their prohibition of "chasing"—<i>i.e.</i>, of a +workman exceeding a given average standard of production<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>—and in their +prejudice against piecework. Their notion of making work is irrational. +They think they can make work by simply not doing it, by spinning it +out, by going half speed, under the impression that they are in this way +leaving the more over to constitute a demand for their labour to-morrow. +And so, in the immediate case in hand and for the particular time, it +may sometimes be. But if this practice were to be turned into a law +universal among working men, if all labourers were to act upon it +everywhere, then the general production of the country would be +immediately reduced, and the general demand for labour, and the rate of +wages, would inevitably fall in a corresponding degree. Instead of +making work, they would have unmade half the work there used to be, and +have brought their whole class to comparative poverty by contracting the +ultimate sources from which wages come. The true way to make work for +to-morrow is to do as much as one can to-day. For the produce of one +man's labour is the demand for the produce of another man's. There is +nothing more difficult for any class than to reach an enlightened +perception of its own general interest.</p> + +<p>The objection usually made to "chasing" and piecework is that they +always end in enabling employers to extract more work out of the men +without giving them any more pay, and that they conduce to +overstraining. Now piecework, without a fixed list of prices, is of +course liable to the abuse which, it is alleged, masters have made of +it. But with a fixed list of prices the labourers ought, with the aid of +their unions, to be as able to hold their own against the encroachments +of the masters under piecework as under day work, and piecework is so +decidedly advantageous, both to masters and to men, that it would be +foolish for the former to refuse the reasonable concession of a fixed +list of prices; and it would be equally foolish for the latter to oppose +the system under the delusive fear of a danger which it is amply in +their own power to meet. There is a good deal of force in the view of +Mr. William Denny, that piecework will prove the best and most natural +transition from the present system to a <i>régime</i> of co-operative +production, because it furnishes many kinds of actual opportunities for +practising co-operation; but whatever may be the promise of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> piecework +for the age that is to come, there is no question about its promise for +the life that now is. Mr. Denny, speaking from experience in his own +extensive shipbuilding works at Dumbarton, says that "a workman under +piecework generally increases his output in the long run—partly by +working hard, but principally by exercising more intelligence and +arranging his work better—by about 75 per cent., while the total amount +of his wages increases by about 50 per cent., making a distinct saving +in the wages portion of the cost of a given article of about 14 per +cent." ("The Worth of Wages," p. 19.)<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> Similar testimony is given by +Goltz, Boehmert, and a writer in Engels' <i>Zeitschrift</i> for 1868, as to +the effect of the introduction of piecework into continental industries, +and Roscher ascribes much of the industrial superiority of England to +the prevalence of piecework here. According to Mr. Howell, more than +seventy per cent. of the work of this country is done at present by the +piece, and the Trades' Union Commission found it the accepted rule in +the majority of the industries that came under their investigation; in +fact, in all except engineering, ironfounding, and some of the building +trades. The engineers entertain a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> strong objection to it, and their +union has sometimes expelled members who have persisted in taking it. +But the system works smoothly enough when an established price-list has +become a recognised practice of the trade. The objection that the piece +system leads to careless, scamped and inferior work, call hardly be +considered a genuine working-class objection. That is the look-out of +the masters, and they find it easier to check quality than to check +quantity. Another reason sometimes given against piecework is that under +it some men get more than their share in the common stock of work, but +there lurks in this reason the same fallacy which lies in the notion of +"making work," the fallacy of seeking to raise the level of wages by +limiting production, and so diminishing the common stock of work of +society. Labourers seem sometimes to harbour an impression as if they +were losing something when their neighbours were making more than +themselves. Work appears to them—no doubt in consequence of the +fluctuations and intermittent activity of modern trade—to come in +bursts and windfalls, nobody knows whence or how, and they are sometimes +uneasy to see the harvest being apparently disproportionately +appropriated by more active and efficient hands. But in the end, and as +a steady general rule, they are gainers and not losers by the efficiency +of the more expert workmen, because productivity, so far from drying up +the sources of work, is the very thing that sets them loose.</p> + +<p>A more important objection is the danger of overstraining, against which +of course the working class are wise to exercise a most jealous +vigilance. But, in the first place, it is easy to exaggerate this +danger. It is not really from any deepened drain on the physical powers +of the workmen, so much as from a quickening of his mental life in his +work, that increase in his productivity is to be expected. Mr. Denny, it +will be observed, attributes the additional output under piecework not +nearly so much to harder labour as to the exercise of more intelligence +and to a better arrangement of the work. But, in the next place, to my +mind the great advantage of piecework is that it affords a sound +economic reason for shortening the day of labour. The work being +intenser, demands a shorter day, and being more productive, justifies +it. If the figures I have quoted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> from Mr. Denny are at all +representative, then a labourer, working by the piece, can turn out 40 +per cent. more in eight hours than working by the day he can do in ten. +Differences may be expected to obtain in this respect in different +trades and kinds of work, so that there possibly cannot be any normal +day of labour for all trades alike, and each must adjust the term of its +labour to its own circumstances. But wherever piecework can increase the +rate of production to the extent mentioned by Mr. Denny, the day of +labour may be shortened with advantage, and it can apparently do so in +the very trades that most strongly object to it. A fact mentioned by Mr. +Nasmyth, in his remarkable evidence before the Trades Union Commission, +opens a striking view of the possibilities of increasing production +through developing the personal efficiency of the labouring class, and +of doing so without requiring any severe strain. "When I have been +watching men in my own work," he says, "I have noticed that at least +two-thirds of their time, even in the case of the most careful workmen, +is spent, not in work, but in criticising with the square or +straight-edge what they have been working, so as to say whether it is +right or wrong." And he adds—"I have observed that wherever you meet +with a dexterous workman, you will find that he is a man that need not +apply in one case in ten to his straight-edge or square." And why are +not all dexterous, or, at least, why are they not much more dexterous +than they now are? Mr. Nasmyth's answer is, because the faculty of +comparison by the eye is undeveloped in them, and he contends that this +faculty is capable of being educated in every one to a very much higher +degree than exists at present, and that its development ought to be made +a primary object of direct training at school. "If you get a boy," he +says, "to be able to lay a pea in the middle of two other peas, and in a +straight line with these two, that boy is a vast way on in the arts." He +has gone through a most valuable industrial apprenticeship before he has +entered a workshop at all. If, through training the eye, workmen can +save two-thirds of their time, it is manifest that there is abundant +scope for increasing productivity and shortening the day of labour at +the same time. Industrial efficiency is much more a thing of mind than +of muscle. <i>Jeder Arbeiter ist auch Kopfarbeiter.</i> All work is also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> +head work. Skill is but a primary labour-saving apparatus engrafted by +mind on eye and limb, and it is in developing the mental faculties of +the labourers by well-directed training, both general and technical, +that the chief conditions for their further improvement lie. Their +progress in intelligence may therefore be expected to increase their +productivity so as to justify a shortening of their day of labour, and +the leisure so acquired may be expected to be used so as to increase +their intelligence. Any advance men really make in the scale of moral +and mental being tends in this way to create the conditions necessary for its maintenance.</p> + +<p>We sometimes hear the same pessimist prophecy about shorter hours as we +have heard for centuries about better wages, that they will only seduce +the working class to increased dissipation. But experience is against +this view. Of course more leisure and more pay are merely means which +the labourer may according to his habits use for his destruction as +easily as for his salvation. But the increase in the number of +apprehensions for drunkenness that frequently accompanies a rise in +wages proves neither one thing nor another as to the general effect of +the rise on the whole class of labourers who have obtained it; it proves +only that the more dissipated among them are able to get oftener drunk. +Nor can the singular manifestations which the full hand sometimes takes +with the less instructed sections of the working class, especially when +it has been suddenly acquired, furnish any valid inference as to the way +it would be used by the working class in general, particularly if it +were their permanent possession. The evidence laid before the House of +Lords Committee on Intemperance shows that the skilled labourers of this +country are becoming less drunken as their wages and general position +are improving; and Porter, in his "Progress of the Nation," adduces some +striking cases of a steady rise of wages making a manifest change for +the better in the habits of unskilled labourers. He mentions, on the +authority of a gentleman who had the chief direction of the work, that +"the formation of a canal in the North of Ireland for some time afforded +steady employment to a portion of the peasantry, who before that time +were suffering all the evils so common in that country<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> which result +from precariousness of employment. Such work as they could previously +get came at uncertain intervals, and was sought by so many competitors +that the remuneration was of the scantiest amount. In this condition the +men were improvident to recklessness. Their wages, insufficient for the +comfortable maintenance of their families, were wasted in procuring for +themselves a temporary forgetfulness of their misery at the whisky shop, +and the men appeared to be sunk into a state of hopeless degradation. +From the moment, however, that work was offered to them which was +constant in its nature and certain in its duration, and on which their +weekly earnings would be sufficient to provide for their comfortable +support, men who had been idle and dissolute were converted into sober, +hardworking labourers, and proved themselves kind and careful husbands +and fathers; and it is stated as a fact that, notwithstanding the +distribution of several hundred pounds weekly in wages, the whole of +which, would be considered as so much additional money placed in their +hands, the consumption of whisky was absolutely and permanently +diminished in the district. During the comparatively short period in +which the construction of this canal was in progress, some of the most +careful labourers—men who most probably before then never knew what it +was to possess five shillings at any one time—saved sufficient money to +enable them to emigrate to Canada, where they are now labouring in +independence for the improvement of their own land" (p. 451). It may be +difficult to extirpate drunkenness in our climate even with good wages, +but it is certainly impossible with bad, for bad wages mean insufficient +nourishment, comfortless house accommodation, and a want of that +elasticity after work which enables men to find pleasure in any other +form of enjoyment. As with better wages, so with shorter hours. The +leisure gained may be misused, especially at first; but it is +nevertheless a necessary lever for the social amelioration of the +labouring class, and it will more and more serve this purpose as it +becomes one of their permanent acquisitions. There can be no question +that long hours and hard work are powerful predisposing causes to +drunkenness. Studnitz mentions that several manufacturers in America had +informed him that they had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> invariably remarked, that with solitary +exceptions here and there, the men who wrought for the longest number of +hours were most prone to dissipation, and that the others were more +intelligent, and formed on the whole a better class. Part of the +prejudice entertained by working men against piecework comes from the +fact that it is very often accompanied with overtime, and when that is +the case, it generally exerts an unfavourable effect on the habits of +the workman. Mr. Applegarth said, in his evidence before the Trades +Union Commission, that nothing degraded the labourer like piecework and +overtime. Mr. George Potter stated, in his evidence before the Select +Committee on Masters and Operatives in 1860, that it was a common saying +among working people with regard to a man who works hard by piecework +and overtime, that such a man is generally a drunkard. He ascribed much +of the intemperance of the labouring class to the practice of working +"spells"—<i>i.e.</i>, heats of work at high pressure on the piece and +overtime system—instead of steadily; and he says—"When I was at work +at the bench, I worked to a firm where there was much overtime and +piecework, and I found that the men at piecework were men who generally +spent five or six times more money in intoxicating drink, for the +purpose of keeping up their physical strength, than the men at day work. +I find, on close observation, that the men working at piecework are +generally a worse class of men in every way, both in intelligence and +education, and in pecuniary matters." Now, the ill effects which issue +from piecework combined with overtime could not accrue from piecework +combined with shorter hours. Besides, in a case of this kind it is +sometimes difficult to say which is cause and which effect, or how much +the one acts and reacts on the other. For both Mr. Potter and the +manufacturers mentioned by Studnitz represent the men who wrought +longest as being not only more drunken, but less intelligent and +educated, and, in fact, as being every way inferior; and we can easily +understand how men of unsteady habits should prefer to work "spells," +and try to make up by excessive work three days in the week, for +excessive drinking the other three.</p> + +<p>Dissipation and overtime generally go together, but neither<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> of them is +a necessary accompaniment of piecework. The best check to both is +probably the spread of general education among the working class, for +the better educated workmen are even at present usually found against +them; and the spread of general education—I do not speak here of +technical—among the working class is more fruitful than even piecework +itself in opening up fresh reserves of industrial efficiency in our +labouring manhood. Roscher has pointed out how a stimulant like +piecework produces in a fairly well-educated district twice the result +it produces in a comparatively illiterate one. Taking the figures of +Goltz on rural labour in different German States, he shows that while +the earnings of pieceworkers were only 11 per cent. higher than the +earnings of day-workers in Osnabruck, they were as much as 23 per cent. +higher in Hesse. Mr. Peshine Smith mentions that the Board of Education +in Massachusetts procured from overseers of factories in that State a +return of the different amounts of wages paid and the degree of +education of those who received them. Most of the work was done by the +piece, and it was found that the wages earned rose in exact ratio with +the degree of education, from the foreigners at the bottom who made +their mark as the signature of their weekly receipts to the girls at the +top who did school in winter and worked in factories in summer. In some +branches of industry many new improvements remain unused because the +workpeople are too ignorant to work them properly. Moreover, for the +supreme quality of resourcefulness, education is like hands and feet, +and if we may judge from the number of useful labour-saving inventions +which working men give us even now, we cannot set limits to the number +they will give when the whole labouring class will have got the use of +their mind by an adequate measure of general education, and when, as we +may hope, they will have got leisure to use it in through a shortening +of the day of labour. The possibilities of this last source are very +well illustrated by an experiment of Messrs. Denny. In 1880 they +established in their ship-building yard at Dumbarton an award scheme for +recompensing inventions made by their workmen for improving existing +machinery or applying it to a new class of work, or introducing new +machinery in place of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> hand labour, or discovering any new method of +arranging or securing work that either improved its quality or +economized its cost. Mr. William Denny stated, after the scheme had been +nearly seven years in operation, that in that time as many as 196 awards +had been given for inventions which were thought useful to adopt, that +three times that number had been submitted for consideration, and that +besides being beneficial in causing so many useful improvements to be +made, the scheme had the effect of making the workmen of all departments +into active thinking and planning beings instead of mere flesh and blood machines.</p> + +<p>I cannot, therefore, take so dark a view as is sometimes entertained of +the futurity of the wage-labourer, even if he were compelled to remain +purely and permanently such. His position has substantially improved in +the past, and contains considerable capabilities for continued +improvement in the future. Of course the action of trade unions, besides +being confined to the limits I have described, is subject to the further +restriction, that it can only avail for the labourers who belong to +them, and is indeed founded on the exclusion or diminution of the +competition of others. They impose limitations on the number of +apprentices, and prescribe a certain standard of efficiency, loosely +ascertained, as a condition of membership. There can be no manner of +objection to the latter measure, nor does the former, though it is +manifestly liable to abuse and is sometimes vexatious in its operation, +seem to be practically worked so as to diminish the labour in any +particular industry beneath the due requirements of trade, or to create +an unhealthy monopoly. Then, though the trade unionists gather their +gains by keeping off the competition of others, it cannot be said that +these others are necessarily in any worse position than they would have +occupied if trade unions had never come into existence. It may even be +that through the operation of custom, which will always have an +influence in settling the price of labour, a certain benefit may be +reflected upon them from a rise in the usual price effected by trade +union agency. But in any case, it is no sound objection to an agency of +social amelioration that its efficiency is only partial, for it is not +so much to any single panacea, as to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> the application of a multitude of +partial remedies, that we can most wisely trust for the accomplishment +of our great aim.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>II. The second main count in the socialist indictment of the present +industrial system is that it has multiplied the vicissitudes of trade, +and so imposed an incurable and distressing insecurity upon the +labourer's lot. The rapidity of technical transformation and the +frequency of commercial crises create, it is alleged, a perpetual +over-population, driving ever-increasing proportions of the labourers +out of active employment into what Marx calls the industrial reserve, +the hungry battalions of the half-employed or the altogether unemployed. +In regard to technical transformation, the effects of machinery on the +working class are now tolerably well understood. Individuals suffer in +the first instance, but the class, as a whole, is eventually a great +gainer. Machinery has always been the means of employing far more hands +than it superseded, when it did supersede any (for it has by no means +invariably done so). There is no way of "making work" like producing +wealth. The increased production due to machinery cheapens the +particular commodities produced by it, and thus enables the purchasers +of these commodities to spend more of their income on other things, and +so practically to make work for other labourers. But even in the trades +into which the machinery has been imported, the effect of its +introduction has been to multiply, instead of curtailing, employment. +Take the textile trades—much the most important of the machine +industries. Mr. Mulhall, in his "Dictionary of Statistics" (p. 338), +gives the following statistics of the textile operatives in the United +Kingdom at various dates:—</p> + +<table summary="textile operatives"> + <tr> + <td class="center">Year.</td> + <td class="center">Men.</td> + <td class="center">Women.</td> + <td class="center">Children.</td> + <td class="center">Total.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1835</td> + <td>82,000</td> + <td>167,000</td> + <td>104,000</td> + <td>353,000</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1850</td> + <td>158,000</td> + <td>329,000</td> + <td>109,000</td> + <td>596,000</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1880</td> + <td> 232,000</td> + <td> 543,000</td> + <td> 201,000</td> + <td> 976,000</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>Marx and others dwell much on the fact, that machinery leads frequently +to the substitution of female for male labour; but the preceding table +shows that while female labour has been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> largely multiplied, male labour +has been scarcely less so, and besides, a more extensive engagement of +women is in itself no public disadvantage. For half the question of our +pauperism is really the question of employment for women, it being so +much more difficult to find work for unemployed women than for +unemployed men; and if the course of industrial transformation opens up +new occupations that are suitable for them, it is so far entirely a +social gain, and no loss. No doubt, though the good accruing from +industrial transformation far outweighs the evil, yet evil does accrue +from it, and evil of the kind alleged, the tendency to develop local or +temporary redundancies of labour. But then that is an evil with which we +have never yet tried to cope, and it may probably be dealt with as +effectively on the present system as on any other. Socialism would stop +it by stopping the progress which it happens to accompany, and would +therefore envelop society in much more serious distress than it sought +to remove. In Marx's remarkable survey of English industrial history +almost every conquest of modern civilization is viewed with regret; but +it is manifestly idle to think of forcing society back now to a state in +which there should be no producing for profit, but only for private use, +no subdivision of labour, no machinery, no steam, for these are the very +means without which it would be impossible for our vastly increased +population to exist at all. What may be done to meet the redundancies of +labour that are always with us is a difficult but pressing question +which I cannot enter upon here. State provision of work—even in +producing commodities which are imported from abroad, and which might +therefore be produced in State workshops without hurting home +producers—has many drawbacks, but the problem is one that ought to be +faced, and something more must be provided for the case than workhouse and prison.</p> + +<p>In regard to commercial crises, they are rather lessening than +increasing. They may be more numerous, for trade is more extensive and +ramified, but they are manifestly less violent than they used to be. The +commercial and financial crises of the present century have been +moderate in their effects as compared with the Darien scheme, Law's +speculations in France, or the Tulip mania in the Low Countries, and +under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> influence of the beneficial expansion of international +commerce and the equally beneficial principle of free trade, we enjoy +now an absolute immunity from the great periodical visitation of famine +which was so terrible a scourge to our ancestors. Facts like these are +particularly reassuring for this reason, that they are the result, +partly of better acquaintance with the principles of sound commercial +and financial success, and partly of the equalizing effect of +international ramifications of trade, and that these are causes from +which even greater things may be expected in the future, because they +are themselves progressive. There is no social system that can +absolutely abolish vicissitudes, because many of them depend on causes +over which man has no possible control, such as the harvests of the +world, and others on causes over which no single society of men has any +control, such as wars; and, besides, it is possible to do a great deal +more under the existing system than is at present done, to mitigate and +neutralize some of their worst effects. To provide the labouring +population with the security of existence, which is one of their +pressing needs, a sound system of working class insurance must be +devised, which shall indemnify them against all the accidents and +reverses of life, including temporary loss of work as well as sickness +and age, and it is not too much to hope, from the amount of attention +which the subject is at present attracting, that such a system will be +obtained. As far as yet appears, the scheme proposed by Professor Lujo +Brentano, to which I have already referred, is, on the whole, the +soundest and most satisfactory in its general principles that has been advanced.</p> + +<p>Again, much of the instability of trade arises from the want of +commercial statistics, and the consequent ignorance and darkness in +which it must be conducted. More light would lessen at once the mistakes +of well-meaning manufacturers and the opportunities of illegitimate and +designing speculation. Socialists count all speculation illegitimate, +because they fail to see that speculation, conducted in good faith, +exercises a moderating influence upon the oscillations of prices, +preventing them from falling so low, or rising so high, as they would +otherwise do. Speculation has thus a legitimate and beneficial work to +perform in the industrial system, and if it performed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> its work rightly, +it ought to have the opposite effect from that ascribed to it by +socialists, and to conduce to the stability of trade, instead of shaking +it. But unhappily an unscrupulous and fraudulent spirit too often +presides over this work. Schaeffle, who is not only an eminent political +economist, but has been Minister of Commerce to one of the great powers +of Europe, says that when he got acquainted with the bourse, he gave up +believing any longer in the economic harmonies, and declared theft to be +the principle of modern European commerce. Socialists always take the +bourse to be the type of capitalistic society, and the fraudulent +speculator to be the type of the bourse, and however they may err in +this, there is one point at any rate which it is almost impossible for +them to exaggerate, and that is the mischief accruing to the whole +community—and, as is usual with all general evils, to the working class +more than any other—from the prevalence of unsound trading and inflated +speculation. Confidence is the very quick of modern trade. The least +vibration of distrust paralyzes some of its movements and depresses its +circulation. Enterprise in opening new investments is indeed more and +more indispensable to the vitality of modern industry, but the mischiefs +of misdirected enterprise are as great as the benefits of well-directed. +Illegitimate speculation is very difficult to deal with. It can never be +reached by a public opinion which worships success and bows to wealth +with questionless devotion. Nor is it practicable for the State to put +it down by direct measures. But the State may perhaps mitigate it +somewhat by helping to procure a good system of commercial statistics, +for unsound speculation thrives in ignorance, and may be to some extent +prevented by better knowledge. The socialist demand for commercial +statistics is therefore to be approved. They would benefit everybody but +the dishonest dealer. They would not only be a corrective against +unsound speculation, but they would tend to smooth the conflicts between +capital and labour about the rate of wages, and the working class in +America press the demand on the ground of their experience of the +benefits they have already derived from the Labour Statistical Bureaux +established in certain of the States there. Some of our own most weighty +economic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> authorities are strongly in favour of a measure of this kind. +Mr. Jevons, for example, says: "So essential is a knowledge of the real +state of supply and demand to the smooth procedure of trade, and the +real good of the community, that I conceive it would be quite legitimate +to compel the publication of requisite statistics. Secrecy can only +conduce to the profit of speculators who gain from great fluctuations of +prices. Speculation is advantageous to the public only so far as it +tends to equalize prices, and it is therefore against the public good to +allow speculators to foster artificially the inequalities of prices by +which they profit. The welfare of millions, both of consumers and +producers, depends on an accurate knowledge of the stocks of cattle and +corn, and it would therefore be no unwarrantable interference with the +liberty of the subject to require any information as to the stock in +hand. In Billingsgate fish-market it has been a regulation that salesmen +shall fix up in a conspicuous place every morning a statement of the +kind and amount of their stock; and such a regulation, whenever it could +be enforced on other markets, would always be to the advantage of every +one except a few traders." ("Theory of Political Economy," p. 88.)</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>III. The next principal charge brought by socialists against the present +order of things is that it commits a signal injustice against the +labouring class, by suffering the capitalists who employ them to +appropriate the whole increase of value which results from the process +of production, and which, as is alleged, is contributed entirely by the +labour of the artizans engaged in the process. I have already exposed +the fallacy of the theory of value on which this claim is founded, and I +need not repeat here what for convenience sake has been stated in +another place. (See chap. iii. pp. 160-6). Value is not constituted by +time of labour alone, except in the case of commodities admitting of +indefinite multiplication; it is constituted in all other cases by +social utility; and the importance of this distinction is especially +manifest in treating of the very point that comes before us here—the +value of labour. Why is one kind of labour paid dearer than another? Why +is an organizer of manual labour better paid than the manual labourer +himself?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> Why is the railway chairman better paid than the railway +porter? Or why has the judge a better salary than the policeman? Is it +because he exerts more labour, more socially necessary time of labour? +No; the porter works as long as the chairman, and the policeman as long +as the judge. Is it because more time of labour has been expended in the +preparation and apprenticeship of the higher paid functionaries? No; +because the railway chairman may have undergone no special training that +thousands of persons with much poorer incomes have not also undergone, +and the education of the judge cost no more than the education of other +barristers who do not earn a twentieth part of his salary. The +explanation of differences of remuneration like these is not to be found +in different quantities of labour, but in different qualities of labour. +One man's work is higher, rarer, more excellent, possesses, in short, +more social utility than another's, and for that reason is more +valuable, as value is at present constituted. It is thus manifest that +the theory which declares value to be nothing but quantity of labour, +nothing but time of labour, is inconsistent with some of the most +obvious and important phenomena of the value of different kinds of +labour. Many forms of labour are much more remunerative than others, +nay, much more remunerative than many applications of capital, and the +difference of remuneration is in no way whatever connected with the +quantity of labour or the time of labour undergone in earning it. +Socialists may perhaps answer that this <i>ought not</i> to be so; that if +things were as they should be, the railway chairman, the station-master, +the inspector, the guard, and the porter would be paid by the same +simple standard of the duration of their labour in the service of the +line—a standard which would probably reverse the present gradation of +their respective salaries; but if they make that answer, they change +their ground; they no longer base their claim for justice to the +labourer on value <i>as it is constituted</i>, but on value <i>as they think it +ought to be constituted</i>. Their theory of value would in that case not +be what it pretends to be, a scientific theory of the actual +constitution of value, but a utopian theory of its proper and just +constitution. It would be tantamount to saying, Every man, according to +our ideas of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> of justice, ought to be paid according to the value of his +work, and the value of his work, according to our ideas of justice, +ought to be measured by the time—the socially necessary time—it +occupied. But this whole argument is manifestly based on nothing better +than their own arbitrary conceptions of justice, and it needs no great +perspicacity to perceive that these conceptions of justice are entirely +wrong. In fact, the common sense of men everywhere would unhesitatingly +pronounce it unjust to requite the manager who contrives, organizes, +directs, with only the same salary as the labourer who executes under +his direction, because, while both may spend the same time of labour, +the service rendered by the one is much more <i>valuable</i> than the service +rendered by the other. Let every man have according to his work, if you +will; but then, in measuring work, the true standard of its value is not +its duration but its social utility, the social importance of the +service it is calculated to render.</p> + +<p>This criterion of social utility is the principle that ought to guide us +in answering the question that is really raised by the particular +socialist charge now under consideration, the question of the justice of +interest on capital. Interest is just because capital is socially +useful, and because the owner of capital, in applying it to productive +purposes, renders a service to society which is valuable in the measure +of its social utility. Of course the State might perform this service +itself. It might compulsorily abstract from the produce of each year a +sufficient portion to constitute the raw materials and instruments of +future production; but, as a matter of fact, the State does not do so. +It leaves the service to be rendered spontaneously by private persons +out of their private means. The service rendered by these persons to +production is as indispensable as the service rendered by the labourers, +and the justice of interest stands on exactly the same ground as the +justice of wages. The labourer cannot produce by labour alone, without +materials and implements, any more than the capitalist can produce by +materials and implements alone, without labour; and the possessor of +capital needs a reward to induce him to advance materials and implements +just as much as the labourer needs a reward to induce him to labour. +Nobody will set aside<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> a portion of his property to provide for future +production if he is to reap no advantage from doing so, and if the +produce will be distributed in exactly the same way whether he sets it +apart or not. It would be as unjust as it would be suicidal to withhold +the recompense to which this service is entitled, and without which +nobody would do it.</p> + +<p>The real question for socialists to answer is, not whether it is just to +pay private capitalists for the service society accepts at their hands, +but whether society can perform this service better, or more +economically, without them; whether, in short, the abolition of interest +would conduce to any real saving in the end? This practical question, +crucial though it be, is one, however, to which they seldom address +themselves—they prefer expatiating in cloudier regions. The question +may not, with our present experience, admit of a definitive and +authoritative answer; but the probabilities all point to the conclusion +that capitalistic management of production, costly as it may seem to be, +is really cheaper than that by which socialism would supersede it. +Capitalistic management is proverbially unrivalled for two qualities in +which bureaucratic management is as proverbially deficient—economy and +enterprise. Socialists complain much of the hosts of middlemen who are +nourished on the present system, the heartless parasites who eat the +bread of society without doing a hand's turn of real good; but their own +plan would multiply vastly the number of unnecessary intermediaries +depending on industry. Under the <i>régime</i> of the capitalist there are, +we may feel sure, no useless clerks or overseers, for he has the +strongest personal interest in working his business as economically as +possible. But with the socialist mandarinate, the interest lies the +other way, and the tendency of the head officials would be to multiply +their subordinates and assistants, so that by abolishing the capitalist, +society would not by any means have got rid of middlemen and parasites. +There would be as much waste of labour as before. Lord Brassey is +certainly right in attributing the industrial superiority of Great +Britain as much to the administrative skill and economy of her employers +as to the efficiency of her labourers. Individual capitalists are more +enterprising, as well as more economical managers, than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> boards. Their +keenly interested eyes and ears are ever on the watch for opportunities, +for improvements, for new openings; and having to consult nothing but +their own judgment, they are much quicker in adapting themselves to +situations and taking advantage of turns of trade. They will undertake +risks that a board would not agree to, and they will have entered the +field and established a footing long before a manager can get his +directors to stir a finger. Now this habit of being always on the alert +for new extensions, and new processes, and new investments, is of the +utmost value to a progressive community, and it cannot be found to such +purpose anywhere as with the capitalistic despot the socialists +denounce, whose zeal and judgment are alike sharpened by his hope of +personal gain and risk of personal loss. Studnitz informs us that in +1878 he found the mills of New York standing idle, but those of +Philadelphia all going, and his explanation is that the former were +under joint-stock management and the latter belonged to private owners. +The present tendency towards a multiplication of joint-stock companies +is a perfectly good one, because, for one thing, it helps to a better +distribution of wealth; but society would suffer if this tendency were +to be carried so far as to supersede independent private enterprise +altogether, and if joint-stock companies were to become the only form of +conducting business. And if private enterprise is more advantageous than +joint-stock management, because it has more initiative and adaptability, +so joint-stock management is for the same reason more advantageous than +the official centralized management of all industry.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>If there is any force in these considerations, it seems likely that we +should make a bad bargain, if we dismissed our capitalists and private +employers, in the expectation that we could do the work more cheaply by +our own public administration. And the mistake would be especially +disappointing for this reason, that in the ordinary progress of society +in wealth and security the rate of interest always tends to fall, and +that various forces are already in operation that may not unreasonably +be expected to reduce the rate of profits as well. Profits,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> as +distinguished from interest, are the earnings of management, and the +minimum which employers will be content to take is at present largely +determined by the entirely wrong principle that their amount ought to +bear a direct proportion to the amount of capital invested in the +business. In spite of competition, customary standards of this kind are +very influential in the adjustment of such matters; they are the usual +criteria of what are called fair profits and fair wages; they always +carry with them strong persuasives to acquiescence; and then, from their +very nature, they are very dependent on public opinion. I am not +sanguine enough to believe with the American economist, President F. A. +Walker, that employers will ever come to be content with no other reward +than the gratification of power in the management of a great industrial +undertaking; but there is nothing extravagant in expecting that, through +the influence of public opinion and the constant pressure of trade +unions, a fairer standard of profits may be generally adopted, with the +natural consequence of allowing a rise of wages.</p> + +<p>But whether these expectations are well grounded or no, one thing is +plain,—the only thing really material to the precise issue at present +before us,—and that is, that while interest and profits may be both +unfair in amount, just as rent may be, or wages, or judicial penalties, +neither of them is unjust in essence, because they are merely particular +forms of remunerating particular services, which are now actually +performed by the persons who receive the remuneration, and which, under +the socialist scheme, would have to be performed—and in all probability +neither so well nor so cheaply—by salaried functionaries.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>With these remarks, we may dismiss the specific charge of injustice +brought by socialists against the present order of things, and the +specific claim of right for the labouring class which they prefer. Let +us now submit their proposals to a more practical and decisive +test—will they or will they not realize the legitimate aspirations, the +ideal of the working class? Does socialism offer a better guarantee for +the realization of that ideal than the existing economy? I believe it +does not.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> What is the ideal of the working class? It may be said to be +that they shall share <i>pari passu</i> in the progressive conquests of +civilization, and grow in comfort and refinement of life as other +classes of the community have done. Now this involves two things—first, +progress; second, diffusion of progress; and socialism is so intent on +the second that it fails to see how completely it would cut the springs +of the first. Some of its adherents do assert that production would be +increased and progress accelerated under a socialistic economy, but they +offer nothing in support of the assertion, and certainly our past +experience of human nature would lead us to expect precisely the +opposite result. The incentives and energy of production would be +relaxed. I have already spoken of the loss that would probably be +sustained in exchanging the interested zeal and keen eye of the +responsible capitalist employer for the perfunctory administration of a +State officer. A like loss would be suffered from lightening the +responsibility of the labourers and lessening their power of +acquisition. Under a socialist <i>régime</i> they cannot by any merit acquire +more property than they enjoy in daily use, and they cannot by any fault +fail to possess that. Now socialist labourers are not supposed, any more +than socialist officials, to be angels from heaven; they are to carry on +the work of society with the ordinary human nature which we at present +possess; and in circumstances like those just described, unstirred +either by hope or fear, our ordinary human nature would undoubtedly take +its ease and bask contentedly in the kind providence of the State which +relieved it of all necessity for taking thought or pains. The inevitable +result would be a great diminution of production, which, with a rapidly +increasing population (and socialism generally scouts the idea of +restraining it), would soon prove seriously embarrassing, and could only +be obviated by a resort to the lash; in a word, by a return to +industrial slavery. Now, with a lessening production, progress is +clearly impossible, and the more evenly the produce was distributed, the +more certain would be the general decline.</p> + +<p>Socialists ignore the civilizing value of private property and +inheritance, because they think of property only as a means of immediate +enjoyment, and not as a means of progress and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> moral development. They +would allow private property only in what is sometimes termed consumers' +wealth. You might still own your clothes, or even purchase your house +and garden. But producers' wealth, they hold, should be common property, +and neither be owned nor inherited by individuals. If this theory were +to be enforced, it would be fatal to progress. Private property has all +along been a great factor in civilization, but the private property that +has been so has been much more producers' than consumers'. Consumers' +wealth is a limited instrument of enjoyment; producers' is a power of +immense capability in the hands of the competent. Socialists are really +more individualistic than their opponents in the view they take of the +function of property. They look upon it purely as a means for gratifying +the desires of individuals, and ignore the immense social value it +possesses as a nurse of the industrial virtues and an agency in the +progressive development of society from generation to generation.</p> + +<p>There is still another and even more important spring of progress that +would be stifled by socialism—freedom. Freedom is, of course, a direct +and integral element in any worthy human ideal, for it is an +indispensable condition for individual development, but here it comes +into consideration as an equally indispensable condition of social +progress. Political philosophers, like W. von Humboldt and J. S. Mill, +who have pled strongly for the widest possible extension of individual +freedom, have made their plea in the interests of society itself. They +looked on individuality as the living seed of progress; without +individuality no variation of type or differentiation of function would +be possible; and without freedom there could be no individuality. Under +a <i>régime</i> of socialism freedom would be choked. Take, for example, a +point of great importance both for personal and for social development, +the choice of occupations. Socialism promises a free choice of +occupations; but that is vain, for the relative numbers that are now +required in any particular occupation are necessarily determined by the +demands of consumers for the particular commodity the occupation in +question sets itself to supply. Freedom of choice is, therefore, limited +at present by natural conditions, which cause no murmuring; but these +natural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> conditions would still exist under the socialist <i>régime</i>, and +yet they would perforce appear in the guise of legal and artificial +restrictions. It would be the choice of the State that would determine +who should enter the more desirable occupations, and not the choice of +the individuals themselves. The accepted would seem favourites; the +rejected would complain of tyranny and wrong. Selection could not be +made by competitive examination without treason against the principles +of a socialist state, nor by lot without a sacrifice of efficiency. The +same difficulties would attend the distribution of the fertile and the +poor soils. Even consumption would not escape State inquisition and +guidance, for an economy that pretended to do away with commercial +vicissitudes must take care that a change of fashion does not extinguish +a particular industry by superseding the articles it produces. Socialism +would introduce, indeed, the most vexatious and all-encompassing +absolutist government ever invented. It would impose on its central +executive functions that would require omniscience for their discharge, +and an authority so excessive that E. von Hartmann is probably right in +thinking that obedience could only be secured by fabricating for it the +illusion of a Divine origin and reinforcing loyalty by superstition. The +extensive centralized authority given to government in France has +undoubtedly been one of the main causes of the instability of the +political system of that State, and a socialist rule, with its vastly +greater prerogatives, could only maintain its ascendancy by being +fabulously hedged with the divinity of a Grand Lama. A military +despotism would be at least more consistent with modern conditions; but +a military despotism socialists abjure, and yet believe that they can +exact from free and equal citizens an almost animal submission to an +authority they elect themselves.</p> + +<p>Progress is only possible on the basis of industrial freedom and private +property; and in the socialist controversy there is no question about +the necessity of progress. That is an assumption common to both sides; +socialists of the present day acknowledge it as implicitly as the +general opinion of the time. They are no sharers in Mill's admiration +for the stationary state; they utterly ridicule his Malthusian horror of +a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>progressive population; and, profoundly impressed as they are with +the vital need for a better distribution of wealth, they hesitate to +sacrifice for it an increasing production. On the contrary, they claim +for their system that it would stimulate progress, as well as spread its +blessings, better than the system that exists, and Lassalle at all +events frankly declared that unless socialism increased production, it +would not be economically justifiable. But tried by this test, we have +seen reason to find it wanting. The problem to which it addresses +itself, the institution of a sound and healthy distribution of wealth, +is probably the greatest social problem of the time; but socialism fails +to solve it, because no distribution can be sound and healthy which +destroys the conditions of further progress. The true solution must +adhere to the lines of the present industrial system, the lines of +industrial freedom and private property.</p> + +<p>It is one thing, however, to say that the principles of industrial +freedom and private property are essential to a healthy distribution, +and it is quite another thing to hold that the distribution is then +healthiest and most perfect when these principles enjoy the most +absolute and unconditional operation. If socialism errs by suppressing +them, <i>laissez-faire</i> runs into the opposite error of giving them +unlimited authority. <i>Laissez-faire</i> is perhaps hardly any longer a +living faith. But even when men still believed in the economic +harmonies, they always taught that the best and justest distribution of +wealth was that which issued out of the free competition of individuals, +and that if this distribution ever turned out to be really faulty or +partial, it was only because the competition was not free or perfect +enough; because some of the competitors were not sufficiently +enlightened as compared with others, or not sufficiently mobile with +their labour or capital; in other words, because the competition was not +conducted on equal terms. This theory manifestly makes the justice of +the distribution effected by free competition to depend on the false +assumption of the natural equality of the competitors, and therefore as +manifestly implies that unless men are equal in talents and +opportunities, the system of unlimited freedom may produce a +distribution that is seriously unjust. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span><i>Laissez-faire</i> thus had a germ +of socialism in its being, and even when its ascendancy seemed to be +highest, it was already being practically replaced by a larger and more +energetic theory of social politics which imposed on the State the duty +of correcting many of the evils of the present distribution of wealth, +and promoting, if not equality of all conditions, yet certainly +amelioration of the inferior conditions. Instead of maintaining equal +freedom for weak and strong, the State was to take the part of the weak +against the strong, in order to secure to all citizens a real +participation in progressive civilization. It is said truly enough that +the effect of such interferences is not to destroy liberty, but to +fulfil it, because, apart from them, the labour contract is no more a +free contract for labourers living from hand to mouth than the +capitulation of a beleaguered garrison when their provisions have run +down is a free capitulation, and the legal intervention is necessary in +order to make the men first really free. Legal freedom is no more an end +in itself than legal intervention; both are merely means of giving men +real freedom and enabling them effectually to work out their complete +and normal vocation as human beings. I shall treat more fully of the +true theory of social politics in a subsequent chapter on State +Socialism; but here, in connection with its relation to industrial +freedom, it will be enough to say that the restraints it proposes are +neither meant nor calculated to impair real freedom, and that it is +separated from socialism by its constant care to develop rather than +supersede individual responsibility, to facilitate the spread of private +property rather than suppress it, and to remove obstacles that are +making men's own efforts a nullity rather than to substitute for those +efforts the providence of the State.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>If, then, there is any truth in these considerations—if the general +acquisition of private property, and not its universal abolition, is the +demand of the working-class ideal—then the business of social reform at +present ought to be to facilitate the acquisition of private property; +to multiply the opportunities of industrial investment open to the +labouring classes, and to devise means for credit, for saving, for +insurance, and the like. While, for reasons already explained, I have +been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> unable to agree with Mr. Cairnes' despondent view of the economic +position of the wage-paid labourers, I am entirely at one with him in +conceiving the surest means to their progressive amelioration to lie in +participation, by one means or another, in industrial capital. Much good +may be done by a wider extension of trade unions, and a better +organization of working class insurance; but the labourers must not rest +content till they have found their way, under the new conditions of +modern trade, to become capitalists as well as labourers. Co-operative +production seems the most obvious solution of this problem; but it is a +mischievous, though a common mistake, to regard it as the only solution. +The fortunes of the working class are not all embarked in one bottom, +and their salvation may be expected to fulfil itself in many ways. I +cannot share in the lamentation sometimes made because some of the +earlier productive associations have departed from the strict and +original form of co-operation, under which all the shareholders in the +business were labourers and all the labourers shareholders. In the +present situation of affairs, variety of experiment is desirable, for +only out of many various experiments can we eventually discover which +are most suitable to the conditions and fittest to survive. Co-operative +production would perhaps have been further advanced to-day, if +co-operators had not been so faithful in their idolatry of their +original ideal, and had fostered instead of discouraging variations of +type, which may yet justify their superiority by persisting and +multiplying. As it is, co-operative production has not been such a +complete failure as it is sometimes represented; it can show at least a +few very signal tokens of success and great promise. It is often +declared to be inapplicable to the great industries, because they +require more capital and better management than co-operative working men +are usually able to furnish. But in the town and neighbourhood of Oldham +there are 100 co-operative spinning mills, with a capital of close on +£8,000,000. They are managed entirely by working men, their capital is +contributed in £5 shares by working men, and they have during the last +ten years paid dividends varying from 10 to 45 per cent. These are +joint-stock companies rather than co-operative societies in the stricter +sense; but they are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> joint-stock companies of working men, and they +furnish to working men in an effective and successful way that +participation in the industrial capital of the country which is really +what is wanted. The Oldham workman prefers to hold shares in a different +mill from that he works in, because he feels himself more free to +exercise his voice as a shareholder there, and he prefers to carry his +labour to the mill where he gets the best wages and the best treatment, +without being obliged to change his investment when he changes his +workshop. The advantage of the Oldham system over the stricter +co-operative type is therefore the old advantage of freedom. It suits +the English character better, and the only wonder is why it is still, +after more than sixteen years' successful experience, confined +exclusively to a single locality. It has been stated that there are a +thousand operatives working at these mills who are worth £1000 to £2000, +and besides the mills, there are co-operative stores, building +societies, and other working-class companies in Oldham, with a combined +capital of £3,500,000. In all these ways the zone of participators in +property broadens, and hope and stimulus are introduced into the +labourer's life. The truth seems to be that the great need of the +working man is not so much money to invest as opportunity and motive for +investment. The amount lodged in savings banks, the amount raised by +trade unions, the amount wasted in drink, the amount wasted in +inefficient household economy, which might be much lessened by better +instruction in the arts of cookery and household management—all show +that large numbers of the working class possess means at their disposal +to constitute at least the beginnings of their emancipation, if good +opportunities were open to them of using it advantageously in productive +enterprise. Co-operation and profit-sharing are not the only means by +which this might be realized. Private firms might initiate a practice of +reserving a certain amount of their capital to constitute a kind of +stock for their workmen to invest their savings in, under—if that were +legalized—limited liability. One advantage of this plan over the +ordinary industrial partnership would be, that while, like it, it would +enhance the workmen's zeal in their work, it could not possibly have the +effect of reducing wages, because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> the stock would be a free investment, +and would probably not be taken up by all or by more than a majority of +the workmen. Again, with a reform of our land laws, small investments in +land will certainly be facilitated, especially among the agricultural class.</p> + +<p>Socialists would no doubt condemn all such investments for the same +reason as they generally condemn the co-operative movement, because they +would tend to create "a new class with one foot in the camp of the +<i>bourgeoisie</i> and the other in the camp of the proletariat." But that is +precisely one of their chief advantages, and in making this objection +socialists only betray how completely they ignore the operation of those +portions of human nature that are the real forces and factors of social +progress. It is only by linking a lower class to a higher that you can +raise the level of the whole, and every pathway the working class makes +into a comfortable equality with the lower <i>bourgeoisie</i> will constitute +at once an opportunity and a spur for others to follow them, which will +exercise an elevating effect upon the entire body. If it were generally +open to all the labouring classes to begin by being wage-labourers and +end by sharing in some degree in the industrial capital of the country, +this would raise the level of the whole—of those who after all remained +wage-labourers still, as well as of those who succeeded in gaining a +better competency. It would give them all something to keep looking +forward to during their working life, something to save for and strive +after, and a higher standard of comfort would get diffused and +considered necessary in the class generally through the example of the +better off. For the more comfortably situated working men—whether they +have won their comfort by co-operation or otherwise—have not passed out +of their class. They have, as is alleged, one foot in the camp of the +proletariat still. They live and move and have their being among working +people, and constitute by their presence and social connections a +stimulating and elevating agency. It is through connections like these +that the ideas of comfort and culture that prevail among an upper class +permeate through to a lower, and thus elevate the general standard of +living upon which the level of wages so much depends. Even the minor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> +inequalities in the ranks of the working class are not without their use +in quickening their exertions to maintain the standard of respectability +which they have won or inherited. Economists were not wrong in ascribing +so much influence as they always have done to men's tenacity in adhering +to their customary standard of life. Many striking illustrations of its +beneficial operation might be mentioned. I select one, because it +concerns an aspect of the condition of the labouring classes of this +country that is at present attracting much attention—their house +accommodation. In all our large cities, the house accommodation of the +working class has hitherto been about as bad as bad could be, but there +is one singular exception—it is Sheffield. Porter drew attention to the +fact many years ago. "The town itself," he says, "is ill built and dirty +beyond the usual condition of English towns, but it is the custom for +each family among the labouring population to occupy a separate +dwelling, the rooms of which are furnished in a very comfortable manner. +The floors are carpeted, and the tables are usually of mahogany. Chests +of drawers of the same material are commonly seen, and so in many cases +is a clock also, the possession of which article of furniture has often +been pointed out as the certain indication of prosperity and of personal +responsibility on the part of the working man." ("Progress of the +Nation," p. 523.) The same condition of things still prevails, for at +the meeting of the British Association in Sheffield in 1879 Dr. Hime +read a paper on the vital statistics of the town, in which he +says:—"Although handsome public buildings are not a prominent feature +in the town, still there are few towns in England where the great bulk +of the population is so well provided for in the way of domestic +architecture. Overcrowding is very rare; cellar dwellings are unknown; +and almost every family has an entire house, a most important agent in +securing physical as well as moral health." (Transactions of British +Association, 1879.) Now this is a fact of the highest interest, and we +naturally ask what peculiarity there is in the trade or circumstances of +Sheffield, in the first place, to create such an exceptional excellence +in the standard of working class house accommodation, and, in the next +place, to maintain it. One thing is certain: it is not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> due to better +wages. There are trades in Sheffield very highly paid, but the labourers +belonging to them are described by the anonymous author of "An Inquiry +into the Moral, Social, and Intellectual Condition of the Industrious +Classes of Sheffield" (London, 1839), as being much less comfortable in +their circumstances than the others. This writer speaks of some trades +in which "the workmen are steady, intelligent, and orderly, seldom the +recipients of charity or parochial relief. They depend on their own +exertions for the respectable maintenance of their families, and when +trade is depressed they strive to live on diminished wages, or fall back +on resources secured by industry and economy. This healthy and vigorous +condition is not attributable to high wages. The workmen in the +edge-tool trade are extravagantly remunerated, and yet, as a body, they +are perhaps as irregular and dissipated in their habits as any in the +town. Their families, in time of good trade, feel few of the advantages +of prosperity, and when labour is little in demand, they are the first +to need the aid of charity. These differences are familiar to the most +superficial observer of the social and moral condition of the workmen in +the several branches" (p. 14). But the same writer mentions a +peculiarity in the trade of Sheffield which, he says, marks it off from +every other manufacturing town, and that peculiarity may serve to +provide us with the explanation we are seeking. "With us," he says, "the +distinctions between masters and men are not always well marked. Persons +are to a great extent both. The transition from the one to the other is +easy and frequent in those branches where the tools are few and simple, +and the capital required extremely small, which applies to the whole of +the cutlery department." "The facility with which men become masters +causes extraordinary competition, and its inevitable result, +insufficient remuneration." "Here merchants and manufacturers cannot +become princes.... There is not sufficient play for large fortunes. The +making of fortunes is with us a slow process. It is, however, far from +being partial.... The longer period required in the making of them +allows the mind time to adapt itself to its improved circumstances, not +merely the speculative and money-getting part of the understanding, but +the whole of its social, moral,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> and intellectual powers, without which +means are a questionable good. Wealth and intelligence are accordingly +with us more generally associated than in towns where immense fortunes +are rapidly made. In the latter case, there is no time for adaptation, +nor is it deemed necessary or at all important, where money is the +measure by which all things are estimated. Another evil dependent on +this sudden elevation in life is the great distance which is immediately +placed between employer and employed" (p. 15). Class and class are thus +better knit together in Sheffield than elsewhere. The exceptional +facility of becoming masters seems to be the particular instrumentality +which has brought down the ideas and habits of comfort of the +<i>bourgeoisie</i> and spread them among the working class, and which has +always prevented the great mass of the latter from sinking contentedly +into a lower general standard of life. It introduced among them that +social ambition, which is the most effective spur to progress, and the +best preservative against decline. The fact that the exceptionally good +house accommodation which prevails among the labouring population of +Sheffield is not owing to exceptional, or even at all superior, wages, +is one of much hope and encouragement. What is possible in Sheffield +cannot be impossible elsewhere; and what is possible in the matter of +house accommodation cannot be hopeless in other branches of consumption.</p> + +<p>I shall be told that in all this I am only repeating the foolish idea of +the French princess, who heard the people complain they could not get +bread, and asked why then they did not buy cake. Where combinations are +possible, it will be said, investments may be also possible; but the +great majority of the working class are not in a position to combine, +and it is mere mockery to tell people to save and invest who can hardly +contrive to cover their backs. To this I reply, that there is no reason +to assume that trade unions have reached the utmost extension of which +they are susceptible, or to despair of their introduction into the +hitherto unorganized trades. It was only lately common to deny the +possibility of combination among agricultural labourers, and yet, +scattered as they are, they have shown themselves not only able to +combine, but to raise wages effectively by means of their combinations. +We have now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> very powerful unions of unskilled day labourers, and a +beginning has been made of an efficient organization even among +needlewomen. It is true that, even when organization has spoken its last +word, much of the distressing poverty that now exists would probably +still remain, because we must not disguise from ourselves the fact that +much of that poverty is the direct fruit of vice, disease, or indolence. +But socialism could not cope with this mass of misery any better than +the present system, for men don't drink and loaf and enter into +improvident marriages or illicit alliances because they happen to be +paid for their labour by contract with a capitalist instead of valuation +by a State officer, and they certainly would not cease doing any of +these things because an indulgent State undertook to save them from the +natural penalties of doing them.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The proportion in England for 1857, according to official +figures, was 3½ times the number for one day, but whether that +proportion continues still we have no means of knowing.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Mr. Denny was led by subsequent experience to a much less +favourable view of the efficacy of piecework as an instrument of +working-class progress. He wrote me in June, 1886 (ten years after the +publication of the pamphlet I have quoted above) an interesting and +valuable letter on this subject, which is published in full in Dr. +Bruce's biography of him ("Life of William Denny," p. 113). A larger +experience of piecework, he said, had convinced him that, excepting in +cases where rates can be fixed and made a matter of agreement between +the whole body of the men in any works and their employers, piecework +prices have not a self-regulating power, and are liable, under the +pressure of competition, to be depressed below what he would consider a +proper level. And this was chiefly, if not, indeed, exclusively, the +case with those lump jobs which were undertaken by little copartneries +of workmen, and afforded the occasions for practising co-operation from +which he had drawn the hopes I have mentioned above. He came to see that +in all kinds of work for which it was difficult to fix regular rates, +the beneficial operation of payment by the piece on wages was much more +uncertain than he previously supposed, except in the hands of a good +master, who was not an absentee. But for ordinary work, I think he still +adhered to his favourable opinion of the effect of the piece system in +increasing the worker's earnings. He said he had nothing to modify about +the figures adduced in his pamphlet, and I understood him to continue to +count them representative of the general operation of pieceworking.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> More will be found on this subject in the chapter on "State +Socialism," under the sub-heading "State Socialism and State Management."</p></div></div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XI.</span> <span class="smaller">STATE SOCIALISM.</span></h2> + +<p class="center">I. <i>State Socialism and English Economics.</i></p> + +<p>State socialism has been described by M. Léon Say as a German philosophy +which was natural enough to a people with the political history and +habits of the Germans, but which, in his opinion, was ill calculated to +cross the French frontier, and was contrary to the very nature of the +Anglo-Saxons. Sovereign and trader may be incompatible occupations, as +Adam Smith asserts, but in Germany, at least, they have never seemed so. +There, Governments have always been accustomed to enter very +considerably into trade and manufactures, partly to provide the public +revenue, partly to supply deficiencies of private enterprise, and +partly, within more recent times, for reasons of a so-called "strategic" +order, connected with the defence or consolidation of the new Empire. +The German States possess, every one of them, more Crown lands and +forests, in proportion to their size, than any other countries in +Europe, some of them, indeed, being able to meet half their public +expenditure from this source alone; and besides their territorial +domain, most of them have an even more extensive industrial domain of +State mines, or State breweries, or State banks, or State foundries, or +State potteries, or State railways, and their rulers are still +projecting fresh conquests in the same direction by means of brandy and +tobacco monopolies. But in England things stand far otherwise. She has +sold off most of her Crown lands, and is slowly parting with, rather +than adding to, the remainder. She abolished State monopolies in the +days of the Stuarts, as instruments of political oppression, and she has +abandoned State bounties more recently as nurses of commercial +incompetency. She owes her whole industrial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> greatness, her +manufactures, her banks, her shipping, her railways, to some extent her +very colonial possessions, to the unassisted energy of her private +citizens. England has been reared on the principle of freedom, and could +never be brought, M. Say might not unreasonably conclude, to espouse the +opposite principle of State socialism, unless the national character +underwent a radical change. And yet, while he was still writing, he was +confounded to see signs, as he thought, of this alien philosophy +obtaining, not simply an asylum, but really an ascendancy in this +country. It appeared to M. Say to be striking every whit as strong a +root in our soil and climate as it had done in its native habitat, and +he is disposed to join in the alarm, then recently sounded at Edinburgh +by Mr. Goschen, that the soil and climate had changed, that the whole +policy, opinion, and feeling of the English people with respect to the +intervention of the public authority had undergone a revolution.</p> + +<p>Mr. Goschen had, in raising the alarm, shown some perplexity how far to +condemn the change and how far to praise it, but he was quite clear upon +its reality, and was possessed by a most anxious sense of its magnitude +and gravity. "We cannot," said he, "see universal State action enthroned +as a principle of government without misgiving." Mr. Herbert Spencer +took up the cry with more vehemence, declaring that the age of British +freedom was gone, and warning us to prepare for "the coming slavery." M. +de Laveleye, who is unquestionably one of the most careful and competent +foreign observers of our affairs, followed Mr. Spencer, and although, +being himself a State socialist, he welcomed this alleged new era as +much as Mr. Spencer deprecated it, he gave substantially the same +description of the facts; he said, England, once so jealous for liberty, +was now running ahead of all other nations on the career of State +socialism. And that seems to have become an established impression both +at home and abroad. The French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences +has devoted several successive sittings to the subject; the eminent +German economist, Professor Nasse, has discussed it—and with much +excellent discrimination—in an article on the decline of economic +individualism in England; and it is now the current assumption of the +journals and of popular conversation in this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> country, that a profound +change has come over the spirit of English politics in the course of the +present generation—a change from the old trust in liberty to a new +trust in State regulation, and from the French doctrine of +<i>laissez-faire</i> to the German doctrine of State socialism.</p> + +<p>But this assumption, notwithstanding the currency it has obtained and +the distinguished authorities by whom it is supported, is in reality +exaggerated and undiscriminating. While marking the growing frequency of +Government interventions, it makes no attempt to distinguish between +interventions of one kind and interventions of another kind, and it +utterly fails to recognise that English opinion—whether exhibited in +legislative work or economic writings—was not dominated by the +principle of <i>laissez-faire</i> in the past any more than in the present, +but that it really has all along obeyed a fairly well-defined positive +doctrine of social politics, which gave the State a considerable +concurrent <i>rôle</i> in the social and industrial development of the +community. The increasing frequency of Government interventions is in +itself a simple and unavoidable concomitant of the growth of society. +With the rapid transformations of modern industrial life, the increase +and concentration of population, and the general spread of +enlightenment, we cannot expect to retain the political or legislative +inactivity of stationary ages. As Mr. Hearn remarks, "All the volumes of +the statutes, from their beginning under Henry III. to the close of the +reign of George II., do not equal the quantity of legislative work done +in a decade of any subsequent reign." ("Theory of Legal Duties and +Rights," p. 21.) The process has been continuous and progressive, and it +suffered no interruption in the period which is usually supposed to have +been peculiarly sacred to <i>laissez-faire</i>. On the contrary, that period +will be found to exceed the period that went before it in legislative +activity, exactly as it has in turn been itself exceeded by our own +time. On any theory of the State's functions, an increase in the number +of laws and regulations was inevitable; it was only part and portion of +the natural growth of things; but such an increase affords no evidence, +not even a presumption, of any change in the principles by which +legislation is governed, or in the purposes or functions for which the +power<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> of the State is habitually invoked. A mere growth of work is not +a multiplication of functions; to get a result, we must first analyze +the work done and discriminate this from that.</p> + +<p>Now, in the first place, when compared with other nations, England has +been doing singularly little in the direction—the distinctively +socialistic direction—of multiplying State industries and enlarging the +public property in the means of production. Municipalities, indeed, have +widened their industrial domain considerably; it has become common for +them to take into their own hands things like the gas and water supply +of the community which would in any case be monopolies, and their +management, being exposed to an extremely effective local opinion, is +generally very advantageous. But while local authorities have done so +much, the central Government has held back. Many new industries have +come into being during the present reign, but we have nationalized none +of them except the telegraphs. We have added to the Post-Office the +departments of the Savings Bank and the Parcels Post; we have, for +purely military reasons, extended our national dockyards and arms +factories since the Crimean war, but without thereby enhancing national +confidence in Government management; we have, for diplomatic purposes, +bought shares in the Suez Canal; we have undertaken a few small jobs of +testing and stamping, such as the branding of herrings; but we are now +the only European nation that has no State railway; we have refrained +from nationalizing the telephones, though legally entitled to do so; and +we very rarely give subventions to private enterprises. This is much +less the effect of deliberate political conviction than the natural +fruit of the character and circumstances of the people, of their +powerful private resources and those habits of commercial association +which M. Chevalier speaks of with so much friendly envy, complaining +that his own countrymen could never be a great industrial nation because +they had no taste for acquiring them. In the English colonies, where +capital is more scarce, Government is required to do very much more; +most of them have State railways, and some—New Zealand, for +instance—State insurance offices for fire and life. These colonial +experiments will have great weight with the English public in settling +the problem of Government<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> management under a democracy, and if they +prove successful, will undoubtedly influence opinion at home to follow +their example; but as things are at present, there is no appearance of +any great body of English opinion moving in that direction.</p> + +<p>But while England has lagged behind other nations in this particular +class of Government intervention, there is another class in which she +has undoubtedly run far before them all. If we have not been multiplying +State industries, we have been very active in extending and establishing +popular rights, by means of new laws, new administrative regulations, or +new systems of industrial police. In fact, the greater part of our +recent social legislation has been of this order, and it is of that +legislation M. de Laveleye is thinking when he says England is taking +the lead of the nations in the career of State socialism. But that is +nothing new; if we are in advance of other nations in establishing +popular rights to-day, we have been in advance of them in that work for +centuries already. That peculiarity also has its roots in our national +history and character, and is no upstart fashion of the hour. Now, +without raising the question whether the rights which our recent social +legislation has seen fit to establish, are in all cases and respects +rights that ought to have been established, it is sufficient for our +present purpose to observe that at least this is obviously a very +different class of intervention from the last, because if it does not +belong to, it is certainly closely allied with, those primary duties +which are everywhere included among the necessary functions of all +government, the protection of the citizen from force and fraud. To +protect a right, you must first establish it; you must first recognise +it, define its scope, and invest it with the sanction of authority. With +the progress of society fresh perils emerge and fresh protections must +be devised; the old legal right needs to be reconstructed to meet the +new situation, or a new right must be created hitherto unknown perhaps, +unless by analogy, to the law. But even here the novelty lies, not in +the principle—for all right is a protection of the weak, or ought to be +so—but in the situation alone; in the rise of the factory system, which +called for the Factory Acts; in the growth of large towns, which called +for Health and Dwellings Acts; in the extension of joint-stock +companies,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> which called for the Limited Liability Acts; in the monopoly +of railway transportation, which called for the regulation of rates; or +in the spread of scientific agriculture, which required the constitution +of a new sort of property, the property of a tenant-farmer in his own +unexhausted improvements.</p> + +<p>This peculiarity of the industrial and social legislation of England has +not escaped the acute intelligence of Mr. Goschen. Mistrustful as he is +of Government intervention, Mr. Goschen observes with satisfaction that +the great majority of recent Government interventions in England have +been undertaken for moral rather than economic ends. After quoting Mr. +Thorold Rogers' remark, that these interventions generally had the good +economic aim of preventing the waste of national resources, he says: +"But I believe that certainly in the case of the Factory Acts, and to a +great extent in the case of the Education Acts, it was a moral rather +than an economic influence—the conscientious feeling of what was right +rather than the intellectual feeling of ultimate material gain—it was +the public imagination touched by obligations of our higher +nature—which supplied the tremendous motive-power for passing laws +which put the State and its inspectors in the place of father or mother +as guardians of a child's education, labour, and health." ("Addresses," p. 62.)</p> + +<p>The State interfered not because the child had a certain capital value +as an instrument of future production which it would be imprudent to +lose, but because the child had certain rights—certain broad moral +claims—as a human being which the parents' natural authority must not +be suffered to violate or endanger, and which the State, as the supreme +protector of all rights, really lay under a simple moral obligation to +secure. Reforms of this character are naturally inspired by moral +influences, by sentiments of justice or of humanity, by a feeling that +wrong is being done to a class of the community who are placed in a +situation of comparative weakness, inasmuch as they are +deprived—whether through the force of circumstances or the selfish +neglect of their superiors—of what public opinion recognises to be +essential conditions of normal human existence. Now, most of the +legislation which has led Mr. Goschen to declare that universal State +action is now enthroned in England<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> has belonged to this order. It has +been guided by ethical and not by economic considerations. It has been +employed mainly in readjusting rights, in establishing fresh securities +for just dealing and humane living; but it has been very chary of +following Continental countries in nationalizing industries. When +therefore Mr. Spencer tells M. de Laveleye that the reason why England +is extending the functions of her Government so much more than other +nations "is obviously because there is great scope for the further +extension of them here, while abroad there is little scope for the +further extension of them," his explanation is singularly inappropriate. +England has not been extending the functions of Government all round, +but she has moved in the direction where she had less scope to move, and +has stood still in the direction where she had more scope to move than +other countries. And it is important to keep this distinction in mind +when we hear it so often stated in too general terms that we have +discarded our old belief in individual liberty and set up "universal +State action" in its place.</p> + +<p>But those who complain of England having broken off from her old +moorings, not only exaggerate her leanings to authority in the present, +but they also ignore her concessions to authority in the past. English +statesmen and economists have never entertained the rigid aversion to +Government interference that is vulgarly attributed to them, but with +all their profound belief in individual liberty they have always +reserved for the Government a concurrent sphere of social and economic +activity—what may even be designated a specific social and economic +mission. A few words may be usefully devoted to this English doctrine of +social politics here, not merely because they may serve to dispel a +prevailing error, but because they will furnish a good vantage-ground +for seizing and judging of a principle of government which is to-day in +every mouth, but unfortunately bears in every mouth a different +meaning—the principle of State socialism.</p> + +<p>It is commonly believed that the English doctrine of social politics is +the doctrine of <i>laissez-faire</i>, and our economists are continually +reviled as if they sought to leave the world to the play of +self-interest and competition, unchecked by any ideas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> of social justice +or individual human right. But in truth the doctrine of <i>laissez-faire</i> +has never been held by any English thinker, unless, perhaps, Mr. Herbert +Spencer. Mr. Spencer's first work, "Social Statics," was an exposition +of the theory that the end of all government was the liberty of the +individual, the realization for every citizen of the greatest amount of +liberty it was possible for him to enjoy without interfering with the +corresponding claims of his fellow-citizens. The individual had only one +right—the right to equal freedom with everybody else, and the State had +only one duty—the duty of protecting that right against violence and +fraud. It could not stir beyond that task without treading on the right +of some one, and therefore it ought not to stir at all. It had nothing +to do with health, or religion, or morals, or education, or relief of +distress, or public convenience of any sort, except to leave them +sternly alone. It must, of course, renounce the thought of bounties and +protective duties, but it must also give up marking plate, minting coin, +and stamping butter; it must take no part in building harbours or +lighthouses or roads or canals; and even a town council cannot without +offence undertake to pave or clean or light the streets under its +jurisdiction. It is only fair to say that Mr. Spencer refuses to be +bound now by every detail of his youthful theory, but he has repeated +the substance of it in his recent work, "The Man <i>versus</i> The State," +which is written to prove that the only thing we want from the State is +protection, and that the protection we want most of late is protection +against our protector.</p> + +<p>This theory is certainly about as extreme a development of individualism +as could well be entertained; and though it has been even distanced in +one or two points by Wilhelm von Humboldt—who objected, for example, to +marriage laws<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>—no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> important English writer has ventured near it. The +description of the State's business as the business of protecting the +citizens from force and fraud, has indeed been familiar in our +literature since the days of Locke, and isolated passages may be cited +from the works of various political thinkers, which, if taken by +themselves, would seem to deny to the State any right to act except for +purposes of self-protection. John Stuart Mill himself speaks sometimes +in that way, although we know, from the chapter he devotes to the +subject of Government interference in his "Principles of Political +Economy," that he really assigned to the State much wider functions. +When we examine the writings of English economists and statesmen, and +the principles they employ in the discussion of the social and +industrial questions of their time, it seems truly strange how they ever +came to be credited with any scruple on ground of principle to invoke +the power of the State for the solution of such questions when that +seemed to them likely to prove of effectual assistance.</p> + +<p>The social doctrine which has prevailed in England for the last century +is "the simple and obvious system of natural liberty" taught by Adam +Smith; but the simple and obvious system of natural liberty is a very +different thing from the system of <i>laissez-faire</i> with which it is so +commonly confounded. Its main principle, it is true, is this: "Every +man," says Smith, "as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, +is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to +bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any +other man or order of men. The Sovereign is completely discharged from a +duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to +innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human +wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient: the duty of superintending +the industry of private people and of directing it towards the +employments most suitable to the interests of the society." ("Wealth of +Nations," book iv., chap. ix.) But while the Sovereign is discharged +from an industrial duty which he is incapable of performing +satisfactorily, he is far from being discharged from all industrial +responsibility whatsoever, for Smith immediately proceeds to map out the +limits<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> of his functions as follows: "According to the system of natural +liberty, the Sovereign has only three duties to attend to—three duties +of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common +understandings: first, the duty of protecting the society from the +violence or invasion of other independent societies; second, the duty of +protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the +injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of +establishing an exact administration of justice; and thirdly, the duty +of erecting and maintaining certain works and certain public +institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual or +small number of individuals to erect and maintain; because the profit +could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of +individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society."</p> + +<p>The State is required to protect us from other evils besides the evils +of force and fraud—infectious diseases, for example, are in the context +mentioned expressly—and to supply us with many other advantages besides +the advantage of protection. Some of these advantages are of a material +or economic order, and others of an intellectual or moral. The material +advantages consist for the most part of provisions for facilitating the +general commerce of the country—such things as roads, canals, harbours, +the post, the mint—or provisions for facilitating particular branches +of commerce; and among these he instances the incorporation of +joint-stock companies endowed by charter with exclusive trading +privileges; and the reason which, according to Smith, entitles the State +to intervene in this class of cases, and which at the same time +prescribes the length to which its intervention may legitimately go, is +that individuals are unable to do the work satisfactorily themselves, or +that the State has from its nature superior qualifications for the task. +The intellectual or moral advantages which Smith asks from the State are +mostly provisions for sustaining the national manhood and character, +such as a system of compulsory military training or a system of +compulsory—and if not gratuitous, still cheap—education; and it is +important to mark that he asks for these measures, not on the ground of +their political or military expediency, but on the broad ground that +cowardice and ignorance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> are in themselves public evils, from which the +State is as much bound, if it can, to save the people, as it is bound to +save them from violence or fraud. Of military training he observes: "To +prevent that sort of mental mutilation, deformity, and wretchedness +which cowardice necessarily involves in it from spreading themselves +through the great body of the people, would deserve the serious +attention of Government, in the same manner as it would deserve its most +serious attention to prevent a leprosy or any other loathsome and +offensive disease, though neither mortal nor dangerous, from spreading +itself among them, though perhaps no other public good might result from +such attention besides the prevention of so great a public evil." +("Wealth of Nations," book v., chap. i.) And he proceeds to speak of +education: "The same thing may be said of the gross ignorance and +stupidity which in a civilized society seems so frequently to benumb the +understanding of all the inferior ranks of people. A man without the +proper use of the intellectual faculties of a man is, if possible, more +contemptible than even a coward, and seems to be mutilated and deformed +in a still more essential part of the character of human nature. Though +the State was to derive no advantage from the instruction of the +inferior ranks of people, it would still deserve its attention that they +should not be altogether uninstructed." Compulsory military training and +a system of national education would no doubt be conducive to the +stricter ends of all government; the one would strengthen the defences +of the nation against foreign enemies and the other would tend to the +diminution of crime at home; but Smith, it will be seen, explicitly +refuses to take that ground. The State's duty in the case would be the +same, though no such results were to follow, for the State has other +duties to perform besides the maintenance of peace and the repression of +crime. It would probably be admitted, he thinks, that it was as +incumbent on the State to take steps to arrest the progress of a "mortal +and dangerous" disease as it was to stop a foreign invasion; but he goes +further, and contends that it was equally incumbent on the State to +arrest the progress of a merely "loathsome and offensive" disease, for +the simple reason that such a disease was a mutilation or deformity of +our physical manhood. And just as the State ought to prevent the +mutilation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> and deformity of our physical manhood, so the State ought to +prevent the mutilation and deformity of our moral and intellectual +manhood, and was bound accordingly to provide a system of military +training and a system of popular education, to prevent people growing up +ignorant and cowardly, because the ignorant man and the coward were men +without the proper use of the faculties of a man, and were mutilated and +deformed in essential parts of the character of human nature. At bottom +Smith's principle is this—that men have an original claim—a claim as +original as the claim to safety of life and property—to all the +essential conditions of an unmutilated and undeformed manhood, and that +is really only another expression for the principle that lies at the +foundation of all civil and human right, that men have a right to the +essential conditions of a normal humanity, to the presuppositions of all +humane living, to the indispensable securities for the proper +realization of our common vocation as human beings. The right to +personal liberty—to the power of working for ends of our own +prescribing, and the right to property—to the power of retaining what +we have made, to be the instrument of further activities for the ends we +have prescribed for ourselves—rest really on no other ground than that +the privileges claimed are essential conditions of a normal, an +unmutilated and undeformed manhood, and it is on this broad ground that +Adam Smith justifies the State's intervention to stop disease and supply education.</p> + +<p>Smith held but a poor opinion of the capacities of Government +management, and especially of English Government management, which, he +asserted, was characterized in times of peace by "the slothful and +negligent profusion that was natural to monarchies," and in times of war +by "all the thoughtless extravagance" that was peculiar to democracies; +but nevertheless he had no hesitation in asking Government to undertake +a considerable number of industrial enterprises, because he believed +that these were enterprises which Government with all its faults was +better fitted to conduct successfully than private adventurers were. On +the other hand, Smith entertained the highest possible belief in +individual liberty, but he had never any scruple about sacrificing +liberty of contract where the sacrifice was demanded by the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> moral +end of Government—the maintenance of just and humane dealing between +man and man. For example, the suppression of the truck system, which is +sometimes condemned as an undue interference with freedom of contract, +was strongly supported by Smith, who declared it to be "quite just and +equitable," inasmuch as it merely secured to the workmen the pay they +were entitled to receive and "imposed no real hardship on the +masters—it only obliged them to pay that value in money which they +pretended to pay, but did not really pay, in goods." It was only a just +and necessary protection of the weaker party to a contract against an +oppressive exaction to which, like the apothecary in "Romeo and Juliet," +his poverty might have consented, but not his will. Precisely analogous +is Smith's position concerning usury laws. Usury laws are seldom +defended now; for one thing, money has become so abundant that the +competition of lender with lender may be trusted to as a better security +for fair and reasonable treatment of borrowers than a Government +enactment could provide. But Smith in his day was strongly in favour of +fixing a legal rate of interest, because he thought it was necessary to +prevent the practice of extortion by unscrupulous dealers on necessitous +clients. His views on truck and usury show that he had no sympathy with +those who contend that the State must on no account interfere with +grown-up people in the bargains they may make, inasmuch as grown-up +people may be expected to be quite capable of looking effectively after +their own interest. Smith recognised that grown-up people were often in +natural circumstances where it was practically impossible for them to +assert effectively not their interests merely, but even their essential +claims as fellow-citizens; and that therefore it was the State's duty to +come to the aid of those whose own economic position was weak, and to +force upon the strong certain responsibilities—or at least secure for +the weak certain broad, positive conditions—which just and humane +dealing might demand.</p> + +<p>Now, in these ideas about truck and usury, as in the proposals +previously touched upon for checking the growth of disease or cowardice +or ignorance, is not the principle of social politics that is applied by +Smith precisely the principle that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> runs through our whole recent social +legislation—factory, sanitary, and educational—the principle of the +State's obligation to secure the people in the essential conditions of +all normal manhood? German writers often take Smith for an exponent, if +not for the founder, of what they call the <i>Rechtstaat</i> theory—the +theory that the State is mainly the protector of right; but in reality +Smith's doctrine corresponded pretty closely with their own +<i>Kultur-und-Wohlfahrtstaat</i> theory—the theory that the State is a +promoter of culture and welfare; and if further proof were wanted, it +might be found in the fact that in his doctrine of taxation he departs +altogether from the economic principle, which is popularly associated +with the <i>Rechtstaat</i> idea, and is supposed to be a corollary of it, +that a tax is a <i>quid pro quo</i>, a price paid for a service rendered, and +ought therefore to be imposed on individuals in proportion to the +service they respectively receive from the State; and instead of this +economic principle he lays down the broad ethical one, that a tax is a +public obligation which individuals ought to be called upon to discharge +in proportion to their respective abilities. The rich cannot fairly be +said to <i>get</i> more good from the State than the poor; they probably get +less, because they are better capable of providing for their own +defence; but the rich are able to <i>do</i> more good to the State than the +poor, and because they are able, they are bound.</p> + +<p>Such is the social doctrine of Adam Smith, and it is manifestly no +doctrine of rigid individualism, calling out for freedom at any price, +or banning all interference with the natural play of self-interest and +competition. The natural liberty for which the great English economist +contended was not the mere ghost of liberty worshipped by Mr. Spencer. +An ignorant man might be free, as an imprisoned man was free, within +limits, but he was not free within normal human limits. He had not the +use of his mind; he was wanting in an essential part of his manhood. +First make him a man—a whole, complete, competent man, fit for man's +vocation—then make him free. There is a common metaphysical distinction +between the formal freedom of the will and the material freedom of the +will. The drunkard, the lunatic, is formally free, for he exerts his +choice, but he is materially enslaved. The difference<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> between liberty +according to Mr. Spencer and liberty according to Adam Smith is +something analogous. The liberty Smith desires is a substantial liberty; +it is clothed with a body—a definite body of universal human +rights—which the State is bound to realize as it would realize liberty +itself. The reason of his difference from the <i>laissez-faire</i> theory of +Mr. Spencer, which is so often erroneously attributed to him, is that he +takes a much broader and more practical view of the original moral +rights of individuals than such ultra-individualists are accustomed to +do. While they hold that the State is there only to secure to +individuals reality and equality of freedom, he holds it is there to +secure them reality and equality of all moral rights. He would supply +all alike, therefore, with certain material securities—the material +conditions necessary to secure their moral rights with equal +completeness,—and he would protect them in the enjoyment of those +conditions against the assaults of poverty and misfortune no less than +the assaults of murderers and thieves. But beyond this line he would +refuse to go; if he stands clearly out in advance of the <i>laissez-faire</i> +position of equality of legal freedom, he stands equally clearly far +short of the socialistic position of equality of material conditions.</p> + +<p>Now this doctrine of the great founder of English political economy has +been substantially the doctrine of his successors as well. It would be +beyond my present scope to trace the history of the doctrine of social +politics through the writings of the whole succession of English +economists, nor is it necessary. I shall choose a representative +economist from the group who are generally reckoned the most narrow and +unsympathetic, who are accused of having shifted political economy off +the broader lines on which it had been launched by Smith, who are +counted the great idolaters of self-interest and natural law, and the +scientific associates of the much-abused Manchester school—viz., the +disciples of Ricardo. Ricardo himself touches only incidentally on the +functions of the State, but he then does so to defend interventions, +such as minting money, marking plate, testing drugs, examining medical +candidates, and the like, which are meant to guard people against +deceptions they are themselves incompetent to detect. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>Moreover, he was +a strong advocate for at least one important extension of the State's +industrial <i>rôle</i>—he would establish a National Bank of issue with +exclusive privileges; and it is not uninteresting to remember that in +his place in Parliament he brought forward the suggestion of a system of +Government annuities for the accommodation of working men, which was +introduced by Mr. Gladstone half a century later, and has been denounced +in certain quarters as that statesman's first step in socialism, and +that he was one of a very small minority who voted for a Parliamentary +inquiry into the social system of Robert Owen.</p> + +<p>But if Ricardo is comparatively silent on the subject, we fortunately +possess a very ample discussion of it by one of his leading disciples, +J. E. McCulloch. When Ricardo died, James Mill wrote to McCulloch, "As +you and I are his two and only genuine disciples, his memory must be a +point of connection between us;" and it was on McCulloch that the mantle +of the master descended. His "Principles of Political Economy," which +may be said to be an exposition of the system of economics according to +Ricardo, was for many years the principal textbook of the science, and +will still be admitted to be the best and most complete statement of +what, in the cant of the present day, is called orthodox political +economy. McCulloch, indeed, is more than merely the expositor of that +system; he is really one of its founders, the author of one of its most +famous dogmas, at least in its current form, the now exploded doctrine +of the Wages fund; and of all the adherents of this orthodox tradition, +McCulloch is commonly considered the hardest and most narrow. There are +economists who are supposed to show a native generous warmth which all +the severities of their science are unable to quell. John Stuart Mill is +known to have come under St. Simonian influences in his younger days, +and to have been fond ever afterwards of calling himself a socialist; +and Professor Sidgwick, in our own day, is often credited—and not +unjustly—with a like breadth of heart, and in publishing his views of +Government interference, he gives them the name of "Economic Socialism." +But in selecting McCulloch, I select an economist the rigour of whose +principles has never been suspected, and yet so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> striking is the +uniformity of the English tradition on this subject, that in reality +neither Mill nor Mr. Sidgwick professes a broader doctrine of social +politics, or goes a step further, or more heartily on the road to +socialism than that accredited champion of individualism, John Ramsay McCulloch.</p> + +<p>McCulloch's "Principles" contains—from the second edition in 1830 +onward to the last author's edition in 1849—a special chapter on the +limits of Government interference; and the chapter starts with an +explicit repudiation of the doctrine of <i>laissez-faire</i>, which was then +apparently only beginning to come into vogue in England.</p> + +<p>"An idea," says McCulloch, "seems however to have been recently gaining +ground that the duty of the Government with regard to the domestic +policy of the country is almost entirely of a negative kind, and that it +has merely to maintain the security of property and the freedom of +industry. But its duty is by no means so simple and easily defined as +those who support this opinion would have us to believe. It is certainly +true that its interference with the pursuits of individuals has been, in +very many instances, exerted in a wrong direction, and carried to a +ruinous excess. Still, however, it is easy to see that we should fall +into a very great error if we supposed that it might be entirely +dispensed with. Freedom is not, as some appear to think, the end of +government; the advancement of the public prosperity and happiness is +its end; and freedom is valuable in so far only as it contributes to +bring it about. In laying it down, for example, that individuals should +be permitted, without let or hindrance, to engage in any business or +profession they may prefer, the condition that it is not injurious to +others is always understood. No one doubts the propriety of a Government +interfering to suppress what is or might otherwise become a public +nuisance; nor does any one doubt that it may advantageously interfere to +give facilities to commerce by negotiating treaties with foreign powers, +and by removing such obstacles as cannot be removed by individuals. But +the interference of Government cannot be limited to cases of this sort. +However disinclined, it is obliged to interfere in an infinite variety +of ways and for an infinite variety of purposes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> It must, to notice +only one or two of the <i>classes</i> of objects requiring its interference, +decide as to the species of contract to which it will lend its sanction, +and the means to be adopted to enforce true performance; it must decide +in regard to the distribution of the property of those who die +intestate, and the effect to be given to the directions in wills and +testaments; and it must frequently engage itself, or authorize +individuals or associations to engage, in various sorts of undertakings +deeply affecting the rights and interests of others and of society. The +furnishing of elementary instruction in the ordinary branches of +education for all classes of persons and the establishment of a +compulsory provision for the support of the destitute poor are generally +also included, and apparently with the greatest propriety, among the +duties incumbent on administration" (p. 262).</p> + +<p>He allows State ownership and State management of industrial works, +wherever State ownership and management are more efficient for the +purpose than private enterprise—in other words, where they are more +economical—as in the cases of the coinage, roads, harbours, postal +communication, etc. He would expropriate land for railway purposes, +grant a monopoly to the railway company, and then subject it to +Government control in the public interest; he would impose many sorts of +restrictions on freedom of contract, freedom of industry, freedom of +trade, freedom of property, and freedom of bequest; and, what is more +important, he recognises clearly that with the growth of society fresh +interferences of a serious character will be constantly called for, +which may in some cases involve the application of entirely new +principles, or throw on the Government work of an entirely new character.</p> + +<p>For example, he is profoundly impressed with the dangers of the +manufacturing system, which he saw growing and multiplying all around +him, and so far from dreaming that the course of industry should remain +uncontrolled, he even ventures, in a remarkable passage, to express the +doubt whether it may not "in the end be found that it was unwise to +allow the manufacturing system to gain so great an ascendancy as it has +done in this country, and that measures should have been early adopted +to check and moderate its growth" (p. 191).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> He admits that a decisive +answer to this question could only be given by the economists of a +future generation, after a longer experience of the system than was +possible when he wrote, but he cannot conceal the gravest apprehension +at the preponderance which manufactures were rapidly gaining in our +industrial economy. And his reasons are worthy of attention. The first +is the destruction of the old moral ties that knit masters and men together.</p> + +<p>"But we doubt whether any country, how wealthy soever, should be looked +upon as in a healthy, sound state, where the leading interest consists +of a small number of great capitalists, and of vast numbers of +workpeople in their employment, but unconnected with them by any ties of +gratitude, sympathy, or affection. This estrangement is occasioned by +the great scale on which labour is now carried on in most businesses; +and by the consequent impossibility of the masters becoming acquainted, +even if they desired it, with the great bulk of their workpeople.... The +kindlier feelings have no share in an intercourse of this sort; speaking +generally, everything is regulated on both sides by the narrowest and +most selfish views and considerations; a man and a machine being treated +with about the same sympathy and regard" (p. 193).</p> + +<p>The second reason is the suppression of the facilities of advancement +enjoyed by labourers under the previous <i>régime</i>. "Owing to the greater +scale on which employments are now mostly carried on, workmen have less +chance than formerly of advancing themselves or their families to any +higher situation, or of exchanging the character of labourers for that +of masters" (p. 188). For the majority of the working-class to be thus, +as he expresses it, "condemned as it were to perpetual helotism," is not +conducive to the health of a nation. The third reason is the comparative +instability of manufacturing business. It becomes a matter of the most +serious concern for a State, "when a very large proportion of the +population has been, through their agency, rendered dependent on foreign +demand, and on the caprices and mutations of fashion" (p. 192). That +also is a state of things fraught with danger to the health of a +community. McCulloch always treats political economy as if he defined +it—and the definition would be better than his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> own—as the science of +the working of industrial society in health and disease; and he always +throws on the State a considerable responsibility in the business of +social hygiene; going so far, we have seen in the passages just quoted, +as to suggest whether a legal check ought not to have been imposed on +the free growth of the factory system, on account of its bad effects on +the economic position of the labouring class. We had suffered the system +to advance too far to impose that check now, but there were other +measures which, in his opinion, the Legislature might judiciously take +in the same interest. It is of course impossible, by Act of Parliament, +to infuse higher views of duty or warmer feelings of ordinary human +regard into the relations between manufacturers and their workmen; but +the State might, according to McCulloch, do something to mitigate the +modern plague of commercial crises, by a policy of free trade, by +adopting a sound monetary system, by securing a continuance of peace, +and by "such a scheme of public charity as might fully relieve the +distresses without insulting the feelings or lessening the industry of +the labouring classes" (p. 192).</p> + +<p>As with commercial crises, so with other features of the modern +industrial system; wherever they tend to the deterioration of the +labouring class, McCulloch always holds the State bound to intervene, if +it can, to prevent such a result. He would stop the immigration of what +is sometimes called pauper labour—of bodies of workpeople brought up in +an inferior standard of life—because their example and their +competition tend to pull down the native population to their own level. +The example he chooses is not the Jewish element in the East End of +London, but the much more important case of the Irish immigration into +Liverpool and Glasgow; and while he would prefer to see Government +taking steps to improve the Irish people in Ireland itself, he declares +that, if that is not practicable, then "justice to our own people +requires that measures should be adopted to hinder Great Britain from +being overrun with the outpourings of this <i>officina pauperum</i>, to +hinder Ireland from dragging us down to the same hopeless abyss of +pauperism and wretchedness in which she is sunk" (p. 422). This policy +may be wise, or it may not, but it shows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> very plainly—what appears so +often in his writings—how deeply McCulloch's mind was penetrated with +the conviction that one of the greatest of all the dangers from which +the State ought to do what it well can to preserve the people, was the +danger of falling to a lower standard of tastes and requirements, and +thereby losing ambition and industry, and the very possibility of rising again.</p> + +<p>"This lowering of the opinions of the labouring class with respect to +the mode in which they should live is perhaps the most serious of all +the evils that can befall them.... The example of such individuals or +bodies of individuals as submit quietly to have their wages reduced, and +who are content if they get only mere necessaries, should never be held +up for public imitation. On the contrary, everything should be done to +make such apathy be esteemed discreditable. The best interests of +society require that the rate of wages should be elevated as high as +possible—that a taste for comforts and enjoyments should be widely +diffused, and, if possible, interwoven with national habits and +prejudices. Very low wages, by rendering it impossible for increased +exertions to obtain any considerable increase of advantages, effectually +hinder them from being made, and are of all others the most powerful +cause of that idleness and apathy that contents itself with what can +barely continue animal existence" (p. 415).</p> + +<p>And he goes on to refute the idea of Benjamin Franklin, that high wages +breed indolent and dissipated habits, and to contend that they not only +improve the character and efficiency of the labourer, but are in the end +a source of gain, instead of loss, to the employer. But, although the +maintenance of a high rate of wages is so great an object of public +solicitude, it was an object which it was, in McCulloch's judgment, +outside the State's province, simply because it was outside its power, +to do anything directly to promote, because while authority could fix a +price for labour, it could never compel employers to engage labour at +that price; and consequently its interference in such a way would only +end in injury to the class it sought to befriend, as well as to the +trade of the country in general. Still, McCulloch is far from wishing to +repel the State's offices or the offices of public opinion in +connection<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> with the business altogether. In the passage just quoted he +expressly makes an appeal to public opinion for an active interference +in a direction where, he believes, its interference might be useful; and +as for the action of the State, he approves, for one thing, of the +legalization of trades unions, and, for another, of the special +instruction of the public, at the national expense, in the principles on +which a high rate of wages depend.</p> + +<p>In regard to the Factory Acts, while he would have the hours of labour +in the case of grown-up men settled by the parties themselves, because +he thought them the only persons competent to settle them +satisfactorily, he strongly supported the interference of the +Legislature, on grounds of ordinary humanity, to limit the working day +of children and women, because "the former are naturally, and the latter +have been rendered, through custom and the institutions of society, +unable to protect themselves" (p. 426); and he seconded all Lord +Shaftesbury's labours down to the Ten Hours Act of 1847, to which he +objected on the ground that it involved a practical interference with +all adult factory labour. On the other hand, he was in favour of the +principle of employers' liability for accidents in mines and workshops, +because there seemed no other way of saving the labourers from their own +carelessness, except by making the masters responsible for the +enforcement of the necessary regulations (p. 307).</p> + +<p>But McCulloch's general position on this class of questions is still +better exemplified in the view he takes of the State's duty on a matter +of great present interest, the housing of the poor. Here he has no +hesitation in throwing the principal blame for the bad accommodation of +the working-classes of that day, for the underground cellar dwellings of +Liverpool and Manchester, the overcrowded lodging-houses of London, and +the streets of cottages unsupplied with water or drainage, on "the +culpable inattention of the authorities." Mr. Goschen vindicates the +legitimacy of Government interference with the housing of the people, on +the ground that it is the business of Government to see justice done +between man and man. When a man hired a house, Government had a right to +see that he got a house, and a house meant a dwelling fit for human +habitation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> The inspection of houses is, according to this idea, only a +case of necessary protection against fraud, like the institution of +medical examinations, the assaying of metals, or the testing of drugs; +and protection against fraud is admitted everywhere to be the proper +business of Government. McCulloch bases his justification of the +intervention on much broader grounds. Government needs no other warrant +for condemning a house that is unfit for human habitation but the simple +fact that the house is unfit for human habitation, and it makes no +difference whether the tenant is cheated into taking the bad house, or +takes it openly because he prefers it. In fact, the strongest reason, in +McCulloch's opinion, for invoking Government interference in the case at +all, is precisely the circumstance that so many people actually prefer +unwholesome houses from motives of economy.</p> + +<p>"Such cottages," he says, "being cheap, are always sure to find +occupiers. Nothing, however, can be more obvious than that it is the +duty of Government to take measures for the prevention and repair of an +abuse of this sort. Its injurious influence is not confined to the +occupiers of the houses referred to, though if it were, that would be no +good reason for declining to introduce a better system. But the diseases +engendered in these unhealthy abodes frequently extend their ravages +through all classes of the community, so that the best interests of the +middle and higher orders, as well as of the lowest, are involved in this +question. And, on the same principle that we adopt measures to guard +against the plague, we should endeavour to secure ourselves against +typhus, and against the brutalizing influence, over any considerable +portion of the population, of a residence amid filth and disease" (p. 308).</p> + +<p>The last clause is remarkable. The State is required to protect the +people from degrading influences, to prevent them from being brutalized +through the avarice or apathy of others, and to prevent them being +brutalized through the avarice or apathy of themselves. It is not what +many persons would expect, but here we have political economy, and the +most "orthodox" political economy, forcing people to go to a dearer +market for their houses, in order to satisfy a sentiment of humanity, +and imposing on the State a social mission of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> broad positive +character—the mission of extirpating brutalizing influences. Yet, +expected or not, this is really the ordinary tradition of English +economists—it is the principle laid down by Smith of obliging the State +to secure for the people an unmutilated and undeformed manhood, to +provide for them by public means the fundamental conditions of a humane existence.</p> + +<p>McCulloch's position comes out more clearly still in the reasons he +gives for advocating a compulsory provision for the able-bodied poor, +and a national system of popular education. With regard to the impotent +poor, he is content with saying that it would be inhumanity to deny them +support, and injustice to throw their support exclusively on the +benevolent. A poor-rate is sometimes defended on what are professed to +be strictly economical grounds, by showing that it is both less +mischievous and less expensive than mendicity; but what strikes +McCulloch is not so much the wastefulness of private charity in the +hands of the benevolent as the injustice of suffering the avaricious to +escape their natural obligations. Few, however, have much difficulty in +finding one good reason or another for making a public provision for the +impotent poor; the crux of the question of public assistance is the case +of the able-bodied poor. A provision for the able-bodied poor is +practically a recognition in a particular form of "the right to labour," +and the right to labour resounds with many revolutionary terrors in our +English ears, although it has, as a matter of fact, been practised +quietly, and most of the time in one of its most pernicious forms, in +every parish of England for nearly three hundred years.</p> + +<p>Now on this question McCulloch was a convert. He confessed to the +Committee on the State of the Poor in Ireland, in 1830, that he had +changed his views on the subject entirely since his previous evidence in +1825. He had formerly been, he said, "too much imbued with mere theory, +with the opinions of Malthus and Townsend"; but he had become a firm +believer in the necessity and the public advantage of a legal provision +for the able-bodied poor, and he strongly recommended the introduction +of such a system into Ireland, in the first instance as an instrument of +individual relief, but also as an effectual engine of social +improvement. He gives the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> reasons for his conversion partly in his +evidence, and partly in a more systematic form in his "Principles of +Political Economy." First, Malthus had attributed to the Poor Law itself +effects which really sprang from certain bad arrangements that had been +engrafted on the English system of relief, but were not essential to +it—viz., the allowance system, and the law known as Gilbert's Act, +which deprived parishes of the right to refuse relief except in +workhouses, and forced them to provide work for paupers, if paupers +desired it, at or near their own houses. These two arrangements, in +McCulloch's opinion, converted the English provision for the able-bodied +poor from what we may term a wise and conditional right of labour into +an unwise and dangerous one. In the second place, he had come to see +that a legal provision for the poor, instead of having, as was alleged, +a necessary tendency to multiply pauperism, had in reality a natural +tendency to prevent its growth, because it gave the landlords and +influential ratepayers a strong pecuniary as well as moral interest in +producing that result. Its effect was thus to establish in every parish +a new local stimulus to social improvement, and it was on account of +this effect of a Poor Law that McCulloch thought it would be specially +beneficial to Ireland, because there was nothing Ireland needed more +than just such a local stimulus. In the third place, he had become more +and more profoundly impressed with the increasing gravity of the +vicissitudes and fluctuations of employment to which English labourers +were subject since England became mainly a manufacturing country, and +that unhappy feature of manufacturing industry was his principal reason +for invoking legislative assistance. A purely agricultural country, he +thought, might be able to do without a Poor Law, because agricultural +employment was comparatively steady; but in a manufacturing country a +Poor Law was indispensable, on account of the long periods of depression +or privation which were normal incidents in the life of labour in such a +country, and on account of the pernicious effect which these periods of +privation would, if unchecked, be certain to exercise upon the character +and habits of the labouring classes, through "lowering their estimate of +what is required for their comfortable and decent subsistence." +("Political Economy," p. 448.)</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p><p>"During these periods of extraordinary privation the labourer, if not +effectually relieved, would imperceptibly lose that taste for order, +decency, and cleanliness which had been gradually formed and accumulated +in better times by the insensible operation of habit and example, and no +strength of argument, no force of authority, could again instil into the +minds of a new generation, growing up under more prosperous +circumstances, the sentiments and tastes thus uprooted and destroyed by +the cold breath of penury. Every return of temporary distress would +therefore vitiate the feelings and lower the sensibilities of the +labouring classes" (p. 449).</p> + +<p>McCulloch quotes these words from Barton, but he quotes them to express +his own view, and their teaching is very explicit on the duty of +Government to the unemployed in seasons of commercial distress. In such +seasons of "extraordinary privation" the State is called upon to take +"effectual" measures—extraordinary measures, we may infer, if +extraordinary measures were necessary—for the relief of the unemployed, +not merely to save them from starvation, but to prevent them from losing +established habits of "order, decency, and cleanliness"; from getting +their feelings vitiated, their sensibilities impaired, so that they were +in danger of remaining content with a worse standard of living, and +sinking to a lower scale in the dignity of social and civilized being. +In a word, it is held to be the duty of the State to prevent, if it can, +the temporary reverses of the labouring class from resulting in its +permanent moral decadence; and as the object of the State's intervention +is to preserve the dignity, the self-respect, the moral independence and +energy of the labouring class, the manner of the intervention, the +choice of actual means and steps for administering the relief, must, of +course, be governed by the same considerations. "The true secret of +assisting the poor," says McCulloch, borrowing the words of Archbishop +Sumner, "is to make them agents in bettering their own condition, and to +supply them, not with a temporary stimulus, but with a permanent energy" (p. 475).</p> + +<p>The same principles come out even more strongly in McCulloch's remarks +on national education. He says, "the providing of elementary instruction +for all classes is one of the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> pressing duties of Government" (p. +473); and the elementary instruction he would provide would not stop at +reading and writing, but would include even a knowledge of so much +political economy as would explain "the circumstances which elevate and +depress the rate of wages" (p. 474). It was the duty of Government to +extirpate ignorance, because, "of all obstacles to improvement, +ignorance was the most formidable"; and it was its duty to establish +Government schools for the purpose, because charity schools impaired the +self-respect and sense of independence which were themselves first +essentials of all social improvement.</p> + +<p>"No extension of the system of charity and subscription schools can ever +fully compensate for the want of a statutory provision for the education +of the public. Something of degradation always attaches to the fact of +one's having been brought up in a charity school. The parents who send +children to such an institution, and even the children, know that they +have been received only because they are paupers unable to pay for their +education; and this consciousness has a tendency to weaken that state of +independence and self-respect, for the want of which the best education +may be but an imperfect substitute. But no such feeling could operate on +the pupils of schools established by the State" (p. 476).</p> + +<p>There is no question with McCulloch about the right of the State to take +steps to forward the moral progress, or to prevent the moral decadence, +of the community—or any part of the community—under its care; that is +simply its plain and primary duty, though there may be question with the +State, as with other agencies, whether particular measures proposed for +the purpose are really calculated to effect it.</p> + +<p>After this long, and I fear tedious, account of the opinions of +McCulloch, it would be needless to call more witnesses to refute those +who so commonly accuse English economists of teaching an extreme +individualism. For McCulloch may be said to be their own witness; they +hold him up as the hardest and narrowest of a hard and narrow school; +one of the ablest of them, Mr. J. K. Ingram, who writes McCulloch's +memoir in the <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>, going so far as to accuse him +of exhibiting "a habitual deadness in the study of social<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> questions to +all but material considerations." We have adduced enough to disprove +that statement. The reader of McCulloch's writings is constantly struck +to observe how habitually his judgment of a social question is governed +by ethical rather than economic considerations, and how his supreme +concern always seems to be to guard the labouring poor from falling into +any sort of permanent decadence, and to place them securely on the lines +of progressive elevation. But perhaps a word may be required about the +Manchester school. Mr. Ingram states—and again his statement probably +agrees with current prepossessions—that McCulloch occupied +"substantially the same theoretic position as was occupied at a somewhat +later period by the Manchester school" (<i>Encyc. Brit.</i>, art. "Political +Economy"). We have seen what McCulloch's theoretic position really was, +and it is certainly not the Manchester doctrine of popular anathema; it +is not the <i>Manchesterismus</i> of the German schools. But the Manchester +men can scarcely be said to have properly had anything in the nature of +a general theoretic position. They were not a school of political +philosophy—they were a band of practical politicians leagued to promote +particular reforms, especially two reforms in international policy which +involved large curtailments of the <i>rôle</i> of Government—viz., free +trade with other countries, and nonintervention in their internal +affairs; but they were far from thinking that, because it would be well +for the State to abstain from certain specific interferences, it would +be well for it to abstain from all; or that if the State had no +civilizing mission towards the people of other countries, it had +therefore no civilizing mission towards its own. Cobden, for example—to +go no farther—was a lifelong advocate of a national system of +education; he was a friend of factory legislation for women and +children, and, with respect to the poor, he taught in one of his +speeches the semi-socialistic doctrine that the poor had the first right +to maintenance from the land—that they are, as it were, the first +mortgagees. The Manchester school is really nothing but a stage +convention, a convenient polemical device for marking off a particular +theoretical extreme regarding the task of the State; but the persons in +actual life who were presumed to compose the school were no more, all +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> them, adherents of that theory than Scotchmen, off the stage, have +all short kilts and red hair. And as for that theory itself, the theory +of <i>laissez-faire</i>, it has never in England been really anything more +than it is now, the plea of alarmed vested interests stealing an +unwarranted, and I believe an unwelcome, shelter under the ægis of +economic science. English economists, from Smith to McCulloch, from +McCulloch to Mr. Sidgwick, have adhered with a truly remarkable +steadiness to a social doctrine of a precisely contrary character—a +social doctrine which, instead of exhibiting any unreasonable aversion +to Government interference, expressly assigns to Government a just and +proper place in promoting the social and industrial development of the +community. In the first place, in the department of production, they +freely allow that just as there are many industrial enterprises in the +conduct of which individual initiative must, for want of resources or +other reasons, yield to joint-stock companies, so there are others for +which individuals and companies alike must give place to the State, +because the State is by nature or circumstances better fitted than +either to conduct them satisfactorily; and in the next place, in the +department of distribution, while rating the moral or personal +independence of the individual as a supreme blessing and claim, they +have no scruple in calling on the State to interfere with the natural +liberty of contract between man and man, wherever such interference +seems requisite to secure just and equitable dealing, to guard that +personal independence itself from being sapped, or to establish the +people better in any of the other elementary conditions of all humane +living. We sometimes take pride at the present day in professing a +distrust for doctrinaire or metaphysical politics, and we are no doubt +right; but that reproach cannot justly be levelled against the English +economists. They were not Dutch gardeners trying to dress the world +after an artificial scheme; that is more distinctive of the social +systems they opposed. Their own system indeed was to study Nature, to +discover the principles of sound natural social growth, and to follow +them; but they had no idea on that account of leaving things to grow +merely as they would, or of renouncing the help of good husbandry. They +had, as we have seen, a positive doctrine of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> social politics, which +required from the State much more than the protection of liberty and the +repression of crime; they asked the State to undertake such industrial +work as it was naturally better fitted to perform than individuals or +associations of individuals, and they asked the State to secure to the +body of the citizens the essential conditions of a normal and +progressive manhood.</p> + +<p>Now this doctrine—which may be called the English doctrine of social +politics—seems to furnish a basis of considerable practical value for +discriminating between a wholesome and effective participation by +Government in the work of social reform, on the one hand, and those +pernicious and dangerous forms of intervention on the other, which may +be correctly known by the name of State socialism.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">II. <i>The Nature and Principle of State Socialism.</i></p> + +<p>Few words are at present more wantonly abused than the words socialism +and State socialism. They are tossed about at random, as if their +meaning, as was said of the spelling of former generations, was a mere +affair of private judgment. There is, in truth, a great deal of +socialism in the employment of the word; little respect is paid to the +previous appropriation of it; and especially since it has become, as has +been said, <i>hoffähig</i>, men press forward from the most unlikely +quarters, claim kindred with the socialists, and strive for the honour +of being called by their name. Many excellent persons, for example, have +no better pretext to advance for their claim than that they also feel a +warm sentiment of interest in the cause of the poor. Churchmen whose +duties bring them among the poor are very naturally touched with a sense +of the miseries they observe, and certain of them, who may perhaps +without offence be said to love the cause well more than wisely, come to +public platforms and declare themselves socialists—socialists, they +will sometimes explain, of an older and purer confession than the Social +Democratic Federation, but still good and genuine socialists—merely +because the religion they preach is a gospel of moral equality before +God, and of fraternal responsibility among men, whose very test in the +end is the test of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> human kindness—"Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of +the least of these My brethren, ye did it not to Me." But socialism is +not a feeling for the poor, nor yet for the responsibilities of society +in connection with their poverty; it is neither what is called +humanitarianism, nor what is called altruism; it is not an affair of +feeling at all, but of organization, and the feeling it breathes may not +be altruistic. The revolutionary socialists of the Continent, for +instance, are animated by as vigorous a spirit of self-interest and an +even more bitter class antagonism than a trade union or a land league. +They fight for a particular claim of right—the utterly unjustifiable +claim to the whole product of labour—and they propose to turn the world +upside down by a vast scheme of social reconstruction in order to get +their unjust, delusive, and mischievous idea realized. The gauge of +their socialism, therefore, must, after all, be looked for in their +claim and their remedy, and not in the vague sympathies of a benevolent +spectator who, without scrutinizing either the one or the other, thinks +he will call himself a socialist because he feels that there is much in +the lot of the poor man that might be mended, and that the rich might be +very properly and reasonably asked to make some sacrifices for their +brethren's sake out of their abundance. The philanthropic spectator +suffers from no scarcity of words to express his particular attitude if +he desires to do so; why then should he not leave socialists the +enjoyment of their vocable?</p> + +<p>There is often at the bottom of this sentimental patronage of socialism +the not unchivalrous but mistaken idea that the ordinary self-interest +of the world has been glorified by economists into a sacred and +all-sufficing principle which it would be interfering with the designs +of Providence to restrict, and that therefore it is only right to side +with socialism as a protest against the position taken by the apologists +of the present system of things, without being understood to commit +one's self thereby to the particular system which socialism may propose +to put in its place. But while the economists think very rightly that +self-interest must always be regarded as the ordinary guide of life, and +that the world cannot be reasonably expected to become either better, or +better off, if everybody were to look after other people's interests +(which he knows nothing about)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> instead of looking after his own (of +which he at least knows something), they are far from showing any +indifference to the danger of self-interest running into selfishness. On +the contrary, they have constantly insisted—as the evidence I have +already produced abundantly proves—that where the self-interest of the +strongly placed failed to subject itself spontaneously to the restraints +of social justice and the responsibilities of our common humanity, it +was for society to step in and impose the restraints that were just and +requisite, and to do so either by public opinion or by public authority +in the way most likely to be practicable and effectual. Another thing +our sentimental friends forget is that the socialists of the present day +have no thought of substituting any other general economic motive in the +room of self-interest. If they had their schemes realized to-morrow, men +would still be paid according to the amount of their individual work, +and each would work so far for his own hand. His daily motive would be +his individual interest, though his scope of achievement would be +severely limited by law with the view of securing a better general level +of happiness in the community. The question between economists and +socialists is not whether the claims of social justice are entitled to +be respected, but whether the claims which one or other of them make +really are claims of social justice or no. Still, so firm is the hold +taken by the notion that the socialists are the special champions of +social justice, that one of our most respected prelates has actually +defined socialism in that sense. The Bishop of Rochester (now of +Winchester), in his Pastoral Letter to his Clergy at the new year of +1888, takes occasion, while warning the younger brethren against the too +headlong philanthropy which "scouts what is known as the science of +political economy," to describe socialism as "the science of maintaining +the right proportion of equity and kindness while adjudicating the +various claims which individuals and society mutually make upon each +other." In reality, socialism would be better defined as a system that +outsteps the right proportion of equity and kindness, and sets up for +the masses claims that are devoid of proportion and measure of any kind, +and whose injustice and peril often arise from that very circumstance.</p> + +<p>If bishops carry the term off to one quarter, philosophers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> carry it to +another. Some identify socialism with the associative principle +generally, and see it manifested in the growth of one form of +organization as much as in the growth of another, or at most they may +limit it to the intervention of the associative principle in things +industrial, and in that event they would consider a joint-stock company, +or a co-operative store, or perhaps a building like Queen Anne's +Mansions, or the common-stair system of Scotland, to be as genuine +exhibitions of socialism as the collectivism or anarchism of the +Continental factions or the State monopolies of Prince Bismarck. But a +joint-stock company is no departure from—it is rather an extension +of—the present <i>régime</i> of private property, free competition, and +self-interest; and why should it be described by the same name as a +system whose chief pretension is to supersede that <i>régime</i> by a better? +Another very common definition of socialism—perhaps the most common of +all, and the last to which I shall refer here—is that socialism is the +general principle of giving society the greatest possible control over +the life of the individual, in contradistinction to the opposite +principle of individualism, which is taken to be the principle of giving +the individual the greatest possible immunity from the control of +society. Any extension of the authority of the State, any fresh +regulation of the transactions of individual citizens, is often +pronounced to be socialistic without asking what the object or nature of +the regulations may be. Socialism is identified with any enlargement, +and individualism with any contraction, of the functions of government. +But the world has not been made on this socialist principle alone, nor +on this individualist principle alone, and it can neither be explained +nor amended by means of the one without the other. Abstractions of that +order afford us little practical guidance. The socialists of real life +are not men who are bent on increasing Government control for the mere +sake of increasing Government control. There are broad tracts of the +individual's life they would leave free from social control; they would +give him, for example, full property in his house and furniture during +his lifetime, and the right to spend his income, once he had earned it, +in his own way. Their scheme, if carried out, might be found to compel +them to restrict this latter right,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> but their own desire and belief +undoubtedly is that the individual would have more freedom of the kind +then than he has now. They seek to extend Government control only +because, and only so far as, they believe Government control to be +necessary and fitted to realize certain theories of right and well-being +which they think it incumbent on organized society to realize; and +consequently the thing that properly characterizes their position is not +so much the degree of their confidence in the powers of the State as the +nature of the theories of right for which they invoke its intervention. +And just as socialists do not enlarge the bounds of authority from the +mere love of authority, so their opponents do not resist the enlargement +from the mere hatred of authority. They raise no controversy about the +abstract legitimacy of Government encroachments on the sphere of private +capital or of legal enlargements of the rights or privileges of labour. +There is no socialism in that; the socialism only comes in when the +encroachments are made on a field where Government administration is +unlikely to answer, and where the rights conferred are rights to which +labour can present no just and reasonable claim.</p> + +<p>It will be objected that this is to reduce socialism to a mere matter of +more or less. The English economists, it will be said, practised a +little socialism, because they allowed the use of State means to elevate +the condition of the working classes, or to provide for the wants of the +general community; and the Continental Social Democrats only practise a +little more socialism when they cry for a working-class State or for the +progressive nationalization of all industries. But in practical life the +measure is everything. So many grains of opium will cure; so many more +will kill. The important thing for adjusting claims must always be to +get the right measure, and the objection to socialistic schemes is +precisely this, that they take up a theory of distributive justice which +is an absolutely wrong measure, or else some vague theory of +disinheritance which contains no measure at all. They would nationalize +industries without paying any respect to their suitability for +Government management, simply because they want to see all industries +nationalized; and they would grant all manner of compensating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> +advantages to the working class as instalments of some vague claim, +either of economic right from which they are alleged to have been ousted +by the system of capitalism, or of aboriginal natural right from which +they are said to have been disinherited by the general arrangements of +society itself. What distinguishes their position and makes it socialism +is therefore precisely this absence of measure or of the right measure, +and one great advantage of the English doctrine of social politics which +I have expounded, is that it is able to supply this indispensable +criterion. That doctrine would limit the industrial undertakings of the +State to such as it possessed natural advantages for conducting +successfully, and the State's part in social reform to securing for the +people the essential conditions of all humane living, of all normal and +progressive manhood. It would interfere, indeed, as little as possible +with liberty of speculation, because it recognises that the best way of +promoting social progress and prosperity is to multiply the +opportunities, and with the opportunities the incentives, of talent and +capital; but, while giving the strong their head, in the belief that +they will carry on the world so far after them, it would insist on the +public authority taking sharp heed that no large section of the common +people be suffered to fall permanently behind in the race, to lose the +very conditions of further progress, and to lapse into ways of living +which the opinion of the time thinks unworthy of our common humanity. +Now State socialism disregards these limits, straying generally far +beyond them, and it may not improperly be defined as the system which +requires the State to do work it is unfit to do in order to invest the +working classes with privileges they have no right to get.</p> + +<p>The term State socialism originated in Germany a few years ago to +express the antithesis not of free, voluntary, or Christian socialism, +as seems frequently to be imagined here, but of revolutionary socialism, +which is always considered to be socialism proper, because it is the +only form of the system that is of any serious moment at the present +day. State socialism has the same general aims as socialism proper, only +it would carry out its plans gradually by means of the existing State, +instead of first overturning the existing State by revolution and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>establishing in its place a new political organization for the purpose, +the Social Democratic Republic. There are socialists who fancy they have +but at any moment to choose a government and issue a decree, as Napoleon +once did—"Let misery be abolished this day fortnight"—and misery would +be abolished that day fortnight. But the State socialists are unable to +share this simple faith. They are State socialists not because they have +more confidence in the State than other socialists, but because they +have less. They consider it utterly futile to expect a democratic +community ever to be able to create a political executive that should be +powerful enough to carry through the entire socialistic programme. Like +the Social Conservatives of all countries, like our own Young England +party, for example, or the Tory Democrats of the present generation, +they combine a warm zeal for popular amelioration with a profound +distrust of popular government; but when compared with other socialists, +they take a very sober view of the capacity of government of any kind; +and although they believe implicitly in the "Social Monarchy of the +Hohenzollerns," they doubt whether the strongest monarchy the world has +ever seen would be strong enough to effect a socialistic reconstruction +of the industrial system without retaining the existence for many +centuries to come of the ancient institutions of private property and inheritance.</p> + +<p>All that is at least very frankly acknowledged by Rodbertus, the +remarkable but overrated thinker whom the State socialists of Germany +have chosen for their father. Rodbertus was always regarded as a great +oracle by Lassalle, the originator of the present socialist agitation, +and his authority is constantly quoted by the most eminent luminary +among the State socialists of those latter days, Professor Adolph +Wagner, who says it was Rodbertus that first shed on him "the Damascus +light that tore from his eyes the scales of economic individualism." +Rodbertus had lived for a quarter of a century in a political sulk +against the Hohenzollerns. Though he had served as a Minister of State, +he threw up his political career rather than accept a constitution as a +mere royal favour; he refused to work under it or recognise it by so +much as a vote at the polls. But when the power of the Hohenzollerns +became established<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> by the victories of Königgrätz and Sedan, and when +they embarked on their new policy of State socialism, Rodbertus +developed into one of their most ardent worshippers. Their new social +policy, it is true, was avowedly adopted as a corrective of socialism, +as a kind of inoculation with a milder type of the disease in order to +procure immunity from a more malignant; but Bismarck contended at the +same time that it was nothing but the old traditional policy of the +House of Prussia, who had long before placed the right of existence and +the right of labour in the statute-book of the country, and whose most +illustrious member, Frederick the Great, used to be fond of calling +himself "the beggars' king." Under these circumstances Rodbertus came to +place the whole hope of the future in the "Social Monarchy of the +Hohenzollerns," and ventured to prophesy that a socialist emperor would +yet be born to that House who would rule possibly with a rod of iron, +but would always rule for the greatest good of the labouring class. +Still, even under a dynasty of socialist emperors Rodbertus gave five +hundred years for the completion of the economic revolution he +contemplated, because he acknowledged it would take all that time for +society to acquire the moral principle and habitual firmness of will +which would alone enable it to dispense with the institutions of private +property and inheritance without suffering serious injury.</p> + +<p>In theory Rodbertus was a believer in the modern social democratic +doctrine of the labourer's right to the full product of his labour—the +doctrine which gives itself out as "scientific socialism," because it is +got by combining a misunderstanding of Ricardo's theory of wages with a +misunderstanding of the same economist's theory of value—and which +would abolish rent, interest, profit, and all forms of "labourless +income," and give the entire gross product to the labourer, because by +that union of scientific blunders it is made to appear that the labourer +has produced the whole product himself. Rodbertus, in fact, claimed to +be the author of that doctrine, and fought for the priority with Marx, +though in reality the English socialists had drawn the same conclusions +from the same blunders long before either of them; but author or no +author of it, his sole reason for touching the work of social reform at +all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> was to get that particular claim of right recognised. Yet for five +hundred years Rodbertus will not wrong the labourers by granting them +their full rights. He admits that without the assistance of the private +capitalist during that interval labourers would not produce so much +work, and therefore could not earn so much wages as they do now; and +consequently, in spite of his theories, he declines to suppress rent and +interest in the meantime, and practically tells the labourers they must +wait for the full product of labour till the time comes when they can +produce the full product themselves. That is virtually to confess that +while the claim may be just then, it is unjust now; and although +Rodbertus never makes that acknowledgment, he is content to leave the +claim in abeyance and to put forward in its place, as a provisional +ideal of just distribution more conformable to the present situation of +things, the claim of the labourer to a progressive share, step for step +with the capitalist, in the results of the increasing productivity given +to labour by inventions and machinery. He thought that at present, so +far from getting the whole product of labour, the labourer was getting a +less and less share of its products every day, and though this can be +easily shown to be a delusive fear, Rodbertus's State socialism was +devised to counteract it.</p> + +<p>For this purpose the first requisite was the systematic management of +all industries by the State. The final goal was to be State property as +well as State management, but for the greater part of five centuries the +system would be private property and State management. Sir Rowland Hill +and the English railway nationalizers proposed that the State should own +the lines, but that the companies should continue to work them; +Rodbertus's idea, on the contrary, is that the State should work, but +not own. But then the State should manage everything and everywhere. +Co-operation and joint-stock management were as objectionable to him as +individual management. He thought it a mere delusion to suppose, as some +socialists did, that the growth of joint-stock companies and +co-operative societies is a step in historical evolution towards a +socialist <i>régime</i>. It was just the opposite; it was individual property +in a worse form, and he always told his friend Lassalle that it was a +hopeless dream to expect to bring in the reign<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> of justice and +brotherhood by his plan of founding productive associations on State +credit, because productive societies really led the other way, and +created batches of joint-stock property, which he said would make itself +a thousand times more bitterly hated than the individual property of +to-day. One association would compete with another, and the group on a +rich mine would use their advantage over the group on a poor one as +mercilessly as private capitalists do now. Nothing would answer the end +but State property, and nothing would conduce to State property but State management.</p> + +<p>The object of all this intervention, as we have said, is to realize a +certain ideal or standard of fair wages—the standard according to which +a fair wage is one that grows step by step with the productive capacity +of the country; and the plan Rodbertus proposes to realize it by is +practically a scheme of compulsory profit-sharing. He would convert all +land and capital into an irredeemable national stock, of which the +present owners would be constituted the first or original holders, which +they might sell or transfer at pleasure but not call up, and on which +they should receive, not a fixed rent or rate of interest, but an annual +dividend varying with the produce or profits of the year. The produce of +the year was to be divided into three parts: one for the landowners, to +be shared according to the amount of stock they respectively held; a +second for the capitalists, to be shared in the same way; and the third +for the labourers, to be shared by them according to the quantity of +work they did, measured by the time occupied and the relative strain of +their several trades. This division was necessarily very arbitrary in +its nature; there was no principle whatever to decide how much should go +to the landowners, and how much to capitalists, and how much to +labourers; and although there was a rule for settling the price of +labour in one trade as compared with the price of labour in another, it +is a rule that would afford very little practical guidance if one came +to apply it in actual life. At all events, Rodbertus himself toiled for +years at a working plan for his scheme of wages, but though he always +gave out that he had succeeded in preparing one, he steadily refused to +disclose it even to trusted admirers like Lassalle and Rudolph Meyer, +on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> the singular pretext that the world knew too little political +economy as yet to receive it, and at his death nothing of the sort seems +to have been discovered among his papers. Is it doing him any injustice +to infer that he had never been able to arrive at a plan that satisfied +his own mind as to its being neither arbitrary nor impracticable?</p> + +<p>Now this is a good specimen of State socialism, because it is so +complete and brings out so decisively the broad characteristics of the +system. In the first place, it desires a progressive and indiscriminate +nationalization of all industries, not because it thinks they will be +more efficiently or more economically managed in consequence of the +change, but merely as a preliminary step towards a particular scheme of +social reform; in the next place, that scheme of social reform is an +ideal of equitable distribution which is demonstrably false, and is +admittedly incapable of immediate realization; in the third place, a +provisional policy is adopted in the meanwhile by pitching arbitrarily +on a certain measure of privileges and advantages that are to be +guaranteed to the labouring classes by law as partial instalments of +rights deferred or compensations for rights alleged to be taken away.</p> + +<p>It may be that not many State socialists are so thoroughgoing as +Rodbertus. Few of them possibly accept his theory of the labourer's +right—which is virtually that the labourer has a right to everything, +all existing wealth being considered merely an accumulation of unpaid +labour—and few of them may throw so heavy a burden on the State as the +whole production and the whole distribution of the country. But they all +start from some theory of right that is just as false, and they all +impose work on the State which the State cannot creditably perform. They +all think of the mass of mankind as being disinherited in one way or +another by the present social system, perhaps through the permission of +private property at all, perhaps through permission of its inequalities. +M. de Laveleye, indeed, goes a step further back still. In an article he +has contributed on this subject to the <i>Contemporary Review</i>, he uses as +his motto the saying of M. Renan that Nature is injustice itself, and he +would have society to correct not merely the inequalities which society +may have itself had a share in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> establishing, but also the inequalities +of talent or opportunity which are Nature's own work. Accordingly, M. de +Laveleye describes himself as a State socialist, because he thinks "the +State ought to make use of its legitimate powers for the establishment +of the equality of conditions among men in proportion to their personal +merit." Equality of conditions and personal merit are inconsistent +standards, but if they were harmonious, it would be beyond the power of +the State to realize them for want of an effective calculus of either.</p> + +<p>Few State socialists, however, profess the purpose of correcting the +differences of native endowment; for the most part, when they found +their policy on any theoretic idea at all, they found it on some idea of +historical reparation. In this country, socialist notions always crop up +out of the land. German socialists direct their attack mainly on +capital, but English socialism fastens very naturally on property in +land, which in England is concentrated into unnaturally few hands: and a +claim is very commonly advanced for more or less indefinite compensation +to the labouring class on account of their alleged disinheritance, +through the institution of private property, from their aboriginal or +natural rights to the use of the earth, the common possession of the +race. That is the ground, for example, which Mr. Spencer takes for +advocating land nationalization, and Mr. Chamberlain for his various +claims for "ransom." The last-comer is held to have as good a right to +the free use of the earth as the first occupant; and if society deprives +him of that right for purposes of its own, he is maintained to be +entitled to receive some equivalent, as if society does not already give +the new-comer vastly more than it took away. His chances of obtaining a +decent living in the world, instead of being reduced, have been +immensely multiplied through the social system that has resulted from +the private appropriation of land. The primitive economic rights whose +loss socialists make the subject of so much lamentation are generally +considered to be these four: (1) the right to hunt; (2) the right to +fish; (3) the right to gather nuts and berries; and (4) the right to +feed a cow or sheep on the waste land. Fourier added a fifth—which was +certainly a right much utilized in early times—the right of theft from +people over the border of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> the territory of one's own tribe. Let that +right be thrown in with the rest; then the claim with which every +English child is alleged to be born, and for which compensation is +asked, is the claim to a thirty-millionth part of the value of these +five aboriginal uses of the soil of England; and what is that worth? +Why, if the "prairie value" of the soil is estimated at the high figure +of a shilling the acre per annum, it would only give every inhabitant +something under half a crown, and when compensation is demanded for the +loss of this ridiculous pittance, one calls to mind what immensely +greater compensations the modern child is born to. Civilization is +itself a social property, a common fund, a people's heritage, +accumulating from one generation to another, and opening to the +new-comer economic opportunities and careers incomparably better and +more numerous than the ancient liberties of fishing in the stream or +nutting in the forest. The things actually demanded for the poor in +liquidation of this alleged claim may often be admissible on other +grounds altogether, but to ask them in the name of compensation for the +loss of those primitive economic rights—even though it was done by +Spencer or Cobden—is certainly State socialism.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chamberlain's famous "ransom" speeches are an example of that. There +was nothing socialist about the substance of his proposals. He expressly +disclaimed all sympathy with the idea of equality of conditions; he +hesitated about applying the graduated taxation principle to anything +but legacies; he explicitly said he would do nothing to discourage the +cumulative principle in the rich, or the habit of industry in the poor; +he asked mainly for free schools, free libraries, free parks, and other +things of a like character; but then he asked for them as a penalty for +wrong-doing, instead of an obligation of ability—as a ransom to be paid +by the rich, or by society generally, for having ousted the poor out of +their aboriginal rights. Mr. Chamberlain merely pled for useful social +reforms in a socialistic spirit.</p> + +<p>The favourite theory on which the German State socialists proceed seems +to be that men are entitled to an equalization of opportunities, to an +immunity, as far as human power can secure it, from the interposition of +chance and change. That<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> at least is the view of Professor Adolph +Wagner, whose position on the subject is of considerable consequence, +because he is the economist-in-ordinary to the German Government, and +has been Prince Bismarck's principal adviser in connection with all his +recent social legislation. Professor Wagner may be taken as the most +eminent and most authoritative exponent of the theory of State +socialism, and he recently developed his views on the subject afresh in +some articles in the Tübingen <i>Zeitschrift für die Gesammten +Staatswissenschaften</i> for 1887, on "Finanz-politik und +Staatsozialismus." According to Wagner, the chief aim of the State at +present—in taxation and in every other form of its activity—ought to +be to alter the national distribution of wealth to the advantage of the +working class. All politics must become social politics; the State must +turn workman's friend. For we have arrived at a new historical period; +and just as the feudal period gave way to the absolutist period, and the +absolutist period to the constitutional, so now the constitutional +period is merging in what ought to be called the social period, because +social ideas are very properly coming more and more to influence and +control everything, alike in the region of production, in the region of +distribution, and in the region of consumption. Now, according to +Wagner, the business of the State socialist is simply to facilitate the +development of this change—to work out the transition from the +constitutional to the social epoch in the best, wisest, and most +wholesome way for all parties concerned. He rejects the so-called +"scientific socialism" of Marx and Rodbertus and Lassalle, and the +practical policy of the social democratic agitation; and he will not +believe either that a false theory like theirs can obtain a lasting +influence, or that a party that builds itself on such a theory can ever +become a real power. But, at the same time, he cannot set down the +socialistic theory as a mere philosophical speculation, or the +socialistic movement as merely an artificial product of agitation. The +evils of both lie in the actual situation of things; they are +products—necessary products, he says—of our modern social development; +and they will never be effectually quieted till that development is put +on more salutary lines. They have a soul of truth in them, and that soul +of truth in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> doctrines and demands of radical socialism is what +State socialism seeks to disengage, to formulate, to realize. It is +quite true, for example, that the present distribution of wealth, with +its startling inequalities of accumulation and want, is historically the +effect, first, of class legislation and class administration of law; and +second, of mere blind chance operating on a legal <i>régime</i> of private +property and industrial freedom, and a state of the arts which gave the +large scale of production decided technical advantages. In one of his +former writings, Professor Wagner contended that German peasants lived +to this day in mean thatched huts, simply because their ancestors had +been impoverished by feudal exactions and ruined by wars which they had +no voice in declaring; and he seems to be now as profoundly impressed +with the belief that the present liberty allowed to unscrupulous +speculators to utilize the chances and opportunities of trade at the +cost of others is producing evils in no way less serious, which ought to +be checked effectively while there is yet time. So long as such +tendencies are left at work, he says it is idle trying to treat +socialism with any cunning admixture of cakes and blows, or charging +State socialists with heating the oven of social democracy. State +socialists, he continues, comprehend the disease which Radical +socialists only feel wildly and call down fire to cure, and they are as +much opposed to the purely working-class State of the latter, as they +are to the purely constitutional State of our modern <i>Liberalismus +vulgaris</i>, as Wagner calls it.</p> + +<p>The true Social State lies, in his opinion, between the two. What the +new social era demands—the era which is already, he thinks, well in +course of development, but which it is the business of State socialism +to help Providence to develop aright—is the effective participation of +poor and rich alike in the civilization which the increased productive +resources of society afford the means of enjoying; and this is to be +brought about in two ways: first, by a systematic education of the whole +people according to a well-planned ideal of culture, and second, by a +better distribution of the income of society among the masses. Now, to +carry out these requirements, the idea of liberty proper to the +constitutional era must naturally be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> finally discarded, and a very +large hand must be allowed to the public authority in every department +of human activity, whether relating to the production, distribution, or +consumption of wealth. In the first place, in order to destroy the +effect of chance and of the utilization of chances in creating the +present accumulations in private hands, it is necessary to divert into +the public treasury as far as possible the whole of that part of the +national income which goes now, in the form of rent, interest, or +profit, into the pockets of the owners of land and capital, and the +conductors of business enterprises. Wagner would accordingly nationalize +(or municipalize) gradually so much of the land, capital, and industrial +undertakings of the country as could be efficiently managed as public +property or public enterprises, and that would include all undertakings +which tend to become monopolies even in private hands, or which, being +conducted best on the large scale, are already managed under a form of +organization which, in his opinion, has most of the faults and most of +the merits of State management—viz., the form of joint-stock companies. +He would in this way throw on the Government all the great means of +communication and transport, railways and canals, telegraphs and post, +and all banking and insurance; and on the municipalities all such things +as the gas, light, and water supply. Although he recognises the +suitability of Government management as a consideration to be weighed in +nationalizing an industry, he states explicitly that the reason for the +change he proposes is not in the least the fiscal or economic one that +the industry can be more advantageously conducted by the Government, but +is a theory of social politics which requires that the whole economic +work of the people ought to be more and more converted from the form of +private into the form of public organization, so that every working man +might be a public servant and enjoy the same assured existence that +other public servants at present possess.</p> + +<p>In the next place, since many industries must remain in private hands, +the State is bound to see the existence of the labourers engaged in +private works guaranteed as securely as those engaged in public works. +It must take steps to provide them with both an absolute and a relative +increase of wages<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> by instituting a compulsory system of paying wages as +a percentage of the gross produce; it must guarantee them a certain +continuity of employment; must limit the hours of their labour to the +length prescribed by the present state of the arts in the several +trades; and supply a system of public insurance against accidents, +sickness, infirmity, and age, together with a provision for widows and orphans.</p> + +<p>In the third place, all public works are to be managed on the +socialistic principle of supplying manual labourers with commodities at +a cheaper rate than their social superiors. They are to have advantages +in the matters of gas and water supply, railway fares, school fees, and +everything else that is provided by the public authority.</p> + +<p>In the fourth place, taxation is to be employed directly to mitigate the +inequalities of wealth resulting from the present commercial system, and +to save and even increase the labourer's income at the expense of the +income of other classes. This is to be done by the progressive +income-tax, and by the application of the product of indirect taxation +on certain articles of working-class consumption to special +working-class ends. For example, he thinks Prince Bismarck's proposed +tobacco monopoly might be made "the patrimony of the disinherited."</p> + +<p>In the fifth place, the State ought to take measures to wean the people +not only from noxious forms of expenditure, like the expenditure on +strong drink, but from useless and wasteful expenditure, and to guide +them into a more economic, far-going, and beneficial employment of the +earnings they make.</p> + +<p>Now for all this work, involving as it does so large an amount of +interference with the natural liberty of things, Wagner not unreasonably +thinks that a strong Government is absolutely indispensable—a +Government that knows its own mind, and has the power and the will to +carry it out; a Government whose authority is established on the history +and opinion of the nation, and stands high above all the contending +political factions of the hour. And in Germany, such an executive can +only be found in the present Empire, which is merely following +"Frederician and Josephine traditions" in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> coming forward, as it did in +the Imperial message of November, 1881, as a genuine "social monarchy."</p> + +<p>In this doctrine of Professor Wagner we find the same general features +we have already seen in the doctrine of Rodbertus. It is true he would +not nationalize all industries whatsoever; he would only nationalize +such industries as the State is really fit to manage successfully. He +admits that uneconomic management can never contribute to the public +good, and so far he accepts a very sound principle of limitation. But +then he applies the principle with too great laxity. He has an excessive +idea of the State's capacities. He thinks that every business now +conducted by a joint-stock company could be just as well conducted by +the Government, and ought therefore to be nationalized; but experience +shows—railway experience, for example—that joint-stock management, +when it is good, is better than Government management at its best. Then +Professor Wagner thinks every industry which has a natural tendency to +become in any case a practical monopoly would be better in the hands of +the Government; but Government might interfere enough to restrain the +mischiefs of monopoly—as it does in the case of railways in this +country, for example—without incurring the liabilities of complete +management. Professor Wagner would in these ways throw a great deal of +work on Government which Government is not very fit to accomplish +successfully, and he would like to throw everything on it, if he could +overcome his scruples about its capabilities, because he thinks +industrial nationalization would facilitate the realization of his +particular views of the equitable distribution of wealth. It is true, +again, that Wagner's theory of equitable distribution is not the theory +of Rodbertus—he rejects the right of labour to the whole product; but +his theory, if less definite, is not less unjustifiable. It is virtually +the theory of equality of conditions which considers all inequalities of +fortune wrong, because they are held to come either from chance, +or—what is worse—from an unjust utilization of chance, and which, on +that account, takes comparative poverty to constitute of itself a +righteous claim for compensation as against comparative wealth. Now, a +state of enforced equality of conditions would probably be found neither +possible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> nor desirable, but it is in its very conception unjust. It may +be well, as far as it can be done, to check refined methods of deceit, +or cruel utilizations of an advantageous position, but it can never be +right to deprive energy, talent, and character of the natural reward and +incentive of their exertions. The world would soon be poor if it +discouraged the skill of the skilful, as it would soon cease to be +virtuous if it ostracized those who were pre-eminently honest or just. +The idea of equality has been a great factor in human progress, but it +requires no such outcome as this. Equality is but the respect we owe to +human dignity, and that very respect for human dignity demands security +for the fruits of industry to the successful, and security against the +loss of the spirit of personal independence in the mass of the people. +But while that is so, there is one broad requirement of that same +fundamental respect for human dignity which must be admitted to be +wholly just and reasonable—the requirement which we have seen to have +been recognised by the English economists—that the citizens be, as far +as possible, secured, if necessary by public compulsion and public +money, in the elementary conditions of all humane living. The State +might not be right if it gave the aged a comfortable superannuation +allowance, or the unemployed agreeable work at good wages; but it is +only doing its duty when, with the English law, it gives them enough to +keep them, without taking away from the one the motives for making a +voluntary provision against age, or from the other the spur to look out +for work for themselves.</p> + +<p>It will be said that this is a standard that is subject to a certain +variability; that a house may be considered unfit for habitation now +that our fathers would have been fain to occupy; that shoes seem an +indispensable element of humane living now, though, as Adam Smith +informs us, they were still only an optional decency in some parts of +Scotland in his time. But differences of this nature lead to no +practical difficulty, and the standard is fixity of measure itself when +compared with the indefinite claims that may be made in the name of +historical compensation, or wild theories of distributive justice, and +it makes a wholesome appeal to recognised obligations of humanity +instead of feeding a violent sense of unbounded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> hereditary wrong. At +all events, it presents the true equality—equality of moral +rights—over against the false equality of State socialism—equality of +material conditions; and it is able to present a better face against +that system, because it recognises a certain measure of material +conditions among the original moral rights. For this reason the English +theory of social politics is the best practical criterion for +discriminating between socialistic legislation and wholesome social +reforms. The State socialistic position cannot be advantageously +attacked from the ground of Mr. Spencer and the adherents of +<i>laissez-faire</i>, who merely say, Let misfortune and poverty alone; +whether remediable or irremediable, they are not the State's affairs. +The two theories nowhere come within range; but the English theory meets +State socialism at every point, almost hand to hand, for it admits the +State's competency to deal with poverty and misfortune, and to alter +men's material conditions to the extent needed for the practical +realization of their full moral rights.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">III. <i>State Socialism and Social Reform.</i></p> + +<p>On this English theory of social politics, the State, though not +socialist, is very frankly social reformer, and those schools of +opinion, which are usually thought to have been most averse to +Government intervention, have been among the most earnest in pressing +that <i>rôle</i> upon the State. Cobden, I presume, may be taken as a fair +representative of the Manchester school, and Cobden, with all his love +of liberty, loved progress more, and thought the best Government was the +Government that did most for social reform. When he visited Prussia in +1838, he was struck with admiration at the paternal but improving rule +he found in operation there. "I very much suspect," he said, "that at +present for the great mass of the people Prussia possesses the best +Government in Europe. I would gladly give up my taste for talking +politics, to secure such a state of things in England. Had our people +such a simple and economical Government, so deeply imbued with justice +to all, and aiming so constantly to elevate mentally and morally its +population, how much better would it be for the twelve or fifteen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> +millions in the British Empire, who, while they possess no electoral +rights, are yet persuaded they are freemen!" So far from thinking, as +the Manchester man of polemics is always made to think, that the State +goes far enough when it secures to every man liberty to pursue his own +interest his own way, as long as he does not interfere with the +corresponding right of his neighbours, the Manchester man of reality +takes the State severely to task for neglecting to promote the mental +and moral elevation of the people; the chief end of Government being to +establish not liberty alone, but every other necessary security for +rational progress. The theory of <i>laissez-faire</i> would of course permit +measures required for the public safety, but what Cobden calls for are +measures of social amelioration. Provisions for the better protection of +person and property, as they exist, against violence or fraud, make up +but a small part of legitimate State duty, compared with provisions for +their better development, for enlarging the powers of the national +manhood, or the product of the national resources. The institution of +property itself is a provision for progress, and could never have +originated under the system of <i>laissez-faire</i>, which now makes it a +main branch of State work to defend it. In the form of permanent and +exclusive possession, it is undoubtedly a contravention of the equal +freedom of all to the use of their common inheritance, committed for the +purpose of securing their more productive use of it. It interferes with +their access to the land, and with the equality of their opportunities, +but then it enhances and concentrates the energies of the occupants, and +it doubles the yield of the soil. It promotes two objects, which are +quite as paramount concerns of the State as liberty itself—it improves +the industrial manhood of the nation, and it increases the productivity +of the natural resources; and institutions that conduce to such results +are not really infractions of liberty, but rather complements of it, +because they give people an ampler use of their own powers, and create, +by means of the increase of production they work, more and better +opportunities than those they take away.</p> + +<p>Now the lines of legitimate intervention prescribed by the necessities +of progress, and already followed in the original<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> institution of +property, will naturally, when extended through our complicated +civilization, include a very considerable and varied field of social and +industrial activity, and this has been all along recognised by the +English economists and statesmen. While opposed to the State doing +anything either moral or material for individuals, which individuals +could do better, or with better results, for themselves, they agreed in +requiring the State, first, to undertake any industrial work it had +superior natural advantages for conducting successfully; and second, to +protect the weaker classes effectively in the essentials of all rational +and humane living—in what Adam Smith calls "an undeformed and +unmutilated manhood"—not only against the ravages of violence or fear +or insecurity, but against those of ignorance, disease, and want. Smith, +we know, would even save them from cowardice by a system of military +training, and from fanaticism by an established Church, because, he +said, cowardice and fanaticism were as great deformities of manhood as +ignorance or disease, and prevented a man from having command of himself +and his own powers quite as effectually as violence or oppression. Laws +which give every man better command and use of his own energies are in +manifest harmony with liberty, and for the State to do such industrial +work as it has special natural advantages for doing is conformable with +the principle of free-trade itself, which has always prescribed to men +and nations as the best rule for their prosperity, that they should +concentrate their strength on the branches of industry they possess +natural advantages for cultivating, and give up wasting their labour on +less productive employment. Mr. Chamberlain is certainly wrong in +thinking over-government an extinct danger under democratic +institutions, a mere survival from times of oppression which haunts the +people still, though they are their own masters, with foolish fears of +over-governing themselves. In reality, the danger has much more probably +increased, as John Stuart Mill believed, for if we cannot over-govern +ourselves, we can very easily and cheerfully over-govern one another, +and a majority may impose its brute will with even less scruple than a +monarch; but however that may be, those who tremble most sincerely for +the ark of liberty cannot see any undue contraction of the field of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> +individual action in an extension of authority for either of the two +purposes here specified, for the purpose of undertaking industrial work +which private initiative cannot prosecute so advantageously, or of +making more secure to the weaker citizens those primary conditions of +normal humanity, which are really their natural right. The first of +these purposes is quite consistent with the principles of men like W. +von Humboldt, who contend that the best means of national prosperity is +the cultivation to the utmost of the individual energy of the people, +and who are opposed to Government interference because it represses or +supplants that energy. They welcome everything that tends to economize +and develop energy, to place things in the hands of those that can do +them best, and generally to increase the productive capacity of the +whole community. They believe that machinery, division of labour, +factory systems, keenest conditions of competition, however they may at +first seem to contract men's opportunities of employment, always end in +multiplying them, and, because they increase or economize the productive +powers of those actually employed, really expand the field of employment +for all. Now Government management would of course have a like operation +wherever Government management effected a like economy or increase in +the productive powers of society, and would really expand the field of +individual initiative which it appeared to contract; and those who +believe most in individual energy and its power of seeking out for +itself the most advantageous new outlets, will find least to complain of +in an intervention of authority which releases men from work ill-suited +to their powers to do, and sends them into work where their powers can +be more fruitfully occupied.</p> + +<p>The second purpose of legitimate intervention seems even less open to +objection from that side. The State is asked to go in social reform only +as far as it goes in judicial administration—it is asked to secure for +every man as effectively as it can those essentials of all rational and +humane living which are really every man's right, because without them +he would be something less than man, his manhood would be wanting, +maimed, mutilated, deformed, incapable of fulfilling the ends of its +being. Those original requirements of humane existence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> are dues of the +common nature we wear, which, we cannot see extinguished in others +without an injury to our own self-respect, and the State is bound to +provide adequate securities for one of them as much as for another. The +same reason which justified the State at first in protecting person and +property against violence, justified it yesterday in abolishing slavery, +justifies it to-day in abolishing ignorance, and will justify it +to-morrow in abolishing other degrading conditions of life. The public +sense of human dignity may grow from age to age and be offended +to-morrow by what it tolerates to-day, but the principle of sound +intervention is all through the same—that the proposed measure is +necessary to enable men to live the true life of a man and fulfil the +proper ends of rational being. A thoughtful French writer defends State +intervention for the purpose of social amelioration as being a mere duty +of what he calls reparative justice. Popular misery and decadence, he +would say, is always very largely the result of bad laws and other bad +civil conditions, as we see it plainly to have been in the case of the +Irish cottiers, the Scotch crofters, and the rural labourers of England, +and when the community has really inflicted the injury, the community is +bound in the merest justice to repair it. And the obligation would not +be exhausted with the repeal of bad laws; it would require the positive +restoration to the declining populations of the conditions of real +prosperity from which they fell. But though this is a specific ground +which may occasionally quicken the State's remedial action with +something of the energy of remorse, it is no extension of its natural +and legitimate sphere of intervention, and the State might properly take +every measure necessary for the effectual restoration of a declining +section of the population to conditions of real prosperity on the broad +and simple principle already laid down, that the measure is necessary to +put those people in a position to fulfil their vocation as human beings. +Hopeless conditions of labour are as contrary to sound nature, and as +fatal to any proper use of man's energies, as slavery itself, and their +mere existence constitutes a sufficient cause for the State's +intervention, apart from any special responsibility the State may bear +for their historical origin. Even the measure of the required +intervention is no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> way less, for if its purpose is to preserve some +essential of full normal manhood, its only limit is that of being +effectual to serve the purpose. The original natural obligation of the +State needs no expansion then from historical responsibilities to cover +any effectual form of remedial action against the social decadence of +particular classes of the population, whether it be the constitution of +a new right like the right to a fair rent, the adoption of +administrative measures like the migration of redundant inhabitants, or +the provision of wise facilities for the rest by the loan of public money.</p> + +<p>It is plain, therefore, that we have here within the lines of accepted +and even "orthodox" English theory a doctrine of social politics which +gives the Government an ample and perfectly adequate place in the +promotion of all necessary social reform; and if we are all socialists +now, as is so often said, it is not because we have undergone any change +of principles on social legislation, but only a public awakening to our +social miseries. The Churches, for example, while they left Lord +Shaftesbury to fight his battles for the helpless alone, have now shared +in this social awakening, and show not only a general ardour to agitate +social questions, but even some pains to understand them; but the +Churches did not neglect Lord Shaftesbury fifty years ago, because they +thought his Factory Bills proceeded from unsound views of the State's +functions, but merely because their interest was not then sufficiently +aroused in the temporal welfare of the poor, and with all their +individual charities they responded little to the grievances of social +classes. We are all socialists now, only in feeling as much interest in +these grievances as the socialists are in the habit of doing, but we +have not departed from our old lines of social policy, and there is no +need we should, for they are broad enough to satisfy every claim of sound social reform.</p> + +<p>It is only when these lines are transgressed that, strictly speaking, +socialism begins; and though it is hopeless to think of confining the +vulgar use of the word to its strict signification, it is at least +essential to do so if we desire any clear or firm grasp of principle. +The socialism of the present time extends the State's intervention from +those industrial undertakings it is fitted to manage well to all +industrial undertakings <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>whatever, and from establishing securities for +the full use of men's energies to attempting to equalize in some way the +results of their use of them. It may be shortly described as aiming at +the progressive nationalization of industries with a view to the +progressive equalization of incomes. The common pleas for this policy +are, first, the necessity of introducing a distribution of wealth more +in accordance with personal merit by neutralizing the effects of chance, +which at present throw some into opulence without any co-operation from +their own labour, and press thousands into penury in spite of their most +honest exertions; and second, the advantage society would reap from the +mere economy of the resources at present wasted in unnecessary +competition. Both pleas are, however delusive; it is neither good nor +possible to suppress chance, and if competition involves some loss, it +yields a much more abounding gain.</p> + +<p>A sense of the blind play of chance in all things human lies indeed +beneath all work of social relief. "Hodie mihi, cras tibi," wrote the +good Regent Murray over his lintel to avert the grudge of envy, and the +same feeling of the uncertainty of fortune quickens the thought of pity. +Men reflect how much of their own comfort they owe to good circumstances +rather than good deserts, and how much more bad circumstances have often +to do with poverty than bad guiding. To change these bad conditions so +far as to preserve for every man intact the essentials of common +progressive manhood is a proper object of social work. But while +mitigating the operation of chance to that extent is well, to try and +suppress its operation altogether would be injurious, even if it were +possible. For there is no pursuit under the sun in which chance has not +its part as well as skill, and skill itself is often nothing but a quick +grasp of happy chance. To discourage the alert from seizing good +opportunities on the wing, by confiscating the results and distributing +them among the languid and inactive, is the same thing as to discourage +them by like means from exerting all their industry in any other way. It +violates their individual right with no better effect than to cripple +the national production. They are entitled to the best conditions for +the successful use of their individual energies, and the best conditions +for the use of individual energies are the true securities for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> national +progress. The sound policy is not the greater equalization of +opportunities, but their greater utilization. It may be right to make +ships seaworthy and their masters competent navigators, but if one of +them gets delayed in a calm or disabled by a storm, while another has +caught a fair wind and is carried on to port, it would answer no good +purpose to equalize their gains for the mere correction of the +inequality in their opportunities. It would relax in both masters alike +the supreme essentials of all successful labour—activity, vigilance, +enterprise. State action with respect to the quips and arrows of fortune +ought to go as far but no farther than State action with respect to the +crimes and hostilities of men, or with respect to evil forces of nature +like those of infectious diseases—it ought to content itself with +effectually protecting the primary conditions of sound manhood against +their outrages. It may do what it can, not merely to relieve the +unfortunate in their extremity, but to prevent their coming to +extremity, to arrest, if possible, their decline, to check or soften the +trade fluctuations that often swamp them, and to facilitate their +self-recovery; but, when it goes on to suppress or equalize the +operation of fortune, it destroys the good with the evil, and even if it +removed the tares, would find it had only spoiled the harvest of wheat. +The present industrial system has its defects, but it certainly has one +immense advantage which would be forfeited under socialism—it tends to +elicit to their utmost the talents and energies alike of employers and +employed. The languor of the "Government stroke" and the slow mechanism +of a State department are unfavourable to an abundant production. The +general slackening of industry, and the extinction of those innumerable +sources of active initiative which at present are so busy pushing out +new and fruitful developments, are too great a price to pay for the +suppression of the evils of competition. To effect some economies in the +use of capital, we damage or destroy the forces by which capital is +produced, and really lose the pound to save the penny.</p> + +<p>Even from the standing-point of a good distribution of wealth, if by a +good distribution we mean, not an equal distribution of the produce, +however small the individual share, but, what is surely much better, a +high general level of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>comfort, though considerable inequalities may +remain, then an abundant production is still the most indispensable +thing, for it is the most certain of all means to that high general +level of comfort. Even in those agricultural countries where this result +is promoted by a land system favouring peasant properties, the result is +largely due to the fact that occupying ownership is itself the best +condition for high production; and if we compare the principal modern +industrial nations, we shall find labour enjoying the best real +remuneration in those where the rate of production is highest, where +employers are most competent, machinery most perfected, and labour +itself personally most efficient. And, on the other hand, while the +general level of comfort rises under a policy that develops productivity +even at the risk of widening inequality, the general level of comfort +always sinks under the contrary policy which sacrifices productivity to +socialistic ideas and claims.</p> + +<p>We have practical experience of the working of socialism in various +forms, and under the most opposite conditions of culture, and the +experience is everywhere the same. Custom in Samoa, for example, gives a +man a pretty strict right to go to his neighbour and requisition what he +wants, or even to quarter himself in the house without payment, as long +as he pleases. No one dares to refuse, for fear of losing credit and +suffering reproach. Originating as a well-meant refuge for the +distressed, the system has become still more a subterfuge for the lazy, +and Dr. Turner sums up his account of it by saying, "This communistic +system is a sad hindrance to the industrious, and eats like a +canker-worm at the roots of individual and national progress." The +disheartening of the industrious has an even worse effect than the +encouragement of the indolent; the more they make, the more subject they +are to the imposition. The English agricultural labourers belong to a +very different state of society from the savages of Samoa. They are of +an energetic race, which if it does not positively love work, has +probably as little aversion to it as any nation in the world, and seems +often really to delight in the hardest exertion; but in England the +effect of giving the poor a similar socialistic right was precisely the +same as in Samoa. While we are supposed to have been advancing in +socialism with our Factory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> Acts, we were really retreating from it in +our Poor Law. The old English laws which for centuries first fixed +labourers' wages, and then made up the deficiencies of the wages, if +such occurred, out of the poor rates, were certainly socialistic, and +the commission that inquired into their working sixty years ago reported +that their worst effect had been to make the labourers such poor workers +that they were hardly worth the wages they got. The men were by law +unable to earn more if they worked more, or to lose anything if they +worked less, and so their very working powers drooped and withered. As +most modern socialists put their trust entirely in the old motive of +self-interest, and propose to pay every man according to his work, their +only resource against such a result would be a stern system of poor-law +administration, like the English, and that would of course involve a +departure from their favourite ideal of furnishing the dependent poor +with as decent and comfortable a living as the independent poor gain for +themselves by their work. The change from Samoa to rural England is +probably not so great as the change from rural England to Brook Farm and +the other experimental communities of the United States, companies of +cultivated and earnest people, coming from one of the best civilized +stocks, and settling under the favourable material conditions of a new +country for the very purpose of working out a socialist ideal. Yet in +these American communities, socialistic institutions led to precisely +the same results as they did in England and in Samoa, a slackening of +industry, and a deterioration of the general level of comfort. No doubt, +as Horace Greeley said, who knew these communities well, and lived for a +time in more than one of them, there came to them along with the lofty +souls, who are willing to labour and endure, "scores of whom the world +is quite worthy, the conceited, the crotchety, the selfish, the +headstrong, the pugnacious, the unappreciated, the played-out, the idle, +the good-for-nothing generally, who, finding themselves utterly out of +place, and at a discount in the world as it is, rashly conclude that +they are exactly fitted for the world as it ought to be." But the +proportion of difficult subjects would not be larger in Brook Farm or +New Harmony than it is in the ordinary world outside, and in these +communities they would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> be under the constant influence of leaders of +the highest character and an almost religious enthusiasm. If the new and +better economic motives, which romantic socialists like Mr. Bellamy +always assure us are to carry us to such great things as soon as the +suppression of the present pecuniary motive allows them to rise into +operation—if the love of work for its own sake, the sense of public +duty, the desire of public appreciation, could be expected to prevail +anywhere to any purpose, it would be among the gifted and noble spirits +who founded the community of Brook Farm. But the late W. H. Channing, +who was a member of the community and looked back upon it with the +tenderest feelings, explains its failure by saying: "The great evil, the +radical, practical danger, seemed to be a willingness to do work half +thorough, to rest in poor results, to be content amidst comparatively +squalid conditions, and to form habits of indolence."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>The idleness of the idle was one of the chief standing troubles in all +the socialistic experiments of the United States. Mr. Noyes gives us an +account of forty-seven communistic experiments which had been made under +modern socialist influences in the United States and had failed, while +Mr. Nordhoff, on the other hand, furnishes a like account of seventy-two +communities, established mainly under religious influences (fifty-eight +of them belonging to the Shakers alone), which have been not merely +social but economic successes, some of them for more than a hundred +years; and one is struck with the degree in which the idler difficulty +has contributed to the failure of the forty-seven, and in which the +continual and comparatively successful conflict with that difficulty by +means of their peculiar system of religious discipline has aided in the +success of the other seventy-two. Mr. Noyes is himself founder of the +Oneida community, and bases his descriptions of the rest on information +supplied by men who were members of the communities he describes, or on +the materials collected by Mr. Macdonald, a Scotch Owenite, who visited +most of the American communities for the purpose of describing them. No +causes of failure are more often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> mentioned by him than "too many +idlers" and "bad management." Not that industry was relaxed all round. +On the contrary, it seems to have been a peculiarity of the Owenite and +Fourierist communities, that the industrious wrought much harder (and in +most of them for much poorer fare) than labourers of ordinary life. +Macdonald was surprised at the marvellous industry he saw as he watched +them, and would say to himself: "If you fail, I will give it up, for +never did I see men work so well and so brotherly with each other." But +then a little way off he would come on people who "merely crawled about, +probably sick (he charitably suggests), just looking on like myself at +anything which fell in their way." A very common feeling among members +of these communities seems to have been that they were far more troubled +with idlers than the rest of the world, because their system itself +presented special attractions to that unwelcome class. "Men came," says +one of the Trumbull Phalanx, "with the idea that they could live in +idleness at the expense of the purchasers of the estate, and their ideas +were practically carried out, while others came with good heart for the +work." The same testimony is given about the Sylvania Association. "Idle +and greedy people," says the writer of this testimony, "find their way +into such attempts, and soon show forth their character by burdening +others with too much labour, and in times of scarcity supplying +themselves with more than their allowance of various necessaries, +instead of taking less." Idle and greedy people, no doubt, did get into +these communities, but these idle and greedy people constitute, I fear, +a very large proportion of mankind, and the point is that socialistic +institutions unfortunately offer them encouragement and opportunity. The +experience of American communism directly contradicts John Stuart Mill's +opinion, that men are not more likely to evade their fair share of the +work under a socialistic system than they are now. That difficulty in +one form or another was their constant vexation. The members of Owen's +community at Yellow Springs belonged in general to a superior class; but +one of them, in stating the causes of the failure of that community, +says: "The industrious, the skilful, and the strong saw the products of +their labour enjoyed by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> indolent, and the unskilled, and the +improvident, and self-love rose against benevolence. A band of musicians +insisted that their brassy harmony was as necessary to the common +happiness as bread and meat, and declined to enter the harvest field or +the workshop. A lecturer upon Natural Science insisted upon talking only +while others worked. Mechanics whose day's labour brought two dollars +into the common stock insisted that they should in justice work only +half as long as the agriculturist, whose day's work brought only one." +The same evil, according to R. D. Owen, contributed to the fall of New +Harmony; "there was not disinterested industry," he says, "there was not +mutual confidence." A lady who was a member of the Marlboro' Association +in Ohio, a socialistic experiment that lasted four years and then +failed, attributes the failure to "the complicated state of the business +concerns, the amount of debt contracted, and the feeling that each would +work with more energy, for a time at least, if thrown upon his own +resources, with plenty of elbow-room, and nothing to distract his attention."</p> + +<p>The magnitude of this difficulty only appears the greater when we turn +from the forty-seven socialistic experiments which have failed to the +seventy-two which have thriven. The Shakers and Rappists are undoubtedly +very industrious people, who, by producing a good article, have won and +kept for years a firm hold of the American market, and being, in +consequence of their institution of celibacy, a community of adult +workers exclusively, every man and every woman being a productive +labourer, the wonder is they are not wealthier and more prosperous even +than they are. Their economic prosperity is based, as economic +prosperity always is and must be, on their general habits of industry, +and the natural tendency of socialistic arrangements to relax these +habits is in their case effectually, though not without difficulty, +counteracted by their religious discipline. Idleness is a sin; next to +disobedience to the elders, no other sin is more reprobated among them, +because no other sin is at once so besetting and so dangerous there, and +the conquest and suppression of idleness is a continual object of their +vigilance, and of their ordinary devotional practice. Mr. Nordhoff +publishes a few of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> their most popular hymns, and one is struck with the +space the cultivation of personal industry seems to occupy in their +thoughts. "Old Slug," as they delight to nickname the idler, is the "Old +Adam" of the Shakers, and a public sentiment of hatred and contempt for +the indolent man is sedulously fostered by them. As they not only work, +but also live under one another's constant supervision, and within +earshot of one another's criticism, they more than replace the eye of +the master by the keener and more sleepless eye of moral and social +police. And if all this discipline fails, they have the last resource of +expulsion. They easily make the idler too uncomfortable to remain. "They +have," says Mr. Nordhoff, "no difficulty in sloughing off persons who +come with bad or low motives." They exercise, in short, the power of +dismissal, the last sanction in ordinary use in the old state of +society. Not that they make any virtue of strenuous labour. They work +moderately, and avoid anything like fatigue or exhaustion. They frankly +acknowledged to Mr. Nordhoff, once and again, that three hired men taken +in from the ordinary world would do as much work as five or six of their +members. Their wants are few and simple, and they are satisfied with the +moderate exertion that suffices to supply them; but they will tolerate +no shirking of that in any shape or form, and this alone saves them from +disaster. The experiences of these successful Shaker and Rappist +communities serve, therefore, to show, even better than the experiences +of the unsuccessful Owenite and Fourierist communities, the gravity that +the idleness difficulty would assume in a general socialistic <i>régime</i>, +which possessed nothing in the nature of the power of dismissal, and in +which we could not calculate either on the formation of an effective +public opinion against idleness, or on its effective application if it +were formed. The men who founded the unsuccessful communities were far +superior to the Shakers in business ability and education, and they had +more money to begin their experiments with, but where they failed the +Shakers have succeeded through the indirect economic effects of their +rigorous religious discipline. But the evidence is as plain in the one +case as in the other as to the natural, and even powerful, effect of +socialistic arrangements<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> in relaxing the industry of many sorts and +conditions of men.</p> + +<p>The same sources of evidence prove with equal clearness the development +under socialistic institutions of two other concurrent causes of +decline. I have already quoted Mr. Channing's statement that the Brook +Farm community showed a disposition to be content with comparatively +squalid conditions of life. Mr. Nordhoff would probably not use the word +squalid of anything he saw in the Shaker and Rappist communities he +describes, except perhaps in certain instances of the state of the +public streets; and in some points, such as the scrupulous cleanness of +the interior of their houses, he would set them far above their +neighbours—you could eat your dinner, he says, off their floors. Still +the people he found everywhere content, if not exactly with squalid, +certainly with poor and dull and rough conditions of life, much poorer, +duller, and rougher than they might easily be. They enjoyed equality, +security from harassing anxiety for the morrow, abundance even for their +limited wants, independence from subjection to a master, but they were +weak in the ordinary springs of progress. The spirit of material +improvement was not much abroad among them. Give me the stationary state +of society and contentment, you may exclaim; but then even this +stationary state is only maintained in these sequestered communities by +the constant play of peculiar religious influences which cannot be +counted on everywhere, and it would soon change into a declining state +in the great seething world outside if it were not effectively +counter-worked by the most powerful incentives to progress. Now the same +equalizing social arrangements which destroy one of the most essential +of these incentives by guaranteeing men the results of industry without +its exertion, enfeeble a second by predisposing them to rest content +with the lower conditions of life to which they are reduced.</p> + +<p>A third cause of decline to which the American experience shows +socialistic institutions to be incident is a certain weakness in the +management, produced sometimes by divided counsels, sometimes by the +delay involved in getting the sanction of a Board to every little detail +of business, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> sometimes by a difficulty which we find also +shattering similar experiments in France, that men were raised to the +Committee by their gifts of persuasion rather than their gifts of +administration. Well-meaning persons, with a great itch for managing +things, and a great turn for bungling them, for whom there is, under the +present order of society, a considerable safety-valve in philanthropy, +contrive in a socialistic community to get appointed on the Council of +Industry, and play sad havoc with the common good. While they preached +and wasted, the really practical men who, with better power of talk, +might have confounded them, could only sulk and grumble, and eventually +lost heart in their work, and all interest and confidence in the +concern. This had much to do, according to Mr. Meeker, an old +Fourierist, with the ruin of the North American Phalanx, one of the most +important of the transatlantic experiments, and it was the main cause +apparently of the downfall of the community of Coxsackie—"They had many +persons engaged in talking and law-making who did not work at any useful +employment; the consequences were that after struggling on for between +one and two years the experiment came to an end." A socialist State +would probably have as many difficulties with this bustling but +unsatisfactory class of persons as a socialist Phalanx, nor would the +evils of divided counsels and departmental delays be a whit milder; and +the extension of State management to branches of work for which it had +not otherwise some sort of special natural qualification would have the +same kind of ruinous operation.</p> + +<p>In spirit and effect, therefore, as may be palpably seen from these +actual experiments, the equalizing institutions of socialism stand quite +apart from the very restricted use of State management and the remedial +or invigorating legislation that a sound social policy prescribes. When +England is accused of heading the nations in the race of State +socialism, because England has nationalized the post and telegraph +service, and passed a series of factory and agrarian Acts for the +protection of the weaker classes of the people, the accusation is made +without proper discrimination. It is not the frequency of the +intervention, but its purpose and consequences that make it socialistic. +If the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> post is better managed by the State than by private initiative, +if the factory and agrarian laws merely reinstate weaker classes in the +conditions essential for a normal human life, and neither seek nor +produce that equalization of the differences of fortune or skill which +is fatal to any high and progressive general level of comfort, then +there is no State socialism in it at all. State management is not pushed +beyond the limit of efficiency, nor popular rights beyond the positive +claims of social justice. Let us go a little further into detail.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">IV. <i>State Socialism and State Management.</i></p> + +<p>What are the conditions of efficient State administration? The State +possesses several natural characteristics which give it a decided +advantage as an industrial manager, some for one branch of work, some +for another. It has stability, it has permanency, and it has—what is +perhaps its principal industrial superiority—unrivalled power of +securing unity of administration, since it is the only agency that can +use force for the purpose. On the other hand, it has one great natural +defect, its want of a personal stake in the produce of the business it +conducts, its want of that keen check on waste and that pushing +incentive to exertion which private undertakings enjoy in the eye and +energy of the master. This is the great taproot from which all the usual +faults of Government management spring—its routine, red-tape spirit, +its sluggishness in noting changes in the market, in adapting itself to +changes in the public taste, and in introducing improved methods of +production. Government servants may very generally be men of a higher +stamp and training than the servants of a private company, but they are +proverbial, on the one hand, for a certain lofty disdain of the humble +but valuable virtue of parsimony, and, on the other, for an +unprogressive, unenterprising, uninventive administration of business.</p> + +<p>Now the branches of industry which the State is fitted to carry on are +of course those in which its great fault happens to have small scope for +play, and in which its great merit or merits have great scope for play; +those, for example, which gain largely in efficiency or economy by a +centralized <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>administration, and suffer little harm comparatively from a +routine one. That is the reason Governments always manage the postal +service well. In post-office work the specific industrial superiority of +Government carries its maximum of advantage, and its specific industrial +defect does its minimum of injury. The carrying and delivery of letters +from one part of the empire to another require, for efficiency, a single +co-ordinated system, and, on the other hand, those operations themselves +are of so unvariable and routine a character that little harm is done by +their being carried on in a routine spirit; they involve so little +capital expenditure—the entire capital of the department in England is +only £80,000—that the opportunity for waste and corruption is slight; +and being conducted much more largely under the public eye than the +affairs of other departments of State, they are consequently subject to +the constant and interested criticism of the people whose wants they are +meant to satisfy. The same reason explains why Government dockyards and +arms factories are always managed so unsatisfactorily. There is, on the +one hand, no need in them for any higher unity of administration than is +wanted in any ordinary single business establishment; but, on the other, +progressiveness and adaptability are of the first moment, routine and +obstruction to improvement being indeed among their worst dangers. Then +the risk of prodigality and corruption is high, for their capital +expenditure is great, and the check of public criticism very distant and +ineffectual. So exceptional a business is the post, that the telegraphs, +though managed by the same department, have never been managed with the +same success. They were bought at first at a ransom, they have involved +an increasing loss nearly ever since, and the public have to pay +practically as much for their telegrams—perhaps more—than the public +of the United States pay to their telegraph companies. Even in the +postal department, Government administration shows the usual official +slowness in adopting much-needed and even lucrative reforms. Of this, a +good example occurred only the other day. It was not until a Boys' +Messenger Company was already in the field and doing the work, that the +Postmaster-General was brought to recognise, as he said, "the +desirability of providing a more rapid means of transmitting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> single +letters for short distances and under special circumstances than at present exists."</p> + +<p>It ought of course to be acknowledged that State management in England +is tried under the very worst possible conditions, inasmuch as it is +tied to the fortunes and exigencies of political party. No business +could be expected to thrive where the supreme control is placed in the +hands of a good parliamentary debater, who knows nothing about the +special work of the department he undertakes; where, even at that, this +inexperienced hand is changed for another inexperienced hand every three +or four years; where policy shifts without continuity, to dodge the +popular breeze of to-day, or to catch the popular breeze of to-morrow; +and where the actual incumbent of office, is always able to evade +censure by throwing the responsibility on his predecessors, who are out +of office. Well may a sagacious man like Mr. Samuel Laing, with large +experience of administration both in the affairs of State and of private +companies, exclaim: "I often think what the result would be if the +railway companies managed their affairs on the same principles as the +nation applies to its naval and military expenditure. Suppose the +Brighton Board were turned out every three years, and a new Board came +in with new views and a new policy, and new men at the head of the +locomotive, traffic, and other spending departments, how long would it +be before expenses went up and dividends down?" If State management is +to succeed—if it is to have fair play—it must be entirely divorced +from party fortunes, while subject, of course, to the criticism of +Parliament, under some system like that adopted in Victoria for the +management of the railways. In such circumstances the question of the +advisability of Government assuming the management of any industry, is a +question of balancing the probable gains from the greater unity of the +administration against the probable losses from its greater inertia.</p> + +<p>There are some exceptional branches of industry in which Government does +better than private persons, because private persons have too little +interest to do the work well, or even to do it at all, and there are +others in which the State's very want of personal interest is its +advantage instead of its drawback.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> Forestry is the best example of the +first sort. One generation must plant, and another cut down, so that the +present owner is often unwilling to incur the expense of a speculation +of which he is unlikely to live to reap the fruits; but the natural +permanence of the State leads it to do more justice to this important +branch of production, and experience everywhere shows that State forests +are more productive than private ones. In Prussia and Belgium they are +nearly twice as productive. The average annual produce of all forests in +Prussia (including State forests) is 0.36 thaler per Morgen, but the +produce of State forests alone is 0.66 thaler per Morgen. In Belgium the +produce of all forests is 19.33 francs per hectare, and of State forests +34.42 francs.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> The erection of lighthouses is also a public service, +which falls to the State because of individual inability; it cannot be +undertaken in any way to make it remunerative to private adventurers.</p> + +<p>The best example of an industrial work for which the State's want of +personal interest is its advantage is the Mint. Nobody would trust the +stamp of a private assayer as he trusts the stamp of the Government, +because the private assayer could never succeed in placing his personal +disinterestedness so absolutely above the suspicion of fraud. The policy +of the official attestation of the quality of commodities is often +disputed on the ground that it discourages improvement above the pass +standard, but it is never doubted that if a brand is wanted, the brand +to command most confidence is the brand of the Crown. Our own +Government, out of the infinity of commodities offered for sale, attests +none but six—butter, herrings, plate, gun barrels, chains, and +anchors—articles in which the dangers of deterioration probably exceed +the chances of improvement, and in the case of some of these six there +is a strong feeling abroad that the State's intervention is doing more +harm than good. Scotch herrings have suffered lately in the German +markets, because they were worse cured than the Norwegian, and the +herring brand was blamed for the unprogressiveness of the cure. This +class of interventions, therefore, is neither numerous now, nor likely +to become very numerous in the future.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span></p><p>A more important class of undertakings in which the State's industrial +advantage lies in its superiority to the temptations of self-interest, +is that of industries which naturally assume something of the character +of a monopoly, and in which self-interest lacks both the check on its +rapacity, and the spur to its activity supplied by effective +competition. It is true of more things than railways that when +combination is possible, competition is impossible, and the growth of +syndicates, trusts and pooling arrangements at the present day has led +to considerable agitation for State interference, especially in the case +of commodities like salt and coal, which are necessaries of life. Our +experience of these things is as yet limited, but so far as it has gone +it seems to show that the public dangers dreaded from them are apt to be +exaggerated. The combinations fear to raise the price to the public so +high as to provoke competition, and in most cases in America have not +raised it at all, drawing their advantage rather from the reduction in +expense of management, and the saving of capital; and the State would +not be likely to manage industries producing for the markets any better +than, or even so well as, the more keenly interested board of private +directors. But if the balance of evidence seems against public +management in this class of monopolies, it stands, I think, decidedly in +favour of public management in another and not unimportant class. The +gas and water supply of towns is a monopoly, and though the point is not +undisputed, it appears to answer better on the whole in public than in +private hands, because the management has no interest to serve except +the interest of the public. Experience has not been everywhere the same, +but usually it has been that under municipal control the quality of the +gas has been improved and the price reduced. But this is municipal +management of course, not State management, and the difference is +material, inasmuch as municipal management, in the case of gas and water +supply, is the management of the production of things of general +consumption under the direct control of the very people who consume +them, so that it is constantly exposed to effective public criticism, +perhaps as good a substitute as things admit of for the eye of the +master. The natural defect of public management is so mitigated by this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> +circumstance, that probably of all forms of public management, municipal +management is the best, and when applied to branches of production that +tend to become monopolies at any rate, it answers well. The question is +entirely different with proposals that are sometimes made for converting +into municipal monopolies branches of production—such, for example, as +the bread supply of the community—which are carried on by individual +management under effective competition. To do as well as joint-stock +management uncontrolled by competition is one thing; to do as well as +individual management subject to competition is another; and so long as +public management replaces nothing but the former class of enterprises, +which are in any case a sort of natural monopolies, it will never +contract the vast field of individual enterprise to any very serious extent.</p> + +<p>When we pass from municipal monopolies to State monopolies, the problem +becomes more grave. The two largest current proposals of this kind are +those of land nationalization and railway nationalization. The former +proposal, though much more noisily advocated than the other, has +incomparably the weaker case. For apart altogether from the mischief of +making every rent settlement a political question, and looking at the +matter merely in its economic aspect, land, of all things, is that which +is least suited for centralized administration, and yields its best +results under the minute concentrated supervision of individual and +occupying ownership. The magic of property is now a proverbial phrase; +it is truer of land than anything else, and it merely means that for +land interested administration is everything, comprehensive +administration nothing, that the zeal of the resident owner to improve +his own land knows no limit, whereas the obstructive forces of routine +and official inertia have nowhere more power to blight than in land +management. In Adam Smith's time, as he mentions in the "Wealth of +Nations," the Crown lands were everywhere the least productive lands in +their respective countries, and the experience is the same still. It is +so even in Prussia, in spite of its economical and skilled bureaucracy. +Professor Roscher says it is a common remark in Germany that Crown lands +sell for a greater number of years' purchase than other lands, because +they are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> known to be less improved, and are therefore expected to yield +better results to the energy of the purchaser, and he quotes official +figures for 1857, showing that the domain land of Prussia had not risen +in value so much as the other land in the country. Great expectations +are often entertained from the unearned increment, though there is not +likely to be much of that in agricultural land for years to come; but +what is a much more important consideration for the community is the +earned increment, and under State management the earned increment would +infallibly decline. Of course, this does not exclude the necessity of +strict State control, so far as required by justice, humanity, and the +growth and comfort of the general community. Under land nationalization +here I have not considered schemes which do not give the State any real +ownership in the land more than it at present enjoys, or, at any rate, +place no real management of the land in its hands. The rival schemes of +Mr. A. R. Wallace and Mr. Henry George are really only more or less +objectionable methods of increasing the land-tax.</p> + +<p>The question of a State railway is not so easily determined. There are +certainly few branches of business where unity of administration is more +advantageous, or where the public would benefit more from affairs being +conducted from the public point of view of developing the greatest +amount of gross traffic, instead of from the private point of view of +making the greatest amount of net profit. A railway differs from other +enterprises, because it affects all others very seriously for good or +ill; it may for the sake of more profit give preferences that are +hurtful to industrial development, or deny facilities that are essential +to it. A private company may find it more profitable to carry a less +quantity at a high rate than a greater quantity at a low, and it cannot +be expected to run a line that does not pay, though the general +community might benefit greatly more by the increase of traffic which +the line creates than covers the loss incurred by running it. Now it is +impossible to exaggerate the importance of having a public work like a +railway, which can help or hinder every trade in the land, conducted +from a public point of view instead of a private, and the present +discussion in this country on rates and fares points to the desirability +of changes to which private companies are not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> likely to resort of their +own accord, nor the railway commission to be able to compel them. But, +on the other hand, it is equally impossible to exaggerate the risks of +the undertaking. The post office, with its capital of £80,000, is a +plaything to the railways with their capital of £800,000,000, and their +revenue little short of that of the State itself. The operations are of +a most varied nature, and only some of them could be exposed to +effective criticism. The mere transaction of purchase excites in many +minds a not unreasonable fear. If Government made a bad bargain with the +telegraph companies, it would be sure to make a worse with the railway +companies, who are fifty times more powerful; and besides, it would very +likely have to borrow its money at a higher figure, for though it could +borrow two millions at 3 per cent., it could not therefore borrow eight +hundred millions, for the simple reason that the number of people who +want 3 per cent. is limited, most holders of stock preferring +investments which, though more risky, offer a prospect of more gain. If +in trying to balance these weighty <i>pros</i> and equally weighty <i>cons</i> one +turns to the experience of State railways, he will find that as yet it +affords few very sure or decisive data, because it varies in the +different countries and times, and has been very differently interpreted.</p> + +<p>Of the Continental State railways, those of Belgium and Germany are +usually counted the most favourable examples. But Mr. Hadley, in his +excellent work on Railway Transportation, shows that the State lines of +Belgium were conducted in an extremely slovenly, perfunctory way until +1853, when private lines began to increase and compete with them, and +that though the low rates which this competition was the means of +introducing still remain after the private lines have been largely +bought out, there has been, on the other hand, latterly a decline in the +profits of the State system, an increasing tendency to slackness and +inertia in the management, and growing complaints of creating posts to +reward political services, and manipulating accounts to suit Government +exigencies. In Germany the rates are certainly low and the management +economical, but complaints are made that less is done for the +encouragement of the national resources, and unprofitable traffic is +more severely declined than by the private railways.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span> On the whole, +probably the best State railway system is that of Victoria; charging low +rates, self-supporting, offering every encouragement to industrial +development; and the opinion of England will probably be largely +determined by further observation of that experiment.</p> + +<p>The sister colony of New Zealand has made a successful experiment in +another department of industrial enterprise, life insurance, for which +Government management indeed is highly adapted, because, in the first +place, it is a business in which absolute security is of the last +consequence, and there is no security like Government guarantee; and in +the second, it is a business in which the calculations of the whole +administration are virtually matters of mechanical routine. The +Government office was only opened in 1871, under the influence of a +widespread distrust of private offices, caused by recent bankruptcies, +and it now transacts one-third of the life insurance business of the +colony; it has probably tended to encourage life insurance, for while +there are only 26 policies per 1000 of population in the United Kingdom, +there are 80 per 1000 in New Zealand, and its management is much cheaper +than that of any other insurance company in the colony, except the +Australian United. The proportion of expenses to revenue in the +Australian United is 13.66 per cent., in the Government Office 17.23, +and in none of the other companies (whose gross business, however, is +much smaller) is it under 43.02.</p> + +<p>Adam Smith thought there were only four branches of enterprise which +were fitted to be profitably conducted by a joint-stock company. We have +seen in our day almost every branch of industry conducted by such +companies, and an idea is often expressed that whatever a joint-stock +company can do, Government can do at least quite as well, because the +defect of both is the same. The defect is the same, but Government has +it in larger measure. Joint-stock management is certainly much less +productive in most industries than private management. The Report of the +Massachusetts Labour Bureau for 1878 contains some curious statistics on +the subject. There were then in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, +10,395 private manufacturing establishments, employing in all 166,588 +persons, and 520 joint-stock manufacturing establishments,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> employing +101,337 persons, and the private establishments, while they paid a much +higher average rate of wages than the joint-stock, produced at the same +time not far from twice as much for the capital invested. The average +wages per head in the private establishments was 474.37 dollars a year, +and in the joint-stock was 383.47 dollars a year; while the produce per +dollar of capital was 2.58 dollars' worth in the private, and 1.37 +dollars' worth in the joint-stock, and though part of this difference is +attributed to the circumstance that private manufacturers sometimes hire +their factories and companies do not, the substance of it is believed to +be due to the inferiority of the joint-stock management. Anyhow, that +circumstance could have no influence in producing the very marked +difference in the wages given by the two classes of enterprise, and the +higher wages would not, and could not, be given unless the production +was higher. If all the industries of the country, then, were put under +joint-stock management, the result would be (1) a general reduction in +the amount produced, and (2) a consequent reduction in the general +remuneration of the working classes, and the general level of natural +comfort; and the result would be still worse under universal Government +management. One of the labourer's greatest interests is efficient +management, and if he suffers from the replacement of individual +employers by joint-stock companies, he would suffer much more by the +replacement of both by the State, excepting only in those few +departments of business for which the State happens to possess peculiar +advantages and aptitude.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">V. <i>State Socialism and Popular Right.</i></p> + +<p>The limits of the legitimate intervention of the public authority with +respect to the moral development of the community are prescribed by a +different rule from those with respect to its material development. +Efficiency is still, indeed, a governing consideration, for perhaps more +measures for popular improvement fail from sheer ineffectuality than +from any other reason. The history of social reform is strewn thick with +these dead-letter measures. There is a cry and a lamentation, and a +feeling that something must be done; and an Act<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> of Parliament is passed +containing injunctions which no Act of Parliament can enforce, or which +address themselves to mere accidental circumstances, and leave the real +causes of the evil entirely unaffected. And there would be no +impropriety in describing impracticable or ill-directed legislation of +this kind as being socialistic, for, besides the old association of +socialism with impracticable schemes, impracticable legislation is +always unjust legislation, and unjust legislation for behoof of the +labouring class is essentially socialistic. Every State interference +necessarily involves a certain restriction of the liberty or other +general rights of some class of persons; and although this restriction +would be perfectly justifiable if it actually secured the prior or more +urgent right of another and perhaps much more numerous class of persons, +it is injustice, and nothing but injustice, when it merely hurts the +former class without doing any good to the latter. It may hurt both +classes even—well-meaning meddling often does; but what I desire to +bring out here is that labour legislation, which may have been entirely +just and free from socialism in its intention, may be unjust and full of +socialism in its result. We may therefore, without any fault, include +under the head of State socialism that common sort of proposal which, +without urging any wrong claim, merely asks the State to do the wrong +thing—to do either something it cannot do at all, or something that +will not answer the purpose intended. It is socialistic not because it +is impracticable, but because it is unjust.</p> + +<p>Since well-meant legislation may thus become urgent, and therefore +socialistic for want of result, it is plain that the efficiency of the +intervention is a very important consideration in determining the +State's duty with respect to popular rights. But the primary +consideration here is the extent of the moral claim which the +individual, by reason of his weakness, has upon the resources of +society, and it is upon that consideration that the division of +conflicting political theories on the subject turns. All the several +theories are agreed that the enlargement of popular rights, when the +enlargement is required by a just popular claim, is entirely within the +proper and natural province of the State; where they differ, and differ +seriously, is partly in their views of the justice of particular +elements in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> the popular claim of the time being, but more especially in +their whole conception of the nature and extent of the popular claim in +general. There are still some persons to be found contending that there +are no such things as natural rights, and there are plenty who cannot +hear the words without a sensation of alarm. But it is now generally +admitted, even by those who adopt the narrowest political theories, that +legal rights are merely the ratification of moral rights already +existing, and that the creation of new legal rights for securing the +just aspirations of ill-protected classes of the people belongs to the +ordinary daily duties of all civil government. Mr. Spencer very readily +admits that some of the latest constituted rights in this country—the +new seamen's right of the Merchant Shipping Act, and the new women's +right of the Married Women's Property Act—are perfectly justifiable for +the prevention in the one case of seamen being fraudulently betrayed +into unseaworthy ships, and in the other of women being robbed of their +own personal earnings. But then the new rights which he would most +condemn—the right to public assistance, the right to education, the +right to a habitable dwelling, the right to a fair rent—are quite as +susceptible of justification on the ground of natural justice as either +the right to a seaworthy ship or the right to one's own earnings. Mr. +Spencer's theory errs by unduly contracting men's natural claim. They +have a right to more than equal freedom; they have a right, to use +Smith's phrase, to an undeformed and unmutilated humanity, to that +original basis of human dignity which it is the business of organized +society to defend for its weaker members against the assaults of fortune +as well as the assaults of men. That is what I have called, for the sake +of distinction, the English theory of social politics. On the other +hand, socialism unduly extends this claim. The right to fair wages is +one thing; the State could not realize it, but it at least represents no +unjust aspiration; but the right to an equal dividend of the national +income, claimed by utopian socialists, including Mr. Bellamy at the +present day, and the right to the full produce of labour claimed by the +revolutionary socialists, and meaning, as explained by them, the right +to the entire product of labour and capital together, are really rights +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> unfair wages, and the whole objection to them is that they are at +variance with social justice. If we keep these distinctions in view, we +shall be able to discriminate between interventions of authority which +are innocent, and interventions which are tainted with State socialism. +Take an illustration or two, 1st, of interventions for settling the +claims of the poor in society in general, and 2nd, of interventions for +adjusting the differences between one class and another, between +employer and labourer, between landlord and tenant, and the like.</p> + +<p>1. Under the first head, the most important question is the question of +public assistance. Prince Bismarck created a considerable European +sensation when he first announced his new social policy in 1884, by +declaring in favour of the three claims of labour, which have been so +commonly regarded as the very alpha and omega of social revolution—the +right to existence for the infirm, the right to labour for the +able-bodied, and the right to superannuation for the aged. "Give the +labourer," he said, "the right to labour when he is able-bodied; give +him the right to relief when he is sick; give him the right to +maintenance when he is old; and if you do so—if you do not shrink from +the sacrifice, and do not cry out about State socialism whenever the +State does anything for the labourer in the way of Christian +charity—then I believe you will destroy the charm of the Wyden (<i>i.e.</i>, +Social Democratic) programme." These three rights are really two, the +right of relief when one is sick and of maintenance when one is old +being only different phases of the right to existence. Now the right to +existence and the right to labour are in themselves both perfectly just +claims, but the construction Prince Bismarck gave them passed decidedly +over into State socialism.</p> + +<p>The right to existence is seldom called in question. Malthus, it is +true, said a man had a right to live only as he had a right to live a +hundred years—<i>if he could</i>. He might as well have argued that a man +had a right to escape murder only as he had a right to escape murder for +a hundred years—<i>if he could</i>. It is really because he cannot that he +has the right—it is because he cannot protect himself against violence +that he has a right to protection from the State, and because, and as +far as, he cannot protect himself against starvation that he has a just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> +claim upon the State for food. And his claim is obviously bounded in the +one case as in the other by the ability of society. If society cannot +protect him, it is of course absurd to talk of any right to its +protection, but if society can, society ought. To suffer a +fellow-citizen to die of hunger is felt by a civilized community to be +at least as just a disgrace to its government as it would be to leave +him a prey to the knife of the assassin, or to the incursions of +marauders from over the enemy's border. But as the State furnishes +protection against human violence by its courts of justice, and against +disease by its sanitary laws, so it furnishes protection against famine +and indigence by its legal provision of relief. The claim of the +perishing stands on the same footing as any other claim which is an +admitted right of man to-day; it is a claim to an essential condition of +normal manhood—to existence itself. But then, if the right to existence +must be admitted, it can only be admitted where the individual is, for +whatever reason, unable to make provision for himself, and it can only +be admitted in such measure and form as will not discourage other +individuals from trying to make independent provision for themselves +before their day of disability comes, because that, in turn, is the way +prescribed by normal manhood and true human dignity.</p> + +<p>What State socialists claim, however, is not the right to existence, but +the right to decent and comfortable existence—the right to the style of +living which is customary among the independent poor. The labourer +ought, in their eyes, to be treated as a public servant, and his sick +pay and his pension ought both to be commensurate with the claims and +dignity of honest labour. Now it is of course impossible not to +sympathize much with this view, but the difficulty is that if you make +assisted labour as good as independent labour, you shall soon have more +assisted labour than you can manage, you shall have weakened the push, +energy, and forethought of your labouring class, you shall have really +done much to destroy that very dignity of labour which you desire to +establish. The State may probably, with great advantage, do more for +working-class insurance than it at present does. It could conduct the +business of the burial benefit and the superannuation benefit better +than any private company or friendly society,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> because it could offer a +surer guarantee and the business is routine; Mr. Gladstone's excellent +annuity scheme has remained sterile only because it has not been pushed, +and the canvasser and collector are indispensable in working-class +insurance. But the socialist proposal is that the State ought to give +every man a pension after a certain age, irrespectively altogether of +his own contributions. Mr. Webb is one of its most recent advocates, +and, according to the useful figures he has taken the trouble to obtain, +there are in the United Kingdom 1,700,000 persons over sixty-five years +of age, of whom 1,300,000 contrive to pension themselves, either by +their own savings or the assistance of their families, while the +remaining 400,000 are supported by the rates at an average cost of ten +guineas a year. Mr. Webb's proposal is that in order to save the +feelings of the 400,000 dependants you are to make the other 1,300,000 +persons dependants along with them, and give ten guineas a year all +round. But you cannot make a public dole a pension by merely calling it +a pension. A pension is a payment made by one's actual employer for work +done—it is wages, and the man who has earned his own pension, or has +provided it by his own saving, feels himself and is an independent man. +It is right to maintain the 400,000—whether out of national or +parochial funds is a detail—but sound policy would rather aim at +raising the 400,000 to be as the 1,300,000, than at lowering the +1,300,000 to the level of the 400,000. With Mr. Webb it is not a +question of giving the 400,000 better allowances than they receive at +present—which might be most reasonably entertained—but it is a mere +question of not suffering them to be looked down on by the 1,300,000 who +have fought their own way, and that is not possible, nor, with all +respect for them, is it, from a public point of view, desirable. It is +right to support those who cannot support themselves, but it is neither +right nor wise to remove all distinction between the dependent poor and the independent.</p> + +<p>But the line between State socialism and sound social politics in the +matter of public assistance may perhaps be better shown in another +branch of Poor Law administration—the right to labour for the +able-bodied. The socialist right to labour is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> right of the +unemployed to get labour in their own trades and at good or current +rates of wages. That is the right which Bismarck substantially admitted +in his famous speech. He said there was a crowd of suitable undertakings +which the State could establish to furnish the unemployed with a fair +day's wage for a fair day's work. It is also practically the right which +prevailed in England between 1782, when Gilbert's Act abolished the old +workhouse test, and 1835, when the new Poor Law restored it. Gilbert's +Act gave the able-bodied poor the right (1) to obtain from the guardians +work near their own residence and suited to their respective strength +and capacity; (2) to receive for their labour all the money earned by +it; and (3) if that sum fell short of their requirements, to have the +difference made up out of the parochial funds. The effect of that, as we +know, was, that public relief became too desirable, the dependants on it +multiplied, the poor rate rose, the wages of labour fell, the very +efficiency of the labourer himself withered, and the new Poor Law +reverted to the workhouse test, which, harsh though it was considered to +be, was in reality a necessary defence of the character and comfort of +the labouring class from further decadence.</p> + +<p>To provide the unemployed with work in their own trades is only to +increase the evil you wish to remedy, for the very existence of the +unemployed shows that those particular trades are slack at the time, +that there is no demand for the articles they produce, and consequently +any attempt by the State to throw fresh supplies of these articles on +the already over-stocked market can have no other effect than to +increase the depression and turn out of employ the men that are still at +work. Paying relief work at the common market rate of wages is attended +with the same objection. The remedy only aggravates the disease, and +what ought to be merely the labourer's temporary resource against +adversity tends to grow into his regular staff of life. Relief wages, +while sufficient for the family's support, should remain below the +current rates so as to give the labourer an effective inducement to seek +better employment as soon as better employment can possibly be obtained. +The true and natural defence against misfortune is the man's own +personal exertion and provision, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>purpose of the public +intervention is to stimulate and assist, not to supplant, that <i>vis +medicatrix naturæ</i>.</p> + +<p>But under these limitations a right to labour is a just claim of the +unfortunate. It is admitted in the English Poor Law, and it is admitted +in the Scotch parochial practice, which constructively considers want of +employment a form of sickness or accident, and it requires in both +countries to be better realized than it is. 1st: although it is +unadvisable to give every man work at his own trade, and although the +choice of trades for relief purposes is attended with as much difficulty +as the choice of those for prison labour is found to be, yet certainly +the circle of relief trades ought to be extended beyond stone-breaking +and oakum-picking. Socialists themselves are among the foremost in +complaining of the competition of prison labour with honest labour, +although they fail to see that precisely the same objection attends the +competition of relieved labor in public workshops with unrelieved labour +in regular private employment. The kind of work most free from objection +on this score would probably be the production of articles now imported +from abroad, and there are a great many trades in which, while we make +most of their products at home, we import particular articles or sorts +of articles for one reason or another. Some of these might be found +suitable for the purpose in view. Or the men in the public workshops +might be employed in making a variety of things used in public offices, +imperial or local. 2nd: what is even more important, a distinction ought +to be made between the industrious poor and that residuum of confirmed +failures for whom the stoneyard test is really intended, and the former +ought not to be made to feel themselves any way degraded in their work, +their small remuneration being trusted to act as a sufficient preventive +against their permanent dependence on the public for employment. 3rd: +then a third and most important requisite is to supplement the public +provision of work with a public provision of information about the +demand for labour over the country from day to day, so as not merely to +support the men in adversity, but to facilitate their restoration to +their normal condition of prosperity.</p> + +<p>For we ought to recognise that though the problem of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> unemployed is +not, as many persons imagine, one of increasing gravity in our +time—although, on the contrary, if we go back thirty years, sixty +years, or a hundred years, we always find worse complaints and more +distressing sufferings from that cause than at present, yet it is +certainly a constant problem. The unemployed we have always with us, and +even their numbers vary less from time to time than we are apt to +suppose. Trades dependent on fine weather are, of course, slack in +winter, but then trades dependent on fashion are slack in summer, while +there are some large trades—such as the shoemakers—that are made brisk +by bad weather. Even a general commercial crisis which throws the +workpeople of many trades idle, makes those of others busy. The building +trades are always busy in bad times, because money and labour are then +cheap, and the opportunity is seized of building or extending factories, +and laying down plant of every description. It was so to a very +remarkable extent during the Lancashire cotton distress of 1862; it was +so all over England in the depression of 1877-78, and the same fact was +observed again in Scotland, and commented upon by the factory inspector +in 1886. Other trades are brisker in a crisis for less happy causes, +<i>e.g.</i>, the bakers for the melancholy reason that the working classes +are more generally driven from meat to bread. These natural corrections +or compensations elicited by the depression itself prevent the numbers +of the unemployed from growing so very much larger in a crisis than in +ordinary times that their case would not be overtaken satisfactorily by +the general systematic provision of relief work, if that were once +established. The excess is met now so effectually by a few special local +efforts, that we have sometimes far fewer able-bodied paupers in bad +years than in good. The number of able-bodied paupers was very much less +in the bad years 1876-1878 than in the good years immediately after +them, or in the still better years immediately before them. The problem +being, then, so largely constant from season to season, and from cycle +to cycle, ought clearly to be solved by a permanent and systematic provision.</p> + +<p>The same principle which governs this right to labour—the principle of +preventing degradation and facilitating self-recovery—governs other +social legislation for the unfortunate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> besides the Poor Law. It lies at +the bottom of the homestead exemptions of America, and our own +prohibition of arrestment of tools and wages for debt, and our +occasional measures for cancelling arrears. It is the principle laid +down by Pitt when he said that no temporary occasion should be suffered +to force a British subject to part with his last shilling. He had a +right to his last shilling, because he had a right to an undegraded +humanity. The last shilling stopped his fall, and perhaps helped him to rise again.</p> + +<p>Many persons will admit the right to public assistance, because it seems +limited to saving men from extremities, who will see nothing but +socialism of a perilous sort in other public provisions, for which +popular claims are advanced. Schools, museums, libraries, parks, open +spaces, footpaths, baths, are certainly means of intellectual and +physical life, which keep the manhood of a community in normal vigour; +but, it will be asked, if the State once begins to supply such things, +where is it to stop? Is free education to go beyond the primary +branches? What length are you to go? is the question Mr. Spencer always +raises as a bar to your going at all. But the same question of degree +can be raised about everything, about the duties Mr. Spencer himself +imposes upon the State as really as about those he refuses to sanction. +In the matter of protection, for instance, how many policemen are we +required to detail to a district? Or how great an army and navy are we +to maintain? During the excitement about the Jack the Ripper murders +there was much clamour about the police being too few, and we are +subject to periodical panics as to our imperial defences, in the course +of which no two persons agree in answering the question, what length are +we to go? The question can only be settled of course by measuring the +length of our necessities with the length of our purse, and the same +class of considerations rules in the other case, the importance and cost +of the given provision to a community of such education and culture, +together with the impossibility of getting it adequately supplied +without public agency. The opinion of the time may vary as to what is +essential for a whole and wholesome manhood, and its resources may vary +as to what may be easily borne to supply it; but the same variation +takes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> place with respect to the duties of national defence, or the +administration of justice. The objection is therefore nothing more or +less than the very ancient and famous logical fallacy with which the +Greek sophists used to nonplus their antagonists. As in other affairs, +the problem so far will settle itself practically as it goes along, and +the important distinction to bear in mind is that to give every man the +essential conditions of all humane living is a very different kind of +aim from giving every man the same share in the national production, or +a lien on his neighbour's luck or industry or alertness.</p> + +<p>2. From rights realizing general claims of the unfortunate on society at +large, let us now pass to rights realizing special claims of certain +weaker classes of society against certain stronger classes. The most +typical examples of this sort of legislation are the intervention of the +State between buyer and seller, between landlord and tenant, between +employer and labourer, for the judicial determination of a fair price, a +fair rent, or fair wages, or for the regulation of the conditions of +labour, and tenure of land. Professor Sidgwick declares the Irish and +Scotch Land Acts, which provide for the judicial determination of a fair +rent, to be the most distinctively socialistic measures the English +Legislature has yet passed; but in reality these Land Acts are not a bit +more socialistic than the laws which fix a fair price for railway rates +and fares, and much less socialistic than the old usury Acts which +sought to determine fair interest. Such interferences with freedom of +contract as these are, of course, only justifiable when the absence of +effective competition places the real power of settlement of terms +practically in the hands of one side alone, and conduces, therefore, +inevitably to the serious injury and oppression of the other. Parliament +controls railway charges because the railway companies enjoy a monopoly +of most important business, and might use their monopoly to wrong the +public, and when Parliament is asked, as it sometimes is, to discourage +corners, rings, syndicates, or pooling combinations, it is on the ground +that these various agencies are attempts, more or less successful, to +exclude competition for the purpose of exacting from the public more +than a fair price. On the other hand, the reason why we have given up +fixing fair interest now is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> because we have come to see that +competition, being very effective among money-lenders, fixes it far +better for us without the intervention of the law, and, of course, an +unnecessary interference with freedom of contract is nothing but +pernicious. But, although for ordinary commercial loans the competition +of lenders is a sufficient security for the fair treatment of borrowers, +it affords no protection against extortion to the very necessitous man, +who must accept any terms or starve. His poverty leaves him no proper +freedom to make a contract, and the law still condemns oppressive rates +of usury, to which, as the Apothecary says in "Romeo and Juliet," the +poor man's poverty, but not his will, consents. In such a case, +accordingly, an authoritative prescription of fair interest is only a +necessary requirement of justice and humanity.</p> + +<p>The public determination of fair rent stands on precisely the same +ground. The rent of large farms, like the interest on ordinary +commercial loans, may be safely left to be settled by commercial +competition, because large farms are taken by men of capital as a +business speculation, and landlords cannot exact more rent than the +farms will bear without driving capital out of agriculture into other +branches of production, and so reducing the demand for that class of +farms to an extent that will bring the rent down to its proper level +again. But the rent of small holdings, like the interest on loans to +persons in extremity, is ruled by other considerations. Cottier tenants, +between their numbers and their necessities, are continually driven into +offering rents the land can never be made to pay, and thereby incurring +for the rest of their days the burden of a lengthening chain of arrears +little better than Oriental debt-slavery. Other work is hard to find; +the land being limited in supply is a natural monopoly; and the State +merely steps in to save the tenantry from the injurious effects of their +own over-competition for an essential instrument of their labour, and, +through their labour, of their very existence. The interference, +therefore, is perfectly justifiable if the machinery it institutes can +carry out the purpose efficiently, and there is this difference between +a court for fixing rent and a court for fixing the price of bread, or +beer, or labour, that it is only doing work which in the natural course +of things is very usually done by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span>periodical and independent valuation, +instead of by the ordinary higgling of the market. It has always been +the custom on many large estates to call in a valuator from the outside +for the revision of the rents, and a valuator appointed by the Crown +cannot be expected to do the work any less effectively than a valuator +appointed by the landlord. Moreover, the tendency of opinion seems to be +towards the simplication of the process by some self-working scheme, a +sliding scale for apportioning an annual rent to the annual production.</p> + +<p>State intervention in the determination of the rate of wages is often +proposed either for the purpose of settling trade disputes on the +subject, or for the purpose of suppressing what is called starvation +wages and fixing a legal minimum rate. As for arbitration in trade +disputes, the object is, of course, in no way socialistic, for it is +strictly allied with the ordinary judicial work of the State, and a +public and permanent tribunal would probably answer the purpose much +better than a private and merely occasional one; for even although it +might not be able to enforce its judgments in all cases by compulsion on +the parties, it would be more likely than the other to command their +confidence and secure by its moral authority their voluntary submission, +and this authority would increase with the experience of the court.</p> + +<p>In certain cases compulsory arbitration seems to be required. There are +trades in which the public interest may require strikes to be +prohibited, in order to prevent a whole community suffering grave +privations, perhaps being starved of its supply of a necessary of life. +The Trades Union Act imposes express restrictions on combinations among +the labourers at gas and water works, and the recent railway strike in +Scotland, which not only paralyzed trade for a time, but stopped the +supply of coal to whole districts in the middle of the severest winter +of the last part of the century, suggested to many minds the propriety +of similar interference in railway disputes. But if the State interfered +to stop the strike, the State must needs in equity interfere to decide +upon the cause of quarrel. And happily these are the very cases which +are best fitted for compulsory arbitration, because the trades concerned +are not subject to the market fluctuations to which other trades are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> +liable, and are therefore better suited for fixed settlements of +definite and considerable duration.</p> + +<p>But what socialists claim is a universal determination of normal wages, +so as to give every man the full product of his labour, as the full +product of his labour is understood upon their theory. For the present, +however, they are content to ask for at least the establishment of a +legal minimum rate of wages; in fact, an international minimum rate of +wages and an international eight hours working day are the two demands +on which their agitation is in the meantime most strenuously +concentrated. In their recent policy they have reverted to the kind of +remedies they used to speak of with such lofty disdain as mere +palliatives, and have only preserved their separate identity from other +reformers by asking for these palliatives in their least practicable +form. An international compulsory minimum wage is impossible, for even a +national one is so, and that is the only objection, but a very +sufficient one, to the proposal. If you could wipe out starvation wages +by passing an Act of Parliament, let the Act be passed to-morrow, for +starvation wages is surely the worst and most exasperating of all the +enemies of humane living. To starve for want of power to work is bad; to +starve for want of work is worse; but to work and yet starve, to work a +long, long day without obtaining the bread that should be its natural +reward, is a third and worst degree of misfortune, for it mocks the +fitness and equity of things, and seizes the mind like a wrong. If it is +right to suppress starvation by law, it would seem more right still to +suppress starvation wages; and if the socialist contention were in the +least true, that in consequence of the "iron and cruel law" all wages +are starvation wages, and all work sweaters' work, that work and starve +is the inevitable rule under the present system of things, there would +be no good answer to their demand for the abolition of the present +system of things. But as a matter of fact working and starving is the +condition of only exceptional groups of workpeople, and the right to a +minimum wage, in the sense of a wage above starvation point, would have +no bearing on the great majority of the labouring classes, inasmuch as +they stand already on a considerably higher level of remuneration.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span></p><p>Ought the State, however, to fix a legal minimum of wages for the +protection of the exceptional groups of workpeople to whose situation +such a measure might have relation? The objection to this course comes +less from want of justice in the claim than from want of power in the +State to realize it. The fixing of a legal minimum rate of wages is a +task which it is beyond the State's power to accomplish, except by +paying up the minimum out of its own funds; for, though the law fixed a +minimum to-morrow, it could not compel employers to engage workmen at +that minimum; and if employers found it unprofitable to do so, the only +effect of the legislation would be to throw numbers of men out of work, +and make their maintenance at the legal minimum an obligation of the +public treasury. Of the results of paying wages out of the rates we have +had plenty of experience. To suppress starvation wages in this way by +direct statute is merely impossible, however, and there would be no +taint of socialism in it, if it could be done. Much less can the like +objection be made against any milder remedies. The only danger is that +they would not prove effectual, and would address themselves to false +causes. Take the sweating system of the East End of London, in which, +bad conditions of labour always going together, we find starvation wages +combined with long hours and unwholesome work-rooms. Two of the +favourite remedies are the abolition of sub-contracting and the +prohibition of pauper Jewish immigration; but neither of these things is +the cause of sweating. The sweating contractor of the East End is not a +sub-contractor at all; he is the only contractor in the business, and +even if he were a sub-contractor, we know that sub-contractors often pay +far better wages than the chief contractor can, because they know their +men better, and get better work out of them.</p> + +<p>A temporary increase in the Jewish immigration may occasion a temporary +aggravation of the difficulty, but the permanent causes lie elsewhere, +and even in the way of aggravation a matter of a thousand Jews more, or +a thousand Jews less, cannot play an all-important part in a system +affecting some hundred thousand workpeople. Sweating is no more incident +to Jewish labour than to English labour. The cheap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> clothing trade of +Birmingham is certainly in the hands of Jews, yet sweating is—or at +least was when the factory inspector reported in 1879—absolutely +unknown. The wages, he said, were good, the hours were not long, and +there were no overcrowded dens. On the other hand, sweating has not only +been for years endemic in the East End of London, but has even appeared +in a very acute form, apart from any alien influence, in the tailoring +trade in Melbourne, the paradise of working people, as it is sometimes +not unjustly denominated. The sweating there was conducted largely by +ladies who took in bands of learners, and, according to the evidence +before the Shopkeepers' Commission, of 1883, every second house in some +of the suburbs was a shop of that kind. There was an excessive influx of +labour into that trade, because little other work could be found for +women who entertained, as they do generally in that colony, a prejudice +against both factory labour and domestic service. On the other hand, +this overflow was diverted in Birmingham into other channels by the +comparative abundance of light employments the district afforded. But +apart from temporary or local circumstances that serve to aggravate +things or alleviate them, the tailor trade is everywhere naturally +subject beyond all others to over-competition: (1) because the work can +be done at home; (2) because it can be learnt in a few weeks or months +well enough to earn starvation wages in a long day at some sorts of +work; (3) because it needs as little capital for the contractor to start +business as it needs training for the operatives; and (4) because the +operatives being scattered about in their own homes, or in small +workshops here and there, have a natural difficulty in coming to any +concerted action that might otherwise mitigate the effects of the +over-competition, and if there is any general remedy for sweating, it +must deal with these causes. To replace homework by common work in +wholesome workshops, as far as that can be done, might interfere with +what some poor persons found a convenient resource, but would do no harm +to the working class generally. The work it was less convenient for some +to do would be done by others. The change would remove at once one of +the evils of sweating—the unhealthy work-places—and it would +contribute to remove the others,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> first by facilitating combination, and +second by improving the personal efficiency of the labourer and the +amount of his production. Dr. Watts, of Manchester, speaking from long +experience, tells us in his "Facts of the Cotton Famine" (p. 44) that +"men often care more about being employed in a good mill (<i>i.e.</i>, a mill +with plenty of room, air, and light) than about the exact price per +pound for spinning, or per piece for weaving, for they know practically +what is the effect of these conditions upon the weekly wages." Various +measures have been suggested which have some such end in view—the +compulsory registration of the contractor's workrooms and his +outworkers, the requiring him to provide workshops for all his hands, +the joint liability of the clothier with him for the wholesomeness of +the workplaces, the erection of public workshops where workpeople may be +accommodated for hire; they may be open to various objections—and there +is no space to indicate or discuss them here—but if they are effectual +for the purpose contemplated, that purpose saves them at least from the +reproach of socialism.</p> + +<p>The international compulsory eight hours day is attended with like +difficulty. The eight hours day is no necessary plank of socialism, +though socialists have at present united to demand it. Rodbertus, the +most learned and scientific of modern socialists, always contended that +the normal working-day ought not to be of uniform length, but should +vary inversely with the relative strain of the several trades, and Mr. +Bellamy, under his system of absolute equality of income, makes +differences in the hours of labour answer the purpose of regulating the +choice of occupation, and preventing too many persons running into the +easier trades, and too few into the harder. Nor, indeed, apart from the +element of universal compulsion, has the eight hours day anything of +socialism in it at all. In some trades it is probably a simple necessity +for protecting the workpeople in normal conditions of health; but above +all its sanitary benefits it would confer upon the workpeople of every +trade alike the much grander blessing of admitting them to a reasonable +share of the intellectual, social, domestic, religious, and political +life of their time. If the State could bestow upon them this sovereign +blessing without forcing them to accept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> a reduction of wages, which +might deprive them of things even more essential for their elevation, +and which would only breed among them an intolerable discontent, by all +means let the State declare the glad decree. But experience shows that +in matters of this kind the State—and especially the democratic +State—is a very limited agent, and cannot successfully enforce its +decrees upon unwilling trades. In certain special cases, when the short +day is demanded for the purpose of averting admitted dangers to health, +as with the miners, or for the safety of the public, as with the railway +service, there is a recognised stringency of obligation which is +exceptional; but in the great run of trades the question is virtually +one of mere preference between an hour's leisure and an hour's pay, and +in these circumstances a law has too little moral authority behind it to +be practically enforceable by penalties in the absence of decided +working-class opinion in its favour in the affected trades. In Victoria +more than fifty separate trades have obtained the eight hours day +without any parliamentary assistance, and almost the only remaining +trades which do not yet enjoy it are the very trades which have been +protected by an eight hours Factory Act since 1874. As soon as the Act +was passed, the operatives, men and women both, petitioned the Chief +Secretary for its suspension, and it has remained in suspended animation +to this day. A democratic government cannot risk incurring the +discontent of a body of the people merely to prevent them from working +an hour more when they want to earn a little more. California has had an +Eight Hours Act on the statute-book for even a longer period, but it has +remained a mere dead letter, because employers began to pay wages by the +hour or the piece, and the men found they did not earn so much in the +short day as they used to earn in the long. The same thing has happened +in others of the American States, and the friends of the eight hours +movement in that country are beginning to think that the reason their +long and often hot struggle has hitherto been so fruitless is because +they have been wasting their strength in political agitation when they +ought to have been cultivating and organizing opinion among the working +class themselves trade by trade. The weakness of statutory eight hours +movements<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> has generally flowed from two sources. One is that what their +promoters really wanted was not shorter hours, but more wages. Numbers +of them sought only to shorten regular time in order to lengthen +overtime, and numbers more got themselves persuaded that a general +reduction of hours was the grand means of effecting a general rise of +wages, either by removing the competition of the unemployed, or in some +other way; and it has often been only the few—always the very <i>élite</i> +of labour—who fought for the eight hours day because they valued the +leisure enough to make, if necessary, some little sacrifice for so noble +a boon. When, therefore, wages, instead of rising, begin to get reduced, +general disappointment is inevitable, and they get reduced—and reduced +lower than they otherwise might be—through the second weakness of such +movements, which is simply this, that a trades union which is not strong +enough to get an eight hours day by their own unaided efforts, without +the assistance of the law, is not strong enough to prevent their wages +from sinking, and in this matter the law can do nothing to help them. +The eight hours day can only be an abiding possession if it come through +the successive growth of opinion and organization in one trade after +another. The history of the movement in Victoria is the history of such +successive triumphs of opinion and organization; as soon as a trade has +come to want the eight hours day earnestly enough to be willing to +sacrifice something for it, the trade has always got it. In the result +they have had to sacrifice very little; scarce one of them suffered a +fall of wages by the change, for the simple reason that there was no +serious fall in their daily production. The difference between the ten +hours day and the eight hours day in Victoria was not two hours, but +only three-quarters of an hour, for—at least in the important +trades—the old day was ten hours, with an hour and a quarter off for +meals; and in eight hours with only one break the men probably did near +as much as they did before in the eight hours and three-quarters with a +double break. Still, most of the trades took twenty or five-and-twenty +years before they ventured to join the movement; and though no country +in the world is so much under the control of working-class opinion as +Victoria, the proposal of a general legal eight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> hours day which has +repeatedly come before the Legislature has never been carried into law.</p> + +<p>In one sense the eight hours day is the least socialistic of all reforms +proposed in the interest of the working class, for it is impossible to +make the other classes of society pay for the boon. It may not, perhaps, +be quite certain that there will be anything to pay for it at all, for +many people assure us production will suffer nothing by the change, and +some promise us it will be even increased. But one thing at least is +certain: if there is anything to pay, it is the working classes +themselves who in the end will and must pay it. The reduction can make +no great difference to employers, except on running contracts, or where +for any reason they refuse to keep their plant in use by an extra shift, +for in the matter of wages they will do under an eight hours system +exactly what they do now—pay the men for the amount of work they get +out of them and no more; and as they thus produce their goods at the old +cost, they can export them at the old price. It need not, therefore, +have any permanent effect worth speaking of on the general trade of the +country. But if the men do less, their wages will be less too,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> and +nothing can long keep them what they were. This wages question is the +eight hours question; and while it is a question for the men more than +for the masters, it is essential they should keep clear of all +misconception in deciding it.</p> + +<p>There is no way of getting ten hours' pay for eight hours' work except +by doing the work of ten hours in the eight. An Eight Hours Act would +give working men no new power to raise the rate of wages; and if they +cannot by combination get twelve hours' pay for ten hours' work to-day, +they cannot by combination get ten hours' pay for eight hours' work +to-morrow. It is, indeed, a very current delusion, that a restriction of +production must increase wages by necessitating the employment of the +unemployed, whose competition tends at present to prevent wages from +rising. But that effect could only occur if the same demand for +commodities remained, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span> although that might be the case if the +restriction were confined to a single branch of industry, while all the +rest continued to produce as much as before, it would not be so if the +restriction were carried out simultaneously all round. The various +trades are one another's customers; the commodities one supplies +constitute the demand for the labour of the others; and if the supply is +reduced all round, the demand will be reduced all round. To say there is +at any moment a fixed amount of work that has to be done whatever the +produce of the labour, is, as Professor Marshall very happily observes, +to set up a Work Fund Dogma exactly analogous to the old Wages Fund +Doctrine of the schools, and, he might have added, a dogma even more +dangerous to the prosperity of the working-man. Yet the idea is abroad; +it appears in the trade-union policy of "making work"—that is, making +work for to-morrow by not doing it to-day; it is a kind of mercantilist +delusion of the present century, by which each trade is to cut some +advantage for itself out of the sides of the others until they all come +to practise the trick in turn and fall to mysterious ruin together.</p> + +<p>If the eight hours day is to raise wages, it will not be by limiting +production, but by improving it. That the productivity of labour is +capable of improving—nay, that it is certain to improve to such an +extent as to earn by-and-by more wages in an eight hours day than it now +does in a ten—is scarce matter of doubt. Apart from the influence of +machinery and invention, there is a great reserve of personal +efficiency, especially in English labour, still capable of development. +Mr. Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam-hammer, said that he noticed when +watching his men at work, that most of them spent at least two-thirds of +their time, not in working, but in criticising their work with the +square and the straight-edge, which the few dexterous workmen among them +almost never required to use. An increase of dexterity might, therefore, +make up for a reduction of the day in these trades even to four hours. +But the present question is about the probable effect of the reduction +itself upon the efficiency of labour, and experience certainly does not +justify those who declare that it would increase the daily product. The +effect of a reduction from ten hours or nine to eight is, of course, an +entirely different<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> question from the effect of a reduction from twelve +or thirteen to ten, because the last two hours' labour in a very long +and exhausting day may bear little comparison with the last two hours of +a shorter day; and of the exact effect of the particular reduction from +ten to eight we possess but scanty evidence, though much might easily be +obtained, one would think, from establishments that run, as many do, ten +hours in summer and eight hours in winter, or ten hours in busy times +and eight hours in slack. We have some American evidence of this sort, +but it is very contradictory, a few employers saying that quite as much +work was done in the eight hours as in the ten, and others that as much +would have been done had the men made a better use of their leisure, +while several more complained that the men really did less, and that +their energies were positively slackened under the short hours—this +also perhaps being a result of the use they made of their leisure. In +Victoria the production seems to have been reduced a little, but really +so little as to have no very perceptible results, and the leisure is +used so well that the working class have made a distinct rise in the +scale of being, and have developed a remarkable love of outdoor sports, +and spare energy enough to produce some of the most famous cricketers +and scullers in the world. There are some trades in which it is possible +for production to diminish and yet wages to remain the same, because the +difference can be thrown into the price of the product. These are trades +supplying a commodity in general and necessary demand of which the +consumers will stand a very considerable rise in the price before they +will seriously shorten their purchases. Coal is a good example of such a +commodity, and the miners are therefore very happily situated for the +adoption of an eight hours day. They are more able than most other +trades to prevent such a measure from resulting in any fall of wages, +and consequently a legal enactment on the subject is less likely with +them to create subsequent disappointment, and remain dead letter. They +need State help in the matter less than most trades, for they are strong +and well organized; but an Eight Hours Act would be more easily enforced +among them. Very few trades, however, are in this exceptional position. +On the whole, the risk of material loss incurred by the reduction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> is +slight compared with the certainty and greatness of the moral gain; the +material loss will, in any case, be soon made up by industrial +improvements, if things progress as they are doing; and if the reduction +is more likely to come through the union and organization of the trades +themselves rather than by either national or international action, the +trades at least need have no serious fear to make the venture.</p> + +<p>The idea of settling questions of this kind by international action, +which was started at first from the side of the employers as a +convenient obstructive, but has since been taken up with great zeal by +the young German Emperor and the socialists, is obviously delusive. It +ignores the possibilities of the case, for who, in the first place, is +to adjust the complicated details of this international handicap, and if +they were adjusted, who is to enforce them? No country is likely to be +very strict in enforcing those parts of the settlement by which it lost +some point of advantage, and those are the only parts for which any such +settlement was wanted at all. Besides, international labour treaties are +quite unnecessary. Experience all over the world shows that a short-hour +State suffers nothing in the competition with a long-hour State. When +Massachusetts became a ten-hour State, her manufacturers never found +themselves at any disadvantage in competing with those of the +neighbouring eleven-hour States of New England, and they would have +still less to fear from rivals who employed, not the same Anglo-Saxon +labour as they did themselves, but the less efficient labour of Germany +or France. The ten-hour day was its own reward. It improved the +efficiency of the workpeople to the degree where, in concert with +improvements in the management, also due to the shortening of the day, +the product of ten hours in Massachusetts was equal to the product of +eleven elsewhere. If the same result were to follow the adoption of an +eight hours day, which, however, has still to be tested by experiment, +there is of course no more reason why one country should wait for +another in adopting the eight hours day than in adopting the policy of free trade.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> It is only fair to this eminent man to remember that his +mature opinions must not be looked for in his essay, "Ideen zu einem +Versuch die Gränzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen," which was +written in his early youth, and never published until after its author's +death. Although in this work he condemns all State education, he lived +to be a famous Minister of Education himself, and to take a great part +in establishing the Prussian system of public instruction.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Frothingham's "W. H. Channing: a Memoir," p. 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Roscher's "Finanz-Wissenschaft," p. 63.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> For proof of the position that the rate of wages is +determined by the amount of production, see pp. 307-11.</p></div></div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XII.</span> <span class="smaller">THE AGRARIAN SOCIALISM OF HENRY GEORGE.</span></h2> + +<p>Mr. George sent his "Progress and Poverty" into the world with the +remarkable prediction that it would find not only readers but apostles. +"Whatever be its fate," he says, "it will be read by some who in their +heart of hearts have taken the cross of a new crusade.... The truth I +have tried to make clear will not find easy acceptance. If that could +be, it would have been accepted long ago. If that could be, it would +never have been obscured. But it will find friends—those who will toil +for it, suffer for it: if need be, die for it. This is the power of the +truth" (p. 393). Mr. George's prediction is not more remarkable than its +fulfilment. His work has had an unusually extensive sale; a hundred +editions in America, and an edition of 60,000 copies in this country are +sufficient evidences of that; but the most striking feature in its +reception is precisely that which its author foretold; it created an +army of apostles, and was enthusiastically circulated, like the +testament of a new dispensation. Societies were formed, journals were +devised to propagate its saving doctrines, and little companies of the +faithful held stated meetings for its reading and exposition. It was +carried as a message of consolation to the homes of labour. The author +was hailed as a new and better Adam Smith, as at once a reformer of +science and a renovator of society. Smith unfolded "The Nature and +Causes of the Wealth of Nations," but to Mr. George, we were told, was +reserved the greater part of unravelling "the nature and causes of the +poverty of nations," and if the obsolete science of wealth had served to +make England rich, the young science of poverty was at length to make +her people happy with the money. Justice and Liberty were to begin their +reign, and our eyes were to see—to quote Mr. George's own words—"the +City<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> of God on earth, with its walls of jasper and its gates of pearl" +(p. 392).</p> + +<p>The fervour of this first reception may—as was perhaps only +natural—have suffered some abatement since, but it affords a striking +proof how largely modern society is disquieted by the results of our +vaunted industrial civilization. Even those amongst us who are most +unwilling to disparage the improvement that has really taken place +during the last hundred years in the circumstances of the people, still +cannot help feeling that the improvement has fallen far short of what +might have been reasonably expected from the contemporaneous growth of +resources and productive power. But numbers of people will not allow +that any improvement has occurred at all, and deliver themselves to an +unhappy and unwarranted pessimism on the whole subject. Because +industrial progress has not extinguished poverty, they conclude that it +has not even lessened it; that it has no power to lessen it; nay, that +its real tendency is to aggravate it, that it increases wealth with the +one hand, but increases want with the other, so that civilization has +developed into a purely upper-class feast, where the rich are grossly +overfilled with good things, and the poor are sent always emptier and +emptier away. Invention, they tell us, has followed invention; machinery +has multiplied the labourer's productivity at least tenfold; new +colonies have been founded, new markets and channels of commerce opened +in every quarter of the globe; gold-fields have been discovered, free +trade has been introduced, railways and ocean steamers have shortened +time and space themselves in our service. Each and all of these things +have excited hopes of introducing an era of popular improvement, and +each and all of them have left these hopes unfulfilled. They think, +therefore, they now do well to despair, and they fortify themselves in +their gloom by citing the opinion of Mr. Mill, that "it is questionable +whether all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's +toil of any human being," without observing that Mr. Mill immediately +follows up that opinion by expressing the confident assurance that it +was "in the nature and the futurity" of these inventions to effect that +improvement. These gloomy views have in France received the name of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> +<i>Sisyphism</i>, because they represent the working class under the present +industrial system as being struck with a curse like that of Sisyphus, +always encouraged by fresh technical advantages to renewed expectations, +and always doomed to see their expectations perish for ever.</p> + +<p>Now, it was upon these despondent and burdened souls that Mr. George +counted so confidently, and, as time has shown, so correctly, for his +apostles and martyrs; and he counted so confidently upon them because he +had himself borne their sorrows, and drunk of their despair, and because +he now believed most entirely that his discoveries would bring +"inexpressible cheer" to their minds, as, in the same circumstances, +they had already brought inexpressible cheer to his own. "When I first +realized," he says, "the squalid misery of a great city"—that is, of +the latest and most characteristic product of industrial +development—"it appalled and tormented me, and would not let me rest +for thinking of what caused it and how it could be cured" (p. 395). +Poverty seemed to him to be most abounding and most intense in precisely +the most advanced countries in the world. "Where the conditions to which +material progress everywhere tends are most fully realized—that is to +say, where population is densest, wealth greatest, and the machinery of +production and exchange most highly developed—we find the deepest +poverty, the sharpest struggle for existence, and the most enforced +idleness" (p. 4). Nay, poverty, he thought, seemed "to take a darker +aspect" in every community at the very moment when it might be +reasonably expected to brighten—at the moment when the community made a +distinct advance in material civilization, when "closer settlements and +a more intimate connection with the rest of the world and greater +utilization of labour-saving machinery make possible greater economies +in production and exchange, and wealth increases in consequence, not +merely in the aggregate, but in proportion to population" (p. 4). This +process of impoverishment might, he says, escape observation in an old +country, because such a country has generally contained from time +immemorial a completely impoverished class, who could not be further +impoverished without going out of existence altogether, but in a new +settlement like California,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> where he resided, poverty might be seen +almost in the act of being produced by progress before one's very eyes. +While the colony had nothing better than log cabins or cloth shanties, +"there was no destitution," though there might be no luxury. But "the +tramp comes with the locomotive, and alm-houses and prisons are as +surely the marks of 'material progress' as are costly dwellings, rich +warehouses, and magnificent churches" (p. 4). "In the United States it +is clear that squalor and misery, and the vices and crimes that spring +from them everywhere, increase as the village grows to the city, and the +march of development brings the advantages of improved methods of +production and exchange. It is in the older and richer sections of the +Union that pauperism and distress are becoming most painfully apparent. +If there is less deep poverty in San Francisco than in New York, it is +not because San Francisco is yet behind New York in all that both cities +are striving for? When San Francisco reaches the point where New York +now is, who can doubt that there will also be ragged and barefooted +children in her streets?" (p. 6). The prospect alarmed and agitated him +profoundly. It deprived him, as it has deprived so many of the +continental socialists, of all religious belief, for if the real order +of things make an ever-deepening poverty to be the only destiny of the +mass of mankind, it seemed vain to dream of a controlling Providence or +an immortal life. "It is difficult," says he, "to reconcile the idea of +human immortality with the idea that nature wastes men by constantly +bringing them into being where there is no room for them. It is +impossible to reconcile the idea of an intelligent and beneficent +Creator with the belief that the wretchedness and degradation, which are +the lot of such a large proportion of human kind, result from His +enactments; while the idea that man mentally and physically is the +result of slow modifications perpetuated by heredity, irresistibly +suggests the idea that it is the race life, not the individual life, +which is the object of human existence. Thus has vanished with many of +us, and is still vanishing with more of us, that belief which in the +battles and ills of life affords the strongest support and deepest +consolation" (p. 396).</p> + +<p>The inquiry Mr. George undertook was consequently one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> the most vital +personal concern to himself, and we are glad to think that it has been +the means of restoring to him the faith and hope he prizes so much. "Out +of this inquiry," he tells us, "has come to me something I did not think +to find, and a faith that was dead revives" (p. 395).</p> + +<p>It may be ungracious to disturb a peace won so sorely and offered so +sincerely to others, but the truth is, Mr. George has simply lost his +faith by one illusion and recovered it again by another. He first +tormented his brain with imaginary facts, and has then restored it with +erroneous theories. His argument is really little better than a +prolonged and, we will own, athletic beating of the air; but since both +the imaginary facts and the erroneous theories of which it is composed +have obtained considerable vogue, it is well to subject it to a critical +examination. I shall therefore take up successively, first, his problem; +second, his scientific explanation; and third, his practical remedy.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">I. <i>Mr. George's Problem.</i></p> + +<p>He states his problem thus:—"I propose to seek the law which associates +poverty with progress and increases want with advancing wealth" (p. 8). +The first rule of scientific investigation is to prove one's fact before +proceeding to explain it. "There are more false facts than false +theories in the world," and a short examination whether a phenomenon +actually exists may often relieve us from a long search after its law. +Mr. George, however, does not observe this rule. He seeks for the law of +a phenomenon without first verifying the phenomenon itself—nay, +apparently without so much as suspecting that it ought to be verified. +He assumes a particular view of the social situation to be correct, +because he assumes it. But his assumption is a purely subjective and, as +will presently be shown, delusive impression. We imagine our train to be +going back when a parallel train is going faster forward, and we are apt +to take the general condition of mankind to be retrograding when we fix +our eyes exclusively on the rapid and remarkable enrichment of the +fortunate few. What Mr. George calls "the great enigma of our time" is +just the enigma of the apparently receding train, and he proceeds to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> +solve it by coiling himself in a corner and working out an elaborate +explanation from his own inner consciousness "by the methods of +political economy," instead of taking the simple and obvious precaution +of looking out of the opposite carriage-window and testing, by hard +facts, whether his impression was correct. Had he taken this precaution, +had he resorted to an examination of the actual state of the facts, he +would have found good reason to change his impression; he would have +found that on the whole poverty is not increasing, that in proportion to +population it is considerably less in the more advanced industrial +countries than in the less advanced ones, and that he had simply +mistaken unequal rates of progress for simultaneous movements of +progress and decline. His impression, it must be admitted, is a +prejudice of considerable currency; there are many who tell us, as he +does, that want is growing <i>pari passu</i> with wealth, and even gaining on +it; that if the rich are getting richer, the poor are at the same time +getting poorer; but it is a question of fact, and yet no one has ever +seriously tried to prove the assertion by an appeal to fact. That Mr. +George should have neglected to submit it to such a test is the more +remarkable, because he was, as he has told us, "tormented" in mind by +it, and because he acknowledges that it is a "paradox"—<i>i.e.</i>, against +the reason of the case, and that it is also, to some extent at least, +against appearances. He owns, for example, that "the average of comfort, +leisure, and refinement has been raised," and that though the lowest +class may not share in these gains, yet even they have in some ways +improved. "I do not mean," he says, "that the condition of the lowest +class has nowhere nor in anything been improved, but that there is +nowhere any improvement which can be credited to increased productive +power. I mean that the tendency of what we call material progress is in +no wise to improve the condition of the lowest class in the essentials +of healthy, happy human life. Nay, more, that it is to still further +depress the condition of the lowest class. The new forces, elevating in +their nature though they be, do not act upon the social fabric from +underneath, as was for a long time hoped and believed, but strike it at +a point intermediate between top and bottom. It is as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> though an immense +wedge were being forced, not underneath society, but through society. +Those who are above the point of separation are elevated, but those who +are below are crushed down" (p. 5). From this passage it would appear +that, according to Mr. George, the condition of all except the lowest +class has improved <i>in consequence of</i> material progress, and that the +condition of the lowest class has improved <i>in spite of</i> it. He does not +undertake, it seems, to affirm of any class that it has, as a matter of +actual fact, become impoverished in the course of social development, +but only that there is a tendency in the increase of productive +power—in "the new productive forces"—in "material progress"—to +impoverish the lower strata of society. But then he contends that these +forces are practising exactly the same tendency on some of the highest +strata, on classes that we know have been growing richer and richer +every day. For he tells us that these new forces, entering our social +system like a wedge, depress all who happen to be on the wrong side; and +we shall presently discover that this unhappy company on the wrong side +of the wedge embraces many groups of persons who will be excessively +astonished to learn that they are there. It includes, not only the poor +labourers who live on wages, but the great capitalists who live on +profits; the great cotton spinners, ironmasters, brewers, bankers, +contractors; the very men, in short, of all the world, whom the new +productive forces have most conspicuously and enormously enriched. I +shall revert to this preposterous conclusion later on, but at present it +is enough to say that a tide, which so many have swum against and swum +to fortune, cannot be very formidable, and at all events can furnish no +clue whatever to the possible condition of those who are exposed to it. +For that we have only one resort. It is a plain question of fact—is +poverty really increasing? Are the poor really getting poorer? And this +can only be competently decided by the ordinary inductive evidence of +facts. The data of this kind which we possess for settling the question +may not be so exact as would be desirable, but there is no higher +tribunal to which we can appeal. The question must be answered by them, +or not answered at all.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span></p><p>Now any data we have all conduct to the conclusion that poverty is not +increasing. If poverty were increasing with the increase of wealth, it +would show itself either in an increase of pauperism, or in a decline in +the general standard of living among the labouring classes, or in a fall +in the average duration of life, and these symptoms would be most acute +in the countries that are most wealthy and progressive. Now, let us take +England as a crucial case of a country in a very advanced stage of +industrial development. Is English pauperism greater now than it was +before the "new productive forces" entered the country? Is the general +standard of living among the labouring classes lower? Is the average +duration of life less? Are poverty and the various symptoms of poverty +more acute in England than in more backward countries?</p> + +<p>In a foot-note to the passage last quoted from his book, Mr. George +explains that the improvement he recognises in the lot of the lowest +class does not consist in greater ability to obtain the necessaries of +life. Does he mean, because more things are now reckoned among the +necessaries of life? If so, we fear there is no chance of that +difficulty being removed, nor indeed is there any reason for desiring it +to be so. Men's wants will always increase with their incomes, and the +struggle to make both ends meet may in that case indefinitely continue. +But the fact remains that they have more wants satisfied than before, +that they realize a higher standard of life, and that is the mark, and +indeed the substance, of a more diffused comfort and civilization. It is +true that as the general standard of living rises, people feel the pinch +of poverty at a higher level than before, and become pauperized for the +want of comforts that are now necessary, but which formerly few ever +dreamt of possessing. To have no shoes is a mark of extreme indigence +to-day; it was the common lot a century ago. People may be growing in +general comfort, and yet their ability to obtain necessaries remain +stationary, because their customary circle of necessaries may be always +widening. The real sign of an advancing poverty is when the circle of +recognised necessaries is getting narrow, and yet men have more +difficulty in obtaining them than before; in other words,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> 1st, when the +average scale of living falls; and 2nd, when a larger proportion of the +people are unable to obtain it, reduced though it be. Now, in England, +the contrary has happened; the general standard of living has risen, and +the proportion of those who are unable to obtain it has declined.</p> + +<p>In a preceding chapter I adduced evidence to show how greatly improved +the working-class standard of living now is from what it was two hundred +years ago, in the good old times socialist writers like to sing of, when +men had not yet sought out many inventions and the world was not +oppressed by the large system of production. But let us tap the line +between then and now at what point we may, and we find the same result; +the tendency is always to a better style of living. Mr. Giffen, for +example, in his address, as President of the Statistical Society, on +20th November, 1883, compares the condition of the working classes +to-day with their condition half a century since, and concludes from +official returns that while the sovereign goes as far as it did then in +the purchase of commodities, money wages have increased from 30 to 100 +per cent., and, at the same time, the hours of labour have been reduced +some 20 per cent. Except butcher-meat and house-rent, every other +element of the working man's expenditure is cheaper, and butcher-meat +was fifty years ago hardly an element of his expenditure at all, and the +kind of house he then occupied was much inferior, as a rule, to what he +occupies now, bad as the latter may in many cases be.</p> + +<p>But while the general standard of comfort has been rising, the +proportion of the population who are unable to obtain it has been +diminishing. I have already stated that King estimated the number of +persons in receipt of relief in England and Wales in 1688 at 900,000. +Now in 1882 the average number in receipt of relief at one and the same +time was, according to official returns, 803,719; and if we are right in +doubling that figure to find the whole number of paupers relieved in the +course of the year (that being the proportion borne in Scotland), then +we may conclude that there are some 1,600,000 paupers in England and +Wales at the present day. That is to say, with nearly five times the +population, we have less than twice the pauperism. The result is far +from being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> entirely gratifying; a million and a half of paupers (with +more than half as many again in Ireland and Scotland) constitute a very +grave problem, or rather ganglion of problems; but the fact supplies a +decisive enough refutation of the pessimist idea that the actual +movement of pauperism has been one of increase instead of one of decrease.</p> + +<p>During these two hundred years there is no period in which wealth and +productive power multiplied more rapidly than the last thirty years, +and, therefore, if Mr. George's ideas were correct, there is no period +that should show such a marked increase of pauperism. What do we find? +We find that pauperism has steadily declined in England during that +period. The decrease has been gradual and attended with no such striking +interruptions as were frequently exhibited in former times. But the most +remarkable feature about it is that the number of able-bodied paupers +has diminished by nearly a half; from 201,644 in 1849 to 106,280 in +1882. That is the very class of paupers whom Mr. George represents it to +be the special effect of increasing productive power to multiply, and +yet, though wealth and productive power have made almost unexampled +progress, and though the population has also considerably risen in the +interval, we have not more than half as many of this class of paupers +now as we had thirty years ago. No doubt this result is due in part to a +better system of administering relief, just as it is due in part to the +growth of trade unions and friendly societies, to the extension of +savings banks, and to other agencies. But if Mr. George's principle is +true, could such a result have taken place at all? If "material +progress" has a tendency to multiply "tramps" or able-bodied paupers, +the tendency must be weak, indeed, when a little judicious management on +the part of public bodies, or of working men themselves, would not only +counteract it, but turn the current so strongly the other way. But the +truth is that the "tramp" has never been so little of a care in this +country as at the present hour, and that it is to material progress we +owe his disappearance. He was a very serious problem to our ancestors +for centuries and centuries. The whole history of our social legislation +is a history of ineffectual attempts to deal with vagrants and sturdy +beggars, and we are less troubled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> with them now mainly because +industrial progress has given them immensely more opportunities of +making an honest and regular living. Industrial progress has all along +been creating work and annihilating tramps, but it has all along been +followed by absurd and perverse complaints like Mr. George's, that it +was only creating tramps and annihilating opportunities of work. Mr. +George says the tramp comes with the locomotive, but a writer in 1673 +(quoted by Sir F. Eden, "State of the Poor," I., 190) declared that he +came with the stage-coach. He pictures the happy age before +stage-coaches, when (as Mr. George says of California) there might be no +luxury, but there was no destitution, when every man kept one horse for +himself and another for his groom. But with the introduction of the +stage-coach the scene was changed. People got anywhere for a few +shillings, and ceased to keep horses. They were so much the richer +themselves, but their grooms were ruined and thrown upon the world +without horse or home. Now class privations like these are incidental to +industrial transformations, and in an age of unusual industrial +transitions like ours, they may be expected to be unusually numerous. +But the effect of material progress on the whole is to prevent such +privations rather than cause them. It multiplies temporary redundancies +of labour, but it multiplies still more the opportunities for +permanently relieving them. Why are we now free from the old scourges of +famine and famine prices? Partly because of free trade, but mainly +because of improved communications, because of the steamer and the +locomotive. Even commercial crises are getting less severe in their +effects. The distress among our labouring classes during the American +Civil War was nothing compared with the suffering under the complete +paralysis of industry that followed the close of the great continental +war in 1815. Miss Martineau tells us of that time:—"The poor abandoned +their residences, whole parishes were deserted, and crowds of paupers, +increasing in numbers as they went from parish to parish, spread wider +and wider this awful desolation." (History of England, I. 39.) No such +severe redundancy of labour has taken place since then, and the +redundancies that attend changes of fashion or of mechanical agency, +though they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span>undoubtedly constitute a serious difficulty, are yet +lightened and not aggravated by the various and complex ramifications of +modern industry. Except a new colony, there is no place where new-comers +are so easily taken on as in a highly developed industrial country. +There are more poor in Norway than in England, and they are increasing; +yet in Norway there is no rent and no great cities. Mr. George may say, +and in fact he does say, that in old countries the number of paupers is +reduced by simple starvation; but if that were so, the death-rate would +be increasing. But in England the death-rate is really diminishing. Let +us again quote from Mr. Giffen's address:—"Mr. Humphreys, in his able +paper on 'The Recent Decline in the English Death-Rate,' showed +conclusively that the decline in the death-rate in the last five years, +1876-80, as compared with the rates on which Dr. Farr's English Life +Table was based—rates obtained in the years 1841-45—amounted to from +28 to 32 per cent. in males at each quinquennial of the 20 years, 5-25, +and in females at each quinquennial from 5-25, to between 24 and 35 per +cent.; and that the effect of this decline in the death-rate was to +raise the mean duration of life among males from 39.9 to 41.9 years, a +gain of two years in the average duration of life. Mr. Humphreys also +showed that by far the larger proportion of the increased duration of +human life in England was lived at useful ages, and not at the dependent +ages of either childhood or old age. No such change could have taken +place without a great increase in the vitality of the people. Not only +had fewer died, but the masses who had lived must have been healthier +and suffered less from sickness than they did. From the nature of the +figures also the improvement must also have been among the masses, and +not among a select class whose figures threw up the average. The +improvement, too, actually recorded obviously related to a transition +stage. Many of the improvements in the condition of the working classes +had only taken place quite recently. They had not, therefore, affected +all through their existence any but the youngest lives. When the +improvements had been in existence for a longer period, so that the +lives of all who are living had been affected from birth by the changed +conditions, we might infer that even a greater gain in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span> mean +duration of life will be shown. As it was the gain was enormous. Whether +it was due to better and more abundant food and clothing, to better +sanitation, to better knowledge of medicine, or to these and other +causes combined, improvement had beyond all question occurred." The +decline of pauperism in this country then is not due to any increasing +mortality in the classes from which the majority of the paupers come; +but it is one among many other proofs that these classes have profited, +like their neighbours, by the course of material progress. They may not +have profited in the same degree as some others, or in the degree we +think desirable and believe to be yet possible for themselves. But they +have profited. The situation is really, as we have said, one of unequal +rates of progress, and not one of simultaneous progress and decline.</p> + +<p>And this Mr. George seems, at a later stage of his argument, freely to +admit. For when he comes to state "the law which associates poverty with +progress and increases want with advancing wealth," he explains that he +does not contend that poverty is associated with progress at all, but +only that a lessening proportion of the gross produce of society falls +to some classes; that want may possibly not in the least increase with +advancing wealth; that all classes may be the wealthier for the growth +of wealth; and practically, that the only evidence of the poverty of the +poor is the greater richness of the rich. It seems he is not explaining +in any wise why the poor are getting poorer, but only why they are not +getting rich so fast as some of their neighbours. We must quote chapter +and verse for this extraordinary vacillation about the very problem he +wants to solve. "Perhaps," he says, in the last paragraph of Book III., +chapter vi. (p. 154), "it may be well to remind the reader, before +closing this chapter, of what has been before stated—that I am using +the word wages, not in the sense of a quantity, but in the sense of a +proportion. When I say that wages fall as rent rises, I do not mean that +the quantity of wealth obtained by labourers as wages is necessarily +less, but that the proportion which it bears to the whole produce is +necessarily less. The proportion may diminish while the quantity remains +the same, or even increases. If the margin of cultivation descends from +the productive point, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> we will call twenty-five, to the productive +point we will call twenty, the rent of all lands that before paid rent +will increase by this difference, and the proportion of the whole +produce which goes to labourers as wages will to the same extent +diminish; but if in the meantime the advance of the arts or economies +that become possible with greater population have so increased the +productive power of labour that at twenty the same exertion will produce +as much wealth as before at twenty-five, labourers will get as wages as +great a quantity as before, and the relative fall of wages will not be +noticeable in any diminution of the necessaries or comforts of the +labourer, but only in the increased value of land and the greater +comforts and more lavish expenditure of the rent-receiving class." It +thus turns out that the alleged impoverishment of the labouring classes +through the increasing wealth of society—the sad and desolating +spectacle that "tormented" Mr. George, "so that he could not rest"—the +cruel mystery that robbed him even of his religious faith, and moved him +to write his powerful but inconclusive book—this was no real +impoverishment at all, but only an apparent one. It is not so much as +"noticeable" in "any diminution of the necessaries or comforts of the +labourer"; it is noticeable only in "the greater comforts and more +lavish expenditure of the rent-receiving class." The poverty of the +labourer consists in the greater wealth of the landlord. The poor are +not poorer; they only seem poorer, because certain of the rich have got +so much richer. The problem is thus, on Mr. George's own showing, just +the mock problem of the apparently receding train.</p> + +<p>But let us take up this new issue. Mr. George's assertion now is that +wages are a less proportion of the gross produce of the country than +they were, because rent absorbs a correspondingly larger proportion than +it did. Is that so? Mr. George does not think of showing that it is: he +assumes it, without apparently having the smallest pretence of fact for +his assertion. His assumption is entirely wrong. Rent is a much smaller +proportion of the gross produce of the country than it was, and wages +are not only in their aggregate a larger proportion of the aggregate +produce of the country, but in their average a larger proportion of the +<i>per capita</i> production.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> There is no need to rest in random assumptions +on the matter. The gross annual produce of the United Kingdom is +reckoned at present at twelve hundred millions sterling, and the rent of +the land at less than seventy millions, or about one seventeenth of the +whole. In the time of King and Davenant, 200 years ago or so, the annual +produce of England and Wales was forty-three millions, and the rent of +land ten millions—little less than one-fourth. (Davenant's Works, iv., +71.) It is hardly worth while, however, making a formal assertion of so +self-evident a proposition as that rent constitutes a much smaller +fraction of the national income now that wealth is invested so vastly in +trade and manufactures, than it did when agriculture was the one great +business of life: but it is perhaps better worth showing that rent does +not absorb a greater proportion even of the agricultural produce of the +country than it used to do. Rent has risen nearly 200 per cent. in the +course of the last hundred years, but it does not take one whit a larger +share of the gross produce of the land than it took then.</p> + +<p>According to the calculations of Davenant and King, the gross produce of +agriculture amounted, at the time of the Revolution, to four rents, or, +allowing for tithes, to three rents; but this was only on the arable. +The produce of other land, natural pasture and forest land and the like, +came to less than two rents; so that while the rent of arable was not +more than a third of the produce (or, to state it exactly, 27 per +cent.), the rent of land generally was more nearly a half. The figures are—</p> + +<table summary="land rent"> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="center">Gross Produce.</td> + <td class="center">Rent.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Arable Land</td> + <td>£9,079,000</td> + <td>£2,480,000</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Other Land</td> + <td>12,000,000</td> + <td>7,000,000</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left"></td> + <td>—————</td> + <td>—————</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="center">Total</td> + <td>£21,079,000</td> + <td> £9,480,000</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>(Davenant's Works, iv., 70.) Arthur Young, a century later, declares +that the doctrine of three rents was already exploded, and that farmers +had begun to expend so much on high cultivation that they would be very +ill content if they produced no more than three rents. In fact, he +declares that even in former times rent could never have amounted to a +third of the produce, except on lands of the very first quality, and +that a fourth was more probably the average proportion. In his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span> +"Political Arithmetic," published in 1779 (Part II., pp. 27, 31), he +estimated the gross agricultural produce of England (exclusive of Wales) +at £72,826,827, and the gross agricultural rental at £19,200,000, or 26 +per cent.,—very nearly one-fourth of the produce. To come down nearer +our own time, M'Culloch estimated the gross agricultural produce of +England and Wales in 1842-3 to have been £141,606,857, and the gross +agricultural rental £37,795,906, or 26 per cent. of the produce. +("Statistical Account of the British Empire," 3rd Edition, p. 553.) The +gross, agricultural produce of the United Kingdom is now 270 millions +sterling, and the gross agricultural rental 70 millions. Mr. Mulhall, +indeed, estimates it at only 58 millions; but at 70 millions it would +be, as nearly as possible, 26 per cent.,—curiously enough the same +figure exactly as in 1843 and in 1779, and almost the same as in 1689.</p> + +<p>So far of rent; now as to wages. I have already, in a former chapter (p. +301), produced some evidence to show that the average labourer's wages +bears a higher proportion to the average income of the country than it +did in former times, or, in other words, that the labourer enjoys a +higher <i>per capita</i> share of the gross annual produce of the country as +measured in money, and I need not repeat that evidence here. Mr. Mulhall +has made some calculations which confirm the conclusions there drawn. +("Dictionary of Statistics," p. 246.) He compares the income of the +people of the United Kingdom at the three epochs of 1688, 1800, and +1883. He divides the people into classes and numbers them by families, +stating the total income of each class and the total number of families +among whom it was divided. I select the two columns containing the +results for the whole population and the results for the working class.</p> + +<table summary="income compared"> + <tr> + <td class="left">(1) Number of Families:—</td> + <td class="center"></td> + <td class="center"></td> + <td class="center"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td><span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1688.</td> + <td><span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1800.</td> + <td><span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1883.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Whole Nation</td> + <td>1,200,000</td> + <td>1,780,000</td> + <td>6,575,000</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Working Class</td> + <td>759,000</td> + <td>1,117,000</td> + <td>4,629,000</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">(2) Earnings:—</td> + <td class="center"></td> + <td class="center"></td> + <td class="center"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="center"><span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1688.</td> + <td class="center"><span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1800.</td> + <td class="center"><span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1883.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Whole Nation</td> + <td>£45,000,000</td> + <td> £230,000,000</td> + <td> £1,265,000,000</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Working Class</td> + <td>11,000,000</td> + <td>78,000,000</td> + <td>447,000,000</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span></p><p>A single glance at these tables will show that the aggregate wages of +the country constitutes a slightly better proportion of its aggregate +annual income at present than in 1800, and a decidedly better proportion +than in 1688. But if we look, not to the aggregate income of the class, +but to the average income of the individual families it contains, the +result is in nowise more favourable to Mr. George's assumption. The +following table will show that:—</p> + +<table summary="average income"> + <tr> + <td class="left">(3) Average Income of Families:—</td> + <td class="center"></td> + <td class="center"></td> + <td class="center"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td><span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1688.</td> + <td> <span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1800.</td> + <td> <span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1883.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Whole Nation</td> + <td>£37</td> + <td>£129</td> + <td>£189</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Working Class</td> + <td>14</td> + <td>69</td> + <td>96</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>The average working-class income was thus 37 per cent. of the average +income of the country in 1688; 53 per cent. of it in 1800; and 51 per +cent. of it in 1883. The difference between the last two epochs is so +indecisive that we may count them practically identical. The real +position of affairs then as to the proportion of wages to national +produce is this, that wages enjoy a considerably larger share of that +produce now than they did at the end of the seventeenth century, and +about the same proportion as they enjoyed at the end of the eighteenth. +If, accordingly, Mr. George resolves to stick by the point of +proportion, he would therefore have no more solid ground to stand on +than on the point of quantity. Rent, as a proportion of the entire +wealth of the country, has enormously declined, and even as a +proportion, of agricultural wealth has not increased. Wages as a +proportion have not declined, but rather risen.</p> + +<p>These, among other things, are indications that we have been concluding +too hastily that concentration of wealth is the characteristic tendency +of the time, and ignoring the existence of many minor and less +conspicuous forces which have been working in the contrary direction. +The real prospect at present is towards diffusion. The enormous +accumulations that have marked the last hundred and fifty years have +owed their existence largely to causes that cannot be expected to +endure; in the case of land, to vicious laws directly favouring +aggregations; and in the case of trade, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> the unparalleled rapidity of +the transformations and extensions industry has undergone during the +period. Great inequalities are natural to such a time. Huge fortunes are +made by pioneers, and will not be easily made by their successors. +Railway contracting will never produce again a millionaire like Mr. +Brassey, but it will continue to furnish the means of many moderate +fortunes and competencies. So with every other new branch of industry, +or new field of investment. The lucky person who is the first to occupy +it may rise to great riches, but his successors will divide the custom, +and instead of one large fortune, there will be a considerable number of +small ones. Mr. George himself admits that the opportunities of making +large fortunes are growing more limited, but oddly enough he considers +the fact to be a signal evidence of "the march of concentration." In his +"Social Problems" (p. 59) he writes: "An English friend, a wealthy +retired Manchester manufacturer, once told me the story of his life. How +he went to work at eight years of age, helping to make twine, when twine +was made entirely by hand. How, when a young man, he walked to +Manchester, and having got credit for a bale of flax, made it into twine +and sold it. How, building up a little trade, he got others to work for +him. How, when machinery began to be invented, and steam was introduced, +he took advantage of them, until he had a big factory and made a +fortune, when he withdrew to spend the rest of his days at ease, leaving +his business to his son. 'Supposing you were a young man now,' said I, +'could you walk into Manchester and do that again?' 'No,' replied he, +'no one could. I couldn't with fifty thousand pounds in place of my five +shillings.'" The true moral of this little story is of course that it is +more difficult to amass a huge fortune in that particular line now than +when machinery was young, and that a man with £50,000 to start with must +now content himself with a much poorer figure than Mr. George's lucky +friend made out of nothing. Would Mr. George compute what limit could be +set to the sum his friend might have amassed, had he started in those +golden days with £50,000 instead of five shillings? Even as things +stood, his solitary success did not distribute the wealth of Manchester +any the better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span> among his fellow-spinners who were not fortunate enough +to get credit for a bale of flax, or pushing enough to ask for it, and +were not in a position to take advantage of the first introduction of a +new power, and rise with it to great wealth. That the stream of things +is now making for more moderate fortunes, and more of them, is confirmed +by the testamentary statistics of the previous ten years published some +time ago by the <i>Spectator</i> newspaper. These figures show that the +number of fortunes of the first rank left during that period has been +very much less than it was in the preceding ten years, but that the +number of moderate fortunes has been very much larger.</p> + +<p>What the future may hide in it I shall not venture to divine. It will no +doubt bring upon industry fresh transformations, but we can hardly +expect them to be so numerous or so rapid as in the brilliant era of +industrial progress and colonial development we have passed through, and +some at least of the changes that are in store for us point, as I have +shown in the introductory chapter of this book, to a greater diffusion +rather than a greater concentration in the future. Mr. George says: "All +the currents of the time run to concentration. To successfully resist it +we must throttle steam and discharge electricity from human service" (p. +232). Now steam has undoubtedly been a great concentrator, but +electricity, which is likely to take its place in the future, will to +all appearance be as great a distributor. Mr. George is equally mistaken +regarding the real effect of the other "currents of the time." "That +concentration is the order of development," says he, "there can be no +mistaking—the concentration of people in large cities, the +concentration of handicrafts in large factories, the concentration of +transportation by railroad and steamship lines, and of agricultural +operations in large fields. The most trivial businesses are being +concentrated in the same way—errands are run and carpet sacks are +carried by corporations" (p. 232). The concentration of people in cities +is not the same thing as the concentration of the wealth of those cities +in the hands of a few individuals. The centralization of labour in +cities has assisted the birth of the trade union and the co-operative +society, which are among the best agencies for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span> diffusing wealth; and +the growth of joint-stock companies is a strange proof of a tendency to +greater concentration of wealth, for the joint-stock company is really +an instrument of the small capital, enabling it by combination to +compete successfully with the larger; and as to agriculture, the real +tendency, in this country at any rate, seems to be to lesser holdings. +When we complain of the inequalities of our time—and I am far from +desiring to underrate their extent or to palliate their +mischievousness—we are apt to forget how largely the real and natural +process of evolution is after all one of distribution, how much the most +conspicuous of the inequalities have been incidental to a transition +period, and due to causes of a temporary nature, and how many +indications we possess that they are not unlikely to be corrected and +moderated in the future course of social development. Some of the +official returns made in connection with the income tax show that the +immense increase of wealth of the last thirty years has been far from +being reaped by any single class, but has been shared pretty evenly by +all the classes included in those returns. We possess detailed accounts +of the number of persons paying income tax in each grade of income under +Schedule D, from the year 1849, and if we compare the figures of that +year with those of 1879, we shall obtain a fair index to the movement of +distribution during those thirty years. Schedule D, it is true, includes +only incomes derived from trades and professions, but these incomes may +fairly enough be taken as sufficiently characteristic to afford a +trustworthy indication of the general movement. While population +increased in the thirty years by 22 per cent., the number of incomes +liable to income-tax increased by 161 per cent., and of these, the +incomes that have increased in much the largest proportion are precisely +those middling or lower middling incomes which I have before shown to +have unfortunately declined since 1688. While the number of incomes over +£1,000 a year has increased by 165 per cent., the number of incomes +between £150 and £400 a year has increased by 256 per cent. Mr. Goschen, +in his inaugural address as President of the Royal Statistical Society +in December, 1887, produced later evidence showing the continuance, and +even growth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span> of the same tendency. He showed from the Income Tax Returns +that, in spite of the increase of population between 1877 and 1886, the +number of incomes over £1,000 a year had decreased by 2.40 per cent., +and the number of incomes between £500 and £1,000 had remained the same, +while the number of incomes between £150 and £500 had increased 21.4 per +cent. He showed from the statistics of certain selected public +companies, that in the ten years from 1876 to 1886 the number of their +shareholders had increased by 72 per cent., while the average capital +per shareholder had decreased from £443 to £323. He drew similar +conclusions from the probate and inhabited house duty figures, and from +several other sources. (See <i>Journal of Statistical Society</i>, December, +1887.) These figures prove that the tendency of things, so far as it +concerns the classes above the labourers, is not to further and +exclusive concentration, but rather towards a wider and beneficial +diffusion; and in regard to the labouring classes, it is admitted by +all—even by the extremest social pessimists—that the upper and middle +strata of them have participated in the progress of wealth equally with +their neighbours. There remains only the lowest class of all, and their +emancipation is the serious task of social reform in the immediate +future; but that class is even now not increasing in the ratio of +population; its misery comes from many causes, most of them moral and +physical rather than economic; and though it presents difficult and +trying problems, there is no reason for renouncing the hope which alone +can sustain social reformers to success.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">II. <i>Mr. George's Explanation.</i></p> + +<p>If there is any force in the foregoing observations, it is plain that +there is no such problem as Mr. George has undertaken to explain, and we +are therefore exempted from all necessity of examining his explanation. +But to Mr. George's own mind his explanation of the appearance that +troubled him really constitutes the demonstration of it; at any rate, he +offers no other. The question of the increase of poverty is of course a +question of fact, that cannot be settled by a <i>priori</i> deduction alone; +but Mr. George seems to think otherwise. He is too bent on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span>proving it +to be <i>necessary</i> to think of asking whether it is <i>actual</i>, and even a +man of science like Mr. A. R. Wallace, while regretting that Mr. George +had not chosen to build his proposals on ground of fact, declares that +he adopted an equally legitimate method in deducing his results "from +the admitted principles and data of political economy." ("Land +Nationalization," p. 19.) Moreover, most of the social pessimism of the +present time draws its chief support, exactly like Mr. George's, from +the supposed bearing of certain received economic doctrines; and our +task would therefore be incomplete if we did not follow Mr. George on +this "high <i>priori</i> road" on which he so boldly fares forth, and +performs, as will presently be seen, many a remarkable feat.</p> + +<p>Before beginning his explanation, he throws the problem itself into what +he conceives to be a more suitable scientific form. "The cause," says +he, "which produces poverty in the midst of advancing wealth is +evidently the cause which exhibits itself in the tendency everywhere +recognised of wages to a minimum. Let us therefore put our inquiry into +this compact form: Why, in spite of increase in productive power, do +wages tend to a minimum which will give but a bare living?" (p. 10). The +problem, as thus restated, is clearly, be it observed, one of quantity, +not of proportion. A bare living is not a relative share, but a definite +amount, of produce. But the tendency in wages to such a minimum, which +he asserts to be everywhere recognised, is really not recognised at all. +In alleging that it is so, Mr. George evidently alludes to the doctrine +of wages taught by Ricardo and his school; but what they recognised in +wages was a tendency, not to a minimum that would give but a bare +living, but to a minimum that would give a customary living; in other +words, that would sustain the labourers in the standard of comfort +customary among their own class. The economic minimum is not the +absolute minimum of a bare living; it is, as Mr. George himself +elsewhere puts it, "the lowest amount on which labourers will consent to +live and reproduce,"—that is, not the lowest amount on which any +individual labourer will do so, but the lowest amount which labouring +people in general consider it necessary to earn before they will +undertake the responsibility of marriage. If they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> were to get less than +this, it was contended, they would refrain from marrying to an extent +that would tell sufficiently on the supply of labour to force wages up +again to their old level. This level was the minimum to which wages +constantly tended, but then it was always higher than a bare living; it +was determined by the standard of requirements current among the +labouring class at the time; and it was recognised to be capable of +rising if that standard rose. True, Ricardo and the economists of his +generation entertained very poor hopes of any such rise, because the +working classes of their time, being without the intelligence, the ideas +of comfort, the higher wants that are powerfully operative among the +working classes of our day, were generally seen to "take out" their +better wages when they chanced to get them in nothing but earlier +marriages, which in the end brought their wages down again. We have +happily now to do with a more aspiring and a less uniformly composed +working class. It is perhaps more aspiring in some measure because it is +less uniformly composed. It contains many ranks and inequalities and +standards of social refinement and comfort, and the presence of these +side by side develops a more active tendency upward, which, by supplying +a stronger check than before on improvident marriages, will enable the +labourers, class after class of them, to appropriate securely more and +more of the common domain of advancing civilization. We have had +abundant experience of a rise in the standard of life, and a rise in the +rate of wages, both remaining as permanent possessions of sections of +the labouring class. But if Ricardo and his school had less faith than +they reasonably might have had in the possibility of a permanent upward +tendency in wages, they certainly never dreamt of believing in any +permanent downward tendency. According to their doctrine the rate of +wages moved up and down within certain limits, but always tended to come +back to a particular figure—the amount necessary to give the labourer +the living customary among his class. This figure was really no more a +minimum than it was a maximum; wages were supposed to fall sometimes +below it, as they were supposed to rise sometimes above it; and to speak +of it as a minimum that would give but a bare living is completely to +misrepresent its nature.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span></p><p>The assumption from which Mr. George starts is thus in no wise an +admitted principle of political economy, and would therefore not answer +the test of legitimacy laid down by Mr. Wallace. It has no ground +outside of Mr. George's own imagination. Economists would solve his +problem, "why in spite of increased productive power wages tend to a +minimum that will give but a bare living?" by simply denying his fact, +and having done with it. But Mr. George persuades himself that they +would answer it otherwise, and devotes the next section of his book to +an elaborate confutation of the false answers he supposes they would +return to it. They would either explain it, he thinks, by their theory +of the wages fund, or they would explain it by their theory of +population; and so before confiding to us his own explanation, he +considers it necessary to stop and clear these two venerable theories +out of his way. I am not concerned to defend these theories; their truth +would not make Mr. George's own view any the falser, nor their falsehood +make it any the truer. One of them indeed was dead and buried before Mr. +George attacked it, though I am bound to say it would never have fallen +before the particular line of attack he directs against it. The wages +fund doctrine, which played a considerable <i>rôle</i> both in its original +form as taught by Senior, and in its subsequent form as modified by +M'Culloch, was refuted by Mr. Thornton in 1869, was almost instantly +abandoned by the candid mind of Mr. Mill, and is now rarely met with as +a living economic doctrine. The wages fund is still regarded of course +as having its limit in capital, and in the conditions which generate +capital, but since these conditions include among other things the +number and efficiency of the labourers, the amount of the wages fund is +no longer represented as at any given moment a fixed and predetermined +quantity susceptible of no possible alteration to meet the exigencies of +the labour market, and when once this characteristic was given up, the +wages fund doctrine was seen to have degenerated into little more than a +stately truism. The Malthusian theory of population is not in the same +way discredited, but it likewise is now generally stated with some +reserve. It has become well understood that the earlier economists +assigned it too absolute and universal a validity, and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span> it is not, +as they thought, a law for all ages, and especially and happily not a +law for our own. It is true of an era of progressive population and +diminishing return from agriculture, but for our day it has been robbed +of its terrors by free trade and steam navigation, which have connected +our markets with continents of virgin soil, and carried us virtually +into an era of increasing return of indefinite duration. The population +question was one of serious practical import for our fathers, and as +they saw people marrying and giving in marriage, while every fresh +bushel of food was extracted with increasing difficulty from an +exhaustible soil, they looked with a reasonable dread to the future, and +saw no way of hope except in the practice of a heroic continence. But we +live in another time. We find population increasing and yet bread +cheapening, simply because the locomotive which alarmed Mr. George by +taking the tramp to California has brought back plenty to the rest of +the world. It is due to the material progress he preaches against that +we are the first generation who can afford to make light of the +population question, and leave our remote posterity to deal with the +peril when it shall actually arrive.</p> + +<p>Mr. George, however, is not content with disputing these doctrines; he +insists on replacing them with others exactly opposite to them in +purport, and for which he claims a like universal validity. He propounds +a new population theory, and a new wages fund theory of his own. The +more population abounds, the more will subsistence superabound, is his +comfortable counter-proposition to Malthusianism. "I assert," says he, +"that in any given state of civilization a greater number of people can +collectively be better provided for than a smaller.... I assert that the +new mouths which an increasing population calls into existence, require +no more food than the old ones, while the hands they bring with them can +in the natural order of things produce more. I assert that, other things +being equal, the greater the population, the greater the comfort which +an equitable distribution of wealth would give to each individual" (p. +99). In a word, his teaching is that "other things being equal" +over-population is a ridiculous impossibility. What may be all concealed +under the reservation, "other things being equal," he does not +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span>enlighten us, but it avowedly contains at least one presupposition of +decisive importance to the question, the presupposition of the unlimited +productiveness of the soil. Mr. George denies the law of diminishing +return. We shall presently find him, in his doctrine about rent, basing +his whole book on the operation of this law. But here in his doctrine +about population it suits him to deny it, and he does so on singularly +fantastical grounds (p. 93). He denies it on the ground that "matter is +eternal, and force must for ever continue to act," as if the +indestructibility of matter was the same thing as its infinite +productiveness. "As the water that we take from the ocean must again +return to the ocean, so the food we take from the reservoirs of nature +is, from the moment we take it, on its way back to those reservoirs. +What we draw from a limited extent of land may temporarily reduce the +productiveness of that land, because the return may be to other land or +may be divided between that land and other land, or perhaps all land; +but this possibility lessens with increasing area, and ceases when the +whole globe is considered. That the earth could maintain a thousand +billions of people as easily as a thousand millions is a necessary +deduction from the manifest truths that at least, as far as our agency +is concerned, matter is eternal and force must for ever continue to +act.... And from this it follows that the limit to the population of the +globe can only be the limit of space. Now this limitation of space—this +danger that the human race may increase beyond the possibility of +finding elbow-room—is so far off as to have for us no more practical +interest than the recurrence of the glacial period or the final +extinguishment of the sun" (p. 94-5). If this passage means anything, it +means that the race may go on multiplying as long as it finds room to +stand on, and that even when that limit is reached it can only be +squeezed to death and not starved. It can in no case apparently be +starved. Subsistence cannot possibly run short, for the inherent powers +of the soil are not permanently destructible. But he might as well argue +that man must be omnipotent because he is immortal. The question is not +one of the durability of the productive powers of the earth—it is one +of their limited or unlimited productive capacity. Up to a certain point +they may yield the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> return at the same cost year after year in +<i>sæcula sæculorum</i>, but will they yield more? Manifestly not. Every +bushel they give after that is got at continuously increasing cost. Now +of course wherever population increases so much, compared with the land +at its disposal, that this increasing cost must be incurred in order to +find them food, the epoch of diminishing return in agriculture has +arrived, and the peril of over-population is already present. Happily, +as we have said, that time is not yet, but it will come long, long +before the human race fails to find elbow-room in this planet.</p> + +<p>Mr. George himself admits that in a country of inconsiderable extent, or +in a small island, such as Pitcairn's Island, over-population is quite +possible before elbow-room is near exhausted—(p. 74)—and in making the +admission he virtually surrenders his case. He admits in detail what he +denies in gross. For is not the soil of a small island or an +inconsiderable country as eternal as the soil of a continent? The only +difference is that it is not so extensive, and therefore comes to the +epoch of diminishing return sooner. That is all. The reason why he makes +an exception of such an island is because its inhabitants "are cut off +from communication with the rest of the world, and consequently from the +exchanges which are necessary to the improved modes of production +resorted to as population becomes dense" (p. 74). But if density of +population is such a sure improver of production as Mr. George +represents it to be elsewhere, why should it fail here? And if it fail +anywhere, how can he argue that it must succeed everywhere? Once he +admits, as he does in this passage, that subsistence has a definite +limit in the modes of production that happen to be known in any age and +country, and that population has a definite limit for such age and +country in the amount of subsistence which the known modes of production +are capable of extracting from the soil, he really admits all that +Malthusians generally contend for, and coming to curse, he has really +blessed them altogether. The limit of subsistence which he here +recognises—the limit imposed by the state of the arts—is far within +the limit which he has just been denying, the natural limit to the +inherent fertility of the soil, on which economists base their law of +diminishing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span> return. The former point is far sooner reached than the +latter. Men will starve because they don't know how to make the best use +of nature long before they will starve because nature is used up; and it +is exactly that earlier limit on which Malthusians lay stress.</p> + +<p>But except for this inconsistent admission in the case of a petty +isolated island, Mr. George persistently refuses to recognise any kind +of limit to subsistence, either in the productive capacity of the soil +or in the state of the arts. He seems to fancy that land will go on +yielding larger and larger harvests <i>ad infinitum</i> to accommodate an +increasing population, and that even if it failed to do so, new +inventions or improved processes of production would be constantly +discovered when they were needed, and keep the supply of food always +equal to the demand. With these crude assumptions in his head, he +arrives very easily at his own peculiar theory, which is, that +subsistence tends to increase faster than population, because the growth +of population itself affords the means of such economies and +organization of labour as multiply immensely the productive capacity of +each individual labourer. A hundred labourers, he is fond of arguing, +will produce much more than a hundred times the amount that one will, +and it is therefore clear folly to think of population as capable of +encroaching on subsistence. On the contrary, it seems almost fitter to +speak of it as a means of positively economizing subsistence. Mr. +George's mistake arises from ignoring the fact that subsistence depends +on the productive capacity of land as well as on the productive capacity +of labour, and the productive capacity of land is not indefinitely progressive.</p> + +<p>Mr. George's new wages fund theory is based on a precisely analogous +misconception of the real conditions of the case, and is just as much in +the air as his population theory. "Wages," he says, "cannot be +diminished by the increase of labourers, but on the contrary, as the +efficiency of labour manifestly increases with the number of labourers, +the more labourers, other things being equal, the higher wages should +be" (p. 62). Just as he has already argued that food can never run short +before an advancing population, because the new hands can produce much +more than the new mouths can consume, as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> the hands span it out of +their own finger nails; so he now argues that wages can never decline +for want of capital to employ labourers, because the capital that +employs them is made by the labourers themselves. They are paid, he +declares, not out of the capital of their employers, but out of the +product of their own labour. Mr. F. A. Walker, the eminent American +economist, had already taught a similar doctrine, but with the +reservation that while wages were really paid out of the produce of the +labour they remunerated, they were usually advanced out of the +employer's capital. But Mr. George throws aside this reservation, and +declares boldly that wages are neither paid nor advanced out of capital, +and that if any advance is made in the transaction at all, it is the +labourer who makes it to the employer, not the employer to the labourer. +"In performing his labour, he (the labourer) is advancing in exchange; +when he gets his wages, the exchange is completed. During the time he is +earning the wages, he is advancing capital to his employer; but at no +time, unless wages are paid before work is done, is the employer +advancing capital to him" (p. 49).</p> + +<p>In this contention Mr. George relies much on the analogy of the +"self-employing" labour of primitive society. When men live by gathering +eggs, he tells us, the eggs they gather are their wages. No doubt; but +in our complicated civilization we don't live by gathering eggs from day +to day, but by sowing the seed in spring which is to yield us food only +in harvest—by preparing work for the market which may take weeks, +months, even years before it is marketable. The energetic Sir John +Sinclair is said to have once danced at a ball in the evening dressed in +a suit the wool of which was still growing on the sheep's back in the +morning; but rapidity like that is naturally foreign to ordinary +commerce. The successive operations of clipping, fulling, teasing, +spinning, dying, weaving, cutting, sewing, occupy considerable time. So +with other things. Houses, ships, railways, are not built in a day, or +by a single workman. The product of a single workman's work for a day at +any of these things has no value apart from the product of the other +workmen's work, nor has the work of them all any value unless the work +is, or is to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span> be, completed. The wages paid during the period of +construction, therefore, cannot possibly have come out of the work for +which they were paid, but must have been advanced otherwise. Who +advances them? Clearly not the labourer himself, for he receives them. +And yet that is what Mr. George unhesitatingly asserts, and his argument +is as courageous as it is ingenious. He does not shrink from applying it +to the extremest case you like to suggest—the Great Eastern, the +Gothard Tunnel, the Suez Canal; even in these cases the labourers, who +spent months and years in doing the work, were paid out of the work +itself, out of the Great Eastern, out of the Gothard Tunnel, out of the +Suez Canal. "For," says Mr. George, "a work that is incomplete is not +valueless, it is not unexchangeable; money may be raised on it by +mortgage or otherwise, and as this money is raised on the product of the +labourer's work, the wages it is employed to pay are really paid out of +that product." But this only shifts the question a little: it does not +answer it. Where does this lent money come from? Certainly not from the +work it is lent on. Perhaps not, Mr. George will rejoin, again shifting +his ground, but it comes from the product of the contemporaneous work of +other labourers. "It is not necessary to the production of things that +cannot be used as subsistence or cannot be immediately utilized that +there should have been a previous production of the wealth required for +the maintenance of the labourers while the production is going on. It is +only necessary that there should be, somewhere within the circle of +exchange, a contemporaneous production of subsistence for the labourers, +and a willingness to exchange this subsistence for the thing on which +the labour is being bestowed" (p. 51). But this is only passing round +the dilemma. For this contemporaneous production has itself the same +difficulty to face; it has to sustain its labourers during the time +taken to complete their work; and it can only do so, according to Mr. +George's explanation, by raising the means through a mortgage on the +unfinished work. It borrows to pay its own wages, but is apparently able +to lend to pay other people's. Mr. George has a happy method of carrying +on the affairs of society by mutual accommodation. Peter is a shoemaker +who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span> wants money to buy leather to make shoes and food to maintain him +till the shoes are made. Paul is a carpenter who is in a like case, and +wants money to buy food and timber. Peter borrows the money he needs +from Paul on mortgage, and then Paul in turn borrows what he needs from +Peter, on the same terms. Utopia is a pleasanter world than ours, and an +IOU probably goes a long way in it; but here on this hard earth Peter +would certainly make no shoes nor Paul any chairs, unless he had either +himself saved enough to purchase the materials, or found a neighbour who +had done so and was ready to make him an advance. Except for this +neighbour he could not work at all, and could not therefore "create any +wages," and the amount of work he got and wages he earned would +manifestly depend greatly on the amount of capital this stranger +possessed and was disposed to invest in such an enterprise.</p> + +<p>It is true that the wages of labour will be guided in amount by the +quantity of the product, but they are not on that account actually paid +out of the product. And it is true that the labourer gives value for his +wages—certainly he would not otherwise be employed—but that value is +not usually marketable until some time, in many cases years, after the +wages have been enjoyed, and therefore cannot have been the source +whence these wages came. The wages were paid out of the saved results of +previous labour—that is, out of capital—and Mr. George has absolutely +no conception of the amount of capital that is necessary to carry on the +work of industry. He says we live from hand to mouth, and so in a sense +we do. Our capital is being constantly consumed and constantly +reproduced again, and economists are fond of showing, from the speedy +recovery of a civilized state after a devastating war, how short a time +it would really take to replace it entirely. But until it is replaced +every inhabitant undergoes considerable privations, which simply means +that the rate of wages has fallen for want of it. There are some trades, +like the baker's, where the product is actually sold before the wages +are paid; and there are many, like the whaler's mentioned by Mr. George, +where the labourers can afford to wait long terms for part at least of +their remuneration (no great sign, by the way,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span> of the minimum of a bare +living); but even in these much capital must be set aside before a +single hand is engaged. The whalers, for example, must be furnished with +a ship to start with, and be provisioned for the voyage; and if these +requisites are not forthcoming, they must go without work and wages +altogether, or take work at inferior terms in a market glutted by their +own arrival in it. Mr. George speaks lightly of the labourers who +excavated the Suez Canal advancing value to the company who employed +them, and yet before a single pick or spade was stuck into the sand of +the Isthmus the company had laid out, in preliminary expenses and +machinery, as much as six millions sterling—more than a third of the +whole cost of the Canal. They had then to pay other five or six millions +in wages before the work fetched a single fee; and yet Mr. George will +have us believe that those five or six millions actually came out of the +profits, merely because the projectors hoped and believed they might +eventually come out of them. Labourers give an equivalent to the +capitalists for their wages, but their wages are really paid out of the +capital which their employers have saved for the purpose of purchasing +that equivalent. I may have bought a cow in the hope of recouping myself +by selling her milk, but I did not therefore pay her price out of the +milk money—for nobody would have sold her to me if he had to wait for +that; I bought her out of money I had previously saved, and from the +same source exactly, and no other, do capitalists buy labour.</p> + +<p>But, objects Mr. George, that cannot be; wages cannot be paid out of +capital, because they are often lowest when, as shown by the low rate of +interest, capital is most abundant. But Mr. George here confounds +existent capital with employed capital. It is only the capital actually +employed that tells on wages; the low rate of interest merely shows that +there has been an increase in unemployed capital, and since that is +generally a correlative of a diminution of employed capital, it is but +natural that low interest should be attended by low wages. Low wages are +a consequence of unemployed labour, unemployed labour a consequence of +unemployed capital, and unemployed capital a consequence of unfavourable +industrial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span> conditions which labour, either with capital or without it, +cannot evade or reverse.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>So far then of Mr. George's views on population and the wages fund, for +which much value, as well as originality, has been claimed. The chapters +in which he states them are certainly among the most impressive and +characteristic in his book. Nowhere else does he display more strikingly +his remarkable acuteness, fertility, and literary power, and nowhere +else are these high qualities employed more fruitlessly from sheer want +of grasp of the elements of the problems he discusses. These chapters +are after all, however, something of a digression from the main business +of the book, and they have perhaps detained us too long from Mr. +George's own explanation of the supposed growth of poverty.</p> + +<p>His explanation is this: "The reason why, in spite of the increase of +productive power, wages constantly tend to a minimum which will give but +a bare living is that with increase in productive power, rent tends to +even greater increase" (p. 199). "Rent swallows up the whole gain, and +pauperism accompanies progress" (p. 158). "The magic of property," it +seems, has an unsuspected malignancy; but, in the present case, its +spell is really exercised only over Mr. George's own vision. For who, +with his eyes open, would believe for a moment what Mr. George so +gravely asserts, that of the whole gain won by our multiplied productive +power, none whatever has gone to the great bankers, and brewers, and +cotton spinners, and ironmasters, and corn factors, and shipbuilders, +and stockbrokers, and railway contractors; that our Rothschilds, and +Brasseys, and Barings, and Bairds, the great plutocrats of the time, the +possessors of the largest fortunes in the country, the very men and +classes who have been most conspicuously enriched through the material +progress of the nation, have all the while been conducting a hard +struggle against a fatal tendency in their incomes to sink to a bare +living, and had to feed, exactly like the manual labourers, from the +crumbs that fall from the landowners' table. The assertion is too +violent and preposterous to merit serious refutation. Everybody knows +that the greatest part of the wealth of modern society is not +concentrated in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span> hands of the landlords at all, that it has not +accrued from rent and that it would not be a farthing the less though +private property in land were abolished to-morrow.</p> + +<p>But violent and preposterous as Mr. George's conclusion is, it has not +been arrived at without the exercise of much perverse ingenuity. Having +been brought by his examination of the wages fund and population +theories to the conviction that the key to his riddle was not to be +discovered in the conditions that regulated production, he concludes +that it must, therefore, be sought in the conditions that regulate +distribution. His problem is thus one in the distribution of wealth, and +it must be explained, if it is to be explained at all, by the laws of +distribution. To investigate these laws, therefore, becomes now his +object, and the first step he takes is a truly amazing one. At the very +outset he throws the most important class of participators in the +distribution—the class that appropriates the largest share—out of +court altogether, and he proceeds to settle the whole question as if +they never got a penny, and as if the entire spoil were divided among +their neighbours. People who live on profits, it seems, have no <i>locus +standi</i> in a question of distribution, and the case must be considered +as if the parties exclusively concerned were the people who live on +wages, the people who live on interest, and the people who live on rent. +"With profits," he says, "this inquiry has manifestly nothing to do. We +want to find what it is that determines the division of their joint +produce between land, labour, and capital, and profits is not a term +that refers exclusively to any one of these three divisions. Of the +three parts into which profits are divided by political economists, +namely compensation for risk, wages of superintendence, and returns for +the use of capital, the latter falls under the term interest, which +includes all the returns for the use of capital and excludes everything +else; wages of superintendence falls under the term wages, which +includes all returns for human exertions and excludes everything else; +and compensation for risk has no place whatever, as risk is eliminated +when all the transactions of a community are taken together" (pp. 113-4).</p> + +<p>Now we have to do here with no mere difference of terminology. Profits +may be employers' wages, if you like to call<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span> them so; but it is a fatal +confusion to suppose that, because you have called them employers' +wages, you are therefore entitled to treat them as if they were governed +by the same laws and conditions as labourers' wages. The truth is that +they are governed by opposite conditions, and that the pith of the +labour question is just the conflict between these two kinds of wages +for the better share in the distribution. The battle of labour is not +against the employer receiving fair interest on his capital in +proportion to its quantity, but against the amount of additional profit +which the employer claims as wages of superintendence, and which he also +rates in proportion to capital invested instead of rating it in +proportion to his own trouble or efficiency. One of the chief hopes of +the workman resides in the possibility of breaking down this erroneous +criterion of fair remuneration for superintendence, and so getting the +employers to content themselves with smaller profits than they have been +in the habit of considering indispensable. Profits and wages have thus +opposite and conflicting interests in the distribution, but Mr. George, +having once disguised the one in the garb of the other, is imposed on by +the disguise himself, and treats them in his subsequent speculations as +if they were the same thing, or at any rate—what in the present +connection is equally pernicious in its effects—as if their respective +shares in the distribution were determined by precisely the same +conditions. The result is, as might be expected, a series of singular +<i>contretemps</i> springing from mistaken identity, like those we are +familiar with on the comic stage. The manufacturing millionaire appears +before us as the victim of the same harsh destiny as the penniless +crossing-sweeper, and the banker of Lombard Street is overshadowed by +the same blighting poverty as the lumper of Wapping. Proudhon, in a +powerful passage, describes pauperism as invading modern society at both +extremes; it invaded the poor in the positive form of natural hunger; it +invaded the rich in the unnatural but more devouring form of insatiable +voracity. The burden of Mr. George's prophetic vision contains no such +refinements. He sees a huge wedge driven through the middle of society; +and on the underside of that enchanted wedge he sees the merchant +princes of the world eating the bread of poverty with their lowest +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span>dependents. Mr. George's classification of profits under wages +therefore involves much more than a mere change of nomenclature, for it +has led him to pass off this absurd vision as a literal description of +things as they are. By that classification he has really put out of his +own sight the most important factor in the settlement of the question he +is discussing, and so he begins playing Hamlet by leaving the part of Hamlet out.</p> + +<p>Having simplified matters by throwing profits out of the cast, Mr. +George's next step is to assign the leading <i>rôle</i> to rent. In the whole +drama of the modern distribution of wealth, no part is more striking or +more often misunderstood than the part played by rent. Wages never cease +to cost much and to be worth little, but rent seems to have the property +of going on growing while the landlords themselves sleep or play. This +fact has impressed Mr. George so profoundly that, losing sight of things +in their true connection and proportions, he declares that the growth of +rent is the key to the whole situation, and that neither wages nor any +other kind of income, not derived from land, can ever draw any advantage +from the increase of prosperity, because rent always steps in before +them and runs off with the spoil. He professes to found this conclusion +on Ricardo's theory of rent, which he accepts, not only as being +absolutely true, but as being too self-evident to need discussion. +Indeed, he seems disposed, like some others, to have his fling at Mill +for calling it the <i>pons asinorum</i> of political economy; but we shall +presently discover various grounds for suspecting that he has not +crossed the bridge successfully himself, and that here, as elsewhere, he +has been led seriously astray by looking at things through the mist of +doctrines he has only imperfectly mastered. Anyhow, he offers his theory +as a deduction from Ricardo's law of rent, and this deduction claims +particular attention because it is the corner-stone of his speculations, +and constitutes what he would consider his most original and important +contribution to economic science. He says that the law of rent itself +"has ever since the time of Ricardo ... been clearly apprehended and +fully recognised. But not so its corollaries. Plain as they are, the +accepted doctrine of wages ... has hitherto prevented their recognition. +Yet, is it not as plain as the simplest geometrical demonstration that +the corollary of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span> the law of rent is the law of wages, when the division +of the produce is simply between rent and wages; or the law of wages and +interest together, when the division is into rent, wages, and interest" +(p. 120). It is really plainer. It is a mere truism. In any simple +division, if you know how much one of the factors gets, you know how +much is left for the others, and if you like to dignify your conclusion +by the name of corollary, you are free to do so. But the real point is +this, whether the share obtained by rent is fixed irrespectively of the +share obtained by wages and interest, or whether, on the contrary, it +does not presuppose the previous determination of the latter. There is +no doubt, at any rate, as to how Ricardo—Mr. George's own +authority—regarded the matter. According to his celebrated theory, +wages and interest are satisfied first, and then rent is just what is +over. Rent is simply surplus profit. In hiring land, the farmer hires a +productive machine, and under the influence of competition gives, for +the use of that productive machine for a year, the whole amount of its +annual produce which remains as a surplus after paying the wages of his +labourers, and allowing interest on his capital, and what he considers a +fair profit for his own work of superintendence. A certain current rate +of wages and a certain current rate of profit are presupposed, and after +these demands are met, then if the land has yielded anything more, that +surplus is what is paid as rent. Ricardo always presumes that land that +cannot produce enough to meet these demands will not be cultivated at +all, and that the poorest land actually under cultivation is land that +meets them and does no more; in other words, that leaves nothing over +for rent. Let us take Ricardo's law as it is stated by Mr. George +himself (p. 118): "The rent of land is determined by the excess of its +produce over that which the same application can secure from the least +productive land in use." The standard by which, according to this law, +the amount of rent is supposed to be determined, is the produce of the +least productive land in use. Now, what is the least productive land in +use? It is land that produces just enough to pay the wages the labourers +upon it are content to work for, and the profits the farmer of it is +content to farm for. How that rate of wages and that rate of profits are +fixed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span> is no matter here; but one thing is clear—and it is enough for +our present purpose—that they cannot be determined, as Mr. George +represents them as being, by a law of rent which presumes and is +conditioned by their operation. Ricardo's law virtually explains rent in +terms of wages and profits, and it would therefore be the height of +absurdity to re-explain wages and profits in terms of rent. And if that +is so, the circumstance which excites Mr. George's surprise, that +economists have always so clearly apprehended the law of rent itself, +and yet failed so completely to recognise the corollaries which he +plumes himself on being the first to deduce from it, admits of a very +simple explanation: the economists understood the law they expounded, +and were better reasoners than to employ it as a demonstration of its own postulates.</p> + +<p>This will become still plainer, if we look more closely at the fact +which has struck Mr. George so much—the constant rise of rent in modern +society. He attributes that rise to many causes; in fact, there are few +things that will not, in his opinion, raise rent. Progress of population +will do so; but if population is stationary, it will be done all the +same by progress in the arts; the spread of education will do it; +retrenchment of public expenditure will do it; extending the margin of +cultivation will do it; and so will artificial contraction of that +margin by speculation. In short, he is so haunted by the idea, that he +seems to believe that so long as rent is suffered to survive at all, +whatever we do will only conduce to its increase. Every step of progress +we take extends its evil reign, and if progress were to reach +perfection, rent would drive wages and interest completely off the field +and appropriate "the whole produce" (p. 179). These fears are not sober, +but they could never have risen had Mr. George first mastered the theory +of rent he founds them on. For rent, being the price paid by producers +for the use of a productive machine, cannot rise unless the price of the +product rises first (or its quantity, if so be that it does not increase +so much as to reduce its price), for unless the price of agricultural +produce rises, the farmer cannot afford to pay a higher rent for the +land than he paid before. No part of Ricardo's theory is more elementary +or more unchallenged than this, that the rent of land constitutes no +part of the price of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span> bread, and that high rent is not the cause of dear +bread, but dear bread the cause of high rent. Rent cannot rise further +or faster than the price of bread (or meat, of course) will allow it, +and the price of bread is beyond the landowner's control. He cannot +raise it, but once it rises, he can easily raise rent in a corresponding +degree. If a rise of rent depends on a rise in the price of bread, what +does a rise in the price of bread depend on? On two things which Mr. +George ignores or misunderstands—the progress of population and the +diminishing return in agricultural production. The growth of population +increases the demand for food so much as to raise its price, and renders +it profitable to resort to more difficult soils or more expensive +methods for additional supplies. The price will then remain at the +figure fixed by the cost of the costliest portion that is brought to market.</p> + +<p>Now Mr. George laughs at the idea of increase of population causing any +difficulty about the supply of food—population, which he is never tired +of telling us, is the very thing most wanted to multiply that supply, +and possesses a power of multiplying it in even a progressive ratio to +its numbers. "The labour of 100 men," he says, "other things being +equal, will produce much more than one hundred times as much as the +labour of one man" (p. 163). And he laughs in the same way at the idea +of a diminishing return in agriculture, as if, says he, matter were not +eternal, and as if an increasing population did not of itself increase +the productive capacity of the land through increasing the productive +capacity of the labour upon it. These two misunderstandings lie at the +bottom of all Mr. George's vagaries about rent, and they are perhaps +natural to a speculator, resident in a rich new colony, which, as he +describes it himself, "with greater natural resources than France, has +not yet a million people." No doubt in a country at that particular +stage of its historical development, increase of population may involve +an increase, and even a more than proportional increase, of food as well +as of other commodities; but that particular stage is a temporary and +fleeting one, and the world in general is very differently situated from +the State of California thirty years ago. Where there is plenty of good +land, the increase of population occasions no increase in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span> the cost of +producing food, because there is no need to resort to poorer land for +the purpose; and while food is got as cheaply as before, other things +are got much more easily and abundantly in consequence of the economies +of labour and the many mutual services which result from the increased +numbers of the community. But that state of matters only continues so +long as there remains no occasion to resort to poorer soils for the +production of food, and that time is long past in most countries of the +world. Mr. George no doubt contends that in all countries it is just the +same as in California, because even though it may have become more +difficult in some places to produce food, it has become everywhere much +easier to produce other commodities, and (so he argues) the production +of any kind of commodity is practically equivalent to the production of +food, for it can always be exchanged for food. So it can, if food is +there to exchange for it; but the very question is whether food is +there, or is there in the same relative quantity. If I say it is more +difficult to get food, it is no answer to tell me that it is much easier +to get other things. And because other things may be multiplied +indefinitely at the same cost, that is no reason for denying that food +can only be multiplied indefinitely at increasing cost. Yet Mr. George +reasons as if it were. This confusion is repeated again and again in the +course of his book, and has evidently had much influence on his whole +speculations. He describes the advantages which the colonist derives +from the arrival of other settlers. "His land yields no more wheat or +potatoes than before, but it does yield far more of all the necessaries +and comforts of life. His labour upon it will bring no heavier crops, +and we will suppose no more valuable crops, but it will bring far more +of all the other things for which men work" (p. 168). That is true, but +it is not to the purpose. The new settler required a market, and +population brought it; but although population up to a certain point is +beneficial, you cannot for that reason declare that beyond that point it +cannot possibly become embarrassing; for on Mr. George's own hypothesis +the ground yields no more wheat and potatoes than before, and the limit +to convenient population is prescribed by the amount of food the ground +yields, and not by the quantity of other commodities which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> skilled +labour can produce. If population were to exceed what that stock of food +would adequately serve, then new-comers would find little comfort in Mr. +George's rhetorical commonplace that they had two hands and only one +mouth. His simple confidence, that they never can be at a loss, because +they can get food by exchange as well as by direct production, is a mere +dream, because he forgets that the people they are to exchange with are +in the same case as themselves. They can only give food in exchange for +other things so long as they raise more food than serves their own +numbers, and when their numbers increase beyond that point, they will +have no food to sell. The limit to subsistence is not the productive +capacity of labour, but the productive capacity of land.</p> + +<p>Mr. George's argument rests on another very curious fallacy. He builds +his whole theory of distribution on the fact of the extension of the +margin of cultivation from better to worse soils, but in the same breath +he denies the existence of the very conditions that alone make that fact +possible. Nobody would resort to worse land unless the better were +unable to furnish indefinite supplies at the old cost, <i>i.e.</i>, unless +the principle of diminishing return prevailed in agriculture. Nor would +any one resort to worse land until it paid him to do so, <i>i.e.</i>, until +the produce of this worse land became, through a rise in its price or +through improvements in the art of agriculture, equal in net value to +the produce previously yielded by the worst land then in cultivation. +Mr. George denies the principle of diminishing return. He denies "that +the recourse to lower points of production involves a smaller aggregate +of produce in proportion to the labour expended." He denies this, "even +where there is no advance in the arts and the recourse to lower points +of production is clearly the result of the increased demand of an +increased population. For," says he, "increased population of itself, +and without any advance of the arts, implies an increase in the +productive power of labour" (p. 163). But the question is, does it imply +any increase in the productive power of the soil? Mr. George contends +that it does, but only on the superior soils, not on the inferior. +Increasing population, in his opinion, renders all labour so much more +effective that "the gain in the superior qualities of land will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> more +than compensate for the diminished production on the land last brought +in" (p. 165). Now to all this there is one simple answer: why then +resort to inferior soils at all? If crowding on the superior soils can +make those soils indefinitely productive, why go farther and fare worse? +There can be no reason for having recourse to worse land, but that the +better has ceased to yield enough at the old cost. Organization and +economy of labour are excellent things, but they cannot press from the +udder more milk than it contains, or rear on the meadow more sheep than +it will carry, or grow on a limited area available for cultivation more +than a definite store of food.</p> + +<p>But while Mr. George denies that there is anything to force people to +poorer soils, he supposes at the same time that they go freely in order +to get a less profit. He holds the amount of return obtained from +cultivating the least productive land in use to be the lowest rate of +return for which anybody will invest his capital, and therefore to serve +in some sense as a standard rate of remuneration for all applications of +capital and labour. Nobody, he declares, will work for less than he can +make on land that pays no rent. But will any one work such land for less +than he can make in other industries? That is what Mr. George supposes +to be done every day, although he laughs at the idea of there being any +necessity for doing it. It need not be said that men are not such +lunatics. They are really forced to go to worse soils because the better +cannot increase their yield indefinitely at the same cost, and they +never go till they possess a reasonable expectation of making as much +out of the worse land as they did before out of the better.</p> + +<p>From all these remarkable misconceptions of the working of rent, and of +the theory of Ricardo on the subject, which he professes to follow, he +draws his first law of distribution, which is nevertheless, so far as it +goes, undoubtedly correct: "Rent depends on the margin of cultivation, +rising as it falls and falling as it rises" (p. 155).</p> + +<p>To find the law of rent, he has told us, is to find at the same time its +correlatives, the laws of wages and interest, and these laws accordingly +he states thus: "Wages depend on the margin of cultivation, falling as +it falls and rising as it rises.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> Interest (its ratio with wages being +fixed by the net power of increase which attaches to capital) depends on +the margin of cultivation, falling as it falls and rising as it rises" +(p. 156). He is not content, however, with merely inferring these two +laws as corollaries from the law of rent, but thinks it necessary to +construct for wages and interest a certain independent connection with +the movement of the margin of cultivation. To do so, he first reduces +interest, as he had already reduced profits, to a form of wages; he then +erects all the different forms of wages (<i>i.e.</i>, every form of income +except rent) into a single hierarchical system, in which there are many +different rates of remuneration, occasioned by the necessity of +compensating different risks and exertions, but all moving up and down +concurrently with a certain general rate of wages at the bottom of the +scale; and he finally connects this general or standard rate of wages +with the margin of cultivation, by saying that no one would work at +anything else for less than he can make on land open to him free of +rent, and that therefore the income made by cultivating such land must +be the lowest going.</p> + +<p>Mr. George's view of the nature of interest is peculiar. He considers it +to be the natural increase of capital, the fruit of inherent +reproductive powers, like the increase of a calf into a cow, or of a hen +into a hen and chickens; and because interest comes in this way freely +from nature, he believes the private appropriation of it to be +thoroughly just, although he presently gives precisely the same reason +for declaring rent to be theft. It is unnecessary to discuss either the +truth or the consistency of this doctrine here, and I refer to it now +merely to explain that although Mr. George thus justifies interest as +being the price of a natural force, he introduces it into his theory of +the origin of poverty, as the price of human labour. "The primary +division of wealth," he says, "is dual, not tripartite. Capital is but a +form of labour, and its distinction from labour is in reality but a +subdivision, just as the division of labour into skilled and unskilled +would be. In our examination we have reached the same point as would +have been attained had we simply treated capital as a form of labour, +and sought the law which divides the produce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span> between rent and wages; +that is to say between the possessors of the two factors, natural +substance and powers and human exertion—which two factors, by their +union, produce all wealth" (p. 144). The difference between interest and +wages is but as the difference between the wages of skilled labour and +the wages of unskilled; the wages of skilled labour is only the wages of +unskilled, <i>plus</i> some consideration for the skill, or for the time +spent in training, or for drawbacks of various kinds; and the wages of +unskilled labour is fixed by the amount that can be made on land that +pays no rent. Profits, salaries, stipends, fees are, in the same way as +interest, declared to be modes of wages. The £50,000 a year of the +merchant prince, it seems, is just the £50 of the day-labourer, with +£49,950 added to compensate him for the additional perils or drawbacks +or discomforts of his life. All incomes, except the landowner's, row in +the same boat, and the day-labourer's sets the stroke. When the margin +of cultivation descends, he is the first to suffer, and then all the +rest suffer with him. If he loses £10 a year, they successively lose £10 +too; the doctor or bank-agent will have £490, instead of £500; the +railway chairman, £4,990, instead of £5,000; the merchant prince, +£49,990, instead of £50,000; and their loss is the landlord's gain. Here +then we see the whole mystery of iniquity as Mr. George professes to +unravel it. "The wealth produced in every community is divided into two +parts by what may be termed the rent line, which is fixed by the margin +of cultivation, or the return which labour and capital could obtain from +such natural opportunities as are free to them without payment of rent. +From the part of produce below this line, wages and interest must be +paid. All that is above goes to the owners of land" (p. 121).</p> + +<p>Mr. George here confounds the margin of cultivation with the margin of +appropriation. When economists speak of an extension of the margin of +cultivation, they mean a resort to less productive land, and that is +always accompanied by a rise of rent; but an extension of the margin of +appropriation may be a resort to more productive land, and may occasion +a fall of rent, as has been done in Europe to-day through appropriation +in America. But what in reality he builds his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span>argument on is neither +the movement of the margin of cultivation, nor the movement of the +margin of appropriation, but simply the existence of abundance of +unappropriated land. Where that exists, rent will, of course, be low, +and wages will be high, for nobody will give much for land when he can +get plenty for nothing at a little distance off, and nobody will work at +anything else for less than he can make on land that he may have for +nothing. For such land supplies labourers with an alternative. It is not +the best of alternatives, for it needs capital before one can make use +of it, and it takes time before any return is made from it. A diversity +of national industries, for example, is better, and raises wages more +effectively. Agricultural wages are higher in the manufacturing counties +of England than in the purely agricultural; and they are higher in the +manufacturing Eastern States of Mr. George's own country than in the +purely agricultural States of the West, which possess the largest amount +of unappropriated land. The reason of this is twofold: other industries +increase the competition for labour generally, and create, at the same +time, a better market for farm produce. Unoccupied land would +act—though less effectually—in the same way as an alternative; but few +countries are fortunate enough to possess much of it, and as Mr. George +does not propose to interfere with the occupation of land, but only to +tax the occupiers, he has no scheme for showing how countries that have +it not are to get it. It is easy, of course, to call it from the vasty +deep. "Put to any one capable of thought," says Mr. George, "this +question: 'Suppose there should arise from the English Channel or the +German Ocean a Noman's land on which common labour to an unlimited +amount should be able to make ten shillings a day, and which would +remain unappropriated and of free access like the commons which once +comprised so large a part of English soil. What would be the effect upon +wages in England?' He would at once tell you that common wages +throughout England must soon increase to ten shillings a day" (p. 207). +Perhaps so; but a little more thought would teach him that "a Noman's +land on which common labour to an <i>unlimited</i> amount should be able to +make ten shillings a day" must be itself unlimited in extent, and could +not be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span> accommodated in the English Channel. Apart from preternatural +conditions, it could not afford remunerative employment to more than a +definite number of occupants and cultivators, and when it came to be +entirely occupied, England would stand exactly as it does at present. If +the millennium of the working class is to depend on the discovery of a +Noman's land of infinite expansibility, it must be indefinitely postponed.</p> + +<p>But supposing such an alternative existed and did influence the amount +employers pay their workmen, how is it to influence in the same +direction the amount they reserve to themselves? It is true, as a matter +of fact, that wages and interest generally rise and fall together, for +the simple reason that they are generally subject to the same +influences. When capital is busily employed, so is necessarily labour, +and then both wages and interest are high; when capital is largely +unemployed, so is naturally labour also, and then both wages and +interest are low. But an influence like that which is now adduced by Mr. +George does not act on labourer and employer alike. It supplies the +labourer with an alternative which strengthens his hands in his battle +for wages with employers. Does it then at the same time strengthen the +employer in his battle with the labourer? Does it first raise wages at +the expense of profits, and then raise profits at the expense of wages? +It clearly cannot. To argue as if the existence of alternative work +which benefits the labourer, must benefit the employer in the same +degree, and as if the want of it must injure the employer because it +injures the labourer, is simply to misunderstand the very elements of +the case. One might as well argue that because the heights of Alma were +a decided strategical advantage to the Russians, who were posted on +them, they were therefore an equal advantage to the Allies, who had to scale them.</p> + +<p>Laws of distribution, which are founded on a series of such arbitrary +absurdities as those which I have successively exposed, are manifestly +incapable of throwing any rational light on the causes of poverty, or +giving any practical guidance to its amelioration. But, absurd as they +may be, they are at least propounded with considerable parade, and we +are therefore quite unprepared for the strange turn Mr. George next<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> +chooses to take. It will be remembered that the only reason why he +undertook to search for these laws at all was, that by means of them he +might explain why wages tended to sink to a minimum that would give but +a bare living; but now that he has discovered those laws, he declines to +apply them to the solution of this problem. He will not draw the very +conclusion he has laid down all his apparatus to establish. He will not +solve the problem he has promised us to solve; in fact, he tells us he +never meant to solve it; he never thought or said wages tended to sink +to a minimum that would give a bare living; he never said they tended to +sink at all; all he meant to assert was that if they increased, they did +not increase so fast as the national wealth generally. He used "the word +wages not in the sense of a quantity, but in the sense of a proportion" +(p. 154). He will not therefore, after all, show us why the poor are +getting poorer; but he will read for us, if we like, another riddle, why +they are not growing rich so fast as some of their neighbours. In the +name of the patient reader, I may be permitted to lodge a humble but +firm protest against this eccentric and sudden change of front. Mr. +George ought really to have decided what problem he was to write about +before he began to write at all, and we may therefore for the present +dismiss both his problem and his explanation till he makes up his mind.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">III. <i>Mr. George's Remedy.</i></p> + +<p>After our experience of his problem and his explanation, we cannot +indulge expectations of finding any serious or genuine worth in the +practical remedy Mr. George has to prescribe; and we hear, without a +thought of incongruity, the lofty terms in which, like other medicines +we know of, it is advertised to the world by its inventor as a panacea +for every disease society is heir to. "What I propose," he says, "as the +simple yet sovereign remedy which will raise wages, increase the +earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give +remunerative employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human +powers, lessen crimes, elevate morals and taste and intelligence, purify +government, and carry civilization to yet nobler heights, is—to +appropriate rent by taxation"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> (p. 288). And the direction for applying +the remedy is equally simple: it is to "abolish all taxation save that +upon land values" (<i>ibid.</i>). This remedy is currently described as the +nationalization of land; but nationalization of land is a phrase which +stands for several very different and even conflicting ideas. With the +usual fatality of revolutionary parties, the English land nationalizers +are already broken into three separate organizations, and represent at +least three mutually incompatible schemes of opinion. There is first the +socialist idea of abolishing both individual ownership and individual +occupation of land, and cultivating the soil of the country by means of +productive associations or rural communes. Then there is the exactly +opposite principle of Mr. A. R. Wallace and his friends, who are so much +in love with both individual ownership and individual occupation that +their whole aim is to compel us all by law to become occupying owners of +land, whether we have any mind to be so or no. And, finally, we have the +scheme of Mr. George, which must be carefully distinguished from the +others, because he would destroy individual ownership but leave +individual occupation perfectly intact. His non-interference with +individual occupation is remarkable, because, as we have seen, he +declares the cause of poverty to be the exclusion of unemployed labour +from the opportunity of cultivating land, and because that exclusion is +chiefly due to the prior occupation of the land by earlier settlers. Mr. +George, however, thinks he can provide a plentiful supply of unoccupied +land, at a nominal price, for an indefinite number of new-comers without +disturbing any prior occupant. He would do it by merely abolishing the +private owner and asking the occupant to pay his rent to the State +instead of to a landlord, and he explains to us how it is that this +simple expedient is to effect the purpose he desires. "The selling price +of land would fall; land speculation would receive its death-blow; land +monopolization would no longer pay. Millions and millions of acres, from +which settlers are now shut out by high prices, would be abandoned by +their present owners, or sold to settlers upon nominal terms. And this +not merely on the frontiers, but within what are now considered +profitable districts.... And even in densely populated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span> England would +such a policy throw open to cultivation many hundreds of thousands of +acres now held as private parks, deer preserves, and shooting grounds. +For this simple device of placing all taxes on the value of land would +be in effect putting up the land at auction to whoever would pay the +highest rent to the State. The demand for land fixes its value, and +hence if taxes were placed so as to very nearly consume that value, the +man who wished to hold land without using it would have to pay very +nearly what it would be worth to any one who wanted to use it." (p. 309).</p> + +<p>Putting up land to auction will not secure cheap or nominally rented +farms to an indefinite number of new-comers, unless there is an +indefinite supply of land to divide into farms, but in the present world +that is not so; and when the existing stock of agricultural land is +exhausted, and every man has his farm, but there is no more for any +new-comer, what is Mr. George's remedy then? Abolition of property in +land will of course abolish all trading in such property; but trading in +landed property does not restrict its occupation. The land speculator, +while he holds the land, of course keeps out another competitor from the +ownership, but he keeps nobody from its occupation and cultivation. He +is surely as ready as anybody else to make money, if money is to be +made, by letting it, even by putting it up to auction, if Mr. George +prefers that mode of letting. The transfer of the power of letting to +the State will not secure a tenant any faster. And as to the private +parks, deer forests and shootings of England, Mr. George forgets that +they are, most of them, at present rented, and not, as he seems to +fancy, owned by their occupants, and that it would not make a straw of +difference to them whether they paid their rents to the Crown factor or +to the landlord's agent. Since Mr. George does not prohibit the making +of fortunes, he cannot prevent commercial kings from America or great +brewers from England hiring forests in the Scotch Highlands. And since, +in spite of his celebrated declaration, that "to the landed estates of +the Duke of Westminster the poorest child that is born in London to-day +has as much right as has his eldest son," he would still leave the Duke +a princely income from the rents of the buildings upon his estates, and +would suffer him to enjoy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> it without paying a single tax or rate on it +all (p. 320), why should the Duke give up his forest in Assynt, merely +because the Crown is to draw the rent instead of the Duke of Sutherland? +Mr. George accordingly proposes a remedy that would remedy nothing, but +leave things just as they are. Deer forests and the like may not be the +best use of the land, but the particular change Mr. George suggests +would not suppress them or even in the slightest degree check their +spread, and would not throw the ground now occupied by them into the +ordinary market for cultivation. And, besides, even if it did, the land +so provided for new-comers would necessarily soon come to an end, and +with it Mr. George's "simple and sovereign remedy," at least in its +specific operation.</p> + +<p>But it is noteworthy that in his lectures in this country in 1884, Mr. +George made little account of the specific operation of his remedy as a +means of furnishing unemployed labourers with a practicable alternative +in agricultural production, to which they might continue indefinitely to +resort, and that he preferred for the most part drawing his cure for +poverty from the public revenue which the confiscation of rent would +place at the disposal of the community. Now as to this aspect of his +remedy, it is surely one of the oddest of his delusions to dream of +curing pauperism by multiplying the recipients of poor relief, and +taking away from it, as he claims credit for doing, through the +countenance of numbers, that reproach which has hitherto been the +strongest preventive against it. Besides, he and his friends greatly +exaggerate the amount of the fund the country would derive from the rent +of its ground. It would really fall far short of paying the whole of our +present taxation, not to speak of leaving anything over for wild schemes +of speculative beneficence. The rural rent of the country is only +seventy millions, and that sum includes the rent of buildings, which Mr. +George does not propose to touch, and which would probably in the +aggregate balance the ground rent of towns, which he includes in his +confiscation project. Now our local taxation alone comes very near that +figure, and certainly the people generally can scarcely be expected to +rise from a condition of alleged poverty to one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span> substantial wealth, +or even comfort, through merely having their local rates paid for them.</p> + +<p>The result would therefore be poor, even if no compensation were to be +made to the present receivers of the rent; but with the compensation +price to pay, it would be really too ridiculously small to throw a whole +nation into labour and disorder for. Much may be done—much must be +done—to make the land of the country more available and more profitable +for the wants of the body of the people, but not one jot of what is +required would be done by mere nationalization of the ownership, or even +done better on such a basis than on that which exists. The things that +are requisite and necessary would remain still to be done, though land +were nationalized to-morrow, and they can be equally well done without +introducing that cumbrous innovation at all. With compensation the +scheme is futile; without it, it is repugnant to a healthy moral sense. +Mr. George indeed regards confiscation as an article of faith. It is of +the essence of the message he keeps on preaching with so much conviction +and courage and fervour. Private property in land, he tells us, is +robbery, and rent is theft, and the reason he offers for these strong +assertions is that nothing can rightly be private property which is not +the fruit of human labour, and that land is not the fruit of human +labour, but the gift of God. As the gift of God, it was, he believes, +intended for all men alike, and therefore its private appropriation +seems to him unjust. Under these circumstances he considers it as +preposterous to compensate landowners for the loss of their land, as it +would be to compensate thieves for the restitution of their spoil. To +confiscate land is only to take one's own, Mr. George has no difficulty +about the sound of the word, nor is he troubled by any subtleties as to +the length it is proper to go in the work. Mr. Mill, whose writings +probably put Mr. George first on this track, proposed to intercept for +national purposes only the future unearned increase of the rent of land, +only that portion of the future increase of rent which should not be due +to the expenditure of labour and capital on the soil. Mr. George would +appropriate the entire rent, the earned increase as well as the +unearned, the past as well as the future; with this exception, that +interest on such improvements as are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> the fruit of human exertion, and +are clearly distinguishable from the land itself, would be allowed for a +moderate period. He says in one place, "But it will be said: These are +improvements which in time become indistinguishable from the land +itself! Very well; then the title to the improvements becomes blended +with the title to the land; the individual right is lost in the common +right. It is the greater that swallows up the less, not the less that +swallows up the greater. Nature does not proceed from man, but man from +nature, and it is into the bosom of nature that he and all his works +must return again" (p. 242). And in another place, speaking of the +separation of the value of the land from the value of the improvements, +he says: "In the oldest country in the world no difficulty whatever can +attend the separation, if all that be attempted is to separate the value +of the clearly distinguishable improvements made within a moderate +period, from the value of the land, should they be destroyed. This +manifestly is all that justice or policy requires. Absolute accuracy is +impossible in any system, and to attempt to separate all the human race +has done from what nature originally provided would be as absurd as +impracticable. A swamp drained, or a hill terraced by the Romans, +constitutes now as much a part of the natural advantages of the British +Isles as though the work had been done by earthquake or glacier. The +fact that after a certain lapse of time the value of such permanent +improvements would be considered as having lapsed into that of the land, +and would be taxed accordingly, could have no deterrent effect on such +improvements, for such works are frequently undertaken upon leases for +years" (p. 302). The sum of this teaching seems to be that Mr. George +would recognise no separate value in any improvements except buildings, +and would be disposed to appropriate even them after such lapse of time +as would make it not absolutely unprofitable to erect them.</p> + +<p>What Mr. George fails to perceive is that agricultural land is in no +sense more a gift of God, and in no sense less an artificial product of +human labour, than other commodities—than gold, for example, or cattle, +or furniture, in which he owns private property to be indisputably just. +Some of the richest land in England lies in the fen country, and that +land<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span> is as much the product of engineering skill and prolonged labour +as Portland Harbour or Menai Bridge. Before the days of Sir Cornelius +Vermuyden it was part of the bottom of the sea, and its inhabitants, as +they are described by Camden, trode about on stilts, and lived by +snaring waterfowl. Some of the best land in Belgium was barren +sand-heaps a hundred years ago, and has been made what it is only by the +continuous and untiring labour of its small proprietors. "God made the +sea, man made the dry land," is a proverb among the Dutch, who have +certainly made their own country as much as Mr. George has made his +book. In these cases the labour and the results of the labour are +obvious, but no cultivated land exists anywhere that is not the product +of much labour—certainly much more labour than Mr. George seems to have +any idea of. In the evidence taken before the recent Crofters' +Commission, Mr. Greig, who conducted the Duke of Sutherland's +improvements in the Strath of Kildonan, stated that the cost of +reclaiming 1,300 acres of land there, and furnishing them with the +requisite buildings for nine variously sized farms, was £46,000. Apart +from the buildings, the mere work of reclamation alone is generally +estimated to have cost £20 an acre, and in another part of the same +estates an equally extensive piece of reclamation is said to have cost +£30 an acre. By means of this great expenditure of capital and labour, +land that would hardly fetch a rent of a shilling an acre before was +worth twenty or thirty shillings an acre after. Not the buildings only, +but the land itself has been made what it is by labour. It has been +adapted to a useful office by human skill as really as the clay is by +the potter, or the timber by the wright. Deduct from the rent of these +reclaimed acres the value contributed by human labour, and how much +would remain to represent the gift of God? And would it be greater or +less than would remain after a like process applied, say, to a sovereign +or to a nugget of gold? Mr. George has no scruple about the justice of +private property and inheritance in the nugget, and indeed in all kinds +of movable wealth. "The pen with which I am writing," he says, for +example, "is justly mine. No other human being can rightfully lay claim +to it, for in me is the title of the original producers who made it"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span> +(p. 236). The original producer of the nugget appropriated what was +surely a gift of God as much as the clays or loams of husbandry; and if +he, as Mr. George admits, has "a clear and indefeasible title to the +exclusive possession and enjoyment" of his nugget, and may transmit that +title by bequest or sale unimpaired for an unrestricted period of time, +why is the original producer of agricultural land to be held up as more +than half a thief, and the present possessor as one entirely? And if a +proprietor has spent £20,000 in buildings, and £26,000 in reclamations, +in order to convert the surface of the earth into useful arable soil, +why is he to be allowed rent on the £20,000, and denied it on the £26,000?</p> + +<p>So far as the distinction between gifts of nature and products of labour +goes, movable wealth and immovable stand on precisely the same footing. +Both are alike gifts of nature, and both are alike products of labour. +In thinking otherwise Mr. George is certainly supported by the high +authority of Mr. Mill, who has also failed to recognise how far arable +land was really an artificial product. He says: "The land is not of +man's creation, and for a person to appropriate to himself a mere gift +of nature, not made to him in particular, but which belonged to all +others until he took possession of it, is <i>prima facie</i> an injustice to +all the rest" (Dissert. iv., 289). But what is of man's creation? He +finds his materials already created, and he merely appropriates them, +and adapts them to his own uses by labour, exactly as he does with the +soil that in his hands becomes fruitful fields. Land is as much a +creation of man as anything else is, and everything is as much a gift of +God as land. That distinction is therefore of no possible help to us. +The true ground for observing a difference between the right of property +in land and the right of property in other things must be sought for +elsewhere. It is not because land is a gift of nature, while other +things are products of labour, but because land is at once limited in +quantity, and essential to the production of the general necessaries of +life. These are the characteristics that make land a unique and +exceptional commodity, and require the right of property in it to be +subject to different conditions from the right of property in other +products of labour. The justification of the restriction of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span> right +in the case of land accordingly rests neither on theological dogma nor +on metaphysical distinction, but on a plain practical social necessity. +Where land is still abundant, where population is yet scanty as compared +with the land it occupies, there is no occasion for interference; the +proprietor might enjoy as absolute a title as Mr. George claims over his +pen, without any public inconvenience, but, on the contrary, with all +the public benefit that belongs to absolute ownership in other things. +But as soon as population has increased so much as to compel recourse to +inferior soils for its subsistence, it becomes the duty of society to +see that the most productive use possible is being made of its land, and +to introduce such a mode of tenure as seems most likely effectually to +secure that end. Under these circumstances private property in land +requires an additional justification, besides that which is sufficient +for other things; it must be conducive to the best use of the land. +Society has become obliged to husband its resources; if it will do so +most efficiently by means of private property, private property will +stand; if not, then it must fall. Of course land is not the only kind of +property that is subject to this social claim. All property is so held, +but in the case of other things the claim seldom comes into open view, +because it is only on exceptional occasions that it is necessary to call +it into active operation. Provisions are among the things Mr. George +considers not gifts of God but products of labour, but in a siege +private property in provisions would absolutely cease, and the social +right would be all in all. These products of labour would be +nationalized at that time because in the circumstances the general +interests of the community required them to be so, and the reason why +they are not nationalized at other times is at bottom really this, that +the general interest of the community is better served by leaving them +as they are. In some parts of the world all products of labour actually +are nationalized; in Samoa, for example, a man who wants anything has a +latent but recognised claim to obtain it from any man who has it; but +Dr. Turner explains that the result is most pernicious, because while it +has extinguished absolute destitution, it has lowered the level of +prosperity and prevented all progress, no man caring to labour when he +cannot retain the fruits of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> labour. Civilized communities, however, +have always perceived the immense public advantage of the institution of +private property, and the right to such property, of whatever kind, +really rests in the last analysis on a social justification, and is held +subject to a social claim, if any reason occurred to exert it. In this +respect there is nothing peculiar about land. The only peculiarity about +land is that a necessity exists for the practical exercise of the claim, +because landed property involves the control of the national food +supply, and of other primary and essential needs of the community. The +growth of population forces more and more imperatively upon us the +necessity of making the most of our land, and consequently raises the +question how far private property in such a subject is conducive to that end.</p> + +<p>Now, in regard to capital invested in trade or manufactures, it has +always been justly considered that the private interest of its possessor +constitutes the best guarantee for its most productive use, because the +trader or manufacturer is animated by the purely commercial motive of +gaining the greatest possible increase out of the employment of his +capital. But it must be admitted that the private interest of the +landlord does not supply us with so sure a guarantee. He desires wealth +no doubt as well as the trader, but he is not so purely influenced by +that desire in his use of his property. He is apt to sacrifice the most +productive use of land—or, in other words, his purely pecuniary +interest—to considerations of ease or pleasure, or social importance, +or political influence. He may consolidate farms, to the distress of the +small tenants and the injury of the country generally, merely because +there is less trouble in managing a few large farmers than a number of +small; or he may refuse to give his tenants those conditions of tenure +that are essential to efficient cultivation of the land, merely to keep +them more dependent on himself in political conflicts. Mr. George, +however, has a strong conviction that even the purely pecuniary interest +of the private owner tends to keep land out of cultivation, but he +builds his conclusion on the special experiences of land speculation +rather than on the general facts of land-owning. Of course if there were +no land-owning, there would be no land speculation; but to abolish +land-owning merely to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span> cure the evils of land speculation is, if I may +borrow an illustration of his own, tantamount to burning a house to +roast a joint. Besides, all that is alleged is that speculation keeps a +certain amount of land in America out of the market. In other countries +it suffers from a contrary reproach. The evil of the <i>bandes noires</i> of +France and the <i>Landmetzger</i> of Germany is their excessive activity in +bringing land into the market, by which they have aggravated the +pernicious subdivision of estates that exist. In America the effect of +speculation may be different, but at any rate keeping land out of the +market is one thing, keeping it out of cultivation is another; and it is +hard to see how speculation should prevent the extension of cultivation, +because cultivation may be as well undertaken by tenant as proprietor, +and why should a speculator, who buys land to sell it in a few years at +a high profit, object to taking an annual rent in the interval from any +one who thought it would pay him to hire the land? It would not be fair +to condemn the landlord for the sins of the land speculator, even if the +latter were all that Mr. George's curious horror of him represents him +to be, and if he exercised any of the irrationally extravagant effects +which Mr. George ascribes to his influence over the economy of things; +but as a matter of fact a sober judgment can discover no possible reason +why the private interest of a land speculator as such should stand in +the way of the cultivation of the soil he happens to hold. What concerns +us here, however, is not the private interest of the speculator, but the +private interest of the landlord, whether a speculative purchaser or +not. Now, much land lies waste at present through the operation of the +Game Laws, which establish an artificial protection of sport as an +alternative industry against agriculture, but then the general +institution of private property in land must not be credited with the +specific effects of the Game Laws, and need not be suppressed in order +to get rid of them. The abolition of these laws would place the culture +of wild animals and the culture of domestic animals on more equal terms +in the commercial competition, and would probably restore the balance of +the landlord's pecuniary advantage in favour of the latter. Besides, it +is not a question of ownership but of occupation of land that is really +involved. If the land<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span> were nationalized to-morrow, the State would have +to decide whether it would let as much land as had hitherto been let to +sporting tenants; and of course it can decide that, if it chooses, now.</p> + +<p>So far as I am able to judge, there is only one respect in which the +pecuniary interest of the landlord appears to be unfavourable to an +extension of cultivation. There is probably a considerable quantity of +land that might be cultivated with advantage to the community generally +by labourers who expected nothing from it but the equivalent of ordinary +wages, and which is at present suffered to lie waste, because its +produce would be insufficient to yield anything more than wages, and +would afford nothing to the capitalist farmer as profit or to the +landlord as rent. How far this operates I have, of course, no means of +knowing; but here again one may deal with waste ground if it were judged +requisite to do so, without resorting to any revolutionary schemes of +general land nationalization. Of course much land is kept in an inferior +condition, or perhaps absolutely waste, through want of capital on the +part of its owners, but the same result would happen under the +nationalization plan, through want of capital on the part of the +tenants. Mr. George does not propose to supply any of the necessary +capital out of public funds, but trusts to the enterprise and ability of +the tenants themselves to furnish it; so that the occupier would be no +better situated under the State than he would be under an embarrassed +landlord, if he enjoyed compensation for his improvements. In either +case he would improve as far as his own means allowed, and he would +improve no further. But if by nationalization of land we get rid of the +embarrassed landlord, we lose at the same time the wealthy one, and the +tenants of the latter would be decidedly worse off under the State, +which only drew rents, but laid out no expenses. The community, too, and +the general cultivation of the country would be greatly the losers. Mr. +George has probably little conception of the amount of money an +improving landlord thinks it necessary to invest in maintaining or +increasing the productive capacity of his land. A convenient +illustration of it is furnished by the evidence of Sir Arnold Kemball, +commissioner of the Duke of Sutherland,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> before the recent Crofters' +Commission. Sir Arnold gave in an abstract of the revenue and +expenditure on the Sutherland estates for the thirty years 1853-1882, +and it appears that the total revenue for that period was £1,039,748, +and the total expenditure (exclusive of the expenses of the ducal +establishment in Sutherland) was £1,285,122, or a quarter of a million +more than the entire rental. Here, then, is a dilemma for Mr. George: +With equally liberal management of the land on the part of the State, +how is he to endow widows and pay the taxes of the <i>bourgeoisie</i> out of +the rents? And without such liberal management how is he to promote the +spread of cultivation better than the present owners?</p> + +<p>The production of food, however, is only one of those uses of the land +in which the public have a necessary and growing interest. They require +sites for houses, for churches, for means of communication, for a +thousand purposes, and the landlord often refuses to grant such +altogether, or charges an exorbitant price for the privilege. He has +refused sites to churches from sectarian reasons; for labourers' +cottages in rural districts for fear of increasing the poor-rate; in +small towns with a growing trade from purely sentimental objections to +their growth; he has refused rights of way to people in search of pure +air, for fear they disturbed his game, and he has enclosed ancient paths +and commons which had been the enjoyment of all from immemorial time. I +do not speak of the ground rent in large cities where owners are +numerous, because that, though a question of great magnitude, involves +peculiarities that separate it from the allied question of rural +ground-rent, and make it more advantageously treated on its own basis. +But in country districts where owners are few, and the possession of +land therefore confers on one man power of many sorts over the growth +and comfort of a whole community, that power ought certainly to be +closely controlled by the State. Its tyrannical exercise has probably +done more than anything else to excite popular hostility against +landlordism, and to lend strength to the present crusade for the total +abolition of private property in land. But here again the cure is far +too drastic for the disease. What is needed is merely the prevention of +abuses in the management of land,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span> and that will be accomplished better +by regulations in the interest of the community than by any scheme of +complete nationalization. A sound land reform must—in this country at +least—set its face in precisely the contrary direction. It must aim at +multiplying, instead of extirpating, the private owners of land, and at +nursing by all wise and legitimate means the growth of a numerous +occupying proprietary. State ownership by itself is no better guarantee +than private ownership by itself for the most productive possible use of +the land; indeed, if we judge from the experience of countries where it +is practised, it is a much worse one; but by universal consent the best +and surest of all guarantees for the highest utilization of the land is +private ownership, coupled with occupation by the owner.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>INDEX.</span></h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> + <li><b>A.</b> + <ul> + <li>Agriculture, Russian, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_291">291.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Albrecht, the Prophet, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_137">137.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Alexander II., Czar, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_264">264,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li> + <li class="subitem">death, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_283">283.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Alliance, Republican Socialist, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_47">47.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Amorphism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_274">274.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Anarchism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_4">4</a>;</li> + <li class="subitem">in France, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_47">47</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Austria, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Italy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Spain, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Portugal, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Belgium, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Holland, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_73">73</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Switzerland, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_74">74</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Boston, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_77">77,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_248">248</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">United States, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">London, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Melbourne, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_91">91</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">ultra-socialistic, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_249">249</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">ultra-democratic, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_250">250</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">ultra-revolutionary, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">anti-religious, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_254">254</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Warsaw, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_296">296.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li><i>Anarchist, The</i>, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_86">86.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Anarchists, Congress at Geneva, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_254">254.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Applegarth, Mr., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_320">320.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Arbitration, Papal, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li> + <li class="subitem">courts of, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_431">431.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Arendal Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_66">66.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ashburnham, Lord, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_243">243.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Austria, Socialism in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</li> + <li class="subitem">condition of people in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_56">56.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Aveling, Dr. and Mrs., on America, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</li> + <li class="subitem">on Knights of Labor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_84">84</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">on Anarchists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_249">249.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>B.</b> + <ul> + <li>Babbage, C., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_26">26.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Baboeuf, C. G., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_17">17,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_188">188.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Bakunin, M., in Italy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_57">57</a>;</li> + <li class="subitem">Hegelian, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">with German Hegelians, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">escape, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_273">273</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">in London, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Amorphism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Lyons insurrection, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_278">278</a>;</li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">in Zurich, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_278">278.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Bamberger, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_203">203.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Barton, Mr., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_370">370.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Bastiat, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_297">297.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Bax, Belfort, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_84">84.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Baxter, Dudley, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_303">303.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Beaconsfield, Lord, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_210">210.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Bebel, A., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> + <li class="subitem">on armaments, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_37">37,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_41">41,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_125">125.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Becker, B., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_108">108.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Beesley, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_149">149.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Beggars in Russia, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_286">286.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Belgium, Socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_45">45,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</li> + <li class="subitem">forests, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_412">412</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">railways, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_416">416.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Bellamy, E., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_79">79,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_403">403,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_434">434.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Besant, Mrs., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_88">88.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Bismarck, Prince, State Socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_12">12</a>;</li> + <li class="subitem">Rodbertus on, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_34">34</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">peasant-catching, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_52">52</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">right to labour, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_421">421.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Black Division Party, The, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_283">283.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Black Division, The, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_292">292.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Black Hand, The, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_62">62.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Blanc, Louis, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_2">2,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_3">3,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_95">95,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_122">122</a>;</li> + <li class="subitem">theist, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_254">254.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Blanquists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_53">53.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Boeckh, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_97">97.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Boehmert, V., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_315">315.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Boerenbond, The, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_245">245.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Bonar, Mr., quoted, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_75">75.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Boston Anarchists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_77">77.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Boycotting, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_42">42.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Birmingham, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_433">433.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Brassey, Lord, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_310">310,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_330">330.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Brentano, Professor L., on A. Smith, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</li> + <li class="subitem">on condition of people, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_204">204</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">working-class claims, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_213">213</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">trade unions, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_216">216</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">working class insurance, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_216">216.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Brimstone League, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_148">148.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Brissot, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_16">16.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Brook Farm, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_402">402.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Brousse, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_50">50.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Broussists, + <ul> + + <li><a href="#Page_51">51,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_52">52.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span>Buchsel, Dr., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_239">239.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Buda Pest Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_54">54.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Burns, John, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_85">85.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Burt, T., M.P., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_86">86.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>C.</b> + <ul> + <li>Cabet, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_3">3.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Cairnes, Professor, on Mill, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_5">5</a>;</li> + <li class="subitem">on working-class prospects, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_297">297</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">cost of labour, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_310">310.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>California, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_435">435.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Carpenter, E., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_89">89.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Castelar, E., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_61">61.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Catholic Church on employer's responsibility, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_72">72.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Catholic Socialists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_223">223.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Catholic Workmen's Clubs, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_223">223,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_229">229,</a> </li> + <li class="subitem">in France, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_243">243.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Caudron, Father, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_243">243,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_244">244.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Cavour, Count, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_288">288.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J., M.P., ransom, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_385">385,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_386">386</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">overgovernment, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_395">395.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Channing, W. H., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_403">403.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Chevalier, Michel, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_348">348.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>China, Socialist Clubs, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_92">92.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Christian Socialism in England, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_87">87,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_220">220</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Germany, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_223">223</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Austria, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_242">242</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">France, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_243">243.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Christian Social Association, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_229">229.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Christian Social Politics, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_242">242.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Church, Primitive Communism of, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_237">237.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Clemenceau, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_47">47.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Coaches, Stage, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_451">451.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Cobden, R., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_221">221</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">on Government intervention, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_372">372</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">on Prussian Government, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_393">393.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Colins, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_2">2.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Colinsian Socialists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_2">2,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_72">72.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Colonization, Nihilist, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_281">281.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Companies, Joint Stock, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_417">417.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Communards, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_46">46.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Commune, Paris, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_277">277</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Russian, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_259">259,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_289">289.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Communist League, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_142">142,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_144">144.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Conciliation Courts, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_35">35.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Congress at Halle, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_33">33,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_37">37</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Gotha, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_88">88</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Havre, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_47">47,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_48">48</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Wyden, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_44">44,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_126">126,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_421">421</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Zurich, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_76">76</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Eisenach, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_202">202</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">D'Etienne, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_50">50</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Buda Pest, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_54">54</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Lisbon, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_66">66</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Arendal, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_86">86</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Stockholm, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_67">67</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Copenhagen, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_69">69</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Newark, U.S.A., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_80">80</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Leipzig, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_103">103,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_179">179</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Geneva, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_150">150.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Co-operative production, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_338">338,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_339">339.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Copenhagen Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_59">59.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Costa, A., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_58">58.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Councils of Labour, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_35">35.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Crises, Commercial, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_323">323,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_451">451.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>D.</b> + <ul> + <li>Dave, V., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_86">86.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Davenant, Dr., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_303">303,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_455">455.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Davitt, Michael, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_90">90.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Dawes, Mr., quoted, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_60">60.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Day of labour, Normal, + <ul> + + <li><a href="#Page_240">240,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_434">434.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Day of labour, Eight hours, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_36">36,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_52">52</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Cardinal Manning on, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_244">244</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">international compulsory, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_434">434</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">in Victoria, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_435">435</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">California, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_435">435.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Death-rate, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_452">452.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Delitzsch. <i>See</i> Schultze-Delitzsch. + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Democracy, relation to socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_16">16,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_18">18</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">American and Continental, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_20">20.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Denmark, socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_67">67.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Denny, William, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_315">315,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_322">322.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Distribution of incomes, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_456">456.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Dockyards, English, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_410">410.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Dolgourouki, the revolutionist, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_274">274.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Döllinger, Dr. von, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_223">223.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Dönnigsen, Helena von, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_106">106.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Dynamite, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_256">256.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>E.</b> + <ul> + <li><i>Egaux</i>, Conspiracy of, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_17">17.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Eight Hour Day. <i>See</i> Day of labour. + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Eisenach Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_202">202.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ely, Professor, + <ul> + + <li><a href="#Page_77">77,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_80">80.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Emancipation of serfs, + <ul> + + <li><a href="#Page_270">270,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_284">284,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_286">286.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Engel, Dr., + <ul> + + <li><a href="#Page_31">31,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_203">203.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Engelhardt, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_293">293.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Engels, F., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_93">93,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_131">131,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_142">142,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_146">146.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>England, Socialism in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_83">83.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Equality, Love of, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_24">24.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Equality of conditions, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_385">385.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ethical School of Economics, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_209">209.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Eudes, General, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_53">53.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>F.</b> + <ul> + <li>Fabian Society, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_88">88.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Familistère of Guise, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_2">2.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Farmer, Small, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_27">27,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_28">28,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_30">30.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Federalism of C. Marlo, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_178">178.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ferroti (Schedo), + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_267">267.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ferroul, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_52">52.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Feuerbach, Friedrich, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_133">133.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Feuerbach, L., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_131">131,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_132">132.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span>Fleischmann, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_42">42.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Fluctuations, Commercial, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_323">323.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Forbes, Father, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_243">243.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Forestry, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_412">412.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Fourier, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_23">23,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_254">254.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>France, Liberty in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_21">21</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_45">45</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">municipal socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_50">50.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Franklin, B., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_13">13</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">on high wages, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_365">365.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Fraternity, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_269">269.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Freiligrath, F., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_146">146.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Frœbel, F., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_130">130.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Frohme, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_35">35.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Fulda Conference, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_229">229.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>G.</b> + <ul> + <li>Gallenga, A., on unemployed in Italy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_59">59.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Game Laws, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_497">497.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Geneva Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_150">150.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>George, Henry, United Labour Party, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_78">78</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">a semi-socialist, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_78">78</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Mayoralty of New York, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_79">79</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">in Australia, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_90">90</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">"Progress and Poverty," + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_440">440</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">his problem, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_445">445</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">his explanation, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_461">461</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">theory of population, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_464">464</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">of wages, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_465">465</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">profits, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_474">474</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">rent, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_476">476</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">his remedy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_486">486</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">land nationalization, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_485">485.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Germany, Socialism in, + <ul> + + <li><a href="#Page_33">33</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Crown lands and industries, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_345">345.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Giffen, R., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_449">449,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_452">452.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Gilbert's Act, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_424">424.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Glennie, J. S., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_34">34.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Gneist, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_203">203.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Goethe, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_127">127.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Goltz, T. von der, on piecework, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_315">315.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Goschen, Right Hon. G. J., State intervention, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_346">346</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">rationale of Factory Acts, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_350">350</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">distribution of wealth, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_460">460.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Gotha Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_38">38.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Gotha Programme, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_38">38,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_40">40.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Graham, Mr. Cunninghame, M.P., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_85">85.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Greig, George, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_490">490.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Greeley, Horace, on socialist communities, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_402">402.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Gronlund, L., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_81">81.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Guesde, J., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_48">48,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_50">50,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_73">73.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Guesdists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_51">51,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_52">52.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>H.</b> + <ul> + <li>Hadley, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_416">416.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hale, Sir M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_301">301.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Halle Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_33">33,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_37">37,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_41">41.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hartmann, E. von, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_355">355.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hasselmann, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_45">45,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_72">72.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Havre Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_47">47.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Haxthausen, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_259">259,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_262">262.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Headlam, Rev. S., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_84">84,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_88">88.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hearn, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_347">347.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hegel, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_131">131,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_261">261.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hegelians, Young, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_3">3,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_5">5,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_130">130,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_139">139.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Heine, H., on Lassalle, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_96">96,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_98">98</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">on parties, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_126">126.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Held, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_196">196.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Herder, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_127">127.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hermann, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_309">309.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Herring brand, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_412">412.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Herzen, Alexander, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_261">261,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_262">262,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_264">264,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_265">265</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">letter renouncing revolutionism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_273">273,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_274">274.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Herzenism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_266">266.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hildebrand, Professor B., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_201">201,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_203">203.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hill, Sir R., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_382">382.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hime, Dr., Sheffield, quoted, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_341">341.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hirsch, Max, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_203">203.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hoedel, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_33">33.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Holland, Socialism in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_72">72.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>House Communities of Russia, Dissolution of, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_289">289.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Housing of poor, in Sheffield, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_341">341</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">McCulloch's view, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_367">367.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Howell, G., M.P., on piecework, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_315">315.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hughes, Thomas, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_222">222.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Humboldt, A. von, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_98">98,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_102">102.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Humboldt, W. von, on freedom, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_334">334</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">on marriage, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_353">353</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">on energy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_396">396.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Humphreys, Mr., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_482">482.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Hyndman, H. M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_84">84.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>I.</b> + <ul> + <li>Icarians, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_2">2,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_77">77.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>"Illegal Men," + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_257">257.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Incomes, Distribution of, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_486">486.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Increment, Unearned, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_488">488.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ingram, Dr. J. K., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_371">371.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Insurance, National, + <ul> + + <li><a href="#Page_423">423</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">in New Zealand, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_417">417.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>International Working Men's Association, in France, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_46">46</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Italy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_57">57</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Spain, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_60">60,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_62">62</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Denmark, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_68">68</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Belgium, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_70">70</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Holland, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_70">70</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Jurassian Federation, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_73">73</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">origin, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_147">147</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Paris Commune, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_152">152</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">disruption, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_153">153</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">in Russia, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_276">276.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>International Working People's Association, U.S.A., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_80">80.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Internationality, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_126">126.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span>Ireland, Poor Law, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_385">385.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Irish labour, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_365">365.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>"Iron and Cruel Law," view of Lassalle, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_121">121</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">of Ketteler, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_226">226</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">of Todt, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_237">237</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">refuted, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_300">300.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Italy, Socialism in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_57">57.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>J.</b> + <ul> + <li>Jacobites, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_126">126.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Janson, Professor, pauperism in St. Petersburg, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_284">284.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Jevons, Professor W. Stanley, commercial statistics, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_327">327.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Jews become Nihilists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_271">271,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_296">296.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Jurassian Federation, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_73">73,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_250">250.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li><i>Justice</i>, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_84">84.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>K.</b> + <ul> + <li>Karakasoff's attempt, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_276">276.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Kemball, Sir Arnold, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_495">495.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ketteler, Bishop, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_224">224</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">iron and cruel law, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_226">226</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">right of property, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_227">227</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">part of Church in Social Question, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_228">228.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Kildonan Strath improvements, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_490">490.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>King, Gregory, occupiers of land, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_29">29</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">classes of population, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_301">301</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">distribution of wealth, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_303">303</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">rent of land, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_454">454.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Kingsley, Charles, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_221">221.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Knies, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_201">201.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Knights of Labor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_82">82.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Koegel, Dr., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_139">139.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Kölping, Father, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_223">223.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Koscheleff, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_267">267.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Krapotkin, Prince, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_45">45</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Lyons anarchist, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_48">48</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">English anarchism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_86">86</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">housing the poor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_250">250</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">the Municipal Councils, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_252">252</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">painter, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_280">280.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>L.</b> + <ul> + <li>Labour, Cost of, in different countries, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_310">310.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Labour Department of State, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_35">35.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Labour Emancipation League of Russia, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_295">295.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Labouring class prospects, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_297">297,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_312">312.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Labour, Knights of, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_82">82.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Labour Party of Belgium, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_71">71.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Labour Statistical Bureaux, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_326">326.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Lafargue, P., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_52">52.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>"Land and Liberty" Society, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_283">283.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Land, diminishing return, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_467">467</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">an artificial product, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_489">489</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Mill on, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_491">491</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">speculation in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_493">493</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">reform, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_496">496.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li><i>Landmetzger</i>, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_484">484.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Land Nationalization in Belgium, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_72">72</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">in England, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_89">89.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Land Restoration League, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_90">90.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Laing, Samuel, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_411">411.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Laisant, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_64">64.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li><i>Laissez-faire</i>, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_336">336,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_352">352</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">repudiated by McCulloch, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_361">361</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">never adopted in England, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_373">373</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">and property, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_394">394.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Lange, F. A., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_216">216.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Laveleye, E. de, on Italian peasantry, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_59">59</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">no revolutionary Metropolis in Italy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_60">60</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Spanish socialist clubs, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_61">61</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">the Portuguese, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_65">65</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">the Scandinavians, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_67">67</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Belgian socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_71">71</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">State Socialism in England, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_346">346</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">professes State Socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_384">384.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Lavergne, M. de, on French and English rural population, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_46">46.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Lavrists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_280">280.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Lavroff, P., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_278">278</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">his principles, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_279">279</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">followers, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_295">295.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Lassalle, F., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_92">92</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Heine, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_96">96</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">character, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_96">96</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">epitaph, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_97">97</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">a revolution, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_97">97</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Humboldt, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_98">98</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Countess Hatzfeldt's defence, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_99">99</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">theft of <i>cassette</i>, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_100">100</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">conviction for treason, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_101">101</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">literary work, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_102">102</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">"Working Men's Programme," + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_103">103</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">summary of, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_109">109</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">General Working Men's Association, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_105">105</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">progress of propaganda, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_105">105</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Helena von Dönnigsen, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_106">106</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">death, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_108">108</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">apotheosis, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_108">108</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">reply to Schultze-Delitzsch, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_114">114</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">new socialistic constitution of property, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_116">116</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">anarchic socialism of existing <i>régime</i>, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_117">117</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Ricardo's doctrine of value, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_119">119</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">"iron and cruel law," + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_121">121</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">productive societies, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_122">122</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">a national socialist, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_124">124</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">letter to Feuerbach, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_172">172</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">on the modern economists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_201">201</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">popularity in Russia, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_277">277</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">on increase of production, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_336">336.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Le Basse, Father, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_243">243.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ledru-Rollin, quoted, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_22">22.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Leipzig Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_103">103,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_179">179.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Leo XIII., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_243">243</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">encyclical, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_245">245.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Le Play, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_284">284.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Leroux, P., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_3">3.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Leroy-Beaulieu, Paul, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_219">219.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span>Lessing, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_127">127.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Levi, Professor Leone, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_304">304.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Liberalism, Marlo on, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_185">185.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Liberty in America, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_20">20</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">in France, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_21">21</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">under democracy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_24">24.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Lichtenstein, Prince, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_243">243.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Liebknecht, W., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_34">34</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">on revolution, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_42">42</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">peasant catching, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_42">42</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">religion, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_42">42</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">future socialist State, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_43">43</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">expulsion from General Working Men's Association of Germany, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_125">125</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">foundation of Social Democratic Labour Party, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_125">125</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">speech at Leipzig, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_249">249.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Liège, Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_243">243.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Lilyenkrantz, Jacquette, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_69">69.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Limitation of production, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_313">313.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Limousin, M., minimum of socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_14">14.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Lisbon Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_66">66.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Locke, John, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_353">353.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>London, death-rate, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_302">302.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ludlow, Edmund, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_127">127.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ludlow, J. M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_221">221.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>M.</b> + <ul> + <li>Mably, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_161">161.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Macaulay, Lord, quoted, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_214">214.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Macdonald, Mr., Owenite, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_403">403.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Machiavelli, secret societies, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_257">257.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Malet, Mr., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_45">45.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Malikowsy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_280">280.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Malthus, T. R., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_369">369,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_421">421.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Malthusianism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_17">17.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Manchester Party of Germany, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_201">201,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_212">212.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Manchester School, view of Maurice, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_221">221</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">of Kingsley, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_221">221</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">of Todt, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_235">235</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">their real doctrine, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_372">372.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Manning, Cardinal, Liège letter, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_244">244.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Marlboro' Association, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_405">405.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Marlo, Carl, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_178">178.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Marr, W., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_136">136,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_137">137.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Marshall, Professor A., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_437">437.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Martensen, Bishop, Catholicism and socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_233">233.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Marx, Karl, historical necessity of socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_23">23</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">social revolution impossible without English participation, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_83">83</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">despair of English participation, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_84">84</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">reception of <i>Das Kapital</i>, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_127">127</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">life, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_129">129</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Young Hegelian, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_130">130</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">early views, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_139">139</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Communist League, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_142">142</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">communist manifesto, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_144">144</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">International, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_149">149</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">inaugural address to, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_151">151</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">summary of <i>Das Kapital</i>, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_156">156</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">value, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_160">160</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">wages, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_161">161</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">normal workday, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_161">161</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">machinery, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_170">170</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">piecework, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_172">172</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">over-population, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_174">174</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">letter from Proudhon, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_255">255</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">popularity in Russia, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_277">277.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Massachusetts, Joint Stock management in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_417">417.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Maurice, F. D., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_11">11,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_221">221.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>McCulloch, J. R., disciple of Ricardo, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_360">360</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Wages fund, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_360">360</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem"><i>laissez-faire</i>, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_361">361</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">State management, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_362">362</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">factory system, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_363">363</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">pauper labour, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_364">364</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">factory legislation, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_366">366</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">housing the poor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_366">366</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">poor law, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_368">368</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">agricultural produce, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_456">456.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>"Medalmen," + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_294">294.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Meeker, Mr., Fourierist, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_408">408.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Melbourne anarchists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_91">91.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Menger, Prof. A., historical necessity of socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_23">23.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Meyer, Rudolph, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_242">242,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_383">383.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Michel, Louise, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_48">48.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Mill, James, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_360">360.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Mill, John Stuart, profession of socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_5">5</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">liberty, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_334">334</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">province of Government, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_353">353</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">over-government in democracy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_395">395</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">industrial habits under socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_404">404</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">unearned increment, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_488">488</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">land, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_472">472.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ministry of Labour, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_35">35.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Mint, The, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_412">412.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li><i>Mir</i>, The, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_252">252,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_262">262.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Molinari, G. de, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_3">3,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_45">45.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Montefiore, L., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_97">97.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Morelly, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_16">16.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Morier, Sir R., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_288">288.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Morris, William, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_84">84,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_85">85.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Most, John, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_44">44,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_80">80,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_248">248.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Moufang, Canon, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_230">230,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_231">231.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Mulhall, M., wages, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_308">308</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">textile workers, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_323">323</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">agricultural rent, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_456">456.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Mun, Count A., de, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_243">243.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Municipal management, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_413">413.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Municipal socialism in France, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_51">51.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Mutualists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_3">3.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>N.</b> + <ul> + <li>Napoleon I., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_380">380.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Nasmyth, James, manual dexterity, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_317">317,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_440">440.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span>Nasse, Professor E., economic individualism in England, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_346">346.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Neale, E. Vansittart, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_87">87.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Netchaïeff, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_276">276.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Newark Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_80">80.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>New Zealand, State insurance, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_348">348.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Nicholas, Czar, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_263">263,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_264">264.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Niewenhuis, D., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_72">72.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Nihilism, Russian, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_45">45,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_259">259</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">name, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_266">266.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Nobiling, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_33">33.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>No Man's land, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_482">482.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Nordhoff, Mr., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_403">403.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>North American Phalanx, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_408">408.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Norway, Socialism in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_66">66</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">the poor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_452">452.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Noyes, Mr., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_403">403.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>O.</b> + <ul> + <li>Oldham, co-operative mills, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_338">338.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Old Believers, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_292">292.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Oppenheim, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_195">195.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Overtime, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_320">320.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Owen, R. D., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_405">405.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Owen, Robert, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_77">77,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_360">360.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Owenites, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_2">2,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_11">11,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_77">77,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_148">148</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">in America, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_404">404.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>P.</b> + <ul> + <li>Palm, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_67">67.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Pan-destruction, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_274">274.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Parsons, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_249">249.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Patriotism, disparaged by socialists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_126">126</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">by great writers, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_127">127.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Paul, St., slave emancipation, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_242">242.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Pauperism, St. Petersburg, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_260">260</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">aged, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_423">423</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">England, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_449">449</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">able-bodied, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_450">450</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Norway, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_452">452.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Peasant proprietary, prospects, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_27">27</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">in the International, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_46">46.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Peasants' League in Belgium, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_245">245.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Pensions, National, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_423">423.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Perowskaia, Sophia, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_280">280.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Pestel, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_264">264.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Peukert, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_55">55.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Piecework, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_314">314.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Pio, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_68">68.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Poles, The, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_271">271.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Poor Law, England, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_402">402</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">McCulloch, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_368">368</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">S. Webb, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_423">423.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Population theory, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_464">464.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Porter, G. R., good wages and temperance, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_318">318</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">working class houses in Sheffield, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_341">341.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Portugal, Socialism in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_65">65.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Possibilists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_50">50,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_51">51.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Post-office management, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_410">410.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Potter, George, piecework, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_320">320.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Production, Limitation of, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_313">313.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Productive associations, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_79">79.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Profit-sharing, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_339">339.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Propaganda of Deed, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_256">256.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Property, diffusion, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_23">23</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">advantages of institution, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_333">333.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Proudhon, anarchy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_250">250</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">letter to Marx, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_255">255</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">pauperism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_475">475.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Prussia, socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_31">31</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">condition of people, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_31">31</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">occupation of land, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_32">32</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">forests, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_42">42.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>R.</b> + <ul> + <li>Railways, State, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_416">416.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Rappists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_405">405.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Realistic School of Economics, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_205">205.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Reclus, Elisée, anarchist, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_48">48</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">on Russian agriculture, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_290">290.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Renan, E., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_384">384.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Rent, Fair, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_429">429</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">agricultural, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_456">456</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">H. George, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_476">476.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Republican Socialist Alliance in France, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_54">54.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Revolutionist, The complete, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_275">275.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Reybaud, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_179">179.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ricardo, D., law of value, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_226">226</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">"iron law of wages," + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_300">300</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">real theory of wages, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_306">306</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">province of Government, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_359">359</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">National Bank, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_360">360</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">working class annuities, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_360">360</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">rent, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_477">477.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Right to existence, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_421">421.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Right to labour, in Convention of 1793, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_22">22</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Bismarck on, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_421">421</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">in English Poor Law, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_424">424.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Rights, Natural, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_420">420</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Primitive economic, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_385">385.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Rodbertus, on Bismarck's social policy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_34">34</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">differences from Lassalle, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_123">123</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">social question, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_127">127</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">relation to socialist movement, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_178">178</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">converts Wagner, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_380">380</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">acknowledges Hohenzollerns, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_381">381</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">views, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_381">381.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Rodriguez de Capada, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_245">245.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Rogers, Professor Thorold, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_350">350.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Roscher, Professor W., time as reformer, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_199">199</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">historical method, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_200">200,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_204">204</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Eisenach Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_203">203</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">economic ideal, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_205">205</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">task as economist, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_207">207</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">piecework, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_321">321.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Rousseau, J. J., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_16">16.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Ruge, Arnold, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_131">131.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span>Ruskin, John, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_88">88.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Russia, Nihilism in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_259">259.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Russo-Turkish war, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_282">282.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>S.</b> + <ul> + <li>St. Etienne Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_50">50.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>St. Joseph associations, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_229">229.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>St. Petersburg pauperism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_260">260.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>St. Simon, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_218">218,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_254">254.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Samoa, Socialist customs in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_401">401,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_492">492.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Samter, V., on Mill, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_198">198.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Sassulitch, Vera, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_277">277,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_282">282.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Say, Leon, State Socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_345">345.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Schæffle, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_326">326.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Scheel, Professor von., social question, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_215">215.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Schmoller, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_195">195</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">on Socialists of Chair, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_200">200</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Eisenach Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_203">203</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Province of Government, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_211">211</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">distributive justice, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_213">213.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Schönberg, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_203">203,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_213">213.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Schorlemer-Abst, Baron, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_229">229.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Schulte, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_229">229.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Schultze-Delitzsch, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_4">4</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">co-operative societies, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_103">103</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Lassalle's reply, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_114">114.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Schweitzer, Dr. von, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_124">124.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Self-interest, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_375">375.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Senior, N. W., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_464">464.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Shakers, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_405">405.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Shaw, G., Bernard, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_88">88.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Sheffield, socialists, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_89">89</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">housing of working-class, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_341">341.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Shuttleworth, Canon, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_88">88.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Sidgwick, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_360">360,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_428">428.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Sinclair, Sir John, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_469">469.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Sisyphism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_443">443.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Smith, Adam, as viewed by Socialists of the Chair, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_198">198</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">on Government trading, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_345">345</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">his theory of social politics, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_353">353</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">national education, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_354">354</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">military training, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_355">355</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">English Government management, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_356">356</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">truck, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_357">357</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">usury, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_357">357</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">corporate management, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_417">417.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Smith, E. Peshine, effect of education on wages, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_321">321.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Social Democratic Party in Germany, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_33">33</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">in Reichstag, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_34">34</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">France, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_48">48</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">programme, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_49">49</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Italy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_58">58</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Spain, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_61">61</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Norway, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_66">66</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Denmark, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_69">69</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Belgium, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_70">70</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Holland, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_73">73</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Switzerland, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_74">74</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">U.S.A., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_80">80</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">England, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_84">84</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Scotland, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_90">90</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Sydney, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_91">91.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Social Monarchical Union, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_241">241.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Social Politics, English theory, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_373">373</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Christian, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_242">242.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Social Reform, Central Union for, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_239">239.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Socialism, before 1848, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_2">2</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">contemporary, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_3">3</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">labourers' claim of right, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_7">7</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">variable use of word, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_8">8</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">inequitableness its ruling characteristic, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_9">9</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">old and new, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_10">10</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">minimum of, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_14">14</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">relation to democracy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_15">15</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Christian, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_224">224</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">State, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_345">345</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">meanings of word, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_374">374.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Socialist Laws of Germany, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_33">33.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Socialists of the Chair, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_195">195.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Society of Public Utility in Switzerland, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_76">76.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Society of Social Peace, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_243">243.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Spain, Socialism in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_60">60</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">anarchism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_62">62</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">condition of people, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_64">64.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li><i>Spectator, The</i>, testamentary statistics, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_459">459.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Speculation, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_493">493.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Spencer, Herbert, believes in socialist ideal of society, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_8">8</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">the coming slavery, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_346">346</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">functions of Government, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_351">351,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_352">352</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">land nationalization, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_385">385</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">natural rights, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_420">420.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Stahl, quoted, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_16">16.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>State management, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_409">409.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>State railways, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_415">415.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>State Socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_345">345</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">in Germany, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_379">379.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>State, The, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_211">211.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Statistics, Commercial, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_326">326.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Stein, Professor L. von, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_94">94,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_132">132.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Stephanovitch, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_293">293.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Stepniak, on <i>mir</i>, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_252">252</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Paris Commune, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_277">277</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Russian proletariat, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_284">284</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Russian peasantry, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_285">285,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_286">286,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_288">288</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">break-up of the Russian Commune, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_289">289</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Russian agriculture, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_291">291.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Stöcker, Dr., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_234">234,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_236">236,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_241">241,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_242">242.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Stockholm Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_67">67.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Strachey, Mr., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_68">68.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Strikes, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_44">44.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Studnitz, A., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_320">320,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_331">331.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Suez Canal, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_348">348.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Sumner, Archbishop, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_370">370.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Sunday Schools, Nihilist, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_269">269,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_272">272.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Surplus Value, Marx's doctrine, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_167">167.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Sweating System, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_432">432.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Sweden, Socialism in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_66">66.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Switzerland, Socialism in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_73">73</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">Society of Public Utility, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_76">76</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">secret societies, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_136">136.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Sylvania Association, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_404">404.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span><b>T.</b> + <ul> + <li>Taylor, Helen, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_84">84.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Tchaikowsky, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_280">280.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Tchernycheffsky, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_269">269,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_272">272.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Telegraphs, State management of, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_410">410.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Thompson, William, anticipation of Marx's doctrine, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_148">148.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Thornton, W. T., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_464">464.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Thuenen, J. von, natural wages, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_121">121.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Thun, Professor A., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_278">278,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_281">281,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_284">284,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_285">285,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_287">287.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Tocqueville, A. de, socialism and democracy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_19">19</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">democratic passion for equality, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_24">24</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">middle-class materialization, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_24">24</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">political necessity of religion, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_25">25</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">the plutocracy, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_186">186.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Todt, R., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_234">234.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Trade Unions, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_311">311.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Tramps, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_450">450.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Treitschke, H., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_203">203.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Trepoff, Assassination of General, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_282">282.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Trial of the, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_193">193,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_280">280.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Troglodytes, Secret Society, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_283">283.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Trumbull Phalanx, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_404">404.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Tucker, B. R., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_91">91.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Turgenieff, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_266">266.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Turner, Dr., Samoa, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_401">401,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_492">492.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>U.</b> + <ul> + <li>Unemployed, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_424">424.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Unionism, The New, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_85">85,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_86">86.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>United States, Liberty in, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_20">20</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_77">77</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">nationalism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_79">79</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">anarchism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_80">80.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>V.</b> + <ul> + <li>Vaillant, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_53">53.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Value, Marx's doctrine, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_160">160</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">true theory, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_327">327.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>"Versaillais," The, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_126">126.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Victoria, State railways, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_411">411,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_417">417</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">eight hours day, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_436">436.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Volmar, Herr von, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_35">35.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Vogt, K., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_148">148.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>W.</b> + <ul> + <li>Wages Fund, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_464">464,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_465">465.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Wages, "iron law," + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_226">226,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_237">237,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_300">300</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">rise since English Revolution, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_301">301</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Ricardo's theory, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_306">306</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">true theory, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_307">307</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">fair, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_430">430</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">minimum, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_431">431.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Wagner, Professor A., ground-rents, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_199">199</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">State and the social question, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_213">213</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">Evangelical Social Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_241">241</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">converted by Rodbertus, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_380">380</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">his State Socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_387">387.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Walker, President F. A., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_332">332,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_469">469.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Wallace, A. R., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_89">89,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_485">485.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Warren, Josiah, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_77">77.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Watts, Dr. J., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_434">434.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Webb, Sidney, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_88">88</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">State pensions for the aged, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_423">423.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Weitling, W., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_80">80,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_137">137.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Westminster, Duke of, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_486">486.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Wieland, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_127">127.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Will of the People Party, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_283">283,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_295">295.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Winchester, Bishop of, definition of socialism, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_376">376.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Winkelblech, Professor, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_180">180.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Woeste, M., + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_244">244.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Working classes, prospects, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_297">297,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_312">312</a>; </li> + <li class="subitem">habits, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_318">318</a>; </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li class="subitem">legitimate aspirations, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_333">333.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Workmen's Chambers, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_35">35.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Wyden Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_44">44,</a> </li> + <li><a href="#Page_126">126.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>Y.</b> + <ul> + <li>Yellow Springs, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_404">404.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Young, Arthur, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_455">455.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + <ul> + <li>Young England Party, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_380">380.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> + <li><b>Z.</b> + <ul> + <li>Zurich Congress, + <ul> + <li><a href="#Page_76">76.</a></li> + </ul> + </li> + </ul> + </li> +</ul> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h2><span><span class="smcap">Opinions of the Press on the First Edition.</span></span></h2> + +<blockquote><p>"A work of commanding ability and great practical value. It +deserves to be studied by everybody who wishes to understand a +series of questions which are just now attracting a large share of +attention.... Admirably adapted to dissipate erroneous impressions +on the subject."—<i>Scotsman.</i></p> + +<p>"The reader will find much to interest him in Mr. Rae's volume. His +introductory chapter is well worth studying, as are also his +sketches of Lassalle, Karl Marx, and Professor +Winkelblech."—<i>Times.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Rae has made a special study of the various phases of +Continental socialism, and has therefore peculiar qualifications +for this part of his task.... With a special recommendation of the +last chapter, we take leave of a useful and ably written +book."—<i>Saturday Review.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. John Rae has already won his spurs as a writer on socialism. +The book on that subject which he has just published is the best of +its kind, in English at least, that we have seen. Holding an +intermediate position between the socialists and the Manchester +School, Mr. Rae has just that amount of sympathy with the aims of +the socialists which enables him to look at the problems involved +from their point of view, and thus to meet their errors fully and +directly while doing justice to them in some respects in which +hitherto they have hardly received it."—<i>Westminster Review.</i></p> + +<p>"In Mr. Rae's interesting volume full information will be found +respecting the leaders of the socialistic movement in Europe, and a +clear statement of their teaching."—<i>Literary World.</i></p> + +<p>"A very admirable piece of work, displaying thorough research in +the presentation of the various forms of socialistic theory, keen +discrimination in their analysis, and a masterly comprehension of +the whole economic situation. Mr. Rae's essay on Nihilism is as +good as anything that we have seen on this mysterious subject, but +there are few persons who are interested in the history of the +present century that will not be glad to read the whole book, and +some parts of it more than once. We will only add that the analysis +of Mr. Henry George's theories is extremely well done. It +undermines the very foundations on which Mr. George's structure is +built, and the whole fabric dissolves before our eyes."—<i>Evening Post</i> (New York).</p> + +<p>"These studies attracted much attention when they first appeared, +and readers will be glad to meet them again in this book. A short +analysis could not do justice to Mr. Rae's work. What characterizes +the work most, is the impression derived from it as a whole; it is +the conscientiousness and sincerity with which the author has +studied the writers he discusses. The judgments he pronounces are +his own. Those who wish, if not a new, yet a more enlarged idea of +the principle socialistic theories, will find pleasure in following +the effect which they produce on an enlightened mind, the remarks +they suggest to him, and the objections he makes to +them."—<i>Journal des Economistes</i> (Paris).</p> + +<p>"It is the best English text-book on the important subject of which +it treats, and like all good text-books, it whets the reader's +appetite."—<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></p></blockquote> + +<hr /> + +<p class="bold2">POLITICAL SCIENCE AND ECONOMY.</p> + +<blockquote><p><b>POLITICAL SCIENCE; Or, The State Theoretically and Practically +Considered. By THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D.D., LL.D.; late President of +Yale College. 2 vols., 8vo, $5.00.</b></p></blockquote> + +<blockquote><p>THE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT.—"No work on Political Science has ever been +published in America which covers so wide a ground and which treats +the subject so fairly and impartially, and with so thorough +knowledge and judgment."</p> + +<p>THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE.—"This work is indeed one of the most +important contributions of the century to the science of natural +and national law and ethics."</p> + +<p>THE N. Y. TRIBUNE.—"In the discussion of the manifold questions +suggested by the general theme of the work Dr. Woolsey exhibits the +same cautiousness of judgment, moderation of tone, and vigor of +expression which characterize his previous writings. His volumes +abound with the signs of profound study and copious erudition as +well as of original thought."</p></blockquote> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<blockquote><p><b>INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. Designed as an Aid +in Teaching and in Historical Studies. By THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, +D.D., LL.D., late President of Yale College. Fifth edition, revised +and enlarged. Crown 8vo, $2.50.</b></p></blockquote> + +<blockquote><p>A complete outline of that grand system of ethical jurisprudence +Which holds, as it were, in one community the nations of +Christendom. Its appendix contains a most useful list of the +principal treaties since the Reformation. The work has no rival as +a text book.</p> + +<p>Special attention is directed to the fact that this FIFTH EDITION +of Dr. Woolsey's International Law is entirely re-written and +enlarged, and is printed from new plates.</p> + +<p>THE ST. LOUIS REPUBLICAN.—"A compendium treatise, intended not for +lawyers nor for those having the profession of law in view, but for +young men who are cultivating themselves by the study of historical +and political Science. While the work gives the state of the law of +nations as it is, it compares the actual law with the standard of +justice, and, by exhibiting the progress of science in a historical +way, brings it into connection with the advances of humanity and +civilization."</p></blockquote> + +<hr /> + +<p class="bold2"><i>STANDARD TEXT BOOKS.</i></p> + +<blockquote><p><b>POLITICAL ECONOMY. By ARTHUR LATHAM PERRY, Professor of History and +Political Economy in Williams College. Crown 8vo, $2.50.</b></p></blockquote> + +<blockquote><p>Professor Perry's book has passed through many editions and has +recently been subjected to a thorough revision and recasting. His +work is a complete exposition of the Science of Political Economy +both historically and topically, his style is admirably clear and +racy; his illustrations are forcible and well chosen, and he has +made a subject interesting and open to the comprehension of any +diligent student, which has often been left by writers vague and +befogged and bewildering. This work has stood excellently the test +of the class room, and has been adopted by many of the chief +educational institutions in this country. Among them are Yale +College, Bowdoin College, Dartmouth, Trinity, Wesleyan, University +of Wooster, Denison University, Rutgers College, New York +University, Union College, and many other colleges and normal and high schools.</p> + +<p>T. D. WOOLSEY, <i>President of Yale College</i>.—"Your book interests +students more than any I have ever instructed from."</p> + +<p>THE NEW YORK TIMES.—"As a manual for general reading and popular +instruction, Prof. Perry's book is far superior to any work on the +subject before issued in the United States."</p> + +<p>THE NATION.—"We cordially recommend this book to all, of whatever +school of political economy, who enjoy candid statement and full +and logical discussion."</p> + +<p>THE INDEPENDENT.—"There is more common sense in this book than in +any of the more elaborate works on the same subject that have +preceded it. It Is the most interesting and valuable one that has +been given to the American public on this important subject."</p></blockquote> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<blockquote><p><b>INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL ECONOMY. By ARTHUR LATHAM PERRY, +Professor of History and Political Economy in Williams College. +Revised edition. 12mo, $1.50.</b></p></blockquote> + +<blockquote><p>FROM THE PREFACE.—"I have endeavored in this book so to lay the +foundations of Political Economy in their whole circuit, that they +will never need to be disturbed afterwards by persons resorting to +it for their early instruction, however long and however far these +persons may pursue their studies in this science."</p> + +<p>THE N. Y. EVENING POST.—"This work is not meant in any way to take +the place of its author's larger treatise, but rather to occupy a +field which, in the nature of the case, that work cannot occupy. It +is not an abridgment of that work but a separate treatise, intended +primarily for the use of students and readers whose time for study +is small, but who wish to learn the broad principles of the science +thoroughly and well, especially with reference to the scientific +principles which are involved in the practical discussions of our +time. * * * We need scarcely add, with respect to a writer so well +known as he, that his thinking is sound as well as acute, or that +his doctrines are those which the greatest masters of political +science have approved."</p></blockquote> + +<hr /> + +<blockquote><p><b>AMERICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY. By FRANCIS BOWEN, Professor of Natural +Religion and Moral Philosophy in Harvard College. 8vo, $2.50.</b></p></blockquote> + +<blockquote><p>This treatise presents views compatible with the idea that "every +country has a political economy of its own, suitable to its own +physical circumstances of position on the globe, and to the +character, habits, and institutions of the people."</p> + +<p>THE PHILADELPHIA AGE.—"If our members of Congress would vote +themselves a copy of this book, and read it, fewer wild schemes +would be concocted by them, and a great saving of time and the +people's money would be secured."</p> + +<p>THE SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN.—"His arguments are worth considering, +and his whole book is of high value to any American to study +economical questions."</p></blockquote> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<blockquote><p><b>CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM. By JOHN RAE, M.A. 8vo, $2.50.</b></p> + +<p>Such a book as this which Mr. Rae has written—a thorough history and +analysis by a man of singularly candid and liberal mind, equally without +prejudice and fanaticism—has long been needed and earnestly wished for +by every student of socialism, and in all countries.</p> + +<p>THE LONDON SATURDAY REVIEW.—"A useful and ably written book."</p> + +<p>THE CONGREGATIONALIST.—"No subject more needs thorough and +impartial discussion at present than this, and the work before us +by John Rae is eminently able and helpful. It is distinguished in a +remarkable degree by breadth of view and the grasp of underlying +and widely reaching principles, and also by his minuteness of +detail and the careful relation of facts and figures in support of +its position."</p></blockquote> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<blockquote><p><b>COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM. In their History and Theory. A Sketch. By +THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D.D., LL.D., late President of Yale College. +12mo, $1.50.</b></p></blockquote> + +<blockquote><p>This book is the only comprehensive review of its subject, within +small compass, yet exactly meeting the needs of the reader, that is +accessible in English. The candor of the discussion is remarkable; +the book is the argument of a perfectly fair reasoner, painting +nothing in too dark colors, but taking his opponents at their best.</p> + +<p>THE N. Y. COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER.—"The work is an epitome of the +history of the socialistic and communistic movement, and will prove +a most valuable text book to all who have not made themselves +familiar with this great subject."</p></blockquote> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"><i>AN ADDITION TO THEODOR MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME.</i></p> + +<blockquote><p><b>THE PROVINCES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. From Cæsar to Diocletian. By +THEODOR MOMMSEN. Translated with the author's sanction and +additions, by William P. Dickson D.D., LL.D. With ten maps, by +Professor Kiepert. 2 vols., 8vo, $6.00.</b></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Contents</span>: The Northern Frontier of Italy—Spain—The Gallic +Provinces—Roman Germany and the Free Germans—Britain—The Danubian +Lands and the Wars on the Danube—Greek Europe—Asia Minor—The +Euphrates Frontier and the Parthians—Syria and the Land of the +Nabatæans—Judea and the Jews—Egypt—The African Provinces.</p> + +<p>N. Y. SUN.—"Professor Mommsen's work goes further than any other +extant, or now looked for, to provide us with a key to the mediæval +history of the Mediterranean world."</p> + +<p>PROF. W. A. PACKARD, <i>in Presbyterian Review</i>.—"The author draws +the wonderfully rich and varied picture of the conquest and +administration of that great circle of peoples and lands which +formed the empire of Rome outside of Italy, their agriculture, +trade, and manufactures, their artistic and scientific life, +through all degrees of civilization, with such detail and +completeness as could have come from no other hand than that of +this great master of historical research in all its departments, +guided by that gift of historical imagination, for which he is +equally eminent."</p></blockquote> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<blockquote><p><b>THE HISTORY OF GREECE. By Prof. Dr. ERNST CURTIUS. Translated by +Adolphus William Ward, M. A., Fellow of St. Peter's College, +Cambridge, Prof. of History in Owen's College, Manchester. Uniform +with Mommsen's History of Rome. Five volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top. +Price per set, $10.00.</b></p></blockquote> + +<blockquote><p>LONDON ATHENÆUM.—"Professor Curtius' eminent scholarship is a +sufficient guarantee for the trustworthiness of his history, while +the skill with which he groups his facts, and his effective mode of +narrating them, combine to render it no less readable than sound. +Prof. Curtius everywhere maintains the true dignity and +impartiality of history, and it is evident his sympathies are on +the side of justice, humanity, and progress."</p> + +<p>LONDON SPECTATOR.—"We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius' +book better than by saying that it may be fitly ranked with Theodor +Mommsen's great work."</p> + +<p>N. Y. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Contemporary Socialism + +Author: John Rae + +Release Date: September 8, 2011 [EBook #37351] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM + +BY + +JOHN RAE, M.A. + +_SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED_ + +New York +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +1891 + + + + +PREFACE. + + +In the present edition the original work has not only been carefully +revised, but very considerably enlarged. The chapters on "The Progress +and Present Position of Socialism" and "Russian Nihilism" contain a few +sentences retained from the first edition, but otherwise they are +entirely new--the former necessarily so on account of the nature of its +subject, and the latter on account of the importance of the fresh +materials that have been recently given to the world. A new chapter has +been added on "Anarchism," and another, of considerable extent, on +"State Socialism." No apology is required for the length of the latter, +for though State socialism is only a growth of yesterday, it has already +spread everywhere, and if it is not superseding socialism proper, it is +certainly eclipsing it in practical importance, and to some extent even +modifying it in character. Revolutionary socialism, growing more +opportunist of late years, seems losing much of its old phrenzy, and +getting domesticated into a shifty State socialism, fighting a +parliamentary battle for minor, though still probably mischievous, +changes within the lines of existing society, instead of the old war _a +l'outrance_ against existing society in whatever shape or form. Anyhow +the socialistic controversy in the immediate future will evidently be +fought along the lines of State socialism. It is there the hostile +parties meet, and it is well therefore to get, if we can, some more +exact knowledge of the ground. Some of the other chapters in the work +have been altered here and there for the purpose of bringing their +matter, where necessary, down to date, or embodying fresh illustrative +evidence, or occasionally of making the exposition itself more lucid and +effective; but it is unnecessary to specify these alterations in detail. + +_April, 1891._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. + +INTRODUCTORY. + +Revival of Socialism, 1--Extinction of Old Types, 2--Main Surviving +Type, Social Democracy, 3--Its Two Varieties, Socialist and Anarchist, +4--Its Relations to Political Democracy, 4--Definition of Socialism, +5--Cairnes on Mill's Profession of Socialism, 6--Ruling Characteristic +common to Old and New Socialism, 9--State Socialism, 11--Conservative +Socialism, 13--The Minimum of Socialism, 14--First Rise of +Social Democracy, 15--Rousseau, 16--Baboeuf, 17--Connection of +Socialism with Democracy, 18--The Danger to Free Institutions, +24--Necessity and Probability of Wider Diffusion of Property, 25. + +CHAPTER II. + +THE PROGRESS AND PRESENT POSITION OF SOCIALISM. + +National Conditions Favourable to Socialism, 30--Germany, 30--Progress +of Socialist Vote, 33--Action of Socialist Party in Reichstag, 34--Party +Programme, 38--Halle Congress of 1891, 40--France, 45--Anarchists, +47--Socialist Revolutionary Party, 48--Possibilists, 50--Blanquists, +53--The Socialist Group in the Chamber, 53--Austria, 54--Italy, +57--Spain, 60--Portugal, 65--Norway and Sweden, 66--Denmark, +67--Belgium, 70--Holland, 72--Switzerland, 73--United States, 77--Boston +Anarchists, 77--Mr. Henry George, 78--Mr. Bellamy's Nationalism, +79--Anarchists, 80--Socialistic Labour Party, 81--Knights of Labor, +82--England, 83--Social Democrats, 84--Anarchists, 86--Christian +Socialists, 87--Fabians, 88--Land Nationalization, 89--Scotland, +90--Australia, 90. + +CHAPTER III. + +FERDINAND LASSALLE. + +German Socialists before Lassalle, 93--Favourable Conditions for +Socialist Agitation in Germany, 94--Character of Lassalle, 96--The +Hatzfeldt Case, 99--Theft of the _Cassette_, 100--Trial for Sedition, +101--Literary Activity, 102--Letter to Leipzig Working Men, +103--Foundation of General Working Men's Association, 105--Lassalle's +Agitation, 105--His Death, 106--Funeral, 108--Political Views, 109--Idea +and Position of the Working Class, 109--Functions of the State, +111--Economic Doctrines, 113--Anarchic Socialism of the present +Industrial _Regime_, 117--Ricardo's "Iron Law" of Wages, 119--A +National, not an International Socialist, 124--Internationally not +Peculiar to Socialist Parties, 126--Reason of Socialist Condemnation of +Patriotism, 127. + +CHAPTER IV. + +KARL MARX. + +Reception of his Work on Capital, 128--The Young Hegelians, +130--Feuerbach's Humanism, 131--"Young Germany," 136--Weitling and +Albrecht, 137--Early Socialistic Leanings of Marx, 139--Marx in Paris, +141--in Brussels, 142--The Communist League, 142--Communist Manifesto of +1847, 144--_New Rhenish Gazette_, 146--Marx in London, 147--The +International, its Rise and Fall, 149--Tendency to Division in +Revolutionary Parties, 152--"Das Capital," 155--Historical Rise of +Capitalism, 156--Origin of Surplus Value, 157--Theory of Value, +160--Price, 163--Criticism of his Theory of Value, 165--Wages, +166--Normal Day of Labour, 168--Machinery, 170--Piecework, 172--Relative +Over-population, 174. + +CHAPTER V. + +THE FEDERALISM OF CARL MARLO. + +Rodbertus, 179--Professor Winkelblech (Marlo), 180--His Awakening to +Social Misery, 180--Application to Economic Study for Solution, +181--View of Social Problem, 182--Heathen Idea of Right (Monopolism) to +be replaced by Christian Idea of Right (Panpolism), 183--Liberalism and +Communism both Utopias, 184--Federalism alone realizes Christian Idea of +Right, 188--Natural Right of all to Property, 189--Right to Labour and +to Fruits of Labour, 191--Necessity of Controlling Increase of +Population, 192--Of Suppressing Unproductive Acquisition, +193--Collectivization of Land and Productive Capital, 193. + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. + +The Name, 195--Held's Vindication of it, 196--Objections to it, +197--Founders of the Historical School, 200--Their Departure from +Manchester Party, 202--Eisenach Congress, 202--The Historical Method, +204--The Historical School a Realist School, 205--An Ethical School, +209--Their Theory of the State, 211--The Social Question, 212--Von +Scheel, 215--Brentano, 215. + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS. + +Socialism and Christianity, 218--Views of St. Simon and Cabet, +218--Irreligious Character of Contemporary Socialism, 219--The Christian +Socialists of England in 1850, 220--Those of Germany now, 223--The +Catholic Group, 223--Ketteler, 224--Moufang, 230--Protestant Group, +233--Stoecker, Todt, 234--Christian Social Working Men's Party, 239--The +Social Monarchical Union, 241--The Evangelical Social Congress of 1890, +241--Is there a Specific Christian Social Politics? 242--Christian +Socialism in Austria, 242--In France, 243--International Catholic Social +Congress of 1890 at Liege, 243--The Pope's Encyclical, 245. + +CHAPTER VIII. + +ANARCHISM. + +Recent Activity of Anarchists, 247--Individualist Anarchists and +Communist Anarchists, 248--Latter are Ultra-Socialist, +249--Ultra-Democratic, 250--Proudhon's Anarchic Government, 250--No +Representative Institutions, 251--Prince Krapotkin's Plan for Housing +the Poor, 252--The Russian _Mir_ the Anarchist Model of Government, +252--Anarchism Atheistic, 254--Ultra-revolutionary, 255--Propaganda of +Deed, 256--Disunity and Weakness of Anarchism, 257. + +CHAPTER IX. + +RUSSIAN NIHILISM. + +Haxthausen's Opinion of Russia's Safety from Socialism, 259--Successive +Phases of Nihilism, 260--Origin of Nihilism, 261--Influence of the +Rural Commune on Revolutionary Thought, 262--Decabrist Conspiracy +of 1825, 263--Extreme Opinions at Russian Universities in Reign +of Nicholas, 264--Ascension of Alexander II., 264--Alexander Herzen, +265--Turgenieff and the word Nihilist, 266--Koscheleff and Fircks's +Accounts of Nihilism, 267--Causes of it, 268--Nihilist Sunday Schools, +Tchernycheffsky, 269--Effect of Emancipation of Serfs, 270--Ruined +Landlords, 270--Jews, 271--Heretics, 272--Bakunin, 273--Herzen's +Recantation of Revolutionism, 273--Bakunin in London, 274--His +"Amorphism," 274--His Picture of the Good Revolutionist, 275--Netchaieff +founds Branches of the International in Russia, 276--The +first Attempt on the Czar, 276--Reversion to Arbitrary and Despotic +Government, 276--Bakunin and Lavroff at Zurich, 278--"Going into +the People," 279--Secret Societies, 280--Nihilist Arrests and Trials, +281--Terrorism, 282--Assassination of Czar, 283--Present Socialist +Parties, 283--The Black Division Party, 283--Alarming Growth of a +Proletariat in Russia, 284--Impoverishment of Peasantry, 286--Break +up of Communistic System, 288--Dissolution of House Communities, +289--The Black Division, 292--The Labour Emancipation League, 295. + +CHAPTER X. + +SOCIALISM AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. + +A Social Question recognised by Contemporary Economists, 297--Mr. +Cairnes on the Situation, 297--Socialist Indictment of Existing +_Regime_, 299--1st, the "Iron Law of Wages," 300--Alleged Deterioration +of Wage-Labourers' Position Unfounded, 301--Their Standard of Living +Better, 302--Their Individual Share in the National Wealth more, +304--The "Iron Law" Misunderstood by Socialists, 305--The "Iron Law" +Itself Unsound, 307--The Rate of Wages really Depends on the _per +capita_ Production, 307--Prospects of Increasing _per capita_ +Production, 312--Piecework, 314--Shorter Day of Labour, 318--2nd, +Alleged Multiplication of Vicissitudes, 323--Effects of Machinery, +323--Temporary Redundancies, 324--Serious Redundancies Lessening, +324--Value of Good System of Commercial Statistics, 325--3rd, Alleged +Expropriation of the Value of the Labourer's Work, 327--How Value is +Constituted, 327--Justice of Interest, 329--Social Importance of Work of +Capitalist Employer, 330--Public Value of Private Property, 333--Value +of Freedom, 334--_Laissez-faire_, 336--Necessity for Opportunities of +Investment, 338--Co-operative Production, 338--Advantage of Interlacing +of Classes, 340--Reason of exceptionally good House Accommodation among +Working Classes of Sheffield, 341. + +CHAPTER XI. + +STATE SOCIALISM. + +_1. State Socialism and English Economics._ + +M. Leon Say on State Socialism, 345--State Property and State Industries +in Germany, 345--Mr. Goschen and others on Change in English +Opinion regarding State Intervention, 346--Their Views Exaggerated +and undiscriminating, 347--Little done in England in Nationalizing +Industries, 348--Much done in enlarging Popular Rights, 349--English +Thinkers never Believers in _Laissez-faire_, 351--Except Mr. H. Spencer, +352--Adam Smith's "Simple and Obvious System of Natural +Liberty," 353--His Theory of Social Politics, 356--Ricardo's Views, +359--McCulloch's, 360--On the Manufacturing System, 362--On +Crises, 363--On Irish Pauper Labour, 364--On Factory Legislation, +366--On Housing the Poor, 366--On the Poor Law, 368--The So-called +Manchester School, 372--The English Theory of Social Politics, 373. + +_2. The Nature and Principle of State Socialism._ + +Different Definitions of Socialism, 374--Origin and Meaning of State +Socialism, 379--The Social Monarchists, 380--Rodbertus, 380--His +Theory of Social Politics, 381--M. de Laveleye and Establishment of +Equality of Conditions, 384--Alleged Disinheritance of the People +from the Primitive Economic Rights, 385--Mr. Chamberlain's Doctrine +of "Ransom," 386--Professor A. Wagner's State Socialism, 387. + +_3. State Socialism and Social Reform._ + +Cobden's Praise of the Prussian Government for its Social Work, +393--Property, a Requisite of Progress, not of Freedom, 394--Limits +of Legitimate Intervention, 395--Short Definition of State Socialism, +399--Error of Plea for State Socialism as Extinguisher of Chance, +399--As Saving the Waste from Competition, 400--Wastefulness of +Socialism, 401--As shown in Samoa, 401--In England under Old Poor +Law, 402--In Brook Farm, 402--Idleness the Destroyer of the American +Owenite and Fourierist Communities, 403--Idleness, the Great +Difficulty in the Shaker and Rappist Communities, 405--"Old Slug," +406--Contentment with Squalid Conditions, 407--Special Liability to +Mismanagement, 408. + +_4. State Socialism and State Management._ + +Natural Qualities and Defects of State as Industrial Manager, 409--Post +Office, 410--Dockyards, 410--Forestry, 412--Mint and other +Forms of Attesting, 412--Monopolies, 413--Municipal Management +of Gas and Water Supply, 413--Land Nationalization, 414--State +Railways, 415--State Insurance in New Zealand, 417--Results of +Joint-Stock Management and Private Management in Massachusetts, 417. + +_5. State Socialism and Popular Right._ + +Why Impracticable Legislation is Socialistic, 418--Rule of Intervention +for Realizing Rights, 419--Right to Existence, 421--Right to +Superannuation, 421--Right to Labour, 423--Problem of the Unemployed, +425--Free Education, Libraries, Parks, 427--Where Stop? +427--Legal Fixing of Prices, as in Fares and Rates, 428--Of Fair Rent, +429--Of Fair Wages, 430--Compulsory Arbitration, 430--Legal +Minimum Wages, 431--Sweating System and Starvation Wages, +432--International Compulsory Eight Hours Day, 434. + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE AGRARIAN SOCIALISM OF HENRY GEORGE. + +Mr. George Predicts that his Book would find Apostles, 441--Fulfilment +of the Prediction, 441--Sisyphism, 442--Loses His Religious Belief +through Perception of Poverty, 443--Recovers it again, 445--1st, His +Problem, 445--Its unverified Assumption, 445--Evidence of Facts +against it, 448--Average Scale of Living has Risen, 449--Proportion +of Paupers, unable to obtain it, has Declined, 449--Special Decline of +Able-bodied Pauperism, 450--Increase of Length of Life, 452--Mr. +George Changes his Problem from one of Quantity to one of Proportion, +453--Rent really no larger Proportion of National Wealth or +even of Agricultural Produce than before, 454--Wages no Smaller +Proportion, 456--Indications of Increasing Distribution of Wealth, +457--2nd, Mr. George's Explanation, 461--Alleged Tendency of +Wages to a Minimum that gives but a Bare Living, 462--The Wages +Fund and Population Theories, 464--Mr. George's New Population +Theory, 465--His New Wages Fund Theory, 468--His Explanation +of the Distribution of Wealth without taking Profits into Account, +474--Views on Rent, 476--on Interest, 483--Wages, 484--Margin of +Cultivation, 484--Absurdities of his Explanation, 485--3rd, Mr. +George's Remedy, 487--Land Nationalization Movement in England, +488--Futility of Mr. George's Remedy, 489--Confiscation, 490--Difference +of Mr. George's Proposal from Mr. Mill's, 491--Agricultural +Land as truly the Fruit of Labour as other Commodities, 492--Real +Distinction between Land and other Property, 494--Social Claim on +all Property, 495--Is Private Property the best Guarantee for the +most Productive use of Land? 496--Land Nationalization no Assistance +to the Reforms that are Needed, 498. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +INTRODUCTORY. + + +It was a common topic of congratulation at the Exhibition of 1862 that +the political atmosphere of Europe was then entirely free from the +revolutionary alarms which overclouded the first Exhibition in 1851; but +in that very year the old clouds began to gather once more at different +quarters of the horizon. It was in 1862 that Lassalle delivered to a +club of working men in Berlin his address on "The Present Epoch of the +World, and the Idea of the Working Class," which was published shortly +afterwards under the title of "The Working Man's Programme," and which +has been called by his friends "The Wittenberg Theses" of the new +socialist movement; and it was at the Exhibition itself that those +relations were established between the delegates of English and French +trade societies which issued eventually in the organization of the +International. The double train thus laid has put in motion a propaganda +of social revolution more vigorous, widespread, and dangerous than any +which has preceded it. + +But though the reappearance of socialism was not immediately looked for +at the time, it could cause no serious surprise to any one who +considered how nearly the socialist theory is allied with some of the +ruling ideas of modern times, and how many points of attraction it +presents at once to the impatient philanthropy of enthusiasts, to the +passions of the multitude, and to the narrow but insistent logic of the +numerous class of minds that make little account of the complexity of +life. Socialism will probably never keep long away during the present +transitional period of society, and there is therefore less interest in +the mere fact of its reappearance than in marking the particular form in +which, after a prolonged retirement, it has actually returned; for this +may perhaps be reasonably taken to be its most vital and enduring type, +and consequently that with which we shall mainly have to reckon in the +future. + +Now the present movement is, before all, political and revolutionary. +The philanthropic and experimental forms of socialism, which played a +conspicuous _role_ before 1848, perished then in the wreck of the +Revolution, and have never risen to life again. The old schools have +dispersed. Their doctrines, their works, their very hopes have gone. The +theories of man's entire dependence on circumstances, of the +rehabilitation of the flesh, of the passional attraction, once in +everybody's mouth, have sunk into oblivion. The communities of Owenites, +St. Simonians, Fourierists, Icarians, which multiplied for a time on +both sides of the Atlantic, are extinct. The socialists of the present +day have discarded all belief in the possibility of effecting any social +regeneration except by means of political authority, and the first +object of their endeavours is therefore the conquest of the powers of +the State. There are some exceptions, but these are very unimportant. +The communistic societies of the United States, for instance, are mostly +organizations of eccentric religious sects which have no part or +influence in the life of the century. The Colinsian Collectivists, +followers of the Belgian socialist Colins, are a mere handful; and the +Familistere of Guise in France--a remarkable institution, founded since +1848 by an old disciple of Fourier, though not on Fourier's plan--stands +quite alone, and has no imitators. Non-political socialism may +accordingly be said to have practically disappeared. + +Not only so, but out of the several sorts and varieties of political +socialism, only one has revived in any strength, and that is the +extremest and most revolutionary. It is the democratic communism of the +Young Hegelians, and it scouts the very suggestion of State-help, and +will content itself with nothing short of State-transformation. Schemes +such as were popular and noisy thirty years ago--schemes, involving +indeed organic changes, but organic changes of only a partial +character--have gone to their rest. Louis Blanc, for example, was then a +name of some power; but, remarkably enough, though Louis Blanc was but +the other year buried with great honour, his Organization of Labour +seems to be as completely forgotten as the Circulus of Leroux. M. G. de +Molinari writes an interesting account of the debates that took place in +the working men's clubs of Paris in the year 1868-9--the first year they +were granted liberty of meeting after the establishment of the Second +Empire--and he states that while Fourier and Cabet were still quoted by +old disciples, though without any idea of their systems being of +practical moment, Louis Blanc's name was not even mentioned. Proudhon's +gospel of a State bank of mutual credit for furnishing labourers with +capital, by issuing inconvertible notes without money and without price, +has still a sprinkling of faithful believers, who call themselves +Mutualists; but they are extremely few, and, as a rule, the socialists +of France at the present day, like those of Germany, put their faith in +iron rather than paper. What they want is a democracy of labour, to use +one of their own phrases--that is, a State in which power and property +shall be based on labour; where citizenship shall depend on a labour +qualification, instead of a qualification of birth or of property; where +there shall be no citizen who enjoys without labouring, and no citizen +who labours without enjoying; where every one who is able to work shall +have employment, and every one who has wrought shall retain the whole +produce of his labour; and where accordingly, as the indispensable +prerequisite of the whole scheme, the land of the country and all other +instruments of production shall be made the joint property of the +community, and the conduct of all industrial operations be placed under +the direct administration of the State. Furthermore, all this is +contended for as a matter of simple right and justice to the labouring +classes, on the ground that the wealth of the nation belongs to the +hands that made it; it is contended for as an obligation of the State, +because the State is held to be merely the organized will of the people, +and the people is the labouring class; and it is contended for as an +object of immediate accomplishment--if possible, by ordinary +constitutional means; but, if not, by revolution. + +This is the form in which socialism has reappeared, and it may be +described in three words as Revolutionary Socialist Democracy. The +movement is divided into two main branches--socialism proper, or +collectivism, as it is sometimes called, and anarchism. There are +anarchists who are not socialists, but hold strongly by an individualist +constitution of property. They are very few, however, and the great mass +of the party known by that name in our day, including the Russian +Nihilists, are as ardent believers in the economic socialism of Karl +Marx as the Social Democrats of Germany themselves. They diverge from +the latter on a question of future government; but the differences +between the two are only such as the same movement might be expected to +exhibit in passing through different media, personal or national. Modern +democrats have been long divided into Centralists and Federalists--the +one party seeking to give to the democratic republic they contemplate a +strongly centralized form of government, and the other preferring to +leave the local communes comparatively independent and sovereign, and +free, if they choose, to unite themselves in convenient federations. The +federal republic has always been the favourite ideal of the Democrats of +Spain and of the Communards of Paris, and there is generally a tendency +among Federalists, in their impatience of all central authority, to drop +the element of federation out of their ideal altogether, and to advocate +the form of opinion known as "anarchy"--that is, the abolition of all +superior government. It was very natural that this ancient feud among +the democrats should appear in the ranks of socialist democracy, and it +was equally natural that the Russian Radicals, hating the autocracy of +their country and idealizing its rural communes, should become the chief +adherents of the federalist and even the anarchic tradition. + +This is the only point of principle that separates anarchism from +socialism. In other respects anarchism may be said to be but an extremer +phase of socialism. It indulges in more violent methods, and in a more +omnivorous spirit of destruction. Its fury takes a wider sweep; it +attacks all current beliefs and all existing institutions; it puts its +hopes in universal chaos. I shall endeavour in a future chapter to +explain, from peculiarities of the national character and culture, why +this gospel of chaos should find so much acceptance in Russia; but it is +no exclusively Russian product. It was preached with singular coolness, +as will be subsequently shown, by some of the young Hegelians of Germany +before 1848, and it obtains among the more volatile members of most +socialist organizations still. Attacks on religion, patriotism, the +family, are very usual accessories of their practical agitations +everywhere. As institutions and beliefs are seen to lend strength to +each other, teeth set on edge against one are easily brought to gnash at +all. A sharp check from the public authority generally brings out to the +front this extremer element in German socialism. After the repressive +legislation of 1878 the German socialists struck the restriction of +proceeding "by legal methods" out of their programme, and the wilder +spirits among them would be content with nothing short of a policy of +general destruction, and, being expelled from the party, started an +organization of their own on thoroughly anarchist lines. + +Under these influences, the word socialism has come to contract a new +meaning, and is now generally defined in a way that would exclude the +very theories it was originally invented to denote. Its political +element--its demand on the public power in behalf of the labouring +class--is taken to be the pith and essence of the system. Mr. Cairnes, +for example, says that the circumstance which distinguishes socialism +from all other modes of social speculation is its invocation of the +powers of the State, and he finds fault with Mr. Mill for describing +himself in his "Autobiography" as a socialist, merely because his ideal +of ultimate improvement had more in common with the ideal of socialistic +reformers than with the views of those who in contradistinction would be +called orthodox. The passage from the "Autobiography" runs as +follows:--"While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of +society over the individual which most socialistic systems are supposed +to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer +be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they +who do not work shall not eat will be applied, not to paupers only, but +impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead +of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of +birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; +and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible +for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits +which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the +society they belong to." ("Autobiography," pp. 231-232). On this passage +Mr. Cairnes observes:--"If to look forward to such a state of things as +an ideal to be striven for is socialism, I at once acknowledge myself a +socialist; but it seems to me that the idea which 'socialism' conveys to +most minds is not that of any particular form of society to be realized +at a future time when the character of human beings and the conditions +of human life are widely different from what they now are, but rather +certain modes of action, more especially the employment of the powers of +the State for the instant accomplishment of ideal schemes, which is the +invariable attribute of all projects generally regarded as socialistic. +So entirely is this the case that it is common to hear any proposal +which is thought to involve an undue extension of the power of the State +branded as socialistic, whatever be the object it may seek to +accomplish. After all, the question is one of nomenclature merely; but +people are so greatly governed by words that I cannot but regret that a +philosophy of social life with which I so deeply sympathize should be +prejudiced by verbal associations fitted, as it seems to me, only to +mislead." ("Leading Principles of Political Economy," p. 316.) + +Mr. Cairnes's objection is just; for a reformer's position ought to be +determined, not by the distant ideal he may think best, if the +conditions were ripe for its realization, but by the policy which he +counts to be of present importance under the conditions that exist. He +may cherish, as many orthodox economists do, the socialist hope. He may +look for a time when comfort and civilization shall be more universally +and securely diffused; when heads and hands in the world of labour shall +work together in amity; when competition and exclusive private property +and self-interest shall be swallowed up in love and common labour. But +he knows that the transformation must be gradual, and that the material +conditions of it must never be pushed on in advance of the intellectual +and moral. And this cuts him off by a whole diameter, from those who are +now known as socialists. In every question of the day he will be found +in an opposite camp from them. For he makes the ideal what it is and +ought to be--the goal of his action; they make it their starting-point, +and the peculiarity of the case is that with their view of the situation +they cannot make it anything else. For to their mind the struggle they +are engaged in is not a struggle for amelioration, but for plain and +elementary right. It is not a question of providing greater happiness +for the greatest number; it is a question of doing them bare justice, of +giving them their own, of protecting them against a disguised but very +real expropriation. They declare that, under the present industrial +arrangements, the labouring classes are in effect robbed of most of the +value of the work of their hands, and of course the suppression of +systematic robbery is an immediate obligation of the present. Justice is +a basis to start from now, if possible, and not a dream to await +hereafter. First let the labouring man have his rights, they cry, and +then, and then only, shall you have the way clear for any further parley +about his future. It is true that he is not the victim of individual +rapacity so much as of the system, and that he cannot get his rights +till the system is completely changed; but the system, they argue, can +never be completely changed except by the power of the State, and why +then not change it at once? Now, it is obvious how, to people who take +this view of the matter, there should seem no other alternative but an +instant reconstruction of industrial society at the hands of the State. +For if it is justice that has to be done, then it appears only natural +to conclude that it falls upon the State, as the organ of justice, to do +it, and that it cannot do it too soon. The demand for the immediate +accomplishment of their scheme by public authority is thus no accidental +accessory of it merely, but is really inseparable from the ideas on +which the scheme is founded. It is, in fact, so much, if I may use the +word, the _note_ of socialism wherever socialism makes itself heard in +the world now, that it can only produce confusion to give the name of +socialist to persons who hold this note in abhorrence, and virtually +desire no more than the gradual triumph of co-operation. + +It may be answered that the latter, like the former, aim not at a mere +reform of the present industrial system, but at an essential change in +its fundamental principles--at an eventual suppression of exclusive +property and unrestricted competition--and that it is therefore only +proper to classify them with those who seek the like important end, +however they may differ from the latter as to the means and seasons of +action. This might be right, perhaps, if our only consideration were to +furnish a philosophical classification of opinions; but we have to deal +with a living and agitating party whose name and work are much +canvassed, and there is at any rate great practical inconvenience in +extending the current designation of that party so as to include persons +who object strongly to its whole immediate work. + +The inconvenience has doubled since Mill's time, because socialism has +now become a much more definite programme of a much more definite party. +Even in the old romantic schools the ruling characteristic of socialism +was always its effort to realize some wrong view of distributive +justice. It was more than merely an impracticable plan for the +extinction of poverty, or the more equable diffusion of wealth, or the +correction of excessive inequalities, although that seems to be so +prevailing an impression that persons who have what they conceive more +feasible proposals to offer for these purposes put them forward under +the name of Practicable Socialism. But so far as these purposes go, they +are common to almost all schools of social reformers, even the most +individualist. If socialism meant only feeling earnestly about those +inequalities, or desiring earnestly their redress, or even strongly +resenting their inconsistency with an ideal of justice, then Mr. Herbert +Spencer is as much a socialist as either Marx or Lassalle. "The fates of +the great majority," says he, "have ever been, and doubtless still are, +so sad that it is painful to think of them. Unquestionably the existing +type of social organization is one which none who care for their kind +can contemplate with satisfaction; and unquestionably men's activities +accompanying this type are far from being admirable. The strong +divisions of rank and the immense inequalities of means are at variance +with that ideal of human relations on which the sympathetic imagination +likes to dwell; and the average conduct, under the pressure and +excitement of social life as at present carried on, is in sundry +respects repulsive." ("A Plea for Liberty," p. 4.) Socialists are far +from being the only persons whose sense of justice is offended by much +in the existing _regime_, and many very moderate politicians have held +that the policy of the law should always favour the diffusion of wealth +rather than its concentration; that it should always favour the active +business interest rather than the idle interest; that it should always +favour the weaker and more unprotected interest rather than the more +powerful and the more contumelious. The socialism comes in not with the +condemnation of the existing order of things, but with the policy +recommended for its correction. There is no socialism in recognising the +plain fact that the gifts of fortune, whether riches or talents, are not +distributed in the world according to merit. There is no socialism in +declaring that the rich, by reason of their riches, have +responsibilities towards the poor; or that the poor, by reason of their +poverty, have claims upon the rich. Nor is there any socialism in +holding that the State has responsibilities towards the poor, and that +the law ought, when necessary, to assert the reasonable claims of +poverty, or enforce the reasonable duties and obligations of wealth. All +that merely says that justice and humanity ought to govern in economic +affairs, as they ought to govern in all other affairs of life; and this +is an axiomatic position which nobody in the world denies. Only, +axiomatic though it is, it seems to dawn on many minds like a revelation +late in life, and they feel they are no longer as other men, and that +they must henceforth call themselves socialists. This awakening to the +injustice or inhumanity of things is not socialism, though socialism may +often proceed out of it. Socialism is always some scheme for the removal +of one injustice by the infliction of a greater--some scheme which, by +mistaking the rights and wrongs of the actual situation, or the natural +operation of its own provisions, or any other cause, would leave things +more inequitable and more offensive to a sound sense of justice than it +found them. The rich idler, for example, is always a great offence to +the socialist, because, according to the socialist sense of justice, no +man ought to be rich without working for his riches; and many other +people will possibly agree with the socialist in that. But then the +socialist proposes to abolish the rich idler by a scheme which would +breed the poor idler in overwhelming abundance, and for the sake of +equalizing poverty and wealth, would really equalize indolence and +industry--at once a more fatal and a more offensive form of injustice +than that which it was designed to redress. Socialists find fault with +the present order of things because the many workers support the few +idlers; but most of the old socialist communities of France and America +failed because of the opposite and greater injustice, that the few +workers found themselves supporting the many idlers, and the consequence +was a more harrowing sense of unfairness and a more universal +impoverishment than prevailed under the old system. The rich idler who +merely lives on what he has inherited may not belong to an ideal state +of society; but the poor idler, who shirks and dawdles and malingers, +because an indulgent community relieves him of the necessity of harder +exertion, is equally unideal, and he is much more hurtful in the +reality. + +But the socialists, in their mistaken ideas of justice, do not stop at +the rich idler. The rich idler is, in their view, a robber; but the rich +worker is a greater robber still. It is characteristic of socialist +thought to hold the accumulations of the rich to be in some sort of way +unjustly acquired by spoiling the poor. The poor are always represented +as the disinherited; their property is declared to have been taken from +them perforce by bad laws and bad economic arrangements and delivered +without lien into the hands of the capitalists. This view lived and +moved in the old socialism, but it has been worked into a reasoned and +professedly scientific argument as a basis and justification for the +new. The old socialism usually exclaimed against the justice of +interest, rent, property, and all forms of labourless income; but the +new socialism pretends to prove the charge by economic principles. It +alleges that all these forms of income are so many different forms of +plundering the working classes, who are the real producers of wealth, +and it sets up a claim on behalf of those classes to the whole value of +the things they produce without any deductions for rent, interest, or +profit--the right, as they call it, of the labourer to the whole produce +of his labour. Now this is a very distinct and definite claim of right +and justice, and the whole final object of the socialist organizations +of the present day is to get it realized, and realized at once, as +claims of right and justice ought, and must, by the powers of the State. +I shall have better opportunities at a later part of this work of +proving how absolutely unfounded and unjust is this claim; but I mention +it here merely to show that the essence of modern socialism is more and +more unmistakably revealing itself as an effort to realize some false +ideal of social or distributive justice. This is the deepest and most +ruling feature of socialism, and it really necessitated the advance of +the movement from the philanthropic to the political stage. The Owenites +were content with the idea of a voluntary equality of wealth; but that +is now dismissed as the mere children's dream, for popular rights are +things to be enforced by law, and questions of justice are for the +State. The political character of the movement has only brought forward +into stronger relief the distorted ideal of justice which gave it being; +and it has therefore become much more confusing than it formerly was for +one to call himself a socialist merely because he dreams of better +things to come, or because he would like to extinguish poverty, or to +diffuse property, or to extend the principle of progressive taxation, or +promote co-operation or profit-sharing, or any other just or useful +measures of practical social reform. That is shown very well by a simple +little tidemark. In the old days it was still possible, though it never +was a happy choice, for Maurice and the promoters of the new +co-operation movement to assume the designation of Christian Socialists; +but although Schultze-Delitzsch was working on the same lines with even +greater _eclat_ at the time when the present socialistic movement began +in Germany, he was left so far behind that he was thought the great +anti-socialist, and the people to whom it was now considered appropriate +to transfer the name of socialists were a set of university professors +and others who advocated a more extended use of the powers of the State +for the solution of the social question and the satisfaction of +working-class claims. + +The Socialists of the Chair and the Christian Socialists of Germany +contemplate nothing beyond correctives and palliatives of existing +evils; but then they ask the State to administer them. They ask the +State to inspect factories, or to legalize trades unions, or to organize +working-class insurance, or to fix fair wages. Their requests may be +wise or foolish, but none of them, nor all of them together, would +either subvert or transform the existing industrial system; and those +who propound them are called socialists merely because they make it part +of the State's business to deal with social questions, or perhaps more +particularly because they make it the State's business to deal with +social questions in the interest of the working class. This idea of +socialism seems largely to govern the current employment of the term. We +often hear any fresh extension of the functions of the State condemned +as socialistic even when the extension is not supposed to be made in the +interests of the working class, or to be conducive to them. The purchase +of the telegraphs was socialistic; the proposal to purchase the railways +is socialistic; a national system of education is socialistic; and an +ecclesiastical establishment, if it were now brought forward as a new +suggestion, would be pronounced socialistic too. Since, in a socialistic +community, all power is assigned to the State, any measure which now +increases the power of the State gets easily represented as an approach +to socialism, especially in the want--and it is one of our chief wants +at present--of a rational and discriminating theory of the proper limits +and sphere of public authority. + +But in the prevailing use of the word, there is generally the idea that +the intervention of authority to which it is applied is undertaken to +promote the well-being of the less fortunate classes of society. Since +socialism seeks to construct what may be called a working class State, +where the material welfare of each shall be the great object of the +organization of all, it is common to represent as socialistic any +proposal that asks the State to do something for the material well-being +of the working class, and to describe any group of such proposals, or +any theory that favours them, by the name of socialism. The so-called +State-socialism of Prince Bismarck, for example, is only, as he has +himself declared, a following-out of the traditions of the House of +Hohenzollern, the princes of that dynasty having always counted it one +of their first duties as rulers to exercise a special protection and +solicitude over the poorer classes of their subjects. The old ideas of +feudal protection and paternal government have charms for many minds +that deplore the democratic spirit of modern society. In Germany they +have been maintained by the feudal classes, the court, and the clergy; +their presence in the general intellectual atmosphere there has probably +facilitated the diffusion of socialistic views; and they have certainly +led to the curious phenomenon of a Conservative socialism, in which the +most obstinately Conservative interests in the country go to meet the +Social Democrats half way, and promise to do everything to get them +better wages if they will but come to church again and pray for the +Kaiser. The days of feudal protection and paternal government are gone; +as idealized by Carlyle, they perhaps never existed; at any rate, in an +age of equality they are no longer possible, but their modern +counterparts are precisely the ideas of social protection and fraternal +government which find their home among socialists. On the strength of +this analogy, Prince Bismarck and the German Emperor are sometimes +spoken of as socialists, because they believe, like the latter, that the +State should exercise a general or even a particular providence over the +industrial classes. But socialism is more than such a belief. It is not +only a theory of the State's action, but a theory of the State's action +founded on a theory of the labourer's right. It is at bottom, as I have +said, a mistaken demand for social justice. It tells us that an +enlargement of social justice was made when it was declared that every +man shall be free--or, in other words, that every man shall possess +completely his own powers of labour; and it claims that a new +enlargement of social justice shall be made now, to declare that every +man shall possess the whole produce of his labour. Now those who are +known as Conservative Socialists, in patronizing the working people, do +not dream of countenancing any such claim, or even of admitting in the +least that there is anything positively unjust in the present industrial +system. None of them would go further than to say that the economic +position of the labourer is insufficient to satisfy his legitimate +aspirations in a civilized community; few of them would go so far. It is +therefore highly confusing to class them among socialists. + +M. Limousin, again, speaks of a "minimum of socialism." He would call no +man a socialist who does not hold this minimum, and he would call every +man a socialist who does hold it. And the minimum of socialism, in his +opinion, is this, that the State owes a special duty of protection to +labourers because they are poor, and that this duty consists in securing +to them a more equitable part in the product of general labour. The +latter clause might have been better expressed in less general terms, +but that may pass. The definition recognises at any rate that the +paternal or the fraternal theory of government does not of itself +constitute socialism, and that this must be combined with the demand for +a new distribution of wealth, on supposed grounds of justice or equity, +before we have even the minimum of socialism. But it would have been +more correct if it had recognised that the demand for a better +distribution must be made not merely on _supposed_, but on _erroneous_ +grounds of justice or equity. If the proposed distribution is really +just and equitable, nothing can surely be more proper than to ask the +State to do its best to realize it and any practicable intervention for +that purpose is only a matter of the ordinary expansion of the law. What +is law, what is right, but a protection of the weak? and all legal +reform is a transition from a less equitable to a more equitable system +of arrangements. The equitable requirements of the poor are the natural +concern of the State on the narrowest theory of its functions, and M. +Limousin's definition would really include all rational social reformers +under the name of socialist. + +If we are in this way to stretch the word socialism first to the one +side, till it takes in J. S. Mill and Maurice and the co-operators, who +repudiate authority and State help, and then on the other side, till it +takes in Prince Bismarck, and our own aristocratic Conservative Young +England Party, and all social reformers who want the State to do its +ordinary duty of supplying the working classes with better securities +for the essentials of all humane living, how can there be any rational +and intelligible use of the word at all? Mill holds a more or less +socialistic idea of what a just society would be; Bismarck holds a more +or less socialistic view of the functions of the State; but neither of +these ideas separately make up the minimum of socialism; and it would +therefore be misleading to call either of them by that name, while to +call both by it would be hopeless confusion, since the one politician +holds exactly what the other rejects, and no more. But, after all, it is +of less importance to define socialism in the abstract than to describe +the actual concrete socialism that has organization and life, especially +as the name is only transferred in common speech to all these varying +shades of opinion, because they are thought to resemble that concrete +socialism in one feature or another. + + +Having now ascertained the general nature of the contemporary +socialistic movement, we shall be in a better position to judge of its +bearings and importance. We have seen that the only form of socialism +which has come to life again since 1848 is the political and +revolutionary phase of Social Democracy. Now, this was also the original +form in which socialism first appeared in modern Europe at the time of +the earlier Revolution of 1789. The tradition it represents is +consequently one of apparently vigorous vitality. It has kept its place +in European opinion for a hundred years, it seems to have grown with the +growth of the democratic spirit, and it has in our own day broken out +simultaneously in most of the countries of the Continent, and in some of +them with remarkable energy. A movement like this, which seems to have +taken a continuous and extensive hold of the popular mind, and which +moreover has a consciousness of right, a passion for social justice, +however mistaken, at the heart of it, cannot be treated lightly as a +political force; but at the same time its consequence is apt to be +greatly overrated both by the hopes of sanguine adherents and by the +apprehensions of opponents. Socialists are incessantly telling us that +their system is the last word of the Revolution, that the current which +broke loose over Europe in 1789 is setting, as it could not help +setting, in their direction, and that it can only find its final level +of repose in a democratic communism. Conservative Cassandras tell us +the same thing, for the Extreme Right takes the same view as the Extreme +Left does of the logical tendency of measures. They feel things about +them moving everywhere towards equality, they feel themselves helpless +to resist the movement, and they are sure they shall waken one morning +in a social revolution. Stahl, for example, thought democracy +necessarily conducted to socialism, and that wherever democracy entered, +socialism was already at the door. A few words will therefore be still +necessary towards explaining, first, the historical origin of modern +socialism; second, the relations of socialism to democracy, and, +finally, the extent and character of the spread of the present movement. + +Respecting the first of these three points, modern socialism was +generated out of the notions about property and the State which appeared +towards the close of last century in the course of the speculations then +in vogue on the origin and objects of civil society, and which were +proclaimed about the same time by many different writers--by Brissot, by +Mably, by Morelly, and above all by Rousseau. Their great idea was to +restore what they called the state of nature, when primitive equality +still reigned, and the earth belonged to none, and the fruits to all. +They taught that there was no foundation for property but need. He who +needed a thing had a right to it, and he who had more than he needed was +a thief. Rousseau said every man had naturally a right to whatever he +needed; and Brissot, anticipating the famous words of Proudhon, declared +that in a state of nature "exclusive property was theft." It was so in a +state of nature, but it was so also in a state of society, for society +was built on a social contract, "the clauses of which reduce themselves +to one, viz., the total transfer of each associate, with all his rights, +to the community." The individual is thus nothing; the State is all in +all. Property is only so much of the national estate conditionally +conceded to the individual. He has the right to use it, because the +State permits him, while the State permits him, and how the State +permits him. So with every other right; he is to think, speak, train his +children, or even beget them, as the State directs and allows, in the +interest of the common good. + +These ideas circulated in a diffuse state till 1793. They formed as yet +neither system nor party. But when Joseph Baboeuf, discarding his +Christian name of Joseph (because, as he said, he had no wish for +Joseph's virtues, and so saw no good in having him for his patron +saint), and taking instead the ominous name of Caius Gracchus, organized +the conspiracy of the _Egaux_ in that year, then modern socialism began, +and it began in the form in which it still survives. Baboeuf's ambition +was to found what he called a true democratic republic, and by a true +democratic republic he meant one in which all inequalities, whether of +right or of fact, should be abolished, and every citizen should have +enough and none too much. It was vain, he held, to dream of making an +end of privilege or oppression until all property came into the hands of +the Government, and was statedly distributed by the Government to the +citizens on a principle of scrupulous equality. Misled by the name Caius +Gracchus, people thought he wanted an agrarian law and equal division. +But he told them an agrarian law was folly, and equal division would not +last a twelvemonth, if the participants got the property to themselves. +What he wanted, he said, was something much more sublime--it was +community of goods. Equality could only be made enduring through the +abolition of private property. The State must be sole proprietor and +sole employer, and dispense to every man his work according to his +particular skill, and his subsistence in honourable sufficiency +according to his wants. An individual who monopolized anything over and +above such a sufficiency committed a social theft. Appropriation was to +be strictly limited to and by personal need. + +Baboeuf saw no difficulty in working the scheme; was it not practised +every day in the army, with 1,200,000 men? If it were said, the soil of +France is too small to sustain its population in the standard of +sufficiency contemplated, then so much the worse for the superfluous +population; let the greater landlords first, and then as many +sansculottes as were redundant, be put out of the way for their +country's good. He actually ascribed this intention to Robespierre, and +spoke of the Terror as if it were an excellent anticipation of +Malthusianism. Did any one say that, without inequalities, progress +would cease and arts and civilization decay, Baboeuf was equally +prepared to take the consequences. "Perish the arts," said a manifesto +discovered with him at his apprehension, "but let us have real +equality." "All evils," he said in his newspaper, "are on their trial. +Let them all be confounded. Let everything return to chaos, and from +chaos let there rise a new and regenerated world." + +We have here just the revolutionary socialist democracy that is still +rampant over Europe. Socialists now, indeed, generally make light of the +difficulty of over-population which Baboeuf solved so glibly with the +guillotine, and they contend that their system would humanize +civilization instead of destroying it. They follow, too, a different +tradition from Baboeuf regarding the right of property. While he built +that right on need, they build it on labour. He said the man who has +more than he needs is a thief; they say the man who has more than he +wrought for is a thief. He would have the State to give every man an +honourable sufficiency right off, according to his need; they ask the +State to give every man according to his work, or, if unfit for work, +according to his need, and they hold that this rule would afford every +one an honourable sufficiency. But these differences are only +refinements on Baboeuf's plan, and its main features remain--equality of +conditions, nationalization of property, democratic tyranny, a uniform +medium fatal to progress, an omnipresent mandarin control crushing out +of the people that energy of character which W. von Humboldt said was +the first and only virtue of man, because it was the root of all other +excellence and advancement. In short, socialists now seek, like Baboeuf, +to establish a democratic republic--a society built on the equal manhood +of every citizen--and, like Baboeuf, they think a true democratic +republic is necessarily a socialistic one. + + +This brings me to the next point I mentioned, the interesting problem of +the true relations of socialism to democracy. Is socialism, as Stahl and +others represent, an inevitable corollary of democracy? If so, our +interest in it is very real and very immediate. For democracy is already +here, and is at present engaged in every country of Europe in the very +work of reorganizing the social system into harmony with democratic +requirements. Its hammer may make little sound in some places, but the +work proceeds none the less effectually for the silence, and it will +proceed, slowly or more rapidly, until all the institutions of the +country have been renovated by the democratic spirit. Will the social +system, which will result from the process, be socialism? "The gradual +development of the principle of equality," says De Tocqueville, "is a +providential fact. It has all the characteristics of such a fact. It is +universal; it is durable; it constantly eludes all human interference; +and all events, as well as all men, contribute to its progress. Would it +be wise to imagine that a social movement, the causes of which lie so +far back, can be checked by the efforts of one generation? Can it be +believed that the democracy which has overthrown the feudal system and +vanquished kings will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists? Will it +stop now that it has grown so strong, and its adversaries so weak?" If, +then, the natural tendency of democracy is to socialism, to socialism we +must eventually go. + +But the natural tendency of democracy is not to socialism. A single +plain but remarkable fact suffices to establish that. Democracy has been +in full bloom in America for more than a century, and there are no +traces of socialism there except among some German immigrants of +yesterday; for, of course, the communism of the eccentric religious +sects of America proceeds from religious ideals, and has no bearing one +way or other on the social tendency of democracy. The labouring class is +politically everything in that country--everything, at least, that +electoral power can make them in an elective republic; and they have +never shown any desire to use their political power to become socially +everything or to interfere with the freedom of property. Had this been +in any way the necessary effect of democratic institutions, it must have +by this time made its appearance in the United States. De Tocqueville, +indeed, maintains that so far from there being any natural solidarity +between democracy and socialism, they are absolutely contrary the one to +the other. "Democracy," he said in a speech in the Republican Parliament +of France in 1849, "extends the sphere of individual independence; +socialism contracts it. Democracy gives every individual man his utmost +possible value; socialism makes every man an agent, an instrument, a +cipher. Democracy and socialism coincide only in the single word +equality, but observe the difference: democracy desires equality in +liberty; socialism seeks equality in compulsion and servitude." + +That is so far substantially true, but it cannot be received altogether +without qualification. We have had experience in modern times of two +different forms of democracy, which may be called the American and the +Continental. In America equality came as it were by nature, without +strife and without so much as observation; the colonists started equal. +But freedom was only won by sacrifice; the first pilgrims bought it by +exile; the founders of the Republic bought it a second time by blood. +Liberty therefore was their treasure, their ark, their passion; and +having been long trained in habits of self-government, they acquired in +the daily exercise of their liberty that strong sense of its practical +value, and that subtle instinct of its just limits, which always +constitute its surest bulwarks. With them the State was nothing more +than an association for mutual protection--an association, like any +other, having its own definite work to do and no more, and receiving +from its members the precise powers needed for that work and no more; +and they looked with a jealousy, warm from their history and life, on +any extension of the State's functions or powers beyond those primary +requirements of public safety or utility which they laid upon it. In the +United States property is widely diffused; liberty has been long enjoyed +by the people as a fact, as well as loved by them as an ideal; the +central authority has ever been held in comparative check; and +individual rights are so general a possession that any encroachment upon +them in the name of the majority would always tread on interests +numerous and strong enough to raise an effectual resistance. Democracy +has in America, accordingly, a soil most favourable to its healthy +growth; the history, the training, and the circumstances of the people +all concur to support liberty. + +But on the Continent democracy sprang from very different antecedents, +and possesses a very different character. Equality was introduced into +France by convulsion, and has engrossed an undue share of her attention +since. Freedom, on the other hand, has been really less desired than +power. The Revolution found the affairs of that country administered by +a strong centralized organization, with its hand everywhere and on +everything, and the Revolution left them so. Revolution has succeeded +revolution; dynasties and constitutions have come and gone; almost every +part of the political and social system has suffered change; the form of +government has been republic, empire, monarchy, empire and republic +again; but the authority of government, its sphere, its attributes, have +remained throughout the same. Each party in succession has seized the +power of the State, but none has sought to curb its range. On the +contrary, their temptation lay the other way; they have been always so +bent on using the authority and mechanism of government to impair or +suppress the influence of their adversaries, whom they regarded as at +the same time the adversaries of the State, that they could only wish +that authority to be larger and that mechanism more perfect than they +already were. Even the more popular parties are content to accept the +existing over-government as the normal state of affairs, and always +strive to gain the control of it rather than to restrain its action. And +so it has come about that, while they sought liberty for themselves, +they were afraid to grant it to their opponents, for fear their +opponents should be able to get the authority of this too powerful +administration into their hands and serve them in the same way. The +struggle for freedom has thus been corrupted into a struggle for power. +That is the secret of the pathetic story of modern France. That is why, +with all her marvellous efforts for liberty, she has never fully +possessed it, and that is why she seems condemned to instability. + +A growing minority of the democratic party in France is indeed opposed +to this unfortunate over-government, but the democratic party in general +has always countenanced it, perhaps more than any other party, because +to their minds government represents the will of the people, and the +people cannot be supposed to have any reason to restrain its own will. +Besides, they are still dominated by the doctrines of Rousseau and the +other revolutionary writers who looked with the utmost contempt on the +American idea of the State being a kind of joint-stock association +organized for a circumscribed purpose and with limited powers, and who +held the State, on the contrary, to be the organ of society in all its +interests, desires, and needs, and to be invested with all the powers +and rights of all the individuals that compose it. Under the social +contract, by which they conceived the State to be constituted, +individuals gave up all their rights and possessions to the community, +and got them back immediately afterwards as mere State concessions, +which there could be no injustice in withdrawing again next day for the +greater good of the community. Instead of enjoying equal freedom as men, +the great object was to make them enjoy equal completeness as citizens. + +From historical conditions like these there has sprung up on the +Continent--in Germany as well as France--a quite different type of +democracy from the American, and this type of democracy, while it may +not be the best, the truest, or the healthiest type of it, has a +tendency only too natural towards socialism. It contains in its very +build and temperament organic conditions that predispose it to socialism +as to its peculiarly besetting disease. It evinced this tendency very +early in the history of the Revolution. As Ledru-Rollin reminded De +Tocqueville, in replying to his speech, the right to labour on the part +of the strong and the right to assistance on the part of the weak were +already acknowledged by the Convention of 1793. Claims like these +constitute the very A B C of socialism, and they have always moved with +more or less energy in the democratic tradition of the Continent. +Democracy, guided by the spirit of freedom, will resist socialism; but +authoritative democracy, such as finds favour abroad, leans strongly +towards it. A democratic despotism is obviously more dangerous to +property than any other, inasmuch as the despot is, in this case, more +insatiable, and his rapacity is so easily hid and even sanctified under +the general considerations of humanity that always mingle with it. + +It is therefore manifest that the question whether political democracy +must end in social, is one that cannot be answered out of hand by +deduction from the idea. The development will differ in different +countries, for it depends on historical conditions, of which the most +important is that I have now touched on, whether the national character +and circumstances are calculated to guide that development into the form +of democratic liberty, or into the form of democratic tyranny. A second +condition is scarcely less important, viz., whether the laws and +economic situation of the country have conduced to a dispersion or to a +concentration of property. For even in the freest democracy individual +property can only be permanently sustained by diffusion, and, if +existing conditions have isolated it into the hands of the few, the many +will lie under a constant, and, in emergencies, an irresistible +temptation to take freedom in their hand and force the distribution of +property by law, or nationalize it entirely by a socialistic +reconstruction. It used to be a maxim in former days that power must be +distributed in some proportion to property, but with the advent of +democracy the maxim must be converted, and the rule of health will now +be found in having property distributed in some proportion to power. +That is the natural price of stability under a democratic _regime_. A +penniless omnipotence is an insupportable presence. When supreme power +is vested in a majority of the people, property cannot sit securely till +it becomes so general a possession that a majority of the people has a +stake in its defence, and this point will not be reached until at least +a large minority of them are actually owners, and the rest enjoy a +reasonable prospect of becoming so by the exercise of care and diligence +in their ordinary avocations. + +The belief of Marx and modern socialists, that the large system of +production, with its centralized capital and its aggregation of +workpeople in large centres, must, by necessary historical evolution, +end in the socialist State, is, as Professor A. Menger has pointed out, +not justified by history. The latifundia and slavery of the decline of +the Roman empire were not succeeded by any system of common property, +but by the institutions of mediaeval law which made the rights of private +property more absolute and exclusive. And in our own time the tendency +to concentration of property in the hands of a few great capitalists is +being corrected by the newer tendency to joint stock management, _i.e._, +to the union and multiplication of small capitalists; and this is of +course a tendency back from, and not on towards, the social revolution +Marx conceived to be imminent. But though the modern concentration of +wealth may not for the moment be increasing, and if it were, may not on +that account necessarily spell socialism, it certainly spells social +peril; and the future, therefore, stands before us with a solemn choice: +either property must contrive to get widely diffused peacefully, or it +will be diffused by acts of popular confiscation, or perhaps be +nationalized altogether; and the fate of free institutions hangs upon +the dilemma. For in a democratic community the peril is always near. De +Tocqueville may be right in saying that such communities, if left to +themselves, naturally love liberty; but there are other things they love +more, and this profound political philosopher has himself pointed out +with what exceptional vigour they nourish two powerful passions, either +of which, if it got the mastery, would prove fatal to freedom. One is +the love of equality. "I think," says he, "that democratic communities +have a natural taste for freedom; left to themselves they will seek to +cherish it, and view every privation of it with regret. But for equality +their passion is ardent, insatiable, insistent, invincible; they call +for equality in freedom, and if they cannot obtain that, they still call +for equality in slavery. They will endure poverty, servitude, pauperism, +but they will not endure aristocracy." The other is the unreined love of +material gratification. By this De Tocqueville does not mean sensual +corruption of manners, for he believes that sensuality will be more +moderate in a democracy than in other forms of society. He means the +passion for material comfort above all other things, which he describes +as the peculiar passion of the middle classes; the complete absorption +in the pursuit of material well-being and the means of material +well-being, to the disparagement and disregard of every ideal +consideration and interest, as if the chief end and whole dignity of man +lay in gaining a conventional standard of comfort. When a passion like +this spreads from the classes whose vanity it feeds to the classes +whose envy it excites, social revolution is at the gates, and this is +one of De Tocqueville's gravest apprehensions in contemplating the +advance of democracy. For he says that the passion for material +well-being has no check in a democratic community except religion, and +if religion were to decline--and the pursuit of comfort undoubtedly +impairs it--then liberty would perish. "For my part," he declares, "I +doubt whether man can ever support at once complete religious +independence and entire public freedom; and I am inclined to think that +if faith be wanting in him he must serve, and if he be free he must +believe." It is impossible, therefore, in an age when the democratic +spirit has grown so strong and victorious, to avoid taking some +reasonable concern for the future of liberty, more especially as at the +same time the sphere and power of government are being everywhere +continually extended, the devotion to material well-being, and what is +called material civilization, is ever increasing, and religious faith, +particularly among the educated and the working classes, is on the +decline. + +This is exactly the rock ahead of the modern State, of which we have +been long warned by keen eyes aloft, and which seems now to stand out +plainly enough to ordinary observers on the deck. Free institutions run +continual risk of shipwreck when power is the possession of the many, +but property--from whatever cause--the enjoyment of the few. With the +advance of democracy a diffusion of wealth becomes almost a necessity of +State. And the difficulty only begins when the necessity is perceived. +For the State cannot accomplish any lasting or effective change in the +matter without impairing or imperilling the freedom which its +intervention is meant to protect--without, in short, becoming socialist, +for fear of socialism; and when it has done its best, it finds that the +solution is still subject to moral and economic conditions which it has +no power to control. In trade and manufactures which occupy such vast +and increasing proportions of the population of modern countries, the +range of the State's beneficial or even possible action is very little; +and in these branches the natural conditions at present strongly favour +concentration or aggregation of capital. The small masters have simply +been worsted in ordinary competition with the large producers, and so +long as the large system of production continues the cheapest system of +production, no other result can be expected. The social problem, +therefore, so far as these branches are concerned, is to discover some +form of co-operative arrangement which shall reconcile the large system +of production with the interests of the labouring class, unless, +indeed--what is far from impossible--the large system of production is +itself to be superseded in the further advance of industrial +development. The economic superiority of that system depends greatly on +the circumstance that the power now in use--water or steam--necessitates +the concentration of machinery at one spot. Mr. Babbage predicted fifty +years ago that if a new power were to be discovered that could be +generated in a central place in quantities sufficient for the +requirements of a whole community, and then distributed, as gas is, +wherever it was wanted, the age of domestic manufactures would return. +Every little community might then find it cheaper, by saving carriage, +and availing itself of cheaper local labour, to manufacture for itself +many of the articles now made for it at the large mills; and the small +factory or workshop, so suitable, among other advantages, for +co-operative enterprise, would multiply everywhere. Now, have we such a +power in electricity? If so, not the least important effect of the new +agent will be its influence on the diffusion of wealth, and its aid +towards the solution of the social problem of the nineteenth century. + +With land and agriculture the situation is somewhat different. The +distribution of landed property has always depended largely on legal +conditions; and since these conditions have--in this country at +least--wrought for two centuries in favour of the aggregation of +estates, their relaxation may reasonably be expected to operate to some +extent in the contrary direction. Too much must not be built on this +expectation, however, for the natural conditions are at present, at +least, as partial to the large property as the legal. The abolition of +entail and primogeniture, by emancipating the living proprietor from the +preposterous tyranny of the dead, and by bringing to the burdened the +privilege of sale, must necessarily throw greater quantities of land +into the market than reach it now, but the redistribution of that land +will as necessarily conform to the existing social and economic +circumstances of the country; and England will never cease to be +characterized by the large property, so long as its social system lends +exceptional consideration to the possession of land, and its commercial +system is continually creating an exceptional number of large fortunes. +The market for the large estate is among the wealthy, who buy land as an +instrument of enjoyment, of power, of social ambition; and what with the +wealth made at home and the wealth made in the colonies, the number of +this class is ever on the increase; the natural market for the small +estate, on the other hand, is among the farming class, to whom land is a +commercial investment, and the farmers of England, unlike those of other +countries, unlike those of our own country in former days, are as a rule +positively indisposed to purchase land, finding it more profitable to +rent it. This aversion, however, is much more influential with large +farmers than with small ones. It is commonly argued as if a small farmer +who has saved money will be certain to employ it in taking a more +extensive holding, but that is not so. On the contrary, he more usually +leaves it in the bank; in some parts of Scotland many small farmers have +deposits of from L500 to L1000 lying there at interest; they studiously +conceal the fact, lest their landlords should hear of it, and raise +their rent, and they submit to much inconvenience rather than withdraw +any portion of it, once it is deposited. Their ruling object is security +and not aggrandisement, and consequently if land were in the market in +lots to suit them, they would be almost certain to become purchasers of +land. In forecasting the possibility of the rise of a peasant +proprietary in this country, it is often forgotten that, whether land is +a profitable investment for the farmer or not, the class of farmers from +whom such a proprietary would be generated is less anxious for a +profitable investment than for a safe one, and that to many of them, as +of other classes, independence will always possess much more than a +commercial value. + +But, however this may be, land is distributed by holdings as well as by +estates, and in connection with our present subject the distribution by +holdings is perhaps the more important thing of the two. "The magic of +property" is no exclusive prerogative of the soil; ownership in stock +will carry the same political effects as ownership in anything else; and +a satisfactory system of tenant right may yield all the social and +economic advantages of a peasant proprietary. In fact, tenant right, so +far as it goes, is proprietorship, and it has before now developed into +proprietorship even in name. The old lamented yeomanry of England were, +the great majority of them, copyholders, and a copyholder was simply a +tenant-at-will whose tenant right was consolidated by custom into a +perpetual and hereditary property; and if the soil of England will ever +again become distributed among as numerous a body of owners as held it +in former ages, it will most likely occur through a similar process of +consolidation of tenant right. But as it is--and though this is a +truism, it is often overlooked in discussions on the subject--the +tenants are owners as well as the landlords; their interests enlist them +on the side of stability; they have a stake in the defence of property; +and even though the prevailing tendency to the accumulation of estates +continues unchecked, its peril to the State may be mitigated by the +preservation and multiplication of small and comfortable holdings, which +shall nourish a substantial and independent peasantry, and supply a hope +and ambition to the rural labourers. This is so far well. We know that +it is an axiom with Continental socialists that a revolution has no +chance of success, however well supported it may be by the artisans of +the towns, if the peasantry are contented and take no part in it; and +the most serious feature in more than one of the great countries of +Europe at this moment is the miserable condition into which their +agricultural labourers have been suffered to fall, and their practical +exclusion from all opportunities of raising themselves out of it. The +stability of Europe may be said to rest on the number of its comfortable +peasantry; the dam of the Revolution is the small farm. This is not less +true of England than of the Continent, for although the agricultural +population is vastly outnumbered by the industrial in this country, that +consideration really increases rather than diminishes the political +value of sustaining and multiplying a contented tenantry. + +Now England is the classical country of the large farm as well as of +the large estate. Its holdings have always been larger than those of +other nations; they were so when half of them were owned by their +occupiers, they are so still when they are rented from great landlords. +The large farms have grown larger; a holding of 200 acres was counted a +very large farm in the time of the Commonwealth; it would be considered +a very moderate one in most English counties now. But yet the small farm +has not gone the way of the small estate. The effects of consolidation +have been balanced to such a degree by a simultaneous extension of the +area of cultivation that the number of holdings in England is probably +more considerable than it ever was before. If we may trust Gregory +King's estimate, there were, 200 years ago, 310,000 occupiers of +holdings in England, 160,000 owners, and 150,000 tenants; in 1880 there +were, exclusive of allotments, which are now numerous, 295,313 holdings +of 50 acres and under, and 414,804 holdings altogether. Moreover, the +future of the small farm is much more hopeful than the future of the +small estate or the small factory. All admit the small holding to be +preferable to the large for dairy farming and market gardening; and +dairy farms and market gardens are two classes of holdings that must +continue to multiply with the growth of the great towns. But even with +respect to corn crops, it is now coming to be well understood that the +existing conditions of high farming would be better satisfied by a +smaller size of holding than has been in most favour with agricultural +reformers hitherto; because then, and then only, can the farmer be +expected to bestow upon every rood of his ground that generous +expenditure of capital, and that sedulous and minute care which are now +necessary to make his business profitable. Without entering on the +disputed question of the comparative productiveness of large and small +farms, it ought to be remembered, in the first place, that the economic +advantage of the large farm--the reason why the large farmer has been +able to offer a higher rent than the smaller--is not so much because he +produces more, as because he can afford to produce less; and, in the +next place, that the small farmer has heretofore wrought, not only with +worse appliances than the large--which perhaps he must always do--but +also with less knowledge of the theory of his art, and worse conditions +of tenure--in both of which respects we may look for improvement in the +immediate future. Even as it is, we find small farmers equalling the +highest production of the country. In the evidence before the Duke of +Richmond's Commission, there is a case of a farmer of three acres +producing 45 bushels per acre, or about twice the average of the season +in those bad years that impoverished the larger farmers. The same body +of evidence seems to prove that the small farmer has more staying +power--a better capacity of weathering an agricultural crisis--than the +large; for he has much less frequently petitioned for a reduction of +rent--an advantage which landlords may be expected not to overlook. He +enjoys, too, a monopoly of the superior efficiency of interested labour, +and as the personal efficiency of the labourer--his skill, his +knowledge, his watchfulness, his care--are becoming not less, but more +important with the growth of scientific farming, whether in corn raising +or cattle rearing, the small farm system will probably continue to hold, +if not to enlarge, its place in modern agriculture; and if it is able to +do so, it will constitute one of the best buttresses against the social +revolution. + + +It remains to mark the spread of socialism in the various countries of +Europe and America, and to describe its present position; but this I +shall reserve for next chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE PROGRESS AND PRESENT POSITION OF SOCIALISM. + + +Socialism being now revolutionary social democracy, we should expect to +find it most widely and most acutely developed in those countries where, +1st, the social condition of the lower classes is most precarious, or, +in other words, where property and comfort are ill distributed; 2nd, +where political democracy is already a matter of popular agitation; and, +3rd, where previous revolutions have left behind them an unquiet and +revolutionary spirit--a "valetudinary habit," as Burke calls it, "of +making the extreme medicine of the State its daily bread." That is very +much what we do find. All these conditions are present in Germany--the +country in which socialism has made the most remarkable and rapid +advance. Dr. Engel, head of the Statistical Bureau of Prussia, states +that in 1875 six million persons, representing, with their families, +more than half the population of that State, had an income less than L21 +a year each; and only 140,000 persons had incomes above L150. The number +of landed proprietors is indeed comparatively large. In 1861 there were +more than two millions of them out of a population of 23,000,000; and in +a country where half the people are engaged in agriculture this would, +at first sight, seem to offer some assurance of general comfort. But +then the estates of most of them are much too small to keep them in +regular employment or to furnish them with adequate maintenance. More +than a million hold estates of less than three acres each, and averaging +little over an acre, and the soil is poor. The consequence is that the +small proprietor is almost always over head and ears in debt. His +property can hardly be called his own, and he pays to the usurer a much +larger sum annually as interest than he could rent the same land for in +the open market. More than half of these small estates lie in the Rhine +provinces alone, and the distressed condition of the peasantry there has +been lately brought again before the attention of the legislature. But +while thus in the west the agricultural population suffers seriously +from the excessive subdivision of landed property, they are straitened +in the eastern and northern provinces by their exclusion from it. Prince +Bismarck, speaking of the spread of socialism in a purely agricultural +district like Lauenburg, which had excited surprise, said that this +would not seem remarkable to any one who reflected that, from the land +legislation in that part of the country, the labourers could never hope +to acquire the smallest spot of ground as their own possession, and were +kept in a state of dependence on the gentry and the peasant proprietors. +Half the land of Prussia is held by 31,000 persons; and emigration, +which used to come chiefly from the eastern provinces, where subdivision +had produced a large class of indigent proprietors, proceeds now +predominantly from the quarters where large estates abound. The +diminution of emigration from the Rhine provinces is indeed one cause of +the increase of distress among the peasant proprietary; but why +emigration has ceased, when there seems more motive for it, is not so +clear. As yet, however, socialism has taken comparatively slight hold of +the rural population of Germany, because they are too scattered in most +parts to combine; but there exists in that country, as in others, a +general conviction that the condition of the agricultural labourers is +really a graver social question than the condition of the other +industrial classes, and must be faced in most countries before long. +Socialism has naturally made most way among the factory operatives of +Germany, who enjoy greatest facilities for combination and mutual +fermentation, and who besides, while better off in respect to wages than +various other sections of workpeople, are yet the most improvident and +discontented class in the community. Then, in considering the +circumstances of the labouring classes in Germany, it must be remembered +that, through customs and indirect taxation of different kinds, they pay +a larger share of the public burdens than they do in some countries, and +that the obligation of military service is felt to be so great a +hardship that more than a third of the extensive emigration which now +takes place every year from the German Empire is prompted by a desire to +escape it. Before the establishment of the Empire, only about a tenth +part of the emigrants left the country without an official permit; but +the proportion has been rising every year since then, and sometimes +comes to nearly a half. + +Under these circumstances neither the strength nor the progress of the +Social Democratic party in that country affords occasion for surprise. +At the last general election, in February, 1890, this party polled more +votes than any other single party in the Empire, and returned to the +Imperial Diet a body of representatives strong enough, by skilful +alliances, to exercise an effective influence on the course of affairs. +The advance of the party may be seen in the increase of the socialist +vote at the successive elections since the creation of the Empire. + + + In 1871 it was 101,927. + " 1874 " 351,670. + " 1877 " 493,447. + " 1878 " 437,438. + " 1881 " 311,961. + " 1884 " 549,000. + " 1887 " 774,128. + " 1890 " 1,427,000. + + +The effect of the coercive laws of 1878, as shown by these figures, is +very noteworthy. In consequence of the successive attempts made in that +year on the life of the Emperor William by two socialists, Hoedel and +Nobiling, Prince Bismarck determined to stamp out the whole agitation +with which the two criminals were connected by obtaining from the Diet +exceptional and temporary powers of repression. The first effect of +these measures was, as was natural, to disorganize the socialist party +for the time. Hundreds of its leaders were expelled from the country; +hundreds were thrown into prison or placed under police restriction; its +clubs and newspapers were suppressed; it was not allowed to hold +meetings, to make speeches, or to circulate literature of any kind. In +the course of the twelve years during which this exceptional legislation +has subsisted, it was stated at the recent Socialist Congress at Halle, +that 155 socialist journals and 1200 books or pamphlets had been +prohibited; 900 members of the party had been banished without trial; +1500 had been apprehended and 300 punished for contraventions of the +Anti-Socialist Laws. These measures paralyzed the old organization +sufficiently to reduce the Socialist vote at the next election in 1881 +by thirty per cent.; but the party presently recovered its ground. It +adapted itself to the new conditions, and established a secret +propaganda which was manifestly quite as effective for its purposes as +the old, and charged with more danger to the State. Its vote increased +immensely at each successive election thereafter; and now, as Rodbertus +prophesied, the social question has really proved "the Russian campaign +of Bismarck's fame," for his policy of repression has ended in tripling +the strength of the party it was designed to crush, and placing it in +possession of one-fifth of the whole voting power of the nation. It was +high time, therefore, to abandon so ineffectual a policy, and the +socialist coercive laws expired on the 30th September, 1890, and the +socialists inaugurated a new epoch of open and constitutional agitation +by a general congress at Halle in the beginning of October. + +The strength of the party in Parliament has never corresponded with its +strength at the polls. In 1871 it returned only 1 member to the Diet; in +1874, 9; in 1877, 12; in 1878, 9; in 1881, 12; in 1884, 24; in 1887, 11; +and in 1890, with an electoral vote which, under a system of +proportional representation, would have secured for it 80 members, it +has carried only 37. The party has no leaders now, in Parliament or out +of it, of the intellectual rank of Lassalle or Marx; but it is very +efficiently led. Its two chiefs, Liebknecht and Bebel, are well skilled +both in debate and in management, and have for many years maintained +their authority in a party peculiarly subject to jealousy and intrigue, +and have consolidated its organization under very adverse conditions. +Liebknecht, who is a journalist of most respectable talents, character, +and acquirements, is now the veteran of the movement, having been out in +the '48 and passed twelve years of political exile in London in constant +intercourse with Karl Marx. Bebel, a turner in Leipzig, is a much +younger man, and, indeed, is one of Liebknecht's converts, for he +opposed the movement when it was first started in Leipzig by Lassalle; +but he has fought so long and so stout a battle for his cause that he +too seems now one of its veterans. The other parliamentary leaders of +the party are for the most part still under thirty. Von Volmar, a +military officer who has left the service for agitation and journalism, +seems to be the older leaders' chief lieutenant; and Frohme, a young +_litterateur_ of repute, may be mentioned because he heads a tendency to +more moderate policy. + +Owing to the paucity of its representatives, the party has hitherto made +little attempt to initiate legislation. No bill can be introduced into +the German Diet unless it is backed by fifteen members; and, except in +the Parliament of 1884-7, the Socialist party never had fifteen members +until last February. The work of its parliamentary representatives, +therefore, has consisted mainly of criticism and opposition, and seizing +every suitable occasion for the ventilation of their general ideas; but +after the election of 1884, when they returned to the Diet twenty-four +strong, they introduced first a bill for the prohibition of Sunday +labour, which was stoutly opposed by Prince Bismarck, and defeated; and +second, a Labourer's Protection Bill, proposing to create an elaborate +organization for securing the general wellbeing of the working class. It +was to create, first, a new Labour Department of State; second, a series +of Workmen's Chambers, one for every district of 200,000 or 400,000 +inhabitants, with the necessary number of local auxiliaries; third, +Local Courts of Conciliation for the settlement of differences between +labourers and employers, from whose decision there should be an appeal +to the Workmen's Chamber of the District. Both the Court of Conciliation +and the Workmen's Chamber were to be composed of an equal number of +employers and employed. The connection between the Workmen's Chambers of +the District and the Minister of Labour would be through District +Councils of Labour, the members of which were to be chosen by the +minister out of a list presented by the Workmen's Chamber of the +District, and containing twice the number of names required to fill the +places. It was to be the duty of these Councils of Labour to send a +report every year to the Labour Department in Berlin on the condition +of labour in their respective districts after an annual inspection of +all the factories, workshops, and industrial establishments of any kind +located there. The Workmen's Chambers were to have a wide _role_, and +were the keystone of the system. Besides being the courts of final +appeal in labour disputes, they were to bring to the knowledge of the +competent authorities the existence of any disorders or grievances that +occurred in industrial life; to give advice on the best laws and +regulations for industry; to undertake inquiries into all matters +affecting the conditions of labour, treaties of commerce, taxes, rates +of wages, technical education, housing, prices of subsistence, etc. + +In introducing the bill, its promoters said a chief object of the whole +organization was to obtain for working men higher wages for a shorter +day's work, and they proposed the immediate reduction of the day of +labour to eight hours for miners and ten hours for all other trades, +together with some further limitations on the work of women and +children, the abolition of prison work at ordinary trades, and of Sunday +work, and the requirement of the payment of wages weekly, and their +payment in money. The bill was referred to a committee of the House, and +rejected, after that committee brought up an unfavourable report in +February, 1886, and nothing further has been done in the matter since; +but the Minister of the Interior was so much struck with the +unexpectedly moderate and practical character of its proposals that he +said if these proposals expressed the whole mind of the members who +proposed them, then those members might as well sit on the right side of +the House as on the left. The effect of the bill, as far as it was +workable, would merely be to give the working class a real and +systematic, but not unequal, voice in settling the conditions of their +own labour; and its rejection is to some extent an example of the way +the socialist agitation impedes the cause of labour by creating in the +public mind an unnecessary distrust even of reasonable reforms. + +There are some questions of general policy on which the socialist +deputies take up a position of their own. They always oppose the +military budget, because, like socialists everywhere, they are opposed +to all war and armaments. Wars are merely quarrels of rulers, for +peoples would make for peace, and armaments only drain the people's +pockets in order to perpetuate the people's oppression. Then they are +opposed to national debts, because national debts enable rulers to carry +on war. They are opposed to the new colonization policy of the Empire, +because in their opinion it is a policy of aggrandisement and conquest +undertaken under hypocritical pretences. They are opposed to protective +duties, because they dislike indirect taxation, as bearing always +unjustly on the labouring class. They are strong supporters of popular +education, but they opposed the new insurance laws because they feared +these laws would place people too much under the power of the +Government, for their jealousy of the Government that exists corrects +their general partiality for Government control, and tends to keep them +back even from some of the minor excesses of State-socialism. + +The moderate and apparently temporizing policy of the deputies is a +constant source of dissatisfaction to the wilder and more inexperienced +members of the party, who complain, as they did at the recent Halle +Congress, that trying to improve the present system of things is not the +best way of subverting it, and who will either have socialism _cum_ +revolution, or they will have nothing at all. But the older heads merely +smile, and tell them the hour for socialism and revolution is not yet, +that no man knows when it shall be, and that in the meantime it would be +mere folly for socialists to refuse the real comforts they can get +because they think they have ideally a right to a great deal more. +"Why," said Bebel, when he was charged at Halle with countenancing +armaments in violation of socialist principles by voting for a better +uniform to the soldiers,--"why, there are numbers of Social Democrats in +the Reserve, and was I to let them die through inadequate clothing +merely because I object to armaments as a general principle?" + +They of course think of this policy of accommodation as only a temporary +necessity, till they become strong enough to be thoroughgoing; but there +is perhaps better reason to believe it to be an abiding and growing +necessity of their position, for they are finding themselves more and +more obliged, if they are to become stronger at all, or even to keep the +strength they have, to bid for the support of aggrieved classes by +working for the immediate removal of their grievances, and thus to keep +on reducing day by day as it rises the volume of that social discontent +which is to turn the wheel of revolution. It is not unlikely that the +socialist party, now that it is sufficiently powerful to do something in +the legislature, but not sufficiently powerful to think of final social +transformation, will occupy themselves much more completely with those +miscellaneous social reforms in the immediate future; that they will +thereby become every day better acquainted with the real conditions on +which social improvement depends; that they will find more and more +satisfying employment in the exercise of their power of securing +palpable, practical benefits, than in agitating uncertain theoretical +schemes; and, in short, that they will settle permanently into what they +are for the present to some extent temporarily, a moderate labour party, +working for the real remedy of real grievances by the means best +adapted, under real conditions, national or political, for effecting the +purpose. + +The programme of the party, which was adopted at the Gotha Congress of +1875, after the union of the Marxist socialists and the Lassalleans, and +has remained unaltered ever since, has always consisted of a deferred +part and an actual. It contains, in fact, three programmes--the +programme for to-day, the programme for to-morrow, and the programme for +the day after to-morrow. The last is of course the socialist State of +the future, at present beyond our horizon altogether. Before it appears +there is to be a more or less prolonged period in which individual +management of industry is to be gradually superseded by co-operative +societies founded on State credit; but this intermediate state was only +made an article of the programme to conciliate the Lassalleans, and one +hears less of productive associations to-day from the German socialists +than from the French. The Germans would apparently prefer to go from +private property to public property direct rather than go _via_ +corporate property; but in any case their programme leaves the creation +of productive societies to a future period, and their task for the +present is to secure for working men factory and sanitary legislation, +constitutional liberties, and an easier and more equitable system of +taxation. + +The programme is as follows:-- + +"I. Labour is the source of all wealth and civilization, and since +productive labour as a whole is made possible only in and through +society, the entire produce of labour belongs to society, that is, it +belongs by an equal right to all its members, each according to his +reasonable needs, upon condition of a universal obligation to labour. + +"In existing society the instruments of labour are the monopoly of the +capitalist class; the dependence of the labouring class which results +therefrom is the cause of misery and servitude in all forms. + +"The emancipation of labour requires the conversion of the instruments +of labour into the common property of society, and the management of +labour by association, and the application of the product with a view to +the general good and an equitable distribution. + +"The emancipation of labour must be the work of the labouring class, in +relation to which all other classes are only a reactionary mass. + +"II. Starting from these principles, the Socialistic Labour Party of +Germany seeks by all lawful means to establish a free State and a +socialistic society, to break asunder the iron law of wages by the +abolition of the system of wage-labour, the suppression of every form of +exploitation, and the correction of all political and social inequality. + +"The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany, although at first working +within national limits, is sensible of the international character of +the labour movement, and resolved to fulfil all the duties thereby laid +on working men, in order to realize the brotherhood of all men. + +"The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany demands, in order to pave the +way for the solution of the social question, the establishment by State +help of socialistic productive associations under the democratic control +of the workpeople. Productive associations for industry and agriculture +should be created to such an extent that the socialistic organization of +all labour may arise out of them. + +"The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany demands, as the basis of the +State, (1) Universal, equal, and direct suffrage, together with secret +and obligatory voting, for all citizens over twenty years of age, in all +elections in State and commune. The election day must be a Sunday or +holiday. (2) Direct legislation by the people. Decision on peace or war +by the people. (3) Universal liability to military service. Militia +instead of standing army. (4) Abolition of all exceptional laws, +especially laws interfering with liberty of the press, of association, +and of meeting; in general, all laws restricting free expression of +opinion, free thought, and free inquiry. (5) Administration of justice +by the people. Gratuitous justice. (6) Universal, compulsory, +gratuitous, and equal education of the people by the State. Religion to +be declared a private affair. + +"The Socialistic Labour Party of Germany demands within the conditions +of existing society (1) The utmost possible extension of political +rights and liberties in the sense of the above demands. (2) The +replacement of all existing taxes, and especially of indirect taxes, +which peculiarly burden the people, by a single progressive income tax +for State and commune. (3) Unrestricted right of combination. (4) A +normal working day corresponding to the needs of society. Prohibition of +Sunday labour. (5) Prohibition of the labour of children, and of all +labour for women that is injurious to health and morality. (6) Laws for +protection of the life and health of workmen. Sanitary control of +workmen's dwellings. Inspection of mines, factories, workshops, and home +industry by officers chosen by working men. An effective employers' +liability act. (7) Regulation of prison labour. (8) Entire freedom of +management for all funds for the assistance and support of working men." + +A committee was appointed at the recent Halle Congress to revise this +programme and report to the Congress of 1891; but as the revision is +merely intended to place the programme in greater conformity with the +needs of the time, and keep it as it were up to date, only minor +modifications may be expected, and those probably in the direction of a +more practical and effectual dealing with existing grievances. Five +years ago the party thought a ten hours' day corresponded with the needs +of the time; they now ask for an eight hours' one. Instead of the +prohibition of Sunday labour, they now prefer to demand, as a more +workable equivalent, a period of thirty-six hours' continuous and +uninterrupted rest every week, irrespective of any particular day; and +they have sometimes taken up new working-class questions not especially +mentioned in their programme, or included directly under any of its +heads, like the abolition of payment of wages in kind. The whole spirit +of the late Congress leads us to look for the contemplated modifications +in this direction of meeting more effectually immediate working-class +wants. + +Many eyes were upon that Congress; for it was the first the German +socialists had held since they had recovered their freedom and proved +their strength. They were now clearly stronger than any socialist party +the world had yet seen, and much stronger than most revolutionary +parties who have made successful revolution. Would then the word now be +revolution? people asked. It was not: the word was caution. The first +effect of the victory in February had been otherwise, and in June, Herr +Bebel was still calling, Steady. "The majority of his party colleagues," +he said at a public meeting in Berlin on the 20th of that month, "had +been intoxicated by the result of the elections of February 20th, and +believed they could do what they liked with the middle class, as it was +already on the point of going under." But before October steadier +counsels prevailed, and the spirit of the Congress was moderation +itself. Although the Congress did not agree to the motion to restore to +the party programme the phrase "by lawful means," which had been deleted +from the opening paragraph of the second part of it by the Wyden +Congress of 1880, in consequence of the Anti-Socialist Laws no longer +giving them any choice except recourse to unlawful means, the general +and decided feeling of the Congress certainly was that only lawful means +could now answer their purposes. The controversy was repeatedly raised +by an extreme section of the party from Berlin, who complained that the +work of their parliamentary representatives had hitherto entirely +ignored the real aims of social democracy, and that a return should now +be made to its socialism and its revolution. But the voice of the +meeting was invariably against this Berlin movement. There was a time, +said M. Fleischman--and his speech was applauded--when it was counted +the right thing in the party to make revolutionary speeches, and point +to the coming day of account when mankind were to be emancipated at one +blow; but that was not a road they could make any progress by. And as +for boycotting, which had been spoken of, he declared he was all for +boycotting; but it was the boycotting of the military in such a way as +to give them no occasion for the use of their weapons. Liebknecht, the +chief leader of the party, followed, and was quite as emphatic in the +same line. People spoke of revolution, he said; but they should remember +that roast pigeons don't fly into one's mouth by themselves. It was easy +enough to make bitter speeches, and any fool and donkey could throw +bombs; but the misadventures of the anarchists showed plainly enough +that nothing could be done in that way. The socialists had now 20 per +cent. of the population; but what could 20 per cent. do against 80 per +cent. by the use of force? No, it was not force; it was reason they must +use if they would succeed. What, then, he asked, was the Social +Democracy to do? They must avoid divisions among themselves, and go out +and convert the still indifferent masses. The electoral suffrage was +their best weapon of agitation, and their surest means of increasing the +party. Prince Bismarck had been represented in a popular book as +practising peasant-fishery and elector-fishery. "Peasant-fishery and +elector-fishery--" said Liebknecht, amid much applause, "that is the +word for the Social Democrats to-day." + +Another suggestion of the extreme section was that the party should now +assail the Church and religion, as socialist and revolutionary parties +have so generally done; but this bit of their old traditional policy +received scant regard from the Halle Congress. A strong feeling was +expressed that the party had damaged itself in the past by its assaults +on the Church, and that its present policy ought, in self-preservation, +to be one of religious neutrality and toleration. "Instead," said +Liebknecht, "of squandering our strength in a struggle with the Church +and sacerdotalism, let us go to the root of the matter. We desire to +overthrow the State of the classes. When we have done that, the Church +and sacerdotalism will fall with it, and in this respect we are much +more radical and much more definite in purpose than our opponents, for +we like neither the priests nor the anti-priests." The old revolutionary +policy of stirring up hatred against all existing institutions is thus +relegated from the present to the distant future, after the present +class-State is overthrown and the working-class or socialist State +established in its place. + +"Well, then," suggested another old-world socialist, "let us, at any +rate, issue a pamphlet describing the glories of this socialist State, +and get the people prepared to flock into it"; but this suggestion was +also frowned down. "For," said Liebknecht, "who could say what the +_Zukunft Staat_--the socialist State of the future--is to be? Who could +foresee so much as the development of the existing German State for a +single year?" In other words--I think I am not misinterpreting their +meaning--the State of the future is the concern of the future; the +business of a living party is within the needs and within the lines of +the living present. + +What, then, is to be the business of this formidable Social Democratic +party? Peasant-catching is the word. The elections showed that while the +party was very strong in the large towns, it was very weak in the rural +districts, and among special populations like the Poles and Alsatians; +and although previous revolutionists thought everything was gained if +the large towns were gained, the Social Democrats generally admit that +the social revolution is impossible without the adherence of the +peasantry. The peasants, therefore, must be won over to the party. Once +in the party, they may learn socialism and revolution, but they must +first be brought in, and for that purpose there must be started a +special peasants' cry--a cry, that is, for the redress of some immediate +grievance of that class; and one suggestion made at the Congress was, +that the cry for the peasantry should be the abolition of the German +_Gesinde_ (farm-servant) system. In the same spirit the Congress +recommended the parliamentary party to take up the question of seamen's +rights, and agitate for better regulations for securing the wellbeing of +that class. The advance towards practicality is even more evident in +their determination upon strikes. Hitherto, for the most part, +socialists have either looked on strikes with lofty disdain as poor +attempts to get a petty rise in wages instead of abolishing the present +wages system altogether, or they have thrown themselves into strikes for +the mere purpose of fomenting labour troubles, and breaking perchance +the power of the large capitalist class; and this latter view was not +unrepresented at the Halle Congress. The resolution of the Congress, +however, declared (1st) that strikes and boycotting were often useful +means of improving the social position of the labouring class; but (2nd) +that they were to be resorted to even for that purpose with great +circumspection. "Whereas, however, strikes and boycotting are +double-edged weapons which, when used in unsuitable places and at an +inopportune moment, are calculated to do more harm than good to the +interests of the working class, this Congress recommends German working +men carefully to weigh the circumstances under which they purpose to +make use of those weapons." The revolutionary ideal seems thus to be +retreating--perhaps insensibly--in the socialistic mind into an +eschatological decoration, into a kind of future Advent which is to come +and to be believed in; but the practical concerns of the present must be +more and more treated in their own practical way. + +Since the Congress, the party has issued a manifesto to the peasantry, +in which, after promising a new and happy day that is coming for them, +which is to restore to them the beautiful earth and the poetry of life, +they declare against the patriarchal system, and the increase of brandy +distilling; and then, confessing that few socialists know anything about +agricultural questions, invite information and discussion for the +enlightenment of the party. Here again they forget that they have a +theory which is as applicable to agriculture as to manufactures, and +they want to make practical investigations with a view to practical +solutions. + +Of course the movement will always generate revolutionary elements as +occasions arise, and these sometimes of the wildest character. Most and +Hasselman, and their following, who were expelled at the Congress of +Wyden in 1880, were anarchists of a violent type, and Mosts and +Hasselmans may arise again. But at present anarchism hardly exists in +Germany, and the Social Democratic party is peacefully trying to make +people as comfortable as possible till the fulness of time arrives. + +It may be added that the present income of the party, as stated at the +last Congress, is L19,525, and that since February, 1890, they have +established nineteen daily newspapers and forty weekly, with a total +circulation of 254,000. + +The socialist movement in other countries may be disposed of much more +briefly, for in no other country has it worn anything like the same +importance, except in Russia, and of the Russian agitation I shall treat +more fully in a subsequent chapter on "Russian Nihilism." I may observe +here, however, that the Russian agitation has not been without its +influence on the nations of Western Europe. It was Bakunin who first +kindled the socialist movements of Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Holland, +and the anarchist fermentations of the last six years have been due in +no inconsiderable measure to the new leaven of Russian ideas introduced +by men like Prince Krapotkin and the two hundred other Russian refugees +that are scattered abroad in the free countries of Europe. + +In France there is much animated socialist agitation, but no solid and +coherent socialist party such as exists in Germany. The movement is +disunited and fragmentary, and confined almost entirely to the large +towns, where many circumstances conspire to favour its growth. The +French working class are born to revolutionary traditions. The better +portion of them, moreover, though they long since gave up all belief in +the old native forms of socialism, never ceased to be imbued with +socialist ideas and aspirations; and M. de Molinari said in 1869, from +his experience of French working men's clubs, that out of every ten +French working men who had any interest beyond eating and drinking, nine +were Socialists. Then there is in France a larger proportion of the +working class than in most countries, who are kept in constant poverty +and discontent and commotion by their own improvident habits. A pamphlet +called "Le Sublime," which attracted considerable attention some years +ago, stated that only forty per cent. of the working men of Paris were +out of debt; and Mr. Malet reported to the English Foreign Office that +they were, as a body, so dissipated that none of them had grandchildren +or grandfathers. But, on the other hand, France enjoys a solid security +against the successful advance of socialism in her peasant proprietors. +Half the French population belong to that class, and their industry, +thrift, and comfort have long been held up to our admiration by +economists. According to M. de Lavergne, they are not so well fed, so +well clad, or so well lodged as the farm labourers of England; but, +living in a different climate, they have fewer wants, and are +undoubtedly more contented. Among people like these, passing their days +in frugal comfort and fruitful industry, and looking with quiet hope and +confidence to the future, socialism finds, of course, no open door. On +the contrary, every man of them feels he has something to lose and +nothing to gain by social revolution; the fear of socialism is, indeed, +one of the chief influences guiding their political action; and as they +are as numerous as all the other classes in the community put together, +their worldly contentment is a bulwark of enormous value to the existing +order of things. The impression of their substantial independence is so +marked that even the Frenchmen who were members of the International +Working Men's Association would not assent to the abolition of a peasant +proprietary, but always insisted, contrary to the principles of the +Association, on the continued maintenance of that system as a necessary +counterpoise to the power of the Government. + +The present socialist groups and sects of France are all believers in +the so-called scientific socialism of Marx and Lassalle, and the most +important of them work for a programme substantially identical with that +of Gotha. Marx's ideas were introduced among the French by the +International, and they were adopted by a section of the Revolutionary +Committee of the Paris Commune, 1871; but after the suppression of the +Commune, they made so little stir for some years that Thiers declared, +in his last manifesto as President of the Republic, that socialism, +which was then busy in Germany, was absolutely dead in France. Its +recrudescence was chiefly due to the activity of the Communards. Some of +them had escaped to London, where they got into closer communion with +Marx and his friends; and in 1874, thirty-four of these refugees, all +military or administrative officers of the Commune, and most of them +not professed socialists before, issued a manifesto pronouncing entirely +for socialism, and describing the Commune as "the militant form of the +social revolution"; but it was not till after the amnesty of the +Communards, and their return from New Caledonia and elsewhere in 1880, +that the first sensible ripple of socialist agitation was felt in France +since the downfall of the second Republic. Numbers of socialist journals +began to appear, and a general congress of working men, held at Havre in +1880, adopted a programme modelled on the lines of that of the German +Social Democrats, and made preparations for an active propaganda and +organization. + +The adoption of the socialistic programme, however, rent the Congress in +three, and the two opposite wings, the Co-operationists and the +Anarchists, withdrew and established separate organizations of their +own. The co-operationists, believing that the amelioration of the +working class would only come by the gradual execution of practicable +and suitable measures, and that these could only be successfully carried +by means of skilful alliances with existing political parties, declared +the Havre programme to be a programme for the year 2000, and that the +true policy of the working-class now was a policy of possibilities. This +last word is said to supply the origin of the term Possibilist, which +has now come to be applied not to this co-operationist party, but to one +of the two divisions into which the third or centre party of the Havre +Congress--the socialists--shortly afterwards split up. + +The co-operationists formed themselves into a body known as the +Republican Socialist Alliance, which, as the name indicates, aims at +social reforms under the existing republican form of State. They have +held several congresses, their membership includes many well-known and +even eminent Radical politicians--M. Clemenceau, for example--and they +were supported by leading Radical journals, like _Le Justice_ and +_L'Intransigeant_; but their activity and their numbers have both +dwindled away, probably because their work was done sufficiently well +already by other political or working-class organizations. + +The anarchists set up not a single organization, but a number of little +independent clubs, which agree with one another mainly in their dislike +of all constituted authority. They want to have all things in common, +somehow or other; but for master or superior of any sort they will have +none, be it king or committee. Their ideas find ready favour in France, +because they are near allied with the theory of the Revolutionary +Commune cherished among the Communards; and although there is no means +of calculating their numbers exactly, they are believed to be pretty +strong--at least, in the South of France. At the time of the Lyons +Anarchist trial, at which Prince Krapotkin was convicted, they claimed +themselves to have 8,000 adherents in Lyons alone. In 1886 the +authorities knew of twenty little anarchist clubs in Paris, which had +between them, however, only a membership of 1,500; and of these a +considerable proportion were foreign immigrants, especially Austrians +and Russians, with a few Spaniards. Some of these clubs are mainly +convivial, with a dash of treason for pungency; but others have an +almost devouring passion for "deeds," and are ever concerting some new +method of waging their strange guerilla against "princes, proprietors, +and parsons." When a new method is discovered, a new club is sometimes +formed to carry it out. For instance, the _Anti-proprietaires_, which is +said to be one of the best organized of the anarchist clubs, bind their +members (1) to pay no house-rent,--rent, of course, being theft, and +theft being really restitution; and (2) if the landlord at length +resorts to law against any of them for this default, to come to their +brother's help and remove his furniture to safer quarters before the +moment of execution. The group _La Panthere_, to which Louise Michel +belongs, and which has 500 members, and the group _Experimental Chemie_, +as their names indicate, prefer less jocular methods. The best known of +the anarchists are old Communards like Louise Michel herself and Elisee +Reclus, the geographer. + +The third section of the Havre Congress contained the majority of the +119 delegates, and they formed themselves into the Socialist +Revolutionary Party of France, with the programme already mentioned, +which was carried on the motion of M. Jules Guesde. + +This programme sets out with the declaration that all instruments of +production must be transferred to the possession of the community, and +that this can only result from an act of revolution on the part of the +working class organized as an independent political party, and then it +goes on to say that one of the best means of promoting this end at +present was to take part in the elections with the following platform:-- + + +A. _Political._ + +1. Abolition of all laws restricting freedom of the press, of +association, or of meeting, and particularly the law against the +International Working Men's Association. Abolition of "work-books." + +2. Abolition of the budget of public worship, and secularization of +ecclesiastical property. + +3. Abolition of national debt. + +4. Universal military service on the part of the people. + +5. Communal independence in police and local affairs. + + +B. _Economic._ + +1. One day of rest in the week under legal regulation. Limitation of +working day to eight hours for adults. Prohibition of the labour of +children under fourteen, and limitation of work hours to six for young +persons between fourteen and sixteen. + +2. Legal fixing of minimum wages every year in accordance with the price +of provisions. + +3. Equality of wages of male and female labour. + +4. Scientific and technical training for all children, as well as their +support at the expense of society as represented by the State and the +Communes. + +5. Support of the aged and infirm by society. + +6. Prohibition of all interference on the part of employers with the +management of the relief and sustentation funds of the working classes, +to whom the sole control of these funds should be left. + +7. Employers' liability guaranteed by deposit by employers proportioned +to number of workmen. + +8. Participation of the workmen in drawing up factory regulations. +Abolition of employer's claim to punish the labourer by fines and +stoppages (according to resolution of the Commune of 27th April, 1871). + +9. Revision of all agreements by which public property has been +alienated (banks, railways, mines, etc.). The management of all State +factories to be committed to the workmen employed in them. + +10. Abolition of all indirect taxes, and change of all direct ones into +a progressive income tax on all incomes above 3,000 francs. + +11. Abolition of the right of inheritance, except in the line of direct +descent, and of the latter in the case of fortunes above 20,000 francs. + +At the congress of the party held at St. Etienne two years after this +programme was adopted, M. Brousse, a medical practitioner in Paris, and +a member of the Town Council, who had already shown signs of disputing +the leadership of M. Guesde, carried by a vote of thirty-six to +twenty-seven a motion for introducing some modifications, and the +minority seceded and set up a separate organization. In spite of +repeated efforts at reconciliation, the two sections of the French +socialists have never united again or been able even to work together +temporarily at an election. Besides personal jealousies, there are most +important differences of tendency keeping them apart. The Guesdists +accept the policy of Karl Marx as well as his economic doctrine: the +universal revolution, and the centralized socialist State, as well as +the theory of surplus value and the right to the full product of labour. +The Broussists, on the other hand, believe in decentralization, and +would prefer municipalizing industries to nationalizing them. They are +for giving the commune control of its own police, its own soldiers, its +own civil administration, its own judiciary; and they think the _regime_ +of collective property can be best brought in and best carried on by +local bodies. They would have the towns take over their own gas, light, +and water supply, their omnibus and tramway traffic; but they would have +them take over also many of the common industries which never tend +towards monopoly or even call for any special control. They would +municipalize, for example, the bakehouses and the mealshops and the +granaries, apparently as supplying the necessaries of life, and they +would have various other branches of industry undertaken by the towns to +a certain limited extent, in order to provide suitable work for the +unemployed. Then in 1887 they added a fresh plank to their platform, and +asked for the establishment by municipalities, on public money or +credit, of productive associations to be owned--not, like the other +undertakings, by the municipality, but--by the working men employed in +them. This is a reappearance of the old policy of Lassalle, with the +difference that the productive associations are to be founded on +municipal and not on State credit; and the reappearance is not +surprising in France, because co-operative production has, on the whole, +been more successful in that country than in any other. Then another of +their demands is, that all public contracts should be subjected to such +conditions as to wages and hours of labour as the workmen's syndicates +approve; and in Paris they have already succeeded in obtaining this +concession from the Town Council so far as municipal contracts are +concerned. These workmen's syndicates are trade unions, which aim only +at bettering the position of their members without theoretical +prepossessions, but are quite as bold in their demands on the public +powers as the socialists, and apparently more successful. In 1885 their +claims included, not only an eight hours' day and a normal rate of fair +wages, but the fixing of all salaries under 500 francs, a credit to +themselves of 500,000,000 francs, and the gratuitous use of empty houses +by their members; and in 1886 they obtained from the Town Council of +Paris a furnished room, with free lighting and firing, and a subvention +of 20,000 francs, for the establishment of a Labour Bureau, to be a +centre for all working-class deliberations and intelligence, and a +registry for the unemployed. + +The socialism of the Broussists is thus practically a municipal +socialism: municipal industries, municipal credit for working men's +productive associations, municipal concessions to trade unions; but all +this seems to the Guesdists to be mere tinkering, to be no better than +the possibilities of the Republican Socialist Alliance, and they have +for that reason given their rivals the name of Possibilists, which for +distinction's sake they still commonly bear. Neither section had any +representative in the Chamber of Deputies till 1889, when the Broussists +succeeded in returning M. Joffrin; but the Broussists have nine in the +Town Council of Paris. The Guesdists have more men of culture among +them; Guesde himself and Lafargue, Karl Marx's son-in-law, are both men +of ability and public position; but they have a smaller following, and +what they have is on the decline. Their sympathy with the principles of +German Socialism, their alliance with the German Socialist party is +against them, for the French working men have a very honest hatred of +the Germans, both from recollections of the war and from the pressure of +German industrial competition; and the feeling seems to be returned by +the Germans, for it appeared even among the socialists at the recent +congress at Halle, international and non-patriotic as socialists often +claim to be. One of the personal accusations that disturbed the sittings +of that congress was, that the leaders of the party had been discovered +in secret conference with the delegates of the French socialists, MM. +Guesde and Ferroul, who had been sent to greet their German comrades. + +The Possibilists have no very eminent members, the most leading persons +among them being Brousse himself and MM. Allemane and Joffrin. But they +are not inconsiderable in number, and they are growing. They have 400 +Circles of Social Studies all over the country, organized into six +regions, each with its regular regional congress, and all working under +a national executive committee and a general national congress, meeting +once a year. The future of French socialism seems to be with the +Possibilists rather than the Guesdists; and the future of the +Possibilists, like the future of the German socialists, seems to lie in +the direction of releasing their limbs from the dead clothes of +socialist theory, in order to take freer and more practical action for +the positive wellbeing of the working class. At the recent congress of +the Possibilists at Chatellerault in October, 1890, the chief questions +discussed were the reform the system of poor relief and the eight hours' +day. They want an international eight hours' day, but they would be +willing to allow other four hours' overtime, to be paid for by double +wages. + +In 1885 the two divisions of socialists combined for electioneering +purposes with one another and with a third revolutionary body called the +Blanquists, and they actually formed together an organization known as +the Revolutionary Union; but the three parties quarrelled again before +the election, and the union was dissolved. The Blanquists are disciples +of the veteran conspirator Blanqui, and include some well-known men, +such as General Eudes, and MM. Vaillant and Roche. They are +revolutionists pure and simple, and in some respects stand near the +anarchists; only, being old birds, they move about more cautiously, and +indeed are sometimes for that reason--and because they act as +intermediaries between other revolutionaries--called the "diplomatists +of lawlessness." With all their love for revolution, however, they have +more than the usual democratic aversion to war, and their chief work at +present is in connection with the league they have founded against +permanent armies. + +Although revolutionary socialism is so ill represented in the French +Legislature, there is a special parliamentary party, known as the +Socialist Group, which was founded by nineteen deputies in 1887, and +returned thirty candidates to the Chamber at the election of 1889. They +are for communal autonomy; for the transformation of industrial +monopolies into public services, to be directed by the respective +companies under the control of the public administration; and for the +progressive nationalization of property, so as to make the individual +employment of it accessible to free labourers; and they have no lack of +other planks in their platform: international federation and +arbitration; abolition of standing armies; abolition of capital +punishment; universal suffrage; minority representation; sexual +equality; free education, primary, secondary, and technical; suppression +of the budget of public worship; separation of Church and State; +absolute liberty to think, speak, write, meet, associate, and contract; +abolition of indirect taxes and customs, and introduction of a +progressive income tax, and a progressive succession duty; public +_creches_; establishment of superannuation, sick and accident insurance +at public expense. Among the deputies who signed the programme in 1887 +were the two Boulangists, MM. Laisant and Laur, and MM. Clovis Hughes, +Basley, Bower, etc. The idea of the party seems to be what M. Laisant +recommends in his "L'Anarchie Bourgeoise," published in the same year +1887, a Republican Socialist party, which, accepting the good works of +socialism, without caring for its political or economic theory, shall do +its best to abolish misery by any means open to it under the existing +republican form of government. Republican socialism corresponds +therefore to what is called State socialism in Germany--the abolition of +poverty by means of the power of the present State; and the question +between socialists and other reformers is narrowing in France, as +elsewhere, into a question of the justice and the suitability of the +individual measures proposed. + +There is also a body of Christian Socialists in France, of whom, +however, I shall have more to say in a subsequent chapter on the +Christian Socialists. + +Socialism crossed very early from Prussia into Austria and took quick +root among the German-speaking population, but has never to this day +made much way among any of the other nationalities in the Empire. The +Magyars are, on the whole, fairly comfortable and contented in their +worldly circumstances, and they have a strong national aversion to +anything German, even a German utopia; so that they lent no ear to the +socialist agitation till 1880, when a socialist congress of 119 +delegates was held at Buda Pest and founded the Hungarian Labour Party. +The agitation, however, has not assumed any important dimensions. The +Poles of Austria, like the Poles of Russia and the Poles of Prussia, +have all along been a source of much disappointment to socialist +leaders, who expected they would leap into the arms of any revolutionary +scheme, but find them too pre-occupied with their own nationalist cause +to care for any other. The same observation applies to the Czechs. They +are Czechs and Federalists first, and a social system under which they +would cease to be Czechs and Federalists, and become mere atoms under a +powerful centralized government, led possibly by Germans, is naturally +not much to their fancy. But in the German-speaking part of the monarchy +socialism has found a ready and general welcome, and has latterly grown +most popular in the anarchist form. This development is due to various +causes. The federalist ideas prevalent in the country would be a bridge +to the general principles of anarchism, while the coercive laws in force +since 1870 would naturally provoke a recourse to revolutionary methods +and an impatience with the sober and Fabian policy of the Austrian +Social Democrats. The Social Democrats of Austria were advised from the +first by Von Schweitzer and Liebknecht, the leaders of German socialism +at the time, to adopt this temporizing policy, as being on the whole the +best for the party in the circumstances existing in their country. They +were advised to give a general support at the elections to the Liberal +party, because nothing could be done for socialism in Austria till the +priestly and feudal ascendancy was abolished, and that could only be +done by strengthening the hands of the Liberals. They have continued to +observe this moderate course. Unlike their German comrades, they looked +with favourable eyes on the labour legislation introduced by Government +for improving the condition of the working classes; and though they have +suffered from coercive legislation much longer and sometimes quite as +severely, they have never struck the qualification "by legal means" out +of their principles, but, on the contrary, have declared, when they were +permitted to hold a meeting--as for example at Bruenn in 1884--that they +adhered entirely and exclusively to peaceful methods, and repudiated the +deeds of the anarchists. But then they are apparently not prospering in +number, while the anarchists are. For one thing they have never had good +leaders, and though they sometimes invite Liebknecht or one of the +German socialist leaders to come and rouse them, Government has always +refused liberty for such addresses to be delivered in Austria. The +anarchists, on the other hand, had an energetic and eloquent leader in +Peukert, a house-painter, who is now a chief personage in anarchist +circles in London, and from here no doubt still carries on relations +with his old friends; and their propaganda seems to be spreading, if we +judge from the political trials, and from the fresh measures of +repression directed against it in 1884, when Vienna was put under siege, +and again in the latter part of 1888. They have nine or ten newspapers, +and the socialists six or seven. Neither faction has any representative +in Parliament. + +Both parties direct their chief attention to the peasantry, especially +where any germ of an agrarian movement happens already to prevail. The +Galician agitation against great landlords in 1886 was fomented by +anarchist emissaries, and we occasionally hear of anarchist operations +among the people of Northern Bohemia or Styria as well as in Upper +Austria, where rural discontent has long been more or less acute. +Austria is mainly an agricultural country; but greater part of the land +is held in very large estates by the clergy and nobility, and the evils +of the old feudal _regime_ are only now being gradually removed. There +are, it is true, as many as 1,700,000 peasant proprietors in the +Cisleithanian half of the Empire alone; but then their properties are +seriously encumbered by the debt of their redemption from feudal +servitudes and by the severity of the public taxation. The land tax +amounts to 26 per cent. of the proprietor's income, and the indirect +taxes on articles of consumption are numerous and burdensome. But +three-fourths of the rural population are merely farm servants or day +labourers, and are worse off even than the same class elsewhere. The +social question in Austria is largely agrarian, but the spontaneous +movements of the Austrian peasantry seem rather unlikely to run in +harness with social democracy. Unions of free peasants for example have +sprung up of recent years in various provinces. Their great aim is to +procure a reduction in the taxes paid by the peasantry; but then they +add to their programme the principle of State-help to labour, the +abolition of all feudal privileges and all rights of birth, gratuitous +education, and cessation of the policy of contracting national debt, and +they speak vaguely about instituting a peasant State, and requiring +every minister and responsible official to serve an apprenticeship to +peasant labour as a qualification for office, in order that he may +understand the necessities and capacities of the peasantry. This idea of +the peasant State is analogous to the idea of the labour State of the +Social Democrats; but of course this is agreement which is really +conflict. It is like the harmony between Sforza and Charles VIII.: "I +and my cousin Charles are wonderfully at one; we both seek the same +thing--Milan." The class interest of the landed peasant is contrary to +the class interest of the working man, and would be invaded by social +democracy. The peasantry are simply fighting for their own land, and as +their votes are courted by both political parties they will probably be +able to secure some mitigation of their grievances. Distress is +certainly serious among them when, as happened a few years ago, in a +parish of 135 houses as many as 35 executions were made in one day for +failure to pay taxes, and in another of 250 houses as many as 72; but on +the whole there seems to be little of that hopeless indigence which +appears among the peasant proprietary in countries where the practice of +unrestricted or compulsory subdivision of holdings exists, or has +recently existed, to any considerable extent. + +There is an influential Catholic Socialist movement in Austria, led by +the clergy and nobility, and dealing in an earnest spirit with the +social question as it appears in that country. + +Socialism was introduced into Italy in 1868 by Bakunin, who, in spite of +the opposition of Mazzini, gained wide acceptance for his ideas wherever +he went, and founded many branches of the International in the country, +which survived the extinction of the parent society, and continued to +bear its name. They were, like Bakunin himself, anarchist in their +social and political views, and were marked by an especial violence in +their attacks on Church and State and family. They published a great +number of journals of various sorts, and kept up an incessant and very +successful propaganda; but no heed was paid them by the authorities till +1878, when an attempt on the life of the king led to a thorough +examination being instituted into the whole agitation. The dimensions +and ramifications of the movement were found to be so much more +extensive than any one in power had anticipated, that it was determined +to set a close watch thereafter on all its operations, and its meetings +and congresses were then from time to time proclaimed. But after the +passing of the Franchise Act of 1882, a new socialist movement came into +being which looked to constitutional methods alone. The franchise was +not reduced very low: it only gave a vote to one person in every +fourteen, while in England one in six has a vote; but the reduction was +accompanied with _scrutin de liste_ and the ballot, and it was felt +that something could now be done. Accordingly a new Socialist Labour +Party was formed on the usual Marxist lines, under the leadership of a +very capable man, an orator and a good organizer, Andrea Costa, who was +formerly an anarchist. This party obtained 50,000 votes at the first +subsequent election, and returned two candidates to the Legislature, one +of them being Costa. In 1883 it formed a working alliance with the +Italian Democratic Society--an active working-class body of which Costa +was a leading member; and in 1884 it entered into an incorporating union +with another working-class body, the Lombardy Labour Federation, which +had a large number of local branches. With their help it had become, in +1886, an organization of 133 branches, and Government resolved to +suppress it. Most of the branches in the north of Italy were dissolved, +and their funds, flags, and libraries confiscated. But the party is +still active over the country. They returned three members at the late +election in November, 1890. The growth of this party was even more +displeasing to the anarchists than to the Government, and in 1882 they +called back Maletesta, one of their old leaders, from abroad, to conduct +a regular campaign over the whole kingdom against Costa, and to denounce +every man for a traitor to the socialist cause who should take any +manner of part in parliamentary elections, or show the smallest sign of +reconciliation to the existing order of things. His campaign ended in +his arrest in May, 1883, and the condemnation of himself and 53 comrades +to several years' imprisonment for inciting to disturbance of the public +peace. Besides their contentions with the Socialist Labour Party, the +Italian anarchists are much given to contending among themselves, and +split up, even beyond other parties of the kind, upon trifles of +doctrine or procedure. But however divided they may be, socialists and +anarchists in Italy are all united in opposing the new social +legislation of the Government. When the Employers' Liability Bill was +introduced, Costa declared that legislation of that kind was utterly +useless so long as the people were denied electoral rights, because till +the franchise was reduced far enough to give the people a real voice in +public affairs, there could be no security for the loyal and faithful +execution of the provisions of such an act. + +The Italian socialists and anarchists have always had a lively brood of +journals, which, however, are generally shorter lived than even +socialist organs elsewhere; but when one dies for want of funds to-day, +another comes out in its place to-morrow. This remarkable fertility in +journals seems to be due to the large literary proletariat that exists +in Italy--the unemployed educated class who could live by their pen if +they only had a paper to use it in. Through their presence among the +socialists new journals are pushed forward without sufficient funds to +carry them on, and as the people are too poor to subscribe to them, and +the party too poor to subsidize them, they soon come to a natural +termination. + +The development of socialism in Italy is no matter of surprise. Though +there is no great industry in the country, the whole population seems a +proletariat. There is a distressed nobility, a distressed peasantry, a +distressed working class, a distressed body of university men. Mr. +Gallenga says that for six months of the year Italy is a national +workshop; everybody is out of employment, and has to get work from the +State; and he states as the reason for this, that the employing class +wants enterprise and ability, and are apt to look to the Government for +any profitable undertakings. The Government, however, are no better +financiers than the rest, and the state of the public finances is one of +the chief evils of the country. Taxation is very heavy, and yet property +and life are not secure. "The peasants," says M. de Laveleye, "are +reduced to extreme misery by rent and taxation, both alike excessive. +Wages are completely inadequate. Agricultural labourers live huddled in +bourgades, and obtain only intermittent employment. There is thus a +rural proletariat more wretched than the industrial. Excluded from +property by _latifundia_, it becomes the enemy of a social order that +crushes it." The situation is scarcely better in parts of the country +which are free from _latifundia_. In Sicily most of the agricultural +population live on farms owned by themselves; but then these farms are +too small to support them adequately, and their occupiers scorn the idea +of working for hire. There are as many nobles in Sicily as in England, +and Mr. Dawes (from whose report on Sicily to the Foreign Office in 1872 +I draw these particulars states) that 25 per cent. of the lower orders +are what he terms drones--idlers who are maintained by their wives and +children. In Italy there is little working-class opinion distinct from +the agricultural. There are few factories, and the artisans who work in +towns have the habit of living in their native villages near by, and +going and coming every day to their work. Two-thirds of the persons +engaged in manufactures do so, or at least go to their rural homes from +Saturday till Monday. Their habits and ways of thinking are those of +agriculturists, and the social question of Italy is substantially the +agricultural labourers' question. The students at the universities, too, +are everywhere leavened with socialism. The advanced men among them seem +to have ceased to cry for a republic, and to place their hope now in +socialism. They have no desire to overturn a king who is as patriotic as +the best president, and they count the form of government of minor +importance as compared with the reconstitution of property. Bakunin +thought Italy the most revolutionary country of Europe except Spain, +because of its exceptionally numerous body of enthusiastic young men +without career or prospects; and certainly revolutionary elements abound +in the peninsula, but, as M. de Laveleye shrewdly remarks, a revolution +is perhaps next to impossible for want of a revolutionary metropolis. +"The malaria," he says, "which makes Rome uninhabitable for part of the +year will long preserve her from the danger of becoming the seat of a +new commune." + +In Spain, as in Italy, socialism made its first appearance in 1868 +through the agency of the International, and found an immediate and warm +response among the people. In 1873 the International had an extensive +Spanish organization with 300,000 members and 674 branches planted over +the whole length and breadth of the country, from industrial centres +like Barcelona to remote rural districts like the island of Majorca. M. +de Laveleye was present at several sittings of these socialist clubs +when he visited Spain in 1869, and he says: "They were usually held in +churches erected for worship. From the pulpit the orators attacked all +that had previously been exalted there--God, religion, the priests, the +rich. The speeches were white hot, but the audience remained calm. Many +women were seated on the ground, working, nursing their babes, and +listening attentively as to a sermon. It was the very image of '93." He +adds that their journals wrote with unparalleled violence, especially +against religion and the Church. + +On the division of the International in 1872 the Spanish members sided +with Bakunin, supporting the anarchist view of the government of the +future. This was natural for Spaniards, among whom their own central +government had been long thoroughly detested, and their own communal +organization regarded with general satisfaction. The Spanish people, +even the humblest of them, are imbued beyond others with those +sentiments of personal dignity and mutual equality which are at the +bottom of democratic aspirations; and in their local communes, where +every inhabitant who can read and write has a voice in public council, +they have for ages been accustomed to manage their own affairs with +harmony and advantage. The revolutionary tradition of Spain has +accordingly always favoured communal autonomy, and the Federal rather +than the Central Republic. Castelar declares the Federal Republic to be +the most perfect form of State, though he thinks it for the present +impracticable; and the revolution of 1873, in which the International +played an active part, was excited for the purpose of establishing it. +The Federal Republicans are not all socialists. Many of them are for +making the agricultural labourers peasant proprietors, and even for +dividing the communal property among them; but in a country like Spain, +where communal property exists already to a large extent, the idea of +making all other property communal property lies ever at hand as a ready +resource of reformers. Nor, again, are all Spanish socialists +federalists. There is a Social Democratic Labour party in Spain which +broke off from the anarchists in 1882, and published a programme more on +Marxist lines, demanding (1) the acquisition of political power; (2) the +transformation of all private and corporate into the common property of +the nation; and (3) the reorganization of society on the basis of +industrial associations. This body is not very numerous, but at one of +its recent congresses it had delegates from 152 different branches, and +it has for the last four years had a party organ, _El Socialista_, in +Madrid. + +The bulk of Spanish socialism still belongs, however, to the anarchist +wing. Little has been heard of the anarchists in Spain since the +revolution of 1873 and the fall of the International. They have usually +been blamed for the attempts on the life of the king in 1878, but they +have certainly never resorted to those promiscuous outrages which have +formed so much of the recent policy of the anarchists of other +countries; and except for participation in a few demonstrations of the +unemployed, they have maintained a surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive +existence. In 1881 they reconstituted themselves as the Spanish +Federation of the International Working Men's Association, which is said +by the author of "Socialismus und Anarchismus, 1883-86," apparently on +their own authority, to have 70,000 members in all Spain, who are +distributed in 800 branches, and hold regular district and national +congresses, but always under cover of secrecy. They have two journals in +Madrid, and others in the larger towns elsewhere. They are sorely +divided into parties and schools on very petty points, and fierce strife +rages between the tweedledums and tweedledees. One party has broken away +altogether and established a society of its own, under the name of the +Autonomists. The anarchists are in close alliance with an agrarian +organization called the Rural Labourers' Union, which has agitated since +1879 for the abolition of _latifundia_ in Andalusia, but they always +disclaim all connection with the more notorious Andalusian society, the +Black Hand, which committed so many outrages in 1881 and 1882, and is +often identified with the anarchists. The Black Hand is a separate +organization from the anarchists, and has, it is said, 40,000 members, +mostly peasants, in Andalusia and the neighbouring provinces; but their +principles are undoubtedly socialistic. Their views are confined to the +subject of land; but they declare that land, like all other property, +has been made by labour, that it therefore cannot in right belong to the +idle and rich class who at present own it, and that any means may be +legitimately employed to deprive this class of usurpers of their +possessions--the sword, fire, slander, perjury. + +In Spain, unlike most other countries, the artisans of the towns show +less inclination to socialistic views than the rural labourers. They +have an active and even powerful labour movement of their own, carried +on through an extensive organization of trade unions which has risen up +rapidly within the last few years, especially in Catalonia, and they put +their whole trust in combination, co-operation, and peaceful agitation +for gradual reform under the present order of things, and will have +nothing to say to socialism or anarchism; so much so, that they +manifested the greatest reluctance to join in the eight hour +demonstrations of May-day, 1890, because they did not wish to be +confounded or in any way identified with the more extreme faction who +were getting those demonstrations up; and they actually held a rival +demonstration of their own on Sunday, the 4th of May, "in favour," as +they stated in the public announcement of it, "of State socialism and of +State legislation, both domestic and international, to improve the +general condition of the working classes without any revolutionary or +sudden change that could alarm the Sovereign and the governing classes." + +Spain made a beginning in factory legislation in 1873, when an act was +passed restricting the labour of children and young people; but the act +remained dead-letter till 1884, when the renewal of agitation on the +social question by the various parties led the cabinet to issue an order +to have this law carried into effect, and a little later in the same +year to appoint a royal commission to institute a thorough inquiry into +the whole circumstances of the labouring classes, and the conditions of +their improvement. This commission, which received nothing but abuse +from the anarchists, who said the labour problem must be settled from +below and not from above, was welcomed very heartily by the trade +unionists, and with favour rather than otherwise even by the Social +Democrats; but it has as yet had little or no result, and men who know +the country express their opinion very freely that it will never lead to +anything but an act or two that will remain dead-letter like their +predecessors. The suffrage is high, only one person in seventeen having +a vote; and working-class legislation will continue lukewarm till the +working class acquires more real political power. A leading Spanish +statesman said lately: "The day for social questions has not yet come in +Spain, and we can afford to look on and see other countries make +experiments which may be of use some day when our politicians and +thinkers can find time to devote attention to these twentieth century +problems." + +There seems much truth in the view that socialism, spite of the alarm +its spread caused to the Spanish Government in 1872, is really a disease +of a more advanced stage of industrial development than yet exists in +Spain, and therefore unlikely to grow immediately into anything very +formidable there. The country has few large industrial centres. +Two-thirds of the people are still engaged in agriculture; and though it +is among the agricultural classes socialism has broken out, the outbreak +has been local, and confined to provinces where the conditions of +agricultural labour are decidedly bad. But these conditions vary much +from province to province. In the southern provinces the cereal plains +and also the lower pasturages are generally possessed by large +proprietors, who work them by farmers on the _metayer_ principle, with +the help of bands of migratory labourers in harvest time; but in the +mountainous parts of these provinces the estates belong for the most +part to the communes. They are usually large, and as every member of the +commune has an undivided right of using them, he is able to obtain from +them the main part of his living without rent. Many of the inhabitants +of such districts engage in the carrying trade, to which they conjoin a +little cattle-dealing as opportunities offer; and as they are sober and +industrious, they are usually comparatively well off. In the northern +provinces the situation is in some respects better. Land is much +subdivided, and though the condition of the labouring class is not as a +rule unembarrassed, that result is due more to their own improvidence +and indolence than to anything else. A man of frugal and industrious +habits can always rise without much difficulty from the position of day +labourer to that of _metayer_ tenant, and from tenancy to +proprietorship, and some of the small proprietors are able to amass a +considerable competency. Besides, even the improvident are saved from +the worst by the communal organization. They have always a right of +pasturage on the commons, and a right to wood for fire, house and +furniture, and they get their children's education and medical +attendance in sickness gratuitously on condition of giving six days' +labour at the roads of the commune. The most active and saving part of +the population, north and south, is the class of migratory workmen, who +stay at home only during seed-time and harvest, and go for the rest of +the year to work in Castile, Andalusia, or Portugal, as masons or +carpenters, or waiters, and always come back with a store of money. +Sometimes they remain abroad for a year or two, and sometimes they go to +Cuba or Mexico for twenty years, and return to settle on a property of +their own in their native village. This class forms the _personnel_ of +the small property in Spain, and they give by their presence a healthy +stimulus to the neighbourhoods they reside in. The small property is in +Spain, as elsewhere, too often turned from a blessing to a curse by its +subdivision, on the death of the proprietor, among the members of his +family, who in Spain are usually numerous, though it is interesting to +learn that in some of the Pyrenean valleys it has been preserved for +five hundred years by the habit of integral transmission to the eldest +child--son or daughter--coupled with the habit of voluntary celibacy on +the part of many of the other children. The economic situation of Spain, +then, is not free from defects; but there always exists a wide margin of +hope in a country where, as Frere said, "God Almighty has so much of the +land in His own holding," and its economic situation would not of itself +be likely to precipitate social revolution. + +From Spain, socialism passed into Portugal; but from the first it has +worked very quietly there. Its adherents formed themselves into an +association in 1872, and held congresses, published newspapers, started +candidates, and actively promoted their views in every legitimate way. +Their programme was anarchism, like that of their Spanish allies; but, +unlike anarchists elsewhere, they repudiated all resort to violence, +for, as M. de Laveleye says, they are naturally "less violent than the +Spaniards, the economic situation of the country is better, and liberty +being very great, prevents the explosion of popular fury, which is worse +when exasperated by repression." Portugal is an agricultural country in +a good climate, where the people have few wants, and find it easy to +satisfy them fairly well. In the absence of any manner of acute +discontent, socialism could never have been much better than an abstract +speculation; and Portuguese socialism, if we may trust the complaints +made by the party elsewhere, seems now to have lost even the savour it +had. In March, 1888, one of the socialist newspapers of London reported +that the Portuguese working men's movement had, in the course of the +preceding ten years, given up the straightforward socialist character it +once had; that its leaders had entered into compromises with other +political parties, and threw themselves too much into experiments in +co-operation; that the party press was very lukewarm in its socialism, +and inclined more to mere Radicalism; and that one or two attempts that +had been made to start more extreme journals had completely failed; but +it announced with satisfaction, that at last, in January, 1888, a +frankly anarchist paper was published at Oporto--_A Revoluzao Social_. +About the same time the editor of a journal which had made some hostile +remarks on anarchism was shot, and anarchists were blamed and arrested +for the deed. There was a Socialist Congress at Lisbon in 1882, composed +of twelve delegates representing eight societies, all in Lisbon or +Oporto. + +While the socialist cause has been thus rather retreating in the south +of Europe, it has been making some advances in the north. Of the three +Scandinavian countries, Denmark alone gave any early response to the +socialist agitation; but there are now socialist organizations in Sweden +and Norway, and the movement in Denmark has assumed considerable +dimensions. Attempts were made to introduce socialism into Norway as far +back as 1873 by Danish emissaries, and the International also founded a +small society of thirty-seven members in Christiania; but the society +seems to have died, and nothing more was heard of socialism there till +the commotion in favour of a Republic in 1883. A Social Democratic Club +was then established in Christiania, and a Social Democratic Congress +was held at Arendal in 1887; but even yet Norwegian social democracy is +of so mild a character that it would be counted conservatism by Social +Democrats elsewhere, for this Congress issued a programme for a new +labour party without a word of socialism in it, and merely asking for a +normal working day, for factory legislation and reform of taxation. In +Sweden there is more appearance of agitation, because there is one very +active agitator in the country, Palm, a tailor, who keeps socialism _en +evidence_ by making stump speeches, or getting up street processions +with the usual red flags, and sometimes--such was the easy indifference +of the Government to his work at first--with a military band in full +uniform at the head of them. The Swedish socialists had four newspapers +in 1888, but three of them were confiscated by the Government in +December of that year, and their editors arrested for offences against +religion and the throne. In May, 1890, they held their first Congress at +Stockholm, when delegates appeared from twenty-nine unions; but the +movement is very unimportant in Sweden and Norway, and the chief +conditions of success seem wanting to it in those countries. There is no +class of labourers there without property; no town residuum, and no +rural cottagers. There being few great manufacturers in the kingdom, +only fifteen per cent. of the people altogether live in towns. The rest +are spread sparsely over the rural districts on farms belonging to +themselves, and in the absence of roads are obliged to make at home many +of the ordinary articles of consumption. What with the produce of their +small properties and their own general handiness, they are unusually +independent and comfortable. M. de Laveleye considers them the happiest +people in Europe. + +The circumstances of Denmark are different. The operatives of the town +are badly off. Mr. Strachey tells us in his report to the Foreign Office +in 1870 that every fourth inhabitant of Copenhagen was in receipt of +parochial relief in 1867, and he says that while the Danish operatives +are sober, and well educated, they fail in industry and thrift. "No fact +in my report," he states, "is more certain than that the Dane has yet to +learn the meaning of the word _work_; of entireness and thoroughness he +has seldom any adequate notion. This is why the Swedish artisan can so +often take the bread from his mouth." In the rural districts, too, the +economic situation, though in some respects highly favourable, is +attended by a shadow. The land is, indeed, widely diffused. There are in +all 280,000 families in the rural districts of Denmark, and of these +170,000 occupy independent freeholds, 30,000 farm hired land, and only +26,000 are agricultural labourers pure and simple. Seven-eighths of the +whole country is held by peasant proprietors, and as a rule no class in +Europe has improved more during the last half century than the Danish +peasant or Bonde. Mr. Strachey says: "The Danish landlord was till +recent times the scourge of the peasantry. Under his paternal care the +Danish Bonde was a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water; his lot was +no better than that of the most miserable ryot of Bengal. The Bonde is +now the freest, the most politically wise, the best educated of European +yeomen." But there is another side to the picture. In Denmark, as in +other places where the small property abounds, the property is often too +small for the proprietor's necessities, and there thus arises a kind of +proprietor-proletariat, unwilling to part with their land and unable to +extract a living out of it. This class, along with the rural labourers +who have no property, constitute a sort of fourth estate in the country, +and there as elsewhere their condition is preparing a serious social +question for the future. Then, among the influences favourable to the +acceptance of socialism in Denmark, must be counted the fact that one of +the two great political parties of the country is democratic. Curiously +enough that party consists of the peasantry, and the Conservatives of +Denmark are the commercial classes of the towns, with the artisans in +their wake, their Conservatism, however, being substantially identical +with the Liberalism of the same classes in other countries. This +democratic party seeks to make everything in the State conduce to the +interests of the peasantry, and keeps alive in the country the idea that +the State exists by the will of the people, and for their good alone. + +The International was introduced into this exclusively Protestant +country by two militant Roman Catholics--Pio, a retired military +officer, who came to Denmark as religious tutor to a baroness who had +joined the Church of Rome, and Geleff, who wrote for an Ultramontane +journal. They pursued their new mission with great zeal and success. +They opened branches of the association in most of the towns, started a +party newspaper, held open-air meetings, were sent to imprisonment for +sedition in 1873, and on their release in 1877 absconded to America with +the whole of the party funds, and disputed bitterly there over the +spoil. While they were in prison, the International was suppressed in +Denmark; but the members merely reconstituted the organization under the +name of the Socialist Labour Party, and the place of leader was taken +for a time by an authoress, Jacquette Lilyenkrantz, for, as in other +countries, women are in Denmark among the most active propagandists of +socialism. They kept up communications with the socialist leaders in +Germany, and the meeting of the German Socialist Congress at Copenhagen +in 1883 gave the movement a new impetus. They were able to return two +deputies, Holm and Hoerdun, to the Volkething in 1884, and they took +part, 80,000 strong, in the Copenhagen procession of 1886, in +commemoration of the fundamental law of the State. Their chief party +organ, the _Social Demokraten_, has a circulation of 26,000 daily, one +of the largest newspaper circulations in Denmark; and there are other +four socialist journals in the kingdom. + +They belong to the moderate wing of social democracy, being opposed to +revolution and terrorism, and placing their confidence in constitutional +agitation. Their programme is substantially that of Gotha--the right of +the labourers to the full product of labour, State management of all +industry, free education, universal suffrage, normal working day, +abolition of class inequalities, single chamber in legislature, free +justice, no standing army, State provision for sick and aged, religions +to be a private affair. They turn their propaganda with most hope to the +land proletariat; and a recent writer, P. Schmidt, in an interesting +paper in the _Arbeiterfreund_ for 1889, says they are succeeding in +their mission, and that socialism is spreading more and more every day +among the rural labourers. At their last Congress, held at Copenhagen, +in June, 1890, and attended by seventy-one delegates from fifty-four +different branches, their attention was chiefly occupied with questions +about the land; provision of more land for the people by compulsory +acquisition of ecclesiastical property and uncultivated ground; State +advances of capital to agricultural labourers; agricultural schools; +better housing for farm servants, etc. In 1887 they held a socialist +exhibition in Copenhagen--an international exhibition of socialist +pamphlets, newspapers, books, magazines, and pictures; and in 1890 they +returned two members to the Landthing--the first time they secured +representatives in the Upper Chamber. + +Belgium has many of the conditions of soil most favourable for +socialism--a dense population, large towns, an advanced productive +system, and an industrial class at once very numerous, very ill paid, +and very open, through their education, to new social ideas. For a time, +accordingly, socialism spread remarkably in that country. The +International had eight federations of branches in 1869, with 60,000 +members and several newspapers. In the dispute between Marx and Bakunin, +the Belgian Internationalists seem to have sided as a body with Bakunin; +but they presently fell out among themselves, and, in spite of many +repeated efforts at reconciliation, they have never since succeeded in +composing their differences. The German socialist leaders tried to +reorganize them in 1879 at a special Congress at Brussels, under the +name of the Socialist Labour Party of Belgium, and with the Gotha +programme; but they were rent again in 1881 by a division which had then +entered into German socialism itself. The majority of the party adhered +to Liebknecht and Bebel; but an active minority, composed chiefly of +Walloons, followed the anarchist views of Most and Hasselman, withdrew +from the party, and founded another called the Revolutionary Union. The +anarchists have one journal--_Ni Dieu, Ni Maitre_--violent, as the name +indicates, but obscure and unimportant; but they believe most in the +less intellectual propaganda of deed, and make themselves conspicuous +from time to time by dynamite explosions and street fights with the +police or the military, or their own socialist rivals. The Belgian +socialists, on the other hand, look more to constitutional and +parliamentary action, and usually work with the Liberals at the +elections; but the Belgian voting qualification is high, and they have +never succeeded in returning a candidate of their own. In 1887 their +candidate for Brussels got 1,000 votes, while his successful rival had +3,000. They took an active part in the Republican agitation which was +raised by the School Law in 1884. They have capable leaders, and they +publish two journals, which, however, for want of funds, appear only at +distant and uncertain intervals. They have lately begun to hold many +open-air meetings, which the authorities had long forbidden, and they +held an International Socialist Exhibition at Ghent in 1887 like that +held in the same year at Copenhagen. + +On the whole socialism, after twenty years' work, is making no way in +Belgium, notwithstanding the favourable character of the soil, because +the labour movement is choosing other directions and forms of +organization. Trade unions and co-operative societies have been +multiplying much during these twenty years, and in 1885 a strong Belgian +Labour Party was formed, with 120 branches and 100,000 members, which +aims at promoting the practical wellbeing of the working class by +remedial legislation--by in some cases vicious State-socialistic +legislation, it may be--but has no word of the right to the full product +of labour, of the nationalization of all industry, or of the social +revolution. One of the items of the programme is worded "collective +property"; but whether it contemplates the universal State-property of +collectivism or the corporate property of co-operation does not appear. +The other items are universal suffrage, direct legislation by the people +(presumably the _referendum_), free undenominational education, +abolition of standing army, abolition of budget of worship, normal work +day, normal wages, regulation of work of women and children, factory +inspection, employers' liability, workmen's chambers, courts of +conciliation, repeal of taxes on means of subsistence, increased income +tax, international labour legislation. M. de Laveleye attributes the ill +success of socialism in Belgium, and no doubt rightly, to the influence +of discussion and free institutions. Government has left it to stand or +fall on its own merits before public opinion. The socialists enjoy full +liberty of the platform and press; they can hold meetings and congresses +and form clubs in any town they please, and the result is that though +the movement, like all new movements, made a certain impression and +advance for a time at first, it got checked under the influence of +discussion and the application of solid practical judgment. Then, though +the Belgian Legislature has not yet done what it can and ought for +ameliorating the condition of the labourers, philanthropy has been very +active and useful in a number of ways in that kingdom. The Catholic +Church has always intervened to keep up a high ideal of employers' +responsibility--the old ideal of a patriarchal care; and there is a +strong organization in Belgium of Catholic Working Men's Clubs, which +were formed into one body in 1867, which were united with the Catholic +Working Men's Clubs of Germany in 1869, and with those of France in +1870, and which now constitute with these the International Catholic +Working Men's Association. + +It ought perhaps to be mentioned that there is an old but small party of +Land Nationalizers in Belgium, the Colinsian Socialists, whose +principles have been warmly endorsed by Mr. Ruskin as "forming the most +complete system of social and political reform yet put forward." They +want the State to own all the soil, and let it out by auction; but they +are opposed to nationalizing any of the other instruments of production. + +In Holland, wealth is very unequally divided, wages are low, and +taxation, being largely indirect, falls heavily on the working class; +but the people are phlegmatic, domestic, religious, and contrive on +small means to maintain a general appearance of comfort and decency. +Above all, they enjoy free institutions; and, under freedom, socialism +has run the same course in Holland as in Belgium. The International made +rapid advances in 1869, founded branches in all the towns, and carried +on, after the Paris Commune, so active and successful an agitation that +the _bourgeoisie_ took alarm, and Government imposed some restrictions +on the disaffected press. But a general rise in wages happened about the +time, a strong co-operative movement was promoted under the lead of the +orthodox divines, a lively polemic against socialism broke out among the +working men themselves, and all interest in the social revolution seemed +to have died away, when, in 1878, it was revived again by D. Niewenhuis, +a retired Protestant minister, a man of capacity and zeal, who has been +unwearied in his advocacy of the cause ever since. He started in that +year a journal, _Recht Voor Allen_, which is still, I believe, the only +socialist organ in Holland, and appears now three times a week; and he +founded the Social Democratic Union in 1884, which is strongest in the +Hague and Amsterdam, but has branches in most of the other towns, and a +membership by no means inconsiderable, though much below the old numbers +of the Dutch International. After being imprisoned in 1887 for political +reasons, Niewenhuis was returned to the Legislature in 1888--the first +socialist who has sat there. The Dutch Socialists, to increase their +numbers, enrol a class of "secret" members, timid spirits who will only +come to them "by night, for fear of the Jews." There is also a handful +of anarchists in Holland, who have a newspaper in Amsterdam, and are +said to live harmoniously with the socialists, and, according to the +reports of the American consuls, nobody in the country thinks any harm +of either. + +Switzerland has swarmed for a century with conspirators of all hues and +nations; but the Swiss--thanks again to free institutions--have been +steel against revolution. The "Young Germanys" and "Young Italys" whom +she sheltered in the past sought only, it is true, to win for their own +countries the political freedom which Switzerland already enjoyed; but +the socialist and anarchist refugees of the last twenty years have had +social principles to preach which were as new and as good for the Swiss +as for their own countrymen; and, speaking as they did the languages of +the Confederation, they have never ceased making active efforts for the +conversion of the Swiss. The old Jurassian Federation of the +International, still continues to exist in French-speaking Switzerland, +and to bear witness for the extremest kind of anarchist communism--no +force or authority whatever, and a collective consumption of products as +well as a collective production; but this body is not increasing, and +though Guesde, the French socialist, made a lecturing tour through that +division of Switzerland in 1885, he had quite as little success for his +branch of the revolutionary cause. There are numbers of Social +Democratic Clubs in the German-speaking cantons, but they consist mainly +of German refugees, and contain few native Swiss members. After the +Anti-Socialist Laws of 1879, the German socialists settled largely in +Switzerland. They transferred to Zurich their party organ, the _Social +Democrat_, and along with it, to use their own phrase, the entire +Olympus of the party, the body of writers and managers who moved the +shuttle of its operations. These propagandists naturally did not neglect +the country of their adoption, but used every opportunity to forward +their agitation by addresses and even by extended missionary journeys, +and a separate Swiss Social Democratic party was actually founded, with +a separate organ, the _Arbeiterstimme_; but it collapsed in 1884 from +internal dissensions. No attempt was made to revive it till 1888, when +the action of the Federal Council in May against the foreign socialists +resident in the Confederation led to the organization of a Swiss +socialist party in October. The Federal Government had already, in 1884 +and 1885, taken measures against the political refugees, especially the +anarchists, who were thought to have abused the hospitality they +received by planning and preparing in Switzerland the series of crimes +which shocked all Europe in 1884, and even by trying to explode the +Federal Palace at Berne itself. The Government instituted an inquiry, +and finding the country absolutely riddled with anarchist clubs, +determined to keep the eye of the police on them, and in the meantime +expelled thirty or forty of their leading members from Switzerland +altogether. These were almost without exception either Austrians or +Germans, and included Neve, now a leading anarchist in London. The +Russian anarchists were apparently not thought so dangerous, their great +occupation being to invent new ways and means of smuggling newspapers +into Russia; but they disliked the police supervision to which they were +subjected, and very generally quitted Switzerland of their own accord +for London or Paris. The anarchist organ, the _Revolte_, was removed at +the same time to Paris, but its place in Geneva was taken by a new +paper--_L'Egalitaire_. In 1888 the police were ordered to report all +socialist meetings held in the country, and all arrivals or departures +of "foreigners whose means of subsistence was unknown, and whose +presence might, for other reasons, become dangerous to the safety of the +country"; and as this further turn of the screw was believed to be made +on the instigation of Germany, it provoked considerable opposition, one +result of which was the formation of the new Swiss socialist party. + +This party, however, is not an affair of any magnitude, and does not +appear very likely to become so; for the working men of Switzerland have +the public power in their own hands already, and they have their own +organizations besides to look after their interests; and while they are +by no means averse to the use of the powers of the State, they are +disposed to move with inquiry and caution, and to see every step of +their way before running into speculative schemes of foreign origin. +Their political position satisfies them, because they know they are too +strong for Government to neglect their wishes, because some labour laws +have already been passed for their protection, and because the +authorities always show themselves ready to entertain any new proposals +for the same object, as, for example, they did in May, 1890, by +summoning an International Congress at Berne to discuss the length of +the working day and other conditions of labour. + +Their economic position, moreover, is also comparatively satisfactory +for various reasons, among which Mr. Bonar, in his report to the Foreign +Office in 1870, gives a chief place to the general working of democratic +institutions and the prevalence of benevolent and charitable +associations. "In enumerating," he says, "the favourable circumstances +in which the Swiss working man is placed, prominence must be given to +the immense extension of the principle of democracy, which, whatever, +may be its defects and dangers from a political point of view when +pushed to extremes, serves in Switzerland in its economical effects to +advance the cause of the operative by removing the barriers dividing +class from class, and to establish among all grades the bonds of mutual +sympathy and goodwill, further strengthened by a widely-spread network +of associations organized with the object of securing the common +interests and welfare of the people." Masters and workmen are socially +more equal than in most European countries; they sit side by side at the +board of the Communal Council, they belong to the same choral societies, +they refresh themselves at the same _cafes_. In most cantons, too, +operatives are either owners of, or hold from the communes, small +pieces of land which they cultivate in their leisure hours, and which +thus serve them when work gets slack or fails altogether. The favourable +rural economy of the country is well known; its peasant proprietors +rival those of France. The Swiss societies of beneficence are +remarkable, and almost suggest the hope that the voluntary socialism of +a more enlarged and widely organized system of charity may be found to +furnish a substantial solution of the social question. Every canton of +Switzerland has its society of public utility, whose aims take an +extensive range; it gives the start to projects of improvement of every +description, infant schools, schools of design, savings banks, schemes +for the poor, the sick, the dumb, singing classes, halls for Sunday +recreation, popular lectures, workmen's houses, protection of animals, +even industrial undertakings which promise to be ultimately beneficial, +though they may not pay at first. The society of Basle has 900 members +and a capital of L6,000, and the Swiss Society of Public Utility is an +organization for the whole Republic, which holds an annual congress at +Zurich, and general meetings in the different cantons by turns. These +meetings pass off with every mark of enthusiasm, and gather together men +of all religious and political opinions in a common concern for the +progress and prosperity of the masses. One of the institutions which +these societies have largely promoted is what they call a hall of +industry, or a bazaar, where loans may be received by workmen on the +security of their wages, or of goods they may deposit. A labourer who +has made any article which he cannot get immediately sold, may deposit +it at one of these bazaars, and obtain an advance equal to a fixed +proportion of its value, and if the article is sold at the bazaar, the +proceeds are accounted for to the depositor, less the sum advanced and a +small charge for expenses. These institutions, Mr. Bonar says, have had +excellent effects, though he admits that the facilities of borrowing +have led the working men in some places into debt; but they are at any +rate a vast improvement on the pawnbroking system in vogue elsewhere. +The condition of Switzerland shows us clearly enough that democracy +under a _regime_ of freedom lends no ear to socialism, but sets its face +in entirely different directions. + +The United States of America have done more for experimental socialism +than any other country. Owenites, Fourierists, Icarians have all +established communities there, but these communities have failed long +ago, except one of the Icarian, and the only other socialist experiments +now existing in America are seventy or eighty religious communities, +Shakers and Rappists, whose success has been due to their religious +discipline and their celibacy, and whose members amount to no more than +5,000 souls all told. There is indeed a Russian Commune in California, +but it remains a solitary Russian Commune still, the "new formula of +civilization," as Russian reformers used to call it, showing no sign of +further adoption. Nor has the new or political socialism found any +better success in the States. There are various indigenous forms of +it--such as the agrarian socialism of Mr. Henry George, and the +nationalism of Mr. E. Bellamy--but in point of following they are of +little importance, and the socialism of the American socialist and +revolutionary parties is a mere German import, with as yet a purely +German consumption. It has been pushed vigorously in the American market +for twenty years, but taken singularly little hold of the American +taste. There is one revolutionary socialist body composed chiefly of +English-speaking members, the International Workmen's Association, which +was founded in 1881 in one of the western states; but Mr. Ely says its +membership would be generously estimated at 15,000, and it considers the +great work of the present should be popular education, so as to prepare +the people for the revolution when it comes. + +The Boston Anarchists, perhaps, ought not, strictly speaking, to be +included in any account of socialism, for, unlike most contemporary +anarchists, they are not socialist, but extremely individualist; but +historically, it is worth noting, Boston Anarchism is the doctrine of a +disenchanted socialist, Josiah Warren, who had lived with Robert Owen at +New Harmony, and came to the conclusion that that experiment failed +because the individual had been too much sunk in the community, and no +room was left for the play of individual interests, individual rights, +and individual responsibilities. From Owen's communism, Warren ran to +the opposite extreme, and thought it impossible to individualize things +too much. He would abolish the State, and have the work of police and +defence done by private enterprise, like any other service. He issued +some books, tried to carry out his views by practical experiment, and, +though they failed, he has still a small band of believing disciples at +Boston, who publish a newspaper called _Liberty_, but have no +organization and no importance. + +Henry George and his followers, too, perhaps ought not in strictness to +be classified among socialists. He would certainly repudiate such a +classification himself, and the United Labour Party, which he founded in +1886 to promote his views by political action, expelled the socialists +from membership in 1887. His actual practical proposal is nothing more +than a narrow and illusory plan of taxation; but he puts it forward so +expressly as the keystone of a new social system, as the remedy +prescribed by economic science itself for the complete regeneration of +society and the simultaneous removal of all existing social evils, that +he is not improperly placed among Utopian socialists. Does he not +promise us a new heaven and a new earth? And if he believes the State +can call the new heaven and the new earth into being by a mere turn in +the incidence of taxation, while most other contemporary socialists +think the State must first pull down all that now is and reconstruct the +whole on a new plan, is he, on account of this greater credulity of his, +to be considered a more, and not rather a less, sober and rational +speculator than they? He wants to abolish landlordism, while they want +to abolish landlordism and all other capitalism besides; and his views +may fairly be called partial or agrarian socialism. The United Labour +Party was founded mainly to promote Mr. George's panacea of the single +tax on such land values as arise from the growth of society apart from +individual exertion; but it includes other articles in its +programme--the municipalization of the supply of water, light, and heat; +the nationalization of all money, note issue, post, telegraphs, +railways, and savings banks; reduction of the hours of labour, +prohibition of child labour, suppression of the competition of prison +labour with honest labour; sanitary inspection of houses, factories, and +mines; simplification of legal procedure; secret ballot; payment of +election expenses. The United Labour Party is not strong. When Mr. +George stood for the Mayoralty of New York, he had 68,000 votes to his +opponent's 90,000; but he had on that occasion the assistance of the +Socialistic Labour Party, who are said by Mr. Ely to number about 25,000 +in New York, and who certainly constituted a very considerable element +in the United Labour Party, for they were expelled at the Party +Convention only by a vote of 94 to 54. On the other hand, Mr. Ely's +estimate of the strength of the socialists is possibly too high, for +they ran a candidate for the Mayoralty of New York themselves in 1888, a +leading man of the party, one Jones, and he only secured 2,000 votes. +However that may be, the United Labour Party was certainly much weakened +by the loss of the socialists, and they were disabled entirely in the +following year by a division on the question of Free Trade and the +secession of Father McGlynn and the Protectionist members. + +Nationalism is the name of a new movement, the fruit of the remarkable +and very popular novel of Mr. Edward Bellamy, "Looking Backward," which +may be said to be the latest description of Utopia as it now stands with +all the most modern improvements. Mr. Bellamy would have all industry +organized and conducted by the nation on the basis of a common +obligation of work and a general guarantee of livelihood, all men to get +exactly the same wages, and to do exactly the same quantity of work, due +allowance being made for differences in severity, and the State to +enlarge indefinitely its free public provision of the means of common +enjoyment and culture. Mr. Bellamy's charming pictures of the new +country naturally engendered a general wish to be there, and many little +societies have been established to hasten the hour; but as the movement +has not been more than a year in being, little account can yet be given +of its success. The Nationalists have quite recently issued an organ, +_The New Nation_, which announces its programme to be (1) the +nationalization of post, telegraphs, telephone, railways and coal mines; +(2) municipalization of gas and water supply, and the like; and (3) the +equalization of educational opportunities as between rich and poor, and +the promotion of all reforms tending towards humaner, more fraternal, +and more equal conditions. Nationalism out of Utopia, therefore, means +merely a little State-socialism. + +The strongest socialist organizations in the United States are the +Socialistic Labour Party, corresponding to the Social Democrats of +Europe, and the International Working People's Association, +corresponding to the anarchists; but both are composed almost +exclusively of Germans. There are more Germans in the North American +Republic than in any State of Germany except Prussia; and as many of +them have fled from their own country for political reasons--to escape +the conscription, or to escape prosecution for sedition--they bear no +goodwill to the old system of government, and harbour revolutionary +ideas almost from the nature of things. A socialist propaganda began +among them so far back as 1848, when Weitling, of whom more will be said +presently, published a socialist newspaper; and a Socialist Gymnastic +Union was established in New York in 1850, which succeeded in forming a +kind of federal alliance, apparently for socialistic purposes, with a +number of other local German gymnastic societies throughout the States; +but though these societies still exist, they seem to have dropped their +socialism. It was taken up again, however, in 1869, by the +International, which transferred its General Council to New York in +1872, held congresses from time to time in the country, and eventually, +at the Newark Convention of 1877, adopted the name of the Socialistic +Labour Party, with a programme formed after the Gotha lines. The numbers +of the party were strengthened in the years immediately following by the +arrival of German refugees, expelled from their own land by the +Socialist Laws; but the new members brought with them elements of +dissension which speedily came to a head after the arrival of the +incendiary spirit, John Most, in 1882, and led, in 1883, to the entire +separation of the Anarchists from the Social Democrats. The latter held +a separate Congress at Baltimore in the latter year, attended by 16 +delegates, representing 23 branches and 10,000 members, and it reported +that altogether 38 branches adhered to them. The anarchists held a +Congress at Pittsburg, and formed themselves into the International +Working People's Association, with the following principles:-- + +"What we would achieve is therefore plainly and simply-- + +"1st. Destruction of the existing class rule by all means; _i.e._, by +energetic, relentless, revolutionary, and international action. + +"2nd. Establishment of a free society based upon co-operative +organization of production. + +"3rd. Free exchange of equivalent products by and between the productive +organizations without commerce and profit-mongery. + +"4th. Organization of education on a secular, scientific, and equal +basis for both sexes. + +"5th. Equal rights for all without distinction of sex or race. + +"6th. Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between the +autonomous (independent) communes and associations resting on a +federalistic basis." (Ely's "Labour Movement in America," p. 231.) + +They differ from the Socialistic Labour Party, as this programme shows, +in their exclusive devotion to revolution, and their opposition to all +central government. + +The Socialistic Labour Party has several newspapers, the principal being +the _Sozialist_ and the _Neu Yorker Volkszeitung_ of New York, and the +_Tageblatt_ of Philadelphia; and the anarchists have more, the best +known being Most's notorious _Freiheit_. Mr. Ely mentions sixteen +socialist newspapers and ten sympathizing with socialism, and says that +the majority of these support the anarchist side. The anarchists, +moreover, have one journal in English--the _Alarm_; the Socialistic +Labour Party started one in 1883, but it died. With that exception the +press of both parties is entirely German, and neither party seems to +have done almost anything in the way of an English propaganda from the +platform. Dr. and Mrs. Aveling state that before they made their +lecturing tour on the subject through the States in 1886, the American +public had never heard socialism preached to them in their own tongue; +yet books like Mr. Gronlund's "Co-operative Commonwealth," giving a very +effective exposition of socialism, had already appeared from the +American press. Dr. and Mrs. Aveling say, moreover, they met with more +hostility to their mission from the anarchists than from any other +source in America. The American people, while firmly stamping out the +dynamite policy of the anarchists, have naturally nothing to say +against an academic propaganda of any system of doctrine. + +The trend of the labour movement in America seems away from socialism. +That movement is in many respects more powerful there than in any +European country. There are some five hundred labour newspapers in the +United States, and an immense number of trade organizations of all +kinds. Political power, moreover, both in the States and in the Union, +is in the hands of the working class; and that class has now very nearly +the same grievances there as it has in Europe, and the same aspirations +after a better order of things. But their tendencies are not nearer +socialism, but further from it. They simply cannot understand people who +tell them they have no power to work out their own salvation under the +system that is, and that nothing can be done, as Marx assures them, +until every capital in Europe is ready for a simultaneous revolution +with New York and Chicago. The trade unions accordingly ignore +socialism. The Knights of Labour expressly repudiate it, and in the +course of a very long programme they hardly make a demand which has a +taint even of State-socialism. This "Noble Order of the Knights of +Labour" is a general association of working men to promote the cause of +labour, partly by their own efforts and partly through the Government. +By their own efforts they are to promote co-operation till, if possible, +it supersedes the present wages system entirely; equality of wages for +men and women for equal work; a general eight hours day through a +general strike; and a system of arbitration in trade quarrels. From the +Union Legislature they want merely a few general reforms, none bearing +directly on the situation of labour, except the abolition of foreign +contract labour. The others are, reform of the currency, nationalization +of telegraphs and railways, and the institution of banking facilities of +various kinds in connection with the Post Office. From the State +Legislatures they ask the reservation of public lands to actual +settlers, the simplification of the administration of justice, factory +legislation, graduated income tax, and the following provisions for +labour: weekly payment of wages in money, mechanic's lien on the product +of his labour for his wages, compulsory arbitration in trade disputes, +prohibition of labour of children under fifteen. In 1886 they were +702,884 strong, but they have declined sorely since then. Their great +weapon was to be an extension of strikes and boycotting beyond what was +possible to single trades; but it was found that this policy was +double-edged, and caused more hurt to some sections of the working class +than any good it could do to others; and people lost faith in the +principle of such huge miscellaneous organizations. Dr. Aveling contends +that the Knights of Labour, in spite of Mr. Powderly's disclaimer, are +really, though it may be unconsciously, socialists, because they want to +supersede the wages system, if they can, by establishing co-operative +institutions without State aid; and this, he holds, "is pure and +unadulterated socialism." Indeed! then where is the man who is not a +pure and unadulterated socialist? and what need for any mission to the +States to preach the socialist message to the Americans for the first +time in their own tongue? + +England was the country last reached by the present wave of +revolutionary socialism, although the system has been largely conceived +upon a study of English circumstances, and is claimed to be peculiarly +adapted to them. England is alternately the hope and the despair of +Continental socialists. Every requisite of revolution is there, and yet +the people will not rise. The yeomanry are gone. The land has come into +the hands of a few. Industry is carried on by great centralized capital. +The large system of production has almost finished its work. The mass of +the people is a proletariat; they are thronged in large towns; every +tenth person is a pauper; and the great mansions of the rich cast an +evil shadow into the crowded dens of the wretched. "The English," says +Eugene Dupont, a leading member of the old International, "possess all +the materials necessary for the social revolution; but they lack the +generalizing spirit and the revolutionary passion." Any proletariat +movement in which the English proletariat takes no part, said Karl Marx, +is "no better than a storm in a glass of water"; yet, though Marx +himself resided in England for most of his life, no organized attempt +was made to gain over the English proletariat to socialism till +1883--the year he died. There was before that, indeed, a small English +section in a foreign socialist club in Soho; and, after the fall of the +Paris Commune, hopes were for a time entertained of starting a serious +socialist movement in our larger towns; but these hopes proved so +delusive that Karl Marx said more than once to Mr. Hyndman, as we are +told by the latter, that he despaired "of any great movement in England, +unless in response to some violent impetus from without." But in 1883 a +socialist movement seemed to break out spontaneously in England, the air +hummed for a season with a multifarious social agitation, and we soon +had a fairly complete equipment of socialist organizations--social +democratic, anarchist, dilettante--which have ever since kept up a busy +movement with newspapers, lectures, debates, speeches, and +demonstrations in the streets. + +In 1883 the Democratic Federation, which had been established two years +before to promote measures of Radical reform, including, among other +things, the nationalization of the land, adopted the socialistic +principles of Karl Marx, and changed its name to the Social Democratic +Federation. Its programme is long, and includes, besides the +nationalization of land and all means of production, direct legislation +by the people, direct election of all functionaries by adult suffrage, +gratuitous justice, gratuitous, compulsory, and equal education, +abolition of standing armies, Home Rule for Ireland, an eight hours day, +State erection of workmen's dwellings, to be let at bare cost, +progressive income tax, proportional representation, abolition of House +of Lords, separation of Church and State, etc. Its principal founders +were Mr. William Morris, an artist, a great poet, and a manufacturer +exceptionally excellent in his arrangements with his workpeople; Mr. H. +M. Hyndman, a journalist of standing and ability; Mr. J. Stuart Glennie, +and Mr. Belfort Bax, both authors of repute; Dr. Aveling, a popular +lecturer on science, and son-in-law of Karl Marx; Miss Helen Taylor, +step-daughter of John Stuart Mill; and the Rev. Stewart Headlam. In +January, 1884, they started a weekly newspaper, _Justice_, and a monthly +magazine, _To-Day_, both of which still appear, and began the active +work of lecturing and founding branches. But before the year was out, +the old enemy of socialists, the spirit of division, entered among them, +and Mr. Morris, with Dr. Aveling and Mr. Bax, seceded and set up an +independent organization called the Socialist League, with a separate +weekly organ, _The Commonweal_. The difference seems to have arisen out +of the common socialist trouble about the propriety of mixing in current +politics. The same disruptive tendency has persisted in the two parts, +and in the end of 1890, Mr. William Morris seceded from the Socialist +League with his local following at Hammersmith. + +Neither of these revolutionary bodies has a complete organization like +those of continental countries. They have never held a Congress, either +national or provincial. They consist of a central committee in London, +and detached local groups in the provinces, and their membership is not +accurately known, but it is not extensive. It is in both cases +declining, and it has always been variable, young men joining for a year +or two, and then leaving. Their chief success has been among the miners +of the North of England, and they have returned three members to the +School Board of Newcastle. There is one socialist member in Parliament, +Mr. Cunningham Graham, but he has not been returned on socialist +principles or by a socialist vote; and hitherto the party has failed to +obtain any serious support at the elections. At the election of 1885, +Mr. John Burns, socialist candidate for Nottingham, had only 598 votes +out of a total poll of 11,064, and Mr. J. Williams, the socialist +candidate for Hampstead, had only 27 out of a total of 4,722. Mr. Burns, +however, has since been returned to the London County Council, and will +not improbably succeed in being returned to Parliament at next election. +He is a working engineer, but is much the strongest leader English +socialism has produced, an orator of great power, an excellent +organizer, and the head and representative of a new labour movement +which is likely to play a considerable part in the immediate future, and +which is certainly fermented with a good measure of socialistic leaven. +The New Unionism, as this movement is sometimes called, represents +mainly the opinion of the new trade unions of unskilled labour--dockers +and others--which have sprung into existence recently, and it was strong +enough at the Trade Union Congress in 1890 to carry the day against the +old unionism of the skilled trades by a considerable majority in favour +of the compulsory and universal eight hours day. But, as Mr. T. Burt, +M.P., the miners' parliamentary representative, said in his speech to +the Eighty Club two months afterwards, the New Unionism is, after all, +only the young and inexperienced unionism, and must needs run now +through the same kind of errors which the older trade unions have gone +through before, but will, like the older unions, learn, by discussion +and experiment, to keep within the lines of practicable and beneficial +action. However that may be, for the moment, at any rate, the fortunes +of English socialism seem to lie with Mr. John Burns and his labour +movement, and not with the two socialist organizations which appear to +have already reached their height, and to be now on the decline. + +A well-informed German writer lately warned us that anarchism had +brought its headquarters to London, that it was coming into relations +with the English population through its clubs and newspapers, and he +ventured to prophesy that we should certainly have soon an anarchist +fire to extinguish on our own hearth much more serious than Germany or +Austria has had to encounter. So far, however, there is little to +support such a prophecy. There are four small anarchist clubs in +London--three of them German clubs, which live at strife with one +another, and the fourth a Russian or Polish club, whose members have few +or no dealings with the Germans. The German anarchists publish two +weekly newspapers in German, which it is their great business to smuggle +into the Fatherland, and the Russian or Polish anarchists publish one in +Yedish--the German-Hebrew _patois_ of the Polish Jews--which is printed +for the entertainment of the Polish tailors of the East End. Some of the +principal anarchist leaders, it is true, live amongst us--for example, +Prince Krapotkin and Victor Dave--and under their influence a group of +English anarchists has grown up during the last few years; but this +group has already, after the manner of modern revolutionists, split on a +point of doctrine into two opposite camps, which,--if we may judge from +their respective organs, _The Anarchist_ and _Freedom_--expend a +considerable share of their destructive energies upon one another. The +English anarchists have no permanent organization of any kind, and the +one group are for socialist anarchism, and the other for individualist +anarchism. On the whole the conversion of the English by the anarchist +refugees is not an idea worthy of serious consideration; a better and +more likely result would be that they would themselves, like Alexander +Herzen, the leading anarchist of the past generation, be converted in +England to more rational ideas of politics. Our safety lies, however, +not so much in the practical character of our people, as in their habits +of free and open discussion. What is called practicality is no safeguard +against delusive ideas outside one's own immediate field of activity, +and there is perhaps no country, except the still more practical country +of America, where more favour is shown than here to fanaticism of any +kind, if there seems to be heart in it. Besides, when we hear it said, +We have indeed an enormous proletariat, but they are too practical to +think of insurrection, we ought to reflect that, to the miserable, the +practical test of a scheme will not be, Shall we be any the better for +the change? but Shall we be any the worse for it? But under free +institutions grievances always come to be ventilated; ventilation leads +to more or less remedial measures, and discontent is removed altogether, +or, at any rate, appeased for the time; and although under free +institutions ill-considered schemes which inflate that discontent with +delusive hopes may raise for a season a boom of earnest discussion, the +discussion eventually kills them. So it seems to be with the fortunes of +revolutionary socialism in England to-day. It has been much discussed +for six years, but the height of the tide has been reached already, and +the movement is now apparently on the ebb. + +Besides these manifestations of revolutionary socialism, we have various +societies representing an amateur and appreciative interest in +socialism. There is the Christian Socialist Society, a small body of +less than 150 adherents, including many clergymen and other members of +the learned professions. They must not be confounded with the Christian +Socialists of forty years ago, Maurice, Kingsley, and their allies, for +the survivors of this earlier movement, such as Judge Thomas Hughes, Mr. +Vansittart Neale, and Mr. J. M. Ludlow, do not belong to the present +Christian Socialist Society, and would repudiate its principles. They +wanted to promote co-operation without State interference, and they take +a leading part in the co-operative movement still; but the Christian +Socialist Society of the present day is all for State interference, and +the articles of its organ, the _Christian Socialist_, strongly support +the doctrines of Karl Marx, and declare that "the command, 'Thou shalt +not steal,' if impartially applied, must absolutely prohibit the +capitalist, as such, from deriving any revenue whatever from the +labourer's toil." But with all their will to believe with the Marxists, +the latter are not sure of them, and the socialist organs, _Justice_ and +_To-Day_, twit them one day for not being Christians, and the next for +not being socialists. They are not men of the same mark as the earlier +body of English Christian socialists, Canon Shuttleworth and Mr. Stewart +Headlam being the two best known of them. The Guild of St. Matthew, +which is composed to some extent of the same _personnel_ as the +Christian Socialist Society, has published a compendium of Christian +socialism, and strives, among other branches of its activity, to +cultivate good relations between socialists and the Church. + +The Fabian Society, again, is a debating club of mixed socialism. It +contains socialists of all feathers--revolutionary socialists and +philosophical socialists, Christian socialists and un-Christian +socialists--who meet together under its auspices and exchange their +views, without having any recognised end beyond the discussion. They +intervened lately, however, in the eight hours day controversy, and +drafted a bill for a compulsory measure on the subject which attracted +some public attention. Among the principal members are Mr. Sidney Webb, +a well-known writer and lecturer on economic subjects, Mr. G. Bernard +Shaw, journalist, Mrs. Besant, and Mr. W. Clarke. They have published a +volume of Fabian Essays, which has had a large sale. + +No account of English socialism would be complete that made no mention +of the writings of Mr. Ruskin, which have probably done more than any +other single influence to imbue English minds with sentiments and +principles of a socialistic character. But they have produced nothing in +the nature of a school or party more than perhaps some detached local +group; such, for example, as the Sheffield Socialists, a small body +formed under Ruskinian inspiration, and the leadership of Mr. E. +Carpenter. + +The outburst of socialist agitation in England in 1883 and 1884 was +immediately preceded by a revival of popular interest in an old and +favourite subject of English speculation, the nationalization of the +land. Mr. Henry George had published his "Progress and Poverty" in 1881, +and in the same year the Democratic Federation was established in London +with land nationalization for one of its principles, and Mr. A. R. +Wallace, the eminent naturalist, founded the Land Nationalization +Society. In 1882, Mr. Wallace contributed still further to awaken +discussion of the question by publishing his work on "Land +Nationalization," and the discussion was spread everywhere in 1883 by +the appearance of a sixpenny edition of Mr. George's remarkable work. +Land nationalization in the hands of Mr. Wallace has little in common +with any form of contemporary socialism. He does not contemplate any +interference with the present system of agricultural production; that is +still to be conducted by capitalists and hired labourers, as it is now. +He merely proposes to abolish what is called landlordism by the +compulsory conversion of the present tenant farmers into a body of +yeomanry or occupying owners, and his scheme differs from the more +ordinary proposals for the creation of peasant proprietors merely in two +points: 1st--which is a very good proposal--that he would leave part of +the price of the property to be paid in the form of a permanent annual +quitrent to the State; and 2nd--which is a more doubtful proposal--that +this part should represent, as nearly as it is possible now to calculate +it, the original value of the soil apart from improvements of any +kind--or, in other words, the unearned part of the present value of the +property--and that it should be subject to periodical revision, with a +view to recovering from the holder any further unearned increments of +value that may accrue to his holding from time to time. Mr. Wallace, +like Mr. George, has very utopian expectations from his scheme; but he +would honestly buy up the rights of the existing landlords, while Mr. +George would merely confiscate them by exceptional taxation. This +difference broke up the Land Nationalization Society in 1883, and the +partisans of Mr. George's view seceded and formed themselves into the +English Land Restoration League, which has established branches in most +of the larger towns, and has now probably a more numerous membership +than the original society. It is especially strong in Scotland, and ran +three candidates for Glasgow at the last general election; but the three +only got 2,222 votes between them, out of a total of 23,800 polled in +the three divisions they contested. The ideas of the League have a +certain vogue among the Highland crofters, where they blend very readily +with the universal peasant doctrines that the earth is the Lord's, and +that all other lords should be abolished. + +In Scotland there are a good many branches of the two regular socialist +organizations. The Scottish Emancipation League joined the Social +Democratic Federation, and the Scottish Land and Labour League joined +the Socialist League; but it is remarkable that there is no socialism in +Ireland, except in a small branch of the Socialist League in Dublin, +called the Dublin Socialist Club, although it seems a miracle for a +country seething for centuries with political and economic discontent to +escape such a visitation. Probably, as with the Poles, the minds of the +discontented are already too much pre-occupied with other political and +social solutions. The land nationalization views of Mr. George are, of +course, spread widely through the influence of Mr. Michael Davitt in the +agrarian movement of Ireland. + +But while the recent wave of socialism has passed over discontented +Ireland, and left it, like Gideon's fleece, quite dry, much more +susceptibility has been shown by those parts of the Empire where the lot +of labour is, perhaps in all the world, the happiest--the Australian +colonies. Here, too, the susceptibility has been created to some extent +by the land questions of the country. Mr. George, in his recent +lecturing tour through these colonies, met with a warm welcome in almost +all the towns he visited, made many converts to his ideas, and gave rise +to a considerable agitation. In South Australia three of his disciples +were returned to the Legislature in 1887, and their views are supported +by several newspapers in Adelaide. In a new colony the argument for +keeping the land in the hands of the State has in some respects more +point and force than in an old. Mr. George's disciples in Sydney publish +a paper called the _Land Nationalizer_, and his views are advocated by +one of the most influential papers in the colony, the _Bulletin_ of +Sydney. In New Zealand a bill has actually been brought in for the +purpose of nationalizing the land. But apart from Mr. George altogether, +there is a flourishing Australian Socialist League in Sydney, +established in 1887, and with a membership of 7,000 in 1888. It has a +journal called the _Radical_, and keeps up a busy agitation with +lectures and discussions. As a method of temporary policy it promotes +associations of labourers for the purpose of undertaking Government and +municipal contracts. In Melbourne, again, people are more advanced. They +have no socialist organization, but they have an anarchist club, +established in 1886 for the purpose of aiding social reform on the lines +of liberty, equality, and fraternity. It circulates the works of +Proudhon, Tucker, the Boston anarchist, Bakunin, and Mr. Auberon +Herbert; and it publishes a newspaper called _Honesty_, which appeared +at first once a month, and latterly once in two months. The ideas of the +party are not easy to ascertain exactly from the pages of their journal. +The State is, of course, the enemy, and land monopoly is one of the +State's worst creations; but some of the writers advocate land +nationalization, while others propound a scheme of what they call +"constructive anarchy," under which every man is to own the land he +occupies. They have started a new form of co-operative store, a kind of +mutual production society, whose members bind themselves to produce for +one another, and exchange their products for the bare cost of +production; and they have started a co-operative home, in which the +members get better and cheaper accommodation through their combination. +Melbourne anarchism, however, has no harm in it: it is a mere spark of +eccentric speculation. The working class of Melbourne is probably the +most powerful and the best organized working class in the world. In +their Trades Hall they have had for thirty years a workmen's chamber of +their own creating like what German socialists are vainly asking from +the State, and much more effective, because more independent. They have +secured the eight hours day to fifty-two different trades without +receiving a finger's help from the law, and without losing a shilling of +wages. They have, moreover, the voting power in their own hands. In +fact, they are, as nearly as any working class can be, in the precise +condition socialists require for revolutionary action. They are entirely +dependent on a handful of capitalists for their employment, and they +have the whole power of the State substantially under their own control; +so that they might, if they chose, march to the Parliament House with a +red flag, and instal the socialist State to-morrow. But they do not +choose. They propose no change in the present industrial system, and +make surprisingly few demands of any sort upon the State. The world goes +very well with them as it is, and they will not risk the comforts they +really enjoy to try any sweeping and problematical solutions. While the +socialist movement, in the countries where it is most advanced and +powerful, seems settling into a practical labour movement, the labour +movement, in the countries where it is most advanced and powerful, is +steering furthest and clearest from socialism. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +FERDINAND LASSALLE. + + +German socialism is--it is hardly too much to say--the creation of +Ferdinand Lassalle. Of course there were socialists in Germany before +Lassalle. There are socialists everywhere. A certain rudimentary +socialism is always in latent circulation in what may be called the +"natural heart" of society. The secret clubs of China--"the fraternal +leagues of heaven and earth"--who argue that the world is iniquitously +arranged, that the rich are too rich, and the poor too poor, and that +the wealth of the great has all accrued from the sweat of the masses, +only give a formal expression to ideas that are probably never far from +any one of us who have to work hard and earn little, and they merely +formulate them less systematically than Marx and his disciples do in +their theories of the exploitation of labour by capital. Socialism is +thus so much in the common air we all breathe, that there is force in +the view that the thing to account for is not so much the presence of +socialism, at any time, as its absence. Accordingly it had frequently +appeared in Germany under various forms before Lassalle. Fichte--to go +no farther back--had taught it from the standpoint of the speculative +philosopher and philanthropist. Schleiermacher, it may be remembered, +was brought up in a religious community that practised it. Weitling, +with some allies, preached it in a pithless and hazy way as a gospel to +the poor, and, finding little encouragement, went to America, to work it +out experimentally there. The Young Hegelians made it part of their +philosophic creed. The Silesian weavers, superseded by machinery, and +perishing for want of work, raised it as a wild inarticulate cry for +bread, and dignified it with the sanction of tears and blood. And Karl +Marx and Friedrich Engels, in 1848, summoned the proletariat of the +whole world to make it the aim and instrument of a universal revolution. +But it was Lassalle who first really brought it from the clouds and made +it a living historical force in the common politics of the day. The late +eminent Professor Lorenz von Stein, of Vienna, said, in 1842, in his +acute and thoughtful work on French Communism, that Germany, unlike +France, and particularly England, had nothing to fear from socialism, +because Germany had no proletariat to speak of. Yet, in twenty years, we +find Germany become suddenly the theatre of the most important and +formidable embodiment of socialism that has anywhere appeared. Important +and formidable, for two reasons: it founds its doctrines, as socialism +has never done before, on a thoroughly scientific investigation of the +facts, and criticism of the principles, of the present industrial +_regime_, and it seeks to carry them out by means of a political +organization, growing singularly in strength, and based on the class +interests of the great majority of the people. + +There were, of course, predisposing conditions for this outburst. A +German proletariat had come into being since Stein wrote, and though +still much smaller, in the aggregate, than the English, it was perhaps +really at this time the more plethoric and distressed of the two. For +the condition of the English working-classes had been greatly relieved +by emigration, by factory legislation, by trades unions, whereas in some +of these directions nothing at all, and in others only the faintest +beginnings, had as yet been effected in Germany. Then, the stir of big +political movement and anticipation was on men's minds. The future of +the German nation, its unity, its freedom, its development, were +practical questions of the hour. The nationality principle is +essentially democratic, and the aspirations for German unity carried +with them in every one of the States strong movements for the extension +of popular freedom and power. This long spasmodic battle for liberty in +Germany, which began with the century, and remains still unsettled, this +long series of revolts and concessions and overridings, and hopes +flattered and again deferred, this long uncertain babble of +_Gross-Deutsch_ and _Klein-Deutsch_, and Centralist and Federalist and +Particularist, of "Gotha ideas" and "new eras" and "blood and iron," +had prepared the public ear for bold political solutions, and has +entered from the first as an active and not unimportant factor in the +socialist agitation. Then again, the general political habits and +training of the people must be taken into account. Socialistic ideas +would find a readier vogue in Germany than in this country, because the +people are less rigidly practical, because they have been less used to +the sifting exercise of free discussion, and because they have always +seen the State doing a great deal for them which they could do better +for themselves, and are consequently apt to visit the State with blame +and claims for which it ought not to be made responsible. Then the +decline of religious belief in Germany, which the Church herself did +much to produce when she was rationalistic, without being able to undo +it since she has become orthodox, must certainly have impaired the +patience with which the poor endured the miseries of their lot, when +they still entertained the hope of exchanging it in a few short years +for a happier and an everlasting one hereafter. + +All these circumstances undoubtedly favoured the success of the +socialistic agitation at the period it started; but, when everything is +said, it is still doubtful whether German socialism would ever have come +into being but for Lassalle. Its fermenting principle has been less want +than positive ideas. This is shown by the fact that it was at first +received among the German working classes with an apathy that almost +disheartened Lassalle; and that it is now zealously propagated by them +as a cause, as an evangel, even after they have emigrated to America, +where their circumstances are comparatively comfortable. The ideas it +contains Lassalle found for the most part ready to his hand. The germs +of them may be discovered in the writings of Proudhon, in the projects +of Louis Blanc. Some of them he acknowledges he owes to Rodbertus, +others to Karl Marx, but it was in passing through his mind they first +acquired the stamp and ring that made them current coin. Contentions +about the priority of publishing this bit or that bit of an idea, +especially if the idea be false, need not concern us; and indeed +Lassalle makes no claim to originality in the economical field. He was +not so much an inventive as a critical thinker, and a critical thinker +of almost the first rank, with a dialectic power, and a clear, vivid +exposition that have seldom been excelled. Any originality that is +claimed for him lies in the region of interpretation of previous +thought, and that in the departments of metaphysics and jurisprudence, +not of economics. + +The peculiarity of his mind was that it hungered with almost equal +intensity for profound study and for exciting action, and that he had +the gifts as well as the impulses for both. As he said of Heraclitus the +Dark, whom he spent some of his best years in expounding, "there was +storm in his nature." Heine, who knew and loved him well as a young man +in Paris, and indeed found his society so delightful during his last +years of haggard suffering, that he said, "No one has ever done so much +for me, and when I receive letters from you, courage rises in me, and I +feel better,"--Heine characterizes him very truly in a letter to +Varnhagen von Ense. He says he was struck with astonishment at the +combination of qualities Lassalle displayed--the union of so much +intellectual power, deep learning, rich exposition on the one hand, with +so much energy of will and capacity for action on the other. With all +this admiration, however, he seems unable to regard him without +misgiving, for his audacious confidence, checked by no thought of +renunciation or tremor of modesty, amazed him as much as his ability. In +this respect he says Lassalle is a genuine son of the modern time, to +which Varnhagen and himself had acted in a way as the midwives, but on +which they could only look like the hen that hatched duck's eggs and +shuddered to see how her brood took to the water and swam about +delighted. Heine here puts his finger on the secret of his young +friend's failure. Lassalle would have been a great man if he had more of +the ordinary restraining perceptions, but he had neither fear nor awe, +nor even--in spite of his vein of satire--a wholesome sense of the +ridiculous,--in this last respect resembling, if we believe Carlyle, all +Jews. Chivalrous, susceptible, with a genuine feeling for the poor man's +case, and a genuine enthusiasm for social reform, a warm friend, a +vindictive enemy, full of ambition both of the nobler and the more +vulgar type, beset with an importunate vanity and given to primitive +lusts; generous qualities and churlish throve and strove in him side by +side, and governed or misgoverned a will to which opposition was almost +a native and necessary element, and which yet--or perhaps rather, +therefore--brooked no check. "Ferdinand Lassalle, thinker and fighter," +is the simple epitaph Professor Boeckh put on his tomb. Thinking and +fighting were the craving of his nature; thinking and fighting were the +warp and woof of his actual career, mingled indeed with threads of more +spurious fibre. The philosophical thinker and the political agitator are +parts rarely combined in one person, but to these Lassalle added yet a +third, which seems to agree with neither. He was a fashionable dandy, +noted for his dress, for his dinners, and, it must be added, for his +addiction to pleasure--a man apparently with little of that solidarity +in his own being which he sought to introduce into society at large, and +yet his public career possesses an undoubted unity. It is a mistake to +represent him, as Mr. L. Montefiore has done, as a _savan_ who turned +politician as if by accident and against his will, for the stir of +politics was as essential to him as the absorption of study. It is a +greater mistake, though a more common one, to represent him as having +become a revolutionary agitator because no other political career was +open to him. He felt himself, it is said, like a Caesar out of employ, +disqualified for all legitimate politics by his previous life, and he +determined, if he could not bend the gods, that he would move Acheron. +But so early as 1848, when yet but a lad of twenty-three, he was tried +for sedition, and he then declared boldly in his defence that he was a +socialist democrat, and that he was "revolutionary on principle." This +he remained throughout. He laughs at those who cannot hear the word +revolution without a shudder. "Revolution," he says, "means merely +transformation, and is accomplished when an entirely new principle +is--either with force or without it--put in the place of an existing +state of things. Reform, on the other hand, is when the principle of the +existing state of things is continued, and only developed to more +logical or just consequences. The means do not signify. A reform may be +carried out by bloodshed, and a revolution in the profoundest +tranquillity. The Peasants' War was an attempt to introduce reform by +arms, the invention of the spinning-jenny wrought a peaceful +revolution." In this sense he was "revolutionary on principle." His +thought was revolutionary, and it was the lessons he learnt as a +philosopher that he applied and pled for an agitator. His thinking and +his fighting belonged together like powder and shot. His Hegelianism, +which he adopted as a youth at college, is from first to last the +continuous source both of impetus and direction over his public career. +Young Germany was Hegelian and revolutionary at the time he went to the +University (1842), and with the impressionable Lassalle, then a youth of +seventeen, Hegelianism became a passion. He wrote articles on it in +University magazines, preached it right and left in the _cafes_ and +taverns, and resolved to make philosophy his profession and establish +himself as a _privat Docent_ at Berlin University. It was the first +sovereign intellectual influence he came under, and it ruled his spirit +to the end. In adopting it, his intellectual manhood may be said to have +opened with a revolution, for his family were strict Jews, and he was +brought up in their religion. + +Lassalle was born in 1825 at Breslau, where his father was a wholesale +dealer. He was educated at the Universities of Breslau and Berlin, and +at the latter city saw, through the Mendelssohns, a good deal of the +best literary society there, and made the acquaintance, among others, of +Alexander von Humboldt, who used to call him a _Wunderkind_. On +finishing his curriculum, he went for a time to Paris, and formed there +a close friendship with H. Heine, who was an old acquaintance of his +family. He meant to qualify himself as _privat Docent_ when he returned, +but was diverted from his purpose by the task of redressing a woman's +wrongs, into which he flew with the romantic enterprise of a +knight-errant, and which he carried, through years of patient and +zealous labour, to a successful issue. The Countess Hatzfeldt had been +married when a girl of sixteen to a cousin of her own, one of the great +nobles of Germany; but the marriage turned out most unhappily after a +few years, and she was obliged, on account of the maltreatment she +suffered, to live apart from her husband. His persecution followed her +into her separation. He took child after child from her, and was now +seeking to take the last she had left, her youngest son. He allowed her +very scanty and irregular support, while he lavished his money on +mistresses, and was, at this very moment, settling on one of them an +annuity of L1,000. This state of things had continued for twenty years, +and the Countess's own relations had, for family reasons, always +declined to take up her case. Lassalle, who had made her acquaintance in +Berlin, was profoundly touched by her story, and felt that she was +suffering an intolerable wrong, which society permitted only because she +was a woman, and her husband a lord. Though not a lawyer, he resolved to +undertake her case, and after carrying the suit before thirty-six +different courts, during a period of eight years, he at length procured +for her a divorce in 1851, and a princely fortune in 1854, from which +she rewarded him with a considerable annuity for his exertions. +Lassalle's connection with this case not unnaturally gave rise to +sinister construction. It was supposed he must have been in love with +the Countess, and wanted to marry her, but this was disproved by the +event. Darker insinuations were made, but had there been truth in them, +it could not have escaped the spies the Count sent to watch him, and the +servants the Count bribed to inform on him. Chivalry, vanity, and +temerity at the season of life when all three qualities are at their +height, account sufficiently for his whole conduct, and I see no reason +to doubt the explanation he himself gives of it. "Her family," he +states, "were silent, but it is said when men keep silence the stones +will speak. When every human right is violated, when even the voice of +blood is mute, and helpless man is forsaken by his born protectors, +there then rises with right man's first and last relation--man. You have +all read with emotion the monstrous history of the unhappy Duchess of +Praslin. Who is there among you that would not have gone to the death to +defend her? Well, gentlemen, I said to myself, here is Praslin ten times +over. What is the sharp death-agony of an hour compared with the pangs +of death protracted over twenty years? What are the wounds a knife +inflicts compared with the slow murder dispensed with refined cruelty +throughout a being's whole existence? What are they compared with the +immense woe of this woman, every right of whose life has been trampled +under foot, day after day, for twenty years, and whom they have first +tried to cover with contempt, that they might then the more securely +overwhelm her with punishment?... The difficulties, the sacrifices, the +dangers did not deter me. I determined to meet false appearances with +the truth, to meet rank with right, to meet the power of money with the +power of mind. But if I had known what infamous calumnies I should have +to encounter, how people turned the purest motives into their +contraries, and what ready credence they gave to the most wretched +lies--well, I hope my purpose would not have been changed, but it would +have cost me a severe and bitter struggle." There seems almost something +unmodern in the whole circumstances of this case, both in the oppression +the victim endured, and in the manner of her rescue. + +In the course of this suit occurred the robbery of Baroness von +Meyerdorff's _cassette_, on which so much has been said. The Baroness +was the person already mentioned on whom Count Hatzfeldt bestowed the +annuity of L1,000. The Countess, on hearing of this settlement, went +straight to her husband, accompanied by a clergyman, and insisted upon +him cancelling it, in justice to his youngest son, whom it would have +impoverished. The Count at first promised to do so, but after her +departure, refused, and the Baroness set out for Aix to get her bond +effectually secured. Lassalle suspected the object of her journey, and +said to the Countess, in the presence of two young friends, Could we not +obtain possession of this bond? No sooner said than done. The two young +men started for Cologne, and one of them stole the Baroness's +_cassette_, containing the veritable deed, in her hotel, and gave it to +the other. They and Lassalle were all three successively tried for their +part in this crime. Oppenheim, who actually stole the _cassette_, was +acquitted; Mendelssohn, who only received it, was sent to prison; and +Lassalle, who certainly suggested the deed, was found guilty by the +jury, but acquitted by the judges. Moral complicity of some sort was +clear, but it did not amount to a legal crime. Our interest with the +transaction is merely to discover the light it reflects on the character +of the man. It was a rash, foolish, and lawless freak, but of course the +ordinary motives of the robber were absent. The theft of the +_cassette_, however, was a transaction which his enemies never suffered +to be forgotten. + +The theft of the _cassette_ occurred in 1846; Lassalle was tried for it +in 1848, and was no sooner released than he fell into the hands of +justice on a much more serious charge. The dissolution of the first +Prussian National Assembly in 1848, and the gift of a Constitution by +direct royal decree, had excited bitter disappointment and opposition +over the whole country. There was a general agitation for combining to +stop supplies by refusing to pay taxes, in order thus "to meet force +with force," and this agitation was particularly active in the Rhine +provinces, where democratic views had found much favour. Lassalle even +planned an insurrection, and urged the citizens of Dusseldorf to armed +resistance; but the Prussian Government promptly intervened, placed the +town under a state of siege, and threw Lassalle into jail. He was tried +in 1849 for treason, and acquitted by the jury, but was immediately +afterwards brought before a correctional tribunal on the minor charge of +resisting officers of the police, and sent to prison for six months. It +was in his speech at the former of these trials that he declared himself +a partisan of the Socialist Democratic Republic, and claimed for every +citizen the right and duty of active resistance to the State when +necessary. He had nothing but scorn to pour on the passive resistance +policy of the Parliament. "Passive resistance is a contradiction in +itself. It is like Lichtenberg's knife, without blade, and without +handle, or like the fleece which one must wash without wetting. It is +mere inward ill-will without the outward deed. The Crown confiscates the +people's freedom; and the Prussian National Assembly, for the people's +protection, declares ill-will; it would be unintelligible how the +commonest logic should have allowed a legislative assembly to cover +itself with such incomparable ridicule if it were not too intelligible." +These are bold words. He felt himself standing on a principle and +representing a cause; and so he went into prison, he tells us, with as +light a heart as he would have gone to a ball; and when he heard that +his sister had petitioned for his pardon, he wrote instantly and +publicly disclaimed her letter. + +All these trials had brought Lassalle into considerable notoriety, not +unmingled with a due recognition of his undoubted _verve_, eloquence, +and brilliancy. One effect of them was that he was forbidden to come to +Berlin. This prohibition was founded, of course, on his seditious work +at Dusseldorf, but is believed to have been instigated and kept up by +the influence of the Hatzfeldt family. Lassalle felt it a sore +privation, for his ambitions and hopes all centred in Berlin. After +various ineffectual attempts to obtain permission, he arrived in the +capital one day in 1857 disguised as a waggoner, and through the +personal intercession of Alexander von Humboldt with the king, was at +length suffered to remain. His "Heraclitus" had just appeared, and at +once secured him a position in literary circles. One of his first +productions after his return to Berlin was a pamphlet on "The Italian +War and the Mission of Prussia; a Voice from the Democracy," which shows +that his political prosecutions had not soured him against Prussia. His +argument is that freedom and democracy must in Germany, as in Italy, be +first preceded by unity, and that the only power capable of giving unity +to Germany was Prussia, as to Italy, Piedmont. He had more of the +political mind than most revolutionaries and doctrinaires, and knew that +the better might be made the enemy of the good, and that ideals could +only be carried out gradually, and by temporary compromises. He was +monarchical for the present, therefore, no doubt because he thought the +monarchy to be for the time the best and shortest road to the democratic +republic. His friend Rodbertus said there was an esoteric and an +exoteric Lassalle. That may be said of all politicians. Compromise is of +the essence of their work. + +During the next few years Lassalle's literary activity was considerable. +Besides a tragedy of no merit ("Franz von Sickingen," 1859) and various +pamphlets or lectures on Fichte, on Lessing, on the Constitution, on +Might and Right, he published in 1861 the most important work he has +left us, his "System of Acquired Rights," and in 1862 a satirical +commentary on Julian Schmidt's "History of German Literature," which +excited much attention and amusement at the time. His "System of +Acquired Rights" already contains the germs of his socialist views, and +his pamphlet on the Constitution, which appeared when the "new era" +ended and the era of Bismarck began, is written to disparage the +Constitutionalism of modern Liberals. A paper constitution was a thing +of no consequence; it was merely declarative, not creative; the thing of +real account was the distribution of power as it existed in actual fact. +The king and army were powers, the court and nobility were powers, the +populace was a power. Society was governed by the relative strength of +these powers, as it existed in reality and not by the paper constitution +that merely chronicled it. Right is regarded as merely declarative of +might. It is thus easy to see why he should have more sympathy with the +policy of Bismarck than with the Liberals; and later in the same year he +expounded his own political position very completely in a lecture he +delivered to a Working Men's Society in Berlin, on "The Connection +between the Present Epoch of History and the Idea of the Working Class." +This lecture, to which I shall again revert, was an epoch in his own +career. It led to a second Government prosecution, and a second +imprisonment for political reasons; and it and the prosecution together +led to his receiving an invitation to address a General Working Men's +Congress at Leipzig, in February, 1863, to which he responded by a +letter, sketching the political programme of the working class, which +was certainly the first step in the socialist movement. + +Attention was already being engaged on the work of industrial +amelioration. The Progressist party, then including the present National +Liberals, had, under the lead of Schultze-Delitzsch, been promoting +trades unions and co-operation in an experimental way, and the working +classes themselves were beginning to think of taking more concerted +action for their own improvement. The Leipzig Congress was projected by +a circle of working men, who considered the Schultze-Delitzsch schemes +inadequate to meet the case. This was exactly Lassalle's view. He begins +his letter by telling the working men that if all they wanted was to +mitigate some of the positive evils of their lot, then the +Schultze-Delitzsch unions, savings banks, and sick funds were quite +sufficient, and there was no need of thinking of anything more. But if +their aim was to elevate the _normal_ condition of their class, then +more drastic remedies were requisite; and, in the first instance, a +political agitation was indispensable. The Leipzig working men had +discussed the question of their relation to politics at a previous +congress a few months before, and had been divided between abstaining +from politics altogether, and supporting the Progressist party. Lassalle +disapproved of both these courses. They could never achieve the +elevation they desired till they got universal suffrage, and they would +never get universal suffrage by backing the Progressists who were +opposed to it. He then explains to them how their normal condition is +permanently depressed at present by the essential laws of the existing +economic _regime_, especially by "the iron and cruel law of necessary +wages." The only real cure was co-operative production, the substitution +of associated labour for wage labour; for it was only so the operation +of this tyrannical law of wages could be escaped. Now co-operative +production, to be of any effective extent, must be introduced by State +help and on State credit. The State gave advances to start railways, to +develop agriculture, to promote manufactures, and nobody called it +socialism to do so. Why, then, should people cry socialism if the State +did a similar service to the great working class, who were, in fact, not +a class, but the State itself. 961/2 per cent. of the population were +ground down by "the iron law," and could not possibly lift themselves +above it by their own power. They must ask the State to help them, for +they were themselves the State, and the help of the State was no more a +superseding of their own self-help than reaching a man a ladder +superseded his own climbing. State help was but self-help's means. Now +these State advances could not be expected till the working class +acquired political power by universal suffrage. Their first duty was +therefore to organize themselves and agitate for universal suffrage; for +universal suffrage was a question of the stomach. + +The reception his letter met with at first was most discouraging. The +newspapers with one consent condemned it, except a Feudalist organ here +and there who saw in it an instrument for damaging the Liberals. What +seemed more ominous was the opposition of the working men themselves. +The Leipzig Committee to whom it was addressed did indeed approve of +it, and individual voices were raised in its favour elsewhere, but in +Berlin the working men's clubs rejected it with decided warmth, and all +over the country one working men's club after another declared against +it. Leipzig was the only place in which his words seemed to find any +echo, and he went there two months later and addressed a meeting at +which only 7 out of 1,300 voted against him. With this encouragement he +resolved to go forward, and founded, on the 23rd of May, 1863, the +General Working Men's Association for the promotion of universal +suffrage by peaceful agitation, after the model of the English Anti-Corn +Law League. He immediately threw himself with unsparing energy into the +development of this organization. He passed from place to place, +delivering speeches, establishing branches; he started newspapers, wrote +pamphlets, and even larger works, published tracts by Rodbertus, songs +by Herwegh, romances by Von Schweitzer. But it was uphill work. South +Germany was evidently dead to his ideas, and even among those who +followed him in the North there were but few who really understood his +doctrines or concurred in his methods. Some were for more "heroic" +procedure, for raising fighting corps to free Poland, to free +Schleswig-Holstein, to free oppressed nationalities anywhere. Many were +perfectly impracticable persons who knew neither why exactly they had +come together, nor where exactly they would like to go. There were +constant quarrels and rivalries and jealousies among them, and he is +said to have shown remarkable tact and patience, and a genuine governing +faculty in dealing with them. Lassalle's hope was to obtain a membership +of 100,000: with a smaller number nothing could be done, but with +100,000 the movement would be a power. In August, 1863, he had only +enrolled 1,000 after three months' energetic labour, which, he said, +"would have produced colossal results among a people like the French." +He was intensely disappointed, and asked, "When will this foolish people +cast aside their lethargy?" but meanwhile repelled the suggestion of the +secretary of the organization that it should be at once dissolved. In +August, 1864, another year's strenuous work had raised their numbers +only to 4,610, and Lassalle was completely disenchanted, and wrote +Countess Hatzfeldt from Switzerland, shortly before his death, that he +was continuing President of the Association much against his will, for +he was now tired of politics, which was mere child's play if one had not +power. He seems to have been convinced that the movement was a failure, +and would never become a force in the State. Yet he was wrong; his words +had really taken fire among the working classes, and kindled a movement +which, in its curious history, has shown the remarkable power of +spreading faster with the checks it encounters. It seems to have +profited, not merely from political measures of repression, but even +from the internal dissensions and divisions of its own adherents, and +some persons tell us that it was first stimulated into decided vigour by +the fatal event which might have been expected to crush it--the sudden +and tragical death of its chief. + +In the end of July, 1864, Lassalle went to Switzerland ostensibly for +the Righi whey cure, but really to make the acquaintance of Herr von +Doennigsen, Bavarian Envoy at Berne, whose daughter he had known in +Berlin, and wished to obtain in marriage. It is one of the fatalities +that entangled this man's life in strange contradictions, that exactly +he, a _persona ingratissima_ to Court circles, their very arch-enemy, as +they believed, should have become bound by deep mutual attachment with +the daughter of exactly a German diplomatist, the courtliest of the +courtly, a Conservative seven times refined. They certainly cherished +for one another a sincere, and latterly a passionate affection, and they +seem to have been well fitted for each other. Helena von Doennigsen was a +bright, keen-witted, eccentric, adventurous young woman of twenty-five, +and so like Lassalle, even in appearance, that when she was acting a +man's part, years afterwards (in 1874), in some amateur performance in +the theatre of Breslau, Lassalle's native town, many of the audience +said, here was Lassalle again as he was when a boy. Learning from a +common friend in Berlin that Lassalle was at the Righi, she made a visit +to some friends in Berne, and soon after accompanied them on an +excursion to that "popular" mountain. She inquired for Lassalle at the +hotel, and he joined the party to the summit. She knew her parents would +be opposed to the match, but felt certain that her lover, with his +gifts and charms, would be able to win them over, and it was accordingly +agreed that when she returned to Geneva, Lassalle should go there too, +and press his suit in person. The parents, however, were inexorable, and +refused to see him; and the young lady in despair fled from her father's +house to her lover's lodging, and urged him to elope with her. Lassalle +calmly led her back to her father's roof, with a control which some +writers think quite inexplicable in him, but which was probably due to +his still believing that he would be able to talk the parents round if +he got the chance, and to his desire to try constitutional means before +resorting to revolutionary. Helena was locked in her room for days alone +with her excited brain and panting heart. For days, father, mother, +sister, brother, all came and laid before her what ruin she was bringing +on the family for a mere selfish whim of her own. If she married a man +so objectionable to people in power, her father would be obliged to +resign his post, her brother could never look for one, and her sister, +who had just been engaged to a Count, would, of course, have to give up +her engagement. She was in despair, but ultimately submitted passively +to write to Lassalle, desiring him to consider the matter ended, and +submitted equally passively (for she informs us herself) to accept the +hand of Herr von Racowitza, a young Wallachian Boyar, whom she had +indeed been previously engaged to, and sincerely liked and respected, +without in the eminent sense loving him. Lassalle had meanwhile wrought +himself into a fury of excitement. Enraged by her parents' opposition, +enraged still more by their refusal even to treat with him, enraged +above all by his belief that their daughter was being illegitimately +constrained, he wrote here, wrote there, tried to get the foreign +minister at Munich to interfere, to get Bishop Ketteler to use his +influence, promised even to turn Catholic to please the Doennigsens, +forgetting that they were Protestants. All in vain. At last two of his +friends waited by appointment on Herr von Doennigsen, and heard from +Helena's own lips that she was to be married to the Boyar, and wished +the subject no more mentioned. She now tells us that she did this in +sheer weariness of mind, and with a confused hope that somehow or other +the present storm would blow past, and she might have her Lassalle +after all. Lassalle, however, was overcome with chagrin; and though he +always held that a democrat should not fight duels, and had got +Robespierre's stick, which he usually carried, as a present for having +declined one, he now sent a challenge both to the father and the +bridegroom. The latter accepted. The duel was fought. Lassalle was +fatally wounded, and died two days after, on the 31st August, 1864, at +the age of 39. Helena married Herr von Racowitza shortly afterwards, but +he was already seized with consumption, and she says she found great +comfort, after the tumult and excitement of the Lassalle episode, in +nursing him during the few months he lived after their marriage. + +The body was sent back to Germany, after funeral orations from +revolutionists of all countries and colours, and the Countess Hatzfeldt +had made arrangements for similar funeral celebrations at every halting +place along the route to Berlin, where she meant it to be buried, but at +Cologne it was intercepted by the police on behalf of the Lassalle +family, and carried quietly to Breslau, where, after life's fitful +fever, he was laid silently with his fathers in the Jewish +burying-ground of his native place. Fate, however, had not even yet done +with him. It followed him beyond the tomb to throw one more element of +the bizarre into his strangely compounded history. Lest the death of the +leader should prove fatal to the cause, the Committee of the General +Working Men's Association determined to turn it, if possible, into a +source of strength, as B. Becker, his successor in the president's +chair, informs us, "by carrying it into the domain of faith." Lassalle +was not dead, but only translated to a higher and surer leadership. A +Lassalle _cultus_ was instituted, and Becker says that many a German +working man believed that he died for them, and that he was yet to come +again to save them. This singular apotheosis, which is neither +creditable to the honesty of the leaders of the socialist movement, nor +to the intelligence of its rank and file, was kept up by periodical +celebrations among those of the German socialists who are generally +known as the orthodox Lassalleans, down, at least, to the time of the +Anti-Socialist Law of 1878. + +Lassalle's doctrines are mainly contained in his lecture on "The +Present Age and the Idea of the Working Class," which he delivered in +1862, and published in 1863, under the title of the "Working Men's +Programme," and in his "Herr Bastiat-Schultze von Delitzsch, der +Oekonomische Julian; oder Capital und Arbeit," Berlin, 1864. + +In the "Working Men's Programme," the question of the emancipation of +the working class is approached and contemplated from the standpoint of +the Hegelian philosophy of history. There are, it declares, three +successive stages of evolution in modern history. First, the period +before 1789, the feudal period, when all public power was vested in, +exercised by, and employed for the benefit of, the landed class. It was +a period of privileges and exemptions, which were enjoyed by the landed +interests exclusively, and there prevailed a strong social contempt for +all labour and employment not connected with the land. Second, the +period 1789-1848, the _bourgeois_ period, in which personal estate +received equal rights and recognition with real, but in which political +power was still based on property qualifications, and legislation was +governed by the interests of the _bourgeoisie_. Third, the period since +1848, the age of the working class, which is, however, only yet +struggling to the birth and to legal recognition. The characteristic of +this new period is, that it will for the first time give labour its +rights, and that it will be dominated by the ideas, aspirations, and +interests of the great labouring class. Their time has already come, and +the _bourgeois_ age is already past in fact, though it still lingers in +law. It is always so. The feudal period had in reality come to an end +before the Revolution. A revolution is always declarative and never +creative. It takes place first in the heart of society, and is only +sealed and ratified by the outbreak. "It is impossible to make a +revolution, it is possible only to give external legal sanction and +effect to a revolution already contained in the actual circumstances of +society.... To seek to make a revolution is the folly of immature men +who have no consideration for the laws of history; and for the same +reason it is immature and puerile to try to stem a revolution that has +already completed itself in the interior of society. If a revolution +exists in fact, it cannot possibly be prevented from ultimately existing +in law." It is idle, too, to reproach those who desire to effect this +transition with being revolutionary. They are merely midwives who assist +in bringing to the birth a future with which society is already +pregnant. Now, it is this midwife service that Lassalle believed the +working class at present required. He says of the fourth estate what +Sieyes said of the third, What is the fourth estate? Nothing? What ought +the fourth estate to be? Everything. And it ought to be so in law, +because it is so already in fact. The _bourgeoisie_, in overthrowing the +privileges of the feudal class, had almost immediately become a +privileged class itself. At so early a period of the revolution as the +3rd of September, 1791, a distinction was introduced between active and +passive citizens. The active citizen was the citizen who paid direct +taxes, and had therefore a right to vote; the passive citizen was he who +paid no direct taxes, and had no right to vote. The effect of this +distinction was to exclude the whole labouring classes from the +franchise; and under the July Monarchy, while the real nation consisted +of some thirty millions, the legal nation (_pays legal_), the people +legally possessed of political rights, amounted to no more than 200,000, +whom the Government found it only too easy to manage and corrupt. The +revolution of 1848 was simply a revolt against this injustice. It was a +revolt of the fourth estate against the privileges of the third, as the +first revolution was a revolt of the third against the privileges of the +other two. Nor were the privileges which the _bourgeoisie_ had contrived +to acquire confined to political rights alone; they included also fiscal +exemptions. According to the latest statistical returns, it appeared +that five-sixths of the revenue of Prussia came from indirect taxation, +and indirect taxes were always taken disproportionately out of the +pockets of the working class. A man might be twenty times richer than +another, but he did not therefore consume twenty times the amount of +bread, salt, or beer. Taxation ought to be in ratio of means, and +indirect taxation--so much favoured by the _bourgeoisie_--was simply an +expedient for saving the rich at the expense of the poor. + +Now, the revolution of 1848 was a fight for the emancipation of the +working class from this unequal distribution of political rights and +burdens. The working class was really not a class at all, but was the +nation; and the aim of the State should be their amelioration. "What is +the State?" asks Lassalle. "You are the State," he replies. "You are +ninety-six per cent. of the population. All political power ought to be +of you, and through you, and for you; and your good and amelioration +ought to be the aim of the State. It ought to be so, because your good +is not a class interest, but is the national interest." The fourth +estate differs from the feudal interest, and differs from the +_bourgeoisie_, not merely in that it is not a privileged class, but in +that it cannot possibly become one. It cannot degenerate, as the +_bourgeoisie_ had done, into a privileged and exclusive caste; because, +consisting as it does of the great body of the people, its class +interest and the common good are identical, or at least harmonious. +"Your affair is the affair of mankind; your personal interest moves and +beats with the pulse of history, with the living principle of moral +development." + +Such then is the idea of the working class, which is, or is destined to +be, the ruling principle of society in the present era of the world. Its +supremacy will have important consequences, both ethical and political. +Ethically, the working class is less selfish than the classes above it, +simply because it has no exclusive privileges to maintain. The necessity +of maintaining privileges always develops an assertion of personal +interest in exact proportion to the amount of privilege to be defended, +and that is why the selfishness of a class constantly exceeds the +individual selfishness of the members that compose it. Now under the +happier _regime_ of the idea of labour, there would be no exclusive +interests or privileges, and therefore less selfishness. Adam would +delve and Eve would spin, and, consciously or unconsciously, each would +work more for the whole, and the whole would work more for each. +Politically, too, the change would be remarkable and beneficial. The +working class has a quite different idea of the State and its aim from +the _bourgeoisie_. The latter see no other use in the State but to +protect personal freedom and property. The State is a mere +night-watchman, and, if there were no thieves and robbers, would be a +superfluity; its occupation would be gone. Its whole duty is exhausted +when it guarantees to every individual the unimpeded exercise of his +activity as far as consistent with the like right of his neighbours. +Even from its own point of view this _bourgeois_ theory of the State +fails to effect its purpose. Instead of securing equality of freedom, it +only secures equality of right to freedom. If all men were equal in +fact, this might answer well enough, but since they are not, the result +is simply to place the weak at the mercy of the powerful. Now the +working class have an entirely different view of the State's mission +from this. They say the protection of an equality of right to freedom is +an insufficient aim for the State in a morally ordered community. It +ought to be supplemented by the securing of solidarity of interests and +community and reciprocity of development. History all along is an +incessant struggle with Nature, a victory over misery, ignorance, +poverty, powerlessness--_i.e._, over unfreedom, thraldom, restrictions +of all kinds. The perpetual conquest over these restrictions is the +development of freedom, is the growth of culture. Now this is never +effected by each man for himself. It is the function of the State to do +it. The State is the union of individuals into a moral whole which +multiplies a millionfold the aggregate of the powers of each. The end +and function of the State is not merely to guard freedom, but to develop +it; to put the individuals who compose it in a position to attain and +maintain such objects, such levels of existence, such stages of culture, +power, and freedom, as they would have been incapable of reaching by +their own individual efforts alone. The State is the great agency for +guiding and training the human race to positive and progressive +development; in other words, for bringing human destiny (_i.e._, the +culture of which man as man is susceptible) to real shape and form in +actual existence. Not freedom, but development is now the keynote. The +State must take a positive part, proportioned to its immense capacity, +in the great work which, as he has said, constitutes history, and must +forward man's progressive conquest over misery, ignorance, poverty, and +restrictions of every sort. This is the purpose, the essence, the moral +nature of the State, which she can never entirely abrogate, without +ceasing to be, and which she has indeed always been obliged, by the very +force of things, more or less to fulfil, often without her conscious +consent, and sometimes in spite of the opposition of her leaders. In a +word, the State must, by the union of all, help each to his full +development. This was the earnest and noble idea of 1848. It is the idea +of the new age, the age of labour, and it cannot fail to have a most +important and beneficial bearing on the course of politics and +legislation whenever it is permitted to have free operation in that +sphere by means of universal and direct suffrage. + +This exposition of Lassalle's teaching in his "Working Men's Programme" +already furnishes us with the transition to his economic views. Every +age of the world, he held, has its own ruling idea. The idea of the +working class is the ruling idea of the new epoch we have now entered +on, and that idea implies that every man is entitled to a +_menschenwuerdiges Dasein_, to an existence worthy of his moral destiny, +and that the State is bound to make this a governing consideration in +its legislative and executive work. Man's destiny is to progressive +civilization, and a condition of society which makes progressive +civilization the exclusive property of the few, and practically debars +the vast mass of the people from participation in it, stands in the +present age self-condemned. It no longer corresponds to its own idea. +Society has long since declared no man shall be enslaved; society has +more recently declared no man shall be ignorant; society now declares no +man shall be without property. He cannot be really free without property +any more than he can be really free without knowledge. He has been +released successively from a state of legal dependence and from a state +of intellectual dependence; he must now be released from a state of +economic dependence. This is his final emancipation, which is necessary +to enable him to reap any fruits from the other two, and it cannot take +place without a complete transformation of present industrial +arrangements. It is a common mistake, he said, to think that socialists +take their stand on equality. They really take their stand on freedom. +They argue that the positive side of freedom is development, and if +every man has a right to freedom, then every man has a right to the +possibility of development. From this right, however, they allege the +existing industrial system absolutely excludes the great majority. The +freeman cannot realize his freedom, the individual cannot realize his +individuality, without a certain external economic basis of work and +enjoyment, and the best way to furnish him with this is to clothe him in +various ways with collective property. + +Lassalle's argument, however, is still more specific than this. In the +beginning of his "Herr Bastiat-Schultze," he quotes a passage from his +previous work on "The System of Acquired Rights," which he informs us he +had intended to expand into a systematic treatise on "The Principles of +Scientific National Economy." This intention he was actually preparing +to fulfil when the Leipzig invitation and letter diverted him at once +into practical agitation. He regrets that circumstances had thus not +permitted the practical agitation to be preceded by the theoretical +codex which should be the basis for it, but adds that the substance of +his theory is contained in this polemic against Schultze-Delitzsch, +though the form of its exposition is considerably modified by his plan +of following the ideas of Schultze's "Working Men's Catechism," and by +his purpose of answering Schultze's misplaced taunt of "half knowledge" +by trying to extinguish the economic pretensions of the latter as +completely as he had done the literary pretensions of Julian Schmidt. +"Every line I write," says Lassalle, with a characteristic finality of +self-confidence, "I write armed with the whole culture of my century"; +and at any rate Schultze-Delitzsch was far his inferior in economic as +in other knowledge. In the passage to which I have referred, Lassalle +says, "The world is now face to face with a new social question, the +question whether, since there is no longer any property in the immediate +use of another man, there should still exist property in his mediate +exploitation--_i.e._, whether the free realization and development of +one's power and labour should be the exclusive private property of the +owner of the instruments and advances necessary for labour--_i.e._, of +capital; and whether the employer as such, and apart from the +remuneration of his own intellectual labour of management, should be +permitted to have property in the value of other people's +labour--_i.e._, whether he ought to receive what is known as the +premium or profit of capital, consisting of the difference between the +selling price of the product and the sum of the wages and salaries of +all kinds of labour, manual and mental, that have contributed to its +production." + +His standing-point here, again, as always, belongs to the philosophy of +history--to the idea of historical evolution with which his Hegelianism +had early penetrated him. The course of legal history has been one of +gradual but steady contraction of the sphere of private property in the +interests of personal freedom and development. The ancient system of +slavery, under which the labourer was the absolute and complete property +of his master, was followed by the feudal system of servitudes, under +which he was still only partially proprietor of himself, but was bound +by law to a particular lord by one or more of a most manifold series of +specific services. These systems have been successively abolished. There +is no longer property in man or in the use of man. No man can now be +either inherited or sold in whole or in part. He is his own, and his +power of labour is his own. But he is still far from being in full +possession of himself or of his labour. He cannot work without materials +to work on and instruments to work with, and for these the modern +labourer is more dependent than ever labourer was before on the private +owners in whose hands they have accumulated. And the consequence is that +under existing industrial arrangements the modern labourer has no more +individual property in his labour than the ancient slave had. He is +obliged to part with the whole value of his labour, and content himself +with bare subsistence in return. It is in this sense that socialist +writers maintain property to be theft--not that subjectively the +proprietors are thieves, but that objectively, under the exigencies of a +system of competition, they cannot help offering workmen, and workmen +cannot help accepting, wages far under the true value of their labour. +Labour is the source of all wealth, for the value of anything--that +which makes it wealth--is, on the economists' own showing, only another +name for the amount of labour put into the making of it; and labour is +the only ground on which modern opponents of socialism--Thiers and +Bastiat, for example--think the right of individual property can be +established. Yet on the methods of distribution of wealth that now +exist, individual property is not founded on this its only justifiable +basis, and the aim of socialists is to emancipate the system of +distribution from the influence of certain unconscious forces which, as +they allege, at present disturb it, and to bring back individual +property for the first time to its natural and rightful +foundation--labour. Their aim is not to abolish private property, but to +purify it, by means of some systematic social regulation which shall +give each man a share more conformable with his personal merit and +contribution. Even if no question is raised about the past, it is plain +that labour is every day engaged in making more new property. Millions +of labouring men are, day after day, converting their own brain, muscle, +and sinew into useful commodities, into value, into wealth. Now, the +problem of the age, according to Lassalle, is this, whether this unmade +property of the future should not become genuine labour property, and +its value remain greatly more than at present in the hands that actually +produced it. + +This, he holds, can only be done by a fundamental reconstruction of the +present industrial system, and by new methods of determining the +remuneration of the labouring class. For there is a profound +contradiction in the present system. It is unprecedentedly communistic +in production, and unprecedentedly individualistic in distribution. Now +there ought to be as real a joint participation in the product, as there +is already a joint participation in the work. Capital must become the +servant of labour instead of its master, profits must disappear, +industry must be conducted more on the mutual instead of the proprietary +principle, and the instruments of production be taken out of private +hands and turned into collective or even, it may be, national property. +In the old epoch, before 1789, industrial society was governed by the +principle of solidarity without freedom; in the period since 1789, by +freedom without solidarity, which has been even worse; in the epoch now +opening, the principle must be solidarity in freedom. + +Partisans of the present system object to any social interference with +the distribution of wealth, but they forget how much--how entirely--that +distribution is even now effected by social methods. The present +arrangement of property, says Lassalle, is, in fact, nothing but an +anarchic and unjust socialism. How do you define socialism? he asks. +Socialism is a distribution of property by social channels. Now this is +the condition of things that exists to-day. There exists, under the +guise of individual production, a distribution of property by means of +purely objective movements of society. For there is a certain natural +solidarity in things as they are, only being under no rational control, +it operates as a wild natural force, as a kind of fate destroying all +rational freedom and all rational responsibility in economic affairs. In +a sense, there never was more solidarity than there is now; there never +was so much interdependence. Under the large system of production, +masses of workmen are simply so many component parts of a single great +machine driven by the judgment or recklessness of an individual +capitalist. With modern facilities of inter-communication, too, the +trade of the world is one and indivisible. A deficient cotton harvest in +America carries distress into thousands of households in Lyons, in +Elberfeld, in Manchester. A discovery of gold in Australia raises all +prices in Europe. A simple telegram stating that rape prospects are good +in Holland instantly deprives the oilworkers of Prussia of half their +wages. So far from there being any truth in the contention of +Schultze-Delitzsch, that the existing system is the only sound one, +because it is founded on the principle of making every man responsible +for his own doings, the very opposite is the case. The present system +makes every man responsible for what he does not do. In consequence of +the unprecedented interconnection of modern industry, the sum of +conditions needed to be known for its successful guidance have so +immensely increased that rational calculation is scarcely possible, and +men are enriched without any merit, and impoverished without any fault. +According to Lassalle, in the absence as yet of an adequate system of +commercial statistics, the number of known conditions is always much +smaller than the number of unknown, and the consequence is, that trade +is very much a game of chance. Everything in modern industrial economy +is ruled by social connections, by favourable or unfavourable situations +and opportunities. _Conjunctur_ is its great Orphic chain. Chance is its +Providence--Chance and his sole and equally blind counsellor, +Speculation. Every age and condition of society, says Lassalle, tends to +develop some phenomenon that more particularly expresses its type and +spirit, and the purest type of capitalistic society is the financial +speculator. Capital, he maintains, is a historical and not a logical +category, and the capitalist is a modern product. He is the development, +not of the ancient Croesus or the mediaeval lord, but of the usurer, who +has taken their place, but was in their lifetime hardly a respectable +person. Croesus was a very rich man, but he was not a capitalist, for he +could do anything with his wealth except capitalize it. The idea of +money making money and of capital being self-productive, which Lassalle +takes to be the governing idea of the present order of things, was, he +says, quite foreign to earlier periods. Industry is now entirely under +the control of capitalists speculating for profit. No one now makes +things first of all for his own use--as mythologizing economists +relate--and then exchanges what is over for the like redundant work of +his neighbours. Men make everything first of all, and last of all, for +other people's use, and they make it at the direction and expense of a +capitalist who is speculating for money, and, in the absence of +systematic statistics, is speculating in the dark. Chance and social +connections make him rich, chance and social connections bring him to +ruin. Capital is not the result of saving, it is the result of +_Conjunctur_; and so are the vicissitudes and crises that have so +immensely increased in modern times. What you have now, therefore, says +Lassalle, is a system of socialism; wealth is at present distributed by +social means, and by nothing else; and all he contends for is, as he +says, to substitute a regulated and rational socialism for this anarchic +and natural socialism that now exists. + +His charge against the present system, however, is more than that it is +anarchic; he maintains it to be unjust--organically and hopelessly +unjust. The labourer's back is the green table on which the whole game +is played, and all losses are in the end sustained by him. A slightly +unfavourable turn of things sends him at once into want, while even a +considerably favourable one brings him no corresponding advantage, for, +according to all economists, wages are always the last thing to rise +with a reviving trade. The present system is, in fact, incapable of +doing the labourer justice, and would not suffer employers to do so even +if they wished. Injustice is bred in its very bone and blood. In this +contention Lassalle builds his whole argument on premises drawn from the +accepted economic authorities. Socialist economics, he says, is nothing +but a battle against Ricardo, whom he describes as the last and most +representative development of _bourgeois_ economics; and it fights the +battle with Ricardo's own weapons, and on Ricardo's own ground. There +are two principles in particular of which it makes much use--Ricardo's +law of value and Ricardo's law of natural or necessary wages. + +Ricardo's law of value is that the value of a commodity, or the quantity +of any other commodity for which it will exchange, depends on the +relative quantity of labour which is necessary for its production, and +not on the greater or less compensation which is paid for that labour. +Value is thus resolved into so much labour, or what is the same thing, +so much time consumed in labour, mental and manual, upon the commodity. +This reduction of value to quantity of time is reckoned by Lassalle the +one great merit of Ricardo and the English economists. Ricardo, however, +strictly limited his law to commodities that admitted of indefinite +multiplication, the value of other commodities being, he held, regulated +by their scarcity; and he confined it to the normal value of the +commodities only, the fluctuations of their market-price depending on +other considerations. But Lassalle seeks to make it cover these cases +also by means of a distinction he draws between individual time of +labour, and socially necessary time of labour. According to this +distinction, what constitutes the value of a product is not the time +actually taken or required by the person who made it; for he may have +been indolent or slow, or may not have used the means and appliances +which the age he lived in afforded him. What constitutes value is the +average time of labour socially necessary, the time required by labour +of average efficiency using the methods the age supplies. If the +commodity can be produced in an hour, an hour's work will be its value, +though you have taken ten to produce it by slower methods. So far there +is nothing very remarkable, but Lassalle goes on to argue that you may +waste your time not merely by using methods that society has superseded, +but by producing commodities that society no longer wants. You go on +making shoe-buckles after they have gone out of fashion, and you can get +nothing for them. They have no value. And why? Because, while they +indeed represent labour, they do not represent socially necessary +labour. So again with over-production: you may produce a greater amount +of a commodity than society requires at the time. The value of the +commodity falls. Why? Because while it has cost as much actual labour as +before, it has not cost so much socially necessary labour. In fact, the +labour it has taken has been socially unnecessary, for there was no +demand for the product. On the other hand--and we are entitled to make +this expansion of Lassalle's argument--take the case of +under-production, of deficient supply. Prices rise. What is usually +known as a scarcity value is conferred on commodities. But this scarcity +value Lassalle converts into a labour value; the commodity is produced +by the same individual labour, but the labour is more socially +necessary. In plain English, there is more demand for the product. + +Lassalle's distinction is thus an ingenious invention for expressing +rarity value in terms of labour value. It has no theoretical importance, +but is of some practical service in the socialistic argument. That +argument is not that value is constituted by labour pure and simple, but +by labour modified by certain general conditions of society; only it +holds that these conditions--conditions of productivity, of rarity, of +demand--have been created by nobody in particular, that, therefore, +nobody in particular should profit by them, and that so far as the +problem of the distribution of value goes, the one factor in the +constitution of value which needs to be taken into account in settling +that problem, is labour. All value comes from labour, represents so much +time of labour, is, in fact, so much "labour-jelly," so much preserved +labour. + +While one accepted economic law thus declares that all value is +conferred by the labourer, and is simply his sweat, brain, and sinew +incorporated in the product, another economic law declares that he gains +no advantage from the productivity of his own work, and that whatever +value he produces, he earns only the same wages--bare customary +subsistence. In that lies the alleged injustice of the present system. +Von Thuenen, the famous Feudalist landowner and economic +experimentalist, said, many years ago, that when the modern working +class once began to ask the question, What is natural wages? a +revolution might arise which would reduce Europe to barbarism. This is +the question Lassalle asked, and by which mainly he stirred up +socialism. The effect of the previous argument was to raise the +question, What is the labourer entitled to get? and to suggest the +answer, he is entitled to get everything. The next question is, What, +then, does the labourer actually get? and the answer is, that on the +economists' own showing, he gets just enough to keep soul and body +together, and on the present system can never get any more. Ricardo, in +common with other economists, had taught that the value of labour, like +the value of everything else, was determined by the cost of its +production, and that the cost of the production of labour meant the cost +of the labourer's subsistence according to the standard of living +customary among his class at the time. Wages might rise for a season +above this level, or fall for a season below it, but they always tended +to return to it again, and would not permanently settle anywhere else. +When they rose higher, the labouring class were encouraged by their +increased prosperity to marry, and eventually their numbers were thus +multiplied to such a degree that by the force of ordinary competition +the rate of wages was brought down again; when they fell lower, +marriages diminished and mortality increased among the working class, +and the result was such a reduction of their numbers as to raise the +rate of wages again to its old level. This is the economic law of +natural or necessary wages--"the iron and cruel law" which Lassalle +declared absolutely precluded the wage-labourers--_i.e._, 96 per cent. +of the population--from all possibility of ever improving their +condition or benefiting in the least from the growing productivity of +their own work. This law converted industrial freedom into an aggravated +slavery. The labourer was unmanned, taken out of a relationship which, +with all its faults, was still a human and personal one, put under an +impersonal and remorseless economic law, sent like a commodity to be +bought in the cheapest market, and there dispossessed by main force of +competition of the value of the property which his own hands had made. +_Das Eigenthum ist Fremdthum geworden._ + +It is no wonder that teaching like this should move the minds of working +men to an intolerable sense of despair and wrong. Nor was there any +possibility of hope except in a revolution. For the injustice complained +of lay in the essence of the existing economic system, and could not be +removed, except with the complete abolition of the system. The only +solution of the question, therefore, was a socialistic reconstruction +which should make the instruments of production collective property, and +subordinate capital to labour, but such a solution would of course be +the work of generations, and meanwhile, the easiest method of transition +from the old order of things to the new, lay in establishing productive +associations of working men on State credit. These would form the living +seed-corn of the new era. This was just Louis Blanc's scheme, with two +differences--viz., that the associations were to be formed gradually, +and that they were to be formed voluntarily. The State was not asked to +introduce a new organization of labour by force all at once, but merely +to lend capital at interest to one sound and likely association after +another, as they successively claimed its aid. This loan was not to be +gratuitous, as the French socialists used to demand in 1848, and since +there would be eventually only one association of the same trade in each +town, and since, besides, they would also establish a system of mutual +assurance against loss, trade by trade, the State, it was urged, would +really incur no risk. Lassalle, speaking of State help, said he did not +want a hand from the State, but only a little finger, and he actually +sought, in the first instance at least, no more than Mr. Gladstone gave +in the Irish Land Act. The scheme was mainly urged, of course, in the +interests of a sounder distribution of wealth; but Lassalle contended +that it would also increase production; and it is important to remember +that he says it would not otherwise be economically justifiable, because +"an increase of production is an indispensable condition of every +improvement of our social state." This increase would be effected by a +saving of cost, in abolishing local competition, doing away with +middle-men and private capitalists, and adapting production better to +needs. The business books of the association would form the basis of a +sound and trustworthy system of commercial statistics, so much required +for the purpose of avoiding over-production. The change would, he +thought, also introduce favourable alterations in consumption, and in +the direction of production; inasmuch as the taste of the working class +for the substantial and the beautiful, would more and more supplant the +taste of the _bourgeoisie_ for the cheap and nasty. + +After the death of Lassalle, the movement he began departed somewhat +from the lines on which he launched it. 1st, His plan of replacing +capitalistic industry by productive associations of labourers, founded +on State credit, had always seemed a mockery, or, at least, a makeshift, +to many of the socialists of Germany. It would not destroy competition, +for one association would still of necessity compete with another; and +it would not secure to every man the right to the full product of his +labour, for the members of the stronger productive associations would be +able to exploit the members of the weaker as the ordinary result of +their inter-competition. In other words, Lassalle's plan would not in +their eyes realize the socialist claim, as that claim had been taught to +them by Marx. Their claim could only be realized by the conversion of +all industrial instruments into public property, and the systematic +conduct of all industry by the public authority; and why not aim +straight for that result, they asked, instead of first bringing in a +merely transitional period of productive associations, which would, on +Lassalle's own calculations, take two hundred years to create, and which +might not prove transitional to the socialist state after all? Rodbertus +even had gone against Lassalle on this point, because he wanted to see +individual property converted into national property, and thought +converting it first into joint stock property was really to prevent +rather than promote the main end he had in view. + +Then, 2nd, Lassalle was a national, not an international socialist. He +held that every country should solve its own social question for itself, +and that the working-class movement was not, and should not be made, +cosmopolitan. He was even--as Prince Bismarck said in Parliament, when +taxed with having personal relations with him--patriotic. At least he +was an intense believer in Prussia; less, however, because he was a +Prussian than because Prussia was a strong State, and because he thought +that strong States alone could do the world's work in Germany or +elsewhere. By nationality in itself he set but little store; a +nationality had a right to separate existence if it could assert it, but +if it were weak and struggling, its only duty was to submit with +thankfulness to annexation by a stronger power. He wished his followers, +therefore, to keep aloof from the doings of other nations, and to +concentrate their whole exertions upon victory at the elections in their +own country and the gradual development of productive associations on +national loans. This restriction of the range of the movement had from +the first dissatisfied some of its adherents, especially a certain +active section who hated Prussia as much as Lassalle believed in her, +and after the influence of the International began to make itself felt +upon the agitation in Germany, this difference of opinion gathered +gradually to a head. In 1868 a motion was brought before the general +meeting of the League in favour of establishing relations with the +International and accepting its programme. The chief promoters of this +motion were the two present leaders of the Social Democratic party in +the Reichstag, Liebknecht and Bebel, and it was strongly opposed by the +president of the League, Dr. von Schweitzer, an advocate in Frankfort, +and a strong champion of Prussia, who was elected to the presidency in +1866, just at the time the extension of the suffrage gave a fresh +impetus to the movement, and whose energy and gifts of management +contributed greatly to the development of the organization. The motion +was carried by a substantial majority, but before next year Von +Schweitzer had succeeded in turning the tables on his opponents, and at +the general meeting in 1869, Liebknecht and Bebel were expelled from the +League, as traitors to the labourers' cause. After their expulsion they +called together in the same year a congress of working men at Eisenach, +which was attended mainly by delegates from Austria and South Germany, +and founded an independent organization on the principles of the +International, and under the name of the Social Democratic Labour Party +of Germany. The two organizations existed side by side till 1874, when a +union was effected between them at a general meeting at Gotha, and they +became henceforth the Socialist Labour Party. This was the burial of the +national socialism of Lassalle, for though in deference to his +followers, the new programme promised in the meantime to work within +national limits, it expressly recognised that the labourers' movement +was international, and that the great aim to be striven after was a +state of society in which every man should be obliged to share in the +general labour according to his powers, and have a right to receive from +the aggregate product of labour according to what was termed his +rational requirements. Some "orthodox Lassalleans," as they called +themselves, held aloof from this compromise, but they are too few to be +of any importance. They still remain apart from the main body of German +socialism, and live in such good odour with the Government, whether on +account of their unimportance or of their supposed loyalty, that they +were never molested by any application of the Socialist Laws which were +enforced for twelve years strenuously against all other socialists. + +Among the causes which brought the others to so much unanimity was +undoubtedly the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, which was +viewed with universal aversion by socialists of every shade. On the +outbreak of the war, Schweitzer and the members of the original League +gave their sympathies warmly to the arms of their country, and the +Social Democratic party was nearly equally divided on the subject; but +after the foundation of the French Republic, they all with one consent +declared that the war ought now to cease, and the socialist deputies, no +matter which organization they belonged to, voted without exception +against granting supplies for its continuance. They were likewise +opposed to the recognition of the title of Emperor and to the +constitution of the Empire, and indeed as republicans they could not be +anything else. From a recollection mainly of these votes Prince Bismarck +considered the movement to be unpatriotic and hostile to the Empire, and +accordingly suppressed its propaganda in 1878, when its growth seemed +likely to prove a serious danger to an Empire whose stability was still +far from being assured by any experience of its advantages. The +socialists retorted upon this policy at their congress at Wyden, +Switzerland, in 1880, by striking out of their programme the limitation +of proceeding by legal means, on the ground that the action of the +Government having made legal means impracticable, no resource was left +but to meet force by force. They thus threw aside the last shred of the +practical policy of Lassalle, and stood out thenceforth as a party of +international revolution. + +The movement could, however, hardly help becoming international; not, as +some allege, because this is a peculiarity of revolutionary parties; on +the contrary, other parties may also exhibit it. What, for example, was +the Holy Alliance but an international league of the monarchical and +aristocratic parties against the advance of popular rights? Nor is it a +peculiarity of the present time only. No doubt the increased +inter-communication and inter-dependence between countries now +facilitates its development. There are no longer nations in Europe, said +Heine, but only parties. But in reality it has always been nearly as +much so as now. Any party founded on a definite general principle or +interest may in any age become international, and even what may seem +unpatriotic. The Protestants of France in the 16th century sought help +from England, and the Jacobites of England in the 18th sought help from +France; just as the German socialists of 1870 sided with the French +after Sedan, and the French communists of 1871 preferred to see their +country occupied by the Germans rather than governed by the +"Versaillais." In all these cases the party principles were naturally +international, and the party bias overcame the patriotic. + +Besides, the socialist is, almost by necessity of his position and +principles, predisposed to discourage and condemn patriotism. Others, +indeed, condemn it as well as he. Most of the great writers who revived +German literature towards the beginning of this century--Lessing, +Herder, Wieland, Goethe--have all disparaged it. They looked on it as a +narrow and obsolete virtue, useful enough perhaps in rude times, but a +hindrance to rational progress now; the modern virtue was humanity, the +idea of which had just freshly burst upon their age like a new power. +This consideration may no doubt to some extent weigh with socialists +also, for their whole thinking is leavened with the notion of humanity, +but their most immediate objection to patriotism is one of a practical +nature. Their complaint used always to be that the proletarian had no +country, because he was excluded from political rights. He was not a +citizen, and why should he have the feelings of one? But now he has got +political rights, and they still complain. He is in the country, they +say, but not yet of it. He is practically excluded from its +civilization, from all that makes the country worth living or fighting +for. He has no country, for he is denied a man's share in the life that +is going in any. Edmund Ludlow wrote over his door in exile-- + + + "Every land is my fatherland, + For all lands are my Father's." + + +The modern socialist says, No land is my fatherland, for in none am I a +son. He believes himself to be equally neglected in all, and that is +precisely the severest strain that can try the patriotic sentiment. The +proletarian is taught that in every country he is a slave, and that +patriotism and religion only reconcile him to remaining so. Moreover, as +Rodbertus has remarked, the social question itself is, in a sense, +international because it is social. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +KARL MARX. + + +In opening the present chapter in the previous edition of this book, I +said it was not a little remarkable that the works of Karl Marx, which +had then excited considerable commotion in other European countries, +were still absolutely unknown in England, though England was the country +where they were written, and to whose circumstances they were, in their +author's judgment, pre-eminently applicable. His principal work, "Das +Kapital," is a criticism of modern industrial development as explained +by English economists and exemplified in English society. It shows a +rare knowledge of English economic literature, even of the most obscure +writers; it goes very fully into the conditions of English labour as +described in our parliamentary reports; and out of four hundred odd +books it quotes, more than three hundred are English books. Its +illustrations are drawn from English industrial life, and its very money +allusions are stated in terms of English coin. Its chief doctrine, +moreover, was an old English doctrine, familiar among the disciples of +Owen; and to crown all, if the author's belief was true, England was the +country ripest for its reception, for the socialist revolution, he +thought, would inevitably come when the working class sunk into the +condition of a proletariat, and the working class of England had been a +proletariat for many years already. Yet Marx's work was not at that time +(1884) translated into English, though it had been into most other +European languages, and had enjoyed a very large sale even in Russia, to +whose circumstances it had admittedly very little adaptation. An English +translation appeared at length, however, in 1887, twenty years after the +publication of the original, and a considerable edition was disposed of +within a year, though the price was high. We have therefore grown more +familiar of late with the name and importance of Karl Marx. + +Born at Treves in 1818, the son of a Christian Jew who had a high post +in the civil service, Marx was sent to the University of Bonn, towards +the end of the '30s, won a considerable reputation there in philosophy +and jurisprudence, determined, like Lassalle, to devote himself to the +academic profession, and seemed destined for an eminently successful +career, in which his subsequent marriage with the sister of the Prussian +Minister of State, Von Westphalen, would certainly have facilitated his +advancement. But at the University he came under the spell of Hegel, and +passed, step by step, with the Extreme Left of the Hegelian school, into +the philosophical, religious, and political Radicalism which finally +concentrated into the Humanism of Feuerbach. Just as he had finished his +curriculum, the accession of Frederick William IV. in 1840 stirred a +rustle of most misplaced expectation among the Liberals of Germany, who +thought the day of freedom was at length to break, and who rose with +generous eagerness to the tasks to which it was to summon them. Under +the influence of these hopes and feelings, Marx abandoned the +professorial for an editorial life, and committed himself at the very +outset of his days to a political position which compromised him +hopelessly with German governments, and forced him, step by step, into a +long career of revolutionary agitation and organization. He joined the +staff of the _Rhenish Gazette_, which was founded at that time in +Cologne by the leading Liberals of the Rhine country, including +Camphausen and Hansemann, and which was the organ of the Young Hegelian, +or Philosophical Radical Party, and he made so great an impression by +his bold and vigorous criticism of the proceedings of the Rhenish +Landtag that he was appointed editor of the newspaper in 1842. In this +post he continued his attacks on the Government, and they were at once +so effective and so carefully worded that a special censor was sent from +Berlin to Cologne to take supervision of his articles, and when this +agency proved ineffectual, the journal was suppressed by order of the +Prussian Ministry in 1843. From Cologne Marx went to Paris to be a joint +editor of the _Deutsche Franzoesische Jahrbuecher_ with Arnold Ruge, a +leader of the Hegelian Extreme Left, who had been deprived of his +professorship at the University of Halle by the Prussian Government, and +whose magazine, the _Deutsche Jahrbuecher_, published latterly at Leipzig +to escape the Prussian authority, had just been suppressed by the Saxon. +The _Deutsche Franzoesische Jahrbuecher_ were published by the well-known +Julius Froebel, who had some time before given up his professorship at +Zuerich to edit a democratic newspaper, and open a shop for the sale of +democratic literature; who professed himself a communist in Switzerland, +and had written some able works, with very radical and socialistic +leanings, but who seems to have gone on a different tack at the time of +the Lassallean movement, for he was--as Meding shows us in his "Memoiren +zur Zeitgeschichte"--the prime promoter of the ill-fated Congress of +Princes at Frankfort in 1865. The new magazine was intended to be a +continuation of the suppressed _Deutsche Jahrbuecher_, on a more extended +plan, embracing French as well as German contributors, and supplying in +some sort a means of uniting the Extreme Left of both nations; but no +French contribution ever appeared in it, and it ceased altogether in a +year's time, probably for commercial reasons, though there is no +unlikelihood in the allegation sometimes made, that it was stopped in +consequence of a difference between the editors as to the treatment of +the question of communism. + +The Young Hegelians had already begun to take the keenest interest in +that question, but were, for a time, curiously perplexed as to the +attitude they should assume towards it. They seem to have been +fascinated and repelled by turns by the system, and to have been equally +unable to cast it aside or to commit themselves fairly to it. Karl Gruen, +himself a Young Hegelian, says that at first they feared socialism, and +points, for striking evidence of this, to the fact that the _Rhenish +Gazette_ bestowed an enthusiastic welcome on Stein's book on French +communism, although that book condemned the system from a theologically +orthodox and politically reactionary point of view. But he adds that the +Young Hegelians contributed to the spread of socialism against their +will, that it was through the interest they took in its speculations and +experiments that socialism acquired credit and support in public opinion +in Germany, and that the earliest traces of avowed socialism are to be +found in the _Rhenish Gazette_. If we may judge by the extracts from +some of Marx's articles in that journal which are given in Bruno Bauer's +"Vollstaendige Geschichte der Parthei-Kaempfe in Deutschland waehrend der +Jahre 1842-46," we should say that Marx was even at this early period a +decided socialist, for he often complains of the great wrong "the poor +dumb millions" suffer in being excluded by their poverty from the +possibility of a free development of their powers, "and from any +participation in the fruits of civilization," and maintains that the +State had far other duty towards them than to come in contact with them +only through the police. When Ruge visited Cabet in Paris, he said that +he and his friends (meaning, he explained, the philosophical and +political opposition) stood so far aloof from the question of communism +that they had never yet so much as raised it, and that, while there were +communists in Germany, there was no communistic party. This statement is +probably equivalent to saying that he and his school took as yet a +purely theoretical and Platonic interest in socialism, and had not come +to adopt it as part of their practical programme. Most of them were +already communists by conviction, and the others felt their general +philosophical and political principles forcing them towards communism, +and the reason of their hesitation in accepting it is probably expressed +by Ruge, when he says (in an article in Heinzen's "Die Opposition," p. +103), that the element of truth in communism was its sense of the +necessity of political emancipation, but that there was a great danger +of communists forgetting the political question in their zeal for the +social. It was chiefly under the influence of the Humanism into which +Feuerbach had transformed the Idealism of Hegel, that the Hegelian Left +passed into communism. Humanist and communist became nearly convertible +terms. Friedrich Engels mentions in his book on the condition of the +English working classes, published in 1845, that all the German +communists of that day were followers of Feuerbach, and most of the +followers of Feuerbach in Germany (Ruge seems to have remained an +exception) were communists. Lassalle was one of Feuerbach's +correspondents, and after he started the present socialist movement in +Germany, he wrote Feuerbach on 21st October, 1863, saying that the +Progressists were political rationalists of the feeblest type, and that +it was the same battle which Feuerbach was waging in the theological, +and he himself now in the political and economic sphere. Stein +attributed French socialism greatly to the prevailing sensualistic +character of French philosophy, which conceived enjoyment to be man's +only good, and never rose to what he calls the great German conception, +the logical conception of the Ego, the idea of knowing for the sake of +knowing. The inference this contrast suggests is that the metaphysics of +Germany had been her protector, her national guard, against socialism, +but as we see, at the very time he was writing the guard was turning +traitor, and a native socialism was springing up by natural generation +out of the idealistic philosophy. The fact, however, rather confirms the +force of Stein's remark, for the Hegelian idealism first bred the more +sensualistic system of humanism, and then humanism bred socialism. + +Hegel had transformed the transcendental world of current opinion, with +its personal Deity and personal immortality, into a world of reason; and +Feuerbach went a step further, and abolished what he counted the +transcendency of reason itself. Heaven and God, he entirely admitted, +were nothing but subjective illusions, fantastic projections of man's +own being and his own real world into external spheres. But mind, an +abstract entity, and reason, a universal and single principle, were, in +his opinion, illusions too. There was nothing real but man--the concrete +flesh and blood man who thinks and feels. "God," says Feuerbach, +speaking of his mental development, "was my first thought, Reason my +second, Man my third and last." He passed, as Lange points out, through +Comte's three epochs. Theology was swept away, and then metaphysics, and +in its room came a positive and materialistic anthropology which +declared that the senses were the sole sources of real knowledge, that +the body was not only part of man's being, but its totality and essence, +and, in short, that man is what he eats--_Der Mensch ist was er isst_. +Man, therefore, had no other God before man, and the promotion of man's +happiness and culture in this earthly life--which was his only life--was +the sole natural object of his political or religious interest. This +system was popularized by Feuerbach's brother Friedrich, in a little +work called the "Religion of the Future," which enjoyed a high authority +among the German communists, and formed a kind of lectionary they read +and commented on at their stated meetings. The object of the new +religion is thus described in it:--"Man alone is our God, our father, +our judge, our redeemer, our true home, our law and rule, the alpha and +omega of our political, moral, public, and domestic life and work. There +is no salvation but by man." And the cardinal articles of the faith are +that human nature is holy, that the impulse to pleasure is holy, that +everything which gratifies it is holy, that every man is destined and +entitled to be happy, and for the attainment of this end has the right +to claim the greatest possible assistance from others, and the duty to +afford the same to them in turn. + +Now the tendency of this metaphysical and moral teaching was strongly +democratic and socialistic. There was said to be in the existing +political system a false transcendency identical with that of the +current religious system. King and council hovered high and away above +the real life of society in a world of their own, looking on political +power as a kind of private property, and careless of mankind, from whom +it sprang, to whom it belonged, and by whom and for whom it should be +administered. "The princes are gods," says Feuerbach, "and they must +share the same fate. The dissolution of theology into anthropology in +the field of thought is the dissolution of monarchy into republic in the +field of politics. Dualism, separation is the essence of theology; +dualism, separation is the essence of monarchy. There we have the +antithesis of God and world; here we have the antithesis of State and +people." This dualism must be abolished. The State must be +_humanized_--must be made an instrument in the hands of all for the +welfare of all; and its inhabitants must be _politized_, for they, all +of them, constitute the _polis_. Man must no longer be a means, but must +be everywhere and always an end. There was nobody above man; there was +neither superhuman person, nor consecrated, person; neither deity, nor +divine right. And, on the other hand, as there is no person who in being +or right is more than man, so there must be no person who is less. There +must be no _unmenschen_, no slaves, no heretics, no outcasts, no +outlaws, but every being who wears human flesh must be placed in the +enjoyment of the full rights and privileges of man. The will of man be +done, hallowed be his name. + +These principles already bring us to the threshold of socialism, and now +Feuerbach's peculiar ethical principle carries us into its courts. That +principle has been well termed Tuism, to distinguish it from Egoism. The +human unit is not the individual, but man in converse with man, the +sensual Ego with the sensual Tu. The isolated man is incomplete, both as +a moral and as a thinking being. "The nature of man is contained only in +the community, in the unity of man with man. Isolation is finitude and +limitation, community is freedom and infinity. Man by himself is but +man; man with man, the unity of I and Thou, is God." Feuerbach +personally never became a communist, for he says his principle was +neither egoism nor communism, but the combination of both. They were +equally true, for they were inseparable, and to condemn self-love would +be, he declared, to condemn love to others at the same time, for love to +others was nothing but a recognition that their self-love was +justifiable. But it is easy to perceive the natural tendency of the +teaching that the social man was the true human unit and essence, and +was to the individual as a God. With most of his disciples Humanism +meant making the individual disappear in the community, making egoism +disappear in love, and making private property disappear in collective. +Hess flatly declared that "the species was the end, and the individuals +were only means." Ruge disputed this doctrine, and contended that the +empirical individual was the true human unit and the true end; but even +he said that socialism was the humanism of common life. Gruen passes into +socialism by simply applying to property Feuerbach's method of dealing +with theology and monarchy. He argues that if the true essence of man is +the social man, then, just as theology is anthropology, so is +anthropology socialism, for property is at present entirely alienated, +externalized from the social man. There is a false transcendency in it, +like that of divinity and monarchy. "Deal, therefore," he says, "with +the practical God, money, as Feuerbach dealt with the theoretical"; +humanize it. Make property an inalienable possession of manhood, of +every man as man. For property is a necessary material for his social +activity, and therefore ought to belong as inalienably and essentially +to him as everything which he otherwise possesses of means or materials +for his activity in life; as inalienably, for example, as his body or +his personal acquirements. If man is the social man, some social +possession is then necessary to his manhood, and might be called an +essential part of it; but existing property is something outside, as +separate from him as heaven or the sovereign power. Gruen accordingly +says that Feuerbach's "Essence of Christianity" supplies the theoretical +basis for Proudhon's social system, because the latter only applies to +practical life the principles which the former applied to religion and +metaphysics, but he admits that neither Feuerbach nor Proudhon would +acknowledge the connection. + +We thus see how theoretical humanism--a philosophy and a religion--led +easily over into the two important articles of practical humanism, a +democratic transformation of the State and a communistic transformation +of society. This was the ideal of the humanists, and it contains ample +and wide-reaching positive features; but when it came to practical +action they preferred for the present to take up an attitude of simple +but implacable negation to the existing order of things. No doubt +variety of opinion existed among them; but if they are to be judged by +what seemed their dominant interest, they were revolutionaries and +nothing else. They repudiated with one consent the socialist utopias of +France, and refrained on principle from committing themselves to, or +even discussing, any positive scheme of reconstruction whatsoever. They +held it premature to think of positive proposals, which would, moreover, +be sure to sow divisions among themselves. Their first great business +was not to build up, but to destroy, and their work in the meantime was +therefore to develop the revolutionary spirit to its utmost possible +energy, by exciting hatred against all existing institutions; in short, +to create an immense reservoir of revolutionary energy which might be +turned to account when its opportunity arrived. Their position is +singularly like the phase of Russian nihilism described by Baron Fircks, +and presented to us in Turgenieff's novels. It is expressed very plainly +by W. Marr, himself an active humanist, who carried Feuerbach's "Essence +of Christianity" as his constant companion, and founded a secret society +for promoting humanistic views. In his interesting book on Secret +Societies in Switzerland, he says, "The masses can only be gathered +under the flag of negation. When you present detailed plans, you excite +controversies and sow divisions; you repeat the mistake of the French +socialists, who have scattered their redoubtable forces because they +tried to carry formulated systems. We are content to lay down the +foundation of the revolution. We shall have deserved well of it if we +stir hatred and contempt against all existing institutions. We make war +against all prevailing ideas, of religion, of the State, of country, of +patriotism. The idea of God is the keystone of a perverted civilization. +It must be destroyed. The true root of liberty, of equality, of culture, +is Atheism. Nothing must restrain the spontaneity of the human mind." +All this work of annihilation could neither be done by reform, nor by +conspiracy, but only by revolution, and "a revolution is never made; it +makes itself." While the revolution was making, Marr founded an +association in Switzerland, "Young Germany," which should prepare +society for taking effective action when the hour came. There was a +"Young Germany" in Switzerland when he arrived there; part of a +federation of secret societies established by Mazzini in 1834, under the +general name of "Young Europe," and comprising three series of +societies:--"Young Italy," composed of Italians; "Young Poland," of +Poles; and "Young Germany," of Germans. But this organization was not at +all to Marr's mind, because it concerned itself with nothing but +politics, and because its method was conspiracy. "Great +transformations," he said, "are never prepared by conspiracies," and it +was a very great transformation indeed that he contemplated. He +therefore formed a "Young Germany" of his own. His plan was to plant a +lodge, or "family," wherever there existed a German working men's +association. The members of this family became members of the +association, and formed a leaven which influenced all around them, and, +through the wandering habits of the German working class, was carried to +much wider circles. The family met for political discussion once a week, +read Friedrich Feuerbach together on the Sundays with fresh recruits, +who, when they had mastered him, were said to have put off the old man; +and their very password was _humanity_, a brother being recognised by +using the half-word _human_--? interrogatively, and the other replying +by the remaining half--_itaet_. The members were all ardent democrats, +but, as a rule, so national in their sympathies that the leaders made it +one great object of their _disciplina arcani_ to stifle the sentiment of +patriotism by subjecting it to constant ridicule. + +Their relations to communism are not quite easy to determine. Marr +himself sometimes expresses disapproval of the system. He says, +"Communism is the expression of impotence of will. The communists lack +confidence in themselves. They suffer under social oppression, and look +around for consolation instead of seeking for weapons to emancipate +themselves with. It is only a world-weariness desiring illusion as the +condition of its life." He says the belief in the absolute dependence of +man on matter is the shortest and most pregnant definition of communism, +and that it starts from the principle that man is a slave and incapable +of emancipating himself. But, on the other hand, he complains that the +members of "Young Germany" did not sufficiently appreciate the social +question, being disgusted with the fanaticism of the communists. By the +communists, he here means the followers of Weitling and Albrecht, who +were at that time creating a party movement in Switzerland. The prophet +Albrecht, as he is called, was simply a crazy mystic with proclivities +to sedition which brought him at length to prison for six years, and +which took there an eschatological turn from his having, it is said, +nothing to read but the Bible, so that on his release he went about +prophesying that Jehovah had prepared a way in the desert, which was +Switzerland, for bringing into Europe a reign of peace, in which people +should hold all things in common and enjoy complete sensuous happiness, +sitting under their common vine and fig-tree, with neither king nor +priest to make them any more afraid. Weitling was not quite so +unimportant, but the attention he excited at the time is certainly not +justified by any of the writings he has left us. He was a tailor from +Magdeburg, who was above his work, believing himself to be a poet and a +man of letters, condemned by hard fate and iniquitous social +arrangements to a dull and cruel lot. Having gone to Paris when +socialism was the rage there, he eagerly embraced that new gospel, and +went to Switzerland to carry its message of hope to his own German +countrymen. There he forsook the needle altogether, and lived as the +paid apostle of the dignity of manual labour, for which he had himself +little mind. His ideas are crude, confused, and arbitrary. His ideal of +society was a community of labourers, with no State, no Church, no +individual property, no distinction of rank or position, no nationality, +no fatherland. All were to have equal rights and duties, and each was to +be put in a position to develop his capacity and gratify his bents as +far as possible. He was moved more by the desire for abstract equality +than German socialists of the humanist or contemporary type, for they do +not build on the justice of a more equal distribution of wealth so much +as on the necessity of the possession of property for the free +development of the human personality. He is entirely German, however, in +his idea of the government of the new society. It was to be governed by +the three greatest philosophers of the age, assisted by a board of +trade, a board of health, and a board of education. In Switzerland he +founded, to promote his views, a secret society, the "Alliance of the +Just," which had branches in most of the Swiss towns. Its members were +chiefly Germans from Germany, for very few of the communists in +Switzerland were born Swiss, and according to Marr, who was present at +some of their meetings, they were three-fourths of them tailors. "I +felt," says Marr, "when I entered one of these clubs, that I was with +the mother of tailors. The tailor sitting and chatting at his work is +always extreme in his opinions. Tailor and communist are synonymous +terms." It was to some of the leaders of this alliance that Weitling +unfolded his wild scheme of a proletariat raid, according to which an +army of 20,000 brigands was to be raised among the proletariat of the +large towns, to go with torch and sword into all the countries of +Europe, and terrify the _bourgeoisie_ into a recognition of universal +community of goods. It is only fair to add that his proposal met with no +favour. Letters were found in his possession, and subsequently published +in Bluntschli's official report, which show that some of Weitling's +correspondents regarded his scheme with horror, and others treated it +with ridicule. One of them said it was trying to found the kingdom of +heaven with the furies of hell. The relations between "Young Germany" +and Weitling's allies were apparently not cordial, though they had so +much in common that, on the one hand, Weitling's correspondents urge him +to keep on good terms with "Young Germany," and, on the other, Marr says +he actually tried to get a common standing ground with the communists, +and thought he had found it in the negation of the present system of +things--the negation of religion, the negation of patriotism, the +negation of subjection to authority. + +Now the importance of this excursus on the Young Hegelians lies in the +fact that Karl Marx was a humanist, and looked on humanism as the vital +and creative principle in the renovation of political and industrial +society. In the _Deutsche Franzoesische Jahrbuecher_ he published an +article on the Hegelian Philosophy of Right, in which he says: "The new +revolution will be introduced by philosophy. The revolutionary tradition +of Germany is theoretical. The Reformation was the work of a monk; the +Revolution will be the work of a philosopher." The particular philosophy +that was to do the work is that of the German critics, whose critique of +religion had ended in the dogma that man is the highest being for man, +and in the categorical imperative, "to destroy everything in the present +order of things that makes a man a degraded, insulted, forsaken, and +despised being." But philosophy cannot work a revolution without +material weapons; and it will find its material weapon in the +proletariat, which he owns, however, was at the time he wrote only +beginning to be formed in Germany. But when it rises in its strength, it +will be irresistible, and the revolution which it will accomplish will +be the only one known to history that is not utopian. Other revolutions +have been partial, wrought by a class in the interests of a class; but +this one will be a universal and uniform revolution, effected in the +name of all society, for the proletariat is a class which possesses a +universal character because it dissolves all other separate classes into +itself. It is the only class that takes its stand on a human and not a +historical title. Its very sorrows and grievances have nothing special +or relative in them; they are the broad sorrows and grievances of +humanity. And its claims are like them; for it asks no special +privileges or special prerogatives; it asks nothing but what all the +world will share along with it. The history of the world is the judgment +of the world, and the duration of an order of things founded on the +ascendancy of a limited class possessing money and culture, is +practically condemned and foredoomed by the rapid multiplication of a +large class outside which possess neither. The growth of this latter +body not merely tends to produce, but actually _is_, the dissolution of +the existing system of things. For the existing system is founded on the +assertion of private property, but the proletariat is forced by society +to take the opposite principle of the negation of private property for +the principle of its own life, and will naturally carry that principle +into all society when it gains the power, as it is rapidly and +inevitably doing. Marx sums up: "The only practical emancipation for +Germany is an emancipation proceeding from the standpoint of the theory +which explains man to be the highest being for man. In Germany the +emancipation from the middle ages is only possible as at the same time +an emancipation from the partial conquests of the middle ages. In +Germany one kind of bond cannot be broken without all other bonds being +broken too. Germany is by nature too thorough to be able to +revolutionize without revolutionizing from a fundamental principle, and +following that principle to its utmost limits; and therefore the +emancipation of Germany will be the emancipation of man. The head of +this emancipation is philosophy; its heart is the proletariat." He adds +that when things are ripe, "when all the inner conditions have been +completed, the German resurrection day will be heralded by the crowing +of the Gallic cock." + +In this essay we mark already Marx's overmastering belief in natural +historical evolution, which he had learnt from Hegel, and which +prevented him from having any sympathy with the utopian projects of the +French socialists. They vainly imagined, he held, that they could create +a new world right off, whereas it was only possible to do so by +observing a rigorous conformity to the laws of the development already +in progress, by making use of the forces already at work, and proceeding +in the direction towards which the stream of things was itself slowly +but mightily moving. Hegel sought the principle of organic development +in the State, but Marx sought it rather in civil society, and believed +he had discovered it in that most mighty though unconscious product of +the large system of industry, the modern proletariat, which was born to +revolution as the sparks fly upward; and in the simultaneous decline of +the middle classes, that is, of the conservative element which could +resist the change. The process which was, as he held, now converting +society into an aggregate of beggars and millionaires was bound +eventually to overleap itself and land in a communism. I shall not +discuss the truth of this conception at present, but it contributes, +along with the sentiments of justice and humanity that animate--rightly +or wrongly--the ideal of the socialists, to lend something of a +religious force to their movement, for they feel that they are +fellow-workers with the nature of things. + +We left Marx in Paris, and on returning to him, we find him engaged--as +indeed we usually do when his history comes into notice--in a threefold +warfare. Besides his general war against the arrangements of modern +society, he is always carrying on a bitter and implacable war against +the Prussian Government, and is often engaged in controversy--sometimes +very personal--with foes of his own philosophical or revolutionary +household. After the cessation of the _Deutsche Franzoesische +Jahrbuecher_, Marx edited a paper called _Vorwaerts_, and in this and +other journals open to him, he attacked the Prussian administration so +strongly that that administration complained to Guizot, who gave him +orders to quit France. His more personal controversy at this time arose +out of one of the schisms of the Young Hegelians, and he and his friend +Friedrich Engels wrote a pamphlet--"Die Heilige Familie"--against the +Hegelian Idealism, and especially against Bruno Bauer, who had offended +him--says Erdmann, in his "History of Philosophy"--at once as Jew, as +Radical, and as journalist. When expelled from France, he went to +Brussels, where he was allowed to continue his war upon the Prussian +Government without interference, till the revolution of 1848. During +this period he devoted his attention more particularly than hitherto to +commercial subjects, and published in 1846 his "Discours sur le +Libre-echange," and in 1847 his "Misere de la Philosophie," a reply to +Proudhon's "Philosophie de la Misere"--both in French. + +While in Brussels, Marx received an invitation from the London Central +Committee of the Communist League to join that society. This league had +been founded in Paris in 1836, for the purpose of propagating communist +opinions among the working men of Germany. Its organization was +analogous to that of the International and other societies of the same +kind. A certain number of members constituted a _Gemeinde_, the several +_Gemeinden_ in the same town constituted a _Kreis_, a number of _Kreise_ +were grouped into a leading _Kreis_, and at the head of the whole was +the Central Committee, which was chosen at a general congress of +deputies from all the _Kreise_, and which had since 1840 had its seat in +London. The method of the league was to establish, as a sphere of +operation, German working men's improvement associations everywhere. The +travelling custom of German working men greatly facilitated this work, +and numbers of these associations were soon founded in Switzerland, +England, Belgium, and the United States. The reason its committee +applied to Marx was that he had just published a series of pamphlets in +Brussels, in which, as he tells us, he "submitted to a merciless +criticism the medley of French-English socialism and communism and of +German philosophy, which then constituted the secret doctrine of the +League," and insisted that "their work could have no tenable theoretical +basis except that of a scientific insight into the economic structure of +society, and that this ought to be put into a popular form, not with the +view of carrying out any utopian system, but of promoting among the +working classes and other classes a self-conscious participation in the +process of historical transformation of society that was taking place +under their eyes." This is always with Marx the distinctive and ruling +feature of his system. The French schemes were impracticable utopias, +because they ignored the laws of history and the real structure of +economic society; and he claims that his own proposals are not only +practicable but inevitable, because they strictly observe the line of +the actual industrial evolution, and are thus, at worst, plans for +accelerating the day after to-morrow. But, besides this difference of +principle, Marx thought the League should also change its method and +tactics. Its work, being that of social revolution, was different from +the work of the old political conspirators and secret societies, and +therefore needed different weapons; the times, too, were changed, and +offered new instruments. Street insurrections, surprises, intrigues, +_pronunciamentos_ might overturn a dynasty, or oust a government, or +bring them to reason, but were of no avail in the world for introducing +collective property or abolishing wage labour. People would just begin +again the day after to work for hire and rent their farms as they did +before. A social revolution needed other and larger preparation; it +needed to have the whole population first thoroughly leavened with its +principles; nay, it needed to possess an international character, +depending not on detached local outbreaks, but on steady concert in +revolutionary action on the part of the labouring classes everywhere. +The cause was not political, or even national, but social; and +society--which was indeed already pregnant with the change--must be +aroused to a conscious consent to the delivery. What was first to be +done, therefore, was to educate and move public opinion, and in this +work the ordinary secret society went but a little way. A secret +propaganda might still be carried on, but a public and open propaganda +was more effectual and more suitable to the times. There never existed +greater facilities for such a movement, and they ought to make use of +all the abundant means of popular agitation and intercommunication which +modern society allowed. No more secret societies in holes and corners, +no more small risings and petty plots, but a great broad organization +working in open day, and working restlessly by tongue and pen to stir +the masses of all European countries to a common international +revolution. Marx sought, in short, to introduce the large system of +production into the art of conspiracy. + +Finding his views well received by the Central Committee of the +Communist League, he acceded to their request to attend their General +Congress at London in 1847, and then, after several weeks of keen +discussion, he prevailed upon the Congress to adopt "the Manifesto of +the Communist party," which was composed by himself and Engels, and +which was afterwards translated from the German into English, French, +Danish, and Italian, and sown broadcast everywhere just before the +Revolution of 1848. This Communist League may be said to be the first +organization--and this Communist Manifesto the first public +declaration--of the International Socialist Democracy that now is. The +Manifesto begins by describing the revolutionary situation into which +the course of industrial development has brought modern society. Classes +were dying out; the yeomanry, the nobility, the small tradesmen, would +soon be no more; and society was drawn up in two widely separated +hostile camps, the large capitalist class or _bourgeoisie_, who had all +the property and power in the country, and the labouring class, the +proletariat, who had nothing of either. The _bourgeoisie_ had played a +most revolutionary part in history. They had overturned feudalism, and +now they had created proletarianism, which would soon swamp themselves. +They had collected the masses in great towns; they had kept the course +of industry in perpetual flux and insecurity by rapid successive +transformations of the instruments and processes of production, and by +continual recurrences of commercial crises; and while they had reduced +all other classes to a proletariat, they had made the life of the +proletariat one of privation, of uncertainty, of discontent, of +incipient revolution. They exploited the labourer of political power; +they exploited him of property, for they treated him as a ware, buying +him in the cheapest market for the cost of his production, that is to +say, the cost of his living, and taking from him the whole surplus of +his work, after deducting the value of his subsistence. Under the system +of wage labour, it could not be otherwise. Wages could never, by +economic laws, rise above subsistence. While wage labour created +property, it created it always for the capitalist, and never for the +labourer; and, in fact, the latter only lived at all, so far as it was +for the interests of the governing class, the _bourgeoisie_, to permit +him. Class rule and wage labour must be swept away, for they were +radically unjust, and a new reign must be inaugurated which would be +politically democratic and socially communistic, and in which the free +development of each should be the condition for the free development of +all. + +The Manifesto went on to say that communism was not the subversion of +existing principles, but their universalization. Communism did not seek +to abolish the State, but only the _bourgeois_ State, in which the +_bourgeois_ exclusively hold and wield political power. Communism did +not seek to abolish property, but only the _bourgeois_ system of +property, under which private property is really already abolished for +nine-tenths of society, and maintained merely for one-tenth. Communism +did not seek to abolish marriage and the family, but only the +_bourgeois_ system of things under which marriage and the family, in any +true sense of those terms, were virtually class institutions, for the +proletariat could not have any family life worthy of the name, so long +as their wages were so low that they were forced to huddle up their +whole family regardless of all decency, in a single room, so long as +their wives and daughters were victims of the seduction of the +_bourgeoisie_, and so long as their children were taken away prematurely +to labour in mills for _bourgeois_ manufacturers, who yet held up their +hands in horror at the thought of any violation of the institution of +the family. Communism did not tend to abolish fatherland and +nationality--that was abolished already for the proletariat, and was +being abolished for the _bourgeoisie_, too, by the extensions of their +trade. + +As to the way of emancipation, the proletariat must strive to obtain +political power, and use it to deprive the _bourgeoisie_ of all capital +and means of production, and to place them in the hands of the State, +_i.e._, of the proletariat itself organized as a governing body. Now, +for this, immediate and various measures interfering with property, and +condemned by our current economics, were requisite. Those measures +would naturally be different for different countries, but for the most +advanced countries the following were demanded: (1) Expropriation of +landed property and application of rent to State expenditure; (2) +abolition of inheritance; (3) confiscation of the property of all +emigrants and rebels; (4) centralization of credit in the hands of the +State by means of a national bank, with State capital and exclusive +monopoly; (5) centralization of all means of transport in hands of +State; (6) institution of national factories, and improvement of lands +on a common plan; (7) compulsory obligation of labour upon all equally, +and establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture; (8) +joint prosecution of agriculture and mechanical arts, and gradual +abolition of the distinction of town and country; (9) public and +gratuitous education for all children, abolition of children's labour in +factories, etc. The Manifesto ends by saying:--"The communists do not +seek to conceal their views and aims. They declare openly that their +purpose can only be obtained by a violent overthrow of all existing +arrangements of society. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic +revolution. The proletariat have nothing to lose in it but their chains; +they have a world to win. Proletarians of all countries, unite!" + +When the French Revolution of February, 1848, broke out, Marx was +expelled without circumstance from Brussels, and received an invitation +from the Provisional Government of Paris to return to France. He +accepted this invitation, but was only a few weeks in Paris when the +German revolution of March occurred, and he hastened to the theatre of +affairs. With his friends, Freiligrath, Wolff, Engels, and others, he +established on June 1st in Cologne the _New Rhenish Gazette_, which was +the soul of the Rhenish revolutionary movement, the most important one +of the year in Germany, and that in which, as we have seen, the young +Lassalle first emerged on the troubled surface of revolutionary +politics. After the _coup d'etat_ of November, dissolving the Prussian +Parliament, the _New Rhenish Gazette_ strongly urged the people to stop +paying their taxes, and thus meet force by force. It inserted an +admonition to that effect in a prominent place in every successive +number, and Marx was twice tried for sedition on account of this +admonition, but each time acquitted. The newspaper, however, was finally +suppressed by civil authority after the Dresden insurrection of May, +1849, its last number appearing on June 19th in red type, and containing +Freiligrath's well-known "Farewell of the _New Rhenish +Gazette_"--spiritedly translated for us by Ernest Jones--which declared +that the journal went down with "rebellion" on its lips, but would +reappear when the last of the German Crowns was overturned. + + + Farewell, but not for ever farewell! + They cannot kill the spirit, my brother; + In thunder I'll rise on the field where I fell, + More boldly to fight out another. + When the last of Crowns, like glass, shall break + On the scene our sorrows have haunted, + And the people its last dread "Guilty" shall speak, + By your side you shall find me undaunted. + On Rhine or on Danube, in war and deed, + You shall witness, true to his vow, + On the wrecks of thrones, in the midst of the field, + The rebel who greets you now. + + +This vow is no mere Parthian flourish of poetical defiance. Freiligrath +and his friends undoubtedly believed at this time that the political +movements of 1848 and 1849 were but preliminary ripples, and would be +presently succeeded by a great flood-wave of revolution which they heard +already sounding along in their dangerously expectant ear. His poem on +the Revolution remains as evidence to us that in 1850 he still clung to +that hope, and it would not have been out of tune with his sanguine +beliefs of the year before if he promised, not merely that the spirit of +the journal would rise again, but that its next number would be +published, after the Deluge. + +Meanwhile Marx went to London, where he remained for the rest of his +life. Finding that the revolutionary spirit did not revive, and that +historical societies, which have not lost their moral and economic +vitality, had a greater readjusting power against political disturbance +than he previously believed, he gave up for the next ten or twelve years +the active work of revolutionizing. The Communist League, which had got +disorganized in the revolutionary year, and was rent in two by a bitter +schism in 1850, was, with his concurrence, dissolved in 1852, on the +ground that its propaganda was no longer opportune; and the story of the +Brimstone League, with its iron discipline and ogrish desires, of which +Mehring says Marx was, during his London residence, the head-centre, is +simply a fairy tale of Karl Vogt's, whose baselessness Marx has himself +completely exposed. Before leaving the Communist League, two +circumstances may be mentioned, because they repeat themselves +constantly in this revolutionary history. The one is that this schism +took place not on a point of doctrine, but of opportunity; the extremer +members thought the conflict in Germany on the Hessian question offered +a good chance for a fresh revolutionary outbreak, and they left the +League because their views were not adopted. The other is that in one of +its last reports (quoted by Mehring) the League definitely justifies, +and even recommends, assassination and incendiarism--"the so-called +excesses, the inflictions of popular vengeance on hated individuals, or +on public buildings which revive hateful associations." For the next ten +years Marx lived quietly in London, writing for the _New York Tribune_ +and other journals, and studying modern industry on this its "classical +soil." He read much in the British Museum Library, gaining his +remarkable acquaintance with the English economic writers, and it was +probably in this period he elaborated his famous doctrine of surplus +value, with its corollary of the right of the labourer to the full +product of his labour. There can be no doubt that the original +suggestion of this doctrine came from English sources, for it was taught +more than a generation before among the English socialists, notably by +William Thompson in his "Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution +of Wealth," which was published as early as 1824, and is actually quoted +by Marx in his work on Capital. Marx built up the doctrine, however, +into a more systematic form, and it is through him and not through the +Owenites it has come into the present socialist movement in which it +plays so conspicuous a part. During this period of reading and +rumination, Marx published a pamphlet against Louis Napoleon; another +against Lord Palmerston, which was widely circulated by David Urquhart; +a third of a personal and bitter character against his +fellow-socialist, Karl Vogt; and a more solid and important work, the +"Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie" (1859), the first fruits of his new +economic studies. But a revolutionist never permanently gives up +revolutionizing, and after his prolonged abstinence from that +excitement, Marx returned to it again in 1864, on the foundation of the +famous International Working Men's Association. + +The International was simply the Communist League raised again from the +dead. Their principles were the same; their constitution was the same; +and Marx began his inaugural address to the International in 1864 with +the very words that concluded his Communistic Manifesto of 1847, +"Proletarians of all nations, unite!" When the representatives of the +English working men first suggested the formation of an international +working men's association, in the address they presented in the +Freemasons' Tavern to the French working men who were sent over at the +instance of Napoleon III. to the London Exhibition of 1862, they +certainly never dreamt of founding an organization of revolutionary +socialist democracy which in a few years to come was to wear a name at +which the world turned pale. Their address was most moderate and +sensible. They said that some permanent medium of interchanging thoughts +and observations between the working men of different countries was +likely to throw light on the economic secrets of societies, and to help +onwards the solution of the great labour problem. For they declared that +that solution had not yet been discovered, and that the socialist +systems which had hitherto professed to propound it were nothing but +magnificent dreams. Moreover, if the system of competition were to +continue, then some arrangement of concord between employer and labourer +must be devised, and in order to assert the views of the labouring class +effectively in that arrangement, a firm and organized union must be +established among working men, not merely in each country, but in all +countries, for their interests, both as citizens and as labourers, were +everywhere identical. Those ideas would constitute the basis of a very +rational and moderate programme. But when, in the following year, after +a meeting in favour of the Polish insurrection, which was held in St. +Martin's Hall under the presidency of Professor Beesly, and at which +some of the French delegates of 1862 were present, a committee was +appointed to follow up the suggestion, this committee asked Marx to +prepare a programme and statutes for the proposed association, and he +impressed upon it at its birth the stamp of his own revolutionary +socialism. He never had a higher official position in the International +than corresponding secretary for Germany, for it was determined, +probably with the view of securing a better hold of the great English +working class and their extensive trade organizations, that the +president and secretary should be English working men, and then, after a +time, the office of president was abolished altogether because it had a +monarchical savour. But Marx had the ablest, the best informed, and +probably the most made-up mind in the council; he governed without +reigning; and, with his faithful German following, he exercised an +almost paramount influence on its action from first to last, in spite of +occasional revolts and intrigues against an authority which democratic +jealousy resented as dictatorial, or--worse still--monarchical. The +statutes of the association, which were adopted at the Geneva Congress +of 1866, declared that "the economic subjection of the labourer to the +possessor of the means of labour, _i.e._ of the sources of life, is the +first cause of his political, moral, and material servitude, and that +the economic emancipation of labour is consequently the great aim to +which every political movement ought to be subordinated." Now no doubt +the "economic emancipation of labour" meant different things to +different sections of the Association's members. To the English trades +unionists it meant practically better wages; to the Russian nihilists it +meant the downfall of the Czar and of all central political authority, +and leaving the socialistic communal organization of their country to +manage itself without interference from above; to some of the French +members (as appeared at the Lausanne Congress in 1867) it meant the +nationalization of credit and all land except that held by peasant +proprietors, a class which it was necessary to maintain as a +counterpoise to the State; while, to the German socialists, it meant the +abolition of wages, the nationalization of land and the instruments of +production, the assumption by the State of a supreme direction of all +trade, commerce, finance, and agriculture, and the distribution by the +State of land, tools, and materials to guilds and productive +associations as the actual industrial executive. There were thus very +different elements in the composition of the International, but a _modus +vivendi_ was found for some years by nursing an ultimate ideal, which +was desirable, and meanwhile practically working for a proximate and +much narrower ideal, which was more immediately feasible or necessary. +The association could thus hold that nothing could benefit the working +class but an abolition of wages, and could yet, as it sometimes did, +help and encourage strikes which wanted only to raise wages. At its +Congress in Brussels in 1868 it declared that a strike was not a means +of completely emancipating the labourers, but was often a necessity in +the present situation of labour and capital. Most of the other practical +measures to which the association addressed itself--the eight hours +normal day of labour, gratuitous education, gratuitous justice, +universal suffrage, abolition of standing armies, abolition of indirect +taxes, prohibition of children's labour, State credit for productive +associations--contemplated modifications of the existing system of +things, but always contemplated them as aids to and instalments of the +coming transformation of that system. The consciousness was constantly +preserved that a revolution was impending, and that, as Lassalle said, +it was bound to come and could not be checked, whether it approached by +sober advances from concession to concession, or flew, with streaming +hair and shod with steel, right into the central stronghold. + +This was very much the keynote struck by Marx in his inaugural address. +That address was simply a review of the situation since 1848, and an +encouragement of his forces to a renewal of the combat. Wealth had +enormously increased in the interval; colonies had been opened, new +inventions discovered, free trade introduced; but misery was not a whit +the less; class contrasts were even deeper marked, property was more +than ever in the hands of the few; in England the number of landowners +had diminished eleven per cent. in the preceding ten years; and if this +rate were to continue, the country would be rapidly ripe for revolution. +While the old order of things was thus hastening to its doom, the new +order of things had made some advances. The Ten Hours Act was "not +merely a great practical result, but was the victory of a principle. For +the first time the political economy of the _bourgeoisie_ had been in +clear broad day put in subjection to the political economy of the +working class." Then, again, the experiment of co-operation had now been +sufficiently tried to show that it was possible to carry on industry +without the intervention of an employing class, and had spread abroad +the hope that wage labour was, like slavery and feudal servitude, only a +transitory and subordinate form, which was destined to be superseded by +associated labour. The International had for its aim to promote this +associated labour; only it sought to do so, not piecemeal and +sporadically, but systematically, on a national scale, and by State +means. And for this end the labouring class must first acquire political +power, so as to obtain possession of the means of production; and to +acquire political power, they must unite. + +The International, though, as we have seen, possessing no real +solidarity in its composition, held together till the outbreak of the +Franco-German war, and of the revolution of the Paris Commune. It was, +of course, strongly opposed to the war, as it was to all war; and +strongly in favour of the revolution, as it was of all revolution. Its +precise complicity in the work of the Commune is not easy to determine, +but there can be no doubt that its importance has been greatly +exaggerated, both by the fears of his enemies and the vanity of its +members. Some of the latter were certainly among those who sat in the +Hotel de Ville, but none of them were leading minds there; and, as for +the Association itself, it never had a real membership, or +ramifications, of any formidable extent. For example, the English trades +unions were in connection with it, and their members might be, in a +sense, counted among its members, but it is certain they never +recognised it as an authority over them, and they probably subscribed to +it mainly as to a useful auxiliary in a strike. The leaders of the +International, however, were, undoubtedly, heart and soul with the +Commune, and approved probably both of its aims and methods, and Marx, +at the Congress of the International, at the Hague, in 1872, drew, from +its failure the lesson, that "revolution must be solidary" in order to +succeed. A revolution in one capital of Europe must be supported by +simultaneous revolutions in the rest. But, while there is little ground +for the common belief that the International had any important influence +in creating the insurrection of the Commune, it is certain that the +insurrection of the Commune killed the International. The English +members dropped off from it and never returned, and at its first +Congress after the revolution (the Hague, 1872), the Association itself +was rent by a fatal schism arising from differences of opinion on a +question as to the government of the society of the future, which would +probably not have become a subject of such keen present interest at the +time but for the Paris Commune. The question concerned the maintenance +or abolition of the State, of the supreme central political authority, +and the discussion brought to light that the socialists of the +International were divided into two distinct and irreconcilable +camps--the Centralist Democratic Socialists, headed by Marx, and the +Anarchist Socialists, headed by Michael Bakunin, the Russian +revolutionist. The Marxists insisted that the socialist _regime_ of +collective property and systematic co-operative production could not +possibly be introduced, maintained, or regulated, except by means of an +omnipotent and centralized political authority--call it the State, call +it the collectivity, call it what you like--which should have the final +disposal of everything. The Bakunists held that this was just bringing +back the old tyranny and slavery in a more excessive and intolerable +form. They took up the tradition of Proudhon, who said that "the true +form of the State is anarchy," meaning by anarchy, of course, not +positive disorder, but the absence of any supreme ruler, whether king or +convention. They would have property possessed and industry pursued on a +communistic principle by groups or associations of workmen, but these +groups must form themselves freely and voluntarily, without any social +or political compulsion. The Marxists declared that this was simply a +retention of the system of free competition in an aggravated form, that +it would only lead to confusion worse confounded, and that the +Bakunists, even in trying to abolish the evils of _laissez-faire_, were +still foolishly supposing that the world could go of itself. This +division of opinion--really a broader one than that which parts +socialist from orthodox economist--rent the already enfeebled +International into two separate organizations, which languished for a +year or two and passed away. And so, with high thoughts of spreading a +reign of fraternity over the earth, the International Working Men's +Association perished, because, being only human, it could not maintain +fraternity in its own narrow borders. This is a history that repeats +itself again and again in socialist movements. As W. Marr said in the +remark quoted above, revolutionists will only unite on a negation; the +moment they begin to ask what they will put in its place they differ and +dispute and come to nought. Apprehend them, close their meetings, banish +their leaders, and you but knit them by common suffering to common +resistance. You supply them with a negation of engrossing interest, you +preoccupy their minds with a negative programme which keeps them united, +and so you prevent them from raising the fatal question--What next? +which they never discuss without breaking up into rival sects and +factions, fraternal often in nothing but their hatred. "It is the shades +that hate one another, not the colours." Such disruptions and secessions +may--as they did in Germany--by emulation increase for a time the +efficiency of the organization as a propagandist agency, but they +certainly diminish its danger as a possible instrument of insurrection. +A socialist organization seems always to contain two elements of +internal disintegration. One is the prevalence of a singular and almost +pathetic mistrust of their leaders, and of one another. The law of +suspects is always in force among themselves. At meetings of the German +Socialists, Liebknecht denounces Schweitzer as an agent of the Prussian +Government, Schweitzer accuses Liebknecht of being an Austrian spy, and +the frequent hints at bribery, and open charges of treason against the +labourers' cause, disclose to us now duller and now more acute phases of +that unhappy state of mutual suspicion, in which the one supreme, +superhuman virtue, worthy to be worshipped, if haply it could anywhere +be discovered, is the virtue men honoured even in Robespierre--the +incorruptible. The other source of disintegration is the tendency to +intestine divisions on points of doctrine. A reconstruction of society +is necessarily a most extensive programme, and allows room for the +utmost variety of opinion and plan. The longer it is discussed, the +more certainly do differences arise, and the movement becomes a strife +of schools in no way formidable to the government. All this only +furnishes another reason for the conclusion that in dealing with +socialist agitations, a government's safest as well as justest policy +is, as much as may be, to leave them alone. Their danger lies in the +cloudiness of their ideas, and that can only be dispersed in the free +breezes of popular discussion. The sword is an idle method of reasoning +with an idea; an idea will eventually yield to nothing but argument. +Repression, too, is absolutely impossible with modern facilities of +inter-communication, and can at best but drive the offensive elements +for a time into subterranean channels, where they gather like a +dangerous choke-damp that may occasion at any moment a serious +explosion. + +After the fall of the International, Marx took no further part in public +movements, but occupied his time in completing his work _Das Capital_, +under frequent interruption from ill-health, and he died in Paris in the +spring of 1883, leaving that work still unfinished. + + +The _Das Capital_ of Marx may be said to be the sacred book of +contemporary socialism, and though, like other sacred books, it is +probably a sealed one to the body of the faithful, for it is extremely +stiff reading, it is the great source from which socialist agitators +draw their inspiration and arguments. Apart from the representative +authority with which it is thus invested, it must be at once +acknowledged to be an able, learned, and important work, founded on +diligent research, evincing careful elaboration of materials, much +acuteness of logical analysis, and so much solicitude for precision that +a special terminology has been invented to secure it. The author's taste +for logical distinctions, however, as he has actually applied it, serves +rather to darken than to elucidate his exposition. He overloads with +analysis secondary points of his argument which are clear enough without +it, and he assumes without analysis primary positions which it is most +essential for him to make plain. His style and method carries us back to +the ecclesiastical schoolmen. His superabounding love of scholastic +formalities is unmodern; and one may be permitted to hope that the odium +more than theological with which he speaks of opponents has become +unmodern too. + +Marx's argument takes the form of an inquiry into the origin and social +effects of capital; understanding the word capital, however, in a +peculiar sense. Capital, according to the elementary teaching of +political economy, always means the portion of wealth which is saved +from immediate consumption to be devoted to productive uses, and it +matters not whether it is so saved and devoted by the labourer who is to +use it, or by some other person who lends it to the labourer at interest +or employs the labourer to work with it at a fixed rate of wages. A +fisherman's boat is capital as much as a Cunard Company's steamer, +although the boat is owned by the person who sails it and the steamer by +persons who may never have seen it. The fisherman is labourer and +capitalist in one, but in the case of the steamer the capital is +supplied by one set of people and the labour undertaken by another. Now +Marx speaks of capital only after this division of functions has taken +place. It is, he says, not a logical but a historical category. In +former times men all wrought for the supply of their own wants, the seed +and stock they received was saved and owned by themselves, capital was +an instrument in the hands of labour. But in modern times, especially +since the rise of foreign commerce in the 16th century, this situation +has been gradually reversed. Industry is now conducted by speculators, +who advance the stock and pay the labourer's wages, in order to make +gain out of the excess of the product over the advances, and labour is a +mere instrument in the hands of capital. The capitalist is one who, +without being personally a producer, advances money to producers to +provide them with materials and tools, in the hope of getting a larger +sum of money in return, and capital is the money so advanced. With this +representation of capital as money, so long as it is but a popular form +of speech, no fault need be found, but Marx soon after falls into a +common fallacy and positively identifies capital with money, declaring +them to be only the same thing circulating in a different way. Money as +money, he says, being a mere medium of exchange, is a middle term +between two commodities which it helps to barter, and the order of +circulation is C--M--C, i.e. _commodity_ is converted into _money_ and +_money_ is reconverted into _commodity_. On the other hand, money as +capital stands at the two extremes, and commodity is a middle term, a +medium of converting one sum of money into another and greater; the +order of circulation being expressed as M--C--M. Of course capital, like +other wealth, may be expressed in terms of money, but to identify +capital with money in this way is only to introduce confusion, and the +real confusion is none the less pernicious that it presents itself under +an affectation of mathematical precision. + +Capital, then, as Marx understands it, may be said to be independent +wealth employed or its own increase, and in "societies in which the +capitalistic method of production prevails" all wealth bears +distinctively this character. In more primitive days, wealth was a store +of means of life produced and preserved for the supply of the producer's +future wants, but now it "appears as a huge collection of wares," made +for other people's wants, made for sale in the market, made for its own +increase. What Marx wants to discover is how all this independent wealth +has come to accumulate in hands that do not produce it, and in +particular from whence comes the increase expected from its use, because +it is this increase that enables it to accumulate. What he endeavours to +show is that this increase of value cannot take place anywhere except in +the process of production, that in that process it cannot come from the +dead materials, but only from the living creative power of labour that +works upon them, and that it is accordingly virtually stolen from the +labourers who made it by the superior economic force of the owners of +the dead materials, without which indeed it could not be made, but whose +service is entitled to a much more limited reward. + +No increase of value, he contends, can occur in the process of exchange, +for an exchange is a mere transposition of things of equal value. In one +sense both parties in the transaction are gainers, for each gets a thing +he wants for a thing he does not want. The usefulness of the two +commodities is thus increased by the exchange, but their value is not. +An exchange simply means that each party gives to the other equal value +for equal value, and even if it were possible for one of them to make a +gain in value to-day--to get a more valuable thing for a less valuable +thing--still, as all the world is buyer and seller in turn, they would +lose to-morrow as buyers what they gained to-day as sellers, and the old +level of value would be restored. No increase whatever would be +effected. There is indeed a class of people whom he describes as always +buying and never selling--the unproducing class who live on their money, +and who, he says, receive by legal titles or by force wealth made by +producers without giving anything in exchange for it. And it may be +supposed that perhaps value is created by selling things to this class +of persons, or by selling things to them above their true value, but +that is not so; you would have brought no new value into the world by +such a transaction, and even if you got more for your goods than their +worth, you would only be cheating back from these rich people part of +the money that they had previously received for nothing. Another +supposition remains. Perhaps new value is created in the process of +exchange when one dealer takes advantage of another--when Peter, say, +contrives to induce Paul to take L40 worth of wine for L50 worth of +iron. But in this case there has been no increase of value; the value +has merely changed hands; Peter has L10 more than he had before, and +Paul L10 less. The commodities have between them after the transaction, +as they had before it, a total value of L90, and that total cannot be +increased by a mere change of possessor. + +Having thus established to his satisfaction that commerce, being only a +series of exchanges, cannot produce any increase of value, or what he +terms surplus value, Marx says that that only makes the problem of the +origin of surplus value more enigmatical than ever. For we are thus left +in presence of an apparent contradiction: surplus value cannot spring up +in the circulation of commodities because circulation is nothing but an +exchange of equivalents; and yet surplus value cannot spring up anywhere +except in circulation, because the class of persons who receive it and +live by it do not produce. Here, then, is a riddle, and Marx sets +himself to rede it. True, he says, value is not created directly in the +market, but a commodity is purchased in the market which has the +remarkable property of creating value. That commodity is the human +powers of labour. The very use of these powers, their consumption, their +expenditure, is the creation of value. But marvellous as they are, their +possessor is obliged to sell them, because while they are yielding their +product he must meanwhile live, and he sells a day's use of them for a +day's means of living. They create in a day far more than the value of +the wages for which they are bought. This excess is surplus value, and +is the secret and fountainhead of all accumulations of capital. Powers +which can create six shillings worth in a day may be procured in the +market for three shillings, because three shillings will pay for their +necessary maintenance. Surplus value is the difference between the value +of the labourer's necessary maintenance and the value of the labourer's +production, and it is in the present system entirely appropriated by the +dealer who advances him his wages. + +Marx thus bases his argument on two principles which he borrows from +current economic writers, without, however, observing the limitations +under which those writers taught them, and introducing besides important +modifications of his own. The one principle is that value comes from +labour, or as economists stated their law, that the natural value of +commodities is determined by the cost of their production. The second is +only a special application of the first; that the natural wages of +labour are determined by the cost of its production, and that the cost +of the production of labour is the cost of the labourer's subsistence. +The fault he finds with the present system is accordingly this, that +while labour creates all value it is paid only by its stated living, no +matter how much value it creates; and he then goes over the phenomena of +modern industrial life to show how each arrangement is invented so as to +extract more and more value out of the labourer by prolonging his hours +of work or enhancing its speed without giving him any advantage whatever +from the increase of value so obtained. We shall get a fair view of +Marx's argument, therefore, if we follow it through the successive +heads: 1st, Value; 2nd, Wages; 3rd, Normal day of labour; 4th, +Machinery; 5th, Piecework; 6th, Relative over-population. + +1st. _Value._ Marx holds that all capital--all industrial advances +except wages--is absolutely unproductive of value, and therefore not +entitled to the acknowledgment known as interest. The original value of +all such capital--the purchase price of the materials, together with a +certain allowance made for tear and wear of machinery--is carried +forward into the value of the product, and preserved in it, and even +that could not be done except by labour. The old value is preserved by +labour, and all new value is conferred by it, and therefore interest is +a consideration entirely out of the question. It is obvious to object +that labour by itself is as unproductive as capital by itself, but Marx +would reply that while labour and capital are equally indispensable to +produce new commodities, it is labour alone that produces new value, for +value is only so much labour preserved, it is merely a register of so +many hours of work. His whole argument thus turns upon his doctrine of +the nature of value, and that doctrine must therefore be closely +attended to. + +What, then, is value? Marx considers that most errors on this subject +have arisen from confusing value with utility on the one hand or with +price on the other, and he regards his discrimination of value from +these two ideas as his most important contribution to political economy. +He takes his start from the distinction current since the days of Adam +Smith between value in use and value in exchange, and of course agrees +with Smith in making the value of a commodity in exchange to be +independent of its value in use. Water had great value in use and none +in exchange, and diamonds had great value in exchange and little in use. +Value in use is therefore not value strictly so called, it is utility; +but strictly speaking value in exchange, according to Marx, is not value +either, but only the form under which in our state of society value +manifests itself. There was no exchange in primitive society when every +family produced things to supply its own wants, and there would be no +exchange in a communism, for in an exchange the transacting parties +stand to one another equally as private proprietors of the goods they +barter. And where there was no exchange there could of course be no +exchange value. No doubt there was value for all that in primitive +times, and there would be value under a communism, though it would +manifest itself in a different form. But as we live in an exchanging +society, where everything is made for the purpose of being exchanged, it +is in exchange alone that we have any experience of value, and it is +only from an examination of the phenomena of exchange that we can learn +its nature. + +What, then, is value in exchange? It is the ratio in which one kind of +useful commodity exchanges against another kind of useful commodity. +This ratio, says Marx, does not in the least depend on the usefulness of +the respective commodities, or their capacity of gratifying any +particular want. For, first, that is a matter of quality, whereas value +is a ratio between quantities; and second, two different kinds of +utility cannot be compared, for they have no common measure; but value, +being a ratio, implies comparison, and comparison implies a common +measure. A fiddle charms the musical taste, a loaf satisfies hunger, but +who can calculate how much musical gratification is equivalent to so +much satisfaction of hunger. The loaf and the fiddle may be compared in +value, but not by means of their several uses. Third, there are many +commodities which are useful and yet have no value in exchange: air, for +example, water, and, he adds, virgin soil. In seeking what in the +exchange the value depends on, we must therefore leave the utility of +the commodities exchanged entirely out of account; and if we do so, +there is only one other attribute they all possess in common, and it +must be on that attribute that their value rests. That attribute is that +they are all products of labour. While we looked to the utility of +commodities, they were infinite in their variety, but now they are all +reduced to one sober characteristic they are so many different +quantities of the same material, labour. Diversity vanishes; there are +no longer tables and chairs and houses, there is only this much and that +much and the next amount of preserved human labour. And this labour +itself is not discriminated. It is not joiner work, mason work, or +weaver work; it is merely human labour in the abstract, incorporated, +absorbed, congealed in exchangeable commodities. In an exchange +commodities are quantities of labour jelly, and they exchange in the +ratio of the amount of labour they have taken in. + +Value, then, is quantity of abstract labour, and now what is quantity of +labour? How is it to be ascertained? Labour is the exertion or use of +man's natural powers of labour, and the quantity of labour is measured +by the duration of the exertion. Quantity of labour is thus reduced to +time of labour, and is measured by hours and days and weeks. Marx +accordingly defines value to be an immanent relation of a commodity to +time of labour, and the secret of exchange is that "a day's labour of +given length always turns out a product of the same value." Value is +thus something inherent in commodities before they are brought to +market, and is independent of the circumstances of the market. + +Marx has no sooner reduced value to the single uniform element of time +of labour, and excluded from its constitution all considerations of +utility and the state of the market, than he reintroduces those +considerations under a disguised form. In the first place, if a day's +labour of given length always produces the same value, it is obvious to +ask whether then an indolent and unskilful tailor who takes a week to +make a coat has produced as much value as the more expert hand who turns +out six in this time, or, with the help of a machine, perhaps twenty? +Marx answers, Certainly not, for the time of labour which determines +value is not the time actually taken, but the time required in existing +social conditions to produce that particular kind of commodity--the time +taken by labour of average efficiency, using the means which the age +affords--in short, what he calls the socially necessary time of labour. +Value is an immanent relation to socially necessary time of labour. +Marx's standard is thus, after all, not one of quantity of labour pure +and simple; it takes into account, besides, the average productive power +of labour in different branches of industry. "The value of a commodity," +says he, "changes directly as the quantity, and inversely as the +productive power, of the labour which realizes itself in that +commodity." Before we know the value of a commodity we must therefore +know not only the quantity of labour that has gone into it, but the +productive power of that labour. We gather the quantity from the +duration of exertion, but how is average productive power to be +ascertained? By simply ascertaining the total product of all the labour +engaged in a particular trade, and then striking the average for each +labourer. Diamonds occur rarely in the crust of the earth, and therefore +many seekers spend days and weeks without finding one. Hits and misses +must be taken together; the productive power of the diamond seeker is +low; or, in other words, the time of labour socially necessary to +procure a diamond is high, and its value corresponds. In a good year the +same labour will produce twice as much wheat as in a bad; its productive +power is greater; the time socially necessary to produce wheat is less, +and the price of the bushel falls. The value of a commodity is therefore +influenced by its comparative abundance, whether that be due to nature, +or to machinery, or to personal skill. + +But, in the next place, if value is simply so much labour, it would seem +to follow, on the one hand, that nothing could have value which cost no +labour, and, on the other, that nothing could be devoid of value which +cost labour. Marx's method of dealing with these two objections deserves +close attention, because it is here that the fundamental fallacy of his +argument is brought most clearly out. He answers the first of them by +drawing a distinction between _value_ and _price_, which he and his +followers count of the highest consequence. Things which cost no labour +may have a _price_, but they have no _value_, and, as we have seen, he +mentions among such things conscience and virgin soil. No labour has +touched those things; they have no immanent relation to socially +necessary time of labour; they have not, and cannot have, any value, as +Marx understands value. But then, he says, they command a price. Virgin +soil is actually sold in the market; it may procure things that have +value though it has none itself. Now, this distinction between value and +price has no bearing on the matter at all, for the simple reason that, +as Marx himself admits, price is only a particular form of value. Price, +he says, is "the money form of value"; it is value expressed in money; +it is the exchange value of a commodity for money. To say that +uncultivated land may have a price but not a value is, on Marx's own +showing, to say that it has an exchange value which can be definitely +measured in money, and has yet no value. But he has started from the +phenomena of exchange; he has told us that exchange value is the only +form in which we experience value now; and he thus arrives at a theory +of value which will not explain the facts. If he argued that a thing had +value, but no exchange value, his position might be false, but he says +that a thing may have exchange value but no value, and so his position +is contradictory. Moreover, he describes money accurately enough as a +measure of value, and says that it could not serve this function except +it were itself valuable, _i.e._, unless it possessed the quality that +makes all objects commensurable, the quality of being a product of +labour. Yet here we find him admitting that virgin soil, which, _ex +hypothesi_, does not possess that quality, and ought therefore to be +incommensurable with anything that possesses it, is yet measured with +money every day. Such are some of the absurdities to which Marx is +reduced by refusing to admit that utility can confer value independently +of labour. + +Let us see now how he deals with the other objection. If labour is just +value-forming substance, and if value is just preserved labour, then +nothing which has cost labour should be destitute of value. But Marx +frankly admits that there are such things which have yet got no value; +and they have no value, he explains, because they have no utility. +"Nothing can have value without being useful. If it is useless, the work +contained in it is useless, and therefore has no value." He goes +further; he says that a thing may be both useful and the product of +labour and yet have no value. "He who by the produce of his labour +satisfies wants of his own produces utility but not value. To produce a +ware, _i.e._, a thing which has not merely value in use, but value in +exchange, he must produce something which is not only useful to himself, +but useful to others," _i.e._, socially useful. A product of labour +which is useless to the producer and everybody else has no value of any +sort; a product of labour which, while useful to the producer, is +useless to any one else, has no exchange value. It satisfies no want of +others. This would seem to cover the case of over-production, when +commodities lose their value for a time because nobody wants them. +Lassalle explained this depreciation of value by saying that the time of +labour socially necessary to produce the articles in question had +diminished. Marx explains it by saying that the labour is less socially +useful or not socially useful at all. And why is the labour not socially +useful? Simply because the product is not so. The social utility or +inutility of the labour is a mere inference from the social utility or +inutility of the product, and it is therefore the latter consideration +that influences value. Marx tries in vain to exclude the influence of +that consideration, or to explain it as a mere subsidiary qualification +of labour. Labour and social utility both enter equally into the +constitution of value, and Marx's radical error lies in defining value +in terms of labour only, ignoring utility. + +For what, after all, is value? Is Marx's definition of it in the least +correct? No. Value is not an inherent relation (whatever that may mean) +of a commodity to labour; it is essentially a social estimate of the +relative importance of commodities to the society that forms the +estimate. It is not an immanent property of an object at all; it is a +social opinion expressed upon an object in comparison with others. This +social opinion is at present collected in an informal but effective way, +through a certain subtle tact acquired in the market, by dealers +representing groups of customers on the one hand, and manufacturers +representing groups of producers on the other; and it may be said to be +pronounced in the verdict of exchange, _i.e._, according to Mill's +definition of value, in the quantity of one commodity given in exchange +for a given quantity of another. Now, on what does this social estimate +of the relative importance of commodities turn? In other words, by what +is value and difference in value determined? Value is constituted in +every object by its possession of two characteristics: 1st, that it is +socially useful; 2nd, that it costs some labour or trouble to procure +it. No commodity lacks value which possesses both of these +characteristics; and no commodity has value which lacks either of them. +Now there are two kinds of commodities. Some may be produced to an +indefinite amount by means of labour, and since all who desire them can +obtain them at any time for the labour they cost, their social +desirableness, their social utility, has no influence on their value, +which, therefore, always stands in the ratio of their cost of production +alone. Other classes of commodities cannot be in this way indefinitely +multiplied by labour; their quantity is strictly limited by natural or +other causes; those who desire them cannot get them for the mere labour +of producing them; and the value of commodities of this sort will +consequently always stand in excess of their relative cost of +production, and will be really determined by their relative social +utility. In fact, so far from the labour required for their production +being any guide to their value, it is their value that will determine +the amount of labour which will be ventured in their production. A +single word may be added in explanation of the conception of social +utility. Of course a commodity which is of no use to any one but its +owner has no economic value, unless it happens to get lost, and, in any +case, it is of no consequence in the present question. The social +utility of a commodity is its capacity to satisfy the wants of others +than the possessor, and it turns on two considerations: 1st, the +importance of the want the commodity satisfies, and, 2nd, the number of +persons who share the want. All commodities which derive a value from +their rarity or their special excellence belong to this latter class, +and the vice of Marx's theory of value is simply this, that he takes a +law which is true of the first class of commodities only to be true of +all classes of them. + + +2. _Wages._ Having concluded by the vicious argument now explained that +all value is the creation of the personal labour of the workman--is but +the registered duration of exertion of his labouring powers--Marx next +proceeds to show that, as things at present exist, the value of these +labouring powers themselves is fixed not by what they create but by what +is necessary to create or at least renovate them. The rate of wages, +economists have taught, is determined by the cost of the production of +labouring powers, and that is identical with the cost of maintaining the +labourer in working vigour. Marx accepts the usual explanations of the +elasticity of this standard of cost of subsistence. It includes, of +course, the maintenance of the labourer's family as well as his own, +because he will die some day, and the permanent reproduction of powers +of labour requires the birth of fresh hands to succeed him. It must also +cover the expenses of training and apprenticeship, and Marx would +probably agree to add, though he does not actually do so, a +superannuation allowance for old age. It contains, too, a variable +historical element, differs with climate and country, and is, in fact, +just the customary standard of living among free labourers of the time +and place. The value of a commodity is the time of labour required to +deliver it in _normal goodness_, and to preserve the powers of labour in +normal goodness a definite quantity of provisions and comforts is +necessary according to time, country, and customs. The part of the +labouring day required to produce this definite quantity of provisions +and comforts for the use of the day may be called the _necessary time of +labour_--the time during which the workman produces what is necessary +for keeping him in existence--and the value created in this season may +be called _necessary value_. But the workman's physical powers may hold +on labouring longer than this, and the rest of his working day may +accordingly be called _surplus time of labour_, and the value created in +it _surplus value_. This surplus value may be created or increased in +two ways: either by reducing or cheapening the labourer's subsistence, +_i.e._, by shortening the term of necessary labour; or by prolonging the +length of the working day, _i.e._, by increasing the term of surplus +labour. There are limits indeed within which this kind of action must +stop. The quantity of means of life cannot be reduced below the minimum +that is physically indispensable to sustain the labourer for the day, +and the term of labour cannot be stretched beyond the labourer's +capacity of physical endurance. But within these limits may be played an +important _role_, and the secret of surplus value lies in the simple +plan of giving the labourer as little as he is able to live on, and +working him as long as he is able to stand. A labourer works 12 hours a +day because he cannot work longer and work permanently and well, and he +gets three shillings a day of wages, because three shillings will buy +him the necessities he requires. In six hours' labour he will create +three shillings' worth of value, and he works the other six hours for +nothing, creating three shillings' worth of surplus value for the master +who advances him his wages. It is from these causes that we come on the +present system of things to the singular result that powers of labour +which create six shillings a day are themselves worth only three +shillings a day. This absurd conclusion, says Marx, could never have +held ground for an hour, had it not been hid and disguised by the +practice of paying wages in money. This makes it seem as if the labourer +were paid for the whole day when he is only paid for the half. Under the +old system of feudal servitude there were no such disguises. The +labourer wrought for his master one day, and for himself the other five, +and there was no make-believe as if he were working for himself all the +time. But the wages system gives to surplus labour that is really unpaid +the false appearance of being paid. That is the mystery of iniquity of +the whole system, the source of all prevailing legal conceptions of the +relation of employer and employed, and of all the illusions about +industrial freedom. The wages system is the lever of the labourer's +exploitation, because it enables the capitalist to appropriate the +entire surplus value created by the labourer--_i.e._, the value he +creates over and above what is necessary to recruit his labouring powers +withal. + +Now surplus value, as we have seen, is of two kinds, absolute and +relative. Absolute surplus value is got by lengthening the term of +surplus labour; relative surplus value by shortening the term of +necessary labour, which is chiefly done by inventions that cheapen the +necessaries of life. The consideration of the first of these points +leads Marx into a discussion of the normal length of the day of labour; +and the consideration of the second into a discussion of the effects of +inventions and machinery on the condition of the working classes. We +shall follow him on these points in their order. + + +3. _Normal day of labour._ There is a normal length of the day of +labour, and it ought to be ascertained and fixed by law. Some bounds are +set to it by nature. There is a minimum length, for example, beneath +which it cannot fall; that minimal limit is the time required to create +an equivalent to the labourer's living; but as under the capitalistic +system the capitalist has also to be supported out of it, it can never +be actually shortened to this minimum. There is also a maximum length +above which it cannot rise, and this upper limit is fixed by two sorts +of considerations, one physical, the other moral. 1st. _Physical +limits._ These are set by the physical endurance of the labourer. The +day of labour cannot be protracted beyond the term within which the +labourer can go on from day to day in normal working condition to the +end of his normal labouring career. This is always looked to with +respect to a horse. He cannot be wrought more than eight hours a day +regularly without injury. 2nd. _Moral limits._ The labourer needs time +(which the horse does not, or he would perhaps get it) for political, +intellectual, and social wants, according to the degree required by +society at the time. Between the maximum and minimum limit there is, +however, considerable play-room, and therefore we find labouring days +prevailing of very different length, 8 hours, 10, 12, 14, 16, and even +18 hours. There is no principle in the existing industrial economy which +fixes the length of the day; it must be fixed by law on a sound view of +the requirements of the case. Marx pitches upon 8 hours as the best +limit, because it affords a security for the permanent physical +efficiency of the labourer, and gives him leisure for satisfying those +intellectual and social wants which are becoming every day more largely +imperative. He makes no use of the reason often urged for the 8 hours +day, that the increased intelligence it would tend to cultivate in the +working class would in many ways conduce to such an increase of +production as would justify the shorter term of work. But he is very +strong for the necessity of having it fixed by law, and points out that +even then employers will need to be carefully watched or they will find +ways and means of extending the day in spite of the law. When the day +was fixed in England at 10 hours in some branches of industry, some +masters gained an extra quarter or half-hour by taking five minutes off +each meal time, and the profit made in these five minutes was often very +considerable. He mentions a manufacturer who said to him, "If you allow +me ten minutes extra time every day, you put L1,000 a year into my +pocket," and he says that is a good demonstration of the origin of +surplus value, for how much of this L1,000 would be given to the man +whose extra ten minutes' labour had made it? Marx enters very fully into +the history of English factory legislation, acknowledges the great +benefit it has conferred both upon the labouring class and the +manufacturers, and says that since the Act of 1850 the cotton industry +has become the model industry of the country. As might be expected, he +thinks the gradual course taken by English legislation on the subject +much inferior, as a matter of principle, to the more revolutionary +method taken by France in 1848, when a twelve hours Act was introduced +simultaneously as a matter of principle for every trade in the whole +country; but he admits that the results were more permanent in England. + + +4. _Effects of machinery, and the growth of fixed capital on the working +classes._ The whole progress of industrial improvements is a history of +fresh creations of relative surplus value, and always for the benefit of +the capitalist who advances the money. Everything that economizes labour +or that adds positively to its productivity, contracts the labourer's +own part of the working day and prolongs the master's. Division and +subdivision of labour, combination, co-operation, organization, +inventions, machinery, are all "on the one hand elements of historical +progress and development in the economic civilization of society, but on +the other are all means of civilized and refined exploitation of the +labourer." They not only increase social wealth at his expense, but in +many cases they do him positive injury. These improvements have cost +capitalists nothing, though capitalists derive the whole advantage from +them. Subdivision, combination, organization, are simply natural +resources of social labour, and natural resources of any kind are not +produced by the capitalist. Inventions, again, are the work of science, +and science costs the capitalist nothing. Labour, association, +science--these are the sources of the increase; capital is nowhere, yet +it sits and seizes the whole. Machinery, of course, is capital, but then +Marx will not admit that it creates any value, and contends that it +merely transfers to the product the value it loses by tear and wear in +the process of production. The general effect of industrial +improvements, according to Marx, is--1st, to reduce wages; 2nd, to +prolong the day of labour; 3rd, to overwork one-half of the working +class; 4th, to throw the rest out of employ; and, 5th, to concentrate +the whole surplus return in the hands of a few capitalists who make +their gains by exploiting the labourers, and increase them by exploiting +one another. This last point we need not further explain, and the third +and fourth we shall unfold under the separate heads of Piecework and +Relative Over-population. The remaining two I shall take up now, and +state Marx's views about a little more fully. + +(_a_). Industrial improvements tend to reduce wages. They do so, says +Marx, through first mutilating the labourer intellectually and +corporeally. As a result of subdivision of labour, workmen are rapidly +becoming mere one-sided specialists. Headwork is being separated more +and more from handwork in the labourer's occupation, and this +differentiation of function leads to a hierarchy of wages which affords +great opportunity for exploiting the labourer. Muscular power is more +easily dispensed with than formerly, and so the cheaper labour of women +and children is largely superseding the dearer labour of men. If this +goes on much further, the manufacturer will get the labour of a whole +family for the wages he used to pay to its head alone, and the labourer +will be converted into a slave-dealer who sells his wife and children +instead of his own labour. That this kind of slavery will find no sort +of resistance from either master or labourer, is to Marx's mind placed +beyond doubt by the fact that though the labour of children under 13 +years of age is restricted in English factories, advertisements appear +in public prints for "children that can pass for 13." + +(_b_). Industrial improvements tend to lengthen the day of labour. +Machinery can go on for ever, and it is the interest of the capitalist +to make it do so. He finds, moreover, a ready and specious pretext in +the greater lightness of the work as compared with hand labour, for +keeping the labourer employed beyond the normal limits of human +endurance. Capitalists always complain that long hours are a necessity +in consequence of the increasing extent of fixed capital which cannot +otherwise be made to pay. But this is a mistake on their part, says +Marx. For, according to the factory inspector's reports, shortening the +day of labour to 10 hours has increased production and not diminished +it, and the explanation is that the men can work harder while they are +at it, if the duration of their labour is shortened. Shortening the day +of labour has not only increased production, but actually increased +wages. Mr. Redgrave, in his Report for 1860, says that during the period +1839-1859 wages rose in the branches of industry that adopted the ten +hours' principle, and fell in trades where men wrought 14 and 15 hours a +day. Small wages and long hours are always found to go together, because +the same causes which enable the employer to reduce wages enable him to +lengthen the labouring day. + + +5. _Piecework._ Industrial improvements tend, Marx maintains, to +overwork, to undue intensification of labour, for machinery can go at +almost any rate all day and all night, and labourers are compelled by +various expedients to work up to it. Among these expedients none is more +strongly condemned by Marx than piecework, as encouraging over-exertion +and overtime. He says that though known so early as the 14th century, +piecework only came into vogue with the large system of production, to +which he thinks it the most suitable form of payment. He states (though +this is not quite accurate) that it is the only form of payment in use +in workshops that are under the factory acts, because in these workshops +the day of labour cannot be lengthened, and the capitalist has no other +way open to him of exploiting the labourer but by increasing the +intensity of the labour. He ridicules the idea of a writer who thought +"the system of piecework marked an epoch in the history of the working +man, because it stood halfway between the position of a mere wage +labourer depending on the will of the capitalist and the position of the +co-operative artisan who in the not distant future promises to combine +the artisan and the capitalist in his own person." Better far, he holds, +for the labourer to stick to day's wages, for he can be much more easily +and extensively exploited by the piece system. He contends that +experience has proved this in trades like the compositors and ship +carpenters, in which both systems of payment are in operation side by +side, and he cites from the factory inspectors' reports of 1860 the case +of a factory employing 400 hands, 200 paid by the piece and 200 by the +day. The piece hands had an interest in working overtime, and the day +hands were obliged to follow suit without receiving a farthing extra for +the additional hour or half-hour. This might be stopped by further +legislation, but then Marx holds that the system of piece payment is so +prone to abuse that when one door of exploitation shuts another only +opens, and legislation will always remain ineffectual. Every peculiarity +of the system furnishes opportunity either for reducing wages or +increasing work. On the piece system the worth of labour is determined +by the worth of the work it does, and unless the work possess average +excellence the stipulated price is withheld. There is thus always a +specious pretext ready to the employer's hand for making deductions from +wages on the ground that the work done did not come up to the stipulated +standard. Then again, it furnishes the employer with a definite measure +for the intensity of labour. He judges from the results of piecework how +much time it generally takes to produce a particular piece, and +labourers who do not possess the average productivity are turned off on +the ground that they are unable to do a minimum day's work. Even those +who are kept on get lower average wages than they would on the day +system. The superior workman earns indeed better pay working by the +piece, but the general body do not. The superior workman can afford to +take a smaller price per piece than the others, because he turns out a +greater number of pieces in the same time, and the employer fixes, from +the case of the superior workman, a standard of payment which is +injurious to the rest. In the end a change from day's wages to piece +wages will thus be found to have merely resulted in the average labourer +working harder for the same money. Marx, however, admits that when a +definite scale of prices has been in long use and has become fixed as a +custom, there are so many difficulties to its reduction that employers +are obliged, when they seek to reduce it, to resort to violent methods +of transforming it into time wages again. He gives an example of this +from the strike of the Coventry ribbon-weavers in 1860, in resistance to +a transformation of this kind. + +These are only some of the evils Marx lays at the door of piecework; he +has many more charges. From rendering the superintendence of labour +unnecessary, it leads to abuses like the sub-contracts known in this +country as "the sweating system," or what is a variety of the same, to +contracts of the employer with his manager, whereby the latter becomes +responsible for the whole work, and employs and pays the men. From +making it the pecuniary interest of the labourer to work overtime, +piecework induces him to overstrain his powers, and both to transgress +the legal or normal limits of the day of labour, and to raise or exceed +the normal degree of the intensity of labour. Marx, quoting from +Dunning, says that it was customary in the engineering trade in London +for employers to engage a foreman of exceptional physical powers, and +pay him an extra salary per quarter to keep the men up to his own pace; +an expedient which, he adds, is actually recommended to farmers by +Morton in his "Agricultural Encyclopaedia." He attributes to piecework, +especially in its operation on women and children, the degeneration of +the labouring class in the potteries, which is shown in the Report of +the Commission on the Employment of Children. But while Marx thus +objects to piecework because it leads to overwork, he objects to it also +because it leads to underwork. It enables employers to engage more hands +than they require, when they entertain perhaps only an imaginary +expectation of work, for they know they run no risk, since paying by the +piece they pay only for what is done. The men are thus imperfectly +employed and insufficiently paid. + + +6. _Relative Over-population._ One of the worst features of modern +industrial development is the vast number of labourers whom it +constantly leaves out of employ. This Marx calls relative +over-population. Of absolute over-population he has no fear. He is not a +Malthusian. He holds that there is no population law applicable to all +countries and times alike. Social organisms differ from one another as +do animals and plants; they have different laws and conditions. Every +country and age has its own law of population. A constant and +increasing over-population is a characteristic of the present age; it is +a necessary consequence of the existing method of carrying on industry; +but it is nothing in the nature of an absolute over-growth; it is only, +to Marx's thinking, a relative superfluity. There is plenty of work for +all, more than plenty. If those who have employment were not allowed to +be overwrought, and if work were to-morrow to be limited to its due +amount for every one according to age and sex, the existing working +population would be quite insufficient to carry on the national +production to its present extent. Even in England, where the technical +means of saving labour are enormous, this could not be done except by +converting most of our present "unproductive" labourers into productive. +There is therefore, Marx conceives, no reason why any one should be out +of work; but at present, what with the introduction of new machinery, +the industrial cycles, the commercial crises, the changes of fashion, +the transitions of every kind, we have always, besides the industrial +army in actual service, a vast industrial reserve who are either +entirely out of employment or very inadequately employed. This relative +over-population is an inevitable consequence of the capitalistic +management of industry, which first compels one-half of the labouring +community to do the work of all, and then makes use of the redundancy of +labour so created to compel the working half to take less pay. Low wages +spring from the excessive competition among labourers caused by this +relative over-population. "Rises and falls in the rate of wages are +universally regulated by extensions and contractions in the industrial +reserve army which correspond with changes in the industrial cycle. They +are not determined by changes in the absolute number of the labouring +population, but through changes in the relative distribution of the +working class into active army and reserve army--through increase or +decrease in the relative numbers of the surplus population--through the +degree in which it is at one time absorbed and at another dismissed." +The fluctuations in the rate of wages are thus traced to expansions or +contractions of capital, and not to variation in the state of +population. Marx ridicules the theory of these fluctuations given by +political economists, that high wages lead to their own fall by +encouraging marriages, and so in the end increasing the supply of +labour, and that low wages lead to their own rise by discouraging +marriages and reducing the supply of labour. That, says Marx, is very +fine, but before high wages could have produced a redundant population +(which would take eighteen years to grow up), wages would, with modern +industrial cycles, have been up, down, and up again through ordinary +fluctuations of trade. + +Relative over-population is of three kinds: current, latent, and +stagnant. Current over-population is what comes from incidental causes, +the ordinary changes that take place in the every-day course of +industry. A trade is slack this season and brisk the next, has perhaps +its own seasons, like house-painting in spring, posting in summer. Or +one trade may from temporary reasons be busy, while others are +depressed. In the last half year of 1860 there were 90,000 labourers in +London out of employment, and yet the factory inspectors report that at +that very time much machinery was standing idle for want of hands. This +comes from the labourer being mutilated--that is, specialized--under +modern subdivision of labour, and fit for only a single narrow craft. +Another current cause of over-population is that under the stress of +modern labour the workman is old before his years, and while still in +middle life becomes unfit for full work, and passes into the reserve. +Marx says this is the real reason for the prevalence of early marriages +among the working class. They are generally condemned for being +improvident, but they are really resorted to from considerations of +providence, for working men foresee that they will be prematurely +disabled for work, and desire, when that day comes, to have grown-up +children about them who shall be able to support them. Other current +causes are new inventions and new fashions, which always throw numbers +out of work. Latent over-population is what springs from causes whose +operation is long and slow. The best example of it is the case of the +agricultural labourers. They are being gradually superseded by +machinery, and as they lose work in the country they gather to the towns +to swell the reserve army there. A great part of the farm servants are +always in this process of transition, a few here, and a few there, and a +few everywhere. The constancy of this flow indicates a latent +over-population in the rural districts, and that is the cause of the low +wages of agricultural labourers. By stagnant over-population Marx means +that which is shown in certain branches of industry, where none of the +workmen are thrown back entirely into the reserve, but none get full +regular employment. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE FEDERALISM OF CARL MARLO. + + +Marlo and Rodbertus are sometimes spoken of as the precursors of German +socialism. This, however, is a mistake. The socialism which now exists +appeared in Germany among the Young Hegelians forty years ago, before +the writings of either of these economists were published, and their +writings have had very little influence on the present movement. +Rodbertus, it is true, communicated a decided impulse to Lassalle, both +by his published letter to Von Kirchmann in 1853, and by personal +correspondence subsequently. He was a landed proprietor of strongly +liberal opinions, who was appointed Minister of Agriculture in Prussia +in 1848, but after a brief period of office retired to his estates, and +devoted himself to economic and historical study. He took a very decided +view of the defects of the existing industrial system, and held in +particular that, in accordance with Ricardo's law of necessary wages, +the labourer's income could never rise permanently above the level of +supplying him with a bare subsistence, and consequently that, while his +labour was always increasing in productivity, through mechanical +inventions and other means, the share which he obtained of the product +was always decreasing. What was required was simply to get this tendency +counteracted, and to devise arrangements by which the labourer's share +in the product might increase proportionally with the product itself, +for otherwise the whole working population would be left behind by the +general advancement of society. The remedy, he conceives, must lie in +the line of a fresh contraction of the sphere of private property. That +sphere had been again and again contracted in the interests of personal +development, and it must be so once more. And the contraction that was +now necessary was to leave nothing whatever in the nature of private +property except income. This proposal is substantially identical with +the scheme of the socialists; it is just the nationalization of all +permanent stock; but then he holds that it could not be satisfactorily +carried out in less than five hundred years. Rodbertus's writings have +never been widely known, but they attracted some attention among the +German working class, and he was invited, along with Lassalle and Lothar +Bucher, to address the Working Men's Congress in Leipzig in 1863. He +promised to come and speak on the law of necessary wages, but the +Congress was never held in consequence of the action of Lassalle in +precipitating his own movement, and from that movement Rodbertus held +entirely aloof. He agreed with Lassalle's complaints against the present +order of things, but he disapproved of his plan of reform. He did not +think the scheme of founding productive associations on State credit +either feasible or desirable, and he would still retain the system of +wages, though with certain improvements introduced by law. He thought, +moreover, that Lassalle erred gravely in making the socialists a +political party, and that they should have remained a purely economic +one. Besides, he looked on it as mere folly to expect, with Lassalle, +the accomplishment in thirty years of changes which, as we have seen, he +believed five centuries little enough time to evolve. + +Rodbertus may thus be said to have had some relations with the present +movement, but Marlo stands completely apart from it: and his large and +important work, "Untersuchungen ueber die Organization der Arbeit, oder +System der Weltoekonomie," published at Kassel in 1850-5--though +original, learned, and lucid--remained so absolutely unknown that none +of the lexicons mention his name, and even an economist like +Schaeffle--who was the first to draw public attention to it, and has +evidently been considerably influenced by it himself--had never read it +till he was writing his own work on socialism (1870). But though Marlo +cannot be said to have contributed in any respect to the present +socialistic movement, his work deserves attentive consideration as a +plea for fundamental social reform, advanced by a detached and +independent thinker, who has given years of patient study to the +phenomena of modern economic life, and holds them to indicate the +presence of a deep-seated and widespread social disease. Carl Marlo is +the _nom de plume_ of a German professor of chemistry named Winkelblech, +and he gives us in the preface to his second volume a touching account +of how he came to apply himself to social questions. In 1843 he made a +tour of investigation through Northern Europe in connection with a +technological work he was engaged in writing, and visited among other +places the blue factory of Modum, in Norway, where he remained some +days, charmed with the scenery, which he thought equal to that of the +finest valleys of the Alps. One morning he went up to a neighbouring +height, whence he could see the whole valley, and was calmly enjoying +the view when a German artisan came to ask him to undertake some +commission to friends in the fatherland. They engaged in conversation. +The artisan went over his experiences, and repeated all the privations +he and his fellows had to endure. His tale of sorrow, so alien +apparently to the ravishing beauty around, made a profound impression on +Winkelblech, and altered the purpose and work of his life. "What is the +reason," he asked himself, "that the paradise before my eyes conceals so +much misery? Is nature the source of all this suffering, or is it man +that is to blame for it? I had before, like so many men of science, +looked, while in workshops, only on the forges and the machinery, not on +the men--on the products of human industry, and not on the producers, +and I was quite a stranger to this great empire of misery that lies at +the foundation of our boasted civilization. The touching words of the +artisan made me feel the nullity of my scientific work and life in its +whole extent, and from that moment I resolved to make the sufferings of +our race, with their causes and remedies, the subject of my studies." He +pursued these studies with the greatest industry for several years, and +found the extent of men's sufferings to be greatly beyond his +expectation. Poverty prevailed everywhere--among labourers and among +employers, too--with peoples of the highest industrial development, and +with peoples of the lowest--in luxurious cities, and in the huts of +villagers--in the rich plains of Lombardy, no less than the sterile +wilds of Scandinavia. He arrived at the conclusion that the causes of +all this lay not in nature, but in the fact that human institutions +rested on false economic foundations, and he held the only possible +remedy to consist in improving these institutions. He became convinced +that technical perfection of production, however great, would never be +able to extinguish poverty or lead to the diffusion of general comfort, +and that civilization was now come to a stage in its development at +which further progress depended entirely on the advancement of political +economy. Political economy was, therefore, for our time the most +important of all sciences, and Winkelblech now determined to give +himself thoroughly to its study. Hitherto he had not done so. "During +the progress of my investigations," he says, "the doctrines of +economists, as well as the theories of socialists, remained almost +unknown to me except in name, for I intentionally abstained from seeking +any knowledge of either, in order that I might keep myself as free as +possible from extraneous influences. It was only after I arrived at the +results described that I set myself to a study of economic literature, +and came to perceive that the substance of my thoughts, though many of +them were not new, and stood in need of correction, departed completely +from the accepted principles of the science." He reached the conclusion +that there prevailed everywhere the symptoms of a universal social +disease, and that political economy was the only physician that could +cure it; but that the prevailing system of economy was quite incompetent +for that task, and that a new system was urgently and indispensably +required. To set forth such a system is the aim of his book. He derides +Proudhon's idea of social reforms coming of themselves without design, +and argues strongly that no reform worthy the name can ever be expected +except as the fruit of economic researches. He agrees with the +Socialists in so far as they seek to devise a new economic system, but +he thinks they make a defective diagnosis of the disease, and propose an +utterly inadequate remedy. He counts them entirely mistaken in +attributing all existing evils to the unequal distribution of wealth, a +deficiency of production being, in his opinion, a much more important +source of misery than any error of distribution. In fact, his +fundamental objection to the existing distribution is that it is not the +distribution which conduces to the highest production, or to the most +fruitful use of the natural resources at the command of society. He +differs from the German socialists in always looking at the question +from the standpoint of society in general, rather than from that of the +proletariat alone, and he maintains that a new organization of labour is +even more necessary for the interest of the capitalists than for that of +the labourers, because he believes the present system will infallibly +lead, unless amended, to the overthrow of the capitalist class, and the +introduction of communism. His point of view is moreover purely economic +and scientific, entirely free from all partizan admixture, and while he +declares himself to be a zealous member of the republican party, he says +that he purposely abstains from intervention in politics because he +regards the political question as one of very minor rank, and holds +that, with sound social arrangements, people could live more happily +under the Russian autocracy than, with unsound ones, they could do under +the French republic. The organization of labour is, in his opinion, +something quite independent of the form of the State, and its final aim +ought to be to produce the amount of wealth necessary to diffuse +universal comfort among the whole population without robbing the middle +classes. These characteristics sufficiently separate him from the +socialist democrats of the present day. + +His book was published gradually in parts, sometimes after long +intervals, between 1848 and 1856, and it was finally interrupted by his +death in 1865. A second edition appeared in 1885, containing some +additions from his manuscripts, but the work remains incomplete. It was +to have consisted of three parts; 1st, a historical part, containing an +exposition and estimate of the various economic systems; 2nd, an +elementary or doctrinal part, containing an exposition of the principles +of economic science; and, 3rd, a practical part, explaining his plan for +the organization of labour. The first two parts are all we possess; the +third, and most important, never appeared, which must be regretted by +all who recognise the evidences of original power and singular candour +that the other parts present. + +Marlo's account of the social problem is that it arises from the fact +that our present industrial organization is not in correspondence with +the idea of right which is recognised by the public opinion of the time. +That idea of right is the Christian one, which takes its stand on the +dignity of manhood, and declares that all men, simply because they are +men, have equal rights to the greatest possible happiness. Up till the +French Revolution, the idea of right that prevailed was the heathen one, +which might be called the divine right of the stronger. The weak might +be made a slave without wrong. He might be treated as a thing and not as +a person or an equal, who had the same right with his master or his +feudal superior to the greatest possible enjoyment. Nature belonged to +the conqueror, and his dominion was transmitted by privilege. Inequality +of right was therefore the characteristic of this period; Marlo calls it +monopolism. But at the French Revolution the Christian idea of right +rose to its due ascendancy over opinion, and the sentiments of love and +justice began to assume a control over public arrangements. Do as you +would be done by, became a rule for politics as well as for private +life, and the weak were supported against the strong. Equality of right +was the mark of the new period; Marlo calls it panpolism. This idea +could not be realized before the present day, because it had never +before taken possession of the public mind, but it has done this now so +thoroughly that it cannot be expected to rest till it has realized +itself in every direction in all the practical applications of which it +is susceptible. The final arbiter of institutions is always the +conception of right prevailing at the time; contemporary industrial +arrangements are out of harmony with the contemporary conception of +right; and stability cannot be looked for until this disturbance is +completely adjusted. + +Now the first attempts that society made to effect this adjustment were +not unnaturally attended with imperfection. In the warmth of their +recoil from the evils of monopolism, men ran into extreme and distorted +embodiments of the opposite principle, and they ran contrary ways. These +contrary ways are Liberalism and Communism. Liberalism fixed its +attention mainly on the artificial restrictions, the privileges, the +services, the legal bonds by which monopoly and inequality were kept +up, and it thought a perfect state of society would be brought about if +only every chain were snapped and every fetter stripped away. It +conceived the road to the greatest possible happiness for every man was +the greatest possible freedom; it idolized the principle of abstract +liberty, and it fancied if evil did not disappear, it was always because +something still remained that needed emancipation. Communism, on the +other hand, kept its eyes on the inequalities of monopolistic society; +imagined the true road to the greatest possible happiness was the +greatest possible equality; that all ills would vanish as soon as things +were levelled enough; in short, it idolized the principle of abstract +equality. Modern Liberalism and modern Communism are therefore of equal +birth; they have the same historical origin in the triumph of the +principle of equality of right in 1789; they are only different modes of +attempting to reduce that principle to practice; and Liberalism happens +to be the more widely disseminated of the two, not because it represents +that principle better, but merely because being more purely negative +than the other, it was easier of introduction, and so got the start of +Communism in the struggle of existence. According to Marlo, they are +both equally bad representatives of the principle, and their chief good +lies in their mutual criticism, by means of which they prepare the way +for the true system, the system of Federalism, which will be presently +explained. The history of revolution, he says, begins in the victory of +Liberalism and Communism together over Monopolism; it proceeds by the +conflict of the victors with one another, and it ends in the final +triumph of Federalism over both. + +Marlo next criticises the two systems of Liberalism and Communism with +considerable acuteness. Both the one and the other are utopias; they are +absorbed in realizing an abstract principle, and they, as a matter of +fact, produce exactly the opposite of what they aim at. Communism seeks +to reach the greatest possible happiness by introducing first the +greatest possible equality. But what is equality? Is it equality when +each man gets a coat of the same size, or is it not rather when each man +gets a coat that fits him? Some communists would accept the former +alternative. They would measure off the same length to the dwarf and +the giant, to the ploughman and the judge, to the family of three and +the family of thirteen. But this would be clearly not equality, but only +inequality of a more vicious and vexatious kind. Most communists, +however, prefer the second alternative, and assign to every man +according to his needs, to every man the coat that fits him. But then we +must first have the cloth, and that is only got by labour, and every +labourer ought if possible to produce his own coat. The motive to +labour, however, is weakened on the communistic system; and if those who +work less are to be treated exactly like those who work more, then that +would be no abolition of monopoly, but merely the invention of a new +monopoly, the monopoly of indolence and incapacity. The skilful and +industrious would be exploited by the stupid and lazy. Besides, +production would for the same reason, insufficient inducement to labour, +be diminished, progress would be stopped, and therefore the average of +human happiness would decline. Communism thus conducts to the opposite +of everything it seeks. It seeks equality, it ends in inequality; it +seeks the abolition of monopoly, it creates a new monopoly; it seeks to +increase happiness, it actually diminishes it. It is a pure utopia, and +why? Because it misunderstands its own principle. Equality does not mean +giving equal things to every man; it means merely affording the greatest +possible playroom for the development of every personality, and that is +exactly the principle of freedom. The greatest possible equality and the +greatest possible freedom can only be realized together; they must +spring out of the same conditions, and a system of right which shall +adjust these conditions is just what is now wanted. + +Liberalism is a failure from like causes. It seeks to realize happiness +by freedom; it realizes neither. For it mistakes the nature of freedom, +as the Communists mistake the nature of equality. It takes freedom to be +the power of doing what one likes, instead of being the power of doing +what is right. Its whole bent is to exempt as much as possible of life +from authoritative restraint, and to give as much scope as exigencies +will allow to the play of individuality. It is based on no positive +conception of right whatever, and looks on the State as an alien whose +interference is something exceptional, only justified on occasional +grounds of public necessity or general utility. It fails to see that +there are really no affairs in a community which are out of relation to +the general wellbeing, and destitute of political significance. Nothing +demonstrates the error of this better than the effects of the Liberal +_regime_ itself. For half a century the industrial concerns of the +people have been treated as matters of purely private interest, and this +policy has resulted in a political as well as economical revolution. +Industrial freedom, which has produced capitalism in the economic field, +has resulted in political life in the ascendancy of a new class, a +plutocracy, "the worst masters," said De Tocqueville, "the world has yet +seen, though their reign will be short." The change which was effected +by the legislation of the Revolution was not a development of a fourth +estate, as is sometimes said; it was really nothing more than the +creation of a money aristocracy, and the putting of them in the place of +the old hereditary nobility. The system of industrial right that happens +to prevail, therefore, so far from being, as Liberals fancy, outside the +sphere of political interest, is in truth the very element on which the +distribution of political power, in the last analysis, depends. Nothing +is more political than the social question. Liberals think slight of +that question, but it is, says Marlo, the real question of the day, and +it is neither more nor less than the question of the existence or +abolition of Liberalism, the question of the maintenance or subversion +of the principle of industrial freedom, the question of the ascendancy +or overthrow of a money aristocracy. The fight of our age is a fight +against a plutocracy bred of Liberalism. It is not, as some represent +it, a struggle of labourers against employers; it is a joint struggle of +labourers and lower _bourgeoisie_ against the higher _bourgeoisie_, a +struggle of those who work and produce against those who luxuriate idly +on the fruits of others' labour. As compared with this question, +constitutional questions are of very minor importance, for no matter +whether the State be monarchy or republic, if the system of industrial +right that prevails in it be the system of industrial freedom, the real +power of the country will be in the hands of the capitalist class. He +who fails to see this, says Marlo, fails to understand the spirit of +his time. It is always the national idea of right that governs both in +social and political relations, and as long as the national idea of +right is that of Liberalism, we shall continue to have capitalism and a +plutocracy. It is the mind that builds the body up, and it is only when +a new system of right has taken as complete possession of the national +consciousness as Liberalism did in 1789, that the present social +conflict will cease and a better order of things come in. + +From want of such a system of right--from want even of seeing the +necessity for it, Liberalism has defeated its own purpose. It sought to +abolish monopoly; it has only substituted for the old monopoly of birth +the more grievous monopoly of wealth. It sought to establish freedom; it +has only established plutocratic tyranny. It has erred because it took +for freedom an abstraction of its own and tried to realize that, just as +Communism erred by taking for equality an abstraction of its own and +trying to realize that. The most perfect state of freedom is not reached +when every man has the power of doing what he likes, any more than the +most perfect state of equality is reached when every man has equal +things with every other; but the greatest possible freedom is attained +in a condition of society where every man has the greatest possible +play-room for the development of his personality, and the greatest +possible equality is attained in exactly the same state of things. Real +freedom and real equality are in fact identical. Every right contains +from the first a social element as well as an individual element, and it +cannot be realized in the actual world without observing a due +adjustment between these two elements. Such an adjustment can only be +discovered by a critical examination of the economic constitution of +society, and must then be expressed in a distinct system of industrial +right, which imposes on individual action its just limits. True liberty +is liberty within these limits; and the true right of property is a +right of property under the same conditions. The fundamental fault of +Liberalism, the cause of its failure, is simply that it goes to work +without a sound theory of right, or rather perhaps without any clear +theory at all, and merely aims at letting every one do as he likes, +with the understanding that the State can always be called in to +correct accidents and excesses. + +This defect is what Federalism claims to supply. It claims to be the +only theory that abandons abstractions and keeps closely to the nature +of things, and therefore to be the only theory that is able to realize +even approximately the Christian principle of equality of right. The +name furnishes no very precise clue to the conclusion it designates, and +it has no reference to the federative form of State, for which Marlo +expressly disavows having any partiality. He has chosen the word merely +to indicate the fact that society is an organic confederation of many +different kinds of associations--families, churches, academies, +mercantile companies, and so on; that association is not only a natural +form, but the natural form in which man's activity tends to be carried +on; and that in any sound system of industrial right this must be +recognised by an extension of the collective form of property and the +co-operative form of production. Communism, says Marlo, is mechanical, +Liberalism is atomistic, but Federalism is organic. When he +distinguishes his theory from communism, it must be remembered that it +is from the communism which he has criticised, and which he would prefer +to denominate Equalism; it is from the communism of Baboeuf, which would +out of hand give every man according to his needs, and would +consequently, through impairing the motives to industry, leave those +needs themselves in the long run less satisfactorily provided for than +they are now. But his system is nearly identical with the communism of +the Young Hegelians of his own time--that is, with the German socialism +of the present day--although he arrived at it in entire independence of +their agitations, and builds it on deductions peculiar to himself. Like +them, he asks for the compulsory transformation of land and the +instruments of production from private property into collective +property; like them, he asks for this on grounds of social justice, as +the necessary mechanism for giving effect to positive rights that are +set aside under the present system; and he says himself, "If you ask the +question, how is the democratic social republic related to Federalism, +the most suitable answer is, as the riddle to its solution." + +He starts from the position that all men have equally the right to +property. Not merely in the sense, which is commonly acknowledged, that +they have the right to property if they have the opportunity of +acquiring it; but in the further significance, that they have a right to +the opportunity. They are in fact born proprietors--_de jure_ at least, +and they are so for two reasons. First, God has made them persons, and +not things, and they have, therefore, all equally a natural right to +their amplest personal development. If society interferes with this +liberty of personal development--if it suffers any of its members to +become the slaves of others, for example--it robs them of original +rights which belong to them by the mere fact of their manhood. But, +secondly, property, resources of some sort, being indispensable means of +personal development, God, who has imposed the end, has supplied the +means. He has given nature, the earth and the lower creation, into the +dominion of man, not of this or that man, or class of men, but of +mankind, and consequently every man has, equally with every other, a +right to participate in the dominion of nature, a right to use its +bounty to the extent required for his personal development. No +appropriation of nature can be just which excludes this possibility and +robs any man of this natural right. It is, therefore, wrong to allow to +any single person, or to any limited number of persons, an absolute +dominion over natural resources in which everybody else has, by nature, +a right to some extent to share. He who should have complete and +exclusive lordship over all nature, would be lord and master of all his +fellow-men, and in a period after natural agents are all appropriated +the system of complete and absolute property leaves the new-comers at +the mercy of those who are already in possession. They can only work if +the latter give them the productive instruments; they can only reap from +their work so much of its fruits as the latter are pleased to leave with +them; and they must perish altogether unless the latter employ them. +They are slaves, they are beggars; and yet they came into the world with +the rights of a proprietor, of which they can never be divested. Nature +laid covers for them as well as for the rest, and a system of property +is essentially unjust which ousts them from their seat at her table. +The common theory of property starts from the premiss, that all men have +the right to property, and draws the conclusion, that, therefore, some +men have the right to monopolize it. As usually understood, the +proprietary right is as much a right of robbery as a right of property, +and Proudhon would have been quite correct in describing property as +theft, if no better system of property could be devised than the +present. + +But such a system can be devised; one under which the right of +new-comers may be respected without disturbing those of possessors. This +can only be done by putting entirely aside the complete and absolute +form of property which is in so much favour with Liberalism, and by +making the right of property in any actual possession a strictly limited +and circumscribed right from the first--the right not to an arbitrary +control over a thing, but to a just control over it. So long as property +is always thought of as an arbitrary and absolute dominion over a thing, +the proprietary right cannot possibly be explained in a way that does +not make it a right given to some to rob others. Why not, therefore, +define property from the beginning as subject to limitations, and +contrive a new form or system of it, in which these limitations shall +for ever receive due recognition, and no man be thereafter denied the +opportunity of acquiring as much of the bounty of nature as is necessary +for him to carry out his personal development? + +That is Marlo's task, and it would have been an easy one, if all goods, +if everything that satisfies a human want, had been supplied directly by +nature, as air is supplied, without the need of industry to procure it +or the power of industry to multiply it. Then the problem would be +solved very simply as the earlier communists desired to solve it. Every +member of society would be entitled to partake of nature's supplies, as +he now does of air, in the measure of his need, and when those supplies +ran exhausted, just as when the air became vitiated, society would be +entitled, nay obliged, to suppress further propagation. But the question +is far from being so simple. Nature only yields her bounties to us after +labour; they are only converted into means of life by labour; and they +are capable of being vastly multiplied by labour. This element of +labour changes the situation of things considerably, and must be allowed +a leading _role_ in determining a just right and system of property. The +only case where a proprietary right can be recognised which is +unmodified by this consideration, is the case of those who are unable to +labour. They fall back on their original right to a share in the bounty +of nature in the measure that their personal development requires; in +other words, according to their needs. Their share does not lie waste, +though they are unable to work it themselves, and their share belongs to +them immediately because they are persons, and not because they may +afterwards become labourers. Marlo recognises, therefore, antecedently +to labour the right to existence, and this right he proposes to realize +for the weak and disabled by means of a compulsory system of national +insurance. + +The other natural proprietary rights are consequent in one way or +another upon labour. First, there is the right to labour. If every man +has a right to a share in the dominion of nature, then every man who is +able to labour has a right to obtain the natural resources that are +necessary to give him employment according to capacity and trade. No +private appropriation of these resources can divest him of his title to +get access to them, and if he cannot find work himself, the State is +bound to provide it for him in public workshops. Second, every man has a +right to the most profitable possible application of labour to natural +resources. He has an interest in seeing the common stock put to the best +account, and he is wronged in this interest when waste is permitted, +when inferior methods are resorted to, or when the distribution of work +and materials is ill arranged. Now the best arrangement is when each man +is equipped according to the measure and quality of his powers. Nature +will be then best worked, and man's personal development will then be +best furthered. If such an arrangement cannot be effected on the system +of property now in vogue, while it may be under another, it is every +man's right to have the former system supplanted by the latter. The most +economical form of property is the most just. Third, the next right is a +right to an almost unlimited control over the fruits of one's own +labour. Not over the means of labour; these can only be justly or +economically held by a circumscribed control; but over the fruits of +labour. These ought to be retained as exclusive property, for the simple +reason that the natural resources will be so turned to the best account. +On any other system of payment the motive to labour is impaired, and the +amount of its produce diminished. Distribution by need defeats its own +end; the very needs of the community would be less amply satisfied after +it than before it. Distribution according to work is the sound economic +principle, and therefore the just one. Marlo here leaves room for the +play of the hereditary principle and of competition to some extent, and +he allows the free choice of occupation on similar grounds. Men will +work best in lines their own tastes and powers lead them to. Everything +is determined by economic utility, and economic utility is supposed to +be at its height when the natural resources of a country are distributed +among its inhabitants according to the requirements of their labouring +powers. + +This condition of things can only be realized, first, if population is +regulated; second, if unproductive labour is suppressed; and third, if +the means of labour are made common property. The necessity for +regulating population comes, of course, from the limitation of the +natural resources at society's command. In any community there is a +certain normal limit of population--the limit at which all the natural +resources are distributed among all the inhabitants according to their +powers--and the community will learn when this limit is reached from the +number of workmen who are unable to obtain private employment, and are +obliged to seek work from the State. Then it can regulate population by +various expedients. It may require the possession of a certain amount of +fortune as a preliminary condition to marriage, and raise this amount +according to necessity. It may encourage emigration. It may forbid +marriages under a fixed age, and to prevent illegitimacy, it might give +natural children the same rights as legitimate ones. But Marlo trusts +most to the strong preventive check that would be supplied by the power +imparted to working men under the Federal _regime_ of improving their +position. + +The same necessity that makes it legitimate, and, indeed, imperative to +regulate population, makes it legitimate and imperative also to suppress +what Marlo calls unproductive acquisition, _i.e._, the acquisition by +persons who are able to work of any other property than they earn as the +fruit of their work; and to suppress likewise all waste of the means of +life and enjoyment, such, for example, as is involved in the maintenance +of unnecessary horses, dogs, or other animals that only eat up the +products of the soil. The obligation to labour and the curtailment of +luxury would come into exercise before the restrictions on population, +and be more and more rigorously enforced as the normal limit of +population was approximated. + +But the most important and the most necessary innovation is the +conversion of land and the instruments of production into the form of +collective property. The form in which property should be held ought to +be strictly determined by considerations of economic utility. From such +considerations the Liberals themselves have introduced important changes +into the system of property; they have abolished fiefs, hereditary +tenancies, entail, servitudes, church and village lands, all the +peculiarities of monopolistic society, because, as they said, they +wished to substitute a good form of property for a bad; and they at +least have no right, Marlo thinks, to turn round now on Communists or +Federalists for proposing to supersede this good form of property by a +better. They have themselves transformed property by law, and they have +transformed it on grounds of economic advantage; they have owned that +the economic superiority of a particular form of property imposes a +public obligation for its compulsory introduction. They asserted the +competency of the State against the monopolists, and they cannot now +deny it against the socialists. If the private form of property is best, +then let the State maintain it; but if the collective form is best, then +the State is bound, even on the principles of Liberals themselves, to +introduce it. The question can only be determined by experience of the +comparative economic utility of the two. Without offering any detailed +proof of his proposition from experience Marlo then affirms that the +most advantageous form of property is reached when the instruments of +production are the collective property of associations, and the +instruments of enjoyment (except wells, bridges, and the like) are the +property of individuals. Each man's house would still be his castle; his +house and the fulness thereof would still belong to him; but outside of +it he could acquire no individual possessions. Of land and the means of +labour, he should be joint-proprietor with others, or rather +joint-tenant with them under the Crown. Industrial property would be +held in common by the associations that worked it, and these +associations would be organized by authority with distinct charters of +powers and functions. + +Marlo thus arrives at the same practical scheme as Marx, though by a +slightly different road. Marx builds his claim on Ricardo's theory of +value and Ricardo's law of necessary wages. Marlo builds his on man's +natural right, as a sharer in the dominion of nature, to the most +advantageous exercise of that dominion. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. + + +The Socialists of the Chair have done themselves injustice and sown +their course with embarrassing misconceptions by adopting too hastily an +infelicitous name. It is more descriptive than most political nicknames, +and therefore more liable to mislead. It was first used in 1872 in a +pamphlet by Oppenheim, then one of the leaders of the National Liberals, +to ridicule a group of young professors of political economy who had +begun to show a certain undefined sympathy with the socialist agitations +of Lassalle and Von Schweitzer, and to write of the wrongs of the +labouring classes and the evils of the existing industrial system with a +flow of emotion which was thought to befit their years better than their +position. A few months later these young professors called together at +Eisenach a Congress of all who shared their general attitude towards +that class of questions. In opening this Congress--which was attended by +almost every economist of note in Germany, and by a number of the +weightiest and most distinguished Liberal politicians--Professor +Schmoller employed the name "Socialists of the Chair" to describe +himself and those present, without adding a single qualifying remark, +just as if it had been their natural and chosen designation. The +nickname was no doubt accepted so readily, partly from a desire to take +the edge off the sneer it was meant to convey, but partly also from the +nobler feeling which makes men stand by a truth that is out of favour. +Not that they approved of the contentions of social democracy out and +out, but they believed there was more basis of truth in them than +persons in authority were inclined to allow, and besides that the truth +they contained was of special and even pressing importance. They held, +as Schmoller said, that "Social Democracy was itself a consequence of +the sins of modern Liberalism." They went entirely with the Social +Democrats in maintaining both that a grave social crisis had arisen, and +that it had been largely brought about by an irrational devotion on the +part of the Liberals to the economic doctrine of _laissez-faire_. But +they went further with them. They believed that the salvation of modern +society was to come, not indeed from the particular scheme of +reconstruction advocated by the Social Democrats, but still from +applications in one form or another of their fundamental principle, the +principle of association. And it was for that reason--it was for the +purpose of marking the value they set upon the associative principle as +the chief source of healing for the existing ills of the nations--that +they chose to risk misunderstanding and obloquy by accepting the +nickname put upon them by their adversaries. The late Professor Held, +who claims as a merit that he was the first to do so, explains very +clearly what he meant by calling himself a socialist. Socialism may +signify many different things, but, as he uses the word, it denotes not +any definite system of opinions or any particular plan of social reform, +but only a general method which may guide various systems, and may be +employed more or less according to circumstances in directing many +different reforms. He is a socialist because he would give much more +place than obtains at present to the associative principle in the +arrangements of economic life, and because he cannot share in the +admiration many economists express for the purely individualistic basis +on which these arrangements have come to stand. A socialist is simply +the opposite of an individualist. The individualist considers that the +perfection of an industrial economy consists in giving to the principles +of self-interest, private property, and free competition, on which the +present order of things is founded, the amplest scope they are capable +of receiving, and that all existing economic evils are due, not to the +operation of these principles, but only to their obstruction, and will +gradually disappear when self-interest comes to be better understood, +when competition is facilitated by easier inter-communication, and when +the law has ceased from troubling and left industry at rest. The +socialist, in Held's sense, is, on the other hand, one who rejects the +comfortable theory of the natural harmony of individual interests, and +instead of deploring the obstructions which embarrass the operations of +the principles of competition, self-interest, and private property, +thinks that it is precisely in consequence of these obstructions that +industrial society contrives to exist at all. Strip these principles, he +argues, of the restraints put upon them now by custom, by conscience, by +public opinion, by a sense of fairness and kind feeling, and the +inequalities of wealth would be immensely aggravated, and the labouring +classes would be unavoidably ground to misery. Industrial society would +fall into general anarchy, into a _bellum omnium contra omnes_, in which +they that have would have more abundantly, and they that have not would +lose even what they have. Held declines to join in the admiration +bestowed by many scientific economists upon this state of war, in which +the battle is always to the rich. He counts it neither the state of +nature, nor the state of perfection, of economic society, but simply an +unhappy play of selfish and opposing forces, which it ought to be one of +the distinct aims of political economy to mitigate and counteract. +Individualism has already had too free a course, and especially in the +immediate past has enjoyed too sovereign a reign. The work of the world +cannot be carried on by a fortuitous concourse of hostile atoms, moving +continually in a strained state of suspended social war, and therefore, +for the very safety of industrial society, we must needs now change our +tack, give up our individualism, and sail in the line of the more +positive and constructive tendencies of socialism. To Held's thinking +accordingly, socialism and individualism are merely two contrary general +principles, ideals, or methods, which may be employed to regulate the +constitution of economic society, and he declares himself a socialist +because he believes that society suffers at present from an excessive +application of the individualistic principle, and can only be cured by +an extensive employment of the socialistic one. + +This is all clear enough, but it is simply giving to the word socialism +another new meaning, and creating a fresh source of ambiguity. That term +has already contracted definite associations which it is impossible to +dispel by mere word of mouth, and which constitute a refracting medium +through which the principles of the Socialists of the Chair cannot fail +to be presented in a very misleading form. These writers assume a +special position in two relations--first, as theoretical economists; +and, second, as practical politicians or social reformers; and in both +respects alike the term socialism is peculiarly inappropriate to +describe their views. In regard to the first point, by adopting that +name they have done what they could to "Nicodemus" themselves into a +sect, whereas they might have claimed, if they chose, to be better +exponents of the catholic tradition of the science than those who found +fault with them. This is a claim, however, which they would be shocked +indeed to think of presenting. With a natural partiality for their own +opinions, they exaggerated immensely the extent and also the value of +their divergence from the traditional or, as it is sometimes called, the +classical economics. In the energy of their recoil from the dogmatism +which had for a generation usurped an excessive sway over economic +science, they were carried too far in the opposite direction, but they +had in their own minds the sensation that they were carried a great deal +farther than they really were. They liked to think of their historical +method as constituting a new epoch, and effecting a complete revolution +in political economy, but, as will subsequently appear, that method, +when reduced to its real worth, amounts to no more than an application, +with somewhat distincter purpose and wider reach, of the method which +Smith himself followed. Of this they are in some degree conscious. +Brentano, who belongs to the extreme right of the school, says that +Smith would have been a Socialist of the Chair to-day if he were alive; +and Samter, who belongs to the extreme left, though he is doubtful +regarding Smith, has no hesitation in claiming Mill, whom he looks upon +as standing more outside than inside the school of Smith. Their position +is, therefore, not the new departure which many of them would fain +represent it to be. They are really as natural and as legitimate a line +of descent from Adam Smith as their adversaries the German Manchester +Party who claimed the authority of his name. Perhaps they are even more +so, for in science the true succession lies with those who carry the +principles of the master to a more fruitful development, and not with +those who embalm them as sacred but sterile simulacra. + +But it is as practical reformers that the Socialists of the Chair suffer +most injustice from their name. Since the word socialism was first used +by Reybaud fifty years ago, it has always been connected with utopian or +revolutionary ideas. Now the Socialists of the Chair are the very +opposite of revolutionaries both by creed and practice. None of the +various parties which occupy themselves with the social problem in +Germany is so eminently and advisedly practical. Their very historical +method, apart from anything else, makes them so. It gives them a special +aversion to political and social experiments, for it requires as the +first essential of any project of reform that it shall issue naturally +and easily out of--or at least be harmonious with--the historical +conditions of the time and place to which it is to be applied. Roscher, +who may be regarded as the founder of the school, says that reformers +ought to take for their model Time, whose reforms are the surest and +most irresistible of all, but yet so gradual that they cannot be +observed at any given moment. They make, therefore, on the whole a very +sparing use of the socialistic principle they invoke. Certainly the +world, in their eyes, is largely out of joint, but its restoration is to +proceed gently, like Solomon's temple, without sound of hammer. Some of +them of course go farther than others, but they would all still leave us +rent, wages, and profits, the three main stems of individualism. They +struck the idea of taxing speculative profits out of their programme, +and so far from having any socialistic thought of abolishing +inheritance, none of them except Von Scheel would even tax it +exceptionally. Samter stands alone in urging the nationalization of the +land; and Wagner stands alone in desiring the abolition of private +property in ground-rents in towns; the other members cannot agree even +about the expediency of nationalizing the railways. They work of set +purpose for a better distribution of wealth--for what Schmoller calls a +progressive equalization of the excessive and even dangerous differences +of culture that exist at present--but they recoil from all suggestion of +schemes of repartition, and they have no fault to find with inequality +in itself. On the contrary they regard inequality as being not merely +an unavoidable result of men's natural endowments, but an indispensable +instrument of their progress and civilization. Schmoller explains that +their political principles are those of Radical Toryism, as portrayed in +Lord Beaconsfield's novels; and he means that they rest on the same +active sympathy with the ripening aspirations of the labouring classes, +and the same zealous confidence in the authority of the State, and in +these respects are distinguished from modern Liberalism, whose governing +sympathies are with the interests and ideas of the _bourgeoisie_, and +which entertains a positive jealousy of the action of the State. The +actual reforms which the Socialists of the Chair have hitherto promoted +have been in the main copied from our own English legislation--our +Factory Acts, our legalization of Trade Unions, our Savings Banks, our +registration of Friendly Societies, our sanitary legislation, etc., +etc.--measures which have been passed, with the concurrence of men of +opposite shades of opinion, out of no social theory but from a plain +regard to the obvious necessities of the hour. So that we have been +simply Socialists of the Chair for a generation without knowing it, +doing from a happy political instinct the works which they deduce out of +an elaborate theory of economic politics. Part of their theory, however, +is, that in practical questions they are not to go by theory, and the +consequence is that while they sometimes lay down general principles in +which communism might steal a shelter, they control these principles so +much in their application by considerations of expediency, that the +measures they end in proposing differ little from such as commend +themselves to the common sense and public spirit of middle-class +Englishmen. + +Their general theory had been taught in Germany for twenty years before +it was forced into importance by the policy it suggested and the +controversies it excited in connection with the socialist movement which +began in 1863. Wilhelm Roscher, the lately deceased professor of +economics in Leipzig, first propounded the historical method in his +"Grundriss zu Vorlesungen ueber die Staatswirthschaft nach +geschichtlicher Methode," published in 1843, though it deserves to be +noticed that in this work he spoke of the historical method as being +the ordinary inductive method of scientific economists, and +distinguished it from the idealistic method proceeding by deduction from +preconceived ideas, which he said was the method of the socialists. He +had no thought as yet of representing his method as diverging from that +of his predecessors, even in detail, much less as being essentially +different in principle. Then the late Bruno Hildebrand, professor of +political science at Jena, in his work on the "National Economy of the +Present and the Future," published in 1847, proclaimed the historical +method as the harbinger and instrument of a new era in the science, but +he speaks of it only as a restoration of the method of diligent +observation which Adam Smith practised, but which his disciples deserted +for pure abstractions. In 1853, a more elaborate defence and exposition +of the historical method appeared in a work on "Political Economy from +the Standpoint of the Historical Method," by Carl G. A. Knies, professor +of national economics at Heidelberg. But it was never dreamt that the +ideas broached in these works had spread beyond the few solitary +thinkers who issued them. The Free Traders were still seen ruling +everything in the high places of the land in the name of political +economy, and they were everywhere apparently accepted as authorized +interpreters of the mysteries of that, to the ordinary public, somewhat +occult science. They preached the freedom of exchange like a religion +which contained at once all they were required to believe in economic +matters, and all they were required to do. There was ground for +Lassalle's well-known taunt: "Get a starling, Herr Schultze, teach it to +pronounce the word 'exchange,' 'exchange,' 'exchange,' and you have +produced a very good modern economist." The German Manchester Party +certainly gave to the principle of _laissez-faire, laissez-aller_, a +much more unconditional and universal application than any party in this +country thought of according to it. They looked on it as a kind of +orthodoxy which it had come to be almost impious to challenge. It had +been hallowed by the consensus of the primitive fathers of the science, +and it seemed now to be confirmed beyond question experimentally by the +success of the practical legislation in which it had been exemplified +during the previous quarter of a century. The adherents of the new +school never raised a murmur against all this up till the eventful time +of the socialist agitation and the formation of the new German Empire, +and the reason is very plain. On the economic questions which came up +before that period, they were entirely at one with the Free Traders, and +gave a hearty support to their energetic lead. They were, for example, +as strenuously opposed to protective duties and to restrictions upon +liberty of migration, settlement, and trading, as Manchester itself. But +with the socialist agitation of 1863, a new class of economic questions +came to the front--questions respecting the condition of the working +classes, the relations of capital and labour, the distribution of +national wealth, and the like--and on these new questions they could not +join the Free Traders in saying "Hands off!" They did not believe with +the Manchester school that the existing distribution of wealth was the +best of all possible distributions, because it was the distribution +which Nature herself produced. They thought, on the contrary, that +Nature had little to do with the matter; but even if it had more, there +was only too good cause for applying strong corrections by art. They +said it was vain for the Manchester party to deny that a social question +existed, and to maintain that the working classes were as well off as it +was practical for economic arrangements to make them. They declared +there was much truth in the charges which socialists were bringing +against the existing order of things, and that there was a decided call +upon all the powers of society, and, among others, especially upon the +State, to intervene with some remedial measures. A good opportunity for +concerted and successful action seemed to be afforded when the German +Empire was established, and this led to the convening of the Eisenach +Congress in 1872, and the organization of the Society for Social +Politics in the following year. + +Men of all shades of opinion were invited to that Congress, provided +they agreed on two points, which were expressly mentioned in the +invitation: 1st, in entertaining an earnest sense of the gravity of the +social crisis which existed; and 2nd, in renouncing the principle of +_laissez-faire_ and all its works. The Congress was attended by 150 +members, including many leading politicians and most of the professors +of political economy at the Universities. Roscher, Knies, and Hildebrand +were there, with their younger disciples Schmoller, professor at +Strasburg and author of the "History of the Small Industries"; Lujo +Brentano, professor at Breslau, well known in this country by his book +on "English Gilds" and his larger work on "English Trade Unions"; +Professors A. Wagner of Berlin and Schoenberg of Tuebingen. Then there +were men like Max Hirsch and Duncker the publisher, both members of the +Imperial Diet, and the founders of the Hirsch-Duncker Trade Unions; Dr. +Engel, director of the statistical bureau at Berlin; Professor von +Holtzendorff, the criminal jurist; and Professor Gneist, historian of +the English Constitution, who was chosen to preside. After an opening +address by Schmoller, three papers were read and amply discussed, one on +Factory Legislation by Brentano, a second on trade Unions and Strikes by +Schmoller, and a third on Labourers' Dwellings by Engel. This Congress +first gave the German public an idea of the strength of the new +movement; and the Free Trade party were completely, and somewhat +bitterly, disenchanted, when they found themselves deserted, not as they +fancied merely by a few effusive young men, but by almost every +economist of established reputation in the country. A sharp controversy +ensued. The newspapers, with scarcely an exception, attacked the +Socialists of the Chair tooth and nail, and leading members of the +Manchester party, such as Treitschke the historian, Bamberger the +Liberal politician, and others, rushed eagerly into the fray. They were +met with spirit by Schmoller, Held, Von Scheel, Brentano, and other +spokesmen of the Eisenach position, and one result of the polemic is, +that some of the misunderstandings which naturally enough clouded that +position at the beginning have been cleared away, and it is now admitted +by both sides that they are really much nearer one another than either +at first supposed. The Socialists of the Chair did not confine their +labours to controversial pamphlets. They published newspapers, +periodicals, elaborate works of economic investigation; they held +meetings, promoted trade unions, insurance societies, savings banks; +they brought the hours of labour, the workmen's houses, the effects of +speculation and crises, all within the sphere of legislative +consideration. The moderation of their proposals of change has +conciliated to a great extent their Manchester opponents. Even +Oppenheim, the inventor of their nickname, laid aside his scoffing, and +seconded some of their measures energetically. Indeed, their chief +adversaries are now the socialists, who cannot forgive them for going +one mile with them and yet refusing to go twain--for adopting their +diagnosis and yet rejecting their prescription. Brentano, who is one of +the most moderate, as well as one of the ablest of them, takes nearly as +grave a view of the state of modern industrial society as the socialists +themselves do; and he says that if the evils from which it suffers could +not be removed otherwise, it would be impossible to avoid much longer a +socialistic experiment. But then he maintains that they can be removed +otherwise, and one of the chief motives of himself and his allies in +their practical work is to put an end to socialistic agitation by curing +the ills which have excited it. + +The key to the position of the Socialists of the Chair lies in their +historical method. This method has nothing to do with the question +sometimes discussed whether the proper method of political economy is +the inductive or the deductive. On that question the historical school +of economists are entirely agreed with the classical school. Roscher, +for example, adopts Mill's description of political economy as a +concrete deductive science, whose _a priori_ conclusions, based on laws +of human nature, must be tested by experience, and says that an economic +fact can be said to have received a scientific explanation only when its +inductive and deductive explanations have met and agreed. He makes, +indeed, two qualifying remarks. One is, that it ought to be remembered +that even the deductive explanation is based on observation, on the +self-observation of the person who offers it. This will be admitted by +all. The other is, that every explanation is only provisional, and +liable to be superseded in the course of the progress of knowledge, and +of the historical growth of social and economic structure. This will +also be admitted, and it is no peculiarity of political economy. There +is no science whose conclusions are not modified by the advance of +knowledge; and there are many sciences besides political economy whose +phenomena change their type in lapse of time. Roscher's proviso, +therefore, amounts to nothing more than a caution to economic +investigators to build their explanations scrupulously on the facts, the +whole facts, and nothing but the facts, and to be specially on their +guard against applying to the circumstances of one period or nation +explanations and recommendations which are only just regarding another. +The same disease may have different symptoms in a child from what it has +in a man, and a somewhat different type at the present day from what it +had some centuries ago; and it may therefore require a quite different +treatment. That is a very sound principle and a very self-evident one, +and it contains the whole essence of the historical method, which, so +far as it is a method of investigation at all, is simply that of other +economists applied under a more dominating sense of the complexity and +diversity of the phenomena which are subjected to it. There is +consequently with the historical school more rigour of observation and +less rigour of theory, and this peculiarity leads to practical results +of considerable importance, but it has no just pretensions to assume the +dignity of a new economic method, and it is made to appear much bigger +than it is by looming through the scholastic distinctions in which it is +usually set forth. + +The historical school sometimes call their method the _realistic_ and +_ethical_ method, to distinguish it from what they are pleased to term +the _idealistic_, and _selfish_ or _materialistic_ method of the earlier +economists. They are _realists_ because they cannot agree with the +majority of economists who have gone before them in believing there is +one, and only one, ideal of the best economic system. There are, says +Roscher, as many different ideals as there are different types of +peoples, and he completely casts aside the notion, which had generally +prevailed before him, that there is a single normal system of economic +arrangements, which is built on the natural laws of economic life, and +to which all nations may at all times with advantage conform. It is +against this notion that the historical school has revolted with so much +energy that they wish to make their opposition to it the flag and +symbol of a schism. They deny that there are any natural laws in +political economy; they deny that there is any economic solution +absolutely valid, or capable of answering in one economic situation +because it has answered in another. Roscher, Knies, and the older +members of the school make most of the latter point; but Hildebrand, +Schoenberg, Schmoller, Brentano, and the younger spirits among them, +direct against the former some of their keenest attacks. They declare it +to be a survival from the exploded metaphysics of the much-abused +_Aufklaerung_ of last century. They argue that just as the economists of +that period took self-interest to be the only economic motive, because +the then dominant psychology--that of the selfish or sensual +school--represented it as the only real motive of human action, of which +the other motives were merely modifications; so did they come to count +the reciprocal action and reaction of the self-interest of different +individuals to be a system of natural forces, working according to +natural laws, because they found the whole intellectual air they +breathed at the time filled with the idea that all error in poetry, art, +ethics, and therefore also economics, had come through departing from +nature, and that the true course in everything lay in giving the +supremacy to the nature of things. We need not stop to discuss this +historical question as to the origin of the idea; it is enough here to +say that the Socialists of the Chair maintain that in economic affairs +it is impossible to make any such distinction between what is natural +and what is not so. Everything results from nature, and everything +results from positive institution too. There is in economics either no +nature at all, or there is nothing else. Human will effects or affects +all; and human will is itself influenced, of course, by human nature and +human condition. Roscher says that it is a mistake to speak of industry +being forced into "unnatural" courses by priests or tyrants, for the +priests and tyrants are part and parcel of the people themselves, +deriving all their resources from the people, and in no respect +Archimedeses standing outside of their own world. The action of the +State in economic affairs is just as natural as the action of the farmer +or the manufacturer; and the latter is as much matter of positive +institution as the former. But while Roscher condemns this distinction, +he does not go the length his disciples have gone, and reject the whole +idea of natural law in the sphere of political economy. On the contrary, +he actually makes use of the expression, "the natural laws of political +economy," and asserts that, when they are once sufficiently known, all +that is then needed to guide economic politics is to obtain exact and +reliable statistics of the situation to which they are to be applied. +Now that statement is exactly the position of the classical school on +the subject. Economic politics is, of course, like all other politics, +an affair of times and nations; but economic science belongs to mankind, +and contains principles which may be accurately enough termed, as +Roscher terms them, natural laws, and which may be applied, as he would +apply them, to the improvement of particular economic situations, on +condition that sufficiently complete and correct statistics are obtained +beforehand of the whole actual circumstances. Economic laws are, of +course, of the nature of ethical laws, and not of physical; but they are +none the less on that account natural laws, and the polemic instituted +by the Socialists of the Chair to expel the notion of natural law from +the entire territory of political economy is unjustifiable. Phenomena +which are the result of human action will always exhibit regularities +while human character remains the same; and, moreover, they often +exhibit undesigned regularities which, not being imposed upon them by +man, must be imposed upon them by Nature. While, therefore, the +Socialists of the Chair have made a certain point against the older +economists by showing the futility and mischief of distinguishing +between what is natural in economics and what is not, they have erred in +seeking to convert that point into an argument against the validity of +economic principles and the existence of economic laws. At the same time +their position constitutes a wholesome protest against the tendency to +exaggerate the completeness or finality of current doctrines, and gives +economic investigation a beneficial direction by setting it upon a more +thorough and all-sided observation of facts. + +But when they complain of the earlier economists being so wedded to +abstractions, the fault they chiefly mean to censure is the habit of +solving practical economic problems by the unconditional application of +certain abstract principles. It is the "absolutism of solutions" they +condemn. They think economists were used to act like doctors who had +learnt the principles of medicine by rote and applied them without the +least discrimination of the peculiarities of individual constitutions. +With them the individual peculiarities are everything, and the +principles are too much thrown into the shade. Economic phenomena, they +hold, constitute only one phase of the general life of the particular +nations in which they appear. They are part and parcel of a special +concrete social organism. They are influenced--they are to a great +extent made what they are--by the whole _ethos_ of the people they +pertain to, by their national character, their state of culture, their +habits, customs, laws. Economic problems are consequently always of +necessity problems of the time, and can only be solved for the period +that raises them. Their very nature alters under other skies and in +other ages. They neither appear everywhere in the same shape, nor admit +everywhere of the same answer. They must therefore be treated +historically and empirically, and political economy is always an affair +for the nation and never for the world. The historical school inveigh +against the _cosmopolitanism_ of the current economic theories, and +declare warmly in favour of _nationalism_; according to which every +nation has its own political economy just as it has its own constitution +and its own character. Now here they are right in what they affirm, +wrong in what they deny. They are right in affirming that economic +politics is national, wrong in denying that economic science is +cosmopolitan. In German the word economy denotes the concrete industrial +system as well as the abstract science of industrial systems, and one +therefore readily falls into the error of applying to the latter what is +only true of the former. There may be general principles of engineering, +though every particular project can only be successfully accomplished by +a close regard to its particular conditions. In claiming a cosmopolitan +validity for their principles, economists do not overlook their +essential relativity. On the contrary, they describe their economic +laws as being in reality nothing more than tendencies, which are not +even strictly true as scientific explanations, and are never for a +moment contemplated as unconditional solutions for practical situations. +Moreover Roscher, in defining his task as an economist, virtually takes +up the cosmopolitan standpoint and virtually rejects the national. He +says a political economist has to explain what is or has been, and not +to show what ought to be; he quotes the saying of Dunoyer, _Je n'impose +rien, je ne propose meme rien, j'expose_; and states that what he has to +do is to unfold the anatomy and physiology of social and national +economy. He is a scientific man, and not an economic politician, and +naturally assumes the position of science, which is cosmopolitan, and +not that of politics, which is national and even opportunist. + +I pass now to a perhaps more important point, from which it will be seen +that the Socialists of the Chair are far from thinking that political +economy has nothing to do with what ought to be. Next to the _realistic_ +school, the name they prefer to describe themselves by is the _ethical_ +school. By this they mean two things, and some of them lay the stress on +the one and some on the other. They mean, first, to repudiate the idea +of self-interest being the sole economic motive or force. They do not +deny it to be a leading motive in industrial transactions, and they do +not, like some of the earlier socialists, aim at its extinction or +replacement by a social or generous principle of action. But they +maintain that the course of industry never has been and never will be +left to its guidance alone. Many other social forces, national +character, ideas, customs--the whole inherited _ethos_ of the +people--individual peculiarities, love of power, sense of fair dealing, +public opinion, conscience, local ties, family connections, civil +legislation--all exercise upon industrial affairs as real an influence +as personal interest, and, furthermore, they exercise an influence of +precisely the same kind. They all operate ethically, through human will, +judgment, motives, and in this respect one of them has no advantage over +another. It cannot be said, except in a very limited sense, that +self-interest is an essential and abiding economic force and the others +only accidental and passing. For while customs perish, custom remains; +opinions come and go, but opinion abides; and though any particular act +of the State's intervention may be abolished, State intervention itself +cannot possibly be dispensed with. It is all a matter of more or less, +of here or there. The State is not the intruder in industry it is +represented to be. It is planted in the heart of the industrial organism +from the beginning, and constitutes in fact part of the nature of things +from which it is sought to distinguish it. It is not unnatural for us to +wear clothes because we happen to be born naked, for Nature has given us +a principle which guides us to adapt our dress to our climate and +circumstances. Reason is as natural as passion, and the economists who +repel the State's intrusion and think they are thus leaving industry to +take its natural course, commit the same absurdity as the moralist who +recommends men to live according to Nature, and explains living +according to Nature to mean the gratification as much as possible of his +desires, and his abandonment as much as possible of rational and, as he +conceives, artificial plan. The State cannot observe an absolute +neutrality if it would. Non-intervention is only a particular kind of +intervention. There must be laws of property, succession, and the like, +and the influence of these spreads over the whole industrial system, and +affects both the character of its production and the incidence of its +distribution of wealth. + +But, second, by calling their method the _ethical_ method, the +historical school desire to repudiate the idea that in dealing with +economic phenomena they are dealing with things which are morally +indifferent, like the phenomena of physics, and that science has nothing +to do with them but to explain them. They have certainly reason to +complain that the operation of the laws of political economy is +sometimes represented as if it were morally as neutral as the operation +of the law of gravitation, and it is in this conception that they think +the materialism of the dominant economic school to be practically most +offensively exhibited. Economic phenomena are not morally indifferent; +they are ethical in their very being, and ought to be treated as such. +Take, for example, the labour contract. To treat it as a simple exchange +between equals is absurd. The labourer must sell his labour or starve, +and may be obliged to take such terms for it as leave him without the +means of enjoying the rights which society awards him, and discharging +the duties which society claims from him. Look on him as a ware, if you +will, but remember he is a ware that has life, that has connections, +responsibilities, expectations, domestic, social, political. To get his +bread he might sell his freedom, but society will not permit him; he may +sell his health, he may sell his character, for society permits that; he +may go to sea in rotten ships, and be sent to work in unwholesome +workshops; he may be herded in farm bothies where the commonest +decencies of life cannot be observed; and he may suck the strength out +of posterity by putting his children to premature toil to eke out his +precarious living. Transactions which have such direct bearings on +freedom, on health, on morals, on the permanent well-being of the +nation, can never be morally indifferent. They are necessarily within +the sphere of ends and ideals. Their ethical side is one of their most +important ones, and the science that deals with them is therefore +ethical. For the same reason they come within the province of the State, +which is the normal guardian of the general and permanent interests, +moral and economic, of the community. The State does not stand to +industry like a watchman who guards from the outside property in which +he has himself no personal concern. It has a positive industrial office. +It is, says Schmoller, the great educational institute of the human +race, and there is no sense in suspiciously seeking to reduce its action +in industrial affairs to a minimum. His theory of the State is that of +the _Cultur-Staat_, in distinction from the _Polizei-Staat_, and the +_Rechts-Staat_. The State can no longer be regarded as merely an +omnipotent instrument for the maintenance of tranquillity and order in +the name of Heaven; nor even as a constitutional organ of the collective +national authority for securing to all individuals and classes in the +nation, without exception, the rights and privileges which they are +legally recognised to possess; but it must be henceforth looked upon as +a positive agency for the spread of universal culture within its +geographical territory. + +With these views, the Socialists of the Chair could not fail to take an +active concern with the class of topics thrown up by the socialist +movement, and exciting still so much attention in Germany under the name +of the social question. They neither state that question nor answer it +like the socialists, but their first offence, and the fountain of all +their subsequent offending, in the judgment of their Manchester +antagonists, consisted in their acknowledgment that there was a social +question at all. Not that the Manchester party denied the existence of +evils in the present state of industry, but they looked upon these evils +as resulting from obstructions to the freedom of competition which time, +and time alone, would eventually remove, and from moral causes with +which economists had no proper business. The Socialists of the Chair, +however, could not dismiss their responsibility for those evils so +easily. They owned at once that a social crisis had arisen or was near +at hand. The effect of the general adoption of the large system of +production had been to diminish the numbers of the middle classes, to +reduce the great bulk of the lower classes permanently to the position +of wage-labourers, and to introduce some grave elements of peril and +distress into the condition of the wage-labourers themselves. They are +doubtless better fed, better lodged, better clad, than they were say in +the middle and end of last century, when not one in a hundred of them +had shoes to his feet, when seven out of eight on the Continent were +still bondsmen, and when three out of every four in England had to eke +out their wages by parochial relief. But, in spite of these advantages, +their life has now less hope and less security than it had then. +Industry on the great scale has multiplied the vicissitudes of trade, +and rendered the labourer much more liable to be thrown out of work. It +has diminished the avenues to comparative independence and dignity which +were open to the journeyman under the _regime_ of the small industries. +And while thus condemned to live by wages alone all his days, he could +entertain no reasonable hope--at least before the formation of trade +unions--that his wages could be kept up within reach of the measure of +his wants, as these wants were being progressively expanded by the +general advance of culture. Moreover, the twinge of the case lies here, +that while the course which industrial development is taking seems to be +banishing hope and security more and more from the labourer's life, the +progress of general civilization is making these benefits more and more +imperatively demanded. The working classes have been growing steadily in +the scale of moral being. They have acquired complete personal freedom, +legal equality, political rights, general education, a class +consciousness; and they have come to cherish a very natural and +legitimate aspiration that they shall go on progressively sharing in the +increasing blessings of civilization. Brentano says that modern public +opinion concedes this claim of the working man as a right to which he is +entitled, but that modern industrial conditions have been unable as yet +to secure him in the possession of it; hence the Social Question. Now +some persons may be ready enough to admit this claim as a thing which it +is eminently desirable to see realized, who will yet demur to the +representation of it as a right, which puts society under a +corresponding obligation. But this idea is a peculiarity belonging to +the whole way of thinking of the Socialists of the Chair upon these +subjects. Some of them indeed take even higher ground. Schmoller, for +example, declares that the working classes suffer positive wrong in the +present distribution of national wealth, considered from the standpoint +of distributive justice; but his associates as a rule do not agree with +him in applying this abstract standard to the case. Wagner also stands +somewhat out of the ranks of his fellows by throwing the responsibility +of the existing evils directly and definitely upon the State. According +to his view, there can never be anything which may be legitimately +called a Social Question, unless the evils complained of are clearly the +consequences of existing legislation, but he holds that that is so in +the present case. He considers that a mischievous turn has been given to +the distribution of wealth by legalizing industrial freedom without at +the same time imposing certain restrictions upon private property, the +rate of interest, and the speculations of the Stock Exchange. The State +has, therefore, caused the Social Question; and the State is bound to +settle it. The other Socialists of the Chair, however, do not bring the +obligation so dead home to the civil authority alone. The duty rests on +society, and, of course, so far on the State also, which is the chief +organ of society; but it is not to State-help alone, nor to self-help +alone, that the Socialists of the Chair ask working men to look; but it +is to what they term the self-help of society. Society has granted to +the labouring classes the rights of freedom and equality, and has, +therefore, come bound to give them, as far as it legitimately can, the +amplest facilities for practically enjoying these rights. To give a man +an estate mortgaged above its rental is only to mock him; to confer the +status of freedom upon working men merely to leave them overwhelmed in +an unequal struggle with capital is to make their freedom a dead letter. +Personal and civil independence require, as their indispensable +accompaniment, a certain measure of economic independence likewise, and +consequently to bestow the former as an inalienable right, and yet take +no concern to make the latter a possibility, is only to discharge +one-half of an obligation voluntarily undertaken, and to deceive +expectations reasonably entertained. No doubt this independence is a +thing which working men must in the main win for themselves, and day +after day, by labour, by providence, by association; but it is +nevertheless an important point to remember, with Brentano, that it +forms an essential part of an ideal which society has already +acknowledged to be legitimate, and which it is therefore bound to second +every effort to realize. The Social Question, conceived in the light of +these considerations, may accordingly be said to arise from the fact +that a certain material or economic independence has become more +necessary for the working man, and less possible. It is more necessary, +because, with the sanction of modern opinion, he has awoke to a new +sense of personal dignity, and it is less possible, in consequence of +circumstances already mentioned, attendant upon the development of +modern industry. It is not, as Lord Macaulay maintained, that the evils +of man's life are the same now as formerly, and that nothing has changed +but the intelligence which has become conscious of them. The new time +has brought new evils and less right or disposition to submit to them. +It is the conflict of these two tendencies which, in the thinking of the +Socialists of the Chair, constitutes the social crisis of the present +day. Some of them, indeed, describe it in somewhat too abstract formulae, +which exercise an embarrassing influence on their speculations. For +example, Von Scheel says the Social Question is the effect of the felt +contradiction between the ideal of personal freedom and equality which +hangs before the present age, and the increasing inequality of wealth +which results from existing economic arrangements; and he proposes as +the general principle of solution, that men should now abandon the +exclusive devotion which modern Liberalism has paid to the principle of +freedom, and substitute in its room an adhesion to freedom _plus_ +equality. But then equality may mean a great many different things, and +Von Scheel leaves us with no precise clue to the particular scope he +would give his principle in its application. He certainly seems to +desire more than a mere equality of right, and to aim at some sort or +degree of equality of fact, but what or how he informs us not; just as +Schmoller, while propounding the dogma of distributive justice, condemns +the communistic principle of distribution of wealth as being a purely +animal principle, and offers us no other incorporation of his dogma. In +spite of their antipathy to abstractions, many of the Socialists of the +Chair indulge considerably in barren generalities, which could serve +them nothing in practice, even if they did not make it a point to square +their practice by the historical conditions of the hour. + +Brentano strikes on the whole the most practical keynote, both in his +conception of what the social question is and of how it is to be met. +What is needed, he thinks, very much is to give to modern industry an +organization as suitable to it as the old guilds were to the industry of +earlier times, and this is to be done in great part by adaptations of +that model. He makes comparatively little demand on the power of the +State, while of course agreeing with the rest of his school in the +latitude they give to the lawfulness of its intervention in industrial +matters. He would ask it to bestow a legal status on trade unions and +friendly societies, to appoint courts of conciliation, to regulate the +hours of labour, to institute factory inspection, and to take action of +some sort on the daily more urgent subject of labourers' dwellings. But +the elevation of the labouring classes must be wrought mainly by their +own well-guided and long-continued efforts, and the first step is gained +when they have resolved earnestly to begin. The pith of the problem +turns on the matter of wages, and, so far at any rate, it has already +been solved almost as well as is practicable by the English trade +unions, which have proved to the world that they are always able to +convert the question of wages from the question how little the labourer +can afford to take, into the question how much the employer is able to +give--_i.e._, from the minimum to the maximum which the state of the +market allows. That is, of course, a very important change, and it is +interesting to know that F. A. Lange, the able and distinguished +historian of Materialism, who had written on the labour question with +strong socialist sympathies, stated to Brentano that his account of the +English trade unions had converted him entirely from his belief that a +socialistic experiment was necessary. Brentano admits that the effect of +trade unions is partial only; that they really divide the labouring +class into two different strata--those who belong to the trade unions +being raised to a higher platform, and those who do not being left as +they were in the gall of bitterness. But then, he observes, great gain +has been made when at least a large section of the working class has +been brought more securely within the pale of advancing culture, and it +is only in this gradual way--section by section--that the elevation of +the whole body can be eventually accomplished. The trade union has +imported into the life of the working man something of the element of +hope which it wanted, and a systematic scheme of working-class insurance +is now needed to introduce the element of security. Brentano has +published an excellent little work on that subject; and here again he +asks no material help from the State. The working class must insure +themselves against all the risks of their life by association, just as +they must keep up the rate of their wages by association; and for the +same reasons--first, because they are able to do so under existing +economic conditions, and second, because it is only so the end can be +gained consistently with the modern moral conditions of their +life--_i.e._, with the maintenance of their personal freedom, equality, +and independence. Brentano thinks that the sound principle of +working-class insurance is that every trade union ought to become the +insurance society for its trade, because every trade has its own special +risks and therefore requires its own insurance premium, and because +malingering, feigned sickness, claims for loss of employment through +personal fault, and the like, cannot possibly be checked except by the +fund being administered by the local lodges of the trade to which the +subscribers belong. The insurance fund might be kept separate from the +other funds of the union, but he sees no reason why it should not be +combined with them, as it would only constitute a new obstacle to +ill-considered strikes, and as striking in itself will, he expects, in +course of time, give way to some system of arbitration. Brentano makes +no suggestion regarding the mass of the working class who belong to no +trade union. They cannot be dealt with in the same way, or so +effectively. But this is quite in keeping with the general principle of +the Socialists of the Chair--in which they differ _toto caelo_ from the +socialists--that society is not to be ameliorated by rigidly applying to +every bit of it the same plan, but only by a thousand modifications and +remedies adapted to its thousand varieties of circumstances and +situations. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS. + + +The idea that a radical affinity exists between Christianity and +socialism in their general aim, in their essential principles, in their +pervading spirit, has strong attractions for a certain by no means +inferior order of mind, and we find it frequently maintained in the +course of history by representatives of both systems. Some of the +principal socialists of the earlier part of this century used to declare +that socialism was only Christianity more logically carried out and more +faithfully practised; or, at any rate, that socialism would be an idle +superfluity, if ordinary Christian principles were really to be acted +upon honestly and without reserve. St. Simon published his views under +the title of the "Nouveau Christianisme," and asserted that the +prevailing forms of Christianity were one gigantic heresy; that both the +Catholic and the Protestant Churches had now lost their power, simply +because they had neglected their great temporal mission of raising the +poor, and because their clergy had given themselves up to barren +discussions of theology, and remained absolutely ignorant of the living +social questions of the time; and that the true Christian _regime_ which +he was to introduce was one which should be founded on the Christian +principle that all men are brothers; which should be governed by the +Christian law, "Have ye love one to another," and in which all the +forces of society should be mainly consecrated to the amelioration of +the most numerous and poorest class. Cabet was not less explicit. He +said that "if Christianity had been interpreted and applied in the +spirit of Jesus Christ, if it were rightfully understood and faithfully +obeyed by the numerous sections of Christians who are really filled with +a sincere piety, and need only to know the truth to follow it, then +Christianity would have sufficed, and would still suffice, to establish +a perfect social and political organization, and to deliver mankind from +all its ills." + +The same belief, that Christianity is essentially socialistic, has at +various times appeared in the Church itself. The socialism of the only +other period in modern history besides our own century, in which +socialistic ideas have prevailed to any considerable extent, was, in +fact, a direct outcome of Christian conviction, and was realized among +Christian sects. The socialism of the Anabaptists of the Reformation +epoch was certainly mingled with political ideas of class emancipation, +and contributed to stir the insurrection of the German peasantry; but +its real origin lay in the religious fervour which was abroad at the +time, and which buoyed sanguine and mystical minds on dreams of a reign +of God. When men feel a new and better power arising strongly about +them, they are forward to throw themselves into harmony with it, and +there were people, touched by the religious revival of the Reformation, +who sought to anticipate its progress, as it were, by living together +like brothers. Fraternity is undoubtedly a Christian idea, come into the +world with Christ, spread abroad in it by Christian agencies, and +belonging to the ideal that hovers perpetually over Christian society. +It has already produced social changes of immense consequence, and has +force in it, we cannot doubt, to produce many more in the future; and it +is therefore in nowise strange that in times of religious zeal or of +social distress, this idea of fraternity should appeal to some eager +natures with so urgent an authority, both of condemnation and of +promise, that they would fain take it at once by force and make it king. + +The socialism of the present day is not of a religious origin. On the +contrary, there is some truth in the remark of a distinguished +economist, M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, that the prevalence of socialistic +ideas is largely due to the decline of religious faith among the working +classes. If there is only the one life, they feel they must realize +their ideal here and realize it quickly, or they will never realize it +at all. However this may be, the fact is certain that most contemporary +socialists have turned their backs on religion. They sometimes speak of +it with a kind of suppressed and settled bitterness as of a friend that +has proved faithless: "We are not atheists: we have simply done with +God." They seem to feel that if there be a God, He is, at any rate, no +God for them, that He is the God of the rich, and cares nothing for the +poor, and there is a vein of most touching, though most illogical, +reproach in their hostility towards a Deity whom they yet declare to +have no existence. They say in their heart, There is no God, or only one +whom they decline to serve, for He is no friend to the labouring man, +and has never all these centuries done anything for him. This atheism +seems as much matter of class antipathy as of free-thought; and the +semi-political element in it lends a peculiar bitterness to the +socialistic attacks on religion and the Church, which are regarded as +main pillars of the established order of things, and irreconcileable +obstructives to all socialist dreams. The Church has, therefore, as a +rule looked upon the whole movement with a natural and justifiable +suspicion, and has, for the most part, dispensed to it an indiscriminate +condemnation. Some Churchmen, however, scruple to assume this attitude; +they recognise a soul of good in the agitation, if it could be stripped +of the revolutionary and atheistic elements of its propaganda, which +they hold to be, after all, merely accidental accompaniments of the +system, at once foreign to its essence and pernicious to its purpose. It +is in substance, they say, an economic movement, both in its origin and +its objects, and so far as it stands on this ground they have no +hesitation in declaring that in their judgment there is a great deal +more Christianity in socialism than in the existing industrial _regime_. +Those who take this view, generally find a strong bond of union with +socialists in their common revolt against the mammonism of the +church-going middle classes, and against some current economic +doctrines, which seem almost to canonize what they count the heartless +and un-Christian principles of self-interest and competition. + +Such, for example, was the position maintained by the Christian +Socialists of England thirty years ago--a band of noble patriotic men +who strove hard, by word and deed, to bring all classes of the community +to a knowledge of their duties, as well as their interests, and to +supersede, as far as might be, the system of unlimited competition by a +system of universal co-operation. They inveighed against the Manchester +creed, then in the flush of success, as if it were the special +Antichrist of the nineteenth century. Lassalle himself has not used +harder, more passionate, or more unjust words of it. Maurice said he +dreaded above everything "that horrible catastrophe of a Manchester +ascendancy, which I believe in my soul would be fatal to intellect, +morality, and freedom"; and Kingsley declared that "of all narrow, +conceited, hypocritical, anarchic, and atheistic schemes of the +universe, the Cobden and Bright one was exactly the worst." They agreed +entirely with the socialists in condemning the reigning industrial +system: it was founded on unrighteousness; its principles were not only +un-Christian, but anti-Christian; and in spite of its apparent +commercial victories, it would inevitably end in ruin and disaster. Some +of them had been in Paris and witnessed the Revolution of 1848, and had +brought back with them two firm convictions--one, that a purely +materialistic civilization, like that of the July Monarchy, must sooner +or later lead to a like fate; and the other, that the socialist idea of +co-operation contained the fertilizing germ for developing a really +enduring and Christian civilization. Mr. J. M. Ludlow mentioned the +matter to Maurice, and eventually a Society was formed, with Maurice as +president, for the purpose of promoting co-operation and education among +the working classes. It is beyond the scope of the present work to give +any fuller account of this interesting and not unfruitful movement here; +but it is to the purpose to mark two peculiarities which distinguish it +from other phases of socialism. One is, that they insisted strongly upon +the futility of mere external changes of condition, unattended by +corresponding changes of inner character and life. "There is no +fraternity," said Maurice, finely, "without a common Father." Just as it +is impossible to maintain free institutions among a people who want the +virtues of freemen, so it is impossible to realize fraternity in the +general arrangements of society, unless men possess a sufficient measure +of the industrial and social virtues. Hence the stress the Christian +Socialists of England laid on the education of the working classes. The +other peculiarity is, that they did not seek in any way whatever to +interfere with private property, or to invoke the assistance of the +State. They believed self-help to be a sounder principle, both morally +and politically, and they believed it to be sufficient. They held it to +be sufficient, not merely in course of time, but immediately even, to +effect a change in the face of society. For they loved and believed in +their cause with a generous and touching enthusiasm, and were so +sincerely and absolutely persuaded of its truth themselves, that they +hardly entertained the idea of other minds resisting it. "I certainly +thought," says Mr. I. Hughes, "(and for that matter have never altered +my opinion to this day) that here we had found the solution to the great +labour question; but I was also convinced that we had nothing to do but +just to announce it, and found an association or two, in order to +convert all England, and usher in the millennium at once, so plain did +the whole thing seem to me. I will not undertake to answer for the rest +of the council, but I doubt whether I was at all more sanguine than the +majority." Seventeen co-operative associations in London, and +twenty-four in the provinces (which were all they had established when +they ceased to publish their Journal), may seem a poor result, but their +work is not to be estimated by that alone. The Christian Socialists +undoubtedly gave a very important impetus to the whole movement of +co-operation, and to the general cause of the amelioration of the +labouring classes. + +The general position of Maurice and his allies (though with important +differences, as will appear) has been taken up again by two groups in +Germany at the present day--one Catholic, the other Protestant--in +dealing with the social question which has for many years agitated that +country. In one respect the Christian Socialists of England were more +fortunate than their German brethren. Nobody ever ventured to question +the purity of their motives. The intervention of the clergy in politics +is generally unpopular: they are thought, rightly or wrongly, to be +Churchmen first, and patriots afterwards; but it was impossible to +suspect Maurice and his friends of being influenced in their efforts at +reform by considerations of ecclesiastical or electoral interest, or of +having any object at heart but the social good of the nation. It is +otherwise with the Christian Socialists of Germany. Neither of the two +German groups affects to conceal that one great aim of its work is to +restore and extend the influence of the Church among the labouring +classes; and it is unlikely that the Clerical party in Germany were +insensible to the political advantage of having organizations of working +men under ecclesiastical control, though it ought to be acknowledged +that these organizations were contemplated before the introduction of +universal suffrage. But even though ecclesiastical considerations +mingled with the motives of the Christian Socialists, we see no reason +to doubt the genuineness of their interest in the amelioration of the +masses, or the sincerity of their conviction of the economic soundness +of their programme. + +The Catholic group deserves to be considered first, because it +intervened in the discussion much sooner than the Evangelical, and +because it originated a much more important movement--larger in its +dimensions than the other, and invested with additional consequence from +the circumstance that being promoted under the countenance of +dignitaries, it must be presumed to have received the sanction of the +Roman Curia, and may therefore afford an index to the general attitude +which the Catholic Church is disposed to assume towards Continental +socialism. The socialist agitation had no sooner broken out, in 1863, +than Dr. Doellinger, then a pillar of the Church of Rome, strongly +recommended the Catholic clubs of Germany to take the question up. These +clubs are societies for mutual improvement, recreation, and benefit, and +are composed mainly of working men. Father Koelping, himself at the time +a working man, had, in 1847, founded an extensive organization of +Catholic journeymen, which, in 1872, had a total membership of 70,000, +and consisted of an affiliation of small journeyman clubs, with a +membership of from 50 to 400 each, in the various towns of Germany. Then +there were also Catholic apprentice clubs--in many cases in alliance +with those of the journeymen; there were Catholic master clubs, Catholic +peasant clubs, Catholic benefit clubs, Catholic young men's clubs, +Catholic credit clubs, Catholic book clubs, etc., etc. These clubs +naturally afforded an organization ready to hand for any general purpose +the members might share in common, and being composed of working men, +they seemed reasonably calculated to be of effective service in +forwarding the cause of social amelioration. Early in 1864, accordingly, +Bishop Ketteler, of Mayence, warmly seconded Doellinger's idea, and at +the same time published a remarkable pamphlet on "The Labour Question +and Christianity," in which he unfolded his views of the causes and the +cure of the existing evils. + +William Immanuel, Baron von Ketteler, had been for twenty years a +powerful and impressive figure in the public life of Germany. His high +rank, social and ecclesiastical, his immense energy, his weight of +character, his personal disinterestedness of purpose, and his +intellectual vigour and acuteness, had combined to give him great +importance both in Church and State. Born in 1811, of an ancient +Westphalian family, he was trained in law and politics for the public +service, and actually entered upon it, but resigned his post in 1838, in +consequence of the dispute about the Cologne bishopric, and resolved to +give himself to the work of the Church. After studying theology at +Munich and Muenster, he was ordained priest in 1844, and became soon +afterwards pastor at Hopster, in Westphalia. Being sent as member for +Langerich to the German National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848, he at +once made his mark by the vigour with which he strove for the spiritual +independence of the Church, by the lectures and sermons he delivered on +questions of the day, and especially by a bold and generous oration he +pronounced at the grave of the assassinated deputy, Prince Lichnowsky. +This oration excited sensation all over Germany, and Ketteler was +promoted, in 1849, to the Hedwigsburg Church, in Berlin, and in 1850 to +the Bishopric of Mayence. In this position he found scope for all his +powers. He founded a theological seminary at Mayence, erected +orphan-houses and reformatories, introduced various religious orders and +congregationist schools, and entering energetically into the disputes in +Baden regarding the place and rights of the Catholic Church, he +succeeded in establishing an understanding whereby the State gave up +much of its patronage, its supervision of theological seminaries, its +veto on ecclesiastical arrangements, restored episcopal courts, and +assigned the Church extensive influence over popular education. He was +one of the bishops who authorized the dogma of the Immaculate Conception +in 1854, but he belonged to the opposition at the Vatican Council of +1870. He wrote a pamphlet strongly deprecating the promulgation of the +dogma of infallibility, and went, even at the last moment, to the Pope +personally, and implored him to abandon the idea of promulgating it; but +as his objection respected its opportuneness and not its truth, he did +not secede with Doellinger when his opposition failed, but accepted the +dogma himself and demanded the submission of his clergy to it. Bishop +Ketteler was returned to the German Imperial Diet in 1871, and led the +Clerical Faction in opposing the ecclesiastical policy of the +Government. He died at Binghausen, in Bavaria, in 1877, and is buried in +Mayence Cathedral. Ketteler had always been penetrated with the ambition +of making the Catholic Church a factor of practical importance in the +political and social life of Germany, and with the conviction that the +clergy ought to make themselves masters of social and political science +so as to be able to exercise a leading and effective influence over +public opinion on questions of social amelioration. He has himself +written much, though nothing of permanent value, on these subjects, and +did not approach them with unwashed hands when he published his pamphlet +in 1864. + +In this pamphlet, he says the labour question is one which it is his +business, both as a Christian and as a bishop, to deal with: as a +Christian, because Christ, as Saviour of the world, seeks not only to +redeem men's souls, but to heal their sorrows and soften their +condition; and as a bishop, because the Church had, according to her +ancient custom, imposed upon him, as one of his consecration vows, that +he would, "in the name of the Lord, be kind and merciful to the poor and +the stranger, and to all that are in any kind of distress." He considers +the labour question of the present day to be the very serious and plain +question, how the great bulk of the working classes are to get the bread +and clothing necessary to sustain them in life. Things have come to this +pass in consequence of two important economic changes--which he +incorrectly ascribes to the political revolution at the end of last +century, merely because they have taken place mostly since that +date--the spread of industrial freedom, and the ascendancy of the large +capitalists. In consequence of these changes the labourer is now treated +as a commodity, and the rate of his wages settled by the same law that +determines the price of every other commodity--the cost of its +production; and the employer is always able to press wages down to the +least figure which the labourer will take rather than starve. Ketteler +accepts entirely Lassalle's teaching about "the iron and cruel law," and +holds it to have been so conclusively proved in the course of the +controversy that it is no longer possible to dispute it without a +deliberate intention of deceiving the people. Now there is no doubt that +Ricardo's law of value is neither so iron nor so cruel as Lassalle took +it to be; and that when Lassalle alleged that in consequence of this law +96 per cent. of the population of Germany had to support their families +on less than ten shillings a week, and were therefore in a state of +chronic starvation, he based his statement on a calculation of +Dieterici's, which was purely conjectural, and which, besides, +disregarded the fact that in working-class families there were usually +more breadwinners than one. Ketteler, however, adopts this whole +statement of the case implicitly, and says the social problem of our day +is simply how to emancipate the labouring class from the operation of +this economic law. "It is no longer possible to doubt that the whole +material existence of almost the entire labouring population--_i.e._, of +much the greatest part of men in modern states, and of their +families--that the daily question about the necessary bread for man, +wife, and children, is exposed to all the fluctuations of the market and +of the price of commodities. I know nothing more deplorable than this +fact. What sensations must it cause in those poor men who, with all they +hold dear, are day after day at the mercy of the accidents of market +price? That is the slave market of our Liberal Europe, fashioned after +the model of our humanist, rationalistic, anti-Christian Liberalism, and +freemasonry." The bishop never spares an opportunity of attacking +"heathen humanist Liberalism," which he says has pushed the labouring +man into the water, and now stands on the bank spinning fine theories +about his freedom, but calmly seeing him drown. + +After this it might be expected that Ketteler would be all for +abolishing industrial freedom, and for restoring a _regime_ of +compulsory guilds and corporations; but he is not. He acknowledges that +the old system of guilds had its advantages; it was a kind of assured +understanding between the workman and society, according to which the +former adjusted his work and the latter his wages. But it was the abuses +of the compulsory powers of the guilds that led to industrial freedom; +and, on the other hand, industrial freedom has great countervailing +advantages of its own which he scruples to give up. It has immensely +increased production and cheapened commodities, and so enabled the lower +classes to enjoy means of life and enjoyment they had not before. Nor +does Ketteler approve of Lassalle's scheme of establishing productive +associations of working men upon capital supplied by the State. Not that +he objects to productive associations; on the contrary, he declares them +to be a glorious idea, and thinks them the true solution of the problem. +But he objects to supplying their capital by the State, as involving a +direct violation of the law of property. The Catholic Church, he says, +has never maintained an absolute right of property. Her divines have +unanimously taught that the right of property cannot avail against a +neighbour who is in extreme need, because God alone is absolute +proprietor, and no man is more than a limited vassal, holding under God, +and on the conditions which He imposes; and one of these conditions is +that any man in extremities is entitled to satisfy his necessity where +and how he pleases.[1] In such a case, according to Catholic doctrine, +it is not the man in distress that is the thief, but the proprietor who +would gainsay and stop him. The distressed have a positive right to +succour, and the State may therefore, without violating any of the +rights of property, tax the parishes, or the proprietors, for the relief +of the poor. But beyond this the State has no title to go. It may +legitimately tax people for the purpose of saving working men from +extremities, but not for the purpose of bettering their normal position. + +But where the civil authority ends the Christian authority comes in, and +the rich have only escaped the obligation of compulsory legal enactment, +to find themselves under the more far-reaching obligations of moral duty +and Christian love. The Church declares that the man who does not give +alms where he ought to give it stands in the same category as a thief; +and there is no limit to this obligation but his power of giving help, +and his belief that it would be more hurtful to give than to keep it. +Ketteler's plan, accordingly, is that the capital for the productive +associations should be raised by voluntary subscriptions on the part of +Christian people. He thinks he has made out a strong case for +establishing this as a Christian obligation. He has shown that a +perilous crisis prevails, that this crisis can only be removed by +productive associations, that productive associations cannot be started +without capital, and he says it is a vain dream of Huber's to think of +getting the capital from the savings of working men themselves, for most +of the working men are in a distressed condition, and if a few are +better off, their savings could only establish associations so few in +number and so small in scale, as to be little better than trifling with +the evil. He sees no remedy but making productive associations a scheme +of the Church, and appealing to that Christian philanthropy and sense of +duty which had already done great service of a like nature--as, for +example, in producing capital to emancipate slaves in Italy and +elsewhere. + +This remarkable proposal of the bishop seems to have fallen dead. Though +he wrote and laboured much in connection with the labour question +afterwards, he never reverted to it again; and when a Christian +Socialist party was formed, under his countenance, they adopted a +programme which made large demands not only on the intervention, but on +the pecuniary help of the State. It was not till 1868 that any steps +were taken towards the actual organization of such a party. In June of +that year three Catholic clubs met together at Crefeld, and, after +discussing the social question, agreed to publish a journal (the +_Christliche Sociale Blaetter_) to promote their views. In September of +the following year the whole subject of the relations of the Church to +the labour question was discussed at a conference of the Catholic +bishops of Germany, held at Fulda, and attended by Ketteler among +others. This conference strongly recommended the clergy to make +themselves thoroughly acquainted with that and other economic questions, +to interest themselves generally in the condition of the working class +they moved among, and even to travel in foreign countries to see the +state of the labourers there and the effects of the institutions +established for their amelioration. The conference also approved of the +formation of Catholic Labourers' Associations, for the promotion of the +general elevation of their own class, but held that the Church had no +call, directly or officially, to take the initiative in founding them. +This duty was undertaken, however, later in the same month, by a general +meeting of the Catholic Clubs of Germany, which appointed a special +committee, including Professor Schulte and Baron Schorlemer-Abst, for +the express purpose of founding and organizing Christian social clubs, +which should strive for the economic and moral amelioration of the +labouring classes. This committee set itself immediately to work, and +the result was the Christian Social Associations, or, as they are +sometimes called from their patron saint, the St. Joseph Associations. +They were composed of, and managed by, working men, though they liked to +have some man of eminence--never a clergyman--at the head of them, and +though they allowed persons, of property, clergymen, and especially +employers of labour, to be honorary members. They met every Sunday +evening to discuss social questions, and politics were excluded, except +questions affecting the Church, and on these a decided partisanship was +encouraged. + +The principles of this party--or what may be called their programme--is +explained in a speech delivered by Canon Moufang to his constituents in +Mayence, in February, 1871, and published with warm approbation, in the +_Christliche Sociale Blaetter_ in March. Christoph Moufang is, like +Ketteler, a leader of the German Clerical party, and entitled to the +highest esteem for his character, his intellectual parts, and his public +career. Born in 1817, he was first destined for the medical profession, +and studied physic at Bonn; but he soon abandoned this intention, and +betook himself to theology. After studying at Bonn and Munich, he was +ordained priest in 1839. He was appointed in 1851 professor of moral and +pastoral theology in the new theological seminary which Bishop Ketteler +had founded at Mayence, and in 1854 was made canon of the cathedral. +Moufang entered the First Hessian Chamber in 1862 as representative of +the bishop, and made a name as a powerful champion of High Church views +and of the general ecclesiastical policy of Bishop Ketteler. In 1868 he +was chosen one of the committee to make preparations for the Vatican +Council; but at the Council he belonged to the opponents of the dogma of +infallibility, and left Rome before the dogma was promulgated. He +submitted afterwards, however, and worked sedulously in its sense. +Moufang sat in the Imperial Diet from 1871 to 1877, was a leading member +of the Centre, and stoutly resisted the Falk legislation. He is +joint-editor of the _Katholik_, and is author of various polemical +writings, and of a work on the history of the Jesuits in Germany. + +Moufang takes a different view of the present duty of the Church in +relation to the social question from that which we saw to have been +taken by Ketteler. He asks for no pecuniary help from the Church, nor +for any special and novel kind of activity whatever. The problem cannot, +in his opinion, be effectively and permanently solved without her +co-operation, but then the whole service she is able and required to +render is contained in the course of her ordinary ministrations in +diffusing a spirit of love and justice and fairness among the various +classes of society, in maintaining her charities for the poor and +helpless in dispensing comfort and distress, and in offering to the +weary the hope of a future life. Moufang makes much more demand on the +State than on the Church, in this also disagreeing with Bishop +Ketteler's pamphlet. He says the State can and must help the poorer +classes in four different ways:-- + +1st. By giving legislative protection. Just as the landlord and the +money-lender are legally protected in their rights by the State, so the +labourer ought to be legally protected in his property, which are his +powers and time of labour. The State ought to give him legal security +against being robbed of these, his only property, by the operation of +free competition. With this view, Moufang demands the legalization of +working men's associations of various kinds, the prohibition of Sunday +labour, the legal fixing of a normal day of labour, legal restriction of +labour of women and children, legal provision against unwholesome +workshops, appointment of factory inspectors, and direct legal fixing of +the rate of wages. The last point is an important peculiarity in the +position of the Catholic Socialists. Moufang contends that competition +is a sound enough principle for regulating the price of commodities, but +that it is a very unsound one, and a very unsafe one, for determining +the price of labour, because he holds that labour is not a commodity. +Labour is a man's powers of life; it is the man himself, and the law +must see to its protection. The law protects the capitalist in his right +to his interest, and surely the labouring man's powers of life are +entitled to the same consideration. If an employer says to a capitalist +from whom he has borrowed money: "A crisis has come, a depression in +trade, and I am no longer able to pay such high interest; I will pay you +two-thirds or one-third of the previous rate," what does the capitalist +say? He refuses to take it, and why? Simply because he knows that the +law will sustain him in his claim. But if the employer says to his +labourer: "A depression of trade has come, and I cannot afford you more +than two-thirds or one-third of your present wages," what can the +labourer do? He has no alternative. He must take the wages offered him +or go, and to go means to starve. Why should not the law stand at the +labourer's back, as it does at the capitalist's, in enforcing what is +right and just? There is no more infraction of freedom in the one case +than in the other. Moufang's argument here is based on an illusive +analogy; for in the contract for the use of capital the employer agrees +to pay a fixed rate of interest so long as he retains the principal, and +he can only avail himself of subsequent falls in the money market by +returning the principal and opening a fresh contract; whereas in the +contract for the use of labour the employer engages by the week or the +day, returning the principal, as it were, at the end of that term, and +making a new arrangement. The point to be noted, however, is that +Moufang's object, like Ketteler's, is to deliver working men from their +hand-to-mouth dependence on the current fluctuations of the market; that +he thinks there is something not merely pernicious but radically unjust +in their treatment under the present system; and that he calls upon the +State to institute some regular machinery--a board with compulsory +powers, and composed of labourers and magistrates--for fixing everywhere +and in every trade a fair day's wages for a fair day's work. + +2nd. The State ought to give pecuniary help. It advances money on easy +terms to railway schemes; why should it not offer working men cheap +loans for sound co-operative enterprises? Of course it ought to make a +keen preliminary examination of the projects proposed, and keep a sharp +look-out against swindling or ill-considered schemes; but if the project +is sound and likely, it should be ready to lend the requisite capital at +a low interest. This proposal of starting productive associations on +State credit is an important divergence from Ketteler, who, in his +pamphlet, condemns it as a violation of the rights of property. + +3rd. The State ought to reduce the taxes and military burdens of the +labouring classes. + +4th. The State ought to fetter the domination of the money power, and +especially to check excesses of speculation, and control the operations +of the Stock Exchange. + +From this programme it appears that the Catholic movement goes a long +way with the socialists in their cries of wrong, but only a short way in +their plans of redress. Moufang's proposals may be wise or unwise, but +they contemplate only corrections of the present industrial system, and +not its reconstruction. Many Liberals are disposed to favour the idea of +establishing courts of conciliation with compulsory powers, and Bismarck +himself once said, before the socialists showed themselves unpatriotic +at the time of the French war, that he saw no reason why the State, +which gave large sums for agricultural experiments, should not spend +something in giving co-operative production a fair trial. The plans of +labour courts and of State credit to approved co-operative undertakings +are far from the socialist schemes of the abolition of private property +in the instruments of production, and the systematic regulation of all +industry by the State; and they afford no fair ground for the fear, +which many persons of ability entertain, of "an alliance"--to use +Bismarck's phrase--"between the black International and the red." Bishop +Martensen holds Catholicism to be essentially socialistic, because it +suppresses all individual rights and freedom in the intellectual sphere, +as socialism does in the economic. But men may detest private judgment +without taking the least offence at private property. A bigot need not +be a socialist, any more than a socialist a bigot, though each stifles +the principle of individuality in one department of things. If there is +to be any alliance between the Church and socialism, it will be not +because the former has been trained, under an iron organization, to +cherish a horror of individuality and a passion for an economic +organization as rigid as its own ecclesiastical one, but it will be +because the Church happens to have a distinct political interest at the +time in cultivating good relations with a new political force. How far +Moufang and his associates have been influenced by this kind of +consideration we cannot pretend to judge, but the sympathy they show is +not so much with the socialists as with the labouring classes generally, +and their movement is meant so far to take the wind from socialism, +whether with the mere view of filling their own sails with it or no. + +No voice was raised in the Protestant Churches in Germany on the social +question till 1878. They suffer from their absolute dependence on the +State, and have become churches of doctors and professors, without +effective practical interest or initiative, and without that strong +popular sympathy of a certain kind which almost necessarily pervades the +atmosphere of a Church like the Catholic, which pits itself against +States, and knows that its power of doing so rests, in the last +analysis, on its hold over the hearts of the people. The Home Missionary +Society indeed discussed the question from time to time, but chiefly in +connection with the effects of the socialist propaganda on the religious +condition of the country; and it was this aspect of the subject that +eventually stirred a section of the orthodox Evangelical clergy to take +practical action. They asked themselves how it was that the working +classes were so largely adopting the desolate atheistic opinions which +were found associated with the socialist movement, when the Church +offered to gather them under her wing, and brighten their life with the +comforts and encouragements of Christian faith and hope. They felt +strongly that they must take more interest in the temporal welfare of +the working classes than they had hitherto done, and must apply the +ethical and social principles of Christianity to the solution of +economic problems and the promotion of social reform. In short, they +sought to present Christianity as the labourer's friend. The leaders of +this movement were men of much inferior calibre to those of the +corresponding Catholic movement. The principal of them were Rudolph +Todt, a pastor at Barentheim in Old Preignitz, who published in 1878 a +book on "Radical German Socialism and Christian Society," which created +considerable sensation; and Dr. Stoecker, then one of the Court preachers +at Berlin, a member of the Prussian Diet, and an ardent promoter of +reactionary policy in various directions. He is a warm advocate of +denominational education, and of extending the power of the Crown, of +the State, and of the landed class; and he was a prime mover in the +Jew-baiting movement which excited Germany a few years ago. This +antipathy to the Jews has been for many years a cardinal tendency of the +"Agrarians," a small political group mainly of nobles and great landed +proprietors, with whom Stoecker frequently allies himself, and who +profess to treat all political questions from a strictly Christian +standpoint, but work almost exclusively to assert the interests of the +landowners against the growing ascendancy of the commercial and +financial classes, among whom Jews occupy an eminent place. We mention +this anti-Jewish agitation here to point out that, while no doubt fed by +other passions also, one of its chief ingredients is that same +antagonism to the _bourgeoisie_--compounded of envy of their success, +contempt for their money-seeking spirit, and anger at their supposed +expropriation of the rest of society--which animates all forms of +continental socialism, and has already proved a very dangerous political +force in the French Revolution of 1848. + +Todt's work is designed to set forth the social principles and mission +of Christianity on the basis of a critical investigation of the New +Testament, which he believes to be an authoritative guide on economic as +well as moral and dogmatic questions. He says that to solve the social +problem, we must take political economy in the one hand, the scientific +literature of socialism in the other, and keep the New Testament before +us. As the result of his examination, he condemns the existing +industrial _regime_ as being decidedly unchristian, and declares the +general principles of socialism, and even its main concrete proposals, +to be directly prescribed and countenanced by Holy Writ. Like all who +assume the name of socialist, he cherishes a marked repugnance to the +economic doctrines of modern Liberalism, the leaven of the +_bourgeoisie_; and much of his work is devoted to show the inner +affinity of Christianity and socialism, and the inner antagonism between +Christianity and Manchesterdom. He goes so far as to say that every +active Christian who makes conscience of his faith has a socialistic +vein in him, and that every socialist, however hostile he may be to the +Christian religion, has an unconscious Christianity in his heart; +whereas, on the other hand, the merely nominal Christian, who has never +really got out of his natural state, is always a spiritual Manchestrist, +worshipping _laissez faire, laissez aller_, with his whole soul, and +that a Manchestrist is never in reality a true and sound Christian, +however much he may usurp the name. Christianity and socialism are +engaged in a common work, trying to make the reality of things +correspond better with an ideal state; and in doing their work they rely +on the same ethical principle, the love of our neighbour, and they +repudiate the Manchester idolatry of self-interest. The socialist ideas +of liberty, equality, and fraternity are part and parcel of the +Christian system; and the socialist ideas of solidarity of interests, of +co-operative production, and of democracy have all a direct Biblical +foundation, in the constitution and customs of the Church, and in the +apostolic teaching regarding it. + +Radical socialism, according to Todt, consists of three elements: first, +in economics, communism; second, in politics, republicanism; third, in +religion, atheism. Under the last head, of course, there is no analogy, +but direct contradiction, between Socialism and Christianity; but Todt +deplores the atheism that prevails among the socialists as not merely an +error, but a fatal inconsistency. If socialism would but base its +demands on the Gospel, he says, it would be resistless, and all +labourers would flow to it; but atheistic socialism can never fulfil its +own promises, and issues a draft which Christianity alone has the power +to meet. It is hopeless to think of founding an enduring democratic +State on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, unless +these principles are always sustained and reinvigorated by the Divine +fraternal love that flows from faith in Jesus Christ. + +As to the second principle of socialism, Todt says, that while Holy +Scripture contains no direct prescription on the point, it may be +inferentially established that a republic is the form of government that +is most harmonious with the Christian ideal. His deduction of this is +peculiar. The Divine government of the world, he owns, is monarchical, +but then it is a government which cannot be copied by sinful men, and +therefore cannot have been meant as a pattern for them. But God, he +says, has established His Church on earth as a visible type of His own +invisible providential government, and the Church is a "republic under +an eternal President, sitting by free choice of the people, Jesus +Christ." This is both fanciful and false, for Christ is an absolute +ruler, and no mere minister of the popular will; and there is not the +remotest ground for founding a system of Biblical politics on the +constitution of the Church. But it shows the length Todt is disposed to +go to conciliate the favour of the socialists. + +But the most important element of socialism is its third or economic +principle--communism; and this he represents to be entirely in harmony +with the economic ideal of the New Testament. He describes the +communistic idea as consisting of two parts: first, the general +principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, which he finds directly +involved in the Scriptural doctrines of moral responsibility, of men's +common origin and redemption, and of the law of love; and second, the +transformation of all private property in the instruments of production +into common property, which includes three points: (_a_) the abolition +of the present wages system; (_b_) giving the labourer the full product +of his labour; and (_c_) associated labour. As to the first two of these +points, Todt pronounces the present wages system to be thoroughly +unjust, because it robs the labourer of the full product of his labour; +and because unjust, it is unchristian. He accepts the ordinary socialist +teaching about "the iron and cruel law." He accepts, too, Marx's theory +of value, and declares it to be unanswerable; and he therefore finds no +difficulty in saying that Christianity condemns a system which in his +opinion grinds the faces of the labouring classes with incessant toil, +filches from them the just reward of their work, and leaves them to +hover hopelessly on the margin of destitution. If there is any scheme +that promises effectually to cure this condition of things, Christianity +will also approve of that scheme; and such a scheme he discovers in the +socialist proposal of collective property and associated labour. This +proposal, however, derives direct countenance, he maintains, from the +New Testament. It is supported by the texts which describe the Church as +an organism under the figure of a body with many members, by the example +of the common bag of the twelve, and by the communism of the primitive +Church of Jerusalem. But the texts about the Church as an organism have +no real bearing on the subject at all; for the Church is not meant to be +an authoritative pattern either for political or for economic +organization; and besides, the figure of the body and its members would +apply better to Bastiat's theory of the natural harmony of interests +than to the socialist idea of the solidarity of interests. Then the +common bag of the disciples did not prevent them from having boats and +other instruments of production of their own individual property; and we +know that the communism of the primitive Church of Jerusalem (which was +a decided economic failure, for the poverty of that Church had to be +repeatedly relieved by collections in other parts of Christendom) was +not a community of property, but, what is a higher thing, a community of +use, and that it was not compulsory but spontaneous. + +Todt, however, after seeming thus to commit himself and Christianity +without reserve to socialism, suddenly shrinks from his own boldness, +and draws back. Collective property may be countenanced by Scripture, +but he finds private property to be as much or even more so; and he +cannot on any consideration consent to the abolition of private property +by force. It was right enough to abolish slavery by force, for slavery +is an unchristian institution. But though private property is certainly +founded on selfishness, there are so many examples of it presented +before us in the New Testament without condemnation, that Todt shrinks +from pronouncing it to be an unchristian institution. Collective +property may be better, but private property will never disappear till +selfishness is swallowed up of love; and a triumph of socialism at +present, while its disciples are unbelievers and have not Christ, the +fount of love, in their hearts, would involve society in much more +serious evils than those which it seeks to remove. Todt's socialism, +therefore, is not a thing of the present, but an ideal of the distant +future, to be realized after Christian proprietors have come of their +own accord to give up their estates, and socialists have all been +converted to Christianity. For the present, in spite of his stern view +of the great wrong and injustice the working classes suffer, Todt has no +remedy to suggest, except that things would be better if proprietors +learnt more to regard their wealth as a trust of which they were only +stewards, and if employers treated their workmen with the personal +consideration due to Christian brothers; and he thinks the cultivation +of this spirit ought to be more expressly aimed at in the work of the +Church. This is probably, after all, the sum of what Christianity has to +say on the subject; but it seems a poor result of so much figuring and +flourishing, to end in a general truth which can give no offence even in +Manchester. + +Soon after the publication of Todt's book, Stoecker and some Evangelical +friends founded two associations, for the purpose of dealing with the +social question from a Christian point of view, and established a +newspaper, the _Staats-Socialist_, to advocate their opinions. Of the +two associations, one, the Central Union for Social Reform, was composed +of persons belonging to the educated classes--professors, manufacturers, +landowners, and clergymen; and the other, the Christian Social Working +Men's Party, consisted of working men alone. This movement was received +on all sides with unqualified disapprobation. The press, Liberal and +Conservative alike, spoke with contemptuous dislike of this +_Mucker-Socialismus_, and said they preferred the socialists in blouse +to the socialists in surplice. The Social Democrats rose against it with +virulence, and held meetings, both of men and of women, at which they +glorified atheism and bitterly attacked the clergy and religion. Even +the higher dignitaries of the Church held coldly aloof or were even +openly hostile. Stoecker met all this opposition with unflinching spirit, +convened public meetings in Berlin to promote his cause, and confronted +the socialist leaders on the platform. The movement gave promise of fair +success. In a few months seven hundred pastors, besides many from other +professions, including Dr. Koegel, Court preacher, and Dr. Buchsel, a +German Superintendent, had enrolled themselves in the Central Union for +Social Reform; and the Christian Social Working Men's Party had +seventeen hundred members in Berlin, and a considerable number +throughout the provinces. But its progress was interrupted by the +Anti-Socialist Law, passed soon after the same year, which put an end to +meetings of socialists; and since this measure was supported, though +hesitatingly, by Stoecker and his leading allies, that impaired their +influence with the labouring classes. + +The principles of this party, as stated in their programme, may be said +generally to be that a decided social question exists, in the +increasing gulf between rich and poor, and the increasing want of +economic security in the labourer's life; that this question cannot +possibly be solved by social democracy, because social democracy is +unpractical, unchristian, and unpatriotic; and that it can only be +solved by means of an extensive intervention on the part of a strong and +monarchical State, aided by the religious factors in the national life. +The State ought to provide by statute a regular organization of the +working classes according to their trades, authorizing the trades unions +to represent the labourers as against their employers, rendering these +unions legally liable for the contracts entered into by their members, +assuming a control of their funds, regulating the apprentice system, +creating compulsory insurance funds, etc. Then it ought to protect the +labourers by prohibiting Sunday labour, by fixing a normal day of +labour, and by insisting on the sound sanitary condition of workshops. +Further, it ought to manage the State and communal property in a spirit +favourable to the working class, and to introduce high luxury taxes, a +progressive income-tax, and a progressive legacy duty, both according to +extent of bequest and distance of relationship. These very comprehensive +reforms are, however, held to be inadequate without the spread of a +Christian spirit of mutual consideration into the relations of master +and workman, and of Christian faith, hope, and love into family life. +Moreover they are not to be expected from a parliamentary government in +which the commercial classes have excessive influence, and hence the +Christian Socialists lay great stress on the monarchical element, and +would give the monarch absolute power to introduce social reforms +without parliamentary co-operation and even in face of parliamentary +opposition. We have seen that Todt was disposed to favour a republican +form of government, but probably, like the Czar Nicholas, he has no +positive objection to any other save the constitutional. His party has +certainly adopted a very Radical social programme, but it is above all a +Conservative group, seeking to resist the revolutionary and +materialistic tendencies of socialism, and to rally the great German +working class once more round the standard of God, King, and Fatherland. + +Dr. Stoecker has during the past year resuscitated his Christian +Socialist organization under the name of the Social Monarchical Union, +but without any prospect of much success; for its founder, as the result +of his twelve years' bustling in the troubled waters of politics, has +fallen out of favour alike with court, Church, and people. He has lost +his place as royal chaplain, he is bitterly distrusted by the working +classes, and his socialist opinions are a great rock of offence to his +ecclesiastical brethren. A congress under Church auspices was held at +Berlin on May 28th and 29th, 1890, and it was called the Evangelical +Social Congress, as was explained by Professor A. Wagner, the economist, +in his inaugural speech, to avoid being connected with the Christian +Socialists. Dr. Stoecker read a paper at it on social democracy, which +raised a storm of dissension, mainly for its attack upon the Jews. This +congress, it may be noted, asked nothing from Government but a little +attention to the housing of the poor, and its chief recommendations were +(1) that every parish be organized under the social-political as well as +spiritual supervision of the clergy; (2) that Evangelical Working Men's +Unions be established in all industrial centres; (3) that benevolent or +friendly societies be organized for all trades, such as exist now in +mining; (4) that since social democracy threatened the Divine and human +order of society, and could only be successfully opposed by the power of +the gospel, a responsible mission lay upon the Church to combat and +counteract it. This mission was to be accomplished in two ways: first, +by awakening in all Evangelical circles the conviction that the present +social crisis was due to a universal national guilt, the guilt of +materialistic learning and living; and, second, by awakening masters to +a sense of their duty to their men, as morally their equals, and by +awakening the men to a sense of the moral vocation of the masters. In +other words, the social mission of the Church, according to the dominant +opinion at this congress, was just to do its ordinary work of preaching +repentance, faith, and love, and was much better represented by Dr. +Stoecker's Home Missionary Society than by his Social Monarchical Union. + +On this question of the duty of the Church with regard to the social +amelioration of the people, there are everywhere two opposite +tendencies of opinion. One says there is no specific Christian social +politics, and that the Church can never have a specific social-political +programme. Slavery is undoubtedly inconsistent with the moral spirit of +the gospel, but St. Paul was not an emancipationist in practical life. +He neither raises the question of emancipation as a matter of political +agitation, nor does he bid, or beg, his friend Philemon to set Onesimus +at liberty, but to receive him as a brother beloved; just as any of St. +Paul's successors might enjoin a Christian master to treat his Christian +servant. Christianity is an inspiration, and may be expected to change +the character of social relations as it changes the character of men; +but political programmes are always things of opportunity and temporary +compromise, and it would be very unadvisable to run at any moment a +Christian political party, because it would necessarily make +Christianity responsible for imperfections incident to party politics, +and lessen rather than help the weight of its testimony in the world. + +Then, on the other hand, there are those who hold that there is a +specific Christian social politics; that there is a distinct social and +political system, either directly enjoined by Holy Writ, or +inferentially resulting from it, so as to be truly a system of Divine +right. That is the claim put forward by Dr. Stoecker for his system of +social monarchy, and it is the position of sundry other groups of +socialists, who base their policy on the agrarian ordinances of Moses, +or the communism of the primitive Churches, or the general spirit of the +teaching of Jesus Christ. But Christian Socialism, in any of these +forms, is evidently at a discount in the Evangelical Church in Germany; +and the representative men in that Church, whatever they may do as +private citizens, would seem to refrain, perhaps too jealously, from +formulating in the name of religion any demands for the action of the +State in the social question. + +Indeed, among Protestants, what is called Christian Socialism is little +more than a vagrant opinion in any country; but among Catholics it has +grown into a considerable international movement, and has in several +States--especially in Austria--left its mark on legislation. The +movement was started in Austria by a Protestant, Herr Rudolph Meyer, the +well-known author of the "Emancipationskampf des Arbeit" and other +works; but he was influentially and effectively seconded by Prince von +Liechtenstein, Counts Blome and Kuefstein, and Herr von Vogelsang, who +is now editor of the special organ of the movement, the _Vaterland_, of +Vienna. In France there had long been a school of Catholic social +reformers, the disciples of the Economist Le Play, and they are still +associated in the Society of Social Peace, and advocate their views in +the periodical _La Reforme Sociale_. They are believers in liberty, +however, and would not be called socialists. But there are now two newer +schools of Catholic social reformers, who declare their aim to be the +re-establishment of Christian principles in the world of labour, but are +divided on the point of State intervention. + +The school who believe in State intervention are the more numerous; they +are led by Count Albert de Mun and the Marquis de la Tour de Pin +Chambly, have a separate organ, _L'Association Catholique_, and are +supported by a large organization of Catholic workmen's clubs, founded +by Count de Mun. There were 450 of these clubs in 1880, and they combine +the functions of a religious club, a co-operative store, and a friendly +society. The school who uphold the principle of liberty also publish an +organ, _L'Union Economique_, edited by the Franciscan Father le Basse, +and their best known leaders are two Jesuit priests, Fathers Forbes and +Caudron. There is likewise a Catholic Socialist movement in Switzerland +and Belgium, in both cases strongly in favour of State intervention; +and, indeed, Italy is the only Catholic country in which the Church +holds aloof from the social movement, forgetting the unusual miseries of +the people in an ignoble sulk over the loss of the Pope's temporal +power. + +The friends of this movement have now held three international +congresses at Liege. The third was held in September, 1890, under the +presidency of the bishop of the diocese, and was attended by 1500 +delegates, including eight or ten bishops and many Catholic statesmen +and peers from all countries. Lord Ashburnham and the Bishops of Salford +and Nottingham represented England, and there were representatives from +Germany, Poland, Austria, Spain, and France, but none from Italy. The +Pope himself sent a special envoy with an address, and among letters +from eminent Catholic leaders who were unable to be present in person +was one from Cardinal Manning, which made a little sensation, but was +received with decided sympathy, though the Pope afterwards disavowed it +to some extent. The Cardinal expressed strong approval of trade unions, +and of State intervention to fix the hours of labour to eight hours for +miners and ten hours for less arduous trades, and he declared his +conviction that no pacific solution of the conflict between capital and +labour was possible till the State regulated profits and wages according +to some fixed scale which should be subject to revision every three or +four years, and by which all free contracts between employers and +employed should be adjusted. + +The Congress went over the whole gamut of social questions, and +exhibited the usual conflict of opinion between the party of liberty and +the party of authority; but the party of authority, the "Statolaters" as +they are called, had evidently the great majority of the assembly. The +party of liberty were chiefly Frenchmen and Belgians, men like Fathers +Forbes and Caudron, already mentioned, or M. Woeste, the leader of the +Catholic party in Belgium, who said he believed in moral suasion only, +and that he feared the State and hated Caesarism. The party of authority +were German and English. But whatever they thought of State +intervention, all parties were one about the necessity of Church +intervention. Without the Catholic Church there could be no solution of +the social question. Cardinal Manning said, a few days before the +Congress, that the labour question now raised everywhere must go on till +it was solved somehow, and that the only universal influence that could +guide it was the presence and prudence of the Catholic Church. The +Congress passed recommendations about technical education, better homes +for working people, shorter hours, intemperance, strikes, prison labour, +international factory legislation. It proposed the institution of trade +unions, comprising both employers and employed, as the best means of +promoting working-class improvement. In the towns these unions might +have distinct sections for the different trades; but in the country this +subdivision was not requisite. Every parish should have its trade +union, and the whole should be united in a federation, like the +Boerenbond, or Peasants' League, lately established in some parts of +Belgium, and which the Congress recommended to the attention of +Catholics. It recommended also the establishment of a pension fund for +aged labourers under State guarantee, but without any compulsory +exaction of premiums, and without any special State subsidy; and it +received with favour a proposal by the Spanish divine, Professor +Rodriguez de Cegrada, of Valencia, for papal arbitration in +international labour questions. + +This Catholic Socialist movement shows no disposition to coquet with +revolutionary socialism; on the contrary, its leaders often say one of +their express objects is to counteract that agitation--to produce the +counter-revolution, as they sometimes put it. They are under no mistake +about the nature or bearing of socialist doctrines. Our Christian +Socialists in London accept the doctrines of Marx, and hold the +labourer's right to the full product of his labour to be a requirement +of Christian ethics, and the orators at English Church Congresses often +speak of socialism as if it were a higher perfection of Christianity. +But Catholic Socialists understand their Christianity and their +socialism better than to make any such identifications, and regard the +doctrines and organizations of revolutionary socialism in the spirit of +the firm judgment expressed in the Pope's encyclical of 28th December, +1878, which said that "so great is the difference between their (the +socialists') wicked dogmas and the pure doctrine of Christ that there +can be no greater; for what participation has justice with injustice, or +what communion has light with darkness?" This plain, gruff renunciation +is on the whole much truer than the amiable patronage of a very +distinguished Irish bishop at the Church Congress of 1887, who said +socialism was only a product of Christian countries, (what of the +socialism of savage tribes, or of the Mahdi, or of the Chinese?) that +the sentiment and aspiration of socialism were distinctly Christian, and +that every Christian is a bit of a socialist, and every socialist a bit +of a Christian. Socialism may proceed from an aspiration after social +justice, but a mistaken view of social justice is, I presume, really +injustice; and, as the Pope says, what communion can there practically +be between justice and injustice? Idolatry is a mistaken view of Divine +things--a distortion of the religious sentiment; but who would on that +account call it Christian? The socialist may be at heart a lover of +justice; he may love it, if you will, above his fellows; but what +matters the presence of the sentiment if the system he would realize it +by is ruled essentially by a principle of injustice? Justice, the +greatest and rarest of the virtues, is also the most difficult and the +most easily perverted. It needs a balance of mind, and in its +application to complicated and wide-reaching social arrangements, an +exactitude of knowledge and clearness of understanding which are ill +replaced by sentimentalism, or even by honest feeling; and the fault of +the current talk about Christian Socialism and the identity of socialism +with Christianity is that it does not conduce to this clearness of +understanding, which is the first requisite for any useful dealing with +such questions. If socialism is just, it is Christian--that seems the +sum of the matter. But do socializing bishops believe it to be just? Do +they believe, as all socialists believe, that it is unjust for one man +to be paid five thousand pounds a year, while his neighbours, with far +harder and more drudging work, cannot make forty pounds? or do they +believe it wrong for a man to live on interest, or rents, or profits? or +would they have the law lay its hands on property and manufactures, in +order to correct this wrong and give every man the income to which he +would be entitled on socialist principles? It is good, no doubt, to have +more equality and simplicity and security of living; but these +aspirations are neither peculiar to Christianity nor to socialism. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] The bishop draws this conclusion from the principle that God has +directed all men to nature to obtain from it the satisfaction of their +necessary wants, and that this original right of the needy cannot be +superseded by the subsequent institution of private property. No doubt, +he admits, that institution is also of God. It is the appointed way by +which man's dominion over nature is to be realized, because it is the +way in which nature is best utilized for the higher civilization of man. +But this purpose is secondary and subordinate to the other. And, +therefore, concludes the bishop, "firmly as theology upholds the right +of private property, it asserts at the same time that the higher right +by which all men are directed to nature's supplies dare not be +infringed, and that, consequently, any one who finds himself in extreme +need is justified, when other means fail, in satisfying this extreme +need where and how he may (wo und wie er es vermag)."--_Die +Arbeiter-frage und das Christenthum_ (p. 78). + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +ANARCHISM. + + +The latest offspring of revolutionary opinion--and the most +misshapen--is anarchism. Seven or eight years ago the word was scarcely +known; but then, as if on a sudden, rumours of the anarchists and their +horrid "propaganda of deed" echoed in, one upon another, from almost +every country in the old world and the new. To-day they were haranguing +mobs of unemployed in Lyons and Brussels under a black flag--the black +flag of hunger, which, they explained, knows no law. To-morrow they were +goading the peasants of Lombardy or Naples to attack the country houses +of the gentry, and lay the vineyards waste. Presently they were found +attempting to assassinate the German Emperor at Niederwald, or laying +dynamite against the Federal Palace at Bern; or a troop of them had set +off over Europe on a quixotic expedition of miscellaneous revenge on +powers that be, and were reported successively as having killed a +_gendarme_ in Strasburg, a policeman in Vienna, and a head of the +constabulary in Frankfort. Before these reports had time to die in our +ears, fresh tales would arrive of anarchists pillaging the bakers' shops +in Paris, or exulting over the murder of a mining manager at +Decazeville, or flinging bombs among the police of Chicago; and it +seemed as if a new party of disorder had broke loose upon the world, +busier and more barbarous than any that went before it. + +It is no new party, however; it is merely the extremer element in the +modern socialist movement. Mr. Hyndman and other socialists would fain +disclaim the anarchists altogether, and are fond of declaring that they +are the very opposite of socialists--that they are individualists of the +boldest stamp. But this contention will not stand. There are +individualist anarchists, no doubt. The anarchists of Boston, in +America, are individualists; one of the two groups of English anarchists +in London is individualist; but these individualist anarchists are very +few in number anywhere, and the mass of the party whose deeds made a +stir on both sides of the Atlantic is undoubtedly more socialist than +the socialists themselves. I have said in a previous chapter that the +socialism of the present day may be correctly described in three words +as Revolutionary Socialist Democracy, and in every one of these three +characteristics the anarchists go beyond other socialists, instead of +falling short of them. They are really more socialist, more democratic, +and more revolutionary than the rest of their comrades. They are more +socialist, because they are disposed to want not only common property +and common production, but common enjoyment of products as well. They +are more democratic, because they will have no government of any kind +over the people except the people themselves--no king or committee, no +representative institutions, either imperial or local, but merely every +little industrial group of people managing its public affairs as it will +manage its industrial work. And they are more revolutionary, for they +have no faith, even temporarily, in constitutional procedure, and think +making a little trouble is always the best way of bringing on a big +revolution. Other socialists prepare the way for revolution by a +propaganda of word; but the anarchists believe they can hasten the day +best by the propaganda of deed. Like the violent sections of all other +parties, they injure and discredit the party they belong to, and they +often attack the more moderate section with greater bitterness than +their common enemy; but they certainly belong to socialism, both in +origin and in principle. There were anarchists among the Young Hegelian +socialists of Germany fifty years ago. The Anti-socialist Laws bred a +swarm of anarchists among the German socialists in 1880, who left under +Most and Hasselmann, and carried to America the seed which led to the +outrages of Chicago. The Russian nihilists were anarchists from the +beginning; they broke up the International with their anarchism twenty +years ago, and they are among the chief disseminators of anarchism in +England and France to-day, because to the Russians anarchism is only the +socialism and the democracy of the rural communes in which they were +born. Socialists themselves are often obliged to admit the embarrassing +affinity. Dr. and Mrs. Aveling complain, in their "Labour Movement in +America," that while "the Chicago capitalist wanted us to be hanged +after we had landed, Herr Most's paper, _Die Freiheit_, was for shooting +us at sight"; that "anarchism ruined the International movement, threw +back the Spanish, Italian, and French movements for many years, has +proved a hindrance in America, and so much or so little of it as exists +in England is found by the revolutionary socialist party a decided +nuisance"; but they admit that "well nigh every word spoken by the chief +defendants at the Chicago trial could be endorsed by socialists, for +they then preached not anarchism, but socialism. Indeed," they add, "he +that will compare the fine speech by Parsons in 1886 with that of +Liebknecht at the high treason trial at Leipzig will find the two +practically identical." + +So far, then, as their socialism goes, there is admittedly no real +difference between Parsons, the Chicago anarchist, and Liebknecht, the +leader of the German socialists. Indeed, as I have said, the anarchists +seem to show a tendency even to outbid the socialists in their +socialism. Socialists generally say that, while committing all +production to the public authority, they have no idea of interfering +with liberty of consumption. Their opponents argue, in reply, that they +would find an interference with consumption to be an inevitable result +of their systematic regulation of production; but they themselves always +repudiate that conclusion. They would make all the instruments of +production common property, but leave all the materials of enjoyment +individual property still. Ground rents, for example, would belong to +the public; but every man would own his own house and furniture, at +least for life, if he had built it by his own labour, or bought it from +his own savings, because a dwelling house is not an instrument of +production, but an article of enjoyment or consumption. But some of the +more representative spokesmen of the anarchists would not leave this +last remnant of private property standing, and strongly contend for the +old primitive plan, still in use among savage tribes, of giving those +who are in want of anything a claim--a right--to share the enjoyment of +it with those who happen to have it. They would municipalize the houses +as well as the ground rents, and no one should be allowed a right to a +spare bed or a disengaged sofa so long as one of the least of his +brethren huddled on straw in a garret in the slums, or slept out on a +bench in Trafalgar Square. In a recent number of _Freedom_, for example, +Prince Krapotkin announces that "the first task of the Revolution will +be to arrange things so as to share the accommodation of available +houses according to the needs of the inhabitants of the city, to clear +out the slums and fully occupy the villas and mansions." Anarchist +opinions are no doubt capricious and variable. There are as many +anarchisms as there are anarchists, it has been said. But this tendency +to go further than other socialists, in superseding individual by common +property, has repeatedly appeared in some of their most representative +utterances. + +The Jurassian Federation of the International adopted a resolution at +their Congress in 1880, in which they say: "We desire collectivism, with +all its logical consequences, not only in the sense of the collective +appropriation of instruments of production, but also of the collective +enjoyment and consumption of products. Anarchist communism will in this +way be the necessary and inevitable consequence of the social +revolution, and the expression of the new civilization which that +revolution will inaugurate." + +Their principal difference with the other branch of the socialists, +however,--and that from which they derive their name--is upon the +government of the socialistic society. Anarchy as a principle of +political philosophy was first advocated by Proudhon, and he meant by +it, not of course a state of chaos or disorder, but merely a state +without separate political or civil institutions,--"a state of order +without a set government." "The expression, anarchic government," he +says, "implies a sort of contradiction. The thing seems impossible, and +the idea absurd; but there is really nothing at fault here but the +language. The idea of anarchy in politics is quite as rational and +positive as any other. It consists in this,--that the political function +be re-absorbed in the industrial, and in that case social order would +ensue spontaneously out of the simple operation of transactions and +exchanges. Every man might then be justly called autocrat of himself, +which is the extreme reverse of monarchical absolutism" ("Die Princip +Federatif," p. 29). He distinguishes anarchy from democracy and from +communistic government, though his distinctions are not easy to +apprehend exactly. Communism, he says, is the government of all by all; +democracy, the government of all by each; and anarchy, the government of +each by each. Anarchy is, in his opinion, the only real form of +self-government. People would manage their own public affairs together +like partners in a business, and no one would be subject to the +authority of another. Government is considered a mere detail of +industrial management; and the industrial management is considered to be +in the hands of all who co-operate in the industry. The specific +preference of anarchism, therefore, seems to be for some form of direct +government by the people, in place of any form of central, superior, or +representative government; and naturally its political communities must +be small in size, though they may be left to league together, if they +choose, in free and somewhat loose federations. The anarchists are +accordingly more democratic in their political theory than the +socialists more strictly so called, inasmuch as they would give the +people more hand in the work of government, though of course they +preposterously underrate the need and difficulty of that work. + +On some minor points they contradict one another, and quite as often +contradict themselves. Proudhon, for example, would still, even in +anarchist society, retain the local policeman and magistrate; but +anarchists of a stricter doctrine would either have every man carry his +own pistol and provide for his own security, or, as the Boston +anarchists prefer, apparently, would have public security supplied like +any other commodity by an ordinary mercantile association--in Proudhon's +words, "by the simple operation of transactions and exchanges." Emerson +said the day was coming when the world would do without the +paraphernalia of courts and parliaments, and a man who liked the +profession would merely put a sign over his door, "John Smith, King." +This is too much division of function however for anarchists generally, +and they would have every industrial group do its government as it did +its business by general co-operation. Just as in Russia every rural +commune has its own trade, and the inhabitants of one are all +shoemakers, while the inhabitants of another are all tailors, so in +anarchist society, according to the more advanced doctrine, every +separate group would have its own separate industry, because, in fact, +the separate industry makes it a separate group. And it would be managed +by all its members together, not by anything in the nature of a board, +for it is important to recollect that anarchists of the purest water +entertain as much objection to the domination of a vestry or a town +council as to that of a king or a cabinet. Some who side with them, +especially old supporters of the French Revolutionary Commune, have +still a certain belief in a municipal council; but the Russian +anarchists, at any rate, look upon this as a piece of faithless +accommodation. Prince Krapotkin, I have already mentioned, thinks the +first business of the contemplated revolution must be to redistribute +the dwelling houses, so as to thin the slums and quarter their surplus +population in the incompletely occupied villas or mansions of the West +End. That is a very large task, which it will seem, to an ordinary mind, +obviously impossible for the vast population of a great city like London +to execute in their own proper persons at an enormous town meeting; yet, +if I understand Prince Krapotkin, it is this preposterous proposal he is +actually offering as a serious contribution to a more perfect system of +government. "For," says he, "sixty elected persons sitting round a table +and calling themselves a Municipal Council cannot arrange the matter on +paper. It must be arranged by the people themselves, freely uniting to +settle the question for each block of houses, each street, and +proceeding by agreement from the single to the compound, from the parts +to the whole; all having their voice in the arrangements, and putting in +their claims with those of their fellow-citizens; just as the Russian +peasants settle the periodical repartition of the communal lands." And +how do the Russian peasants settle the periodical repartition of the +communal lands? Stepniak gives us a very interesting description of a +meeting of a Russian _mir_ in his "Russia Under the Tsars" (vol. i. p. +2). + +"The meetings of the village communes, like those of the +_Landesgemeinde_ of the primitive Swiss cantons, are held under the +vault of heaven, before the Starosta's house, before a tavern, or at any +other convenient place. The thing that most strikes a person who is +present for the first time at one of these meetings is the utter +confusion which seems to characterize its proceedings. Chairman there is +none. The debates are scenes of the wildest disorder. After the convener +has explained his reasons for calling the meeting, everybody rushes in +to express his opinion, and for a while the debate resembles a free +fight of pugilists. The right of speaking belongs to him who can command +attention. If an orator pleases his audience, interrupters are promptly +silenced; but if he says nothing worth hearing, nobody heeds him, and he +is shut up. When the question is somewhat of a burning one, and the +meeting begins to grow warm, all speak at once, and none listen. On +these occasions the assembly breaks up into groups, each of which +discusses the subject on its own account. Everybody shouts his arguments +at the top of his voice. Charges and objurgations, words of contumely +and derision, are heard on every hand, and a wild uproar goes on from +which it does not seem possible that any good can result. + +"But this apparent confusion is of no moment. It is a necessary means to +a certain end. In our village assemblies voting is unknown. +Controversies are never decided by a majority of voices; every question +must be settled unanimously. Hence the general debate, as well as +private discussions, must be continued until a proposal is brought +forward which conciliates all interests, and wins the suffrage of the +entire _mir_. It is, moreover, evident that to reach this consummation +the debates must be thorough and the subject well threshed out; and in +order to overcome isolated opposition, it is essential for the advocates +of conflicting views to be brought face to face, and compelled to fight +out their differences in single combat." + +But beneath all this tough and apparently acrimonious strife a singular +spirit of forbearance reigns. The majority will not force on a premature +decision. Debate may rage fast and furious day after day, but at last +the din dies. A common understanding is somehow attained, and the _mir_ +pronounces its deliverance, which is accepted, in the rude belief of +the peasants, as the decree of God Himself. In this way tens of +thousands of Russian villages have been, no doubt, managing their own +petty business with reasonable amity and success for centuries, and the +political philosophy of Russian writers like Bakunin and Prince +Krapotkin, who have propagated anarchism in the west of Europe, is +merely the naive suggestion that the form of government which answers +not intolerably for the few trivial concerns of a primitive Russian +village would answer best for the whole complex business of a great +developed modern society. + +The anarchists carry their dislike to authority into other fields +besides the political and industrial. They will have no invisible master +or ruler any more than visible. They renounce both God and the devil, +and generally with an energy beyond all other revolutionists. Some of +the older socialists were believers; St. Simon, Fourier, Leroux and +Louis Blanc were all theists; but it is rare to find one among the +socialists of the present generation, and with the anarchists an +aggressive atheism seems an essential part of their way of thinking. +They will own no superior power or authority of any kind--employer, +ruler, deity, or law. The Anarchist Congress of Geneva in 1882 issued a +manifesto, which began thus:-- + +"Our enemy, it is our master. Anarchists--that is to say, men without +chiefs--we fight against all who are invested or wish to invest +themselves with any kind of power whatsoever. Our enemy is the landlord +who owns the soil and makes the peasant drudge for his profit. Our enemy +is the employer who owns the workshop, and has filled it with +wage-serfs. Our enemy is the State, monarchical, oligarchic, democratic, +working class, with its functionaries and its services of officers, +magistrates, and police. Our enemy is every abstract authority, whether +called Devil or Good God, in the name of which priests have so long +governed good souls. Our enemy is the law, always made for the +oppression of the weak by the strong, and for the justification and +consecration of crime." + +Among other restraints, they entertain often a speculative opposition to +the restraint of the legal family, and sometimes advocate a return to +aboriginal promiscuity and relationship by mothers; but this is only an +occasional element in their agitation. It is plain, however, that when +law is believed to be oppression, crime and lawlessness come to be +humanity. + +I have now shown that the anarchists, so far from representing an +opposite movement to revolutionary social democracy, are really +ultra-socialist and ultra-democratic, and it seems hardly necessary to +show that they are ultra-revolutionary. All social democrats contemplate +an eventual revolution, but some see no objection meanwhile to take part +in current politics; while others, a more witnessing generation, +practise an ostentatious abstention, and call themselves political +abstentionists. Some, again, think and desire that the revolution will +come by peaceful and lawful means; others trust to violence alone. The +anarchists outrun all. They refuse to have anything to do with any +politics but revolution, and with any revolution but a violent one, and +they think the one means of producing revolution now or at any future +time is simply to keep exciting disorder and class hatred, assassinating +State officers, setting fire to buildings, and paralyzing the +_bourgeoisie_ with fear. All anarchists are not of this sanguinary mind, +and it is interesting to remember that Proudhon himself wrote Karl Marx +in 1846, warning him against "making a St. Bartholomew of the +proprietors," and opposed resort to revolutionary action of any kind as +a means of promoting social reform. "Perhaps," he says, "we think no +reform is possible without a _coup de main_, without what used to be +called a revolution, and which is only a shake. I understand that +decision and excuse it, for I held it for a long time myself, but I +confess my latest studies have completely taken it away from me. I +believe we have no need of any such thing in order to succeed, and that +consequently we ought not to postulate revolutionary action as a means +of social reform, because that pretended means is nothing more nor less +than an appeal to force, to arbitrary power, and is therefore a +contradiction. I state the problem thus: to restore to society, by an +economic combination, the wealth which has been taken from society by +another economic combination." ("Proudhon's Correspondence," ii. 198.) + +But whatever individual anarchists may hold or renounce, the general +view of the party is as I have stated. A meeting of 600 +anarchists--chiefly Germans and Austrians, but including also some +Russians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen--was held at Paris on the 20th April, +1884, and passed a resolution urgently recommending the extirpation of +princes, capitalists, and parsons, by means of "the propaganda of +deed."[2] The Congress held at London in 1881, which sought to +re-establish the International on purely anarchist lines, adopted a +declaration of principles, containing, among other things, the +following: "It is matter of strict necessity to make all possible +efforts to propagate by deeds the revolutionary idea and the spirit of +revolt among that great section of the mass of the people which as yet +takes no part in the movement, and entertains illusions about the +morality and efficacy of legal means. In quitting the legal ground on +which we have generally remained hitherto, in order to carry our action +into the domain of illegality which is the only way leading to +revolution, it is necessary to have recourse to means which are in +conformity with that end.... The Congress recommends organizations and +individuals constituting part of the International Working Men's +Association to give great weight to the study of the technical and +chemical sciences as a means of defence and attack."[3] In the first +French revolution Lavoisier and other seven and twenty chemists were put +to the guillotine together, on the express pretence, "We have no need of +_savants_"; but now "Technology" is a standing heading in the anarchist +journals; a revolutionary organization has its chemical department as +well as its press department; and anarchist tracts often end with the +standing exhortation, "Learn the use of dynamite," as socialist tracts +end with the old admonition of 1848, "Proletarians of all nations, +unite." + +The object of this policy of violence is partly, as we see from the +above quotations, to inflame the spirit of revolt and disorder in the +working classes; and it is partly to terrorize the _bourgeoisie_, so +that they may yield in pure panic all they possess. But for its +expressly violent policy, anarchism would be the least formidable or +offensive manifestation of contemporary socialism. For, in the first +place, its specific doctrine is one which it is really difficult to get +the most ordinary common sense puzzled into accepting. Men in their +better mind may be ready enough to listen to specious, or even not very +specious, schemes of reform that hold out a promise of extirpating +misery, and in their worse mind they may be quite as prone to think that +if everybody had his own, there would be fewer rich; but they are not +likely to believe we can get on without law or government of any sort. +Even the vainest will feel that however superfluous these institutions +may be for themselves, they are still unhappily indispensable for some +of their neighbours. Then in the next place this doctrine of the +anarchists is as great a stumbling-block to themselves as it is to other +people, for they carry their objection to government into their own +movement, and can consequently never acquire that concentration and +unity of organization which is necessary for any effectual conspiracy. +They are always found constituted in very small groups very loosely held +together, and small as the several groups may be, they are always much +more likely to subdivide than to consolidate. Even the few anarchist +refugees in London who might be expected to be knit into indissoluble +friendship by their common adversity have broken into separate clubs, +and the "Autonomic" and the "Morgenrothe"--though they have hardly more +than a hundred members between them, and all belong to the same +socialist variety of anarchist doctrine--remain as the Jews and the +Samaritans. It is said to be a subject of speculative discussion among +anarchists whether two members are sufficient to constitute an anarchist +club. This laxity of organization is a natural result of the dislike to +authority which the anarchists cultivate as a cardinal principle. +Subjection to an executive committee is as offensive to their feelings +and as contrary to their principles as subjection to a monarch. The +dread of subjection keeps them disunited and weak. As Machiavelli says, +the many ruin a revolutionary society, and the few are not enough. A +small group may concoct an isolated crime, but it can do little towards +the social revolution. + +The anarchist policy--the propaganda of deed--consists, however, +exactly in this concoction of isolated crimes and outrages. Some of the +continental powers are conferring at this moment on the propriety of +taking international efforts against the anarchists, and the question +may at least be reasonably raised before our own Government, whether a +policy of promiscuous outrage like this should continue to be included +among political offences, securing protection against extradition, and +whether the propaganda of deed and the use of dynamite should not rather +be declared outside the limits of fair and legitimate revolution, as, by +the Geneva Convention, explosive bullets are put outside the limits of +fair or legitimate war. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] Much interesting information on this subject is given from official +sources in a recent anonymous work, "Socialismus und Anarchismus in +Europa und Nordamerika waehrend der Jahre 1883 bis 1886." + +[3] Garin, "L'Anarchie et les Anarchistes," p. 48. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +RUSSIAN NIHILISM. + + +Haxthausen pronounced a confident opinion in 1847, when most of the +continental nations were agitated with rumours of revolution, that +Russia at any rate was safe from the danger, inasmuch as she enjoyed an +absolute protection against all such revolutionary agitation in her +communistic rural institutions. There was no proletariat in Russia, +every man in the country being born to a share in the land of the +township he belonged to; and without a proletariat, concluded the +learned professor, there was neither motive nor material for social +revolt. This belief became generally accepted, and passed, indeed, for +years as a political commonplace; but perhaps never has a political +prognostication so entirely reasonable proved on experience so utterly +fallacious. Instead of sparing or avoiding Russia, revolutionary +agitation has grown positively endemic in that country; it is more +virulent in its type, and apparently more deepseated than elsewhere; +and, stranger still, not the least of its exciting causes has been that +very communistic agrarian system which was thought to be the surest +preservation against it. + +In its earlier period, before the emancipation of the serfs, the Russian +revolutionary movement was largely inspired by an extravagant +idealization of the perfections of the rural commune, and now since the +emancipation it is fed far more formidably by an actual experience of +the commune's defects. The truth is that the communistic land system of +Russia, so far from preventing the birth of a proletariat, is now of +itself begetting the most numerous and the most helpless proletariat in +the world. The emancipation dues would have been a serious burden under +any social arrangements, but they have proved so much heavier under the +communistic system of Russia than they would have been elsewhere that +the system itself is beginning to give way. With an unlimited stock of +good land, all is plain sailing under any social institutions; but when +land is limited in extent and every new-comer has the right to cut in +and get an equal share with those already in possession, excessive +subdivision is inevitable, and the point is soon reached where any fresh +impost or outgoing destroys the profitableness of cultivation, and +converts the right to the land from an asset into a liability. This is +what is now happening in Russia. It appears there are already more +paupers in St. Petersburg proportionally to population than in any other +European capital, and as many as a third of the inhabitants of the +provinces are either entirely landless, or, more unhappy still, find +their land, instead of a benefit, to be only a grievous burden of which +they cannot shake themselves clear. I shall have occasion later on to +recur to this new economic development in rural Russia, which is very +interesting to the student of socialism on its own account, but which +will concern us in the present chapter more particularly in its bearing +on the operations and prospects of the revolutionary party in that +country. + +The revolutionary or nihilist movement in Russia has passed through +several successive phases; but there is no good reason for denying its +continuity, nor any impropriety, as is sometimes alleged, in the +retention of the name of Nihilism, which it bore when it first engaged +the attention of Western Europe, although it may be quite true that the +word is more descriptive of the earlier developments of the movement +than of the later. In its first stage, before the Emancipation Act, it +was scarce more than an intellectual fermentation--an intellectual +revolt all round, if you will--shaping more and more in its political +ideas towards democratic socialism, but as yet entirely unorganized, and +content to expend its force in violent opinions without recourse to +action. Then, second, the Emancipation Act gave it organization, +purpose, malignity, and made it, in short, the nihilism we know, +converting it into the engine of the bitter discontent of the landed +classes, who were seriously straitened and many of them ruined by the +operation of that great reform. Third, while the impoverishment of +thousands of landed families was the first result of the Emancipation +Act, its slower but more serious result has been the impoverishment of +the peasantry, and nihilism is now assuming a more agrarian character, +and promoting the social revolution under the old Russian cry for "the +black division." + +For the origin of nihilism we must go back half a century to a little +company of gifted young men, most of whom rose to great distinction, who +used at that time to meet together at the house of a rich merchant in +Moscow, for the discussion of philosophy and politics and religion. They +were of the most various views. Some of them became Liberal leaders, and +wanted Russia to follow the constitutional development of the Western +nations; others became founders of the new Slavophil party, contending +that Russia should be no imitator, but develop her own native +institutions in her own way; and there were at least two among +them--Alexander Herzen and Michael Bakunin--who were to be prominent +exponents of revolutionary socialism. But they all owned at this period +one common master--Hegel. Their host was an ardent Hegelian, and his +young friends threw themselves into the study of Hegel with the greatest +zeal. Herzen himself tells us in his autobiography how assiduously they +read everything that came from his pen, how they devoted nights and +weeks to clearing up the meaning of single passages in his writings, and +how greedily they devoured every new pamphlet that issued from the +German press on any part of his system. From Hegel, Herzen and Bakunin +were led, exactly like Marx and the German Young Hegelians, to +Feuerbach, and from Feuerbach to socialism. Bakunin, when he retired +from the army, rather than be the instrument of oppressing the Poles +among whom he was stationed, went for some years to Germany, where he +lived among the Young Hegelians and wrote for their organ, the +_Hallische Jahrbuecher_; but before either he or Herzen ever had any +personal intercommunication with the members of that school of thought, +they had passed through precisely the same development. Herzen speaks of +socialism almost in the very phrases of the Young Hegelians, as being +the new "terrestrial religion," in which there was to be neither God nor +heaven; as a new system of society which would dispense with an +authoritative government, human or Divine, and which should be at once +the completion of Christianity and the realization of the Revolution. +"Christianity," he said, "made the slave a son of man; the Revolution +has emancipated him into a citizen. Socialism would make him a _man_." + +This tendency of thought was strongly supported in the Russian mind by +Haxthausen's discovery and laudation of the rural commune of Russia. The +Russian State was the most arbitrary, oppressive, and corrupt in Europe, +and the Russian Church was the most ignorant and superstitious; but here +at last was a Russian institution which was regarded with envy even by +wise men of the west, and was really a practical anticipation of that +very social system which was the last work of European philosophy. It +was with no small pride, therefore, that Alexander Herzen declared that +the Muscovite peasant in his dirty sheepskin had solved the social +problem of the nineteenth century, and that for Russia, with this great +problem already solved, the Revolution was obviously a comparatively +simple operation. You had but to remove the Czardom, the services, and +the priesthood, and the great mass of the people would still remain +organized in fifty thousand complete little self-governing communities +living on their common land and ruling their common affairs as they had +been doing long before the Czardom came into being. And what, after all, +was the latest dream of philosophical socialism but a world of +communities like these? The new formula of civilization had merely come +back to the old Russian _mir_. + +All Russian writers draw a kindly and charming picture of the _mir_, the +rude village council, in which the heads of families have for ages +managed their common land, distributed their taxes, and settled all the +burning problems of the hamlet with remarkable freedom, fairness, and +mutual respect. They meet together on some open space--perhaps in front +of the tavern, which is itself one of their common possessions; they +beat out their question there till they are unanimous; for the _mir_ +will know nothing of decision by majorities--the will of the _mir_ is +believed to be the will of God Himself, and it must be no divided +counsel. They argue sometimes long and keenly, and, as their interest +waxes, they will raise many voices at once, or perhaps break up into +separate groups, each discussing the subject apart; but presently, out +of all the apparent disorder, the acceptable decision is somehow found, +and peace reigns again in the village street. In these meetings they +have the deepest feeling and habit of freedom; and even when a political +question arises affecting their interests--a question of taxes or of +administration--they make no scruple to speak in the plainest terms of +the Government and the officials, and they are never interfered with. +"Nobody but God," they say, "dare judge the _mir_," and the Czar, at any +rate, respects the tradition. That rude assembly is the only free +institution in Russia. Even revolutionary manifestoes have been publicly +read at its meetings, and socialist addresses publicly delivered. And +this instinctive spirit of freedom is attended there with the +instinctive spirit of equality. A recent Russian writer observes that a +Russian peasant would be quite unable to understand the sort of respect +the English labourer shows to a gentleman. With its freedom, its +equality, its strong family sentiment, its common property, its +self-government, the _mir_ is really the social democratic republic +political philosophers have projected, and a Russian who dislikes the +State and loves the _mir_ is, without more ado, a social revolutionist +of the anarchist type. The favourite ideal among Russian revolutionists +for the last fifty years has accordingly all along been the anarchist +ideal of a free federation of local industrial communities without any +separate political organization; for the anarchist ideal is natural to +the Russian situation. + +Revolutionary opinions were very rife in Russia during the reign of +Nicholas; but under his iron rule they were never suffered to be spoken +above the breath. His ascension to the throne in 1825 had been greeted +by a revolution--a very abortive one, it is true, but unfortunately +sufficient to set every fibre of the young Czar's strong nature +inflexibly against all the liberal tendencies encouraged by his father, +and to stop the political development of the country for a generation. A +handful of constitutional reformers--united three years before in a +secret society to promote peasant emancipation, the common civil +liberties, and stable instead of arbitrary law--gathered a crowd to a +public place in the capital, and shouted for "the Archduke Constantine +and a Constitution." Most part of the crowd had so little idea why they +had come together that they thought Constitution was the name of the +Archduke Constantine's wife; and the most distinguished man among the +conspirators--Pestel, the poet--said, as he was going to execution, "I +wished to reap the harvest before sowing the seed." He had done +worse--he really kept the seed from being sown for thirty years to come. +All freedom of opinion was ruthlessly suppressed; every means of +influencing the public mind was stopped; there was no liberty of +printing, speaking, or meeting; there was no saving grace but ignorance, +for people of reading and intelligence lived under perpetual liability +to most unreasonable suspicion. Alexander Herzen, for example, was +banished to the Asiatic frontier while still a very young man, merely +because he happened to make the casual remark in a private letter to his +father, which was opened in the post, that a policeman had a few days +before killed a man in the streets of St. Petersburg. + +But this system of lawless and unrighteous repression nursed a deep +spirit of revolt against constituted authority in the heart of the +people, and among the younger minds a kind of passion for the most +extreme and forbidden doctrines. All the wildest phases of nihilist +opinion in the sixties were already raging in Russia in the forties. +Haxthausen says he was astounded, when he visited the Russian +universities and schools, to find the students at every one of them +given over, as he says, to political and religious notions of the most +all-destructive description. "It is a miasma," he says. And although the +only political outbreak of Nicholas's reign, the Petracheffsky +conspiracy of 1849, was little more than a petty street riot, a storm of +serious revolt against the tyranny of the Czar was long gathering, which +would have burst upon his head after the disasters to his army in the +Crimea, had he survived them. He saw it thickening, however, and on his +death-bed said to his son, the noble and unfortunate Alexander II., "I +fear you will find the burden too heavy." The son found it eventually +heavy enough, but in the meantime he wisely bent before the storm, +relaxed the restraints the father had imposed, and gave pledges of the +most liberal reforms in every department of State--judicial +administration, local government, popular education, serf emancipation. +People believed completely in the young Czar's sincerity, awaited with +great expectations the measures he would propose, and meanwhile indulged +to the top of their bent in the practical liberties they were already +provisionally allowed to enjoy, and gave themselves up to a restless +fervour for liberty and reform. + +An independent press was not among the liberties conceded, but Russian +opinion at this period found a most effective voice in a newspaper +started in London by Alexander Herzen, called the _Kolokol_ (Bell), +which for a number of years made a great impression in Russia by the +accuracy of its information on Russian affairs, by the boldness of its +criticisms of the Government, and by the ease with which it got smuggled +into universal circulation. When Herzen was sent to the Urals as a +dangerous person, he was appointed, very anomalously--perhaps it was to +keep him there--to an administrative and judicial post, in which he +would have apparently to sentence others while under sentence himself; +but he grew weary of his banishment, and was permitted to exchange it +for the more complete, but much more agreeable, banishment from Russia +altogether. After visiting Germany and France, and after witnessing, +with deep interest and deeper disappointment, some of the revolutions of +1848, and writing that they had failed because their promoters were not +prepared to follow them up with a positive social programme, as if, he +says, the mere destruction of a Bastile were a revolution, he settled in +England, and learnt there, as his son assures us, that revolution itself +was but a vain expedient, and that gradual reform was the only effectual +method of lasting social amelioration. + +It was probably while he was learning this lesson--it was certainly +entirely in this spirit--that he began his political agitation on the +accession of Alexander II. The moment the new Czar ascended the throne, +Herzen addressed to him a famous letter, demanding amends for the ills +his father, Czar Nicholas, had done the people, a complete breach with +the old system, and the introduction of thoroughgoing Liberal reforms, +and more especially the emancipation of the serfs. It was in the same +spirit he conducted his agitation in the _Kolokol_. Without neglecting +to ventilate his socialist and philosophical views, he welcomed the +contemplated reforms as being in themselves true remedies for popular +grievances, and intended in perfect good faith by the Czar to be so; and +his chief care in all his criticisms always was to secure that these +reforms should be real and thorough, that the judicial body should be +independent, the educational arrangements efficient; above all, that the +peasants should not be deprived, in the emancipation arrangements, of a +foot of the land they then possessed, or made to pay terms for their +emancipation which would be too heavy for them to meet. And perhaps the +most popular and stirring part of his paper was always his exposure of +existing abuses, and his criticism of the conduct of officials. The +journal was written with wit, vigour, and accurate knowledge; and, as it +spoke what most men thought, but few would as yet venture to say, it was +greedily read and distributed, and was for some years a remarkable power +in the country. Herzen was the hero of the young. Herzenism, we are +told, became the rage, and Herzenism appears to have meant, before all, +a free handling of everything in Church or State which was previously +thought too sacred to be touched. This iconoclastic spirit grew more and +more characteristic of Russian society at this period, and presently, +under its influence, Herzenism fell into the shade, and nihilism +occupied the scene. + +We possess various accounts of the meaning and nature of nihilism, and +they all agree substantially in their description of it. The word was +first employed by Turgenieff in his novel "Fathers and Sons," where +Arcadi Petrovitch surprises his father and uncle by describing his +friend Bazaroff as a nihilist. + +"A nihilist," said Nicholas Petrovitch. "This word must come from the +Latin _nihil_, nothing, as far as I can judge, and consequently it +signifies a man who recognises nothing." + +"Or rather who respects nothing," said Paul Petrovitch. + +"A man who looks at everything from a critical point of view," said +Arcadi. + +"Does not that come to the same thing?" asked his uncle. + +"No, not at all. A nihilist is a man who bows before no authority, who +accepts no principle without examination, no matter what credit the +principle has."... + +"Yes, before we had Hegelians; now we have nihilists. We shall see what +you will do to exist in nothingness, in a vacuum, as if under an air +pump." + +Koscheleff, writing in 1874, gives a similar explanation of nihilism. +"Our disease is a disease of character, and the most dangerous possible. +We suffer from a fatal unbelief in everything. We have ceased to believe +in this or in that, not because we have studied the subject thoroughly +and become convinced of the untenability of our views, but only because +some author or another in Germany or England holds this or that doctrine +to be unfounded. Our nihilism is a thing of a quite peculiar character. +It is not, as in the West, the result of long falsely directed +philosophical studies and ways of thinking, nor is it the fruit of an +imperfect social organization. It is an entirely different thing from +that. The wind has blown it to us, and the wind will blow it from us +again. Our nihilists are simply Radicals. Their loud speeches, their +fault-finding, their strong assertions, are grounded on nothing. They +borrow negative views from foreign authors, and repeat them and magnify +them _ad nauseam_, and treat persons of another way of thinking as +absurd and antiquated people who continue to cherish exploded ideas and +customs. The chief cause of the spread of this (I will not say doctrine, +for I cannot honour it with such a name, but) sect is this, that it +imparts its communications in secret conversations, so that, for one +thing, it cannot be publicly criticised and refuted, and, for another, +it charms by the fascination of the forbidden." + +The same view precisely is given by Baron Fircks ("Schedo Ferroti") in +his very elaborate and thoughtful account of nihilism in his _L'Avenir +de la Russie_. It was merely, he said, the critical spirit--the spirit +of intellectual revolt--carried to an extreme and running amuck against +all accepted principles in religion, in politics, in domestic and social +life. It was a common infirmity of contemporary society, and was in no +way peculiar to Russia; but while that may be true, it has +undoubtedly--as perhaps the Baron would admit--been carried into more +extravagant manifestations in Russia than elsewhere. + +Nor are the reasons of this extravagance far to seek. First, the +Russians are, in national character, singularly impressionable, +volatile, and predisposed to run to extremes. Diderot says they were +rotten before they were ripe. Second, they are mere children in +political experience, and even in intellectual training. Their education +is in general shallow, and they are liable to the vagaries of the half +educated. Third, both Baron Fircks and Koscheleff think nihilism was +largely due to the arbitrary government of the country. The Czar and the +bureaucracy have themselves had much to do with destroying respect for +law and authority by their capricious habits of administration. Laws +were proclaimed to-day and repealed to-morrow, or even broken by the +very officials engaged in administering them. Even in the days of +Nicholas, Herzen complained bitterly of this constant inconstancy of the +law; he said the Russian Government was "infatuated with innovation," +that "nothing was allowed to remain as it was," that "everything was +always being changed," that "a new ministry invariably began its work by +upsetting that of its predecessors." Russia being a Functionary State, +not a Law State, to employ a useful German distinction, the decrees of +officials take the place elsewhere filled by fixed laws established by +legislative authority; and where these decrees are continually changing, +reverence for the law is impossible. + +But in all this there was no practical political disaffection before the +Emancipation Act. The nihilists had as yet a vague belief in the Czar +and the coming reforms; they felt that the Russian people were at last +to have a chance of showing the rich genius that lay in them, and their +whole anxiety was to have the people adequately trained for this great +destiny. It was the common talk that the future belonged to Russia; and +that she was already beginning to outshine all other nations in +literature, in art, in science, in music. "Some young people among us," +says Turgenieff, "have discovered even a Russian arithmetic. Two and two +do make four with us as well as elsewhere, but more pompously, it would +seem. All this is nothing but the stammering of men who are just +awaking." + +Under these influences the energies of the nihilists took a different +outlet than plotting. Instead of founding secret societies, they +founded Sunday schools. For to their mind the first need of the time, +above even political liberty, was popular education. As to liberty, the +measure they practically enjoyed at the gracious pleasure of the Czar +for the present contented them, inasmuch as it seemed an earnest of the +better securities that were expected to follow; but they could not with +any satisfaction look round them and see the Russian people, for whom +they were prophesying such a great career, still lying in almost +aboriginal ignorance. The stuff was indeed there which should yet +astonish the world, but it must first be made. To "make the people," as +they phrased it, was the task the nihilists now undertook, and they +threw themselves into it with the zeal of apostles. They put on shabby +clothes to avoid any offensive superiority to their poorer neighbours, +and they wore green spectacles to correct the even more intolerable +inequality of personal beauty, for, as they were fond of saying, they +had put off the old man and were now new men created again by Buechner +and Feuerbach in the gospel of humanity; but with all their +extravagances they carried on for some years a most active and no doubt +useful work in the Sunday schools and reading circles which they rapidly +established everywhere. + +Although this movement fell eventually under the suspicion of the +Government, as in despotic countries any movement will, it seems to have +had no political, or what the authorities call "ill-intentioned" +purpose. It was pervaded with patriotic and humanitarian feeling, and +though no doubt many of the nihilists who took part in it held as +extreme opinions in politics as they did in everything else, yet these +opinions were mere matters of speculation. It is certain that democratic +and revolutionary socialism was a very popular doctrine among the +nihilists, even at that earliest period of their history, for their most +representative man during that period was Tchernycheffsky, the editor of +the _Contemporary_ magazine, and a political economist of some note in +his day; and Tchernycheffsky was undoubtedly a democratic and +revolutionary socialist. He belonged to a younger generation than Herzen +and Bakunin, but, like them, he had been led to socialism through Hegel +and Feuerbach, and he expounded his ideas in a famous romance entitled, +"What is to be done?" which the Government allowed him to write, and +even to publish, while in prison for sedition in 1862, though they +suppressed the book sternly when they saw it beginning to make a +sensation. + +But although revolutionary and socialistic principles may have been very +considerably entertained by the nihilists from the first, there was no +practical revolutionary or socialistic organization before the +emancipation of the serfs. Up till then nihilism may be said to have +been a benignant growth, if I may use a medical expression, and it was +that great historical measure that converted it into the malignant and +deadly trouble which we best know. The Russian Radicals, including the +socialists, were strongly disappointed with that measure from the +outset, because they thought it inflicted serious injustice on the +peasantry. It deprived them, they said, of much of the land they had +hitherto enjoyed as a right, and which was necessary for their +comfortable subsistence, while it imposed on them for what they got +excessive dues which their holdings would never be able to bear; and so +the first Land and Liberty League was founded in 1863. But it was not +the peasants, or the peasants' friends--it was the small landed gentry +who were the first to feel the effects of the Emancipation Act, and to +raise the standard of revolt. The Act made a serious change in their +fortunes. Although the landlords were allowed most liberal terms of +compensation for the enforced emancipation of their serfs, few of them +actually received a kopeck, because they were almost all of them already +deeply indebted to Government, and Government applied the compensation +money to cancel their old debts, and gave up the policy of granting any +more mortgages in the future. Then a great part of the land which was +formerly cultivated by means of the serfs was now found to be too poor +to afford the expense of paid labour; the landlords had neither stock +nor implements to work it, if it were more fertile, the peasantry having +in the old days tilled the field for them with their own horses and +ploughs; nor had they any means of raising the stock on credit, and, +besides, most of them were complete absentees, engaged as Government or +railway officials, or in other professional work, and knew nothing +whatever about the business of agriculture. The smaller landlords have +therefore been compelled to sell their estates to the larger, or to +leave much of their ground entirely uncultivated. In Moscow there were +633 separate estates in 1861, before the emancipation, but only 422 in +1877, and not more than one-fifth of the land that was cultivated in +that province in 1861 continued in cultivation in 1877. Many of the sons +of the smaller proprietors were at the universities studying for one of +the professions, and had either to give up their studies altogether for +want of means, or were put on shorter allowances, which was scarcely +less annoying, and was indeed a great cause of revolutionary opinions at +the universities. Many more of the sons of the gentry were in the army, +and the pay of a Russian officer being extremely small, they had been +accustomed to receive allowances from home, without which, indeed, they +could hardly live; and now in the altered circumstances of the family +these allowances were perforce suddenly stopped. Much of the +revolutionary discontent that exists in the Russian army to such a +serious extent that 200 arrests were made in March, 1885, and Government +appointed a special commission of inquiry into the subject, has come +from the source, and is practically a revolt against insufficient pay. +But what happened at the universities and in the army happened in other +departments of Russian life; the Emancipation Act had left on every +shore some wreckage of the gentry, an upper-class and educated +proletariat, whose distress might be due originally to their own +improvidence or ignorance, but was undoubtedly first driven into an +acute state by an act of Government, and therefore clamoured for +vengeance on the Government that produced it. + +The clamour of the victims of the Emancipation Act naturally woke up all +the earlier discontents of the country. The Poles and the dissenting +sects, with all their ancient wrongs, seem to have contributed but a +small contingent to the nihilist ranks; but the Jews, subject to a +barbarous and often very acute persecution, have filled the secret +societies from the beginning with many of their most determined members, +and have supplied a great part of the "Nihilistesses"; and even though +the Revolutionary Executive Committee has latterly issued a proclamation +against the Jews, mainly on the ground of the extortion practised by +Jewish money-lenders on the peasantry, there are still, as appears very +abundantly from the nihilist trials of 1890, many Jews among the +revolutionists. + +Then there are thirteen millions of native heretics in Russia, sects of +various sorts springing up like the early Quakers from the bosom of the +people, and filled with a rude spirit of freedom and a tendency towards +socialistic ideas in their condemnation of luxury and accumulation, +their hatred of war and military government, and their belief in +fraternity and mutual assistance. Some writers allege that these sects +are an important factor in the revolutionary movement; but though they +certainly have suffered many wrongs from Government, they do not seem to +have furnished any great quota to the revolutionary ranks. They are the +freethinkers of the unlettered classes, however, and their ideas no +doubt have some influence in preparing these classes for socialist +principles. But there is another class very numerous in Russia, who are +the natural allies of revolution--the "illegal men" who, for various +reasons, go about on false passports, and are thus living in revolt +already. And to all these diverse sources of disaffection must be added +the aggravation arising at the moment from the tyrannical and arbitrary +measures to which the Government resorted on the first outburst of +complaints. + +In 1862, perceiving the discontent raised by the Emancipation Act, +Government took alarm, and withdrew or curtailed the liberties it had +for a few years allowed the people to enjoy. It stopped some newspapers +and warned a number more; it prohibited the Sunday schools and reading +clubs altogether; it banished many persons on mere suspicion to remote +provinces; and for a greater example it cast the eminent writer +Tchernycheffsky into prison on a charge of exciting the peasantry to +revolt, and after leaving him there without trial for nearly two years, +brought him out at length to a public square in St. Petersburg, read out +to him a sentence of transportation, broke a sword over his head, and +sent him to the Siberian mines for the rest of his life. There he still +remains, broken now both in mind and body, but probably doing more harm +to the Government by his wrongs than he could ever have done by his pen, +for nihilists have for twenty-seven years been constantly exciting +popular sympathy by descriptions of his martyrdom and demands for his +release. + +It was while this alienation against the Government was thickening that +Michael Bakunin escaped from Siberia, and it was by emissaries sent by +Bakunin to Russia that the first successful attempt was made to incite +and organize all these revolutionary materials into a revolutionary +movement. When Bakunin came back in 1862 and joined Herzen in London, +the two old friends found their ideas had parted far asunder during +their long separation. Herzen had, from his twelve years' observation of +affairs, broadened from revolutionist to statesman, and had no patience +now for the extravagance of the young Russian patriots who visited him +in London. "Our black earth," he would say, "needs a deal of draining." +And there is a remarkable letter which he wrote shortly before his +death, and apparently to Bakunin himself, in which he says:-- + +"I will own that one day, surrounded by dead bodies, by houses destroyed +with balls and bullets, and listening feverishly as prisoners were being +shot down, I called with my whole heart and intelligence upon the savage +force of vengeance to destroy the old criminal world, without thinking +much of what was to come in its place. Since that time twenty years have +gone by; the vengeance has come, but it has come from the other side, +and it is the people who have borne it, because they comprehended +nothing either then or since. A long and painful interval has given time +for passions to calm, for thoughts to deepen; it has given the necessary +time for reflection and observation. Neither you nor I have betrayed our +convictions; but we see the question now from a different point of view. +You rush ahead, as you did before, with a passion of destruction, which +you take for a creative passion; you crush every obstacle; you respect +history only in the future. As for me, on the contrary, I have no faith +in the old revolutionary methods, and I try to comprehend the march of +men in the past and in the present, to know how to advance with them +without falling behind, but without going on so far before as you, for +they would not follow me--they could not follow me!" + +Herzen gradually lost hold over the wilder forces in Russia, he was +even openly denounced as a reactionary by the revolutionist Dolgourouki; +and when he alienated the more moderate parties likewise by his support +of the Polish insurrection of 1863, his spell vanished, and during the +remaining seven years of his life his influence was of little account. + +Bakunin was more in unison with the troubled spirit of the times. While +Herzen had been ripening in political wisdom under the ampler +intellectual life to which his exile introduced him, Bakunin's twelve +years' confinement had maddened him into a fanatic, and instead of +curing him of revolutionary propensities, only fixed the idea of +revolution in his mind like a mania. When he came to London a huge, +haggard man, always excited, always talking, he used to speak of himself +as a Prometheus unbound, and he was to live henceforth for the undoing +of the powers and systems that were. He was never found without a group +of conspirators and refugees of all shades and nationalities about him. +With some reminiscences of socialistic philosophy remaining in the +background of his mind, his only real interest now was revolution, and +he seemed always thenceforth to look on his socialism as a means of +revolution rather than on revolution as a means to socialism. His +socialism itself had grown less sane--it was no longer the anarchism of +the old days: it was what he called "amorphism"--society not merely +without governmental institutions, but without institutions of any kind; +and he was domineered by the thought of a universal revolution, in which +all States and Churches and all institutions religious, political, +judicial, financial, academical, and social should perish in a common +destruction. "Amorphism" and "Pan-destruction" are not articles of a +rational creed, but they were propagated with almost preternatural +energy by Bakunin. The work of exciting revolution and disorder of any +kind was the main business of his life till he died in 1876. Others +might play a waiting game, but for him the work of the revolutionist was +revolution; and he ought to be incessantly promoting it, not by word +only, but by deed, by an unremitting terrorism, by shooting a policeman +when you can't reach a king, and destroying a Bastile if you cannot +overturn an empire. In his "Revolutionary Catechism," written in +cipher, but read by the public prosecutor at a Russian nihilist trial in +1871, he says (I quote the passage from M. de Laveleye):-- + +"The revolutionist is a man under a vow. He ought to have no personal +interests, no business, no sentiments, no property. He ought to occupy +himself entirely with one exclusive interest, with one thought and one +passion: the Revolution.... He has only one aim, one science: +destruction. For that and nothing but that he studied mechanics, +physics, chemistry, and medicine. He observes with the same object, the +men, the characters, the positions and all the conditions of the social +order. He despises and hates existing morality. For him everything is +moral that favours the triumph of the Revolution. Everything is immoral +and criminal that hinders it.... Between him and society there is war to +the death, incessant, irreconcilable. He ought to be prepared to die, to +bear torture, and to kill with his own hands all who obstruct the +revolution. So much the worse for him if he has in this world any ties +of parentage, friendship, or love! He is not a true revolutionist if +these attachments stay his arm. In the meantime he ought to live in the +middle of society, feigning to be what he is not. He ought to penetrate +everywhere, among high and low alike; into the merchant's office, into +the church, into the Government bureaux, into the army, into the +literary world, into the secret police, and even into the Imperial +Palace.... He must make a list of those who are condemned to death, and +expedite their sentence according to the order of their relative +iniquities.... A new member can only be received into the association by +a unanimous vote, and after giving proofs of his merit not in word but +in action. Every 'companion' ought to have under his hand several +revolutionists of the second or third degree, not entirely initiated. He +ought to consider them part of the revolutionary capital placed at his +disposal, and he ought to use them economically, and so as to extract +the greatest possible profit out of them.... The most precious element +of all are women, completely initiated, and accepting our entire +programme. Without their help we can do nothing." + +Bakunin naturally turned his first attention to his own country, and +the subsequent development of Russian affairs show sufficiently distinct +signs of his ideas and influence. + +In 1865 he sent a young medical student named Netchaieff to Moscow, to +work among the students there, and Netchaieff had, by 1869, established +a number of secret societies, which he linked together under the name of +the Russian Branch of the International Working Men's Association. This +organization was not very numerous--no Russian secret society is--but in +1873 as many as eighty-seven persons were brought to trial for +connection with it, and in 1866 one of its members, a working man called +Karakasoff, who was suffering from an incurable disease, made the first +attempt on the life of the Czar--an event which had most important +effects on the course of Russian politics. It rang out the era of +reform, and rang in the era of reaction. The popular concessions which +the Czar had already given he now began to withdraw. The people had +never got, as they expected, an independent judiciary--perhaps in an +autocratic country a judiciary independent of the executive is hardly +possible--but they had enjoyed some pretence of public trial, and now +that pretence was done away, and Karakasoff and his companions were not +brought before the court at all, but tried and condemned by an +extraordinary commission, with a military officer of approved ferocity +at its head. Administrative trial and administrative condemnation became +again the regular rule in Russia; and though these things were borne in +the days of Nicholas as almost matters of course, they were now deeply +resented as fresh invasions of right and direct breaches of imperial +promises. Then the bodies to which a certain amount of the local +government of the country, the management of roads, schools, poor, +health, etc., had been entrusted, were obstructed in the exercise of +their powers, or gradually deprived of their powers altogether, and +forced into complete dependence on the imperial executive. The students +at the universities began to be interfered with in their sick and +benefit societies and their reading circles; their studies in the +class-rooms were restricted to what was thought a safe routine; and even +their private lives and motions were watched with an exasperating +espionage. People felt the hand of the despot pressing back upon them +everywhere, and they felt it with a most natural and righteous recoil. +This reactionary policy, which has continued ever since--this return to +the hated old methods of arbitrary and repressive rule--produced, as was +inevitable, deep and general discontent at the very moment when the +great historical measure of serf emancipation was desolating the +families of the landed gentry, province after province; and when the +execution of the Emancipation Act was completed in 1870, Russian society +was already quivering with dangerous elements of revolt. + +From that time evidences of an active revolutionary propaganda +multiplied rapidly every year. In 1871 and 1872 the writings of the +German socialists were translated and ran into great favour. Even of +Marx's far from popular work, "Capital," a large edition was eagerly +bought up, and ladies of position baptized their children in the name of +Lassalle. Secret societies were discovered both north and south. From +1873 to 1877 nihilist arrests, nihilist prosecutions, nihilist conflicts +with the police, were the order of the day, till at length, in 1878, the +young girl, Vera Sassulitch, fired the shot at the head of the Russian +police which began that long vendetta between the revolutionists and the +executive, in which so many officials perished, and eventually, in 1881, +after many unsuccessful attempts, the Czar himself was so cruelly +assassinated. + +The ardent youth of Russia, who, in 1861, were still giving themselves +to the work of Sunday schools and reading circles, were, in 1871, +throwing their careers away to go out, like the first apostles, without +scrip or two coats, and propagate among the rude people of the provinces +the doctrines of modern revolutionary socialism, and by 1881 had become +absorbed in sheer terrorism, in avenging the official murder of comrades +without trial by the revolutionary murder of officials, in contriving +infernal plots and explosions, and trying vainly to cast out devils by +the prince of devils. + +Stepniak attributes the impetus which the socialist agitation received +in 1871 to the impression produced in Russia by the Paris Commune; but +it would perhaps be more correct simply to ascribe it to the exertions +of two active Russian revolutionists, who were themselves associated +with the Communard movement, and who happened to enjoy at this period +unusual facilities of communication with the younger mind of Russia. One +was Bakunin, who had himself organized an insurrection at Lyons on the +principles of the Commune six months before the outbreak at Paris in +March, 1871; and the other was Peter Lavroff, the present Nestor of +Russian nihilism, who actually took part in the Paris Commune itself. +Lavroff, who had been a colonel in the Russian army, and professor in +the military college of St. Petersburg, was compromised in the attempt +of Karakasoff in 1866 and administratively banished to Archangel; but, +as happens so singularly often in Russia, he escaped in 1869, and lived +to edit a revolutionary journal in Zurich, and play for a time no +inconsiderable part in making trouble in Russia. At present, +communications between the active revolutionists who are at work in +Russia and their predecessors who have withdrawn to Western Europe are +entirely interrupted; but they were still abundant twenty years ago. +Partly in consequence of the reactionary educational policy of the +Government, young Russians flocked at that time to Switzerland for their +education, and were there conveniently indoctrinated into the new gospel +of the International. Bakunin and Lavroff were both in Zurich, and in +the year 1872 there were 239 Russian students, male and female, in +Zurich alone. These young people were, of course, in continual +intercourse with the older refugees. Bakunin and Lavroff both held +stated and formal lectures on socialism and revolution, which were +always succeeded by open and animated discussions of the subject treated +in them. A little later there were, according to Professor Thun, four +distinct groups among the Russian revolutionists in Zurich, some of them +caused by personal quarrels. But from the first there were always two, +one of whom swore by Bakunin, and the other by Lavroff. + +Bakunin was an anarchist--an "amorphist" even, as we have seen--and he +believed in the propaganda of deeds. Every little village, he thought, +should make its own revolution; and if it could not make a revolution, +it might always be making a riot, or an explosion, or a fire, or an +assassination of some official, or something else to raise panic or +confusion. All this seemed to Lavroff and his friends to be unmitigated +folly. They too believed in revolution; but in their view revolution, to +be successful, must be organized and simultaneous; it must, above all, +first have the peasantry on its side; and therefore, instead of the mad +and premature propaganda of deed, the true policy for the present was +manifestly "going into the people," as they termed it--that is, an +itinerant mission to indoctrinate the people into the faith of the +coming revolution. Then, again, Lavroff, though, like almost all Russian +revolutionists, an anarchist, was not, like most of them, prepared to +dispense all at once with the State. He thought the new society would +eventually be able to do without any central authority, but not at +first, nor for a considerable time, the length of which could not now be +more precisely determined. In this Lavroff and his party stood much +nearer the Social Democrats of Germany than other Russian nihilists, and +they have come nearer still since then. They have cast off the Russian +commune, of which the early nihilists made so great an idol. They see +that it is an old-world institution doomed to dissolution, and rapidly +undergoing the process. + +The two tendencies--diverging both in principle and in tactics--appeared +in Russia as well as Zurich. At first the more peaceful method +prevailed. Lavroff's idea of "going into the people" was the enthusiasm +of the hour, and brought upon the scene the typical nihilist +missionary--the young man of good birth who laid down station and +prospects, learnt a manual trade, browned his hands with tar and his +face by smearing it with butter and lying in the sun, put on the +peasant's sheepskin, and then, with a forged pass, procured at the +secret nihilist pass factory, and a few forbidden books in his wallet, +set off "without road" to be a peasant with peasants, if by any means he +could win them over to the cause; and the still more remarkable young +woman who went through a marriage ceremony to obtain the right of +independent action, and the moment the ceremony was over, left father +and mother and husband and all in order to work among the peasants of +the Volga as a teacher or nurse, and live on milk and groats according +to Tchernycheffsky's prescription in "What is to be Done?". Stepniak +justly remarks that "the type of propagandist of the first lustre of +1870-80 was religious rather than revolutionary. His hope was +socialism, his God the people. Notwithstanding all the evidence to the +contrary, he firmly believed that from one day to the other the +revolution was about to break out, as in the middle ages people believed +at certain periods in the approach of the day of judgment." +("Underground Russia," p. 30.) + +For some years these ascetic devotees might be found in every corner of +broad Russia, working as shoemakers or joiners most of them (why these +were the favourite trades does not appear), or as hawkers of images or +tea, or, perhaps, like Prince Krapotkin, as painters. Some of them went +as horse-dealers, from a dreamy idea that the horses might prove useful +in the day of revolution. They all belonged to one or other of the +secret societies which, as we have seen, began to spring up about 1863, +and grew numerous in the next ten or fifteen years. None of these +societies, however, was of any great importance. Professor Thun mentions +four varieties of them. First, the Malikowsy, a handful of apparently +harmless and amiable enthusiasts--a kind of Russian Quakers--who +believed in one Malikov, and called themselves "God-men," because they +held every man had a "divine spark" in him, and was therefore every +other man's equal and brother. Second, the Bakunists, who adopted +Bakunin's programme of "deeds," but did not, till 1875, think of putting +it to practice. Third, the Lavrists, who sent the money to print +Lavroff's newspaper in Zurich, the _En Avant_, and who seem to have +gradually imbibed German socialism to the extent of thinking the Russian +commune a reactionary and decaying institution not worth stirring a +finger to preserve, and who called for the nationalization of land and +capital. And fourth,--much the most important society,--the +Tchaikowskists, founded in 1869 by one Tchaikowski, who is now a teacher +in London, but was then a student at St. Petersburg. Prince Krapotkin +belonged to this society, and so did Sophia Perowskaia. It was at first +a convivial and mutual improvement club, but from discussing forbidden +subjects and circulating among its members forbidden books it grew into +natural antagonism to Government, and became a focus of revolutionary +agitation. Most of the 193 socialists who were tried in 1874-7 belonged +to it, and that protracted trial killed the society and put an end to +the mission "into the people." + +Government had marked the new propaganda with great jealousy. In Russia, +no propaganda among the peasants can remain unobserved. When a stranger +arrives at a Russian village, he is immediately the common talk, +whatever he says passes from mouth to mouth, and he may even be invited +to state his views publicly in the _mir_. A mission conducted under +these conditions soon attracted the notice of the authorities, who, in +1874, discovered it in thirty-seven different provinces of Russia, and +arrested as many as 774 of the propagandists. Some of these were at once +banished administratively to Siberia, and of the rest, 193 were, four +years afterwards, brought up for trial and condemned. With these +apprehensions the nihilist movement collapsed for the moment. Thun +states that Lavroff's newspaper during that period adopted a tone of +despair, and the revolutionists who escaped arrest recognised very +clearly that their scheme of "going into the people" was a complete +mistake, and that some safer and more effective system of tactics must +be concocted. They fell upon two different expedients. The first was the +plan of nihilist colonization. To avoid detection by the authorities, a +band of revolutionists settled down in a given district in a body, got +personally acquainted with the peasantry about them, and then, after +acquiring a sufficient knowledge of their characters, proceeded with due +prudence to impart their ideas to those who seemed most trustworthy, +hoping in this way to be able, unobserved, eventually to leaven the +whole lump. The other plan they now resorted to was an approach to the +tactics of Bakunin, and in the very year, 1876, in which that old +revolutionist died, they began a series of socialist demonstrations at +Odessa, Kasan, and elsewhere, which made a little local sensation at the +time. This was the very opposite kind of tactics to the cautious system +of colonization that was pursued simultaneously with it, but there is +always in revolutionary organization only a step between reticence and +rashness. Open demonstrations like those practised at that period were +simply suicidal folly in Russia, where the forces of the Government were +so immeasurably superior to the forces of the demonstrationists. + +In 1878 they changed tactics again, inaugurating that system of +terrorism by which they are best known in the West, and which has given +them a name there at which the world turns pale. The determination to +adopt this system of tactics sprang from an accidental circumstance. The +day after the trial of the 193 ended, one of their comrades, the young +woman Vera Sassulitch, called on General Trepoff, the head of the St. +Petersburg police, on pretence of business, and while he was reading her +papers, shot him with a revolver, flung her weapon on the ground, and +allowed herself to be quietly arrested; and when she was brought up for +trial, pled justification on the ground that her act was merely +retaliation on the General for having subjected a friend of hers, a +young medical student, to a brutal and causeless flogging while in +prison on a political charge. The court having acquitted her, she was +received by the public with every demonstration of enthusiasm, and it +was this remarkable public sympathy that made the revolutionaries +terrorists. They resolved to take up V. Sassulitch's idea of +retaliation, and apply it on a great scale. The whole public of Russia +was at that time considerably flushed with indignation against the +imperial Government. The war in Turkey had revealed, as wars always do, +a great deal of rottenness in the public administration; it had brought +nothing but humiliation and debt upon the country, and it had exacted +cruel sacrifices from the people merely to confer on the Bulgarians the +political and constitutional liberty which was still denied to the +Russians themselves. For the moment the old cry for a constitution rose +again in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and there was a deep feeling far +beyond the circles of the revolutionists that an end should be put to +the autocratic _regime_. The revolutionists found powerful encouragement +in all this outbreak of displeasure. Stepniak, who was himself one of +the most active of them at that period, says their real strength lay, +not in their numbers--which he admits to have been few--but in the +general sympathy they received from what he calls the revolutionary +nation around them. They had however special wrongs of their own to +avenge; hundreds of their friends had been transported without trial; +and in the case of the 193, whose trial was just over, the few who had +been acquitted were nevertheless denied their liberty by the Czar, and +banished administratively to Siberia after all; so that while Russian +society was clamouring on public grounds for the downfall of the +autocratic system, the revolutionists, for revenge, determined upon the +death of the autocrat himself. The various secret societies had united +into a single body, called first the "Troglodytes," and then "Land and +Liberty," for the better prosecution of the nihilist colonization +scheme; but in 1879 they broke again into two parties, one of which, the +Will of the People party, adopted terrorism as its exclusive business +for the time, issued, through its famous executive committee, sentences +of death on the Czar and the State officials; and after making ten +attempts on high officials, five of them fatal, and four attempts on the +Czar himself, finally succeeded in their fifth on the 13th of March, +1881. With this party the political side of their programme overshadowed +the socialistic, and their first demand from the new Czar was for a +constitution. + +The other party--the party of the Black Division--is an agrarian party, +living on the growing discontent of the peasantry, and nursing their cry +for what in Russia is known as the Black Division. It is an old belief +among the Russian people that when the land possessed at any time by the +communes should become too small for the increasing population of the +communes, there would be a new division of all the land of the country, +including, of course, the great estates now owned by the _noblesse_, so +that every inhabitant might be once more accommodated with his proper +share of the soil. This great secular redistribution is the black +division, and it belongs as naturally to the Russian peasants' system of +agrarian ideas as the little local and periodical divisions that take +place within the communes themselves. The Black Division section of the +revolutionists are terrorist in their methods like the other section, +but they care nothing about a constitution, which they say is only a +demand of the _bourgeoisie_, but of no interest or good to the peasant +at all. They have the old aversion to centralized government, which we +have seen to be almost the tradition of Russian revolutionists; they are +all for strengthening the communes, and for a light federal connection; +and of all phases of the Russian revolutionary movement under the reign +of the present Czar theirs is the most important, because it is founding +itself on real and deepening rural discontent, and becoming +substantially a peasants' cry for more land and less rent and taxes. + +I have already referred to the astonishing growth of a Russian +proletariat since the Emancipation Act. Professor Janson, an eminent +Russian statistician, calculated that as many as a fourth of the people +of St. Petersburg--229,000 out of 876,000--got public relief in the year +1884. Stepniak, in his recent work on the Russian peasantry, asserts +that a third of the rural population, or 20,000,000 souls in all, are in +the condition of absolute proletarians, and his account of the situation +is entirely supported by the descriptions of a competent and +unprejudiced German economist, Professor Alphonse Thun, who speaks +partly from the results of official inquiries instituted by the Russian +Government into the subject, and partly from his own personal +observation during a continuous residence of two years in the country. +As the subject is of importance to the student of socialistic +institutions as well as of the nihilist movement, I shall make no +apology for devoting some observations to its explanation. + +In the first place, though it has never been well understood in Western +Europe, some ten per cent. of the Russian rural population have no legal +claim to a share of the land at all; these are old men who are past +working, widows with children too young to be able to work, and men who +at the time of the Emancipation were personal servants of the great +landowners, and consequently not members of any village commune. Men of +this last class may reside in a village, and may keep a shop or practise +a trade there; but not being born villagers, they possess no right to +participate in the distribution of the village land. They are as much +outside the communistic system as the nobles or the foreign residents. +Russian citizenship alone is not enough to give a right to the land; +local birth in a commune is also an essential pre-requisite, and ability +to work is another. A family gets one share for every able-bodied member +it contains; the share is therefore called a "soul" of land; and +although between one distribution and another the widow may still +retain the "soul" that belonged to her husband, and hire a hand to work +it, yet on the next redistribution she must give it up unless she has a +son who in the meantime has grown to man's estate. The landless widow +and orphan must have been an occasional incident of the Russian village +system from all times; but the incursion of dismissed domestic menials +with no birthright in the commune has arisen only in recent years, when, +in consequence of a conspiracy of causes, so many of the nobility have +been obliged to reduce their establishments. + +In the next place, a communistic tenure which gives every new-comer a +right to share in the land of his native village on an equal footing +with those who are already in possession could hardly fail to lead to +excessive subdivision, and in Russia at this moment scarce one family in +a hundred has land enough to furnish its maintenance for half the year. +The usual size of holding is ten acres, of which--cultivated as they are +on the old three-field system--one third is always fallow, and the +remainder, in consequence of the rude method of agriculture that +prevails, yields only two, or at most three, returns of the seed. They +have no pasture, because at the time of the emancipation they preferred +to take out their whole claim in arable; and, having no pasture, they +cannot keep cattle as they formerly did because they cannot get manure. +According to the information of Professor Thun, in 1872 8 per cent. of +the families had no cow, and 4 per cent. no horse; and Stepniak says the +inventory of horses taken for military purposes in 1882 showed that +one-fourth of the peasant families had then no horse. Russia is, in +fact, a vast continent of crofters, practising primitive husbandry on +mere "cat's-plots" of land, and depending for the greater part of their +subsistence on some auxiliary trade. In one respect they have the +advantage over our Scotch crofters; they practise, in many cases, +skilled trades. Of course they work as ploughmen or fishermen when that +sort of work is wanted, or they will hire a piece of waste land from a +neighbouring owner and bring it into rude cultivation; but every variety +of craft is to be found among them. They are weavers, hatters, +cabinet-makers, workers in metals; they make shoes, or images, or +candles, or musical instruments, or grindstones; they dress furs, they +knit lace, they train singing-birds. According to the official inquiry, +most of the goods of some of the best commercial houses of Moscow, +trading in Parisian silk hats and Viennese furniture, are manufactured +by these peasants in their rural villages. A curious and very remarkable +characteristic is mentioned by Thun: not only has every Russian his +bye-industry, but every village has a different bye-industry from its +neighbour. One is a village of coopers--a very thriving trade, it +appears; another a village of tailors--a declining one, in consequence +of the competition of ready-made stuff from the towns; another--and +there are several such--may be a village of beggars, with mendicity for +their second staff; and another a village of seamen, going in a body in +spring to the Baltic or the Volga, and leaving only their women and +children to tend the farm till their return in the autumn. The Russians +always work in artels whether at home or abroad, and to work in artels +they must of course follow the same industry. Their individual earnings +in their auxiliary occupations are comparatively good; they make +three-fourths of their annual income from that source; but it seems +every trade is now overcrowded, and there is some difficulty in +obtaining constant employment. + +Then the burdens of the peasantry are very heavy. In Russia the superior +classes enjoy many exemptions from taxation, and the public revenue is +taken mainly from the peasant classes. The annual redemption money they +have to pay to the State for their land is a most serious obligation, +and between one thing and another the burdens on the land in a vast +number of cases exceed its net return very considerably. Professor Thun +states, that in 2,009 cases of letting holdings which had occurred in +the province of Moscow at the time he wrote, the average rent received +was only 3 roubles 56 kopecks per "soul" (land-share), while the average +taxation was 10 roubles 30 kopecks. Stepniak says that in the +thirty-seven provinces of European Russia the class who were formerly +State peasants pay in taxes of every description no less than 92.75 per +cent. of the average net produce of their land; and that the class who +were formerly serfs of private owners pay as much as 192.25 per cent. of +the net produce of theirs. Landowning on these terms is manifestly a +questionable privilege, and the _moujik_ pays his land taxes as the +Scotch crofter has sometimes to pay his rent, not out of the produce of +his holding, but out of the wages of his auxiliary labour; but the +Scotch crofter, under his system of individual tenure, has one great +resource which is wanting to the other: he can always cut the knot of +his troubles by throwing up his holding, if he chooses, and emigrating. +To the Russian peasant emigration brings no relief. He is born a +proprietor, and cannot escape the obligation of his position wherever he +may go. He may try to let his ground--and in many cases he does--but, as +we see, he cannot often get enough rent to meet the dues. He may leave +his village, if he will, but his village liabilities travel with him +wherever he may settle. He cannot obtain work anywhere in Russia without +showing his pass from his own commune; and since, under the principle of +joint liability that rules in the communistic system, the members of the +commune who remain at home would have to pay the emigrant's arrears if +he failed to pay them himself, they are not likely to renew the pass to +a defaulter. The Russian peasants are thus nearly as much _adstricti +glebae_ as they ever were; they are now under the power of the commune as +completely as they were before under the power of their masters; and +their difficulty is still how they can possibly obtain emancipation. +Sometimes they will defy the commune, forego the advantage of a lawful +pass, crowd the ranks of that large body in Russia who are known as the +"illegal men," and sometimes, we are assured by Professor Thun, a whole +village, every man and every family, will secretly disappear in a body +and seek refuge from the tax-collector by settling in the steppes. The +natural right of every man to the land is thus, in the principal country +where any attempt is made to realize it, nothing but a harassing +pecuniary debt. + +Now this class of worse than landless emigrants--men who carry their +land as a perpetual burden on their back from which they can get no +respite--is already very numerous in Russia. Thun says there are +millions of them. As far back as 1872, nearly half the town population +of Moscow and more than a fifth of the population of the landward +district were strangers, who were inscribed members of rural communes +elsewhere; and in many purely country districts some 14 per cent. of the +people have no houses because they are not living in the villages they +belong to. Sir Robert Morier says in his report to the Foreign Office in +September, 1887, on Pauperism in Russia (p. 2): "It is officially stated +that in each of the larger provinces, such as Kursk, Tambow, Kostroma, +etc., over 100,000 peasants have abandoned the plot of ground granted to +them (8 acres) on one pretext or another in order to seek means of +subsistence elsewhere. (This probably means flocking to the larger +towns.) The number of beggars in 71 Governments was stated to be +300,000, of which 182,000 were peasant proprietors. This number is, +however, far below the mark." But, as we learn from Stepniak, the bulk +of the landless peasants, _i.e._ those who no longer cultivate their +holdings, do not leave their native villages, but seek employment as +hirelings in the village itself or in its neighbourhood, and wander as +day labourers from one master to another. Their families continue to +live in their old cottage in the village, and the father returns to it +when out of employment. + +Their land is generally taken by a class of small usurers (_koulaks_) +who have grown up in every Russian village since the emancipation. These +koulaks are in most cases fellow-peasants who have saved some money, but +they are frequently strangers who have come and opened a store in the +place, and have no right of their own to a share in the land and in the +councils of the village. Stepniak mentions one province where as much as +from 24 to 36 per cent. of the land is concentrated into the hands of +these rich usurers. Even the peasants who still retain their land in +their own hands are often deeply indebted to them, and in some cases +part with bits of their land without parting with all; and the general +tendency of the present economic situation is to divide the peasantry of +every village into a class of comparatively rich peasants, on the one +hand, holding and cultivating most of the land, and a larger class of +rural proletarians, without land and having nothing to live by but their +manual trade. The tendency, in short, is towards the break-up of the +communal tenure, and instead of the Russian Commune invading Europe, as +Cavour once said there was fear it would do, we are likely to see the +individual tenure of Western Europe invading Russia and superseding +primitive rural institutions in that country, as it has already +superseded them in others. "It is quite evident," says Stepniak, "that +Russia is marching in this direction. If nothing happens to check or +hinder the process of interior disintegration in our villages, in +another generation we shall have on one side an agricultural proletariat +of sixty or seventy millions, and on the other a few thousand landlords, +mostly former koulaks and mir-eaters, in possession of all the land." It +is legally permissible at present for a Russian commune, if it so +choose, to abolish its communal system of property and adopt individual +property instead of it; and although this has been very seldom done as +yet, we are told by Thun that the rich peasants and the very poor +peasants are both strongly in favour of the step, because it would give +the one permanent ownership of the land and the other permanent relief +from its burdens. When a commune gets divided in this way into a rich +class of members and a poor class, the old brotherliness and mutual +helpfulness of the Russian village are said by the same authority always +to disappear and a more selfish spirit to take their place; but then it +should be remembered how much easier it is to assist a neighbour out of +a little difficulty of the way than to meet the unremitting claims of a +class that have sunk into permanent poverty. Anyhow, the temptation is +equally strong on both parties to escape from the worries of their +present situation through the rich buying out the poor. + +Another tendency working in the same direction is the rapid dissolution +of the old system of large house-communities that prevailed before the +emancipation. The average household has been reduced from seven and a +half to five souls, the married children setting up houses of their own +instead of dwelling under one roof with their father and grandfather. +The house is a mere hut, with no furniture but a table and a wooden +bench used by night for a bed, but still the separate _menage_ has +increased to an embarrassing extent the expenses of the peasant's living +at the very time that other circumstances have reduced his resources. +The reason for the break-up of the house-communities has been the desire +to escape partly from the tyranny of the head of the household, but +chiefly from the incessant quarrels that prevailed between the several +members about the amount they each contributed to the common funds as +compared with the amount they ate and drank out of them. One of the +brothers goes to St. Petersburg during the winter months as a cabman and +brings back a hundred roubles, while another gets work as a forester +near home, and earns no more than twenty-five. Now, according to an +author quoted by Stepniak, who is describing a family among whom he has +lived, the question always is: "Why should he (the forester) consume +with such avidity the tea and sugar dearly purchased with the cabman's +money? And in general, why should this tea be absorbed with such +greediness by all the numerous members of the household--by the elder +brother, for instance, who alone drank something like eighty cups a day +(the whole family consumed about nine hundred cups per diem) whilst he +did not move a finger towards earning all this tea and sugar? Whilst the +cabman was freezing in the cold night air, or busying himself with some +drunken passenger, or was being abused and beaten by a policeman on duty +near some theatre, this elder brother was comfortably stretched upon his +belly, on the warm family oven, pouring out some nonsense about +twenty-seven bears whom he had seen rambling through the country with +their whelps in search of new land for settlement." And so the quarrel +goes round; always the old difficulty of _meum_ and _tuum_, so hard to +reconcile except under a _regime_ of individual property. + +In fact, the shifts to which the Russian peasantry, like other +peasantries elsewhere, have been reduced to solve this difficulty in the +management of their common land constitute one main cause of their +agricultural backwardness and their consequent poverty. Elisee Reclus +calculates that if the Russian fields were cultivated like those of +Great Britain, Russia could produce, instead of six hundred and fifty +million hectolitres of corn annually, about five milliards, which would +be sufficient to feed a population of five hundred million souls. A few +lessons in good husbandry will do much more for the comfort of a people +than many changes of social organization; but good husbandry is +virtually impossible under a system of unstable tenure, which turns a +man necessarily out of his holding every few years for the purpose of a +new distribution of the land, and which compels him to take his holding, +when he gets it, in some thirty or forty scattered plots. +Redistributions, it is true, do not occur so very frequently as we might +suppose. As Russian land is all cultivated on a three years' rotation, +one might be apt to look for a new distribution every three years, but +that almost never occurs. Thun states that in the province of Moscow +during the twenty years 1858-1878 the average interval of distribution +was 121/2 years, four rotations; that 49 per cent. of the communes had a +distribution only once in 15 years, and 37 per cent. only once in 20 +years. The dislike to frequent distributions is growing, on the obvious +and very reasonable ground that they either discourage a man from doing +well by his land, or they inflict on him the grave injustice of +depriving him of the ground he has himself improved before he has reaped +from it the due reward of his labour. The tendency towards individual +property is therefore strongly at work here, and as this system of +periodical redistribution is established merely to give every man that +natural right by virtue of his birth to a share in the land, which is +now in so many cases such a delusive irony, the resistance to the new +tendency cannot be expected to be very resolute. The _runrig_ system of +cultivation, which prevails in Russia in the same form as it did in the +Highlands of Scotland, does not give any similar appearance of decay. +Stepniak says the peasants still prefer that arrangement because it +allows room for perfect fairness--perfect reconciliation of the _meum_ +and _tuum_--in the distribution of their most precious commodity, the +land, which always presents great variety as to quality of soil and +situation with respect to roads, water, the village, etc. Under a +communal system with many members this method of arrangement is almost +indispensable to avoid quarrels and prevent the indolent from shirking +their proper share of the work, but its agricultural disadvantages are +so great that it never long resists an improving husbandry. Although an +owner, the Russian peasant, in consequence of the shifting nature of his +subject, is said by Stepniak to have none of that passionate feeling of +ownership and that profound delight in his land which are characteristic +of the peasant proprietors of the West, but he has--what is really the +same thing--a deep sense of personal dignity from its possession, and he +feels himself to have lost caste if he is forced to give up his holding +and become a mere _batrak_, or wage labourer. All the pride of ownership +is already there, and in the changes of the immediate future it will +have plenty of opportunity for asserting its place. + +Under the pressure of this singular economic movement, the nihilist +agitation is now developing largely into a peasants' cry for more land +and less rent and taxes. As I have said, the Russian peasantry look for +the great black division once in an age. The "Old Believers" mix this +idea up with their dreams of a great millennial reign, and keep on +thinking that the day after to-morrow is to bring in the happy period +before the end of the world, when truth is to prevail and the land is to +be equally divided among all; and a feeling easily gets about among the +peasantry generally that the "black division" is at last coming. Such a +feeling was very widespread during the reign of the late Czar, and, +indeed, is still so. Rumours fly every now and then from hamlet to +hamlet like wildfire, no one knows whence or how, that the division is +to be made in a month, or a week, or a year; that the Czar has decreed +it, and when it does not come, that the Czar's wishes have for the time +been thwarted, as they had so often been thwarted before, by the selfish +machinations of the nobility. For the peasant has a profound and +touching belief in his Czar. There may be agrarian socialism in his +creed, but it is not the agrarian socialism of the schools. The first +article of his faith--and it would appear to be the natural faith of the +peasant all the world over--is that the earth is the Lord's and not the +nobility's; but his second is that the Czar is the Lord's steward, sent +for the very purpose of dividing the land justly among his people. If +the peasant hopes for the black division, he hopes for it from the Czar. +The Emancipation Act has been far from giving him the land or the +liberty he looked for, but he believes--and nothing will shake him out +of the belief--that the Emancipation Law which the Czar actually +decreed was a righteous law that would have met all the people's wishes +and claims, but that this law has been altered seriously to their +disadvantage, under the influence of the nobility, in the process of +carrying it into execution. But his confidence always is that the Czar +will still interfere and put everything to rights. And when, only a few +years ago, the revolutionist Stephanovitch stirred up some disturbances +in Southern Russia, which were commonly dignified at the time with the +name of a peasants' insurrection, he was only able to succeed in doing +what he did by first going to St. Petersburg with a petition from the +peasants of the district to the Czar, and then issuing on his return a +false proclamation in the Czar's name, commanding the people to rise +against the nobility, who were declared to be persistently obstructing +and defeating his Majesty's good and just intentions for his loyal +people's welfare. If an imperial proclamation were issued to the +contrary effect--a proclamation condemning or repudiating the operations +of the peasants--the latter would refuse to believe it to be genuine. +That occurs again and again about this very idea of the black division, +which has obtained possession of the brains of the rural population. It +often happens that in a season of excitement, like the time of the +Russo-Turkish war, or of famine, like the winter of 1880-81, the rumours +and expectations of the black division become especially definite and +lively, and lead to meetings and discussions and disturbances which the +Government think it prudent to stop. In 1879 the Minister of the +Interior, with this object in view, issued a circular contradicting the +rumours that were spread abroad, which was read in all the villages and +affixed to the public buildings. It stated, as plainly as it was +possible to state anything, that there would be no redistribution, and +that the landlords would retain their property; but it produced no +effect. Professor Engelhardt wrote one of his published "Letters from a +Village" at that very moment, and states that the _moujiks_ would not +understand the circular to mean anything more than a request that they +would for a time abstain from gossiping at random about the coming +redistribution. One of their reasons for making this odd +misinterpretation is curious. The circular warned the people against +"evil-intentioned" persons who disseminated false reports, and gave +instructions to the authorities to apprehend them. These +evil-intentioned persons were, of course, the nihilist agitators, who +were making use of these reports to foment an agrarian insurrection; but +the peasants took these enemies of the Government to be the landlords +and others who had, they believed, set themselves against the +redistribution movement and prevented the benevolence and righteous +purposes of the Czar from descending upon his people. In some parts of +Russia there has sprung up since 1870 a group of peasantry known as "the +medalmen," who have persuaded themselves that the Czar not only wants to +give them more land, but has long since decreed their exemption from all +taxation except the poll tax. They say, moreover, that he struck a medal +to commemorate this gracious design of his, which has been, as usual, so +wickedly frustrated by his subordinates; and that even, as things are, +one has but to get hold of one of these medals and show it to the +collector, and the collector is bound to give the holder the exemption +he wants. The medals to which so much virtue is ascribed are merely the +medals struck to commemorate the Emancipation of the Serfs; but the +"medalmen," who are generally men that have parted with their land, sold +their houses, and settled at the mines, pay very high prices for one of +these medals, wear it constantly about their necks, and think it will +secure them a genuine respite from the burden of taxation they have to +bear. + +The nihilist propagandists think--and the idea seems very +remarkable--that this childish and ignorant confidence in the Czar will +not be able to stand much longer the strain of the increasing +difficulties of the rural situation. The propagandists make it their +business to keep alive the idea of the black division in the hearts of +the _moujiks_, and make use of every successive disappointment at its +continued delay as an instrument of alienating the affections of the +people from the throne. A peasantry are very slow to throw over old +sentiments, and will suffer long before breaking with the past, but they +take a sure grip of their own interest, and they will turn sometimes +very decisively and very gregariously to new deliverers. The Russian +peasants see themselves settled on plots of ground too small to work +with profit, and overburdened with taxes; they have to pay sixty per +cent. of all their earnings in dues of all kinds on their land; and they +cast their eyes abroad and see two-thirds of the country still +unpossessed by the people, one-half still owned by the State, and +one-sixth by the greater landowners; and with the communistic ideas in +which they have been nursed, they feel that it is time for a new +division of the greater order to take place. A gigantic crofter question +is impending, and this agrarian agitation for more land is likely enough +to make nihilism a more formidable thing in the future than it has been +in the past. Hitherto it has taken little hold of the peasantry. At +first it was a movement of educated young Russia merely, and might be +counted with the ordinary intellectual excesses of youth. It only became +a serious political force after the Emancipation Act; but it was still a +movement of the upper classes, and in spite of immense exertions it has +remained so. The situation, however, is rapidly changing, and with the +rise--so remarkable in many ways--of a numerous rural proletariat in the +country that was supposed to enjoy special protection against it, with +the growing distress and discontent of the peasantry, with the louder +and more persistent cries for the black division, which their hereditary +conception of agrarian justice suggests to them as the only solution of +their troubles, who will say what to-morrow may bring forth? + +Meanwhile the Will of the People party has continued its activity. We +still hear occasionally of murders, and demonstrations, and arrests, and +discoveries of nihilist plots on the life of the Czar or of high +servants of the Crown, and of alarming discoveries of the hold the +movement was taking in the army. But, according to one of the most +recent writers on the subject, the author of "Socialismus und +Anarchismus, 1883-1886," who admits, however, that it is very difficult +to obtain authentic information about it under the rigorous system of +repression at present practised by the Russian authorities, a small +section of this party, whom he calls the followers of Peter Lavroff, +have been developing more in line with German Social Democracy, and have +organized themselves into a society called the Labour Emancipation +League, which prefers peaceful means of agitation, and in March, 1885, +published its programme, demanding (1) a constitution, (2) the +nationalization of land, (3) the handing over of factories to the +possession of societies of productive labourers, (4) free education, (5) +abolition of a standing army, and (6) full liberty of association and +meeting. The same writer states, however, that this socialist group are +not numerous, and that the various robberies, murders, plots against the +Czar's life, incitements of peasant disturbances, seizures of weapons +and printing presses that keep on occurring, show that the nihilists, as +the others still appear to be called, are much the most active and the +most important section of the revolutionary party. He mentions also that +in 1884 considerable sensation was produced by the discovery of an +anarchist secret society in Warsaw, with several magistrates at its +head, which aimed at creating a revolution in Poland,--Prussian and +Austrian Poland, as well as Russian,--and rebuilding the Polish nation +on a socialist basis. On the apprehension of its leaders it dissolved, +but sprang to life again almost immediately in two separate +organizations--one directly allied with the Russian Terrorists, and the +other, under the influence of a Jew named Mendelssohn, suppressing its +Polish nationalism for the present, and linking itself with the Russian +socialists--presumably the followers of Lavroff just mentioned. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +SOCIALISM AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. + + +The renewal of the socialist agitation has not been unproductive of +advantage, for it has led to a general recognition that the economic +position of the people is far from satisfactory and is not free from +peril, and that industrial development, on the lines on which it has +hitherto been running, offers much less prospect than was at one time +believed of effecting any substantial, steady, and progressive +improvement in their condition. It is only too manifest that the immense +increase of wealth which has marked the present century has been +attended with surprisingly little amelioration in the general lot of the +people, and it is in no way remarkable that this fact should tend to +dishearten the labouring classes, and fill reflecting minds with serious +concern. Under the influence of this experience economists of the +present day meet socialism in a very different way from Bastiat and the +economists of 1848. They entertain no longer the same absolute +confidence in the purely beneficent character of the operation of the +principles at present guiding the process of industrial evolution, or in +the sovereign virtue of competition, unassisted and unconnected, as an +agency for the distribution as well as the production of wealth; and +they no longer declare that there is not and cannot possibly be a social +question. On the contrary, some of them take almost as unfavourable a +view of the road we are on as the socialists themselves. Mr. Cairnes, +one of the very ablest of them, says: "The fund available for those who +live by labour tends, in the progress of society, while growing actually +larger, to become a constantly smaller fraction of the entire national +wealth. If, then, the means of any one class of society are to be +permanently limited to this fund, it is evident, assuming that the +progress of its members keeps pace with that of other classes, that its +material condition in relation to theirs cannot but decline. Now, as it +would be futile to expect, on the part of the poorest and most ignorant +of the population, self-denial and prudence greater than that actually +practised by the classes above them, the circumstances of whose life are +so much more favourable than theirs for the cultivation of these +virtues, the conclusion to which I am brought is this, that unequal as +is the distribution of wealth already in this country, the tendency of +industrial progress--on the supposition that the present separation +between industrial classes is maintained--is towards an inequality +greater still. The rich will be growing richer; and the poor, at least +relatively, poorer. It seems to me, apart altogether from the question +of the labourer's interest, that these are not conditions which furnish +a solid basis for a progressive social state; but having regard to that +interest, I think the considerations adduced show that the first and +indispensable step towards any serious amendment of the labourer's lot +is that he should be, in one way or other, lifted out of the groove in +which he at present works, and placed in a position compatible with his +becoming a sharer in equal proportion with others in the general +advantages arising from industrial progress." ("Leading Principles," p. +340.) He thinks it beyond question that the condition of the labouring +population is not so linked to the progress of industrial improvements +that we may count on it rising _pari passu_ with that progress; because, +in the first place, the labourer can only benefit from industrial +inventions which cheapen commodities that enter into his expenditure, +and the bulk of his expenditure is on agricultural products, which are +prevented from being cheapened by the increase of population always +increasing the demand for them; and, second, the labourer is practically +more and more divorced from the control of capital, and reduced to the +position of a recipient of wages, and there is no tendency in wages to +grow _pari passu_ with the growth of wealth, because the demand for +labour, on which, in the last analysis, the rate of wages depends, is +always in an increasing degree supplied by inventions which dispense +with labour. He is thus debarred from participating in the advantages of +industrial progress either as consumer or as producer: as consumer, by +over-population; as producer, by his divorce from capital. Mr. Cairnes, +like most economists, differs from socialists in thinking that the first +requisite for any material improvement in the condition of the labouring +classes lies in effective restraints on population, but he says that +"even a very great change in the habits of the labouring classes as +bearing upon the increase of population--a change far greater than there +seems any solid ground for expecting--would be ineffectual, so long as +the labourer remains a mere receiver of wages, to accomplish any great +improvement in his state; any improvement at all commensurate with what +has taken place and may be expected hereafter to take place in the lot +of those who derive their livelihood from the profits of capital" (p. +335). Here he is entirely at one with socialists in believing that the +only surety for a sound industrial progress lies in checking the further +growth of capitalism by the encouragement of co-operative production, +which, by furnishing the labouring classes with a share in the one fund +that grows with the growth of wealth, the fund of capital, offers them +"the sole means of escape from a harsh and hopeless destiny" (p. 338). +Mr. Cairnes, then, agrees with the socialists in declaring that the +position of the wage-labourer is becoming less and less securely linked +with the progressive improvement of society, and that the only hope of +the labourer's future lies in his becoming a capitalist by virtue of +co-operation; only, of course, he is completely at issue with them in +regard to the means by which this change is to be effected, believing +that its introduction by the direct intervention of the State would be +unnecessary, ineffectual, and pernicious. + +I am disposed to think that Mr. Cairnes takes too despondent a view of +the possibilities of progress that are comprised in the position of the +wage-labourer, but it is precisely that view that has lent force to the +socialist criticism of the present order of things, and to the socialist +calls for a radical transformation by State agency. The main charges +brought by socialists against the existing economy are the three +following, all of which, they allege, are consequences of the +capitalistic management of industry and unregulated competition:--1st, +that it tends to reduce wages to the minimum required to give the +labourer his daily bread, and that it tends to prevent them from rising +above that minimum; 2nd, that it has subjected the labourer's life to +innumerable vicissitudes, made trade insecure, mutable and oscillatory, +and created relative over-population; and, 3rd, that it enables and even +forces the capitalist to rob the labourer of the whole increase of value +which is the fruit of his labour. These are the three great heads of +their philippic against modern society: the hopeless oppression of the +"iron and cruel law" of necessary wages, the mischief of incessant +crises and changes and of the chaotic _regime_ of chance, and the +iniquity of capital in the light of their doctrine of value. Let us +examine them in their order. + + +I. Socialists found their first charge partly on their interpretation of +the actual historical tendency of things, and partly on the teaching of +Ricardo and other economists on natural wages. Now, to begin with the +question of historical fact, the effect which has been produced by the +large system of production on the distribution of wealth and the general +condition of the working class is greatly misconceived by them. So far +as the distribution of wealth is concerned, the principal difference +that has occurred may be described as the decadence of the lower middle +classes, a decline both in the number of persons in proportion to +population who enjoy intermediate incomes, and also in the relative +amount of the average income they enjoy. Their individual income may be +higher than that of the corresponding class 150 or 200 years ago, but it +bears a less ratio to the average income of the nation. The reason of +this decline is, of course, obvious. The yeomanry, once a seventh of our +population, and the small masters in trade have gradually given way +before the economic superiority of the large capital or other causes, +and modern industry has as yet produced no other class that can, by +position and numbers, fill their room; for though, no doubt, the great +industries call into being auxiliary industries of various kinds, which +are still best managed on the small scale by independent tradesmen, the +number of middling incomes which the greater industries have thus +contributed to create has been far short of the number they have +extinguished. The same causes have, of course, exercised very important +effects on the economic condition of the working class. They have +reduced them more and more to the permanent position of wage-labourers, +and have left them relatively fewer openings than they once possessed +for investing their savings in their own line, and fewer opportunities +for the abler and more intelligent of them to rise to a competency. This +want may perhaps be ultimately supplied under existing industrial +conditions by the modern system of co-operation, which combines some of +the advantages of the small capital with some of the advantages of the +large, though it lacks one of the chief advantages of both, the +energetic, uncontrolled initiative of the individual capitalist. But at +present, at any rate, it is premature to expect this, and as things +stand, many of the old pathways that linked class with class are now +closed without being replaced by modern substitutes, and working men are +more purely and permanently wage-labourers than they used to be. But +while the wage-labourer has perhaps less chance than before of becoming +anything else, it is a mistake to suppose, as is sometimes done, that he +is worse off, or even, as is perhaps invariably imagined, that he has a +less share in the wealth of the country than he had when the wealth of +the country was less. On the contrary, the position of the wage-labourer +is really better than it has been for three hundred years. If we turn to +the period of the English Revolution, we find that the income which the +labourer and his family together were able to earn was habitually +insufficient to maintain them in the way they were accustomed to live. +Sir M. Hale, in his "Discourse Touching the Poor," published in 1683, +says the family of a working man, consisting of husband, wife, and four +children, could not be supported in meat, drink, clothing, and +house-rent on less than 10s. a week, and that he might possibly be able +to make that amount, if he got constant employment, and if two of his +children, as well as their mother, could earn something by their labour +too. Gregory King classifies the whole labouring population of the +country in his time, except a few thousand skilled artisans, among the +classes who decrease the wealth of the country, because, not earning +enough to keep them, they had to obtain occasional allowances from +public funds. We do well to grieve over the pauperism that exists now +in England. A few years ago, one person in every twenty received +parochial support, and one in thirty does so yet. These figures, of +course, refer to those in receipt of relief at one time, and not to all +who received relief during a year. But for Scotland we have statistics +of both, and the latter come as nearly as possible to twice as many as +the former. If the same proportion rules in England, then every +fifteenth person receives relief in the course of the year.[4] But in +King's time, out of a population of five millions and a half, 600,000 +were in receipt of alms, _i.e._, more than one in ten; and if their +children under 16 years of age were included, their number would amount +to 900,000, or one in six. Now, while the labourers' wages were then, as +a rule, unequal to maintain them in the way they lived, we know that +their scale of living was much below that which is common among their +class to-day. The only thing which was much cheaper then than now was +butcher meat, mutton being only 2d. a lb., and beef, 11/4d.; but half the +population had meat only twice a week, and a fourth only once. The +labourer lived chiefly on bread and beer, and bread was as dear as it is +now. Potatoes had not come into general use. Butter and milk were +cheaper than now, but were not used to the same extent. Fuel, light, and +clothing were all much dearer, and salt was so much so as to form an +appreciable element in the weekly bill. When so many of the staple +necessaries of life were high in price, the labourer's wages naturally +could not afford a meat diet. Nothing can furnish a more decisive proof +of the rise in the real remuneration of the wage-labourer since the +Revolution than the fact that the wages of that period were insufficient +to maintain the lower standard of comfort prevalent then, without +parochial aid, while the wages of the same classes to-day are generally +able to maintain their higher standard of comfort without such +supplementary assistance. Then the hours of labour were, on the whole, +longer; the death rate in London was 1 in 27, in place of 1 in 40 now; +and all those general advantages of advancing civilization, which are +the heritage of all, were either absent or much inferior. + +These facts sufficiently show that if the rich have got richer since the +Revolution, the poor have not got poorer, and that the circumstances of +the labouring class have substantially improved with the growth of +national wealth. As far as their mere money income is concerned there is +some reason for thinking that the improvement has been as near as may be +proportional with the increase of wealth. The general impression is the +reverse of this. It is usual to hear it said that while the labourers' +circumstances have undoubtedly improved absolutely, they have not +improved relatively, as compared with the progress in the wealth of the +country and the share of it which other classes have succeeded in +obtaining. But this impression must be qualified, if not entirely +rejected, on closer examination. Data exist by which it can be to some +extent tested, and these data show that while considerable alterations +have been made in the distribution of wealth since the rise of the great +industries, these alterations have not been unfavourable to the +labouring classes, but that the proportion of the wealth of the country +which falls to the working man to-day is very much the same--is indeed +rather better than worse--than the proportion which fell to his share +two hundred years ago. Gregory King made an estimate of the distribution +of wealth among the various classes of society in England in 1688, +founded partly on the poll-books, hearth-books, and other official +statistical records, and partly on personal observation and inquiry in +the several towns and counties of England; and Dr. C. Davenant, who says +he had carefully examined King's statistics himself, checking them by +calculations of his own and by the schemes of other persons, pronounces +them to be "very accurate and more perhaps to be relied on than anything +that has been ever done of a like kind." Now, a comparison of King's +figures with the estimate of the distribution of the national income +made by Mr. Dudley Baxter from the returns of 1867, will afford some +sort of idea--though of course only approximately, and perhaps not very +closely so--of the changes that have actually occurred. King takes the +family income as the unit of his calculations. Baxter, on the other +hand, specifies all bread-winners separately--men, women, and children; +but to furnish a basis of comparison, let us take the men as +representing a family each, and if so, that would give us 4,006,260 +working-class families in the country in 1867. This is certainly a high +estimate of their number, because in 1871 there were only five million +of families in England; and according to the calculations of Professor +Leone Levi, the working class comprises no more than two-thirds of the +population, and would consequently consist in 1871 of no more than +3,300,000 families. If we were to take this figure as the ground of our +calculations, the result would be still more striking; but let us take +the number of working-class families to have been four millions in 1867. +The average income of a working-class family in King's time was L12 12s. +(including his artisan and handicraft families along with the other +labourers); the average income of a working class family now is L81. The +average income of English families generally in King's time was L32; the +average income of English families generally now is L162. The average +income of the country has thus increased five-fold, while the average +income of the working class has increased six and a half times. The +ratio of the working class income to the general income stood in King's +time as 1:21/2, and now as 1:2. In 1688, 74 per cent. of the whole +population belonged to the working class, and they earned collectively +26 per cent. of the entire income of the country; in 1867--according to +the basis we have adopted, though the proportion is doubtless really +less--80 per cent. of the whole population belonged to the working +class, and they earned collectively 40 per cent. of the entire income of +the country. Their share of the population has increased 6 per cent.; +their share of the income 14 per cent. + +Now, I am far from adducing these considerations with the view of +suggesting that the present condition of the working classes or the +present distribution of wealth is even approximately satisfactory, but I +think they ought to be sufficient to disperse the gloomy apprehensions +which trouble many minds as if, with all our national prosperity, the +condition of the poorer classes were growing ever worse and could not +possibly, under existing industrial conditions, grow any better; to +prevent us from prematurely condemning a system of society, whose +possibilities for answering the legitimate aspirations of the working +class are so far from being exhausted, that it may rather be said that a +real beginning has hardly as yet been made to accomplish them; and to +give ground for the hope that the existing economy, which all admit to +be a most efficient instrument for the production of wealth, may, by +wise correction and management, be made a not inadequate agency for its +distribution. + +The socialists are not more fortunate in their argument from the +teaching of economists than in their account of the actual facts and +tendency of history. The "iron and cruel law" of necessary wages is, as +expounded by economists, neither so iron nor so cruel as Lassalle +represented it to be. They taught that the price of labour, like the +price of everything else, tended to settle at the level of the relative +cost of its production, and that the cost of its production meant the +cost of producing the subsistence required to maintain the labourer in +working vigour and to rear his family to continue the work of society +after his day; but they always represented this as a minimum below which +wages would not permanently settle, but above which they might from +other causes remain for a continuity considerably elevated, and which, +even as a minimum, was in an essential way ruled by the consent of the +labouring classes themselves, and dependent on the standard of living +they chose habitually to adopt. If the rate of wages were forced down +below the amount necessary to maintain that customary standard of +living, the marriage rate of the labouring classes would tend to fall +and the rate of mortality to rise till the supply of labour diminished +sufficiently to restore the rate of wages to its old level. And +conversely, if the price of labour rose above that limit, the marriage +rate among the labouring class would tend to rise and the rate of +mortality to fall, till the numbers of the working population increased +to such an extent as to bring it down again. But the rate of marriage +depended on the will and consent of the labouring class, and their +consent was supposed to be given or withheld according as they +themselves considered the current wages sufficient or insufficient to +support a family upon. The amount of the labourer's "necessary" +subsistence was never thought to be a hard and fast limit inflexibly +fixed by physical conditions. It was not a bare living; it was the +living which had become customary or was considered necessary by the +labourer. Its amount might be permanently raised, if in consequence of a +durable rise of wages a higher standard of comfort came to be habitual +and to be counted essential, and the addition so made to it would then +become as real an element of natural or necessary wages in the economic +sense as the rest. Its amount might also permanently fall, if the +labourers ceased to think it necessary and contentedly accommodated +their habits to the reduced standard, and there might thus ensue a +permanent degradation of the labourer, such as took place in Ireland in +the present century, when the labouring class adjusted themselves to +reduction after reduction till their lower standard of living served, in +the first place, to operate as an inducement to marriage instead of a +check on it, because marriage could not make things worse, and at least +lightened the burdens of life by the sympathy that shared them; and +served, in the second place, to impair the industrial efficiency of the +labourer till he was hardly worth better wages if he could have got +them. So far then was the doctrine of economists from involving any +"iron or cruel" limit that they always drew from it the lesson that it +was in the power of the labouring classes to elevate themselves by the +pleasant, if somewhat paradoxical, expedient of first enlarging their +scale of expenditure. "Pitch your standard of comfort high, and your +income will look after itself," is scarcely an unfair description of the +rule of prudent imprudence they inculcated on working people. They +believed that the chief danger to which that class was exposed was their +own excessive and too rapid multiplication, and they considered the best +protection against this danger to lie in the powerful preventive of a +high scale of habitual requirements. + +Moreover, Ricardo distinctly maintained that though the natural rate of +wages was determined as he had explained, yet the operation of that +natural law might be practically suspended in a progressive community +for an indefinite period, and that the rate of wages actually given +might even keep on advancing the whole time, because capital was capable +of increasing much more rapidly than population. The price of labour, he +taught, would in that case be always settled by the demand for it which +was created by the accumulation of capital, and the sole condition of +the accumulation of capital was the productive power of labour. The rate +of wages in a progressive community might therefore almost never be in +actual fact determined by this "iron and cruel law" at all, and so there +is not the smallest ground for representing economists as teaching that +the present system compels the rate of wages or the labourer's +remuneration to hover to and fro over the margin of indigence. + +Lassalle, then, built his agitation on a combination of errors. He was +wrong in his interpretation of the tendency of actual historical +development; he was wrong in his interpretation of the doctrine of +economists; and now, to complete the confusion, that doctrine is itself +wrong. If we are at all to distinguish a natural or normal rate of wages +from the fluctuating rates of the market, that natural or normal rate +will be found really to depend, not on the cost of producing +subsistence, but on the amount or rate of general production, or the +amount of production _per capita_ in the community, or, in other words, +on the average productivity of labour. It is manifest that this would be +so in a primitive condition of society in which industry was as yet +conducted without the intervention of a special employing class, for +then the wages of labour would consist of its product, and be, in fact, +as Smith says, only another name for it. It would depend, however, not +exclusively on the individual labourer's own efficiency, but also on the +fertility of the soil and the general efficiency of the rest of the +labouring community. While according to his own efficiency he would +possess a greater or smaller stock of articles, which, after providing +for his own wants, he might exchange for other articles produced by his +neighbours; the quantity he would get in exchange for them would be +great or small according to the degree of his neighbour's efficiency. +The average real remuneration of labour, or the average rate of wages, +in such a community would therefore correspond with the average +productivity of its labour. But the same principle holds good in the +more complex organization of industrial society that now exists, though +its operation is more difficult to trace. + +The price of labour is now determined by a struggle between the +labourer and the employer, and the fortunes of the struggle move between +two very real, if not very definitely marked, limits, the lower of which +is constituted by the smallest amount which the labourer can afford to +take, and the higher by the largest amount which the employer can afford +to give. The former is determined by the amount necessary to support +life, and the latter by the amount necessary to secure an adequate +profit. Now the space between these two limits will be always great or +small in proportion to the general productivity of labour in the +community. The general productivity of labour acts upon the rate of +wages in two ways, immediately and mediately. Immediately, because, as +is manifest, efficient labour is worth more to the employer than +inefficient; and mediately, as I shall presently show, because it +conduces to a greater diversion of wealth for productive purposes, and +so increases the general demand for labour. In modern society, as in +primitive, the labourer not only obtains a higher remuneration if he is +efficient himself, but gathers a higher remuneration from the efficiency +of his neighbours. + +This will be obvious at once to any one who reflects on the improved +remuneration of the common unskilled labourers. The man who works with +pick and shovel makes, according to Mr. Mulhall's estimate, L30 a year +now, while he only made L12 a year in 1800, when bread was about twice +as dear, and yet he probably did quite as good a day's work then as he +does now, except so far as his better wages have themselves helped his +powers of labour, through affording him a more liberal diet, and in that +case the same question is raised, How did he come to get these better +wages? It was not on account of an increase in his own production, for +that was the effect, not the cause; it was on account of the general +increase in the productivity of all labour round about him. The great +improvement in industrial processes have brought in more plentiful +times, and he shares in the general plenty, though he may not have +directly contributed to its production. He gets more for the same work, +not merely because people in general, with their larger surplus, can +afford to give him more, but because, having more to devote to +industrial investment, they increase the demand for labour till they are +obliged to give him more. + +The proximate demand for labour is, of course, capital, but the amount +of capital which a community tends to possess--in other words, the +amount of wealth it tends to detach for industrial investment--bears a +constant relation to the amount of its general production. There is a +disposition among economists to speak of the quantity of a nation's +savings, as if it was something given and complete that springs up +independently of industrial conditions, and as irrespectively of the +purpose to which it is to be applied as the number of eggs a fowl lays +or the amount of fruit a tree bears. But, in reality, it is not so. The +amount of a nation's savings is no affair of chance; it is governed much +more by commercial reasons than is sometimes supposed. It is no +sufficient account of the matter to say that men save because they have +a disposition to save, because there is a strong cumulative propensity +in the national character. They save because they think to get a profit +by saving, and the point at which the nation stops saving is the point +at which this expectation ceases to be gratified, the point at which +enough has been accumulated to occupy the entire field of profitable +investment which the community offers at the time. Some part of a +nation's savings will always have originated in a desire to provide +security for the future, but, as this part is less subject to +fluctuation, it exercises less influence in determining the extent of +the whole than the more variable part, which is only saved when there is +sufficient hope of gain from investing it. There may be said to be a +natural amount of capital in a country, in at least as true a sense as +there is a natural price of labour, or a natural price of commodities. +Capital has its bounds in the general industrial conditions and stature +of the community, but it moves and answers these conditions with much +more elasticity than the wage-fund theory used to acknowledge. It is, as +Hermann said, a mere medium of conveyance between consumer and consumer, +and has its size decreed for it by the quantities it has to convey. The +general demand for commodities is a demand for capital. It creates the +expectation of profit which capital is diverted from expenditure to +gratify, and since it is itself in another aspect the general supply of +commodities, it furnishes the possibilities for meeting the demand for +capital which it creates. This whole argument may seem to be reasoning +in a circle or wheeling round a pivot, and so in a sense it may be, for +the wheel of industry is circular. The rate of wages depends on the +demand for labour; the demand for labour depends on the amount of +capital; the amount of capital depends on the aggregate production of +and demand for commodities; and the amount of aggregate production +depends on the average productivity of labour. It is but a more +circuitous way of saying the same thing as the older economists said, +when they declared the rate of wages to depend on the supply of capital, +as compared with population; but it shows that the supply of capital is +a more elastic element than they conceived, that it adjusts and +re-adjusts itself more easily and sensitively to industrial conditions, +including perhaps even those of population, and that it is governed in a +very real way by the great primary factor that determines the whole size +and scale of the industrial system in all its parts, the general +productivity of labour. Taking one country with another, the rate of +wages will be found to observe a certain proportion to the amount of +production _per capita_ in the community. + +This view will be confirmed by a comparison of the actual rate of wages +prevalent in different countries. Lord Brassey has published an +important body of positive evidence tending to show that the cost of +labour is the same all over the world, that for the same wages you get +everywhere the same work, and that the higher price of labour in some +countries than in others is simply due to its higher efficiency. Mr. +Cairnes, who did not accept this conclusion unconditionally, had, +however, himself previously estimated that a day's labour in America +produced as much as a day and a third's in Great Britain, to a day and a +half's in Belgium, a day and three-fourths' or two days' in France and +Germany, and to five days' labour in India. Now, when due regard is had +for the influence of special historical circumstances, it will be found +that the rate of wages observes very similar proportions in these +several countries. In America it is higher than the relative +productivity of the country would explain, because a new country with +boundless natural resources creates a permanently exceptional demand for +labour; because the facilities with which land can be acquired and +wrought, even by men without previous agricultural training, affords a +ready correction to temporary redundancies of labour; and because the +labour itself is more mobile, versatile, and energetic in a nation +largely composed of immigrants. Other modifying influences also +interfere to preclude the possibility of a precise correspondence +between national rates of wages and national amounts of production _per +capita_, for different countries vary much in the extent of the fixed +capital they employ to economize personal labour. But enough has been +said to show that, if a natural rate of wages is to be sought at all, it +must be looked for, not in the cost of the production of subsistence, +but in the rate of the production of commodities; and while the standard +of living and the price of labour tend to some extent to keep one +another up, the higher standard of living prevalent among labourers in +some countries is a consequence much more than a condition of the higher +rate of wages, which the higher productivity of labour in those +countries occasions. + +There is therefore no ground for Lassalle's representation that the law +of necessary wages condemns ninety-six persons in every hundred to an +existence of hopeless misery to enable the other four to ride in luxury. +The principles that govern the rate of wages are much more flexible than +he supposed, and the experience of trade unions has sufficiently +demonstrated that it is within the power of the wage-labourers +themselves to effect by combination a material increase in the price of +their labour. Trade unions have taken away the shadow of despondency +that lay over the hired labourer's lot. Their margin of effective +operation is strictly limited; still such a margin exists, and they have +turned it to account. They have put the labourer in a position to hold +out for his price; they have converted the question of wages from the +question, how little the labourer can afford to take, into the question, +how much the employer can afford to give. They have been able, in trades +not subject to foreign competition, to effect a permanent rise in wages +at the expense of prices, and they can probably, in all trades, succeed +in keeping the rate of wages well up to its superior limit, viz., to the +point at which, while the skilful employers might still afford to give +more, the unskilful could not do so without ceasing to conduct a +profitable business and being driven out of the field altogether. For +unskilful management tells as ill on wages as inefficient labour. On the +other hand, high wages, like many other difficult conditions, +undoubtedly tend to develop skilful management. The employer is put on +his mettle, and all his administrative resource is called into action +and keen play. They who, like socialists, inveigh against this modern +despot, ought to reflect how much less possible it would have been for +wages to have risen, if industry had been in the hands of hired managers +who were not put to their mettle, because they had no personal stake in +the result. It must not be forgotten, however, that while trade unions +are able to keep the rate of wages up to its superior limit, they have +no power to raise that limit itself. This can only be done by an +increase in the general productivity of labour, and, in fact, the action +of trade unions could not have been so effective as it has been, unless +the high production of the country afforded them the conditions for +success. And since, in consequence of their action and vigilance, the +rate of wages in the trades they represent may be now taken as usually +standing close to its superior limit, the chief hope of any further +substantial improvement in the future must now be placed in the +possibility of raising that limit by an increased productivity. + +Of this the prospect is really considerable and promising. Of course +labourers will never benefit to the full from improvements in the +productive arts, until by some arrangement, or by many arrangements, +they are made sharers in industrial capital; but they will benefit from +these improvements, though in less measure, even as pure wage-labourers. +Their unions will be on the watch to prevent the whole advantage of the +improvement from going towards a reduction of the price of the commodity +they produce, and such reduction in the price of the commodity as +actually takes place will enable its consumers to spend so much the more +of their means on commodities made by other labourers, and to that +extent to increase the demand for the labour of the latter. But the +field from which I expect the most direct and extensive harvest to the +working class is the development of their own personal efficiency. At +present neither employers nor labourers seem fully alive to the +resources which this field is capable of yielding, if it were wisely and +fairly cultivated. Both classes are often so bent on immediate advantage +that they lose sight of their real and enduring interest. It is doubtful +whether employers are more slow to see how much inadequate remuneration +and uncomfortable circumstances impair efficiency and retard production, +or labourers to perceive how much limiting the general rate of +production tends to reduce the general rate of wages. In labour +requiring mainly physical strength, contractors sufficiently appreciate +the fact that their navvies must be well fed if they are to stand to +their work, and that an extra shilling a day makes a material difference +in the output. But in all forms of skilled labour, likewise, analogous +conditions prevail. Just as slave-labour is inefficient because it is +reluctantly given, and is wanting in the versatility and resourcefulness +that comes from general intelligence, so is free labour less efficient +or more efficient in exact proportion to its fertility of resource and +to the hopefulness and cheerfulness with which it is exerted; and both +conditions are developed in the working class in precise ratio with +their general comfort. The intelligent workman takes less time to learn +his trade, needs less superintendence at his work, and is less wasteful +of materials; and the cheerful workman, besides these merits, expends +more energy with less exhaustion. But men can have no hope in their work +while they live purely from hand to mouth, and you cannot spread habits +of intelligence among the labouring class, if their means are too poor +or their leisure too short to enable them to participate in the culture +that is going on around them. + +But if employers are apt to take too narrow a view of the worth of good +wages as a positive source of high production, labourers are apt to take +equally narrow views of the worth of high production as a source of good +wages. The policy of limiting production is expressly countenanced by a +few of their trade unions, with the concurrence, I fear, of a +considerable body of working-class opinion. This is shown in their idea +of "making work," in their prohibition of "chasing"--_i.e._, of a +workman exceeding a given average standard of production--and in their +prejudice against piecework. Their notion of making work is irrational. +They think they can make work by simply not doing it, by spinning it +out, by going half speed, under the impression that they are in this way +leaving the more over to constitute a demand for their labour to-morrow. +And so, in the immediate case in hand and for the particular time, it +may sometimes be. But if this practice were to be turned into a law +universal among working men, if all labourers were to act upon it +everywhere, then the general production of the country would be +immediately reduced, and the general demand for labour, and the rate of +wages, would inevitably fall in a corresponding degree. Instead of +making work, they would have unmade half the work there used to be, and +have brought their whole class to comparative poverty by contracting the +ultimate sources from which wages come. The true way to make work for +to-morrow is to do as much as one can to-day. For the produce of one +man's labour is the demand for the produce of another man's. There is +nothing more difficult for any class than to reach an enlightened +perception of its own general interest. + +The objection usually made to "chasing" and piecework is that they +always end in enabling employers to extract more work out of the men +without giving them any more pay, and that they conduce to +overstraining. Now piecework, without a fixed list of prices, is of +course liable to the abuse which, it is alleged, masters have made of +it. But with a fixed list of prices the labourers ought, with the aid of +their unions, to be as able to hold their own against the encroachments +of the masters under piecework as under day work, and piecework is so +decidedly advantageous, both to masters and to men, that it would be +foolish for the former to refuse the reasonable concession of a fixed +list of prices; and it would be equally foolish for the latter to oppose +the system under the delusive fear of a danger which it is amply in +their own power to meet. There is a good deal of force in the view of +Mr. William Denny, that piecework will prove the best and most natural +transition from the present system to a _regime_ of co-operative +production, because it furnishes many kinds of actual opportunities for +practising co-operation; but whatever may be the promise of piecework +for the age that is to come, there is no question about its promise for +the life that now is. Mr. Denny, speaking from experience in his own +extensive shipbuilding works at Dumbarton, says that "a workman under +piecework generally increases his output in the long run--partly by +working hard, but principally by exercising more intelligence and +arranging his work better--by about 75 per cent., while the total amount +of his wages increases by about 50 per cent., making a distinct saving +in the wages portion of the cost of a given article of about 14 per +cent." ("The Worth of Wages," p. 19.)[5] Similar testimony is given by +Goltz, Boehmert, and a writer in Engels' _Zeitschrift_ for 1868, as to +the effect of the introduction of piecework into continental industries, +and Roscher ascribes much of the industrial superiority of England to +the prevalence of piecework here. According to Mr. Howell, more than +seventy per cent. of the work of this country is done at present by the +piece, and the Trades' Union Commission found it the accepted rule in +the majority of the industries that came under their investigation; in +fact, in all except engineering, ironfounding, and some of the building +trades. The engineers entertain a strong objection to it, and their +union has sometimes expelled members who have persisted in taking it. +But the system works smoothly enough when an established price-list has +become a recognised practice of the trade. The objection that the piece +system leads to careless, scamped and inferior work, call hardly be +considered a genuine working-class objection. That is the look-out of +the masters, and they find it easier to check quality than to check +quantity. Another reason sometimes given against piecework is that under +it some men get more than their share in the common stock of work, but +there lurks in this reason the same fallacy which lies in the notion of +"making work," the fallacy of seeking to raise the level of wages by +limiting production, and so diminishing the common stock of work of +society. Labourers seem sometimes to harbour an impression as if they +were losing something when their neighbours were making more than +themselves. Work appears to them--no doubt in consequence of the +fluctuations and intermittent activity of modern trade--to come in +bursts and windfalls, nobody knows whence or how, and they are sometimes +uneasy to see the harvest being apparently disproportionately +appropriated by more active and efficient hands. But in the end, and as +a steady general rule, they are gainers and not losers by the efficiency +of the more expert workmen, because productivity, so far from drying up +the sources of work, is the very thing that sets them loose. + +A more important objection is the danger of overstraining, against which +of course the working class are wise to exercise a most jealous +vigilance. But, in the first place, it is easy to exaggerate this +danger. It is not really from any deepened drain on the physical powers +of the workmen, so much as from a quickening of his mental life in his +work, that increase in his productivity is to be expected. Mr. Denny, it +will be observed, attributes the additional output under piecework not +nearly so much to harder labour as to the exercise of more intelligence +and to a better arrangement of the work. But, in the next place, to my +mind the great advantage of piecework is that it affords a sound +economic reason for shortening the day of labour. The work being +intenser, demands a shorter day, and being more productive, justifies +it. If the figures I have quoted from Mr. Denny are at all +representative, then a labourer, working by the piece, can turn out 40 +per cent. more in eight hours than working by the day he can do in ten. +Differences may be expected to obtain in this respect in different +trades and kinds of work, so that there possibly cannot be any normal +day of labour for all trades alike, and each must adjust the term of its +labour to its own circumstances. But wherever piecework can increase the +rate of production to the extent mentioned by Mr. Denny, the day of +labour may be shortened with advantage, and it can apparently do so in +the very trades that most strongly object to it. A fact mentioned by Mr. +Nasmyth, in his remarkable evidence before the Trades Union Commission, +opens a striking view of the possibilities of increasing production +through developing the personal efficiency of the labouring class, and +of doing so without requiring any severe strain. "When I have been +watching men in my own work," he says, "I have noticed that at least +two-thirds of their time, even in the case of the most careful workmen, +is spent, not in work, but in criticising with the square or +straight-edge what they have been working, so as to say whether it is +right or wrong." And he adds--"I have observed that wherever you meet +with a dexterous workman, you will find that he is a man that need not +apply in one case in ten to his straight-edge or square." And why are +not all dexterous, or, at least, why are they not much more dexterous +than they now are? Mr. Nasmyth's answer is, because the faculty of +comparison by the eye is undeveloped in them, and he contends that this +faculty is capable of being educated in every one to a very much higher +degree than exists at present, and that its development ought to be made +a primary object of direct training at school. "If you get a boy," he +says, "to be able to lay a pea in the middle of two other peas, and in a +straight line with these two, that boy is a vast way on in the arts." He +has gone through a most valuable industrial apprenticeship before he has +entered a workshop at all. If, through training the eye, workmen can +save two-thirds of their time, it is manifest that there is abundant +scope for increasing productivity and shortening the day of labour at +the same time. Industrial efficiency is much more a thing of mind than +of muscle. _Jeder Arbeiter ist auch Kopfarbeiter._ All work is also +head work. Skill is but a primary labour-saving apparatus engrafted by +mind on eye and limb, and it is in developing the mental faculties of +the labourers by well-directed training, both general and technical, +that the chief conditions for their further improvement lie. Their +progress in intelligence may therefore be expected to increase their +productivity so as to justify a shortening of their day of labour, and +the leisure so acquired may be expected to be used so as to increase +their intelligence. Any advance men really make in the scale of moral +and mental being tends in this way to create the conditions necessary +for its maintenance. + +We sometimes hear the same pessimist prophecy about shorter hours as we +have heard for centuries about better wages, that they will only seduce +the working class to increased dissipation. But experience is against +this view. Of course more leisure and more pay are merely means which +the labourer may according to his habits use for his destruction as +easily as for his salvation. But the increase in the number of +apprehensions for drunkenness that frequently accompanies a rise in +wages proves neither one thing nor another as to the general effect of +the rise on the whole class of labourers who have obtained it; it proves +only that the more dissipated among them are able to get oftener drunk. +Nor can the singular manifestations which the full hand sometimes takes +with the less instructed sections of the working class, especially when +it has been suddenly acquired, furnish any valid inference as to the way +it would be used by the working class in general, particularly if it +were their permanent possession. The evidence laid before the House of +Lords Committee on Intemperance shows that the skilled labourers of this +country are becoming less drunken as their wages and general position +are improving; and Porter, in his "Progress of the Nation," adduces some +striking cases of a steady rise of wages making a manifest change for +the better in the habits of unskilled labourers. He mentions, on the +authority of a gentleman who had the chief direction of the work, that +"the formation of a canal in the North of Ireland for some time afforded +steady employment to a portion of the peasantry, who before that time +were suffering all the evils so common in that country which result +from precariousness of employment. Such work as they could previously +get came at uncertain intervals, and was sought by so many competitors +that the remuneration was of the scantiest amount. In this condition the +men were improvident to recklessness. Their wages, insufficient for the +comfortable maintenance of their families, were wasted in procuring for +themselves a temporary forgetfulness of their misery at the whisky shop, +and the men appeared to be sunk into a state of hopeless degradation. +From the moment, however, that work was offered to them which was +constant in its nature and certain in its duration, and on which their +weekly earnings would be sufficient to provide for their comfortable +support, men who had been idle and dissolute were converted into sober, +hardworking labourers, and proved themselves kind and careful husbands +and fathers; and it is stated as a fact that, notwithstanding the +distribution of several hundred pounds weekly in wages, the whole of +which, would be considered as so much additional money placed in their +hands, the consumption of whisky was absolutely and permanently +diminished in the district. During the comparatively short period in +which the construction of this canal was in progress, some of the most +careful labourers--men who most probably before then never knew what it +was to possess five shillings at any one time--saved sufficient money to +enable them to emigrate to Canada, where they are now labouring in +independence for the improvement of their own land" (p. 451). It may be +difficult to extirpate drunkenness in our climate even with good wages, +but it is certainly impossible with bad, for bad wages mean insufficient +nourishment, comfortless house accommodation, and a want of that +elasticity after work which enables men to find pleasure in any other +form of enjoyment. As with better wages, so with shorter hours. The +leisure gained may be misused, especially at first; but it is +nevertheless a necessary lever for the social amelioration of the +labouring class, and it will more and more serve this purpose as it +becomes one of their permanent acquisitions. There can be no question +that long hours and hard work are powerful predisposing causes to +drunkenness. Studnitz mentions that several manufacturers in America had +informed him that they had invariably remarked, that with solitary +exceptions here and there, the men who wrought for the longest number of +hours were most prone to dissipation, and that the others were more +intelligent, and formed on the whole a better class. Part of the +prejudice entertained by working men against piecework comes from the +fact that it is very often accompanied with overtime, and when that is +the case, it generally exerts an unfavourable effect on the habits of +the workman. Mr. Applegarth said, in his evidence before the Trades +Union Commission, that nothing degraded the labourer like piecework and +overtime. Mr. George Potter stated, in his evidence before the Select +Committee on Masters and Operatives in 1860, that it was a common saying +among working people with regard to a man who works hard by piecework +and overtime, that such a man is generally a drunkard. He ascribed much +of the intemperance of the labouring class to the practice of working +"spells"--_i.e._, heats of work at high pressure on the piece and +overtime system--instead of steadily; and he says--"When I was at work +at the bench, I worked to a firm where there was much overtime and +piecework, and I found that the men at piecework were men who generally +spent five or six times more money in intoxicating drink, for the +purpose of keeping up their physical strength, than the men at day work. +I find, on close observation, that the men working at piecework are +generally a worse class of men in every way, both in intelligence and +education, and in pecuniary matters." Now, the ill effects which issue +from piecework combined with overtime could not accrue from piecework +combined with shorter hours. Besides, in a case of this kind it is +sometimes difficult to say which is cause and which effect, or how much +the one acts and reacts on the other. For both Mr. Potter and the +manufacturers mentioned by Studnitz represent the men who wrought +longest as being not only more drunken, but less intelligent and +educated, and, in fact, as being every way inferior; and we can easily +understand how men of unsteady habits should prefer to work "spells," +and try to make up by excessive work three days in the week, for +excessive drinking the other three. + +Dissipation and overtime generally go together, but neither of them is +a necessary accompaniment of piecework. The best check to both is +probably the spread of general education among the working class, for +the better educated workmen are even at present usually found against +them; and the spread of general education--I do not speak here of +technical--among the working class is more fruitful than even piecework +itself in opening up fresh reserves of industrial efficiency in our +labouring manhood. Roscher has pointed out how a stimulant like +piecework produces in a fairly well-educated district twice the result +it produces in a comparatively illiterate one. Taking the figures of +Goltz on rural labour in different German States, he shows that while +the earnings of pieceworkers were only 11 per cent. higher than the +earnings of day-workers in Osnabruck, they were as much as 23 per cent. +higher in Hesse. Mr. Peshine Smith mentions that the Board of Education +in Massachusetts procured from overseers of factories in that State a +return of the different amounts of wages paid and the degree of +education of those who received them. Most of the work was done by the +piece, and it was found that the wages earned rose in exact ratio with +the degree of education, from the foreigners at the bottom who made +their mark as the signature of their weekly receipts to the girls at the +top who did school in winter and worked in factories in summer. In some +branches of industry many new improvements remain unused because the +workpeople are too ignorant to work them properly. Moreover, for the +supreme quality of resourcefulness, education is like hands and feet, +and if we may judge from the number of useful labour-saving inventions +which working men give us even now, we cannot set limits to the number +they will give when the whole labouring class will have got the use of +their mind by an adequate measure of general education, and when, as we +may hope, they will have got leisure to use it in through a shortening +of the day of labour. The possibilities of this last source are very +well illustrated by an experiment of Messrs. Denny. In 1880 they +established in their ship-building yard at Dumbarton an award scheme for +recompensing inventions made by their workmen for improving existing +machinery or applying it to a new class of work, or introducing new +machinery in place of hand labour, or discovering any new method of +arranging or securing work that either improved its quality or +economized its cost. Mr. William Denny stated, after the scheme had been +nearly seven years in operation, that in that time as many as 196 awards +had been given for inventions which were thought useful to adopt, that +three times that number had been submitted for consideration, and that +besides being beneficial in causing so many useful improvements to be +made, the scheme had the effect of making the workmen of all departments +into active thinking and planning beings instead of mere flesh and blood +machines. + +I cannot, therefore, take so dark a view as is sometimes entertained of +the futurity of the wage-labourer, even if he were compelled to remain +purely and permanently such. His position has substantially improved in +the past, and contains considerable capabilities for continued +improvement in the future. Of course the action of trade unions, besides +being confined to the limits I have described, is subject to the further +restriction, that it can only avail for the labourers who belong to +them, and is indeed founded on the exclusion or diminution of the +competition of others. They impose limitations on the number of +apprentices, and prescribe a certain standard of efficiency, loosely +ascertained, as a condition of membership. There can be no manner of +objection to the latter measure, nor does the former, though it is +manifestly liable to abuse and is sometimes vexatious in its operation, +seem to be practically worked so as to diminish the labour in any +particular industry beneath the due requirements of trade, or to create +an unhealthy monopoly. Then, though the trade unionists gather their +gains by keeping off the competition of others, it cannot be said that +these others are necessarily in any worse position than they would have +occupied if trade unions had never come into existence. It may even be +that through the operation of custom, which will always have an +influence in settling the price of labour, a certain benefit may be +reflected upon them from a rise in the usual price effected by trade +union agency. But in any case, it is no sound objection to an agency of +social amelioration that its efficiency is only partial, for it is not +so much to any single panacea, as to the application of a multitude of +partial remedies, that we can most wisely trust for the accomplishment +of our great aim. + + +II. The second main count in the socialist indictment of the present +industrial system is that it has multiplied the vicissitudes of trade, +and so imposed an incurable and distressing insecurity upon the +labourer's lot. The rapidity of technical transformation and the +frequency of commercial crises create, it is alleged, a perpetual +over-population, driving ever-increasing proportions of the labourers +out of active employment into what Marx calls the industrial reserve, +the hungry battalions of the half-employed or the altogether unemployed. +In regard to technical transformation, the effects of machinery on the +working class are now tolerably well understood. Individuals suffer in +the first instance, but the class, as a whole, is eventually a great +gainer. Machinery has always been the means of employing far more hands +than it superseded, when it did supersede any (for it has by no means +invariably done so). There is no way of "making work" like producing +wealth. The increased production due to machinery cheapens the +particular commodities produced by it, and thus enables the purchasers +of these commodities to spend more of their income on other things, and +so practically to make work for other labourers. But even in the trades +into which the machinery has been imported, the effect of its +introduction has been to multiply, instead of curtailing, employment. +Take the textile trades--much the most important of the machine +industries. Mr. Mulhall, in his "Dictionary of Statistics" (p. 338), +gives the following statistics of the textile operatives in the United +Kingdom at various dates:-- + + + Year. Men. Women. Children. Total. + 1835 82,000 167,000 104,000 353,000 + 1850 158,000 329,000 109,000 596,000 + 1880 232,000 543,000 201,000 976,000 + + +Marx and others dwell much on the fact, that machinery leads frequently +to the substitution of female for male labour; but the preceding table +shows that while female labour has been largely multiplied, male labour +has been scarcely less so, and besides, a more extensive engagement of +women is in itself no public disadvantage. For half the question of our +pauperism is really the question of employment for women, it being so +much more difficult to find work for unemployed women than for +unemployed men; and if the course of industrial transformation opens up +new occupations that are suitable for them, it is so far entirely a +social gain, and no loss. No doubt, though the good accruing from +industrial transformation far outweighs the evil, yet evil does accrue +from it, and evil of the kind alleged, the tendency to develop local or +temporary redundancies of labour. But then that is an evil with which we +have never yet tried to cope, and it may probably be dealt with as +effectively on the present system as on any other. Socialism would stop +it by stopping the progress which it happens to accompany, and would +therefore envelop society in much more serious distress than it sought +to remove. In Marx's remarkable survey of English industrial history +almost every conquest of modern civilization is viewed with regret; but +it is manifestly idle to think of forcing society back now to a state in +which there should be no producing for profit, but only for private use, +no subdivision of labour, no machinery, no steam, for these are the very +means without which it would be impossible for our vastly increased +population to exist at all. What may be done to meet the redundancies of +labour that are always with us is a difficult but pressing question +which I cannot enter upon here. State provision of work--even in +producing commodities which are imported from abroad, and which might +therefore be produced in State workshops without hurting home +producers--has many drawbacks, but the problem is one that ought to be +faced, and something more must be provided for the case than workhouse +and prison. + +In regard to commercial crises, they are rather lessening than +increasing. They may be more numerous, for trade is more extensive and +ramified, but they are manifestly less violent than they used to be. The +commercial and financial crises of the present century have been +moderate in their effects as compared with the Darien scheme, Law's +speculations in France, or the Tulip mania in the Low Countries, and +under the influence of the beneficial expansion of international +commerce and the equally beneficial principle of free trade, we enjoy +now an absolute immunity from the great periodical visitation of famine +which was so terrible a scourge to our ancestors. Facts like these are +particularly reassuring for this reason, that they are the result, +partly of better acquaintance with the principles of sound commercial +and financial success, and partly of the equalizing effect of +international ramifications of trade, and that these are causes from +which even greater things may be expected in the future, because they +are themselves progressive. There is no social system that can +absolutely abolish vicissitudes, because many of them depend on causes +over which man has no possible control, such as the harvests of the +world, and others on causes over which no single society of men has any +control, such as wars; and, besides, it is possible to do a great deal +more under the existing system than is at present done, to mitigate and +neutralize some of their worst effects. To provide the labouring +population with the security of existence, which is one of their +pressing needs, a sound system of working class insurance must be +devised, which shall indemnify them against all the accidents and +reverses of life, including temporary loss of work as well as sickness +and age, and it is not too much to hope, from the amount of attention +which the subject is at present attracting, that such a system will be +obtained. As far as yet appears, the scheme proposed by Professor Lujo +Brentano, to which I have already referred, is, on the whole, the +soundest and most satisfactory in its general principles that has been +advanced. + +Again, much of the instability of trade arises from the want of +commercial statistics, and the consequent ignorance and darkness in +which it must be conducted. More light would lessen at once the mistakes +of well-meaning manufacturers and the opportunities of illegitimate and +designing speculation. Socialists count all speculation illegitimate, +because they fail to see that speculation, conducted in good faith, +exercises a moderating influence upon the oscillations of prices, +preventing them from falling so low, or rising so high, as they would +otherwise do. Speculation has thus a legitimate and beneficial work to +perform in the industrial system, and if it performed its work rightly, +it ought to have the opposite effect from that ascribed to it by +socialists, and to conduce to the stability of trade, instead of shaking +it. But unhappily an unscrupulous and fraudulent spirit too often +presides over this work. Schaeffle, who is not only an eminent political +economist, but has been Minister of Commerce to one of the great powers +of Europe, says that when he got acquainted with the bourse, he gave up +believing any longer in the economic harmonies, and declared theft to be +the principle of modern European commerce. Socialists always take the +bourse to be the type of capitalistic society, and the fraudulent +speculator to be the type of the bourse, and however they may err in +this, there is one point at any rate which it is almost impossible for +them to exaggerate, and that is the mischief accruing to the whole +community--and, as is usual with all general evils, to the working class +more than any other--from the prevalence of unsound trading and inflated +speculation. Confidence is the very quick of modern trade. The least +vibration of distrust paralyzes some of its movements and depresses its +circulation. Enterprise in opening new investments is indeed more and +more indispensable to the vitality of modern industry, but the mischiefs +of misdirected enterprise are as great as the benefits of well-directed. +Illegitimate speculation is very difficult to deal with. It can never be +reached by a public opinion which worships success and bows to wealth +with questionless devotion. Nor is it practicable for the State to put +it down by direct measures. But the State may perhaps mitigate it +somewhat by helping to procure a good system of commercial statistics, +for unsound speculation thrives in ignorance, and may be to some extent +prevented by better knowledge. The socialist demand for commercial +statistics is therefore to be approved. They would benefit everybody but +the dishonest dealer. They would not only be a corrective against +unsound speculation, but they would tend to smooth the conflicts between +capital and labour about the rate of wages, and the working class in +America press the demand on the ground of their experience of the +benefits they have already derived from the Labour Statistical Bureaux +established in certain of the States there. Some of our own most weighty +economic authorities are strongly in favour of a measure of this kind. +Mr. Jevons, for example, says: "So essential is a knowledge of the real +state of supply and demand to the smooth procedure of trade, and the +real good of the community, that I conceive it would be quite legitimate +to compel the publication of requisite statistics. Secrecy can only +conduce to the profit of speculators who gain from great fluctuations of +prices. Speculation is advantageous to the public only so far as it +tends to equalize prices, and it is therefore against the public good to +allow speculators to foster artificially the inequalities of prices by +which they profit. The welfare of millions, both of consumers and +producers, depends on an accurate knowledge of the stocks of cattle and +corn, and it would therefore be no unwarrantable interference with the +liberty of the subject to require any information as to the stock in +hand. In Billingsgate fish-market it has been a regulation that salesmen +shall fix up in a conspicuous place every morning a statement of the +kind and amount of their stock; and such a regulation, whenever it could +be enforced on other markets, would always be to the advantage of every +one except a few traders." ("Theory of Political Economy," p. 88.) + + +III. The next principal charge brought by socialists against the present +order of things is that it commits a signal injustice against the +labouring class, by suffering the capitalists who employ them to +appropriate the whole increase of value which results from the process +of production, and which, as is alleged, is contributed entirely by the +labour of the artizans engaged in the process. I have already exposed +the fallacy of the theory of value on which this claim is founded, and I +need not repeat here what for convenience sake has been stated in +another place. (See chap. iii. pp. 160-6). Value is not constituted by +time of labour alone, except in the case of commodities admitting of +indefinite multiplication; it is constituted in all other cases by +social utility; and the importance of this distinction is especially +manifest in treating of the very point that comes before us here--the +value of labour. Why is one kind of labour paid dearer than another? Why +is an organizer of manual labour better paid than the manual labourer +himself? Why is the railway chairman better paid than the railway +porter? Or why has the judge a better salary than the policeman? Is it +because he exerts more labour, more socially necessary time of labour? +No; the porter works as long as the chairman, and the policeman as long +as the judge. Is it because more time of labour has been expended in the +preparation and apprenticeship of the higher paid functionaries? No; +because the railway chairman may have undergone no special training that +thousands of persons with much poorer incomes have not also undergone, +and the education of the judge cost no more than the education of other +barristers who do not earn a twentieth part of his salary. The +explanation of differences of remuneration like these is not to be found +in different quantities of labour, but in different qualities of labour. +One man's work is higher, rarer, more excellent, possesses, in short, +more social utility than another's, and for that reason is more +valuable, as value is at present constituted. It is thus manifest that +the theory which declares value to be nothing but quantity of labour, +nothing but time of labour, is inconsistent with some of the most +obvious and important phenomena of the value of different kinds of +labour. Many forms of labour are much more remunerative than others, +nay, much more remunerative than many applications of capital, and the +difference of remuneration is in no way whatever connected with the +quantity of labour or the time of labour undergone in earning it. +Socialists may perhaps answer that this _ought not_ to be so; that if +things were as they should be, the railway chairman, the station-master, +the inspector, the guard, and the porter would be paid by the same +simple standard of the duration of their labour in the service of the +line--a standard which would probably reverse the present gradation of +their respective salaries; but if they make that answer, they change +their ground; they no longer base their claim for justice to the +labourer on value _as it is constituted_, but on value _as they think it +ought to be constituted_. Their theory of value would in that case not +be what it pretends to be, a scientific theory of the actual +constitution of value, but a utopian theory of its proper and just +constitution. It would be tantamount to saying, Every man, according to +our ideas of of justice, ought to be paid according to the value of his +work, and the value of his work, according to our ideas of justice, +ought to be measured by the time--the socially necessary time--it +occupied. But this whole argument is manifestly based on nothing better +than their own arbitrary conceptions of justice, and it needs no great +perspicacity to perceive that these conceptions of justice are entirely +wrong. In fact, the common sense of men everywhere would unhesitatingly +pronounce it unjust to requite the manager who contrives, organizes, +directs, with only the same salary as the labourer who executes under +his direction, because, while both may spend the same time of labour, +the service rendered by the one is much more _valuable_ than the service +rendered by the other. Let every man have according to his work, if you +will; but then, in measuring work, the true standard of its value is not +its duration but its social utility, the social importance of the +service it is calculated to render. + +This criterion of social utility is the principle that ought to guide us +in answering the question that is really raised by the particular +socialist charge now under consideration, the question of the justice of +interest on capital. Interest is just because capital is socially +useful, and because the owner of capital, in applying it to productive +purposes, renders a service to society which is valuable in the measure +of its social utility. Of course the State might perform this service +itself. It might compulsorily abstract from the produce of each year a +sufficient portion to constitute the raw materials and instruments of +future production; but, as a matter of fact, the State does not do so. +It leaves the service to be rendered spontaneously by private persons +out of their private means. The service rendered by these persons to +production is as indispensable as the service rendered by the labourers, +and the justice of interest stands on exactly the same ground as the +justice of wages. The labourer cannot produce by labour alone, without +materials and implements, any more than the capitalist can produce by +materials and implements alone, without labour; and the possessor of +capital needs a reward to induce him to advance materials and implements +just as much as the labourer needs a reward to induce him to labour. +Nobody will set aside a portion of his property to provide for future +production if he is to reap no advantage from doing so, and if the +produce will be distributed in exactly the same way whether he sets it +apart or not. It would be as unjust as it would be suicidal to withhold +the recompense to which this service is entitled, and without which +nobody would do it. + +The real question for socialists to answer is, not whether it is just to +pay private capitalists for the service society accepts at their hands, +but whether society can perform this service better, or more +economically, without them; whether, in short, the abolition of interest +would conduce to any real saving in the end? This practical question, +crucial though it be, is one, however, to which they seldom address +themselves--they prefer expatiating in cloudier regions. The question +may not, with our present experience, admit of a definitive and +authoritative answer; but the probabilities all point to the conclusion +that capitalistic management of production, costly as it may seem to be, +is really cheaper than that by which socialism would supersede it. +Capitalistic management is proverbially unrivalled for two qualities in +which bureaucratic management is as proverbially deficient--economy and +enterprise. Socialists complain much of the hosts of middlemen who are +nourished on the present system, the heartless parasites who eat the +bread of society without doing a hand's turn of real good; but their own +plan would multiply vastly the number of unnecessary intermediaries +depending on industry. Under the _regime_ of the capitalist there are, +we may feel sure, no useless clerks or overseers, for he has the +strongest personal interest in working his business as economically as +possible. But with the socialist mandarinate, the interest lies the +other way, and the tendency of the head officials would be to multiply +their subordinates and assistants, so that by abolishing the capitalist, +society would not by any means have got rid of middlemen and parasites. +There would be as much waste of labour as before. Lord Brassey is +certainly right in attributing the industrial superiority of Great +Britain as much to the administrative skill and economy of her employers +as to the efficiency of her labourers. Individual capitalists are more +enterprising, as well as more economical managers, than boards. Their +keenly interested eyes and ears are ever on the watch for opportunities, +for improvements, for new openings; and having to consult nothing but +their own judgment, they are much quicker in adapting themselves to +situations and taking advantage of turns of trade. They will undertake +risks that a board would not agree to, and they will have entered the +field and established a footing long before a manager can get his +directors to stir a finger. Now this habit of being always on the alert +for new extensions, and new processes, and new investments, is of the +utmost value to a progressive community, and it cannot be found to such +purpose anywhere as with the capitalistic despot the socialists +denounce, whose zeal and judgment are alike sharpened by his hope of +personal gain and risk of personal loss. Studnitz informs us that in +1878 he found the mills of New York standing idle, but those of +Philadelphia all going, and his explanation is that the former were +under joint-stock management and the latter belonged to private owners. +The present tendency towards a multiplication of joint-stock companies +is a perfectly good one, because, for one thing, it helps to a better +distribution of wealth; but society would suffer if this tendency were +to be carried so far as to supersede independent private enterprise +altogether, and if joint-stock companies were to become the only form of +conducting business. And if private enterprise is more advantageous than +joint-stock management, because it has more initiative and adaptability, +so joint-stock management is for the same reason more advantageous than +the official centralized management of all industry.[6] + +If there is any force in these considerations, it seems likely that we +should make a bad bargain, if we dismissed our capitalists and private +employers, in the expectation that we could do the work more cheaply by +our own public administration. And the mistake would be especially +disappointing for this reason, that in the ordinary progress of society +in wealth and security the rate of interest always tends to fall, and +that various forces are already in operation that may not unreasonably +be expected to reduce the rate of profits as well. Profits, as +distinguished from interest, are the earnings of management, and the +minimum which employers will be content to take is at present largely +determined by the entirely wrong principle that their amount ought to +bear a direct proportion to the amount of capital invested in the +business. In spite of competition, customary standards of this kind are +very influential in the adjustment of such matters; they are the usual +criteria of what are called fair profits and fair wages; they always +carry with them strong persuasives to acquiescence; and then, from their +very nature, they are very dependent on public opinion. I am not +sanguine enough to believe with the American economist, President F. A. +Walker, that employers will ever come to be content with no other reward +than the gratification of power in the management of a great industrial +undertaking; but there is nothing extravagant in expecting that, through +the influence of public opinion and the constant pressure of trade +unions, a fairer standard of profits may be generally adopted, with the +natural consequence of allowing a rise of wages. + +But whether these expectations are well grounded or no, one thing is +plain,--the only thing really material to the precise issue at present +before us,--and that is, that while interest and profits may be both +unfair in amount, just as rent may be, or wages, or judicial penalties, +neither of them is unjust in essence, because they are merely particular +forms of remunerating particular services, which are now actually +performed by the persons who receive the remuneration, and which, under +the socialist scheme, would have to be performed--and in all probability +neither so well nor so cheaply--by salaried functionaries. + + +With these remarks, we may dismiss the specific charge of injustice +brought by socialists against the present order of things, and the +specific claim of right for the labouring class which they prefer. Let +us now submit their proposals to a more practical and decisive +test--will they or will they not realize the legitimate aspirations, the +ideal of the working class? Does socialism offer a better guarantee for +the realization of that ideal than the existing economy? I believe it +does not. What is the ideal of the working class? It may be said to be +that they shall share _pari passu_ in the progressive conquests of +civilization, and grow in comfort and refinement of life as other +classes of the community have done. Now this involves two things--first, +progress; second, diffusion of progress; and socialism is so intent on +the second that it fails to see how completely it would cut the springs +of the first. Some of its adherents do assert that production would be +increased and progress accelerated under a socialistic economy, but they +offer nothing in support of the assertion, and certainly our past +experience of human nature would lead us to expect precisely the +opposite result. The incentives and energy of production would be +relaxed. I have already spoken of the loss that would probably be +sustained in exchanging the interested zeal and keen eye of the +responsible capitalist employer for the perfunctory administration of a +State officer. A like loss would be suffered from lightening the +responsibility of the labourers and lessening their power of +acquisition. Under a socialist _regime_ they cannot by any merit acquire +more property than they enjoy in daily use, and they cannot by any fault +fail to possess that. Now socialist labourers are not supposed, any more +than socialist officials, to be angels from heaven; they are to carry on +the work of society with the ordinary human nature which we at present +possess; and in circumstances like those just described, unstirred +either by hope or fear, our ordinary human nature would undoubtedly take +its ease and bask contentedly in the kind providence of the State which +relieved it of all necessity for taking thought or pains. The inevitable +result would be a great diminution of production, which, with a rapidly +increasing population (and socialism generally scouts the idea of +restraining it), would soon prove seriously embarrassing, and could only +be obviated by a resort to the lash; in a word, by a return to +industrial slavery. Now, with a lessening production, progress is +clearly impossible, and the more evenly the produce was distributed, the +more certain would be the general decline. + +Socialists ignore the civilizing value of private property and +inheritance, because they think of property only as a means of immediate +enjoyment, and not as a means of progress and moral development. They +would allow private property only in what is sometimes termed consumers' +wealth. You might still own your clothes, or even purchase your house +and garden. But producers' wealth, they hold, should be common property, +and neither be owned nor inherited by individuals. If this theory were +to be enforced, it would be fatal to progress. Private property has all +along been a great factor in civilization, but the private property that +has been so has been much more producers' than consumers'. Consumers' +wealth is a limited instrument of enjoyment; producers' is a power of +immense capability in the hands of the competent. Socialists are really +more individualistic than their opponents in the view they take of the +function of property. They look upon it purely as a means for gratifying +the desires of individuals, and ignore the immense social value it +possesses as a nurse of the industrial virtues and an agency in the +progressive development of society from generation to generation. + +There is still another and even more important spring of progress that +would be stifled by socialism--freedom. Freedom is, of course, a direct +and integral element in any worthy human ideal, for it is an +indispensable condition for individual development, but here it comes +into consideration as an equally indispensable condition of social +progress. Political philosophers, like W. von Humboldt and J. S. Mill, +who have pled strongly for the widest possible extension of individual +freedom, have made their plea in the interests of society itself. They +looked on individuality as the living seed of progress; without +individuality no variation of type or differentiation of function would +be possible; and without freedom there could be no individuality. Under +a _regime_ of socialism freedom would be choked. Take, for example, a +point of great importance both for personal and for social development, +the choice of occupations. Socialism promises a free choice of +occupations; but that is vain, for the relative numbers that are now +required in any particular occupation are necessarily determined by the +demands of consumers for the particular commodity the occupation in +question sets itself to supply. Freedom of choice is, therefore, limited +at present by natural conditions, which cause no murmuring; but these +natural conditions would still exist under the socialist _regime_, and +yet they would perforce appear in the guise of legal and artificial +restrictions. It would be the choice of the State that would determine +who should enter the more desirable occupations, and not the choice of +the individuals themselves. The accepted would seem favourites; the +rejected would complain of tyranny and wrong. Selection could not be +made by competitive examination without treason against the principles +of a socialist state, nor by lot without a sacrifice of efficiency. The +same difficulties would attend the distribution of the fertile and the +poor soils. Even consumption would not escape State inquisition and +guidance, for an economy that pretended to do away with commercial +vicissitudes must take care that a change of fashion does not extinguish +a particular industry by superseding the articles it produces. Socialism +would introduce, indeed, the most vexatious and all-encompassing +absolutist government ever invented. It would impose on its central +executive functions that would require omniscience for their discharge, +and an authority so excessive that E. von Hartmann is probably right in +thinking that obedience could only be secured by fabricating for it the +illusion of a Divine origin and reinforcing loyalty by superstition. The +extensive centralized authority given to government in France has +undoubtedly been one of the main causes of the instability of the +political system of that State, and a socialist rule, with its vastly +greater prerogatives, could only maintain its ascendancy by being +fabulously hedged with the divinity of a Grand Lama. A military +despotism would be at least more consistent with modern conditions; but +a military despotism socialists abjure, and yet believe that they can +exact from free and equal citizens an almost animal submission to an +authority they elect themselves. + +Progress is only possible on the basis of industrial freedom and private +property; and in the socialist controversy there is no question about +the necessity of progress. That is an assumption common to both sides; +socialists of the present day acknowledge it as implicitly as the +general opinion of the time. They are no sharers in Mill's admiration +for the stationary state; they utterly ridicule his Malthusian horror of +a progressive population; and, profoundly impressed as they are with +the vital need for a better distribution of wealth, they hesitate to +sacrifice for it an increasing production. On the contrary, they claim +for their system that it would stimulate progress, as well as spread its +blessings, better than the system that exists, and Lassalle at all +events frankly declared that unless socialism increased production, it +would not be economically justifiable. But tried by this test, we have +seen reason to find it wanting. The problem to which it addresses +itself, the institution of a sound and healthy distribution of wealth, +is probably the greatest social problem of the time; but socialism fails +to solve it, because no distribution can be sound and healthy which +destroys the conditions of further progress. The true solution must +adhere to the lines of the present industrial system, the lines of +industrial freedom and private property. + +It is one thing, however, to say that the principles of industrial +freedom and private property are essential to a healthy distribution, +and it is quite another thing to hold that the distribution is then +healthiest and most perfect when these principles enjoy the most +absolute and unconditional operation. If socialism errs by suppressing +them, _laissez-faire_ runs into the opposite error of giving them +unlimited authority. _Laissez-faire_ is perhaps hardly any longer a +living faith. But even when men still believed in the economic +harmonies, they always taught that the best and justest distribution of +wealth was that which issued out of the free competition of individuals, +and that if this distribution ever turned out to be really faulty or +partial, it was only because the competition was not free or perfect +enough; because some of the competitors were not sufficiently +enlightened as compared with others, or not sufficiently mobile with +their labour or capital; in other words, because the competition was not +conducted on equal terms. This theory manifestly makes the justice of +the distribution effected by free competition to depend on the false +assumption of the natural equality of the competitors, and therefore as +manifestly implies that unless men are equal in talents and +opportunities, the system of unlimited freedom may produce a +distribution that is seriously unjust. _Laissez-faire_ thus had a germ +of socialism in its being, and even when its ascendancy seemed to be +highest, it was already being practically replaced by a larger and more +energetic theory of social politics which imposed on the State the duty +of correcting many of the evils of the present distribution of wealth, +and promoting, if not equality of all conditions, yet certainly +amelioration of the inferior conditions. Instead of maintaining equal +freedom for weak and strong, the State was to take the part of the weak +against the strong, in order to secure to all citizens a real +participation in progressive civilization. It is said truly enough that +the effect of such interferences is not to destroy liberty, but to +fulfil it, because, apart from them, the labour contract is no more a +free contract for labourers living from hand to mouth than the +capitulation of a beleaguered garrison when their provisions have run +down is a free capitulation, and the legal intervention is necessary in +order to make the men first really free. Legal freedom is no more an end +in itself than legal intervention; both are merely means of giving men +real freedom and enabling them effectually to work out their complete +and normal vocation as human beings. I shall treat more fully of the +true theory of social politics in a subsequent chapter on State +Socialism; but here, in connection with its relation to industrial +freedom, it will be enough to say that the restraints it proposes are +neither meant nor calculated to impair real freedom, and that it is +separated from socialism by its constant care to develop rather than +supersede individual responsibility, to facilitate the spread of private +property rather than suppress it, and to remove obstacles that are +making men's own efforts a nullity rather than to substitute for those +efforts the providence of the State. + + +If, then, there is any truth in these considerations--if the general +acquisition of private property, and not its universal abolition, is the +demand of the working-class ideal--then the business of social reform at +present ought to be to facilitate the acquisition of private property; +to multiply the opportunities of industrial investment open to the +labouring classes, and to devise means for credit, for saving, for +insurance, and the like. While, for reasons already explained, I have +been unable to agree with Mr. Cairnes' despondent view of the economic +position of the wage-paid labourers, I am entirely at one with him in +conceiving the surest means to their progressive amelioration to lie in +participation, by one means or another, in industrial capital. Much good +may be done by a wider extension of trade unions, and a better +organization of working class insurance; but the labourers must not rest +content till they have found their way, under the new conditions of +modern trade, to become capitalists as well as labourers. Co-operative +production seems the most obvious solution of this problem; but it is a +mischievous, though a common mistake, to regard it as the only solution. +The fortunes of the working class are not all embarked in one bottom, +and their salvation may be expected to fulfil itself in many ways. I +cannot share in the lamentation sometimes made because some of the +earlier productive associations have departed from the strict and +original form of co-operation, under which all the shareholders in the +business were labourers and all the labourers shareholders. In the +present situation of affairs, variety of experiment is desirable, for +only out of many various experiments can we eventually discover which +are most suitable to the conditions and fittest to survive. Co-operative +production would perhaps have been further advanced to-day, if +co-operators had not been so faithful in their idolatry of their +original ideal, and had fostered instead of discouraging variations of +type, which may yet justify their superiority by persisting and +multiplying. As it is, co-operative production has not been such a +complete failure as it is sometimes represented; it can show at least a +few very signal tokens of success and great promise. It is often +declared to be inapplicable to the great industries, because they +require more capital and better management than co-operative working men +are usually able to furnish. But in the town and neighbourhood of Oldham +there are 100 co-operative spinning mills, with a capital of close on +L8,000,000. They are managed entirely by working men, their capital is +contributed in L5 shares by working men, and they have during the last +ten years paid dividends varying from 10 to 45 per cent. These are +joint-stock companies rather than co-operative societies in the stricter +sense; but they are joint-stock companies of working men, and they +furnish to working men in an effective and successful way that +participation in the industrial capital of the country which is really +what is wanted. The Oldham workman prefers to hold shares in a different +mill from that he works in, because he feels himself more free to +exercise his voice as a shareholder there, and he prefers to carry his +labour to the mill where he gets the best wages and the best treatment, +without being obliged to change his investment when he changes his +workshop. The advantage of the Oldham system over the stricter +co-operative type is therefore the old advantage of freedom. It suits +the English character better, and the only wonder is why it is still, +after more than sixteen years' successful experience, confined +exclusively to a single locality. It has been stated that there are a +thousand operatives working at these mills who are worth L1000 to L2000, +and besides the mills, there are co-operative stores, building +societies, and other working-class companies in Oldham, with a combined +capital of L3,500,000. In all these ways the zone of participators in +property broadens, and hope and stimulus are introduced into the +labourer's life. The truth seems to be that the great need of the +working man is not so much money to invest as opportunity and motive for +investment. The amount lodged in savings banks, the amount raised by +trade unions, the amount wasted in drink, the amount wasted in +inefficient household economy, which might be much lessened by better +instruction in the arts of cookery and household management--all show +that large numbers of the working class possess means at their disposal +to constitute at least the beginnings of their emancipation, if good +opportunities were open to them of using it advantageously in productive +enterprise. Co-operation and profit-sharing are not the only means by +which this might be realized. Private firms might initiate a practice of +reserving a certain amount of their capital to constitute a kind of +stock for their workmen to invest their savings in, under--if that were +legalized--limited liability. One advantage of this plan over the +ordinary industrial partnership would be, that while, like it, it would +enhance the workmen's zeal in their work, it could not possibly have the +effect of reducing wages, because the stock would be a free investment, +and would probably not be taken up by all or by more than a majority of +the workmen. Again, with a reform of our land laws, small investments in +land will certainly be facilitated, especially among the agricultural +class. + +Socialists would no doubt condemn all such investments for the same +reason as they generally condemn the co-operative movement, because they +would tend to create "a new class with one foot in the camp of the +_bourgeoisie_ and the other in the camp of the proletariat." But that is +precisely one of their chief advantages, and in making this objection +socialists only betray how completely they ignore the operation of those +portions of human nature that are the real forces and factors of social +progress. It is only by linking a lower class to a higher that you can +raise the level of the whole, and every pathway the working class makes +into a comfortable equality with the lower _bourgeoisie_ will constitute +at once an opportunity and a spur for others to follow them, which will +exercise an elevating effect upon the entire body. If it were generally +open to all the labouring classes to begin by being wage-labourers and +end by sharing in some degree in the industrial capital of the country, +this would raise the level of the whole--of those who after all remained +wage-labourers still, as well as of those who succeeded in gaining a +better competency. It would give them all something to keep looking +forward to during their working life, something to save for and strive +after, and a higher standard of comfort would get diffused and +considered necessary in the class generally through the example of the +better off. For the more comfortably situated working men--whether they +have won their comfort by co-operation or otherwise--have not passed out +of their class. They have, as is alleged, one foot in the camp of the +proletariat still. They live and move and have their being among working +people, and constitute by their presence and social connections a +stimulating and elevating agency. It is through connections like these +that the ideas of comfort and culture that prevail among an upper class +permeate through to a lower, and thus elevate the general standard of +living upon which the level of wages so much depends. Even the minor +inequalities in the ranks of the working class are not without their use +in quickening their exertions to maintain the standard of respectability +which they have won or inherited. Economists were not wrong in ascribing +so much influence as they always have done to men's tenacity in adhering +to their customary standard of life. Many striking illustrations of its +beneficial operation might be mentioned. I select one, because it +concerns an aspect of the condition of the labouring classes of this +country that is at present attracting much attention--their house +accommodation. In all our large cities, the house accommodation of the +working class has hitherto been about as bad as bad could be, but there +is one singular exception--it is Sheffield. Porter drew attention to the +fact many years ago. "The town itself," he says, "is ill built and dirty +beyond the usual condition of English towns, but it is the custom for +each family among the labouring population to occupy a separate +dwelling, the rooms of which are furnished in a very comfortable manner. +The floors are carpeted, and the tables are usually of mahogany. Chests +of drawers of the same material are commonly seen, and so in many cases +is a clock also, the possession of which article of furniture has often +been pointed out as the certain indication of prosperity and of personal +responsibility on the part of the working man." ("Progress of the +Nation," p. 523.) The same condition of things still prevails, for at +the meeting of the British Association in Sheffield in 1879 Dr. Hime +read a paper on the vital statistics of the town, in which he +says:--"Although handsome public buildings are not a prominent feature +in the town, still there are few towns in England where the great bulk +of the population is so well provided for in the way of domestic +architecture. Overcrowding is very rare; cellar dwellings are unknown; +and almost every family has an entire house, a most important agent in +securing physical as well as moral health." (Transactions of British +Association, 1879.) Now this is a fact of the highest interest, and we +naturally ask what peculiarity there is in the trade or circumstances of +Sheffield, in the first place, to create such an exceptional excellence +in the standard of working class house accommodation, and, in the next +place, to maintain it. One thing is certain: it is not due to better +wages. There are trades in Sheffield very highly paid, but the labourers +belonging to them are described by the anonymous author of "An Inquiry +into the Moral, Social, and Intellectual Condition of the Industrious +Classes of Sheffield" (London, 1839), as being much less comfortable in +their circumstances than the others. This writer speaks of some trades +in which "the workmen are steady, intelligent, and orderly, seldom the +recipients of charity or parochial relief. They depend on their own +exertions for the respectable maintenance of their families, and when +trade is depressed they strive to live on diminished wages, or fall back +on resources secured by industry and economy. This healthy and vigorous +condition is not attributable to high wages. The workmen in the +edge-tool trade are extravagantly remunerated, and yet, as a body, they +are perhaps as irregular and dissipated in their habits as any in the +town. Their families, in time of good trade, feel few of the advantages +of prosperity, and when labour is little in demand, they are the first +to need the aid of charity. These differences are familiar to the most +superficial observer of the social and moral condition of the workmen in +the several branches" (p. 14). But the same writer mentions a +peculiarity in the trade of Sheffield which, he says, marks it off from +every other manufacturing town, and that peculiarity may serve to +provide us with the explanation we are seeking. "With us," he says, "the +distinctions between masters and men are not always well marked. Persons +are to a great extent both. The transition from the one to the other is +easy and frequent in those branches where the tools are few and simple, +and the capital required extremely small, which applies to the whole of +the cutlery department." "The facility with which men become masters +causes extraordinary competition, and its inevitable result, +insufficient remuneration." "Here merchants and manufacturers cannot +become princes.... There is not sufficient play for large fortunes. The +making of fortunes is with us a slow process. It is, however, far from +being partial.... The longer period required in the making of them +allows the mind time to adapt itself to its improved circumstances, not +merely the speculative and money-getting part of the understanding, but +the whole of its social, moral, and intellectual powers, without which +means are a questionable good. Wealth and intelligence are accordingly +with us more generally associated than in towns where immense fortunes +are rapidly made. In the latter case, there is no time for adaptation, +nor is it deemed necessary or at all important, where money is the +measure by which all things are estimated. Another evil dependent on +this sudden elevation in life is the great distance which is immediately +placed between employer and employed" (p. 15). Class and class are thus +better knit together in Sheffield than elsewhere. The exceptional +facility of becoming masters seems to be the particular instrumentality +which has brought down the ideas and habits of comfort of the +_bourgeoisie_ and spread them among the working class, and which has +always prevented the great mass of the latter from sinking contentedly +into a lower general standard of life. It introduced among them that +social ambition, which is the most effective spur to progress, and the +best preservative against decline. The fact that the exceptionally good +house accommodation which prevails among the labouring population of +Sheffield is not owing to exceptional, or even at all superior, wages, +is one of much hope and encouragement. What is possible in Sheffield +cannot be impossible elsewhere; and what is possible in the matter of +house accommodation cannot be hopeless in other branches of consumption. + +I shall be told that in all this I am only repeating the foolish idea of +the French princess, who heard the people complain they could not get +bread, and asked why then they did not buy cake. Where combinations are +possible, it will be said, investments may be also possible; but the +great majority of the working class are not in a position to combine, +and it is mere mockery to tell people to save and invest who can hardly +contrive to cover their backs. To this I reply, that there is no reason +to assume that trade unions have reached the utmost extension of which +they are susceptible, or to despair of their introduction into the +hitherto unorganized trades. It was only lately common to deny the +possibility of combination among agricultural labourers, and yet, +scattered as they are, they have shown themselves not only able to +combine, but to raise wages effectively by means of their combinations. +We have now very powerful unions of unskilled day labourers, and a +beginning has been made of an efficient organization even among +needlewomen. It is true that, even when organization has spoken its last +word, much of the distressing poverty that now exists would probably +still remain, because we must not disguise from ourselves the fact that +much of that poverty is the direct fruit of vice, disease, or indolence. +But socialism could not cope with this mass of misery any better than +the present system, for men don't drink and loaf and enter into +improvident marriages or illicit alliances because they happen to be +paid for their labour by contract with a capitalist instead of valuation +by a State officer, and they certainly would not cease doing any of +these things because an indulgent State undertook to save them from the +natural penalties of doing them. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[4] The proportion in England for 1857, according to official figures, +was 31/2 times the number for one day, but whether that proportion +continues still we have no means of knowing. + +[5] Mr. Denny was led by subsequent experience to a much less favourable +view of the efficacy of piecework as an instrument of working-class +progress. He wrote me in June, 1886 (ten years after the publication of +the pamphlet I have quoted above) an interesting and valuable letter on +this subject, which is published in full in Dr. Bruce's biography of him +("Life of William Denny," p. 113). A larger experience of piecework, he +said, had convinced him that, excepting in cases where rates can be +fixed and made a matter of agreement between the whole body of the men +in any works and their employers, piecework prices have not a +self-regulating power, and are liable, under the pressure of +competition, to be depressed below what he would consider a proper +level. And this was chiefly, if not, indeed, exclusively, the case with +those lump jobs which were undertaken by little copartneries of workmen, +and afforded the occasions for practising co-operation from which he had +drawn the hopes I have mentioned above. He came to see that in all kinds +of work for which it was difficult to fix regular rates, the beneficial +operation of payment by the piece on wages was much more uncertain than +he previously supposed, except in the hands of a good master, who was +not an absentee. But for ordinary work, I think he still adhered to his +favourable opinion of the effect of the piece system in increasing the +worker's earnings. He said he had nothing to modify about the figures +adduced in his pamphlet, and I understood him to continue to count them +representative of the general operation of pieceworking. + +[6] More will be found on this subject in the chapter on "State +Socialism," under the sub-heading "State Socialism and State +Management." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +STATE SOCIALISM. + + +I. _State Socialism and English Economics._ + +State socialism has been described by M. Leon Say as a German philosophy +which was natural enough to a people with the political history and +habits of the Germans, but which, in his opinion, was ill calculated to +cross the French frontier, and was contrary to the very nature of the +Anglo-Saxons. Sovereign and trader may be incompatible occupations, as +Adam Smith asserts, but in Germany, at least, they have never seemed so. +There, Governments have always been accustomed to enter very +considerably into trade and manufactures, partly to provide the public +revenue, partly to supply deficiencies of private enterprise, and +partly, within more recent times, for reasons of a so-called "strategic" +order, connected with the defence or consolidation of the new Empire. +The German States possess, every one of them, more Crown lands and +forests, in proportion to their size, than any other countries in +Europe, some of them, indeed, being able to meet half their public +expenditure from this source alone; and besides their territorial +domain, most of them have an even more extensive industrial domain of +State mines, or State breweries, or State banks, or State foundries, or +State potteries, or State railways, and their rulers are still +projecting fresh conquests in the same direction by means of brandy and +tobacco monopolies. But in England things stand far otherwise. She has +sold off most of her Crown lands, and is slowly parting with, rather +than adding to, the remainder. She abolished State monopolies in the +days of the Stuarts, as instruments of political oppression, and she has +abandoned State bounties more recently as nurses of commercial +incompetency. She owes her whole industrial greatness, her +manufactures, her banks, her shipping, her railways, to some extent her +very colonial possessions, to the unassisted energy of her private +citizens. England has been reared on the principle of freedom, and could +never be brought, M. Say might not unreasonably conclude, to espouse the +opposite principle of State socialism, unless the national character +underwent a radical change. And yet, while he was still writing, he was +confounded to see signs, as he thought, of this alien philosophy +obtaining, not simply an asylum, but really an ascendancy in this +country. It appeared to M. Say to be striking every whit as strong a +root in our soil and climate as it had done in its native habitat, and +he is disposed to join in the alarm, then recently sounded at Edinburgh +by Mr. Goschen, that the soil and climate had changed, that the whole +policy, opinion, and feeling of the English people with respect to the +intervention of the public authority had undergone a revolution. + +Mr. Goschen had, in raising the alarm, shown some perplexity how far to +condemn the change and how far to praise it, but he was quite clear upon +its reality, and was possessed by a most anxious sense of its magnitude +and gravity. "We cannot," said he, "see universal State action enthroned +as a principle of government without misgiving." Mr. Herbert Spencer +took up the cry with more vehemence, declaring that the age of British +freedom was gone, and warning us to prepare for "the coming slavery." M. +de Laveleye, who is unquestionably one of the most careful and competent +foreign observers of our affairs, followed Mr. Spencer, and although, +being himself a State socialist, he welcomed this alleged new era as +much as Mr. Spencer deprecated it, he gave substantially the same +description of the facts; he said, England, once so jealous for liberty, +was now running ahead of all other nations on the career of State +socialism. And that seems to have become an established impression both +at home and abroad. The French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences +has devoted several successive sittings to the subject; the eminent +German economist, Professor Nasse, has discussed it--and with much +excellent discrimination--in an article on the decline of economic +individualism in England; and it is now the current assumption of the +journals and of popular conversation in this country, that a profound +change has come over the spirit of English politics in the course of the +present generation--a change from the old trust in liberty to a new +trust in State regulation, and from the French doctrine of +_laissez-faire_ to the German doctrine of State socialism. + +But this assumption, notwithstanding the currency it has obtained and +the distinguished authorities by whom it is supported, is in reality +exaggerated and undiscriminating. While marking the growing frequency of +Government interventions, it makes no attempt to distinguish between +interventions of one kind and interventions of another kind, and it +utterly fails to recognise that English opinion--whether exhibited in +legislative work or economic writings--was not dominated by the +principle of _laissez-faire_ in the past any more than in the present, +but that it really has all along obeyed a fairly well-defined positive +doctrine of social politics, which gave the State a considerable +concurrent _role_ in the social and industrial development of the +community. The increasing frequency of Government interventions is in +itself a simple and unavoidable concomitant of the growth of society. +With the rapid transformations of modern industrial life, the increase +and concentration of population, and the general spread of +enlightenment, we cannot expect to retain the political or legislative +inactivity of stationary ages. As Mr. Hearn remarks, "All the volumes of +the statutes, from their beginning under Henry III. to the close of the +reign of George II., do not equal the quantity of legislative work done +in a decade of any subsequent reign." ("Theory of Legal Duties and +Rights," p. 21.) The process has been continuous and progressive, and it +suffered no interruption in the period which is usually supposed to have +been peculiarly sacred to _laissez-faire_. On the contrary, that period +will be found to exceed the period that went before it in legislative +activity, exactly as it has in turn been itself exceeded by our own +time. On any theory of the State's functions, an increase in the number +of laws and regulations was inevitable; it was only part and portion of +the natural growth of things; but such an increase affords no evidence, +not even a presumption, of any change in the principles by which +legislation is governed, or in the purposes or functions for which the +power of the State is habitually invoked. A mere growth of work is not +a multiplication of functions; to get a result, we must first analyze +the work done and discriminate this from that. + +Now, in the first place, when compared with other nations, England has +been doing singularly little in the direction--the distinctively +socialistic direction--of multiplying State industries and enlarging the +public property in the means of production. Municipalities, indeed, have +widened their industrial domain considerably; it has become common for +them to take into their own hands things like the gas and water supply +of the community which would in any case be monopolies, and their +management, being exposed to an extremely effective local opinion, is +generally very advantageous. But while local authorities have done so +much, the central Government has held back. Many new industries have +come into being during the present reign, but we have nationalized none +of them except the telegraphs. We have added to the Post-Office the +departments of the Savings Bank and the Parcels Post; we have, for +purely military reasons, extended our national dockyards and arms +factories since the Crimean war, but without thereby enhancing national +confidence in Government management; we have, for diplomatic purposes, +bought shares in the Suez Canal; we have undertaken a few small jobs of +testing and stamping, such as the branding of herrings; but we are now +the only European nation that has no State railway; we have refrained +from nationalizing the telephones, though legally entitled to do so; and +we very rarely give subventions to private enterprises. This is much +less the effect of deliberate political conviction than the natural +fruit of the character and circumstances of the people, of their +powerful private resources and those habits of commercial association +which M. Chevalier speaks of with so much friendly envy, complaining +that his own countrymen could never be a great industrial nation because +they had no taste for acquiring them. In the English colonies, where +capital is more scarce, Government is required to do very much more; +most of them have State railways, and some--New Zealand, for +instance--State insurance offices for fire and life. These colonial +experiments will have great weight with the English public in settling +the problem of Government management under a democracy, and if they +prove successful, will undoubtedly influence opinion at home to follow +their example; but as things are at present, there is no appearance of +any great body of English opinion moving in that direction. + +But while England has lagged behind other nations in this particular +class of Government intervention, there is another class in which she +has undoubtedly run far before them all. If we have not been multiplying +State industries, we have been very active in extending and establishing +popular rights, by means of new laws, new administrative regulations, or +new systems of industrial police. In fact, the greater part of our +recent social legislation has been of this order, and it is of that +legislation M. de Laveleye is thinking when he says England is taking +the lead of the nations in the career of State socialism. But that is +nothing new; if we are in advance of other nations in establishing +popular rights to-day, we have been in advance of them in that work for +centuries already. That peculiarity also has its roots in our national +history and character, and is no upstart fashion of the hour. Now, +without raising the question whether the rights which our recent social +legislation has seen fit to establish, are in all cases and respects +rights that ought to have been established, it is sufficient for our +present purpose to observe that at least this is obviously a very +different class of intervention from the last, because if it does not +belong to, it is certainly closely allied with, those primary duties +which are everywhere included among the necessary functions of all +government, the protection of the citizen from force and fraud. To +protect a right, you must first establish it; you must first recognise +it, define its scope, and invest it with the sanction of authority. With +the progress of society fresh perils emerge and fresh protections must +be devised; the old legal right needs to be reconstructed to meet the +new situation, or a new right must be created hitherto unknown perhaps, +unless by analogy, to the law. But even here the novelty lies, not in +the principle--for all right is a protection of the weak, or ought to be +so--but in the situation alone; in the rise of the factory system, which +called for the Factory Acts; in the growth of large towns, which called +for Health and Dwellings Acts; in the extension of joint-stock +companies, which called for the Limited Liability Acts; in the monopoly +of railway transportation, which called for the regulation of rates; or +in the spread of scientific agriculture, which required the constitution +of a new sort of property, the property of a tenant-farmer in his own +unexhausted improvements. + +This peculiarity of the industrial and social legislation of England has +not escaped the acute intelligence of Mr. Goschen. Mistrustful as he is +of Government intervention, Mr. Goschen observes with satisfaction that +the great majority of recent Government interventions in England have +been undertaken for moral rather than economic ends. After quoting Mr. +Thorold Rogers' remark, that these interventions generally had the good +economic aim of preventing the waste of national resources, he says: +"But I believe that certainly in the case of the Factory Acts, and to a +great extent in the case of the Education Acts, it was a moral rather +than an economic influence--the conscientious feeling of what was right +rather than the intellectual feeling of ultimate material gain--it was +the public imagination touched by obligations of our higher +nature--which supplied the tremendous motive-power for passing laws +which put the State and its inspectors in the place of father or mother +as guardians of a child's education, labour, and health." ("Addresses," +p. 62.) + +The State interfered not because the child had a certain capital value +as an instrument of future production which it would be imprudent to +lose, but because the child had certain rights--certain broad moral +claims--as a human being which the parents' natural authority must not +be suffered to violate or endanger, and which the State, as the supreme +protector of all rights, really lay under a simple moral obligation to +secure. Reforms of this character are naturally inspired by moral +influences, by sentiments of justice or of humanity, by a feeling that +wrong is being done to a class of the community who are placed in a +situation of comparative weakness, inasmuch as they are +deprived--whether through the force of circumstances or the selfish +neglect of their superiors--of what public opinion recognises to be +essential conditions of normal human existence. Now, most of the +legislation which has led Mr. Goschen to declare that universal State +action is now enthroned in England has belonged to this order. It has +been guided by ethical and not by economic considerations. It has been +employed mainly in readjusting rights, in establishing fresh securities +for just dealing and humane living; but it has been very chary of +following Continental countries in nationalizing industries. When +therefore Mr. Spencer tells M. de Laveleye that the reason why England +is extending the functions of her Government so much more than other +nations "is obviously because there is great scope for the further +extension of them here, while abroad there is little scope for the +further extension of them," his explanation is singularly inappropriate. +England has not been extending the functions of Government all round, +but she has moved in the direction where she had less scope to move, and +has stood still in the direction where she had more scope to move than +other countries. And it is important to keep this distinction in mind +when we hear it so often stated in too general terms that we have +discarded our old belief in individual liberty and set up "universal +State action" in its place. + +But those who complain of England having broken off from her old +moorings, not only exaggerate her leanings to authority in the present, +but they also ignore her concessions to authority in the past. English +statesmen and economists have never entertained the rigid aversion to +Government interference that is vulgarly attributed to them, but with +all their profound belief in individual liberty they have always +reserved for the Government a concurrent sphere of social and economic +activity--what may even be designated a specific social and economic +mission. A few words may be usefully devoted to this English doctrine of +social politics here, not merely because they may serve to dispel a +prevailing error, but because they will furnish a good vantage-ground +for seizing and judging of a principle of government which is to-day in +every mouth, but unfortunately bears in every mouth a different +meaning--the principle of State socialism. + +It is commonly believed that the English doctrine of social politics is +the doctrine of _laissez-faire_, and our economists are continually +reviled as if they sought to leave the world to the play of +self-interest and competition, unchecked by any ideas of social justice +or individual human right. But in truth the doctrine of _laissez-faire_ +has never been held by any English thinker, unless, perhaps, Mr. Herbert +Spencer. Mr. Spencer's first work, "Social Statics," was an exposition +of the theory that the end of all government was the liberty of the +individual, the realization for every citizen of the greatest amount of +liberty it was possible for him to enjoy without interfering with the +corresponding claims of his fellow-citizens. The individual had only one +right--the right to equal freedom with everybody else, and the State had +only one duty--the duty of protecting that right against violence and +fraud. It could not stir beyond that task without treading on the right +of some one, and therefore it ought not to stir at all. It had nothing +to do with health, or religion, or morals, or education, or relief of +distress, or public convenience of any sort, except to leave them +sternly alone. It must, of course, renounce the thought of bounties and +protective duties, but it must also give up marking plate, minting coin, +and stamping butter; it must take no part in building harbours or +lighthouses or roads or canals; and even a town council cannot without +offence undertake to pave or clean or light the streets under its +jurisdiction. It is only fair to say that Mr. Spencer refuses to be +bound now by every detail of his youthful theory, but he has repeated +the substance of it in his recent work, "The Man _versus_ The State," +which is written to prove that the only thing we want from the State is +protection, and that the protection we want most of late is protection +against our protector. + +This theory is certainly about as extreme a development of individualism +as could well be entertained; and though it has been even distanced in +one or two points by Wilhelm von Humboldt--who objected, for example, to +marriage laws[7]--no important English writer has ventured near it. The +description of the State's business as the business of protecting the +citizens from force and fraud, has indeed been familiar in our +literature since the days of Locke, and isolated passages may be cited +from the works of various political thinkers, which, if taken by +themselves, would seem to deny to the State any right to act except for +purposes of self-protection. John Stuart Mill himself speaks sometimes +in that way, although we know, from the chapter he devotes to the +subject of Government interference in his "Principles of Political +Economy," that he really assigned to the State much wider functions. +When we examine the writings of English economists and statesmen, and +the principles they employ in the discussion of the social and +industrial questions of their time, it seems truly strange how they ever +came to be credited with any scruple on ground of principle to invoke +the power of the State for the solution of such questions when that +seemed to them likely to prove of effectual assistance. + +The social doctrine which has prevailed in England for the last century +is "the simple and obvious system of natural liberty" taught by Adam +Smith; but the simple and obvious system of natural liberty is a very +different thing from the system of _laissez-faire_ with which it is so +commonly confounded. Its main principle, it is true, is this: "Every +man," says Smith, "as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, +is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to +bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any +other man or order of men. The Sovereign is completely discharged from a +duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to +innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human +wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient: the duty of superintending +the industry of private people and of directing it towards the +employments most suitable to the interests of the society." ("Wealth of +Nations," book iv., chap. ix.) But while the Sovereign is discharged +from an industrial duty which he is incapable of performing +satisfactorily, he is far from being discharged from all industrial +responsibility whatsoever, for Smith immediately proceeds to map out the +limits of his functions as follows: "According to the system of natural +liberty, the Sovereign has only three duties to attend to--three duties +of great importance, indeed, but plain and intelligible to common +understandings: first, the duty of protecting the society from the +violence or invasion of other independent societies; second, the duty of +protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the +injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of +establishing an exact administration of justice; and thirdly, the duty +of erecting and maintaining certain works and certain public +institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual or +small number of individuals to erect and maintain; because the profit +could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of +individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a +great society." + +The State is required to protect us from other evils besides the evils +of force and fraud--infectious diseases, for example, are in the context +mentioned expressly--and to supply us with many other advantages besides +the advantage of protection. Some of these advantages are of a material +or economic order, and others of an intellectual or moral. The material +advantages consist for the most part of provisions for facilitating the +general commerce of the country--such things as roads, canals, harbours, +the post, the mint--or provisions for facilitating particular branches +of commerce; and among these he instances the incorporation of +joint-stock companies endowed by charter with exclusive trading +privileges; and the reason which, according to Smith, entitles the State +to intervene in this class of cases, and which at the same time +prescribes the length to which its intervention may legitimately go, is +that individuals are unable to do the work satisfactorily themselves, or +that the State has from its nature superior qualifications for the task. +The intellectual or moral advantages which Smith asks from the State are +mostly provisions for sustaining the national manhood and character, +such as a system of compulsory military training or a system of +compulsory--and if not gratuitous, still cheap--education; and it is +important to mark that he asks for these measures, not on the ground of +their political or military expediency, but on the broad ground that +cowardice and ignorance are in themselves public evils, from which the +State is as much bound, if it can, to save the people, as it is bound to +save them from violence or fraud. Of military training he observes: "To +prevent that sort of mental mutilation, deformity, and wretchedness +which cowardice necessarily involves in it from spreading themselves +through the great body of the people, would deserve the serious +attention of Government, in the same manner as it would deserve its most +serious attention to prevent a leprosy or any other loathsome and +offensive disease, though neither mortal nor dangerous, from spreading +itself among them, though perhaps no other public good might result from +such attention besides the prevention of so great a public evil." +("Wealth of Nations," book v., chap. i.) And he proceeds to speak of +education: "The same thing may be said of the gross ignorance and +stupidity which in a civilized society seems so frequently to benumb the +understanding of all the inferior ranks of people. A man without the +proper use of the intellectual faculties of a man is, if possible, more +contemptible than even a coward, and seems to be mutilated and deformed +in a still more essential part of the character of human nature. Though +the State was to derive no advantage from the instruction of the +inferior ranks of people, it would still deserve its attention that they +should not be altogether uninstructed." Compulsory military training and +a system of national education would no doubt be conducive to the +stricter ends of all government; the one would strengthen the defences +of the nation against foreign enemies and the other would tend to the +diminution of crime at home; but Smith, it will be seen, explicitly +refuses to take that ground. The State's duty in the case would be the +same, though no such results were to follow, for the State has other +duties to perform besides the maintenance of peace and the repression of +crime. It would probably be admitted, he thinks, that it was as +incumbent on the State to take steps to arrest the progress of a "mortal +and dangerous" disease as it was to stop a foreign invasion; but he goes +further, and contends that it was equally incumbent on the State to +arrest the progress of a merely "loathsome and offensive" disease, for +the simple reason that such a disease was a mutilation or deformity of +our physical manhood. And just as the State ought to prevent the +mutilation and deformity of our physical manhood, so the State ought to +prevent the mutilation and deformity of our moral and intellectual +manhood, and was bound accordingly to provide a system of military +training and a system of popular education, to prevent people growing up +ignorant and cowardly, because the ignorant man and the coward were men +without the proper use of the faculties of a man, and were mutilated and +deformed in essential parts of the character of human nature. At bottom +Smith's principle is this--that men have an original claim--a claim as +original as the claim to safety of life and property--to all the +essential conditions of an unmutilated and undeformed manhood, and that +is really only another expression for the principle that lies at the +foundation of all civil and human right, that men have a right to the +essential conditions of a normal humanity, to the presuppositions of all +humane living, to the indispensable securities for the proper +realization of our common vocation as human beings. The right to +personal liberty--to the power of working for ends of our own +prescribing, and the right to property--to the power of retaining what +we have made, to be the instrument of further activities for the ends we +have prescribed for ourselves--rest really on no other ground than that +the privileges claimed are essential conditions of a normal, an +unmutilated and undeformed manhood, and it is on this broad ground that +Adam Smith justifies the State's intervention to stop disease and supply +education. + +Smith held but a poor opinion of the capacities of Government +management, and especially of English Government management, which, he +asserted, was characterized in times of peace by "the slothful and +negligent profusion that was natural to monarchies," and in times of war +by "all the thoughtless extravagance" that was peculiar to democracies; +but nevertheless he had no hesitation in asking Government to undertake +a considerable number of industrial enterprises, because he believed +that these were enterprises which Government with all its faults was +better fitted to conduct successfully than private adventurers were. On +the other hand, Smith entertained the highest possible belief in +individual liberty, but he had never any scruple about sacrificing +liberty of contract where the sacrifice was demanded by the great moral +end of Government--the maintenance of just and humane dealing between +man and man. For example, the suppression of the truck system, which is +sometimes condemned as an undue interference with freedom of contract, +was strongly supported by Smith, who declared it to be "quite just and +equitable," inasmuch as it merely secured to the workmen the pay they +were entitled to receive and "imposed no real hardship on the +masters--it only obliged them to pay that value in money which they +pretended to pay, but did not really pay, in goods." It was only a just +and necessary protection of the weaker party to a contract against an +oppressive exaction to which, like the apothecary in "Romeo and Juliet," +his poverty might have consented, but not his will. Precisely analogous +is Smith's position concerning usury laws. Usury laws are seldom +defended now; for one thing, money has become so abundant that the +competition of lender with lender may be trusted to as a better security +for fair and reasonable treatment of borrowers than a Government +enactment could provide. But Smith in his day was strongly in favour of +fixing a legal rate of interest, because he thought it was necessary to +prevent the practice of extortion by unscrupulous dealers on necessitous +clients. His views on truck and usury show that he had no sympathy with +those who contend that the State must on no account interfere with +grown-up people in the bargains they may make, inasmuch as grown-up +people may be expected to be quite capable of looking effectively after +their own interest. Smith recognised that grown-up people were often in +natural circumstances where it was practically impossible for them to +assert effectively not their interests merely, but even their essential +claims as fellow-citizens; and that therefore it was the State's duty to +come to the aid of those whose own economic position was weak, and to +force upon the strong certain responsibilities--or at least secure for +the weak certain broad, positive conditions--which just and humane +dealing might demand. + +Now, in these ideas about truck and usury, as in the proposals +previously touched upon for checking the growth of disease or cowardice +or ignorance, is not the principle of social politics that is applied by +Smith precisely the principle that runs through our whole recent social +legislation--factory, sanitary, and educational--the principle of the +State's obligation to secure the people in the essential conditions of +all normal manhood? German writers often take Smith for an exponent, if +not for the founder, of what they call the _Rechtstaat_ theory--the +theory that the State is mainly the protector of right; but in reality +Smith's doctrine corresponded pretty closely with their own +_Kultur-und-Wohlfahrtstaat_ theory--the theory that the State is a +promoter of culture and welfare; and if further proof were wanted, it +might be found in the fact that in his doctrine of taxation he departs +altogether from the economic principle, which is popularly associated +with the _Rechtstaat_ idea, and is supposed to be a corollary of it, +that a tax is a _quid pro quo_, a price paid for a service rendered, and +ought therefore to be imposed on individuals in proportion to the +service they respectively receive from the State; and instead of this +economic principle he lays down the broad ethical one, that a tax is a +public obligation which individuals ought to be called upon to discharge +in proportion to their respective abilities. The rich cannot fairly be +said to _get_ more good from the State than the poor; they probably get +less, because they are better capable of providing for their own +defence; but the rich are able to _do_ more good to the State than the +poor, and because they are able, they are bound. + +Such is the social doctrine of Adam Smith, and it is manifestly no +doctrine of rigid individualism, calling out for freedom at any price, +or banning all interference with the natural play of self-interest and +competition. The natural liberty for which the great English economist +contended was not the mere ghost of liberty worshipped by Mr. Spencer. +An ignorant man might be free, as an imprisoned man was free, within +limits, but he was not free within normal human limits. He had not the +use of his mind; he was wanting in an essential part of his manhood. +First make him a man--a whole, complete, competent man, fit for man's +vocation--then make him free. There is a common metaphysical distinction +between the formal freedom of the will and the material freedom of the +will. The drunkard, the lunatic, is formally free, for he exerts his +choice, but he is materially enslaved. The difference between liberty +according to Mr. Spencer and liberty according to Adam Smith is +something analogous. The liberty Smith desires is a substantial liberty; +it is clothed with a body--a definite body of universal human +rights--which the State is bound to realize as it would realize liberty +itself. The reason of his difference from the _laissez-faire_ theory of +Mr. Spencer, which is so often erroneously attributed to him, is that he +takes a much broader and more practical view of the original moral +rights of individuals than such ultra-individualists are accustomed to +do. While they hold that the State is there only to secure to +individuals reality and equality of freedom, he holds it is there to +secure them reality and equality of all moral rights. He would supply +all alike, therefore, with certain material securities--the material +conditions necessary to secure their moral rights with equal +completeness,--and he would protect them in the enjoyment of those +conditions against the assaults of poverty and misfortune no less than +the assaults of murderers and thieves. But beyond this line he would +refuse to go; if he stands clearly out in advance of the _laissez-faire_ +position of equality of legal freedom, he stands equally clearly far +short of the socialistic position of equality of material conditions. + +Now this doctrine of the great founder of English political economy has +been substantially the doctrine of his successors as well. It would be +beyond my present scope to trace the history of the doctrine of social +politics through the writings of the whole succession of English +economists, nor is it necessary. I shall choose a representative +economist from the group who are generally reckoned the most narrow and +unsympathetic, who are accused of having shifted political economy off +the broader lines on which it had been launched by Smith, who are +counted the great idolaters of self-interest and natural law, and the +scientific associates of the much-abused Manchester school--viz., the +disciples of Ricardo. Ricardo himself touches only incidentally on the +functions of the State, but he then does so to defend interventions, +such as minting money, marking plate, testing drugs, examining medical +candidates, and the like, which are meant to guard people against +deceptions they are themselves incompetent to detect. Moreover, he was +a strong advocate for at least one important extension of the State's +industrial _role_--he would establish a National Bank of issue with +exclusive privileges; and it is not uninteresting to remember that in +his place in Parliament he brought forward the suggestion of a system of +Government annuities for the accommodation of working men, which was +introduced by Mr. Gladstone half a century later, and has been denounced +in certain quarters as that statesman's first step in socialism, and +that he was one of a very small minority who voted for a Parliamentary +inquiry into the social system of Robert Owen. + +But if Ricardo is comparatively silent on the subject, we fortunately +possess a very ample discussion of it by one of his leading disciples, +J. E. McCulloch. When Ricardo died, James Mill wrote to McCulloch, "As +you and I are his two and only genuine disciples, his memory must be a +point of connection between us;" and it was on McCulloch that the mantle +of the master descended. His "Principles of Political Economy," which +may be said to be an exposition of the system of economics according to +Ricardo, was for many years the principal textbook of the science, and +will still be admitted to be the best and most complete statement of +what, in the cant of the present day, is called orthodox political +economy. McCulloch, indeed, is more than merely the expositor of that +system; he is really one of its founders, the author of one of its most +famous dogmas, at least in its current form, the now exploded doctrine +of the Wages fund; and of all the adherents of this orthodox tradition, +McCulloch is commonly considered the hardest and most narrow. There are +economists who are supposed to show a native generous warmth which all +the severities of their science are unable to quell. John Stuart Mill is +known to have come under St. Simonian influences in his younger days, +and to have been fond ever afterwards of calling himself a socialist; +and Professor Sidgwick, in our own day, is often credited--and not +unjustly--with a like breadth of heart, and in publishing his views of +Government interference, he gives them the name of "Economic Socialism." +But in selecting McCulloch, I select an economist the rigour of whose +principles has never been suspected, and yet so striking is the +uniformity of the English tradition on this subject, that in reality +neither Mill nor Mr. Sidgwick professes a broader doctrine of social +politics, or goes a step further, or more heartily on the road to +socialism than that accredited champion of individualism, John Ramsay +McCulloch. + +McCulloch's "Principles" contains--from the second edition in 1830 +onward to the last author's edition in 1849--a special chapter on the +limits of Government interference; and the chapter starts with an +explicit repudiation of the doctrine of _laissez-faire_, which was then +apparently only beginning to come into vogue in England. + +"An idea," says McCulloch, "seems however to have been recently gaining +ground that the duty of the Government with regard to the domestic +policy of the country is almost entirely of a negative kind, and that it +has merely to maintain the security of property and the freedom of +industry. But its duty is by no means so simple and easily defined as +those who support this opinion would have us to believe. It is certainly +true that its interference with the pursuits of individuals has been, in +very many instances, exerted in a wrong direction, and carried to a +ruinous excess. Still, however, it is easy to see that we should fall +into a very great error if we supposed that it might be entirely +dispensed with. Freedom is not, as some appear to think, the end of +government; the advancement of the public prosperity and happiness is +its end; and freedom is valuable in so far only as it contributes to +bring it about. In laying it down, for example, that individuals should +be permitted, without let or hindrance, to engage in any business or +profession they may prefer, the condition that it is not injurious to +others is always understood. No one doubts the propriety of a Government +interfering to suppress what is or might otherwise become a public +nuisance; nor does any one doubt that it may advantageously interfere to +give facilities to commerce by negotiating treaties with foreign powers, +and by removing such obstacles as cannot be removed by individuals. But +the interference of Government cannot be limited to cases of this sort. +However disinclined, it is obliged to interfere in an infinite variety +of ways and for an infinite variety of purposes. It must, to notice +only one or two of the _classes_ of objects requiring its interference, +decide as to the species of contract to which it will lend its sanction, +and the means to be adopted to enforce true performance; it must decide +in regard to the distribution of the property of those who die +intestate, and the effect to be given to the directions in wills and +testaments; and it must frequently engage itself, or authorize +individuals or associations to engage, in various sorts of undertakings +deeply affecting the rights and interests of others and of society. The +furnishing of elementary instruction in the ordinary branches of +education for all classes of persons and the establishment of a +compulsory provision for the support of the destitute poor are generally +also included, and apparently with the greatest propriety, among the +duties incumbent on administration" (p. 262). + +He allows State ownership and State management of industrial works, +wherever State ownership and management are more efficient for the +purpose than private enterprise--in other words, where they are more +economical--as in the cases of the coinage, roads, harbours, postal +communication, etc. He would expropriate land for railway purposes, +grant a monopoly to the railway company, and then subject it to +Government control in the public interest; he would impose many sorts of +restrictions on freedom of contract, freedom of industry, freedom of +trade, freedom of property, and freedom of bequest; and, what is more +important, he recognises clearly that with the growth of society fresh +interferences of a serious character will be constantly called for, +which may in some cases involve the application of entirely new +principles, or throw on the Government work of an entirely new +character. + +For example, he is profoundly impressed with the dangers of the +manufacturing system, which he saw growing and multiplying all around +him, and so far from dreaming that the course of industry should remain +uncontrolled, he even ventures, in a remarkable passage, to express the +doubt whether it may not "in the end be found that it was unwise to +allow the manufacturing system to gain so great an ascendancy as it has +done in this country, and that measures should have been early adopted +to check and moderate its growth" (p. 191). He admits that a decisive +answer to this question could only be given by the economists of a +future generation, after a longer experience of the system than was +possible when he wrote, but he cannot conceal the gravest apprehension +at the preponderance which manufactures were rapidly gaining in our +industrial economy. And his reasons are worthy of attention. The first +is the destruction of the old moral ties that knit masters and men +together. + +"But we doubt whether any country, how wealthy soever, should be looked +upon as in a healthy, sound state, where the leading interest consists +of a small number of great capitalists, and of vast numbers of +workpeople in their employment, but unconnected with them by any ties of +gratitude, sympathy, or affection. This estrangement is occasioned by +the great scale on which labour is now carried on in most businesses; +and by the consequent impossibility of the masters becoming acquainted, +even if they desired it, with the great bulk of their workpeople.... The +kindlier feelings have no share in an intercourse of this sort; speaking +generally, everything is regulated on both sides by the narrowest and +most selfish views and considerations; a man and a machine being treated +with about the same sympathy and regard" (p. 193). + +The second reason is the suppression of the facilities of advancement +enjoyed by labourers under the previous _regime_. "Owing to the greater +scale on which employments are now mostly carried on, workmen have less +chance than formerly of advancing themselves or their families to any +higher situation, or of exchanging the character of labourers for that +of masters" (p. 188). For the majority of the working-class to be thus, +as he expresses it, "condemned as it were to perpetual helotism," is not +conducive to the health of a nation. The third reason is the comparative +instability of manufacturing business. It becomes a matter of the most +serious concern for a State, "when a very large proportion of the +population has been, through their agency, rendered dependent on foreign +demand, and on the caprices and mutations of fashion" (p. 192). That +also is a state of things fraught with danger to the health of a +community. McCulloch always treats political economy as if he defined +it--and the definition would be better than his own--as the science of +the working of industrial society in health and disease; and he always +throws on the State a considerable responsibility in the business of +social hygiene; going so far, we have seen in the passages just quoted, +as to suggest whether a legal check ought not to have been imposed on +the free growth of the factory system, on account of its bad effects on +the economic position of the labouring class. We had suffered the system +to advance too far to impose that check now, but there were other +measures which, in his opinion, the Legislature might judiciously take +in the same interest. It is of course impossible, by Act of Parliament, +to infuse higher views of duty or warmer feelings of ordinary human +regard into the relations between manufacturers and their workmen; but +the State might, according to McCulloch, do something to mitigate the +modern plague of commercial crises, by a policy of free trade, by +adopting a sound monetary system, by securing a continuance of peace, +and by "such a scheme of public charity as might fully relieve the +distresses without insulting the feelings or lessening the industry of +the labouring classes" (p. 192). + +As with commercial crises, so with other features of the modern +industrial system; wherever they tend to the deterioration of the +labouring class, McCulloch always holds the State bound to intervene, if +it can, to prevent such a result. He would stop the immigration of what +is sometimes called pauper labour--of bodies of workpeople brought up in +an inferior standard of life--because their example and their +competition tend to pull down the native population to their own level. +The example he chooses is not the Jewish element in the East End of +London, but the much more important case of the Irish immigration into +Liverpool and Glasgow; and while he would prefer to see Government +taking steps to improve the Irish people in Ireland itself, he declares +that, if that is not practicable, then "justice to our own people +requires that measures should be adopted to hinder Great Britain from +being overrun with the outpourings of this _officina pauperum_, to +hinder Ireland from dragging us down to the same hopeless abyss of +pauperism and wretchedness in which she is sunk" (p. 422). This policy +may be wise, or it may not, but it shows very plainly--what appears so +often in his writings--how deeply McCulloch's mind was penetrated with +the conviction that one of the greatest of all the dangers from which +the State ought to do what it well can to preserve the people, was the +danger of falling to a lower standard of tastes and requirements, and +thereby losing ambition and industry, and the very possibility of rising +again. + +"This lowering of the opinions of the labouring class with respect to +the mode in which they should live is perhaps the most serious of all +the evils that can befall them.... The example of such individuals or +bodies of individuals as submit quietly to have their wages reduced, and +who are content if they get only mere necessaries, should never be held +up for public imitation. On the contrary, everything should be done to +make such apathy be esteemed discreditable. The best interests of +society require that the rate of wages should be elevated as high as +possible--that a taste for comforts and enjoyments should be widely +diffused, and, if possible, interwoven with national habits and +prejudices. Very low wages, by rendering it impossible for increased +exertions to obtain any considerable increase of advantages, effectually +hinder them from being made, and are of all others the most powerful +cause of that idleness and apathy that contents itself with what can +barely continue animal existence" (p. 415). + +And he goes on to refute the idea of Benjamin Franklin, that high wages +breed indolent and dissipated habits, and to contend that they not only +improve the character and efficiency of the labourer, but are in the end +a source of gain, instead of loss, to the employer. But, although the +maintenance of a high rate of wages is so great an object of public +solicitude, it was an object which it was, in McCulloch's judgment, +outside the State's province, simply because it was outside its power, +to do anything directly to promote, because while authority could fix a +price for labour, it could never compel employers to engage labour at +that price; and consequently its interference in such a way would only +end in injury to the class it sought to befriend, as well as to the +trade of the country in general. Still, McCulloch is far from wishing to +repel the State's offices or the offices of public opinion in +connection with the business altogether. In the passage just quoted he +expressly makes an appeal to public opinion for an active interference +in a direction where, he believes, its interference might be useful; and +as for the action of the State, he approves, for one thing, of the +legalization of trades unions, and, for another, of the special +instruction of the public, at the national expense, in the principles on +which a high rate of wages depend. + +In regard to the Factory Acts, while he would have the hours of labour +in the case of grown-up men settled by the parties themselves, because +he thought them the only persons competent to settle them +satisfactorily, he strongly supported the interference of the +Legislature, on grounds of ordinary humanity, to limit the working day +of children and women, because "the former are naturally, and the latter +have been rendered, through custom and the institutions of society, +unable to protect themselves" (p. 426); and he seconded all Lord +Shaftesbury's labours down to the Ten Hours Act of 1847, to which he +objected on the ground that it involved a practical interference with +all adult factory labour. On the other hand, he was in favour of the +principle of employers' liability for accidents in mines and workshops, +because there seemed no other way of saving the labourers from their own +carelessness, except by making the masters responsible for the +enforcement of the necessary regulations (p. 307). + +But McCulloch's general position on this class of questions is still +better exemplified in the view he takes of the State's duty on a matter +of great present interest, the housing of the poor. Here he has no +hesitation in throwing the principal blame for the bad accommodation of +the working-classes of that day, for the underground cellar dwellings of +Liverpool and Manchester, the overcrowded lodging-houses of London, and +the streets of cottages unsupplied with water or drainage, on "the +culpable inattention of the authorities." Mr. Goschen vindicates the +legitimacy of Government interference with the housing of the people, on +the ground that it is the business of Government to see justice done +between man and man. When a man hired a house, Government had a right to +see that he got a house, and a house meant a dwelling fit for human +habitation. The inspection of houses is, according to this idea, only a +case of necessary protection against fraud, like the institution of +medical examinations, the assaying of metals, or the testing of drugs; +and protection against fraud is admitted everywhere to be the proper +business of Government. McCulloch bases his justification of the +intervention on much broader grounds. Government needs no other warrant +for condemning a house that is unfit for human habitation but the simple +fact that the house is unfit for human habitation, and it makes no +difference whether the tenant is cheated into taking the bad house, or +takes it openly because he prefers it. In fact, the strongest reason, in +McCulloch's opinion, for invoking Government interference in the case at +all, is precisely the circumstance that so many people actually prefer +unwholesome houses from motives of economy. + +"Such cottages," he says, "being cheap, are always sure to find +occupiers. Nothing, however, can be more obvious than that it is the +duty of Government to take measures for the prevention and repair of an +abuse of this sort. Its injurious influence is not confined to the +occupiers of the houses referred to, though if it were, that would be no +good reason for declining to introduce a better system. But the diseases +engendered in these unhealthy abodes frequently extend their ravages +through all classes of the community, so that the best interests of the +middle and higher orders, as well as of the lowest, are involved in this +question. And, on the same principle that we adopt measures to guard +against the plague, we should endeavour to secure ourselves against +typhus, and against the brutalizing influence, over any considerable +portion of the population, of a residence amid filth and disease" (p. +308). + +The last clause is remarkable. The State is required to protect the +people from degrading influences, to prevent them from being brutalized +through the avarice or apathy of others, and to prevent them being +brutalized through the avarice or apathy of themselves. It is not what +many persons would expect, but here we have political economy, and the +most "orthodox" political economy, forcing people to go to a dearer +market for their houses, in order to satisfy a sentiment of humanity, +and imposing on the State a social mission of a broad positive +character--the mission of extirpating brutalizing influences. Yet, +expected or not, this is really the ordinary tradition of English +economists--it is the principle laid down by Smith of obliging the State +to secure for the people an unmutilated and undeformed manhood, to +provide for them by public means the fundamental conditions of a humane +existence. + +McCulloch's position comes out more clearly still in the reasons he +gives for advocating a compulsory provision for the able-bodied poor, +and a national system of popular education. With regard to the impotent +poor, he is content with saying that it would be inhumanity to deny them +support, and injustice to throw their support exclusively on the +benevolent. A poor-rate is sometimes defended on what are professed to +be strictly economical grounds, by showing that it is both less +mischievous and less expensive than mendicity; but what strikes +McCulloch is not so much the wastefulness of private charity in the +hands of the benevolent as the injustice of suffering the avaricious to +escape their natural obligations. Few, however, have much difficulty in +finding one good reason or another for making a public provision for the +impotent poor; the crux of the question of public assistance is the case +of the able-bodied poor. A provision for the able-bodied poor is +practically a recognition in a particular form of "the right to labour," +and the right to labour resounds with many revolutionary terrors in our +English ears, although it has, as a matter of fact, been practised +quietly, and most of the time in one of its most pernicious forms, in +every parish of England for nearly three hundred years. + +Now on this question McCulloch was a convert. He confessed to the +Committee on the State of the Poor in Ireland, in 1830, that he had +changed his views on the subject entirely since his previous evidence in +1825. He had formerly been, he said, "too much imbued with mere theory, +with the opinions of Malthus and Townsend"; but he had become a firm +believer in the necessity and the public advantage of a legal provision +for the able-bodied poor, and he strongly recommended the introduction +of such a system into Ireland, in the first instance as an instrument of +individual relief, but also as an effectual engine of social +improvement. He gives the reasons for his conversion partly in his +evidence, and partly in a more systematic form in his "Principles of +Political Economy." First, Malthus had attributed to the Poor Law itself +effects which really sprang from certain bad arrangements that had been +engrafted on the English system of relief, but were not essential to +it--viz., the allowance system, and the law known as Gilbert's Act, +which deprived parishes of the right to refuse relief except in +workhouses, and forced them to provide work for paupers, if paupers +desired it, at or near their own houses. These two arrangements, in +McCulloch's opinion, converted the English provision for the able-bodied +poor from what we may term a wise and conditional right of labour into +an unwise and dangerous one. In the second place, he had come to see +that a legal provision for the poor, instead of having, as was alleged, +a necessary tendency to multiply pauperism, had in reality a natural +tendency to prevent its growth, because it gave the landlords and +influential ratepayers a strong pecuniary as well as moral interest in +producing that result. Its effect was thus to establish in every parish +a new local stimulus to social improvement, and it was on account of +this effect of a Poor Law that McCulloch thought it would be specially +beneficial to Ireland, because there was nothing Ireland needed more +than just such a local stimulus. In the third place, he had become more +and more profoundly impressed with the increasing gravity of the +vicissitudes and fluctuations of employment to which English labourers +were subject since England became mainly a manufacturing country, and +that unhappy feature of manufacturing industry was his principal reason +for invoking legislative assistance. A purely agricultural country, he +thought, might be able to do without a Poor Law, because agricultural +employment was comparatively steady; but in a manufacturing country a +Poor Law was indispensable, on account of the long periods of depression +or privation which were normal incidents in the life of labour in such a +country, and on account of the pernicious effect which these periods of +privation would, if unchecked, be certain to exercise upon the character +and habits of the labouring classes, through "lowering their estimate of +what is required for their comfortable and decent subsistence." +("Political Economy," p. 448.) + +"During these periods of extraordinary privation the labourer, if not +effectually relieved, would imperceptibly lose that taste for order, +decency, and cleanliness which had been gradually formed and accumulated +in better times by the insensible operation of habit and example, and no +strength of argument, no force of authority, could again instil into the +minds of a new generation, growing up under more prosperous +circumstances, the sentiments and tastes thus uprooted and destroyed by +the cold breath of penury. Every return of temporary distress would +therefore vitiate the feelings and lower the sensibilities of the +labouring classes" (p. 449). + +McCulloch quotes these words from Barton, but he quotes them to express +his own view, and their teaching is very explicit on the duty of +Government to the unemployed in seasons of commercial distress. In such +seasons of "extraordinary privation" the State is called upon to take +"effectual" measures--extraordinary measures, we may infer, if +extraordinary measures were necessary--for the relief of the unemployed, +not merely to save them from starvation, but to prevent them from losing +established habits of "order, decency, and cleanliness"; from getting +their feelings vitiated, their sensibilities impaired, so that they were +in danger of remaining content with a worse standard of living, and +sinking to a lower scale in the dignity of social and civilized being. +In a word, it is held to be the duty of the State to prevent, if it can, +the temporary reverses of the labouring class from resulting in its +permanent moral decadence; and as the object of the State's intervention +is to preserve the dignity, the self-respect, the moral independence and +energy of the labouring class, the manner of the intervention, the +choice of actual means and steps for administering the relief, must, of +course, be governed by the same considerations. "The true secret of +assisting the poor," says McCulloch, borrowing the words of Archbishop +Sumner, "is to make them agents in bettering their own condition, and to +supply them, not with a temporary stimulus, but with a permanent energy" +(p. 475). + +The same principles come out even more strongly in McCulloch's remarks +on national education. He says, "the providing of elementary instruction +for all classes is one of the most pressing duties of Government" (p. +473); and the elementary instruction he would provide would not stop at +reading and writing, but would include even a knowledge of so much +political economy as would explain "the circumstances which elevate and +depress the rate of wages" (p. 474). It was the duty of Government to +extirpate ignorance, because, "of all obstacles to improvement, +ignorance was the most formidable"; and it was its duty to establish +Government schools for the purpose, because charity schools impaired the +self-respect and sense of independence which were themselves first +essentials of all social improvement. + +"No extension of the system of charity and subscription schools can ever +fully compensate for the want of a statutory provision for the education +of the public. Something of degradation always attaches to the fact of +one's having been brought up in a charity school. The parents who send +children to such an institution, and even the children, know that they +have been received only because they are paupers unable to pay for their +education; and this consciousness has a tendency to weaken that state of +independence and self-respect, for the want of which the best education +may be but an imperfect substitute. But no such feeling could operate on +the pupils of schools established by the State" (p. 476). + +There is no question with McCulloch about the right of the State to take +steps to forward the moral progress, or to prevent the moral decadence, +of the community--or any part of the community--under its care; that is +simply its plain and primary duty, though there may be question with the +State, as with other agencies, whether particular measures proposed for +the purpose are really calculated to effect it. + +After this long, and I fear tedious, account of the opinions of +McCulloch, it would be needless to call more witnesses to refute those +who so commonly accuse English economists of teaching an extreme +individualism. For McCulloch may be said to be their own witness; they +hold him up as the hardest and narrowest of a hard and narrow school; +one of the ablest of them, Mr. J. K. Ingram, who writes McCulloch's +memoir in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, going so far as to accuse him +of exhibiting "a habitual deadness in the study of social questions to +all but material considerations." We have adduced enough to disprove +that statement. The reader of McCulloch's writings is constantly struck +to observe how habitually his judgment of a social question is governed +by ethical rather than economic considerations, and how his supreme +concern always seems to be to guard the labouring poor from falling into +any sort of permanent decadence, and to place them securely on the lines +of progressive elevation. But perhaps a word may be required about the +Manchester school. Mr. Ingram states--and again his statement probably +agrees with current prepossessions--that McCulloch occupied +"substantially the same theoretic position as was occupied at a somewhat +later period by the Manchester school" (_Encyc. Brit._, art. "Political +Economy"). We have seen what McCulloch's theoretic position really was, +and it is certainly not the Manchester doctrine of popular anathema; it +is not the _Manchesterismus_ of the German schools. But the Manchester +men can scarcely be said to have properly had anything in the nature of +a general theoretic position. They were not a school of political +philosophy--they were a band of practical politicians leagued to promote +particular reforms, especially two reforms in international policy which +involved large curtailments of the _role_ of Government--viz., free +trade with other countries, and nonintervention in their internal +affairs; but they were far from thinking that, because it would be well +for the State to abstain from certain specific interferences, it would +be well for it to abstain from all; or that if the State had no +civilizing mission towards the people of other countries, it had +therefore no civilizing mission towards its own. Cobden, for example--to +go no farther--was a lifelong advocate of a national system of +education; he was a friend of factory legislation for women and +children, and, with respect to the poor, he taught in one of his +speeches the semi-socialistic doctrine that the poor had the first right +to maintenance from the land--that they are, as it were, the first +mortgagees. The Manchester school is really nothing but a stage +convention, a convenient polemical device for marking off a particular +theoretical extreme regarding the task of the State; but the persons in +actual life who were presumed to compose the school were no more, all +of them, adherents of that theory than Scotchmen, off the stage, have +all short kilts and red hair. And as for that theory itself, the theory +of _laissez-faire_, it has never in England been really anything more +than it is now, the plea of alarmed vested interests stealing an +unwarranted, and I believe an unwelcome, shelter under the aegis of +economic science. English economists, from Smith to McCulloch, from +McCulloch to Mr. Sidgwick, have adhered with a truly remarkable +steadiness to a social doctrine of a precisely contrary character--a +social doctrine which, instead of exhibiting any unreasonable aversion +to Government interference, expressly assigns to Government a just and +proper place in promoting the social and industrial development of the +community. In the first place, in the department of production, they +freely allow that just as there are many industrial enterprises in the +conduct of which individual initiative must, for want of resources or +other reasons, yield to joint-stock companies, so there are others for +which individuals and companies alike must give place to the State, +because the State is by nature or circumstances better fitted than +either to conduct them satisfactorily; and in the next place, in the +department of distribution, while rating the moral or personal +independence of the individual as a supreme blessing and claim, they +have no scruple in calling on the State to interfere with the natural +liberty of contract between man and man, wherever such interference +seems requisite to secure just and equitable dealing, to guard that +personal independence itself from being sapped, or to establish the +people better in any of the other elementary conditions of all humane +living. We sometimes take pride at the present day in professing a +distrust for doctrinaire or metaphysical politics, and we are no doubt +right; but that reproach cannot justly be levelled against the English +economists. They were not Dutch gardeners trying to dress the world +after an artificial scheme; that is more distinctive of the social +systems they opposed. Their own system indeed was to study Nature, to +discover the principles of sound natural social growth, and to follow +them; but they had no idea on that account of leaving things to grow +merely as they would, or of renouncing the help of good husbandry. They +had, as we have seen, a positive doctrine of social politics, which +required from the State much more than the protection of liberty and the +repression of crime; they asked the State to undertake such industrial +work as it was naturally better fitted to perform than individuals or +associations of individuals, and they asked the State to secure to the +body of the citizens the essential conditions of a normal and +progressive manhood. + +Now this doctrine--which may be called the English doctrine of social +politics--seems to furnish a basis of considerable practical value for +discriminating between a wholesome and effective participation by +Government in the work of social reform, on the one hand, and those +pernicious and dangerous forms of intervention on the other, which may +be correctly known by the name of State socialism. + + +II. _The Nature and Principle of State Socialism._ + +Few words are at present more wantonly abused than the words socialism +and State socialism. They are tossed about at random, as if their +meaning, as was said of the spelling of former generations, was a mere +affair of private judgment. There is, in truth, a great deal of +socialism in the employment of the word; little respect is paid to the +previous appropriation of it; and especially since it has become, as has +been said, _hoffaehig_, men press forward from the most unlikely +quarters, claim kindred with the socialists, and strive for the honour +of being called by their name. Many excellent persons, for example, have +no better pretext to advance for their claim than that they also feel a +warm sentiment of interest in the cause of the poor. Churchmen whose +duties bring them among the poor are very naturally touched with a sense +of the miseries they observe, and certain of them, who may perhaps +without offence be said to love the cause well more than wisely, come to +public platforms and declare themselves socialists--socialists, they +will sometimes explain, of an older and purer confession than the Social +Democratic Federation, but still good and genuine socialists--merely +because the religion they preach is a gospel of moral equality before +God, and of fraternal responsibility among men, whose very test in the +end is the test of human kindness--"Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of +the least of these My brethren, ye did it not to Me." But socialism is +not a feeling for the poor, nor yet for the responsibilities of society +in connection with their poverty; it is neither what is called +humanitarianism, nor what is called altruism; it is not an affair of +feeling at all, but of organization, and the feeling it breathes may not +be altruistic. The revolutionary socialists of the Continent, for +instance, are animated by as vigorous a spirit of self-interest and an +even more bitter class antagonism than a trade union or a land league. +They fight for a particular claim of right--the utterly unjustifiable +claim to the whole product of labour--and they propose to turn the world +upside down by a vast scheme of social reconstruction in order to get +their unjust, delusive, and mischievous idea realized. The gauge of +their socialism, therefore, must, after all, be looked for in their +claim and their remedy, and not in the vague sympathies of a benevolent +spectator who, without scrutinizing either the one or the other, thinks +he will call himself a socialist because he feels that there is much in +the lot of the poor man that might be mended, and that the rich might be +very properly and reasonably asked to make some sacrifices for their +brethren's sake out of their abundance. The philanthropic spectator +suffers from no scarcity of words to express his particular attitude if +he desires to do so; why then should he not leave socialists the +enjoyment of their vocable? + +There is often at the bottom of this sentimental patronage of socialism +the not unchivalrous but mistaken idea that the ordinary self-interest +of the world has been glorified by economists into a sacred and +all-sufficing principle which it would be interfering with the designs +of Providence to restrict, and that therefore it is only right to side +with socialism as a protest against the position taken by the apologists +of the present system of things, without being understood to commit +one's self thereby to the particular system which socialism may propose +to put in its place. But while the economists think very rightly that +self-interest must always be regarded as the ordinary guide of life, and +that the world cannot be reasonably expected to become either better, or +better off, if everybody were to look after other people's interests +(which he knows nothing about) instead of looking after his own (of +which he at least knows something), they are far from showing any +indifference to the danger of self-interest running into selfishness. On +the contrary, they have constantly insisted--as the evidence I have +already produced abundantly proves--that where the self-interest of the +strongly placed failed to subject itself spontaneously to the restraints +of social justice and the responsibilities of our common humanity, it +was for society to step in and impose the restraints that were just and +requisite, and to do so either by public opinion or by public authority +in the way most likely to be practicable and effectual. Another thing +our sentimental friends forget is that the socialists of the present day +have no thought of substituting any other general economic motive in the +room of self-interest. If they had their schemes realized to-morrow, men +would still be paid according to the amount of their individual work, +and each would work so far for his own hand. His daily motive would be +his individual interest, though his scope of achievement would be +severely limited by law with the view of securing a better general level +of happiness in the community. The question between economists and +socialists is not whether the claims of social justice are entitled to +be respected, but whether the claims which one or other of them make +really are claims of social justice or no. Still, so firm is the hold +taken by the notion that the socialists are the special champions of +social justice, that one of our most respected prelates has actually +defined socialism in that sense. The Bishop of Rochester (now of +Winchester), in his Pastoral Letter to his Clergy at the new year of +1888, takes occasion, while warning the younger brethren against the too +headlong philanthropy which "scouts what is known as the science of +political economy," to describe socialism as "the science of maintaining +the right proportion of equity and kindness while adjudicating the +various claims which individuals and society mutually make upon each +other." In reality, socialism would be better defined as a system that +outsteps the right proportion of equity and kindness, and sets up for +the masses claims that are devoid of proportion and measure of any kind, +and whose injustice and peril often arise from that very circumstance. + +If bishops carry the term off to one quarter, philosophers carry it to +another. Some identify socialism with the associative principle +generally, and see it manifested in the growth of one form of +organization as much as in the growth of another, or at most they may +limit it to the intervention of the associative principle in things +industrial, and in that event they would consider a joint-stock company, +or a co-operative store, or perhaps a building like Queen Anne's +Mansions, or the common-stair system of Scotland, to be as genuine +exhibitions of socialism as the collectivism or anarchism of the +Continental factions or the State monopolies of Prince Bismarck. But a +joint-stock company is no departure from--it is rather an extension +of--the present _regime_ of private property, free competition, and +self-interest; and why should it be described by the same name as a +system whose chief pretension is to supersede that _regime_ by a better? +Another very common definition of socialism--perhaps the most common of +all, and the last to which I shall refer here--is that socialism is the +general principle of giving society the greatest possible control over +the life of the individual, in contradistinction to the opposite +principle of individualism, which is taken to be the principle of giving +the individual the greatest possible immunity from the control of +society. Any extension of the authority of the State, any fresh +regulation of the transactions of individual citizens, is often +pronounced to be socialistic without asking what the object or nature of +the regulations may be. Socialism is identified with any enlargement, +and individualism with any contraction, of the functions of government. +But the world has not been made on this socialist principle alone, nor +on this individualist principle alone, and it can neither be explained +nor amended by means of the one without the other. Abstractions of that +order afford us little practical guidance. The socialists of real life +are not men who are bent on increasing Government control for the mere +sake of increasing Government control. There are broad tracts of the +individual's life they would leave free from social control; they would +give him, for example, full property in his house and furniture during +his lifetime, and the right to spend his income, once he had earned it, +in his own way. Their scheme, if carried out, might be found to compel +them to restrict this latter right, but their own desire and belief +undoubtedly is that the individual would have more freedom of the kind +then than he has now. They seek to extend Government control only +because, and only so far as, they believe Government control to be +necessary and fitted to realize certain theories of right and well-being +which they think it incumbent on organized society to realize; and +consequently the thing that properly characterizes their position is not +so much the degree of their confidence in the powers of the State as the +nature of the theories of right for which they invoke its intervention. +And just as socialists do not enlarge the bounds of authority from the +mere love of authority, so their opponents do not resist the enlargement +from the mere hatred of authority. They raise no controversy about the +abstract legitimacy of Government encroachments on the sphere of private +capital or of legal enlargements of the rights or privileges of labour. +There is no socialism in that; the socialism only comes in when the +encroachments are made on a field where Government administration is +unlikely to answer, and where the rights conferred are rights to which +labour can present no just and reasonable claim. + +It will be objected that this is to reduce socialism to a mere matter of +more or less. The English economists, it will be said, practised a +little socialism, because they allowed the use of State means to elevate +the condition of the working classes, or to provide for the wants of the +general community; and the Continental Social Democrats only practise a +little more socialism when they cry for a working-class State or for the +progressive nationalization of all industries. But in practical life the +measure is everything. So many grains of opium will cure; so many more +will kill. The important thing for adjusting claims must always be to +get the right measure, and the objection to socialistic schemes is +precisely this, that they take up a theory of distributive justice which +is an absolutely wrong measure, or else some vague theory of +disinheritance which contains no measure at all. They would nationalize +industries without paying any respect to their suitability for +Government management, simply because they want to see all industries +nationalized; and they would grant all manner of compensating +advantages to the working class as instalments of some vague claim, +either of economic right from which they are alleged to have been ousted +by the system of capitalism, or of aboriginal natural right from which +they are said to have been disinherited by the general arrangements of +society itself. What distinguishes their position and makes it socialism +is therefore precisely this absence of measure or of the right measure, +and one great advantage of the English doctrine of social politics which +I have expounded, is that it is able to supply this indispensable +criterion. That doctrine would limit the industrial undertakings of the +State to such as it possessed natural advantages for conducting +successfully, and the State's part in social reform to securing for the +people the essential conditions of all humane living, of all normal and +progressive manhood. It would interfere, indeed, as little as possible +with liberty of speculation, because it recognises that the best way of +promoting social progress and prosperity is to multiply the +opportunities, and with the opportunities the incentives, of talent and +capital; but, while giving the strong their head, in the belief that +they will carry on the world so far after them, it would insist on the +public authority taking sharp heed that no large section of the common +people be suffered to fall permanently behind in the race, to lose the +very conditions of further progress, and to lapse into ways of living +which the opinion of the time thinks unworthy of our common humanity. +Now State socialism disregards these limits, straying generally far +beyond them, and it may not improperly be defined as the system which +requires the State to do work it is unfit to do in order to invest the +working classes with privileges they have no right to get. + +The term State socialism originated in Germany a few years ago to +express the antithesis not of free, voluntary, or Christian socialism, +as seems frequently to be imagined here, but of revolutionary socialism, +which is always considered to be socialism proper, because it is the +only form of the system that is of any serious moment at the present +day. State socialism has the same general aims as socialism proper, only +it would carry out its plans gradually by means of the existing State, +instead of first overturning the existing State by revolution and +establishing in its place a new political organization for the purpose, +the Social Democratic Republic. There are socialists who fancy they have +but at any moment to choose a government and issue a decree, as Napoleon +once did--"Let misery be abolished this day fortnight"--and misery would +be abolished that day fortnight. But the State socialists are unable to +share this simple faith. They are State socialists not because they have +more confidence in the State than other socialists, but because they +have less. They consider it utterly futile to expect a democratic +community ever to be able to create a political executive that should be +powerful enough to carry through the entire socialistic programme. Like +the Social Conservatives of all countries, like our own Young England +party, for example, or the Tory Democrats of the present generation, +they combine a warm zeal for popular amelioration with a profound +distrust of popular government; but when compared with other socialists, +they take a very sober view of the capacity of government of any kind; +and although they believe implicitly in the "Social Monarchy of the +Hohenzollerns," they doubt whether the strongest monarchy the world has +ever seen would be strong enough to effect a socialistic reconstruction +of the industrial system without retaining the existence for many +centuries to come of the ancient institutions of private property and +inheritance. + +All that is at least very frankly acknowledged by Rodbertus, the +remarkable but overrated thinker whom the State socialists of Germany +have chosen for their father. Rodbertus was always regarded as a great +oracle by Lassalle, the originator of the present socialist agitation, +and his authority is constantly quoted by the most eminent luminary +among the State socialists of those latter days, Professor Adolph +Wagner, who says it was Rodbertus that first shed on him "the Damascus +light that tore from his eyes the scales of economic individualism." +Rodbertus had lived for a quarter of a century in a political sulk +against the Hohenzollerns. Though he had served as a Minister of State, +he threw up his political career rather than accept a constitution as a +mere royal favour; he refused to work under it or recognise it by so +much as a vote at the polls. But when the power of the Hohenzollerns +became established by the victories of Koeniggraetz and Sedan, and when +they embarked on their new policy of State socialism, Rodbertus +developed into one of their most ardent worshippers. Their new social +policy, it is true, was avowedly adopted as a corrective of socialism, +as a kind of inoculation with a milder type of the disease in order to +procure immunity from a more malignant; but Bismarck contended at the +same time that it was nothing but the old traditional policy of the +House of Prussia, who had long before placed the right of existence and +the right of labour in the statute-book of the country, and whose most +illustrious member, Frederick the Great, used to be fond of calling +himself "the beggars' king." Under these circumstances Rodbertus came to +place the whole hope of the future in the "Social Monarchy of the +Hohenzollerns," and ventured to prophesy that a socialist emperor would +yet be born to that House who would rule possibly with a rod of iron, +but would always rule for the greatest good of the labouring class. +Still, even under a dynasty of socialist emperors Rodbertus gave five +hundred years for the completion of the economic revolution he +contemplated, because he acknowledged it would take all that time for +society to acquire the moral principle and habitual firmness of will +which would alone enable it to dispense with the institutions of private +property and inheritance without suffering serious injury. + +In theory Rodbertus was a believer in the modern social democratic +doctrine of the labourer's right to the full product of his labour--the +doctrine which gives itself out as "scientific socialism," because it is +got by combining a misunderstanding of Ricardo's theory of wages with a +misunderstanding of the same economist's theory of value--and which +would abolish rent, interest, profit, and all forms of "labourless +income," and give the entire gross product to the labourer, because by +that union of scientific blunders it is made to appear that the labourer +has produced the whole product himself. Rodbertus, in fact, claimed to +be the author of that doctrine, and fought for the priority with Marx, +though in reality the English socialists had drawn the same conclusions +from the same blunders long before either of them; but author or no +author of it, his sole reason for touching the work of social reform at +all was to get that particular claim of right recognised. Yet for five +hundred years Rodbertus will not wrong the labourers by granting them +their full rights. He admits that without the assistance of the private +capitalist during that interval labourers would not produce so much +work, and therefore could not earn so much wages as they do now; and +consequently, in spite of his theories, he declines to suppress rent and +interest in the meantime, and practically tells the labourers they must +wait for the full product of labour till the time comes when they can +produce the full product themselves. That is virtually to confess that +while the claim may be just then, it is unjust now; and although +Rodbertus never makes that acknowledgment, he is content to leave the +claim in abeyance and to put forward in its place, as a provisional +ideal of just distribution more conformable to the present situation of +things, the claim of the labourer to a progressive share, step for step +with the capitalist, in the results of the increasing productivity given +to labour by inventions and machinery. He thought that at present, so +far from getting the whole product of labour, the labourer was getting a +less and less share of its products every day, and though this can be +easily shown to be a delusive fear, Rodbertus's State socialism was +devised to counteract it. + +For this purpose the first requisite was the systematic management of +all industries by the State. The final goal was to be State property as +well as State management, but for the greater part of five centuries the +system would be private property and State management. Sir Rowland Hill +and the English railway nationalizers proposed that the State should own +the lines, but that the companies should continue to work them; +Rodbertus's idea, on the contrary, is that the State should work, but +not own. But then the State should manage everything and everywhere. +Co-operation and joint-stock management were as objectionable to him as +individual management. He thought it a mere delusion to suppose, as some +socialists did, that the growth of joint-stock companies and +co-operative societies is a step in historical evolution towards a +socialist _regime_. It was just the opposite; it was individual property +in a worse form, and he always told his friend Lassalle that it was a +hopeless dream to expect to bring in the reign of justice and +brotherhood by his plan of founding productive associations on State +credit, because productive societies really led the other way, and +created batches of joint-stock property, which he said would make itself +a thousand times more bitterly hated than the individual property of +to-day. One association would compete with another, and the group on a +rich mine would use their advantage over the group on a poor one as +mercilessly as private capitalists do now. Nothing would answer the end +but State property, and nothing would conduce to State property but +State management. + +The object of all this intervention, as we have said, is to realize a +certain ideal or standard of fair wages--the standard according to which +a fair wage is one that grows step by step with the productive capacity +of the country; and the plan Rodbertus proposes to realize it by is +practically a scheme of compulsory profit-sharing. He would convert all +land and capital into an irredeemable national stock, of which the +present owners would be constituted the first or original holders, which +they might sell or transfer at pleasure but not call up, and on which +they should receive, not a fixed rent or rate of interest, but an annual +dividend varying with the produce or profits of the year. The produce of +the year was to be divided into three parts: one for the landowners, to +be shared according to the amount of stock they respectively held; a +second for the capitalists, to be shared in the same way; and the third +for the labourers, to be shared by them according to the quantity of +work they did, measured by the time occupied and the relative strain of +their several trades. This division was necessarily very arbitrary in +its nature; there was no principle whatever to decide how much should go +to the landowners, and how much to capitalists, and how much to +labourers; and although there was a rule for settling the price of +labour in one trade as compared with the price of labour in another, it +is a rule that would afford very little practical guidance if one came +to apply it in actual life. At all events, Rodbertus himself toiled for +years at a working plan for his scheme of wages, but though he always +gave out that he had succeeded in preparing one, he steadily refused to +disclose it even to trusted admirers like Lassalle and Rudolph Meyer, +on the singular pretext that the world knew too little political +economy as yet to receive it, and at his death nothing of the sort seems +to have been discovered among his papers. Is it doing him any injustice +to infer that he had never been able to arrive at a plan that satisfied +his own mind as to its being neither arbitrary nor impracticable? + +Now this is a good specimen of State socialism, because it is so +complete and brings out so decisively the broad characteristics of the +system. In the first place, it desires a progressive and indiscriminate +nationalization of all industries, not because it thinks they will be +more efficiently or more economically managed in consequence of the +change, but merely as a preliminary step towards a particular scheme of +social reform; in the next place, that scheme of social reform is an +ideal of equitable distribution which is demonstrably false, and is +admittedly incapable of immediate realization; in the third place, a +provisional policy is adopted in the meanwhile by pitching arbitrarily +on a certain measure of privileges and advantages that are to be +guaranteed to the labouring classes by law as partial instalments of +rights deferred or compensations for rights alleged to be taken away. + +It may be that not many State socialists are so thoroughgoing as +Rodbertus. Few of them possibly accept his theory of the labourer's +right--which is virtually that the labourer has a right to everything, +all existing wealth being considered merely an accumulation of unpaid +labour--and few of them may throw so heavy a burden on the State as the +whole production and the whole distribution of the country. But they all +start from some theory of right that is just as false, and they all +impose work on the State which the State cannot creditably perform. They +all think of the mass of mankind as being disinherited in one way or +another by the present social system, perhaps through the permission of +private property at all, perhaps through permission of its inequalities. +M. de Laveleye, indeed, goes a step further back still. In an article he +has contributed on this subject to the _Contemporary Review_, he uses as +his motto the saying of M. Renan that Nature is injustice itself, and he +would have society to correct not merely the inequalities which society +may have itself had a share in establishing, but also the inequalities +of talent or opportunity which are Nature's own work. Accordingly, M. de +Laveleye describes himself as a State socialist, because he thinks "the +State ought to make use of its legitimate powers for the establishment +of the equality of conditions among men in proportion to their personal +merit." Equality of conditions and personal merit are inconsistent +standards, but if they were harmonious, it would be beyond the power of +the State to realize them for want of an effective calculus of either. + +Few State socialists, however, profess the purpose of correcting the +differences of native endowment; for the most part, when they found +their policy on any theoretic idea at all, they found it on some idea of +historical reparation. In this country, socialist notions always crop up +out of the land. German socialists direct their attack mainly on +capital, but English socialism fastens very naturally on property in +land, which in England is concentrated into unnaturally few hands: and a +claim is very commonly advanced for more or less indefinite compensation +to the labouring class on account of their alleged disinheritance, +through the institution of private property, from their aboriginal or +natural rights to the use of the earth, the common possession of the +race. That is the ground, for example, which Mr. Spencer takes for +advocating land nationalization, and Mr. Chamberlain for his various +claims for "ransom." The last-comer is held to have as good a right to +the free use of the earth as the first occupant; and if society deprives +him of that right for purposes of its own, he is maintained to be +entitled to receive some equivalent, as if society does not already give +the new-comer vastly more than it took away. His chances of obtaining a +decent living in the world, instead of being reduced, have been +immensely multiplied through the social system that has resulted from +the private appropriation of land. The primitive economic rights whose +loss socialists make the subject of so much lamentation are generally +considered to be these four: (1) the right to hunt; (2) the right to +fish; (3) the right to gather nuts and berries; and (4) the right to +feed a cow or sheep on the waste land. Fourier added a fifth--which was +certainly a right much utilized in early times--the right of theft from +people over the border of the territory of one's own tribe. Let that +right be thrown in with the rest; then the claim with which every +English child is alleged to be born, and for which compensation is +asked, is the claim to a thirty-millionth part of the value of these +five aboriginal uses of the soil of England; and what is that worth? +Why, if the "prairie value" of the soil is estimated at the high figure +of a shilling the acre per annum, it would only give every inhabitant +something under half a crown, and when compensation is demanded for the +loss of this ridiculous pittance, one calls to mind what immensely +greater compensations the modern child is born to. Civilization is +itself a social property, a common fund, a people's heritage, +accumulating from one generation to another, and opening to the +new-comer economic opportunities and careers incomparably better and +more numerous than the ancient liberties of fishing in the stream or +nutting in the forest. The things actually demanded for the poor in +liquidation of this alleged claim may often be admissible on other +grounds altogether, but to ask them in the name of compensation for the +loss of those primitive economic rights--even though it was done by +Spencer or Cobden--is certainly State socialism. + +Mr. Chamberlain's famous "ransom" speeches are an example of that. There +was nothing socialist about the substance of his proposals. He expressly +disclaimed all sympathy with the idea of equality of conditions; he +hesitated about applying the graduated taxation principle to anything +but legacies; he explicitly said he would do nothing to discourage the +cumulative principle in the rich, or the habit of industry in the poor; +he asked mainly for free schools, free libraries, free parks, and other +things of a like character; but then he asked for them as a penalty for +wrong-doing, instead of an obligation of ability--as a ransom to be paid +by the rich, or by society generally, for having ousted the poor out of +their aboriginal rights. Mr. Chamberlain merely pled for useful social +reforms in a socialistic spirit. + +The favourite theory on which the German State socialists proceed seems +to be that men are entitled to an equalization of opportunities, to an +immunity, as far as human power can secure it, from the interposition of +chance and change. That at least is the view of Professor Adolph +Wagner, whose position on the subject is of considerable consequence, +because he is the economist-in-ordinary to the German Government, and +has been Prince Bismarck's principal adviser in connection with all his +recent social legislation. Professor Wagner may be taken as the most +eminent and most authoritative exponent of the theory of State +socialism, and he recently developed his views on the subject afresh in +some articles in the Tuebingen _Zeitschrift fuer die Gesammten +Staatswissenschaften_ for 1887, on "Finanz-politik und +Staatsozialismus." According to Wagner, the chief aim of the State at +present--in taxation and in every other form of its activity--ought to +be to alter the national distribution of wealth to the advantage of the +working class. All politics must become social politics; the State must +turn workman's friend. For we have arrived at a new historical period; +and just as the feudal period gave way to the absolutist period, and the +absolutist period to the constitutional, so now the constitutional +period is merging in what ought to be called the social period, because +social ideas are very properly coming more and more to influence and +control everything, alike in the region of production, in the region of +distribution, and in the region of consumption. Now, according to +Wagner, the business of the State socialist is simply to facilitate the +development of this change--to work out the transition from the +constitutional to the social epoch in the best, wisest, and most +wholesome way for all parties concerned. He rejects the so-called +"scientific socialism" of Marx and Rodbertus and Lassalle, and the +practical policy of the social democratic agitation; and he will not +believe either that a false theory like theirs can obtain a lasting +influence, or that a party that builds itself on such a theory can ever +become a real power. But, at the same time, he cannot set down the +socialistic theory as a mere philosophical speculation, or the +socialistic movement as merely an artificial product of agitation. The +evils of both lie in the actual situation of things; they are +products--necessary products, he says--of our modern social development; +and they will never be effectually quieted till that development is put +on more salutary lines. They have a soul of truth in them, and that soul +of truth in the doctrines and demands of radical socialism is what +State socialism seeks to disengage, to formulate, to realize. It is +quite true, for example, that the present distribution of wealth, with +its startling inequalities of accumulation and want, is historically the +effect, first, of class legislation and class administration of law; and +second, of mere blind chance operating on a legal _regime_ of private +property and industrial freedom, and a state of the arts which gave the +large scale of production decided technical advantages. In one of his +former writings, Professor Wagner contended that German peasants lived +to this day in mean thatched huts, simply because their ancestors had +been impoverished by feudal exactions and ruined by wars which they had +no voice in declaring; and he seems to be now as profoundly impressed +with the belief that the present liberty allowed to unscrupulous +speculators to utilize the chances and opportunities of trade at the +cost of others is producing evils in no way less serious, which ought to +be checked effectively while there is yet time. So long as such +tendencies are left at work, he says it is idle trying to treat +socialism with any cunning admixture of cakes and blows, or charging +State socialists with heating the oven of social democracy. State +socialists, he continues, comprehend the disease which Radical +socialists only feel wildly and call down fire to cure, and they are as +much opposed to the purely working-class State of the latter, as they +are to the purely constitutional State of our modern _Liberalismus +vulgaris_, as Wagner calls it. + +The true Social State lies, in his opinion, between the two. What the +new social era demands--the era which is already, he thinks, well in +course of development, but which it is the business of State socialism +to help Providence to develop aright--is the effective participation of +poor and rich alike in the civilization which the increased productive +resources of society afford the means of enjoying; and this is to be +brought about in two ways: first, by a systematic education of the whole +people according to a well-planned ideal of culture, and second, by a +better distribution of the income of society among the masses. Now, to +carry out these requirements, the idea of liberty proper to the +constitutional era must naturally be finally discarded, and a very +large hand must be allowed to the public authority in every department +of human activity, whether relating to the production, distribution, or +consumption of wealth. In the first place, in order to destroy the +effect of chance and of the utilization of chances in creating the +present accumulations in private hands, it is necessary to divert into +the public treasury as far as possible the whole of that part of the +national income which goes now, in the form of rent, interest, or +profit, into the pockets of the owners of land and capital, and the +conductors of business enterprises. Wagner would accordingly nationalize +(or municipalize) gradually so much of the land, capital, and industrial +undertakings of the country as could be efficiently managed as public +property or public enterprises, and that would include all undertakings +which tend to become monopolies even in private hands, or which, being +conducted best on the large scale, are already managed under a form of +organization which, in his opinion, has most of the faults and most of +the merits of State management--viz., the form of joint-stock companies. +He would in this way throw on the Government all the great means of +communication and transport, railways and canals, telegraphs and post, +and all banking and insurance; and on the municipalities all such things +as the gas, light, and water supply. Although he recognises the +suitability of Government management as a consideration to be weighed in +nationalizing an industry, he states explicitly that the reason for the +change he proposes is not in the least the fiscal or economic one that +the industry can be more advantageously conducted by the Government, but +is a theory of social politics which requires that the whole economic +work of the people ought to be more and more converted from the form of +private into the form of public organization, so that every working man +might be a public servant and enjoy the same assured existence that +other public servants at present possess. + +In the next place, since many industries must remain in private hands, +the State is bound to see the existence of the labourers engaged in +private works guaranteed as securely as those engaged in public works. +It must take steps to provide them with both an absolute and a relative +increase of wages by instituting a compulsory system of paying wages as +a percentage of the gross produce; it must guarantee them a certain +continuity of employment; must limit the hours of their labour to the +length prescribed by the present state of the arts in the several +trades; and supply a system of public insurance against accidents, +sickness, infirmity, and age, together with a provision for widows and +orphans. + +In the third place, all public works are to be managed on the +socialistic principle of supplying manual labourers with commodities at +a cheaper rate than their social superiors. They are to have advantages +in the matters of gas and water supply, railway fares, school fees, and +everything else that is provided by the public authority. + +In the fourth place, taxation is to be employed directly to mitigate the +inequalities of wealth resulting from the present commercial system, and +to save and even increase the labourer's income at the expense of the +income of other classes. This is to be done by the progressive +income-tax, and by the application of the product of indirect taxation +on certain articles of working-class consumption to special +working-class ends. For example, he thinks Prince Bismarck's proposed +tobacco monopoly might be made "the patrimony of the disinherited." + +In the fifth place, the State ought to take measures to wean the people +not only from noxious forms of expenditure, like the expenditure on +strong drink, but from useless and wasteful expenditure, and to guide +them into a more economic, far-going, and beneficial employment of the +earnings they make. + +Now for all this work, involving as it does so large an amount of +interference with the natural liberty of things, Wagner not unreasonably +thinks that a strong Government is absolutely indispensable--a +Government that knows its own mind, and has the power and the will to +carry it out; a Government whose authority is established on the history +and opinion of the nation, and stands high above all the contending +political factions of the hour. And in Germany, such an executive can +only be found in the present Empire, which is merely following +"Frederician and Josephine traditions" in coming forward, as it did in +the Imperial message of November, 1881, as a genuine "social monarchy." + +In this doctrine of Professor Wagner we find the same general features +we have already seen in the doctrine of Rodbertus. It is true he would +not nationalize all industries whatsoever; he would only nationalize +such industries as the State is really fit to manage successfully. He +admits that uneconomic management can never contribute to the public +good, and so far he accepts a very sound principle of limitation. But +then he applies the principle with too great laxity. He has an excessive +idea of the State's capacities. He thinks that every business now +conducted by a joint-stock company could be just as well conducted by +the Government, and ought therefore to be nationalized; but experience +shows--railway experience, for example--that joint-stock management, +when it is good, is better than Government management at its best. Then +Professor Wagner thinks every industry which has a natural tendency to +become in any case a practical monopoly would be better in the hands of +the Government; but Government might interfere enough to restrain the +mischiefs of monopoly--as it does in the case of railways in this +country, for example--without incurring the liabilities of complete +management. Professor Wagner would in these ways throw a great deal of +work on Government which Government is not very fit to accomplish +successfully, and he would like to throw everything on it, if he could +overcome his scruples about its capabilities, because he thinks +industrial nationalization would facilitate the realization of his +particular views of the equitable distribution of wealth. It is true, +again, that Wagner's theory of equitable distribution is not the theory +of Rodbertus--he rejects the right of labour to the whole product; but +his theory, if less definite, is not less unjustifiable. It is virtually +the theory of equality of conditions which considers all inequalities of +fortune wrong, because they are held to come either from chance, +or--what is worse--from an unjust utilization of chance, and which, on +that account, takes comparative poverty to constitute of itself a +righteous claim for compensation as against comparative wealth. Now, a +state of enforced equality of conditions would probably be found neither +possible nor desirable, but it is in its very conception unjust. It may +be well, as far as it can be done, to check refined methods of deceit, +or cruel utilizations of an advantageous position, but it can never be +right to deprive energy, talent, and character of the natural reward and +incentive of their exertions. The world would soon be poor if it +discouraged the skill of the skilful, as it would soon cease to be +virtuous if it ostracized those who were pre-eminently honest or just. +The idea of equality has been a great factor in human progress, but it +requires no such outcome as this. Equality is but the respect we owe to +human dignity, and that very respect for human dignity demands security +for the fruits of industry to the successful, and security against the +loss of the spirit of personal independence in the mass of the people. +But while that is so, there is one broad requirement of that same +fundamental respect for human dignity which must be admitted to be +wholly just and reasonable--the requirement which we have seen to have +been recognised by the English economists--that the citizens be, as far +as possible, secured, if necessary by public compulsion and public +money, in the elementary conditions of all humane living. The State +might not be right if it gave the aged a comfortable superannuation +allowance, or the unemployed agreeable work at good wages; but it is +only doing its duty when, with the English law, it gives them enough to +keep them, without taking away from the one the motives for making a +voluntary provision against age, or from the other the spur to look out +for work for themselves. + +It will be said that this is a standard that is subject to a certain +variability; that a house may be considered unfit for habitation now +that our fathers would have been fain to occupy; that shoes seem an +indispensable element of humane living now, though, as Adam Smith +informs us, they were still only an optional decency in some parts of +Scotland in his time. But differences of this nature lead to no +practical difficulty, and the standard is fixity of measure itself when +compared with the indefinite claims that may be made in the name of +historical compensation, or wild theories of distributive justice, and +it makes a wholesome appeal to recognised obligations of humanity +instead of feeding a violent sense of unbounded hereditary wrong. At +all events, it presents the true equality--equality of moral +rights--over against the false equality of State socialism--equality of +material conditions; and it is able to present a better face against +that system, because it recognises a certain measure of material +conditions among the original moral rights. For this reason the English +theory of social politics is the best practical criterion for +discriminating between socialistic legislation and wholesome social +reforms. The State socialistic position cannot be advantageously +attacked from the ground of Mr. Spencer and the adherents of +_laissez-faire_, who merely say, Let misfortune and poverty alone; +whether remediable or irremediable, they are not the State's affairs. +The two theories nowhere come within range; but the English theory meets +State socialism at every point, almost hand to hand, for it admits the +State's competency to deal with poverty and misfortune, and to alter +men's material conditions to the extent needed for the practical +realization of their full moral rights. + + +III. _State Socialism and Social Reform._ + +On this English theory of social politics, the State, though not +socialist, is very frankly social reformer, and those schools of +opinion, which are usually thought to have been most averse to +Government intervention, have been among the most earnest in pressing +that _role_ upon the State. Cobden, I presume, may be taken as a fair +representative of the Manchester school, and Cobden, with all his love +of liberty, loved progress more, and thought the best Government was the +Government that did most for social reform. When he visited Prussia in +1838, he was struck with admiration at the paternal but improving rule +he found in operation there. "I very much suspect," he said, "that at +present for the great mass of the people Prussia possesses the best +Government in Europe. I would gladly give up my taste for talking +politics, to secure such a state of things in England. Had our people +such a simple and economical Government, so deeply imbued with justice +to all, and aiming so constantly to elevate mentally and morally its +population, how much better would it be for the twelve or fifteen +millions in the British Empire, who, while they possess no electoral +rights, are yet persuaded they are freemen!" So far from thinking, as +the Manchester man of polemics is always made to think, that the State +goes far enough when it secures to every man liberty to pursue his own +interest his own way, as long as he does not interfere with the +corresponding right of his neighbours, the Manchester man of reality +takes the State severely to task for neglecting to promote the mental +and moral elevation of the people; the chief end of Government being to +establish not liberty alone, but every other necessary security for +rational progress. The theory of _laissez-faire_ would of course permit +measures required for the public safety, but what Cobden calls for are +measures of social amelioration. Provisions for the better protection of +person and property, as they exist, against violence or fraud, make up +but a small part of legitimate State duty, compared with provisions for +their better development, for enlarging the powers of the national +manhood, or the product of the national resources. The institution of +property itself is a provision for progress, and could never have +originated under the system of _laissez-faire_, which now makes it a +main branch of State work to defend it. In the form of permanent and +exclusive possession, it is undoubtedly a contravention of the equal +freedom of all to the use of their common inheritance, committed for the +purpose of securing their more productive use of it. It interferes with +their access to the land, and with the equality of their opportunities, +but then it enhances and concentrates the energies of the occupants, and +it doubles the yield of the soil. It promotes two objects, which are +quite as paramount concerns of the State as liberty itself--it improves +the industrial manhood of the nation, and it increases the productivity +of the natural resources; and institutions that conduce to such results +are not really infractions of liberty, but rather complements of it, +because they give people an ampler use of their own powers, and create, +by means of the increase of production they work, more and better +opportunities than those they take away. + +Now the lines of legitimate intervention prescribed by the necessities +of progress, and already followed in the original institution of +property, will naturally, when extended through our complicated +civilization, include a very considerable and varied field of social and +industrial activity, and this has been all along recognised by the +English economists and statesmen. While opposed to the State doing +anything either moral or material for individuals, which individuals +could do better, or with better results, for themselves, they agreed in +requiring the State, first, to undertake any industrial work it had +superior natural advantages for conducting successfully; and second, to +protect the weaker classes effectively in the essentials of all rational +and humane living--in what Adam Smith calls "an undeformed and +unmutilated manhood"--not only against the ravages of violence or fear +or insecurity, but against those of ignorance, disease, and want. Smith, +we know, would even save them from cowardice by a system of military +training, and from fanaticism by an established Church, because, he +said, cowardice and fanaticism were as great deformities of manhood as +ignorance or disease, and prevented a man from having command of himself +and his own powers quite as effectually as violence or oppression. Laws +which give every man better command and use of his own energies are in +manifest harmony with liberty, and for the State to do such industrial +work as it has special natural advantages for doing is conformable with +the principle of free-trade itself, which has always prescribed to men +and nations as the best rule for their prosperity, that they should +concentrate their strength on the branches of industry they possess +natural advantages for cultivating, and give up wasting their labour on +less productive employment. Mr. Chamberlain is certainly wrong in +thinking over-government an extinct danger under democratic +institutions, a mere survival from times of oppression which haunts the +people still, though they are their own masters, with foolish fears of +over-governing themselves. In reality, the danger has much more probably +increased, as John Stuart Mill believed, for if we cannot over-govern +ourselves, we can very easily and cheerfully over-govern one another, +and a majority may impose its brute will with even less scruple than a +monarch; but however that may be, those who tremble most sincerely for +the ark of liberty cannot see any undue contraction of the field of +individual action in an extension of authority for either of the two +purposes here specified, for the purpose of undertaking industrial work +which private initiative cannot prosecute so advantageously, or of +making more secure to the weaker citizens those primary conditions of +normal humanity, which are really their natural right. The first of +these purposes is quite consistent with the principles of men like W. +von Humboldt, who contend that the best means of national prosperity is +the cultivation to the utmost of the individual energy of the people, +and who are opposed to Government interference because it represses or +supplants that energy. They welcome everything that tends to economize +and develop energy, to place things in the hands of those that can do +them best, and generally to increase the productive capacity of the +whole community. They believe that machinery, division of labour, +factory systems, keenest conditions of competition, however they may at +first seem to contract men's opportunities of employment, always end in +multiplying them, and, because they increase or economize the productive +powers of those actually employed, really expand the field of employment +for all. Now Government management would of course have a like operation +wherever Government management effected a like economy or increase in +the productive powers of society, and would really expand the field of +individual initiative which it appeared to contract; and those who +believe most in individual energy and its power of seeking out for +itself the most advantageous new outlets, will find least to complain of +in an intervention of authority which releases men from work ill-suited +to their powers to do, and sends them into work where their powers can +be more fruitfully occupied. + +The second purpose of legitimate intervention seems even less open to +objection from that side. The State is asked to go in social reform only +as far as it goes in judicial administration--it is asked to secure for +every man as effectively as it can those essentials of all rational and +humane living which are really every man's right, because without them +he would be something less than man, his manhood would be wanting, +maimed, mutilated, deformed, incapable of fulfilling the ends of its +being. Those original requirements of humane existence are dues of the +common nature we wear, which, we cannot see extinguished in others +without an injury to our own self-respect, and the State is bound to +provide adequate securities for one of them as much as for another. The +same reason which justified the State at first in protecting person and +property against violence, justified it yesterday in abolishing slavery, +justifies it to-day in abolishing ignorance, and will justify it +to-morrow in abolishing other degrading conditions of life. The public +sense of human dignity may grow from age to age and be offended +to-morrow by what it tolerates to-day, but the principle of sound +intervention is all through the same--that the proposed measure is +necessary to enable men to live the true life of a man and fulfil the +proper ends of rational being. A thoughtful French writer defends State +intervention for the purpose of social amelioration as being a mere duty +of what he calls reparative justice. Popular misery and decadence, he +would say, is always very largely the result of bad laws and other bad +civil conditions, as we see it plainly to have been in the case of the +Irish cottiers, the Scotch crofters, and the rural labourers of England, +and when the community has really inflicted the injury, the community is +bound in the merest justice to repair it. And the obligation would not +be exhausted with the repeal of bad laws; it would require the positive +restoration to the declining populations of the conditions of real +prosperity from which they fell. But though this is a specific ground +which may occasionally quicken the State's remedial action with +something of the energy of remorse, it is no extension of its natural +and legitimate sphere of intervention, and the State might properly take +every measure necessary for the effectual restoration of a declining +section of the population to conditions of real prosperity on the broad +and simple principle already laid down, that the measure is necessary to +put those people in a position to fulfil their vocation as human beings. +Hopeless conditions of labour are as contrary to sound nature, and as +fatal to any proper use of man's energies, as slavery itself, and their +mere existence constitutes a sufficient cause for the State's +intervention, apart from any special responsibility the State may bear +for their historical origin. Even the measure of the required +intervention is no way less, for if its purpose is to preserve some +essential of full normal manhood, its only limit is that of being +effectual to serve the purpose. The original natural obligation of the +State needs no expansion then from historical responsibilities to cover +any effectual form of remedial action against the social decadence of +particular classes of the population, whether it be the constitution of +a new right like the right to a fair rent, the adoption of +administrative measures like the migration of redundant inhabitants, or +the provision of wise facilities for the rest by the loan of public +money. + +It is plain, therefore, that we have here within the lines of accepted +and even "orthodox" English theory a doctrine of social politics which +gives the Government an ample and perfectly adequate place in the +promotion of all necessary social reform; and if we are all socialists +now, as is so often said, it is not because we have undergone any change +of principles on social legislation, but only a public awakening to our +social miseries. The Churches, for example, while they left Lord +Shaftesbury to fight his battles for the helpless alone, have now shared +in this social awakening, and show not only a general ardour to agitate +social questions, but even some pains to understand them; but the +Churches did not neglect Lord Shaftesbury fifty years ago, because they +thought his Factory Bills proceeded from unsound views of the State's +functions, but merely because their interest was not then sufficiently +aroused in the temporal welfare of the poor, and with all their +individual charities they responded little to the grievances of social +classes. We are all socialists now, only in feeling as much interest in +these grievances as the socialists are in the habit of doing, but we +have not departed from our old lines of social policy, and there is no +need we should, for they are broad enough to satisfy every claim of +sound social reform. + +It is only when these lines are transgressed that, strictly speaking, +socialism begins; and though it is hopeless to think of confining the +vulgar use of the word to its strict signification, it is at least +essential to do so if we desire any clear or firm grasp of principle. +The socialism of the present time extends the State's intervention from +those industrial undertakings it is fitted to manage well to all +industrial undertakings whatever, and from establishing securities for +the full use of men's energies to attempting to equalize in some way the +results of their use of them. It may be shortly described as aiming at +the progressive nationalization of industries with a view to the +progressive equalization of incomes. The common pleas for this policy +are, first, the necessity of introducing a distribution of wealth more +in accordance with personal merit by neutralizing the effects of chance, +which at present throw some into opulence without any co-operation from +their own labour, and press thousands into penury in spite of their most +honest exertions; and second, the advantage society would reap from the +mere economy of the resources at present wasted in unnecessary +competition. Both pleas are, however delusive; it is neither good nor +possible to suppress chance, and if competition involves some loss, it +yields a much more abounding gain. + +A sense of the blind play of chance in all things human lies indeed +beneath all work of social relief. "Hodie mihi, cras tibi," wrote the +good Regent Murray over his lintel to avert the grudge of envy, and the +same feeling of the uncertainty of fortune quickens the thought of pity. +Men reflect how much of their own comfort they owe to good circumstances +rather than good deserts, and how much more bad circumstances have often +to do with poverty than bad guiding. To change these bad conditions so +far as to preserve for every man intact the essentials of common +progressive manhood is a proper object of social work. But while +mitigating the operation of chance to that extent is well, to try and +suppress its operation altogether would be injurious, even if it were +possible. For there is no pursuit under the sun in which chance has not +its part as well as skill, and skill itself is often nothing but a quick +grasp of happy chance. To discourage the alert from seizing good +opportunities on the wing, by confiscating the results and distributing +them among the languid and inactive, is the same thing as to discourage +them by like means from exerting all their industry in any other way. It +violates their individual right with no better effect than to cripple +the national production. They are entitled to the best conditions for +the successful use of their individual energies, and the best conditions +for the use of individual energies are the true securities for national +progress. The sound policy is not the greater equalization of +opportunities, but their greater utilization. It may be right to make +ships seaworthy and their masters competent navigators, but if one of +them gets delayed in a calm or disabled by a storm, while another has +caught a fair wind and is carried on to port, it would answer no good +purpose to equalize their gains for the mere correction of the +inequality in their opportunities. It would relax in both masters alike +the supreme essentials of all successful labour--activity, vigilance, +enterprise. State action with respect to the quips and arrows of fortune +ought to go as far but no farther than State action with respect to the +crimes and hostilities of men, or with respect to evil forces of nature +like those of infectious diseases--it ought to content itself with +effectually protecting the primary conditions of sound manhood against +their outrages. It may do what it can, not merely to relieve the +unfortunate in their extremity, but to prevent their coming to +extremity, to arrest, if possible, their decline, to check or soften the +trade fluctuations that often swamp them, and to facilitate their +self-recovery; but, when it goes on to suppress or equalize the +operation of fortune, it destroys the good with the evil, and even if it +removed the tares, would find it had only spoiled the harvest of wheat. +The present industrial system has its defects, but it certainly has one +immense advantage which would be forfeited under socialism--it tends to +elicit to their utmost the talents and energies alike of employers and +employed. The languor of the "Government stroke" and the slow mechanism +of a State department are unfavourable to an abundant production. The +general slackening of industry, and the extinction of those innumerable +sources of active initiative which at present are so busy pushing out +new and fruitful developments, are too great a price to pay for the +suppression of the evils of competition. To effect some economies in the +use of capital, we damage or destroy the forces by which capital is +produced, and really lose the pound to save the penny. + +Even from the standing-point of a good distribution of wealth, if by a +good distribution we mean, not an equal distribution of the produce, +however small the individual share, but, what is surely much better, a +high general level of comfort, though considerable inequalities may +remain, then an abundant production is still the most indispensable +thing, for it is the most certain of all means to that high general +level of comfort. Even in those agricultural countries where this result +is promoted by a land system favouring peasant properties, the result is +largely due to the fact that occupying ownership is itself the best +condition for high production; and if we compare the principal modern +industrial nations, we shall find labour enjoying the best real +remuneration in those where the rate of production is highest, where +employers are most competent, machinery most perfected, and labour +itself personally most efficient. And, on the other hand, while the +general level of comfort rises under a policy that develops productivity +even at the risk of widening inequality, the general level of comfort +always sinks under the contrary policy which sacrifices productivity to +socialistic ideas and claims. + +We have practical experience of the working of socialism in various +forms, and under the most opposite conditions of culture, and the +experience is everywhere the same. Custom in Samoa, for example, gives a +man a pretty strict right to go to his neighbour and requisition what he +wants, or even to quarter himself in the house without payment, as long +as he pleases. No one dares to refuse, for fear of losing credit and +suffering reproach. Originating as a well-meant refuge for the +distressed, the system has become still more a subterfuge for the lazy, +and Dr. Turner sums up his account of it by saying, "This communistic +system is a sad hindrance to the industrious, and eats like a +canker-worm at the roots of individual and national progress." The +disheartening of the industrious has an even worse effect than the +encouragement of the indolent; the more they make, the more subject they +are to the imposition. The English agricultural labourers belong to a +very different state of society from the savages of Samoa. They are of +an energetic race, which if it does not positively love work, has +probably as little aversion to it as any nation in the world, and seems +often really to delight in the hardest exertion; but in England the +effect of giving the poor a similar socialistic right was precisely the +same as in Samoa. While we are supposed to have been advancing in +socialism with our Factory Acts, we were really retreating from it in +our Poor Law. The old English laws which for centuries first fixed +labourers' wages, and then made up the deficiencies of the wages, if +such occurred, out of the poor rates, were certainly socialistic, and +the commission that inquired into their working sixty years ago reported +that their worst effect had been to make the labourers such poor workers +that they were hardly worth the wages they got. The men were by law +unable to earn more if they worked more, or to lose anything if they +worked less, and so their very working powers drooped and withered. As +most modern socialists put their trust entirely in the old motive of +self-interest, and propose to pay every man according to his work, their +only resource against such a result would be a stern system of poor-law +administration, like the English, and that would of course involve a +departure from their favourite ideal of furnishing the dependent poor +with as decent and comfortable a living as the independent poor gain for +themselves by their work. The change from Samoa to rural England is +probably not so great as the change from rural England to Brook Farm and +the other experimental communities of the United States, companies of +cultivated and earnest people, coming from one of the best civilized +stocks, and settling under the favourable material conditions of a new +country for the very purpose of working out a socialist ideal. Yet in +these American communities, socialistic institutions led to precisely +the same results as they did in England and in Samoa, a slackening of +industry, and a deterioration of the general level of comfort. No doubt, +as Horace Greeley said, who knew these communities well, and lived for a +time in more than one of them, there came to them along with the lofty +souls, who are willing to labour and endure, "scores of whom the world +is quite worthy, the conceited, the crotchety, the selfish, the +headstrong, the pugnacious, the unappreciated, the played-out, the idle, +the good-for-nothing generally, who, finding themselves utterly out of +place, and at a discount in the world as it is, rashly conclude that +they are exactly fitted for the world as it ought to be." But the +proportion of difficult subjects would not be larger in Brook Farm or +New Harmony than it is in the ordinary world outside, and in these +communities they would be under the constant influence of leaders of +the highest character and an almost religious enthusiasm. If the new and +better economic motives, which romantic socialists like Mr. Bellamy +always assure us are to carry us to such great things as soon as the +suppression of the present pecuniary motive allows them to rise into +operation--if the love of work for its own sake, the sense of public +duty, the desire of public appreciation, could be expected to prevail +anywhere to any purpose, it would be among the gifted and noble spirits +who founded the community of Brook Farm. But the late W. H. Channing, +who was a member of the community and looked back upon it with the +tenderest feelings, explains its failure by saying: "The great evil, the +radical, practical danger, seemed to be a willingness to do work half +thorough, to rest in poor results, to be content amidst comparatively +squalid conditions, and to form habits of indolence."[8] + +The idleness of the idle was one of the chief standing troubles in all +the socialistic experiments of the United States. Mr. Noyes gives us an +account of forty-seven communistic experiments which had been made under +modern socialist influences in the United States and had failed, while +Mr. Nordhoff, on the other hand, furnishes a like account of seventy-two +communities, established mainly under religious influences (fifty-eight +of them belonging to the Shakers alone), which have been not merely +social but economic successes, some of them for more than a hundred +years; and one is struck with the degree in which the idler difficulty +has contributed to the failure of the forty-seven, and in which the +continual and comparatively successful conflict with that difficulty by +means of their peculiar system of religious discipline has aided in the +success of the other seventy-two. Mr. Noyes is himself founder of the +Oneida community, and bases his descriptions of the rest on information +supplied by men who were members of the communities he describes, or on +the materials collected by Mr. Macdonald, a Scotch Owenite, who visited +most of the American communities for the purpose of describing them. No +causes of failure are more often mentioned by him than "too many +idlers" and "bad management." Not that industry was relaxed all round. +On the contrary, it seems to have been a peculiarity of the Owenite and +Fourierist communities, that the industrious wrought much harder (and in +most of them for much poorer fare) than labourers of ordinary life. +Macdonald was surprised at the marvellous industry he saw as he watched +them, and would say to himself: "If you fail, I will give it up, for +never did I see men work so well and so brotherly with each other." But +then a little way off he would come on people who "merely crawled about, +probably sick (he charitably suggests), just looking on like myself at +anything which fell in their way." A very common feeling among members +of these communities seems to have been that they were far more troubled +with idlers than the rest of the world, because their system itself +presented special attractions to that unwelcome class. "Men came," says +one of the Trumbull Phalanx, "with the idea that they could live in +idleness at the expense of the purchasers of the estate, and their ideas +were practically carried out, while others came with good heart for the +work." The same testimony is given about the Sylvania Association. "Idle +and greedy people," says the writer of this testimony, "find their way +into such attempts, and soon show forth their character by burdening +others with too much labour, and in times of scarcity supplying +themselves with more than their allowance of various necessaries, +instead of taking less." Idle and greedy people, no doubt, did get into +these communities, but these idle and greedy people constitute, I fear, +a very large proportion of mankind, and the point is that socialistic +institutions unfortunately offer them encouragement and opportunity. The +experience of American communism directly contradicts John Stuart Mill's +opinion, that men are not more likely to evade their fair share of the +work under a socialistic system than they are now. That difficulty in +one form or another was their constant vexation. The members of Owen's +community at Yellow Springs belonged in general to a superior class; but +one of them, in stating the causes of the failure of that community, +says: "The industrious, the skilful, and the strong saw the products of +their labour enjoyed by the indolent, and the unskilled, and the +improvident, and self-love rose against benevolence. A band of musicians +insisted that their brassy harmony was as necessary to the common +happiness as bread and meat, and declined to enter the harvest field or +the workshop. A lecturer upon Natural Science insisted upon talking only +while others worked. Mechanics whose day's labour brought two dollars +into the common stock insisted that they should in justice work only +half as long as the agriculturist, whose day's work brought only one." +The same evil, according to R. D. Owen, contributed to the fall of New +Harmony; "there was not disinterested industry," he says, "there was not +mutual confidence." A lady who was a member of the Marlboro' Association +in Ohio, a socialistic experiment that lasted four years and then +failed, attributes the failure to "the complicated state of the business +concerns, the amount of debt contracted, and the feeling that each would +work with more energy, for a time at least, if thrown upon his own +resources, with plenty of elbow-room, and nothing to distract his +attention." + +The magnitude of this difficulty only appears the greater when we turn +from the forty-seven socialistic experiments which have failed to the +seventy-two which have thriven. The Shakers and Rappists are undoubtedly +very industrious people, who, by producing a good article, have won and +kept for years a firm hold of the American market, and being, in +consequence of their institution of celibacy, a community of adult +workers exclusively, every man and every woman being a productive +labourer, the wonder is they are not wealthier and more prosperous even +than they are. Their economic prosperity is based, as economic +prosperity always is and must be, on their general habits of industry, +and the natural tendency of socialistic arrangements to relax these +habits is in their case effectually, though not without difficulty, +counteracted by their religious discipline. Idleness is a sin; next to +disobedience to the elders, no other sin is more reprobated among them, +because no other sin is at once so besetting and so dangerous there, and +the conquest and suppression of idleness is a continual object of their +vigilance, and of their ordinary devotional practice. Mr. Nordhoff +publishes a few of their most popular hymns, and one is struck with the +space the cultivation of personal industry seems to occupy in their +thoughts. "Old Slug," as they delight to nickname the idler, is the "Old +Adam" of the Shakers, and a public sentiment of hatred and contempt for +the indolent man is sedulously fostered by them. As they not only work, +but also live under one another's constant supervision, and within +earshot of one another's criticism, they more than replace the eye of +the master by the keener and more sleepless eye of moral and social +police. And if all this discipline fails, they have the last resource of +expulsion. They easily make the idler too uncomfortable to remain. "They +have," says Mr. Nordhoff, "no difficulty in sloughing off persons who +come with bad or low motives." They exercise, in short, the power of +dismissal, the last sanction in ordinary use in the old state of +society. Not that they make any virtue of strenuous labour. They work +moderately, and avoid anything like fatigue or exhaustion. They frankly +acknowledged to Mr. Nordhoff, once and again, that three hired men taken +in from the ordinary world would do as much work as five or six of their +members. Their wants are few and simple, and they are satisfied with the +moderate exertion that suffices to supply them; but they will tolerate +no shirking of that in any shape or form, and this alone saves them from +disaster. The experiences of these successful Shaker and Rappist +communities serve, therefore, to show, even better than the experiences +of the unsuccessful Owenite and Fourierist communities, the gravity that +the idleness difficulty would assume in a general socialistic _regime_, +which possessed nothing in the nature of the power of dismissal, and in +which we could not calculate either on the formation of an effective +public opinion against idleness, or on its effective application if it +were formed. The men who founded the unsuccessful communities were far +superior to the Shakers in business ability and education, and they had +more money to begin their experiments with, but where they failed the +Shakers have succeeded through the indirect economic effects of their +rigorous religious discipline. But the evidence is as plain in the one +case as in the other as to the natural, and even powerful, effect of +socialistic arrangements in relaxing the industry of many sorts and +conditions of men. + +The same sources of evidence prove with equal clearness the development +under socialistic institutions of two other concurrent causes of +decline. I have already quoted Mr. Channing's statement that the Brook +Farm community showed a disposition to be content with comparatively +squalid conditions of life. Mr. Nordhoff would probably not use the word +squalid of anything he saw in the Shaker and Rappist communities he +describes, except perhaps in certain instances of the state of the +public streets; and in some points, such as the scrupulous cleanness of +the interior of their houses, he would set them far above their +neighbours--you could eat your dinner, he says, off their floors. Still +the people he found everywhere content, if not exactly with squalid, +certainly with poor and dull and rough conditions of life, much poorer, +duller, and rougher than they might easily be. They enjoyed equality, +security from harassing anxiety for the morrow, abundance even for their +limited wants, independence from subjection to a master, but they were +weak in the ordinary springs of progress. The spirit of material +improvement was not much abroad among them. Give me the stationary state +of society and contentment, you may exclaim; but then even this +stationary state is only maintained in these sequestered communities by +the constant play of peculiar religious influences which cannot be +counted on everywhere, and it would soon change into a declining state +in the great seething world outside if it were not effectively +counter-worked by the most powerful incentives to progress. Now the same +equalizing social arrangements which destroy one of the most essential +of these incentives by guaranteeing men the results of industry without +its exertion, enfeeble a second by predisposing them to rest content +with the lower conditions of life to which they are reduced. + +A third cause of decline to which the American experience shows +socialistic institutions to be incident is a certain weakness in the +management, produced sometimes by divided counsels, sometimes by the +delay involved in getting the sanction of a Board to every little detail +of business, and sometimes by a difficulty which we find also +shattering similar experiments in France, that men were raised to the +Committee by their gifts of persuasion rather than their gifts of +administration. Well-meaning persons, with a great itch for managing +things, and a great turn for bungling them, for whom there is, under the +present order of society, a considerable safety-valve in philanthropy, +contrive in a socialistic community to get appointed on the Council of +Industry, and play sad havoc with the common good. While they preached +and wasted, the really practical men who, with better power of talk, +might have confounded them, could only sulk and grumble, and eventually +lost heart in their work, and all interest and confidence in the +concern. This had much to do, according to Mr. Meeker, an old +Fourierist, with the ruin of the North American Phalanx, one of the most +important of the transatlantic experiments, and it was the main cause +apparently of the downfall of the community of Coxsackie--"They had many +persons engaged in talking and law-making who did not work at any useful +employment; the consequences were that after struggling on for between +one and two years the experiment came to an end." A socialist State +would probably have as many difficulties with this bustling but +unsatisfactory class of persons as a socialist Phalanx, nor would the +evils of divided counsels and departmental delays be a whit milder; and +the extension of State management to branches of work for which it had +not otherwise some sort of special natural qualification would have the +same kind of ruinous operation. + +In spirit and effect, therefore, as may be palpably seen from these +actual experiments, the equalizing institutions of socialism stand quite +apart from the very restricted use of State management and the remedial +or invigorating legislation that a sound social policy prescribes. When +England is accused of heading the nations in the race of State +socialism, because England has nationalized the post and telegraph +service, and passed a series of factory and agrarian Acts for the +protection of the weaker classes of the people, the accusation is made +without proper discrimination. It is not the frequency of the +intervention, but its purpose and consequences that make it socialistic. +If the post is better managed by the State than by private initiative, +if the factory and agrarian laws merely reinstate weaker classes in the +conditions essential for a normal human life, and neither seek nor +produce that equalization of the differences of fortune or skill which +is fatal to any high and progressive general level of comfort, then +there is no State socialism in it at all. State management is not pushed +beyond the limit of efficiency, nor popular rights beyond the positive +claims of social justice. Let us go a little further into detail. + + +IV. _State Socialism and State Management._ + +What are the conditions of efficient State administration? The State +possesses several natural characteristics which give it a decided +advantage as an industrial manager, some for one branch of work, some +for another. It has stability, it has permanency, and it has--what is +perhaps its principal industrial superiority--unrivalled power of +securing unity of administration, since it is the only agency that can +use force for the purpose. On the other hand, it has one great natural +defect, its want of a personal stake in the produce of the business it +conducts, its want of that keen check on waste and that pushing +incentive to exertion which private undertakings enjoy in the eye and +energy of the master. This is the great taproot from which all the usual +faults of Government management spring--its routine, red-tape spirit, +its sluggishness in noting changes in the market, in adapting itself to +changes in the public taste, and in introducing improved methods of +production. Government servants may very generally be men of a higher +stamp and training than the servants of a private company, but they are +proverbial, on the one hand, for a certain lofty disdain of the humble +but valuable virtue of parsimony, and, on the other, for an +unprogressive, unenterprising, uninventive administration of business. + +Now the branches of industry which the State is fitted to carry on are +of course those in which its great fault happens to have small scope for +play, and in which its great merit or merits have great scope for play; +those, for example, which gain largely in efficiency or economy by a +centralized administration, and suffer little harm comparatively from a +routine one. That is the reason Governments always manage the postal +service well. In post-office work the specific industrial superiority of +Government carries its maximum of advantage, and its specific industrial +defect does its minimum of injury. The carrying and delivery of letters +from one part of the empire to another require, for efficiency, a single +co-ordinated system, and, on the other hand, those operations themselves +are of so unvariable and routine a character that little harm is done by +their being carried on in a routine spirit; they involve so little +capital expenditure--the entire capital of the department in England is +only L80,000--that the opportunity for waste and corruption is slight; +and being conducted much more largely under the public eye than the +affairs of other departments of State, they are consequently subject to +the constant and interested criticism of the people whose wants they are +meant to satisfy. The same reason explains why Government dockyards and +arms factories are always managed so unsatisfactorily. There is, on the +one hand, no need in them for any higher unity of administration than is +wanted in any ordinary single business establishment; but, on the other, +progressiveness and adaptability are of the first moment, routine and +obstruction to improvement being indeed among their worst dangers. Then +the risk of prodigality and corruption is high, for their capital +expenditure is great, and the check of public criticism very distant and +ineffectual. So exceptional a business is the post, that the telegraphs, +though managed by the same department, have never been managed with the +same success. They were bought at first at a ransom, they have involved +an increasing loss nearly ever since, and the public have to pay +practically as much for their telegrams--perhaps more--than the public +of the United States pay to their telegraph companies. Even in the +postal department, Government administration shows the usual official +slowness in adopting much-needed and even lucrative reforms. Of this, a +good example occurred only the other day. It was not until a Boys' +Messenger Company was already in the field and doing the work, that the +Postmaster-General was brought to recognise, as he said, "the +desirability of providing a more rapid means of transmitting single +letters for short distances and under special circumstances than at +present exists." + +It ought of course to be acknowledged that State management in England +is tried under the very worst possible conditions, inasmuch as it is +tied to the fortunes and exigencies of political party. No business +could be expected to thrive where the supreme control is placed in the +hands of a good parliamentary debater, who knows nothing about the +special work of the department he undertakes; where, even at that, this +inexperienced hand is changed for another inexperienced hand every three +or four years; where policy shifts without continuity, to dodge the +popular breeze of to-day, or to catch the popular breeze of to-morrow; +and where the actual incumbent of office, is always able to evade +censure by throwing the responsibility on his predecessors, who are out +of office. Well may a sagacious man like Mr. Samuel Laing, with large +experience of administration both in the affairs of State and of private +companies, exclaim: "I often think what the result would be if the +railway companies managed their affairs on the same principles as the +nation applies to its naval and military expenditure. Suppose the +Brighton Board were turned out every three years, and a new Board came +in with new views and a new policy, and new men at the head of the +locomotive, traffic, and other spending departments, how long would it +be before expenses went up and dividends down?" If State management is +to succeed--if it is to have fair play--it must be entirely divorced +from party fortunes, while subject, of course, to the criticism of +Parliament, under some system like that adopted in Victoria for the +management of the railways. In such circumstances the question of the +advisability of Government assuming the management of any industry, is a +question of balancing the probable gains from the greater unity of the +administration against the probable losses from its greater inertia. + +There are some exceptional branches of industry in which Government does +better than private persons, because private persons have too little +interest to do the work well, or even to do it at all, and there are +others in which the State's very want of personal interest is its +advantage instead of its drawback. Forestry is the best example of the +first sort. One generation must plant, and another cut down, so that the +present owner is often unwilling to incur the expense of a speculation +of which he is unlikely to live to reap the fruits; but the natural +permanence of the State leads it to do more justice to this important +branch of production, and experience everywhere shows that State forests +are more productive than private ones. In Prussia and Belgium they are +nearly twice as productive. The average annual produce of all forests in +Prussia (including State forests) is 0.36 thaler per Morgen, but the +produce of State forests alone is 0.66 thaler per Morgen. In Belgium the +produce of all forests is 19.33 francs per hectare, and of State forests +34.42 francs.[9] The erection of lighthouses is also a public service, +which falls to the State because of individual inability; it cannot be +undertaken in any way to make it remunerative to private adventurers. + +The best example of an industrial work for which the State's want of +personal interest is its advantage is the Mint. Nobody would trust the +stamp of a private assayer as he trusts the stamp of the Government, +because the private assayer could never succeed in placing his personal +disinterestedness so absolutely above the suspicion of fraud. The policy +of the official attestation of the quality of commodities is often +disputed on the ground that it discourages improvement above the pass +standard, but it is never doubted that if a brand is wanted, the brand +to command most confidence is the brand of the Crown. Our own +Government, out of the infinity of commodities offered for sale, attests +none but six--butter, herrings, plate, gun barrels, chains, and +anchors--articles in which the dangers of deterioration probably exceed +the chances of improvement, and in the case of some of these six there +is a strong feeling abroad that the State's intervention is doing more +harm than good. Scotch herrings have suffered lately in the German +markets, because they were worse cured than the Norwegian, and the +herring brand was blamed for the unprogressiveness of the cure. This +class of interventions, therefore, is neither numerous now, nor likely +to become very numerous in the future. + +A more important class of undertakings in which the State's industrial +advantage lies in its superiority to the temptations of self-interest, +is that of industries which naturally assume something of the character +of a monopoly, and in which self-interest lacks both the check on its +rapacity, and the spur to its activity supplied by effective +competition. It is true of more things than railways that when +combination is possible, competition is impossible, and the growth of +syndicates, trusts and pooling arrangements at the present day has led +to considerable agitation for State interference, especially in the case +of commodities like salt and coal, which are necessaries of life. Our +experience of these things is as yet limited, but so far as it has gone +it seems to show that the public dangers dreaded from them are apt to be +exaggerated. The combinations fear to raise the price to the public so +high as to provoke competition, and in most cases in America have not +raised it at all, drawing their advantage rather from the reduction in +expense of management, and the saving of capital; and the State would +not be likely to manage industries producing for the markets any better +than, or even so well as, the more keenly interested board of private +directors. But if the balance of evidence seems against public +management in this class of monopolies, it stands, I think, decidedly in +favour of public management in another and not unimportant class. The +gas and water supply of towns is a monopoly, and though the point is not +undisputed, it appears to answer better on the whole in public than in +private hands, because the management has no interest to serve except +the interest of the public. Experience has not been everywhere the same, +but usually it has been that under municipal control the quality of the +gas has been improved and the price reduced. But this is municipal +management of course, not State management, and the difference is +material, inasmuch as municipal management, in the case of gas and water +supply, is the management of the production of things of general +consumption under the direct control of the very people who consume +them, so that it is constantly exposed to effective public criticism, +perhaps as good a substitute as things admit of for the eye of the +master. The natural defect of public management is so mitigated by this +circumstance, that probably of all forms of public management, municipal +management is the best, and when applied to branches of production that +tend to become monopolies at any rate, it answers well. The question is +entirely different with proposals that are sometimes made for converting +into municipal monopolies branches of production--such, for example, as +the bread supply of the community--which are carried on by individual +management under effective competition. To do as well as joint-stock +management uncontrolled by competition is one thing; to do as well as +individual management subject to competition is another; and so long as +public management replaces nothing but the former class of enterprises, +which are in any case a sort of natural monopolies, it will never +contract the vast field of individual enterprise to any very serious +extent. + +When we pass from municipal monopolies to State monopolies, the problem +becomes more grave. The two largest current proposals of this kind are +those of land nationalization and railway nationalization. The former +proposal, though much more noisily advocated than the other, has +incomparably the weaker case. For apart altogether from the mischief of +making every rent settlement a political question, and looking at the +matter merely in its economic aspect, land, of all things, is that which +is least suited for centralized administration, and yields its best +results under the minute concentrated supervision of individual and +occupying ownership. The magic of property is now a proverbial phrase; +it is truer of land than anything else, and it merely means that for +land interested administration is everything, comprehensive +administration nothing, that the zeal of the resident owner to improve +his own land knows no limit, whereas the obstructive forces of routine +and official inertia have nowhere more power to blight than in land +management. In Adam Smith's time, as he mentions in the "Wealth of +Nations," the Crown lands were everywhere the least productive lands in +their respective countries, and the experience is the same still. It is +so even in Prussia, in spite of its economical and skilled bureaucracy. +Professor Roscher says it is a common remark in Germany that Crown lands +sell for a greater number of years' purchase than other lands, because +they are known to be less improved, and are therefore expected to yield +better results to the energy of the purchaser, and he quotes official +figures for 1857, showing that the domain land of Prussia had not risen +in value so much as the other land in the country. Great expectations +are often entertained from the unearned increment, though there is not +likely to be much of that in agricultural land for years to come; but +what is a much more important consideration for the community is the +earned increment, and under State management the earned increment would +infallibly decline. Of course, this does not exclude the necessity of +strict State control, so far as required by justice, humanity, and the +growth and comfort of the general community. Under land nationalization +here I have not considered schemes which do not give the State any real +ownership in the land more than it at present enjoys, or, at any rate, +place no real management of the land in its hands. The rival schemes of +Mr. A. R. Wallace and Mr. Henry George are really only more or less +objectionable methods of increasing the land-tax. + +The question of a State railway is not so easily determined. There are +certainly few branches of business where unity of administration is more +advantageous, or where the public would benefit more from affairs being +conducted from the public point of view of developing the greatest +amount of gross traffic, instead of from the private point of view of +making the greatest amount of net profit. A railway differs from other +enterprises, because it affects all others very seriously for good or +ill; it may for the sake of more profit give preferences that are +hurtful to industrial development, or deny facilities that are essential +to it. A private company may find it more profitable to carry a less +quantity at a high rate than a greater quantity at a low, and it cannot +be expected to run a line that does not pay, though the general +community might benefit greatly more by the increase of traffic which +the line creates than covers the loss incurred by running it. Now it is +impossible to exaggerate the importance of having a public work like a +railway, which can help or hinder every trade in the land, conducted +from a public point of view instead of a private, and the present +discussion in this country on rates and fares points to the desirability +of changes to which private companies are not likely to resort of their +own accord, nor the railway commission to be able to compel them. But, +on the other hand, it is equally impossible to exaggerate the risks of +the undertaking. The post office, with its capital of L80,000, is a +plaything to the railways with their capital of L800,000,000, and their +revenue little short of that of the State itself. The operations are of +a most varied nature, and only some of them could be exposed to +effective criticism. The mere transaction of purchase excites in many +minds a not unreasonable fear. If Government made a bad bargain with the +telegraph companies, it would be sure to make a worse with the railway +companies, who are fifty times more powerful; and besides, it would very +likely have to borrow its money at a higher figure, for though it could +borrow two millions at 3 per cent., it could not therefore borrow eight +hundred millions, for the simple reason that the number of people who +want 3 per cent. is limited, most holders of stock preferring +investments which, though more risky, offer a prospect of more gain. If +in trying to balance these weighty _pros_ and equally weighty _cons_ one +turns to the experience of State railways, he will find that as yet it +affords few very sure or decisive data, because it varies in the +different countries and times, and has been very differently +interpreted. + +Of the Continental State railways, those of Belgium and Germany are +usually counted the most favourable examples. But Mr. Hadley, in his +excellent work on Railway Transportation, shows that the State lines of +Belgium were conducted in an extremely slovenly, perfunctory way until +1853, when private lines began to increase and compete with them, and +that though the low rates which this competition was the means of +introducing still remain after the private lines have been largely +bought out, there has been, on the other hand, latterly a decline in the +profits of the State system, an increasing tendency to slackness and +inertia in the management, and growing complaints of creating posts to +reward political services, and manipulating accounts to suit Government +exigencies. In Germany the rates are certainly low and the management +economical, but complaints are made that less is done for the +encouragement of the national resources, and unprofitable traffic is +more severely declined than by the private railways. On the whole, +probably the best State railway system is that of Victoria; charging low +rates, self-supporting, offering every encouragement to industrial +development; and the opinion of England will probably be largely +determined by further observation of that experiment. + +The sister colony of New Zealand has made a successful experiment in +another department of industrial enterprise, life insurance, for which +Government management indeed is highly adapted, because, in the first +place, it is a business in which absolute security is of the last +consequence, and there is no security like Government guarantee; and in +the second, it is a business in which the calculations of the whole +administration are virtually matters of mechanical routine. The +Government office was only opened in 1871, under the influence of a +widespread distrust of private offices, caused by recent bankruptcies, +and it now transacts one-third of the life insurance business of the +colony; it has probably tended to encourage life insurance, for while +there are only 26 policies per 1000 of population in the United Kingdom, +there are 80 per 1000 in New Zealand, and its management is much cheaper +than that of any other insurance company in the colony, except the +Australian United. The proportion of expenses to revenue in the +Australian United is 13.66 per cent., in the Government Office 17.23, +and in none of the other companies (whose gross business, however, is +much smaller) is it under 43.02. + +Adam Smith thought there were only four branches of enterprise which +were fitted to be profitably conducted by a joint-stock company. We have +seen in our day almost every branch of industry conducted by such +companies, and an idea is often expressed that whatever a joint-stock +company can do, Government can do at least quite as well, because the +defect of both is the same. The defect is the same, but Government has +it in larger measure. Joint-stock management is certainly much less +productive in most industries than private management. The Report of the +Massachusetts Labour Bureau for 1878 contains some curious statistics on +the subject. There were then in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, +10,395 private manufacturing establishments, employing in all 166,588 +persons, and 520 joint-stock manufacturing establishments, employing +101,337 persons, and the private establishments, while they paid a much +higher average rate of wages than the joint-stock, produced at the same +time not far from twice as much for the capital invested. The average +wages per head in the private establishments was 474.37 dollars a year, +and in the joint-stock was 383.47 dollars a year; while the produce per +dollar of capital was 2.58 dollars' worth in the private, and 1.37 +dollars' worth in the joint-stock, and though part of this difference is +attributed to the circumstance that private manufacturers sometimes hire +their factories and companies do not, the substance of it is believed to +be due to the inferiority of the joint-stock management. Anyhow, that +circumstance could have no influence in producing the very marked +difference in the wages given by the two classes of enterprise, and the +higher wages would not, and could not, be given unless the production +was higher. If all the industries of the country, then, were put under +joint-stock management, the result would be (1) a general reduction in +the amount produced, and (2) a consequent reduction in the general +remuneration of the working classes, and the general level of natural +comfort; and the result would be still worse under universal Government +management. One of the labourer's greatest interests is efficient +management, and if he suffers from the replacement of individual +employers by joint-stock companies, he would suffer much more by the +replacement of both by the State, excepting only in those few +departments of business for which the State happens to possess peculiar +advantages and aptitude. + + +V. _State Socialism and Popular Right._ + +The limits of the legitimate intervention of the public authority with +respect to the moral development of the community are prescribed by a +different rule from those with respect to its material development. +Efficiency is still, indeed, a governing consideration, for perhaps more +measures for popular improvement fail from sheer ineffectuality than +from any other reason. The history of social reform is strewn thick with +these dead-letter measures. There is a cry and a lamentation, and a +feeling that something must be done; and an Act of Parliament is passed +containing injunctions which no Act of Parliament can enforce, or which +address themselves to mere accidental circumstances, and leave the real +causes of the evil entirely unaffected. And there would be no +impropriety in describing impracticable or ill-directed legislation of +this kind as being socialistic, for, besides the old association of +socialism with impracticable schemes, impracticable legislation is +always unjust legislation, and unjust legislation for behoof of the +labouring class is essentially socialistic. Every State interference +necessarily involves a certain restriction of the liberty or other +general rights of some class of persons; and although this restriction +would be perfectly justifiable if it actually secured the prior or more +urgent right of another and perhaps much more numerous class of persons, +it is injustice, and nothing but injustice, when it merely hurts the +former class without doing any good to the latter. It may hurt both +classes even--well-meaning meddling often does; but what I desire to +bring out here is that labour legislation, which may have been entirely +just and free from socialism in its intention, may be unjust and full of +socialism in its result. We may therefore, without any fault, include +under the head of State socialism that common sort of proposal which, +without urging any wrong claim, merely asks the State to do the wrong +thing--to do either something it cannot do at all, or something that +will not answer the purpose intended. It is socialistic not because it +is impracticable, but because it is unjust. + +Since well-meant legislation may thus become urgent, and therefore +socialistic for want of result, it is plain that the efficiency of the +intervention is a very important consideration in determining the +State's duty with respect to popular rights. But the primary +consideration here is the extent of the moral claim which the +individual, by reason of his weakness, has upon the resources of +society, and it is upon that consideration that the division of +conflicting political theories on the subject turns. All the several +theories are agreed that the enlargement of popular rights, when the +enlargement is required by a just popular claim, is entirely within the +proper and natural province of the State; where they differ, and differ +seriously, is partly in their views of the justice of particular +elements in the popular claim of the time being, but more especially in +their whole conception of the nature and extent of the popular claim in +general. There are still some persons to be found contending that there +are no such things as natural rights, and there are plenty who cannot +hear the words without a sensation of alarm. But it is now generally +admitted, even by those who adopt the narrowest political theories, that +legal rights are merely the ratification of moral rights already +existing, and that the creation of new legal rights for securing the +just aspirations of ill-protected classes of the people belongs to the +ordinary daily duties of all civil government. Mr. Spencer very readily +admits that some of the latest constituted rights in this country--the +new seamen's right of the Merchant Shipping Act, and the new women's +right of the Married Women's Property Act--are perfectly justifiable for +the prevention in the one case of seamen being fraudulently betrayed +into unseaworthy ships, and in the other of women being robbed of their +own personal earnings. But then the new rights which he would most +condemn--the right to public assistance, the right to education, the +right to a habitable dwelling, the right to a fair rent--are quite as +susceptible of justification on the ground of natural justice as either +the right to a seaworthy ship or the right to one's own earnings. Mr. +Spencer's theory errs by unduly contracting men's natural claim. They +have a right to more than equal freedom; they have a right, to use +Smith's phrase, to an undeformed and unmutilated humanity, to that +original basis of human dignity which it is the business of organized +society to defend for its weaker members against the assaults of fortune +as well as the assaults of men. That is what I have called, for the sake +of distinction, the English theory of social politics. On the other +hand, socialism unduly extends this claim. The right to fair wages is +one thing; the State could not realize it, but it at least represents no +unjust aspiration; but the right to an equal dividend of the national +income, claimed by utopian socialists, including Mr. Bellamy at the +present day, and the right to the full produce of labour claimed by the +revolutionary socialists, and meaning, as explained by them, the right +to the entire product of labour and capital together, are really rights +to unfair wages, and the whole objection to them is that they are at +variance with social justice. If we keep these distinctions in view, we +shall be able to discriminate between interventions of authority which +are innocent, and interventions which are tainted with State socialism. +Take an illustration or two, 1st, of interventions for settling the +claims of the poor in society in general, and 2nd, of interventions for +adjusting the differences between one class and another, between +employer and labourer, between landlord and tenant, and the like. + +1. Under the first head, the most important question is the question of +public assistance. Prince Bismarck created a considerable European +sensation when he first announced his new social policy in 1884, by +declaring in favour of the three claims of labour, which have been so +commonly regarded as the very alpha and omega of social revolution--the +right to existence for the infirm, the right to labour for the +able-bodied, and the right to superannuation for the aged. "Give the +labourer," he said, "the right to labour when he is able-bodied; give +him the right to relief when he is sick; give him the right to +maintenance when he is old; and if you do so--if you do not shrink from +the sacrifice, and do not cry out about State socialism whenever the +State does anything for the labourer in the way of Christian +charity--then I believe you will destroy the charm of the Wyden (_i.e._, +Social Democratic) programme." These three rights are really two, the +right of relief when one is sick and of maintenance when one is old +being only different phases of the right to existence. Now the right to +existence and the right to labour are in themselves both perfectly just +claims, but the construction Prince Bismarck gave them passed decidedly +over into State socialism. + +The right to existence is seldom called in question. Malthus, it is +true, said a man had a right to live only as he had a right to live a +hundred years--_if he could_. He might as well have argued that a man +had a right to escape murder only as he had a right to escape murder for +a hundred years--_if he could_. It is really because he cannot that he +has the right--it is because he cannot protect himself against violence +that he has a right to protection from the State, and because, and as +far as, he cannot protect himself against starvation that he has a just +claim upon the State for food. And his claim is obviously bounded in the +one case as in the other by the ability of society. If society cannot +protect him, it is of course absurd to talk of any right to its +protection, but if society can, society ought. To suffer a +fellow-citizen to die of hunger is felt by a civilized community to be +at least as just a disgrace to its government as it would be to leave +him a prey to the knife of the assassin, or to the incursions of +marauders from over the enemy's border. But as the State furnishes +protection against human violence by its courts of justice, and against +disease by its sanitary laws, so it furnishes protection against famine +and indigence by its legal provision of relief. The claim of the +perishing stands on the same footing as any other claim which is an +admitted right of man to-day; it is a claim to an essential condition of +normal manhood--to existence itself. But then, if the right to existence +must be admitted, it can only be admitted where the individual is, for +whatever reason, unable to make provision for himself, and it can only +be admitted in such measure and form as will not discourage other +individuals from trying to make independent provision for themselves +before their day of disability comes, because that, in turn, is the way +prescribed by normal manhood and true human dignity. + +What State socialists claim, however, is not the right to existence, but +the right to decent and comfortable existence--the right to the style of +living which is customary among the independent poor. The labourer +ought, in their eyes, to be treated as a public servant, and his sick +pay and his pension ought both to be commensurate with the claims and +dignity of honest labour. Now it is of course impossible not to +sympathize much with this view, but the difficulty is that if you make +assisted labour as good as independent labour, you shall soon have more +assisted labour than you can manage, you shall have weakened the push, +energy, and forethought of your labouring class, you shall have really +done much to destroy that very dignity of labour which you desire to +establish. The State may probably, with great advantage, do more for +working-class insurance than it at present does. It could conduct the +business of the burial benefit and the superannuation benefit better +than any private company or friendly society, because it could offer a +surer guarantee and the business is routine; Mr. Gladstone's excellent +annuity scheme has remained sterile only because it has not been pushed, +and the canvasser and collector are indispensable in working-class +insurance. But the socialist proposal is that the State ought to give +every man a pension after a certain age, irrespectively altogether of +his own contributions. Mr. Webb is one of its most recent advocates, +and, according to the useful figures he has taken the trouble to obtain, +there are in the United Kingdom 1,700,000 persons over sixty-five years +of age, of whom 1,300,000 contrive to pension themselves, either by +their own savings or the assistance of their families, while the +remaining 400,000 are supported by the rates at an average cost of ten +guineas a year. Mr. Webb's proposal is that in order to save the +feelings of the 400,000 dependants you are to make the other 1,300,000 +persons dependants along with them, and give ten guineas a year all +round. But you cannot make a public dole a pension by merely calling it +a pension. A pension is a payment made by one's actual employer for work +done--it is wages, and the man who has earned his own pension, or has +provided it by his own saving, feels himself and is an independent man. +It is right to maintain the 400,000--whether out of national or +parochial funds is a detail--but sound policy would rather aim at +raising the 400,000 to be as the 1,300,000, than at lowering the +1,300,000 to the level of the 400,000. With Mr. Webb it is not a +question of giving the 400,000 better allowances than they receive at +present--which might be most reasonably entertained--but it is a mere +question of not suffering them to be looked down on by the 1,300,000 who +have fought their own way, and that is not possible, nor, with all +respect for them, is it, from a public point of view, desirable. It is +right to support those who cannot support themselves, but it is neither +right nor wise to remove all distinction between the dependent poor and +the independent. + +But the line between State socialism and sound social politics in the +matter of public assistance may perhaps be better shown in another +branch of Poor Law administration--the right to labour for the +able-bodied. The socialist right to labour is the right of the +unemployed to get labour in their own trades and at good or current +rates of wages. That is the right which Bismarck substantially admitted +in his famous speech. He said there was a crowd of suitable undertakings +which the State could establish to furnish the unemployed with a fair +day's wage for a fair day's work. It is also practically the right which +prevailed in England between 1782, when Gilbert's Act abolished the old +workhouse test, and 1835, when the new Poor Law restored it. Gilbert's +Act gave the able-bodied poor the right (1) to obtain from the guardians +work near their own residence and suited to their respective strength +and capacity; (2) to receive for their labour all the money earned by +it; and (3) if that sum fell short of their requirements, to have the +difference made up out of the parochial funds. The effect of that, as we +know, was, that public relief became too desirable, the dependants on it +multiplied, the poor rate rose, the wages of labour fell, the very +efficiency of the labourer himself withered, and the new Poor Law +reverted to the workhouse test, which, harsh though it was considered to +be, was in reality a necessary defence of the character and comfort of +the labouring class from further decadence. + +To provide the unemployed with work in their own trades is only to +increase the evil you wish to remedy, for the very existence of the +unemployed shows that those particular trades are slack at the time, +that there is no demand for the articles they produce, and consequently +any attempt by the State to throw fresh supplies of these articles on +the already over-stocked market can have no other effect than to +increase the depression and turn out of employ the men that are still at +work. Paying relief work at the common market rate of wages is attended +with the same objection. The remedy only aggravates the disease, and +what ought to be merely the labourer's temporary resource against +adversity tends to grow into his regular staff of life. Relief wages, +while sufficient for the family's support, should remain below the +current rates so as to give the labourer an effective inducement to seek +better employment as soon as better employment can possibly be obtained. +The true and natural defence against misfortune is the man's own +personal exertion and provision, and the purpose of the public +intervention is to stimulate and assist, not to supplant, that _vis +medicatrix naturae_. + +But under these limitations a right to labour is a just claim of the +unfortunate. It is admitted in the English Poor Law, and it is admitted +in the Scotch parochial practice, which constructively considers want of +employment a form of sickness or accident, and it requires in both +countries to be better realized than it is. 1st: although it is +unadvisable to give every man work at his own trade, and although the +choice of trades for relief purposes is attended with as much difficulty +as the choice of those for prison labour is found to be, yet certainly +the circle of relief trades ought to be extended beyond stone-breaking +and oakum-picking. Socialists themselves are among the foremost in +complaining of the competition of prison labour with honest labour, +although they fail to see that precisely the same objection attends the +competition of relieved labor in public workshops with unrelieved labour +in regular private employment. The kind of work most free from objection +on this score would probably be the production of articles now imported +from abroad, and there are a great many trades in which, while we make +most of their products at home, we import particular articles or sorts +of articles for one reason or another. Some of these might be found +suitable for the purpose in view. Or the men in the public workshops +might be employed in making a variety of things used in public offices, +imperial or local. 2nd: what is even more important, a distinction ought +to be made between the industrious poor and that residuum of confirmed +failures for whom the stoneyard test is really intended, and the former +ought not to be made to feel themselves any way degraded in their work, +their small remuneration being trusted to act as a sufficient preventive +against their permanent dependence on the public for employment. 3rd: +then a third and most important requisite is to supplement the public +provision of work with a public provision of information about the +demand for labour over the country from day to day, so as not merely to +support the men in adversity, but to facilitate their restoration to +their normal condition of prosperity. + +For we ought to recognise that though the problem of the unemployed is +not, as many persons imagine, one of increasing gravity in our +time--although, on the contrary, if we go back thirty years, sixty +years, or a hundred years, we always find worse complaints and more +distressing sufferings from that cause than at present, yet it is +certainly a constant problem. The unemployed we have always with us, and +even their numbers vary less from time to time than we are apt to +suppose. Trades dependent on fine weather are, of course, slack in +winter, but then trades dependent on fashion are slack in summer, while +there are some large trades--such as the shoemakers--that are made brisk +by bad weather. Even a general commercial crisis which throws the +workpeople of many trades idle, makes those of others busy. The building +trades are always busy in bad times, because money and labour are then +cheap, and the opportunity is seized of building or extending factories, +and laying down plant of every description. It was so to a very +remarkable extent during the Lancashire cotton distress of 1862; it was +so all over England in the depression of 1877-78, and the same fact was +observed again in Scotland, and commented upon by the factory inspector +in 1886. Other trades are brisker in a crisis for less happy causes, +_e.g._, the bakers for the melancholy reason that the working classes +are more generally driven from meat to bread. These natural corrections +or compensations elicited by the depression itself prevent the numbers +of the unemployed from growing so very much larger in a crisis than in +ordinary times that their case would not be overtaken satisfactorily by +the general systematic provision of relief work, if that were once +established. The excess is met now so effectually by a few special local +efforts, that we have sometimes far fewer able-bodied paupers in bad +years than in good. The number of able-bodied paupers was very much less +in the bad years 1876-1878 than in the good years immediately after +them, or in the still better years immediately before them. The problem +being, then, so largely constant from season to season, and from cycle +to cycle, ought clearly to be solved by a permanent and systematic +provision. + +The same principle which governs this right to labour--the principle of +preventing degradation and facilitating self-recovery--governs other +social legislation for the unfortunate besides the Poor Law. It lies at +the bottom of the homestead exemptions of America, and our own +prohibition of arrestment of tools and wages for debt, and our +occasional measures for cancelling arrears. It is the principle laid +down by Pitt when he said that no temporary occasion should be suffered +to force a British subject to part with his last shilling. He had a +right to his last shilling, because he had a right to an undegraded +humanity. The last shilling stopped his fall, and perhaps helped him to +rise again. + +Many persons will admit the right to public assistance, because it seems +limited to saving men from extremities, who will see nothing but +socialism of a perilous sort in other public provisions, for which +popular claims are advanced. Schools, museums, libraries, parks, open +spaces, footpaths, baths, are certainly means of intellectual and +physical life, which keep the manhood of a community in normal vigour; +but, it will be asked, if the State once begins to supply such things, +where is it to stop? Is free education to go beyond the primary +branches? What length are you to go? is the question Mr. Spencer always +raises as a bar to your going at all. But the same question of degree +can be raised about everything, about the duties Mr. Spencer himself +imposes upon the State as really as about those he refuses to sanction. +In the matter of protection, for instance, how many policemen are we +required to detail to a district? Or how great an army and navy are we +to maintain? During the excitement about the Jack the Ripper murders +there was much clamour about the police being too few, and we are +subject to periodical panics as to our imperial defences, in the course +of which no two persons agree in answering the question, what length are +we to go? The question can only be settled of course by measuring the +length of our necessities with the length of our purse, and the same +class of considerations rules in the other case, the importance and cost +of the given provision to a community of such education and culture, +together with the impossibility of getting it adequately supplied +without public agency. The opinion of the time may vary as to what is +essential for a whole and wholesome manhood, and its resources may vary +as to what may be easily borne to supply it; but the same variation +takes place with respect to the duties of national defence, or the +administration of justice. The objection is therefore nothing more or +less than the very ancient and famous logical fallacy with which the +Greek sophists used to nonplus their antagonists. As in other affairs, +the problem so far will settle itself practically as it goes along, and +the important distinction to bear in mind is that to give every man the +essential conditions of all humane living is a very different kind of +aim from giving every man the same share in the national production, or +a lien on his neighbour's luck or industry or alertness. + +2. From rights realizing general claims of the unfortunate on society at +large, let us now pass to rights realizing special claims of certain +weaker classes of society against certain stronger classes. The most +typical examples of this sort of legislation are the intervention of the +State between buyer and seller, between landlord and tenant, between +employer and labourer, for the judicial determination of a fair price, a +fair rent, or fair wages, or for the regulation of the conditions of +labour, and tenure of land. Professor Sidgwick declares the Irish and +Scotch Land Acts, which provide for the judicial determination of a fair +rent, to be the most distinctively socialistic measures the English +Legislature has yet passed; but in reality these Land Acts are not a bit +more socialistic than the laws which fix a fair price for railway rates +and fares, and much less socialistic than the old usury Acts which +sought to determine fair interest. Such interferences with freedom of +contract as these are, of course, only justifiable when the absence of +effective competition places the real power of settlement of terms +practically in the hands of one side alone, and conduces, therefore, +inevitably to the serious injury and oppression of the other. Parliament +controls railway charges because the railway companies enjoy a monopoly +of most important business, and might use their monopoly to wrong the +public, and when Parliament is asked, as it sometimes is, to discourage +corners, rings, syndicates, or pooling combinations, it is on the ground +that these various agencies are attempts, more or less successful, to +exclude competition for the purpose of exacting from the public more +than a fair price. On the other hand, the reason why we have given up +fixing fair interest now is because we have come to see that +competition, being very effective among money-lenders, fixes it far +better for us without the intervention of the law, and, of course, an +unnecessary interference with freedom of contract is nothing but +pernicious. But, although for ordinary commercial loans the competition +of lenders is a sufficient security for the fair treatment of borrowers, +it affords no protection against extortion to the very necessitous man, +who must accept any terms or starve. His poverty leaves him no proper +freedom to make a contract, and the law still condemns oppressive rates +of usury, to which, as the Apothecary says in "Romeo and Juliet," the +poor man's poverty, but not his will, consents. In such a case, +accordingly, an authoritative prescription of fair interest is only a +necessary requirement of justice and humanity. + +The public determination of fair rent stands on precisely the same +ground. The rent of large farms, like the interest on ordinary +commercial loans, may be safely left to be settled by commercial +competition, because large farms are taken by men of capital as a +business speculation, and landlords cannot exact more rent than the +farms will bear without driving capital out of agriculture into other +branches of production, and so reducing the demand for that class of +farms to an extent that will bring the rent down to its proper level +again. But the rent of small holdings, like the interest on loans to +persons in extremity, is ruled by other considerations. Cottier tenants, +between their numbers and their necessities, are continually driven into +offering rents the land can never be made to pay, and thereby incurring +for the rest of their days the burden of a lengthening chain of arrears +little better than Oriental debt-slavery. Other work is hard to find; +the land being limited in supply is a natural monopoly; and the State +merely steps in to save the tenantry from the injurious effects of their +own over-competition for an essential instrument of their labour, and, +through their labour, of their very existence. The interference, +therefore, is perfectly justifiable if the machinery it institutes can +carry out the purpose efficiently, and there is this difference between +a court for fixing rent and a court for fixing the price of bread, or +beer, or labour, that it is only doing work which in the natural course +of things is very usually done by periodical and independent valuation, +instead of by the ordinary higgling of the market. It has always been +the custom on many large estates to call in a valuator from the outside +for the revision of the rents, and a valuator appointed by the Crown +cannot be expected to do the work any less effectively than a valuator +appointed by the landlord. Moreover, the tendency of opinion seems to be +towards the simplication of the process by some self-working scheme, a +sliding scale for apportioning an annual rent to the annual production. + +State intervention in the determination of the rate of wages is often +proposed either for the purpose of settling trade disputes on the +subject, or for the purpose of suppressing what is called starvation +wages and fixing a legal minimum rate. As for arbitration in trade +disputes, the object is, of course, in no way socialistic, for it is +strictly allied with the ordinary judicial work of the State, and a +public and permanent tribunal would probably answer the purpose much +better than a private and merely occasional one; for even although it +might not be able to enforce its judgments in all cases by compulsion on +the parties, it would be more likely than the other to command their +confidence and secure by its moral authority their voluntary submission, +and this authority would increase with the experience of the court. + +In certain cases compulsory arbitration seems to be required. There are +trades in which the public interest may require strikes to be +prohibited, in order to prevent a whole community suffering grave +privations, perhaps being starved of its supply of a necessary of life. +The Trades Union Act imposes express restrictions on combinations among +the labourers at gas and water works, and the recent railway strike in +Scotland, which not only paralyzed trade for a time, but stopped the +supply of coal to whole districts in the middle of the severest winter +of the last part of the century, suggested to many minds the propriety +of similar interference in railway disputes. But if the State interfered +to stop the strike, the State must needs in equity interfere to decide +upon the cause of quarrel. And happily these are the very cases which +are best fitted for compulsory arbitration, because the trades concerned +are not subject to the market fluctuations to which other trades are +liable, and are therefore better suited for fixed settlements of +definite and considerable duration. + +But what socialists claim is a universal determination of normal wages, +so as to give every man the full product of his labour, as the full +product of his labour is understood upon their theory. For the present, +however, they are content to ask for at least the establishment of a +legal minimum rate of wages; in fact, an international minimum rate of +wages and an international eight hours working day are the two demands +on which their agitation is in the meantime most strenuously +concentrated. In their recent policy they have reverted to the kind of +remedies they used to speak of with such lofty disdain as mere +palliatives, and have only preserved their separate identity from other +reformers by asking for these palliatives in their least practicable +form. An international compulsory minimum wage is impossible, for even a +national one is so, and that is the only objection, but a very +sufficient one, to the proposal. If you could wipe out starvation wages +by passing an Act of Parliament, let the Act be passed to-morrow, for +starvation wages is surely the worst and most exasperating of all the +enemies of humane living. To starve for want of power to work is bad; to +starve for want of work is worse; but to work and yet starve, to work a +long, long day without obtaining the bread that should be its natural +reward, is a third and worst degree of misfortune, for it mocks the +fitness and equity of things, and seizes the mind like a wrong. If it is +right to suppress starvation by law, it would seem more right still to +suppress starvation wages; and if the socialist contention were in the +least true, that in consequence of the "iron and cruel law" all wages +are starvation wages, and all work sweaters' work, that work and starve +is the inevitable rule under the present system of things, there would +be no good answer to their demand for the abolition of the present +system of things. But as a matter of fact working and starving is the +condition of only exceptional groups of workpeople, and the right to a +minimum wage, in the sense of a wage above starvation point, would have +no bearing on the great majority of the labouring classes, inasmuch as +they stand already on a considerably higher level of remuneration. + +Ought the State, however, to fix a legal minimum of wages for the +protection of the exceptional groups of workpeople to whose situation +such a measure might have relation? The objection to this course comes +less from want of justice in the claim than from want of power in the +State to realize it. The fixing of a legal minimum rate of wages is a +task which it is beyond the State's power to accomplish, except by +paying up the minimum out of its own funds; for, though the law fixed a +minimum to-morrow, it could not compel employers to engage workmen at +that minimum; and if employers found it unprofitable to do so, the only +effect of the legislation would be to throw numbers of men out of work, +and make their maintenance at the legal minimum an obligation of the +public treasury. Of the results of paying wages out of the rates we have +had plenty of experience. To suppress starvation wages in this way by +direct statute is merely impossible, however, and there would be no +taint of socialism in it, if it could be done. Much less can the like +objection be made against any milder remedies. The only danger is that +they would not prove effectual, and would address themselves to false +causes. Take the sweating system of the East End of London, in which, +bad conditions of labour always going together, we find starvation wages +combined with long hours and unwholesome work-rooms. Two of the +favourite remedies are the abolition of sub-contracting and the +prohibition of pauper Jewish immigration; but neither of these things is +the cause of sweating. The sweating contractor of the East End is not a +sub-contractor at all; he is the only contractor in the business, and +even if he were a sub-contractor, we know that sub-contractors often pay +far better wages than the chief contractor can, because they know their +men better, and get better work out of them. + +A temporary increase in the Jewish immigration may occasion a temporary +aggravation of the difficulty, but the permanent causes lie elsewhere, +and even in the way of aggravation a matter of a thousand Jews more, or +a thousand Jews less, cannot play an all-important part in a system +affecting some hundred thousand workpeople. Sweating is no more incident +to Jewish labour than to English labour. The cheap clothing trade of +Birmingham is certainly in the hands of Jews, yet sweating is--or at +least was when the factory inspector reported in 1879--absolutely +unknown. The wages, he said, were good, the hours were not long, and +there were no overcrowded dens. On the other hand, sweating has not only +been for years endemic in the East End of London, but has even appeared +in a very acute form, apart from any alien influence, in the tailoring +trade in Melbourne, the paradise of working people, as it is sometimes +not unjustly denominated. The sweating there was conducted largely by +ladies who took in bands of learners, and, according to the evidence +before the Shopkeepers' Commission, of 1883, every second house in some +of the suburbs was a shop of that kind. There was an excessive influx of +labour into that trade, because little other work could be found for +women who entertained, as they do generally in that colony, a prejudice +against both factory labour and domestic service. On the other hand, +this overflow was diverted in Birmingham into other channels by the +comparative abundance of light employments the district afforded. But +apart from temporary or local circumstances that serve to aggravate +things or alleviate them, the tailor trade is everywhere naturally +subject beyond all others to over-competition: (1) because the work can +be done at home; (2) because it can be learnt in a few weeks or months +well enough to earn starvation wages in a long day at some sorts of +work; (3) because it needs as little capital for the contractor to start +business as it needs training for the operatives; and (4) because the +operatives being scattered about in their own homes, or in small +workshops here and there, have a natural difficulty in coming to any +concerted action that might otherwise mitigate the effects of the +over-competition, and if there is any general remedy for sweating, it +must deal with these causes. To replace homework by common work in +wholesome workshops, as far as that can be done, might interfere with +what some poor persons found a convenient resource, but would do no harm +to the working class generally. The work it was less convenient for some +to do would be done by others. The change would remove at once one of +the evils of sweating--the unhealthy work-places--and it would +contribute to remove the others, first by facilitating combination, and +second by improving the personal efficiency of the labourer and the +amount of his production. Dr. Watts, of Manchester, speaking from long +experience, tells us in his "Facts of the Cotton Famine" (p. 44) that +"men often care more about being employed in a good mill (_i.e._, a mill +with plenty of room, air, and light) than about the exact price per +pound for spinning, or per piece for weaving, for they know practically +what is the effect of these conditions upon the weekly wages." Various +measures have been suggested which have some such end in view--the +compulsory registration of the contractor's workrooms and his +outworkers, the requiring him to provide workshops for all his hands, +the joint liability of the clothier with him for the wholesomeness of +the workplaces, the erection of public workshops where workpeople may be +accommodated for hire; they may be open to various objections--and there +is no space to indicate or discuss them here--but if they are effectual +for the purpose contemplated, that purpose saves them at least from the +reproach of socialism. + +The international compulsory eight hours day is attended with like +difficulty. The eight hours day is no necessary plank of socialism, +though socialists have at present united to demand it. Rodbertus, the +most learned and scientific of modern socialists, always contended that +the normal working-day ought not to be of uniform length, but should +vary inversely with the relative strain of the several trades, and Mr. +Bellamy, under his system of absolute equality of income, makes +differences in the hours of labour answer the purpose of regulating the +choice of occupation, and preventing too many persons running into the +easier trades, and too few into the harder. Nor, indeed, apart from the +element of universal compulsion, has the eight hours day anything of +socialism in it at all. In some trades it is probably a simple necessity +for protecting the workpeople in normal conditions of health; but above +all its sanitary benefits it would confer upon the workpeople of every +trade alike the much grander blessing of admitting them to a reasonable +share of the intellectual, social, domestic, religious, and political +life of their time. If the State could bestow upon them this sovereign +blessing without forcing them to accept a reduction of wages, which +might deprive them of things even more essential for their elevation, +and which would only breed among them an intolerable discontent, by all +means let the State declare the glad decree. But experience shows that +in matters of this kind the State--and especially the democratic +State--is a very limited agent, and cannot successfully enforce its +decrees upon unwilling trades. In certain special cases, when the short +day is demanded for the purpose of averting admitted dangers to health, +as with the miners, or for the safety of the public, as with the railway +service, there is a recognised stringency of obligation which is +exceptional; but in the great run of trades the question is virtually +one of mere preference between an hour's leisure and an hour's pay, and +in these circumstances a law has too little moral authority behind it to +be practically enforceable by penalties in the absence of decided +working-class opinion in its favour in the affected trades. In Victoria +more than fifty separate trades have obtained the eight hours day +without any parliamentary assistance, and almost the only remaining +trades which do not yet enjoy it are the very trades which have been +protected by an eight hours Factory Act since 1874. As soon as the Act +was passed, the operatives, men and women both, petitioned the Chief +Secretary for its suspension, and it has remained in suspended animation +to this day. A democratic government cannot risk incurring the +discontent of a body of the people merely to prevent them from working +an hour more when they want to earn a little more. California has had an +Eight Hours Act on the statute-book for even a longer period, but it has +remained a mere dead letter, because employers began to pay wages by the +hour or the piece, and the men found they did not earn so much in the +short day as they used to earn in the long. The same thing has happened +in others of the American States, and the friends of the eight hours +movement in that country are beginning to think that the reason their +long and often hot struggle has hitherto been so fruitless is because +they have been wasting their strength in political agitation when they +ought to have been cultivating and organizing opinion among the working +class themselves trade by trade. The weakness of statutory eight hours +movements has generally flowed from two sources. One is that what their +promoters really wanted was not shorter hours, but more wages. Numbers +of them sought only to shorten regular time in order to lengthen +overtime, and numbers more got themselves persuaded that a general +reduction of hours was the grand means of effecting a general rise of +wages, either by removing the competition of the unemployed, or in some +other way; and it has often been only the few--always the very _elite_ +of labour--who fought for the eight hours day because they valued the +leisure enough to make, if necessary, some little sacrifice for so noble +a boon. When, therefore, wages, instead of rising, begin to get reduced, +general disappointment is inevitable, and they get reduced--and reduced +lower than they otherwise might be--through the second weakness of such +movements, which is simply this, that a trades union which is not strong +enough to get an eight hours day by their own unaided efforts, without +the assistance of the law, is not strong enough to prevent their wages +from sinking, and in this matter the law can do nothing to help them. +The eight hours day can only be an abiding possession if it come through +the successive growth of opinion and organization in one trade after +another. The history of the movement in Victoria is the history of such +successive triumphs of opinion and organization; as soon as a trade has +come to want the eight hours day earnestly enough to be willing to +sacrifice something for it, the trade has always got it. In the result +they have had to sacrifice very little; scarce one of them suffered a +fall of wages by the change, for the simple reason that there was no +serious fall in their daily production. The difference between the ten +hours day and the eight hours day in Victoria was not two hours, but +only three-quarters of an hour, for--at least in the important +trades--the old day was ten hours, with an hour and a quarter off for +meals; and in eight hours with only one break the men probably did near +as much as they did before in the eight hours and three-quarters with a +double break. Still, most of the trades took twenty or five-and-twenty +years before they ventured to join the movement; and though no country +in the world is so much under the control of working-class opinion as +Victoria, the proposal of a general legal eight hours day which has +repeatedly come before the Legislature has never been carried into law. + +In one sense the eight hours day is the least socialistic of all reforms +proposed in the interest of the working class, for it is impossible to +make the other classes of society pay for the boon. It may not, perhaps, +be quite certain that there will be anything to pay for it at all, for +many people assure us production will suffer nothing by the change, and +some promise us it will be even increased. But one thing at least is +certain: if there is anything to pay, it is the working classes +themselves who in the end will and must pay it. The reduction can make +no great difference to employers, except on running contracts, or where +for any reason they refuse to keep their plant in use by an extra shift, +for in the matter of wages they will do under an eight hours system +exactly what they do now--pay the men for the amount of work they get +out of them and no more; and as they thus produce their goods at the old +cost, they can export them at the old price. It need not, therefore, +have any permanent effect worth speaking of on the general trade of the +country. But if the men do less, their wages will be less too,[10] and +nothing can long keep them what they were. This wages question is the +eight hours question; and while it is a question for the men more than +for the masters, it is essential they should keep clear of all +misconception in deciding it. + +There is no way of getting ten hours' pay for eight hours' work except +by doing the work of ten hours in the eight. An Eight Hours Act would +give working men no new power to raise the rate of wages; and if they +cannot by combination get twelve hours' pay for ten hours' work to-day, +they cannot by combination get ten hours' pay for eight hours' work +to-morrow. It is, indeed, a very current delusion, that a restriction of +production must increase wages by necessitating the employment of the +unemployed, whose competition tends at present to prevent wages from +rising. But that effect could only occur if the same demand for +commodities remained, and although that might be the case if the +restriction were confined to a single branch of industry, while all the +rest continued to produce as much as before, it would not be so if the +restriction were carried out simultaneously all round. The various +trades are one another's customers; the commodities one supplies +constitute the demand for the labour of the others; and if the supply is +reduced all round, the demand will be reduced all round. To say there is +at any moment a fixed amount of work that has to be done whatever the +produce of the labour, is, as Professor Marshall very happily observes, +to set up a Work Fund Dogma exactly analogous to the old Wages Fund +Doctrine of the schools, and, he might have added, a dogma even more +dangerous to the prosperity of the working-man. Yet the idea is abroad; +it appears in the trade-union policy of "making work"--that is, making +work for to-morrow by not doing it to-day; it is a kind of mercantilist +delusion of the present century, by which each trade is to cut some +advantage for itself out of the sides of the others until they all come +to practise the trick in turn and fall to mysterious ruin together. + +If the eight hours day is to raise wages, it will not be by limiting +production, but by improving it. That the productivity of labour is +capable of improving--nay, that it is certain to improve to such an +extent as to earn by-and-by more wages in an eight hours day than it now +does in a ten--is scarce matter of doubt. Apart from the influence of +machinery and invention, there is a great reserve of personal +efficiency, especially in English labour, still capable of development. +Mr. Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam-hammer, said that he noticed when +watching his men at work, that most of them spent at least two-thirds of +their time, not in working, but in criticising their work with the +square and the straight-edge, which the few dexterous workmen among them +almost never required to use. An increase of dexterity might, therefore, +make up for a reduction of the day in these trades even to four hours. +But the present question is about the probable effect of the reduction +itself upon the efficiency of labour, and experience certainly does not +justify those who declare that it would increase the daily product. The +effect of a reduction from ten hours or nine to eight is, of course, an +entirely different question from the effect of a reduction from twelve +or thirteen to ten, because the last two hours' labour in a very long +and exhausting day may bear little comparison with the last two hours of +a shorter day; and of the exact effect of the particular reduction from +ten to eight we possess but scanty evidence, though much might easily be +obtained, one would think, from establishments that run, as many do, ten +hours in summer and eight hours in winter, or ten hours in busy times +and eight hours in slack. We have some American evidence of this sort, +but it is very contradictory, a few employers saying that quite as much +work was done in the eight hours as in the ten, and others that as much +would have been done had the men made a better use of their leisure, +while several more complained that the men really did less, and that +their energies were positively slackened under the short hours--this +also perhaps being a result of the use they made of their leisure. In +Victoria the production seems to have been reduced a little, but really +so little as to have no very perceptible results, and the leisure is +used so well that the working class have made a distinct rise in the +scale of being, and have developed a remarkable love of outdoor sports, +and spare energy enough to produce some of the most famous cricketers +and scullers in the world. There are some trades in which it is possible +for production to diminish and yet wages to remain the same, because the +difference can be thrown into the price of the product. These are trades +supplying a commodity in general and necessary demand of which the +consumers will stand a very considerable rise in the price before they +will seriously shorten their purchases. Coal is a good example of such a +commodity, and the miners are therefore very happily situated for the +adoption of an eight hours day. They are more able than most other +trades to prevent such a measure from resulting in any fall of wages, +and consequently a legal enactment on the subject is less likely with +them to create subsequent disappointment, and remain dead letter. They +need State help in the matter less than most trades, for they are strong +and well organized; but an Eight Hours Act would be more easily enforced +among them. Very few trades, however, are in this exceptional position. +On the whole, the risk of material loss incurred by the reduction is +slight compared with the certainty and greatness of the moral gain; the +material loss will, in any case, be soon made up by industrial +improvements, if things progress as they are doing; and if the reduction +is more likely to come through the union and organization of the trades +themselves rather than by either national or international action, the +trades at least need have no serious fear to make the venture. + +The idea of settling questions of this kind by international action, +which was started at first from the side of the employers as a +convenient obstructive, but has since been taken up with great zeal by +the young German Emperor and the socialists, is obviously delusive. It +ignores the possibilities of the case, for who, in the first place, is +to adjust the complicated details of this international handicap, and if +they were adjusted, who is to enforce them? No country is likely to be +very strict in enforcing those parts of the settlement by which it lost +some point of advantage, and those are the only parts for which any such +settlement was wanted at all. Besides, international labour treaties are +quite unnecessary. Experience all over the world shows that a short-hour +State suffers nothing in the competition with a long-hour State. When +Massachusetts became a ten-hour State, her manufacturers never found +themselves at any disadvantage in competing with those of the +neighbouring eleven-hour States of New England, and they would have +still less to fear from rivals who employed, not the same Anglo-Saxon +labour as they did themselves, but the less efficient labour of Germany +or France. The ten-hour day was its own reward. It improved the +efficiency of the workpeople to the degree where, in concert with +improvements in the management, also due to the shortening of the day, +the product of ten hours in Massachusetts was equal to the product of +eleven elsewhere. If the same result were to follow the adoption of an +eight hours day, which, however, has still to be tested by experiment, +there is of course no more reason why one country should wait for +another in adopting the eight hours day than in adopting the policy of +free trade. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] It is only fair to this eminent man to remember that his mature +opinions must not be looked for in his essay, "Ideen zu einem Versuch +die Graenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen," which was written +in his early youth, and never published until after its author's death. +Although in this work he condemns all State education, he lived to be a +famous Minister of Education himself, and to take a great part in +establishing the Prussian system of public instruction. + +[8] Frothingham's "W. H. Channing: a Memoir," p. 18. + +[9] Roscher's "Finanz-Wissenschaft," p. 63. + +[10] For proof of the position that the rate of wages is determined by +the amount of production, see pp. 307-11. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE AGRARIAN SOCIALISM OF HENRY GEORGE. + + +Mr. George sent his "Progress and Poverty" into the world with the +remarkable prediction that it would find not only readers but apostles. +"Whatever be its fate," he says, "it will be read by some who in their +heart of hearts have taken the cross of a new crusade.... The truth I +have tried to make clear will not find easy acceptance. If that could +be, it would have been accepted long ago. If that could be, it would +never have been obscured. But it will find friends--those who will toil +for it, suffer for it: if need be, die for it. This is the power of the +truth" (p. 393). Mr. George's prediction is not more remarkable than its +fulfilment. His work has had an unusually extensive sale; a hundred +editions in America, and an edition of 60,000 copies in this country are +sufficient evidences of that; but the most striking feature in its +reception is precisely that which its author foretold; it created an +army of apostles, and was enthusiastically circulated, like the +testament of a new dispensation. Societies were formed, journals were +devised to propagate its saving doctrines, and little companies of the +faithful held stated meetings for its reading and exposition. It was +carried as a message of consolation to the homes of labour. The author +was hailed as a new and better Adam Smith, as at once a reformer of +science and a renovator of society. Smith unfolded "The Nature and +Causes of the Wealth of Nations," but to Mr. George, we were told, was +reserved the greater part of unravelling "the nature and causes of the +poverty of nations," and if the obsolete science of wealth had served to +make England rich, the young science of poverty was at length to make +her people happy with the money. Justice and Liberty were to begin their +reign, and our eyes were to see--to quote Mr. George's own words--"the +City of God on earth, with its walls of jasper and its gates of pearl" +(p. 392). + +The fervour of this first reception may--as was perhaps only +natural--have suffered some abatement since, but it affords a striking +proof how largely modern society is disquieted by the results of our +vaunted industrial civilization. Even those amongst us who are most +unwilling to disparage the improvement that has really taken place +during the last hundred years in the circumstances of the people, still +cannot help feeling that the improvement has fallen far short of what +might have been reasonably expected from the contemporaneous growth of +resources and productive power. But numbers of people will not allow +that any improvement has occurred at all, and deliver themselves to an +unhappy and unwarranted pessimism on the whole subject. Because +industrial progress has not extinguished poverty, they conclude that it +has not even lessened it; that it has no power to lessen it; nay, that +its real tendency is to aggravate it, that it increases wealth with the +one hand, but increases want with the other, so that civilization has +developed into a purely upper-class feast, where the rich are grossly +overfilled with good things, and the poor are sent always emptier and +emptier away. Invention, they tell us, has followed invention; machinery +has multiplied the labourer's productivity at least tenfold; new +colonies have been founded, new markets and channels of commerce opened +in every quarter of the globe; gold-fields have been discovered, free +trade has been introduced, railways and ocean steamers have shortened +time and space themselves in our service. Each and all of these things +have excited hopes of introducing an era of popular improvement, and +each and all of them have left these hopes unfulfilled. They think, +therefore, they now do well to despair, and they fortify themselves in +their gloom by citing the opinion of Mr. Mill, that "it is questionable +whether all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's +toil of any human being," without observing that Mr. Mill immediately +follows up that opinion by expressing the confident assurance that it +was "in the nature and the futurity" of these inventions to effect that +improvement. These gloomy views have in France received the name of +_Sisyphism_, because they represent the working class under the present +industrial system as being struck with a curse like that of Sisyphus, +always encouraged by fresh technical advantages to renewed expectations, +and always doomed to see their expectations perish for ever. + +Now, it was upon these despondent and burdened souls that Mr. George +counted so confidently, and, as time has shown, so correctly, for his +apostles and martyrs; and he counted so confidently upon them because he +had himself borne their sorrows, and drunk of their despair, and because +he now believed most entirely that his discoveries would bring +"inexpressible cheer" to their minds, as, in the same circumstances, +they had already brought inexpressible cheer to his own. "When I first +realized," he says, "the squalid misery of a great city"--that is, of +the latest and most characteristic product of industrial +development--"it appalled and tormented me, and would not let me rest +for thinking of what caused it and how it could be cured" (p. 395). +Poverty seemed to him to be most abounding and most intense in precisely +the most advanced countries in the world. "Where the conditions to which +material progress everywhere tends are most fully realized--that is to +say, where population is densest, wealth greatest, and the machinery of +production and exchange most highly developed--we find the deepest +poverty, the sharpest struggle for existence, and the most enforced +idleness" (p. 4). Nay, poverty, he thought, seemed "to take a darker +aspect" in every community at the very moment when it might be +reasonably expected to brighten--at the moment when the community made a +distinct advance in material civilization, when "closer settlements and +a more intimate connection with the rest of the world and greater +utilization of labour-saving machinery make possible greater economies +in production and exchange, and wealth increases in consequence, not +merely in the aggregate, but in proportion to population" (p. 4). This +process of impoverishment might, he says, escape observation in an old +country, because such a country has generally contained from time +immemorial a completely impoverished class, who could not be further +impoverished without going out of existence altogether, but in a new +settlement like California, where he resided, poverty might be seen +almost in the act of being produced by progress before one's very eyes. +While the colony had nothing better than log cabins or cloth shanties, +"there was no destitution," though there might be no luxury. But "the +tramp comes with the locomotive, and alm-houses and prisons are as +surely the marks of 'material progress' as are costly dwellings, rich +warehouses, and magnificent churches" (p. 4). "In the United States it +is clear that squalor and misery, and the vices and crimes that spring +from them everywhere, increase as the village grows to the city, and the +march of development brings the advantages of improved methods of +production and exchange. It is in the older and richer sections of the +Union that pauperism and distress are becoming most painfully apparent. +If there is less deep poverty in San Francisco than in New York, it is +not because San Francisco is yet behind New York in all that both cities +are striving for? When San Francisco reaches the point where New York +now is, who can doubt that there will also be ragged and barefooted +children in her streets?" (p. 6). The prospect alarmed and agitated him +profoundly. It deprived him, as it has deprived so many of the +continental socialists, of all religious belief, for if the real order +of things make an ever-deepening poverty to be the only destiny of the +mass of mankind, it seemed vain to dream of a controlling Providence or +an immortal life. "It is difficult," says he, "to reconcile the idea of +human immortality with the idea that nature wastes men by constantly +bringing them into being where there is no room for them. It is +impossible to reconcile the idea of an intelligent and beneficent +Creator with the belief that the wretchedness and degradation, which are +the lot of such a large proportion of human kind, result from His +enactments; while the idea that man mentally and physically is the +result of slow modifications perpetuated by heredity, irresistibly +suggests the idea that it is the race life, not the individual life, +which is the object of human existence. Thus has vanished with many of +us, and is still vanishing with more of us, that belief which in the +battles and ills of life affords the strongest support and deepest +consolation" (p. 396). + +The inquiry Mr. George undertook was consequently one of the most vital +personal concern to himself, and we are glad to think that it has been +the means of restoring to him the faith and hope he prizes so much. "Out +of this inquiry," he tells us, "has come to me something I did not think +to find, and a faith that was dead revives" (p. 395). + +It may be ungracious to disturb a peace won so sorely and offered so +sincerely to others, but the truth is, Mr. George has simply lost his +faith by one illusion and recovered it again by another. He first +tormented his brain with imaginary facts, and has then restored it with +erroneous theories. His argument is really little better than a +prolonged and, we will own, athletic beating of the air; but since both +the imaginary facts and the erroneous theories of which it is composed +have obtained considerable vogue, it is well to subject it to a critical +examination. I shall therefore take up successively, first, his problem; +second, his scientific explanation; and third, his practical remedy. + + +I. _Mr. George's Problem._ + +He states his problem thus:--"I propose to seek the law which associates +poverty with progress and increases want with advancing wealth" (p. 8). +The first rule of scientific investigation is to prove one's fact before +proceeding to explain it. "There are more false facts than false +theories in the world," and a short examination whether a phenomenon +actually exists may often relieve us from a long search after its law. +Mr. George, however, does not observe this rule. He seeks for the law of +a phenomenon without first verifying the phenomenon itself--nay, +apparently without so much as suspecting that it ought to be verified. +He assumes a particular view of the social situation to be correct, +because he assumes it. But his assumption is a purely subjective and, as +will presently be shown, delusive impression. We imagine our train to be +going back when a parallel train is going faster forward, and we are apt +to take the general condition of mankind to be retrograding when we fix +our eyes exclusively on the rapid and remarkable enrichment of the +fortunate few. What Mr. George calls "the great enigma of our time" is +just the enigma of the apparently receding train, and he proceeds to +solve it by coiling himself in a corner and working out an elaborate +explanation from his own inner consciousness "by the methods of +political economy," instead of taking the simple and obvious precaution +of looking out of the opposite carriage-window and testing, by hard +facts, whether his impression was correct. Had he taken this precaution, +had he resorted to an examination of the actual state of the facts, he +would have found good reason to change his impression; he would have +found that on the whole poverty is not increasing, that in proportion to +population it is considerably less in the more advanced industrial +countries than in the less advanced ones, and that he had simply +mistaken unequal rates of progress for simultaneous movements of +progress and decline. His impression, it must be admitted, is a +prejudice of considerable currency; there are many who tell us, as he +does, that want is growing _pari passu_ with wealth, and even gaining on +it; that if the rich are getting richer, the poor are at the same time +getting poorer; but it is a question of fact, and yet no one has ever +seriously tried to prove the assertion by an appeal to fact. That Mr. +George should have neglected to submit it to such a test is the more +remarkable, because he was, as he has told us, "tormented" in mind by +it, and because he acknowledges that it is a "paradox"--_i.e._, against +the reason of the case, and that it is also, to some extent at least, +against appearances. He owns, for example, that "the average of comfort, +leisure, and refinement has been raised," and that though the lowest +class may not share in these gains, yet even they have in some ways +improved. "I do not mean," he says, "that the condition of the lowest +class has nowhere nor in anything been improved, but that there is +nowhere any improvement which can be credited to increased productive +power. I mean that the tendency of what we call material progress is in +no wise to improve the condition of the lowest class in the essentials +of healthy, happy human life. Nay, more, that it is to still further +depress the condition of the lowest class. The new forces, elevating in +their nature though they be, do not act upon the social fabric from +underneath, as was for a long time hoped and believed, but strike it at +a point intermediate between top and bottom. It is as though an immense +wedge were being forced, not underneath society, but through society. +Those who are above the point of separation are elevated, but those who +are below are crushed down" (p. 5). From this passage it would appear +that, according to Mr. George, the condition of all except the lowest +class has improved _in consequence of_ material progress, and that the +condition of the lowest class has improved _in spite of_ it. He does not +undertake, it seems, to affirm of any class that it has, as a matter of +actual fact, become impoverished in the course of social development, +but only that there is a tendency in the increase of productive +power--in "the new productive forces"--in "material progress"--to +impoverish the lower strata of society. But then he contends that these +forces are practising exactly the same tendency on some of the highest +strata, on classes that we know have been growing richer and richer +every day. For he tells us that these new forces, entering our social +system like a wedge, depress all who happen to be on the wrong side; and +we shall presently discover that this unhappy company on the wrong side +of the wedge embraces many groups of persons who will be excessively +astonished to learn that they are there. It includes, not only the poor +labourers who live on wages, but the great capitalists who live on +profits; the great cotton spinners, ironmasters, brewers, bankers, +contractors; the very men, in short, of all the world, whom the new +productive forces have most conspicuously and enormously enriched. I +shall revert to this preposterous conclusion later on, but at present it +is enough to say that a tide, which so many have swum against and swum +to fortune, cannot be very formidable, and at all events can furnish no +clue whatever to the possible condition of those who are exposed to it. +For that we have only one resort. It is a plain question of fact--is +poverty really increasing? Are the poor really getting poorer? And this +can only be competently decided by the ordinary inductive evidence of +facts. The data of this kind which we possess for settling the question +may not be so exact as would be desirable, but there is no higher +tribunal to which we can appeal. The question must be answered by them, +or not answered at all. + +Now any data we have all conduct to the conclusion that poverty is not +increasing. If poverty were increasing with the increase of wealth, it +would show itself either in an increase of pauperism, or in a decline in +the general standard of living among the labouring classes, or in a fall +in the average duration of life, and these symptoms would be most acute +in the countries that are most wealthy and progressive. Now, let us take +England as a crucial case of a country in a very advanced stage of +industrial development. Is English pauperism greater now than it was +before the "new productive forces" entered the country? Is the general +standard of living among the labouring classes lower? Is the average +duration of life less? Are poverty and the various symptoms of poverty +more acute in England than in more backward countries? + +In a foot-note to the passage last quoted from his book, Mr. George +explains that the improvement he recognises in the lot of the lowest +class does not consist in greater ability to obtain the necessaries of +life. Does he mean, because more things are now reckoned among the +necessaries of life? If so, we fear there is no chance of that +difficulty being removed, nor indeed is there any reason for desiring it +to be so. Men's wants will always increase with their incomes, and the +struggle to make both ends meet may in that case indefinitely continue. +But the fact remains that they have more wants satisfied than before, +that they realize a higher standard of life, and that is the mark, and +indeed the substance, of a more diffused comfort and civilization. It is +true that as the general standard of living rises, people feel the pinch +of poverty at a higher level than before, and become pauperized for the +want of comforts that are now necessary, but which formerly few ever +dreamt of possessing. To have no shoes is a mark of extreme indigence +to-day; it was the common lot a century ago. People may be growing in +general comfort, and yet their ability to obtain necessaries remain +stationary, because their customary circle of necessaries may be always +widening. The real sign of an advancing poverty is when the circle of +recognised necessaries is getting narrow, and yet men have more +difficulty in obtaining them than before; in other words, 1st, when the +average scale of living falls; and 2nd, when a larger proportion of the +people are unable to obtain it, reduced though it be. Now, in England, +the contrary has happened; the general standard of living has risen, and +the proportion of those who are unable to obtain it has declined. + +In a preceding chapter I adduced evidence to show how greatly improved +the working-class standard of living now is from what it was two hundred +years ago, in the good old times socialist writers like to sing of, when +men had not yet sought out many inventions and the world was not +oppressed by the large system of production. But let us tap the line +between then and now at what point we may, and we find the same result; +the tendency is always to a better style of living. Mr. Giffen, for +example, in his address, as President of the Statistical Society, on +20th November, 1883, compares the condition of the working classes +to-day with their condition half a century since, and concludes from +official returns that while the sovereign goes as far as it did then in +the purchase of commodities, money wages have increased from 30 to 100 +per cent., and, at the same time, the hours of labour have been reduced +some 20 per cent. Except butcher-meat and house-rent, every other +element of the working man's expenditure is cheaper, and butcher-meat +was fifty years ago hardly an element of his expenditure at all, and the +kind of house he then occupied was much inferior, as a rule, to what he +occupies now, bad as the latter may in many cases be. + +But while the general standard of comfort has been rising, the +proportion of the population who are unable to obtain it has been +diminishing. I have already stated that King estimated the number of +persons in receipt of relief in England and Wales in 1688 at 900,000. +Now in 1882 the average number in receipt of relief at one and the same +time was, according to official returns, 803,719; and if we are right in +doubling that figure to find the whole number of paupers relieved in the +course of the year (that being the proportion borne in Scotland), then +we may conclude that there are some 1,600,000 paupers in England and +Wales at the present day. That is to say, with nearly five times the +population, we have less than twice the pauperism. The result is far +from being entirely gratifying; a million and a half of paupers (with +more than half as many again in Ireland and Scotland) constitute a very +grave problem, or rather ganglion of problems; but the fact supplies a +decisive enough refutation of the pessimist idea that the actual +movement of pauperism has been one of increase instead of one of +decrease. + +During these two hundred years there is no period in which wealth and +productive power multiplied more rapidly than the last thirty years, +and, therefore, if Mr. George's ideas were correct, there is no period +that should show such a marked increase of pauperism. What do we find? +We find that pauperism has steadily declined in England during that +period. The decrease has been gradual and attended with no such striking +interruptions as were frequently exhibited in former times. But the most +remarkable feature about it is that the number of able-bodied paupers +has diminished by nearly a half; from 201,644 in 1849 to 106,280 in +1882. That is the very class of paupers whom Mr. George represents it to +be the special effect of increasing productive power to multiply, and +yet, though wealth and productive power have made almost unexampled +progress, and though the population has also considerably risen in the +interval, we have not more than half as many of this class of paupers +now as we had thirty years ago. No doubt this result is due in part to a +better system of administering relief, just as it is due in part to the +growth of trade unions and friendly societies, to the extension of +savings banks, and to other agencies. But if Mr. George's principle is +true, could such a result have taken place at all? If "material +progress" has a tendency to multiply "tramps" or able-bodied paupers, +the tendency must be weak, indeed, when a little judicious management on +the part of public bodies, or of working men themselves, would not only +counteract it, but turn the current so strongly the other way. But the +truth is that the "tramp" has never been so little of a care in this +country as at the present hour, and that it is to material progress we +owe his disappearance. He was a very serious problem to our ancestors +for centuries and centuries. The whole history of our social legislation +is a history of ineffectual attempts to deal with vagrants and sturdy +beggars, and we are less troubled with them now mainly because +industrial progress has given them immensely more opportunities of +making an honest and regular living. Industrial progress has all along +been creating work and annihilating tramps, but it has all along been +followed by absurd and perverse complaints like Mr. George's, that it +was only creating tramps and annihilating opportunities of work. Mr. +George says the tramp comes with the locomotive, but a writer in 1673 +(quoted by Sir F. Eden, "State of the Poor," I., 190) declared that he +came with the stage-coach. He pictures the happy age before +stage-coaches, when (as Mr. George says of California) there might be no +luxury, but there was no destitution, when every man kept one horse for +himself and another for his groom. But with the introduction of the +stage-coach the scene was changed. People got anywhere for a few +shillings, and ceased to keep horses. They were so much the richer +themselves, but their grooms were ruined and thrown upon the world +without horse or home. Now class privations like these are incidental to +industrial transformations, and in an age of unusual industrial +transitions like ours, they may be expected to be unusually numerous. +But the effect of material progress on the whole is to prevent such +privations rather than cause them. It multiplies temporary redundancies +of labour, but it multiplies still more the opportunities for +permanently relieving them. Why are we now free from the old scourges of +famine and famine prices? Partly because of free trade, but mainly +because of improved communications, because of the steamer and the +locomotive. Even commercial crises are getting less severe in their +effects. The distress among our labouring classes during the American +Civil War was nothing compared with the suffering under the complete +paralysis of industry that followed the close of the great continental +war in 1815. Miss Martineau tells us of that time:--"The poor abandoned +their residences, whole parishes were deserted, and crowds of paupers, +increasing in numbers as they went from parish to parish, spread wider +and wider this awful desolation." (History of England, I. 39.) No such +severe redundancy of labour has taken place since then, and the +redundancies that attend changes of fashion or of mechanical agency, +though they undoubtedly constitute a serious difficulty, are yet +lightened and not aggravated by the various and complex ramifications of +modern industry. Except a new colony, there is no place where new-comers +are so easily taken on as in a highly developed industrial country. +There are more poor in Norway than in England, and they are increasing; +yet in Norway there is no rent and no great cities. Mr. George may say, +and in fact he does say, that in old countries the number of paupers is +reduced by simple starvation; but if that were so, the death-rate would +be increasing. But in England the death-rate is really diminishing. Let +us again quote from Mr. Giffen's address:--"Mr. Humphreys, in his able +paper on 'The Recent Decline in the English Death-Rate,' showed +conclusively that the decline in the death-rate in the last five years, +1876-80, as compared with the rates on which Dr. Farr's English Life +Table was based--rates obtained in the years 1841-45--amounted to from +28 to 32 per cent. in males at each quinquennial of the 20 years, 5-25, +and in females at each quinquennial from 5-25, to between 24 and 35 per +cent.; and that the effect of this decline in the death-rate was to +raise the mean duration of life among males from 39.9 to 41.9 years, a +gain of two years in the average duration of life. Mr. Humphreys also +showed that by far the larger proportion of the increased duration of +human life in England was lived at useful ages, and not at the dependent +ages of either childhood or old age. No such change could have taken +place without a great increase in the vitality of the people. Not only +had fewer died, but the masses who had lived must have been healthier +and suffered less from sickness than they did. From the nature of the +figures also the improvement must also have been among the masses, and +not among a select class whose figures threw up the average. The +improvement, too, actually recorded obviously related to a transition +stage. Many of the improvements in the condition of the working classes +had only taken place quite recently. They had not, therefore, affected +all through their existence any but the youngest lives. When the +improvements had been in existence for a longer period, so that the +lives of all who are living had been affected from birth by the changed +conditions, we might infer that even a greater gain in the mean +duration of life will be shown. As it was the gain was enormous. Whether +it was due to better and more abundant food and clothing, to better +sanitation, to better knowledge of medicine, or to these and other +causes combined, improvement had beyond all question occurred." The +decline of pauperism in this country then is not due to any increasing +mortality in the classes from which the majority of the paupers come; +but it is one among many other proofs that these classes have profited, +like their neighbours, by the course of material progress. They may not +have profited in the same degree as some others, or in the degree we +think desirable and believe to be yet possible for themselves. But they +have profited. The situation is really, as we have said, one of unequal +rates of progress, and not one of simultaneous progress and decline. + +And this Mr. George seems, at a later stage of his argument, freely to +admit. For when he comes to state "the law which associates poverty with +progress and increases want with advancing wealth," he explains that he +does not contend that poverty is associated with progress at all, but +only that a lessening proportion of the gross produce of society falls +to some classes; that want may possibly not in the least increase with +advancing wealth; that all classes may be the wealthier for the growth +of wealth; and practically, that the only evidence of the poverty of the +poor is the greater richness of the rich. It seems he is not explaining +in any wise why the poor are getting poorer, but only why they are not +getting rich so fast as some of their neighbours. We must quote chapter +and verse for this extraordinary vacillation about the very problem he +wants to solve. "Perhaps," he says, in the last paragraph of Book III., +chapter vi. (p. 154), "it may be well to remind the reader, before +closing this chapter, of what has been before stated--that I am using +the word wages, not in the sense of a quantity, but in the sense of a +proportion. When I say that wages fall as rent rises, I do not mean that +the quantity of wealth obtained by labourers as wages is necessarily +less, but that the proportion which it bears to the whole produce is +necessarily less. The proportion may diminish while the quantity remains +the same, or even increases. If the margin of cultivation descends from +the productive point, which we will call twenty-five, to the productive +point we will call twenty, the rent of all lands that before paid rent +will increase by this difference, and the proportion of the whole +produce which goes to labourers as wages will to the same extent +diminish; but if in the meantime the advance of the arts or economies +that become possible with greater population have so increased the +productive power of labour that at twenty the same exertion will produce +as much wealth as before at twenty-five, labourers will get as wages as +great a quantity as before, and the relative fall of wages will not be +noticeable in any diminution of the necessaries or comforts of the +labourer, but only in the increased value of land and the greater +comforts and more lavish expenditure of the rent-receiving class." It +thus turns out that the alleged impoverishment of the labouring classes +through the increasing wealth of society--the sad and desolating +spectacle that "tormented" Mr. George, "so that he could not rest"--the +cruel mystery that robbed him even of his religious faith, and moved him +to write his powerful but inconclusive book--this was no real +impoverishment at all, but only an apparent one. It is not so much as +"noticeable" in "any diminution of the necessaries or comforts of the +labourer"; it is noticeable only in "the greater comforts and more +lavish expenditure of the rent-receiving class." The poverty of the +labourer consists in the greater wealth of the landlord. The poor are +not poorer; they only seem poorer, because certain of the rich have got +so much richer. The problem is thus, on Mr. George's own showing, just +the mock problem of the apparently receding train. + +But let us take up this new issue. Mr. George's assertion now is that +wages are a less proportion of the gross produce of the country than +they were, because rent absorbs a correspondingly larger proportion than +it did. Is that so? Mr. George does not think of showing that it is: he +assumes it, without apparently having the smallest pretence of fact for +his assertion. His assumption is entirely wrong. Rent is a much smaller +proportion of the gross produce of the country than it was, and wages +are not only in their aggregate a larger proportion of the aggregate +produce of the country, but in their average a larger proportion of the +_per capita_ production. There is no need to rest in random assumptions +on the matter. The gross annual produce of the United Kingdom is +reckoned at present at twelve hundred millions sterling, and the rent of +the land at less than seventy millions, or about one seventeenth of the +whole. In the time of King and Davenant, 200 years ago or so, the annual +produce of England and Wales was forty-three millions, and the rent of +land ten millions--little less than one-fourth. (Davenant's Works, iv., +71.) It is hardly worth while, however, making a formal assertion of so +self-evident a proposition as that rent constitutes a much smaller +fraction of the national income now that wealth is invested so vastly in +trade and manufactures, than it did when agriculture was the one great +business of life: but it is perhaps better worth showing that rent does +not absorb a greater proportion even of the agricultural produce of the +country than it used to do. Rent has risen nearly 200 per cent. in the +course of the last hundred years, but it does not take one whit a larger +share of the gross produce of the land than it took then. + +According to the calculations of Davenant and King, the gross produce of +agriculture amounted, at the time of the Revolution, to four rents, or, +allowing for tithes, to three rents; but this was only on the arable. +The produce of other land, natural pasture and forest land and the like, +came to less than two rents; so that while the rent of arable was not +more than a third of the produce (or, to state it exactly, 27 per +cent.), the rent of land generally was more nearly a half. The figures +are-- + + + Gross Produce. Rent. + Arable Land L9,079,000 L2,480,000 + Other Land 12,000,000 7,000,000 + ----------- ---------- + Total L21,079,000 L9,480,000 + + +(Davenant's Works, iv., 70.) Arthur Young, a century later, declares +that the doctrine of three rents was already exploded, and that farmers +had begun to expend so much on high cultivation that they would be very +ill content if they produced no more than three rents. In fact, he +declares that even in former times rent could never have amounted to a +third of the produce, except on lands of the very first quality, and +that a fourth was more probably the average proportion. In his +"Political Arithmetic," published in 1779 (Part II., pp. 27, 31), he +estimated the gross agricultural produce of England (exclusive of Wales) +at L72,826,827, and the gross agricultural rental at L19,200,000, or 26 +per cent.,--very nearly one-fourth of the produce. To come down nearer +our own time, M'Culloch estimated the gross agricultural produce of +England and Wales in 1842-3 to have been L141,606,857, and the gross +agricultural rental L37,795,906, or 26 per cent. of the produce. +("Statistical Account of the British Empire," 3rd Edition, p. 553.) The +gross, agricultural produce of the United Kingdom is now 270 millions +sterling, and the gross agricultural rental 70 millions. Mr. Mulhall, +indeed, estimates it at only 58 millions; but at 70 millions it would +be, as nearly as possible, 26 per cent.,--curiously enough the same +figure exactly as in 1843 and in 1779, and almost the same as in 1689. + +So far of rent; now as to wages. I have already, in a former chapter (p. +301), produced some evidence to show that the average labourer's wages +bears a higher proportion to the average income of the country than it +did in former times, or, in other words, that the labourer enjoys a +higher _per capita_ share of the gross annual produce of the country as +measured in money, and I need not repeat that evidence here. Mr. Mulhall +has made some calculations which confirm the conclusions there drawn. +("Dictionary of Statistics," p. 246.) He compares the income of the +people of the United Kingdom at the three epochs of 1688, 1800, and +1883. He divides the people into classes and numbers them by families, +stating the total income of each class and the total number of families +among whom it was divided. I select the two columns containing the +results for the whole population and the results for the working class. + + + (1) Number of Families:-- + + A.D. 1688. A.D. 1800. A.D. 1883. + Whole Nation 1,200,000 1,780,000 6,575,000 + Working Class 759,000 1,117,000 4,629,000 + + (2) Earnings:-- + + A.D. 1688. A.D. 1880. A.D. 1883. + Whole } + Nation} L45,000,000 L230,000,000 L1,265,000,000 + + Working} + Class } 11,000,000 78,000,000 447,000,000 + + +A single glance at these tables will show that the aggregate wages of +the country constitutes a slightly better proportion of its aggregate +annual income at present than in 1800, and a decidedly better proportion +than in 1688. But if we look, not to the aggregate income of the class, +but to the average income of the individual families it contains, the +result is in nowise more favourable to Mr. George's assumption. The +following table will show that:-- + + + (3) Average Income of Families:-- + + A.D. 1688. A.D. 1880. A.D. 1883. + Whole Nation L37 L129 L189 + Working Class 14 69 96 + + +The average working-class income was thus 37 per cent. of the average +income of the country in 1688; 53 per cent. of it in 1800; and 51 per +cent. of it in 1883. The difference between the last two epochs is so +indecisive that we may count them practically identical. The real +position of affairs then as to the proportion of wages to national +produce is this, that wages enjoy a considerably larger share of that +produce now than they did at the end of the seventeenth century, and +about the same proportion as they enjoyed at the end of the eighteenth. +If, accordingly, Mr. George resolves to stick by the point of +proportion, he would therefore have no more solid ground to stand on +than on the point of quantity. Rent, as a proportion of the entire +wealth of the country, has enormously declined, and even as a +proportion, of agricultural wealth has not increased. Wages as a +proportion have not declined, but rather risen. + +These, among other things, are indications that we have been concluding +too hastily that concentration of wealth is the characteristic tendency +of the time, and ignoring the existence of many minor and less +conspicuous forces which have been working in the contrary direction. +The real prospect at present is towards diffusion. The enormous +accumulations that have marked the last hundred and fifty years have +owed their existence largely to causes that cannot be expected to +endure; in the case of land, to vicious laws directly favouring +aggregations; and in the case of trade, to the unparalleled rapidity of +the transformations and extensions industry has undergone during the +period. Great inequalities are natural to such a time. Huge fortunes are +made by pioneers, and will not be easily made by their successors. +Railway contracting will never produce again a millionaire like Mr. +Brassey, but it will continue to furnish the means of many moderate +fortunes and competencies. So with every other new branch of industry, +or new field of investment. The lucky person who is the first to occupy +it may rise to great riches, but his successors will divide the custom, +and instead of one large fortune, there will be a considerable number of +small ones. Mr. George himself admits that the opportunities of making +large fortunes are growing more limited, but oddly enough he considers +the fact to be a signal evidence of "the march of concentration." In his +"Social Problems" (p. 59) he writes: "An English friend, a wealthy +retired Manchester manufacturer, once told me the story of his life. How +he went to work at eight years of age, helping to make twine, when twine +was made entirely by hand. How, when a young man, he walked to +Manchester, and having got credit for a bale of flax, made it into twine +and sold it. How, building up a little trade, he got others to work for +him. How, when machinery began to be invented, and steam was introduced, +he took advantage of them, until he had a big factory and made a +fortune, when he withdrew to spend the rest of his days at ease, leaving +his business to his son. 'Supposing you were a young man now,' said I, +'could you walk into Manchester and do that again?' 'No,' replied he, +'no one could. I couldn't with fifty thousand pounds in place of my five +shillings.'" The true moral of this little story is of course that it is +more difficult to amass a huge fortune in that particular line now than +when machinery was young, and that a man with L50,000 to start with must +now content himself with a much poorer figure than Mr. George's lucky +friend made out of nothing. Would Mr. George compute what limit could be +set to the sum his friend might have amassed, had he started in those +golden days with L50,000 instead of five shillings? Even as things +stood, his solitary success did not distribute the wealth of Manchester +any the better among his fellow-spinners who were not fortunate enough +to get credit for a bale of flax, or pushing enough to ask for it, and +were not in a position to take advantage of the first introduction of a +new power, and rise with it to great wealth. That the stream of things +is now making for more moderate fortunes, and more of them, is confirmed +by the testamentary statistics of the previous ten years published some +time ago by the _Spectator_ newspaper. These figures show that the +number of fortunes of the first rank left during that period has been +very much less than it was in the preceding ten years, but that the +number of moderate fortunes has been very much larger. + +What the future may hide in it I shall not venture to divine. It will no +doubt bring upon industry fresh transformations, but we can hardly +expect them to be so numerous or so rapid as in the brilliant era of +industrial progress and colonial development we have passed through, and +some at least of the changes that are in store for us point, as I have +shown in the introductory chapter of this book, to a greater diffusion +rather than a greater concentration in the future. Mr. George says: "All +the currents of the time run to concentration. To successfully resist it +we must throttle steam and discharge electricity from human service" (p. +232). Now steam has undoubtedly been a great concentrator, but +electricity, which is likely to take its place in the future, will to +all appearance be as great a distributor. Mr. George is equally mistaken +regarding the real effect of the other "currents of the time." "That +concentration is the order of development," says he, "there can be no +mistaking--the concentration of people in large cities, the +concentration of handicrafts in large factories, the concentration of +transportation by railroad and steamship lines, and of agricultural +operations in large fields. The most trivial businesses are being +concentrated in the same way--errands are run and carpet sacks are +carried by corporations" (p. 232). The concentration of people in cities +is not the same thing as the concentration of the wealth of those cities +in the hands of a few individuals. The centralization of labour in +cities has assisted the birth of the trade union and the co-operative +society, which are among the best agencies for diffusing wealth; and +the growth of joint-stock companies is a strange proof of a tendency to +greater concentration of wealth, for the joint-stock company is really +an instrument of the small capital, enabling it by combination to +compete successfully with the larger; and as to agriculture, the real +tendency, in this country at any rate, seems to be to lesser holdings. +When we complain of the inequalities of our time--and I am far from +desiring to underrate their extent or to palliate their +mischievousness--we are apt to forget how largely the real and natural +process of evolution is after all one of distribution, how much the most +conspicuous of the inequalities have been incidental to a transition +period, and due to causes of a temporary nature, and how many +indications we possess that they are not unlikely to be corrected and +moderated in the future course of social development. Some of the +official returns made in connection with the income tax show that the +immense increase of wealth of the last thirty years has been far from +being reaped by any single class, but has been shared pretty evenly by +all the classes included in those returns. We possess detailed accounts +of the number of persons paying income tax in each grade of income under +Schedule D, from the year 1849, and if we compare the figures of that +year with those of 1879, we shall obtain a fair index to the movement of +distribution during those thirty years. Schedule D, it is true, includes +only incomes derived from trades and professions, but these incomes may +fairly enough be taken as sufficiently characteristic to afford a +trustworthy indication of the general movement. While population +increased in the thirty years by 22 per cent., the number of incomes +liable to income-tax increased by 161 per cent., and of these, the +incomes that have increased in much the largest proportion are precisely +those middling or lower middling incomes which I have before shown to +have unfortunately declined since 1688. While the number of incomes over +L1,000 a year has increased by 165 per cent., the number of incomes +between L150 and L400 a year has increased by 256 per cent. Mr. Goschen, +in his inaugural address as President of the Royal Statistical Society +in December, 1887, produced later evidence showing the continuance, and +even growth of the same tendency. He showed from the Income Tax Returns +that, in spite of the increase of population between 1877 and 1886, the +number of incomes over L1,000 a year had decreased by 2.40 per cent., +and the number of incomes between L500 and L1,000 had remained the same, +while the number of incomes between L150 and L500 had increased 21.4 per +cent. He showed from the statistics of certain selected public +companies, that in the ten years from 1876 to 1886 the number of their +shareholders had increased by 72 per cent., while the average capital +per shareholder had decreased from L443 to L323. He drew similar +conclusions from the probate and inhabited house duty figures, and from +several other sources. (See _Journal of Statistical Society_, December, +1887.) These figures prove that the tendency of things, so far as it +concerns the classes above the labourers, is not to further and +exclusive concentration, but rather towards a wider and beneficial +diffusion; and in regard to the labouring classes, it is admitted by +all--even by the extremest social pessimists--that the upper and middle +strata of them have participated in the progress of wealth equally with +their neighbours. There remains only the lowest class of all, and their +emancipation is the serious task of social reform in the immediate +future; but that class is even now not increasing in the ratio of +population; its misery comes from many causes, most of them moral and +physical rather than economic; and though it presents difficult and +trying problems, there is no reason for renouncing the hope which alone +can sustain social reformers to success. + + +II. _Mr. George's Explanation._ + +If there is any force in the foregoing observations, it is plain that +there is no such problem as Mr. George has undertaken to explain, and we +are therefore exempted from all necessity of examining his explanation. +But to Mr. George's own mind his explanation of the appearance that +troubled him really constitutes the demonstration of it; at any rate, he +offers no other. The question of the increase of poverty is of course a +question of fact, that cannot be settled by a _priori_ deduction alone; +but Mr. George seems to think otherwise. He is too bent on proving it +to be _necessary_ to think of asking whether it is _actual_, and even a +man of science like Mr. A. R. Wallace, while regretting that Mr. George +had not chosen to build his proposals on ground of fact, declares that +he adopted an equally legitimate method in deducing his results "from +the admitted principles and data of political economy." ("Land +Nationalization," p. 19.) Moreover, most of the social pessimism of the +present time draws its chief support, exactly like Mr. George's, from +the supposed bearing of certain received economic doctrines; and our +task would therefore be incomplete if we did not follow Mr. George on +this "high _priori_ road" on which he so boldly fares forth, and +performs, as will presently be seen, many a remarkable feat. + +Before beginning his explanation, he throws the problem itself into what +he conceives to be a more suitable scientific form. "The cause," says +he, "which produces poverty in the midst of advancing wealth is +evidently the cause which exhibits itself in the tendency everywhere +recognised of wages to a minimum. Let us therefore put our inquiry into +this compact form: Why, in spite of increase in productive power, do +wages tend to a minimum which will give but a bare living?" (p. 10). The +problem, as thus restated, is clearly, be it observed, one of quantity, +not of proportion. A bare living is not a relative share, but a definite +amount, of produce. But the tendency in wages to such a minimum, which +he asserts to be everywhere recognised, is really not recognised at all. +In alleging that it is so, Mr. George evidently alludes to the doctrine +of wages taught by Ricardo and his school; but what they recognised in +wages was a tendency, not to a minimum that would give but a bare +living, but to a minimum that would give a customary living; in other +words, that would sustain the labourers in the standard of comfort +customary among their own class. The economic minimum is not the +absolute minimum of a bare living; it is, as Mr. George himself +elsewhere puts it, "the lowest amount on which labourers will consent to +live and reproduce,"--that is, not the lowest amount on which any +individual labourer will do so, but the lowest amount which labouring +people in general consider it necessary to earn before they will +undertake the responsibility of marriage. If they were to get less than +this, it was contended, they would refrain from marrying to an extent +that would tell sufficiently on the supply of labour to force wages up +again to their old level. This level was the minimum to which wages +constantly tended, but then it was always higher than a bare living; it +was determined by the standard of requirements current among the +labouring class at the time; and it was recognised to be capable of +rising if that standard rose. True, Ricardo and the economists of his +generation entertained very poor hopes of any such rise, because the +working classes of their time, being without the intelligence, the ideas +of comfort, the higher wants that are powerfully operative among the +working classes of our day, were generally seen to "take out" their +better wages when they chanced to get them in nothing but earlier +marriages, which in the end brought their wages down again. We have +happily now to do with a more aspiring and a less uniformly composed +working class. It is perhaps more aspiring in some measure because it is +less uniformly composed. It contains many ranks and inequalities and +standards of social refinement and comfort, and the presence of these +side by side develops a more active tendency upward, which, by supplying +a stronger check than before on improvident marriages, will enable the +labourers, class after class of them, to appropriate securely more and +more of the common domain of advancing civilization. We have had +abundant experience of a rise in the standard of life, and a rise in the +rate of wages, both remaining as permanent possessions of sections of +the labouring class. But if Ricardo and his school had less faith than +they reasonably might have had in the possibility of a permanent upward +tendency in wages, they certainly never dreamt of believing in any +permanent downward tendency. According to their doctrine the rate of +wages moved up and down within certain limits, but always tended to come +back to a particular figure--the amount necessary to give the labourer +the living customary among his class. This figure was really no more a +minimum than it was a maximum; wages were supposed to fall sometimes +below it, as they were supposed to rise sometimes above it; and to speak +of it as a minimum that would give but a bare living is completely to +misrepresent its nature. + +The assumption from which Mr. George starts is thus in no wise an +admitted principle of political economy, and would therefore not answer +the test of legitimacy laid down by Mr. Wallace. It has no ground +outside of Mr. George's own imagination. Economists would solve his +problem, "why in spite of increased productive power wages tend to a +minimum that will give but a bare living?" by simply denying his fact, +and having done with it. But Mr. George persuades himself that they +would answer it otherwise, and devotes the next section of his book to +an elaborate confutation of the false answers he supposes they would +return to it. They would either explain it, he thinks, by their theory +of the wages fund, or they would explain it by their theory of +population; and so before confiding to us his own explanation, he +considers it necessary to stop and clear these two venerable theories +out of his way. I am not concerned to defend these theories; their truth +would not make Mr. George's own view any the falser, nor their falsehood +make it any the truer. One of them indeed was dead and buried before Mr. +George attacked it, though I am bound to say it would never have fallen +before the particular line of attack he directs against it. The wages +fund doctrine, which played a considerable _role_ both in its original +form as taught by Senior, and in its subsequent form as modified by +M'Culloch, was refuted by Mr. Thornton in 1869, was almost instantly +abandoned by the candid mind of Mr. Mill, and is now rarely met with as +a living economic doctrine. The wages fund is still regarded of course +as having its limit in capital, and in the conditions which generate +capital, but since these conditions include among other things the +number and efficiency of the labourers, the amount of the wages fund is +no longer represented as at any given moment a fixed and predetermined +quantity susceptible of no possible alteration to meet the exigencies of +the labour market, and when once this characteristic was given up, the +wages fund doctrine was seen to have degenerated into little more than a +stately truism. The Malthusian theory of population is not in the same +way discredited, but it likewise is now generally stated with some +reserve. It has become well understood that the earlier economists +assigned it too absolute and universal a validity, and that it is not, +as they thought, a law for all ages, and especially and happily not a +law for our own. It is true of an era of progressive population and +diminishing return from agriculture, but for our day it has been robbed +of its terrors by free trade and steam navigation, which have connected +our markets with continents of virgin soil, and carried us virtually +into an era of increasing return of indefinite duration. The population +question was one of serious practical import for our fathers, and as +they saw people marrying and giving in marriage, while every fresh +bushel of food was extracted with increasing difficulty from an +exhaustible soil, they looked with a reasonable dread to the future, and +saw no way of hope except in the practice of a heroic continence. But we +live in another time. We find population increasing and yet bread +cheapening, simply because the locomotive which alarmed Mr. George by +taking the tramp to California has brought back plenty to the rest of +the world. It is due to the material progress he preaches against that +we are the first generation who can afford to make light of the +population question, and leave our remote posterity to deal with the +peril when it shall actually arrive. + +Mr. George, however, is not content with disputing these doctrines; he +insists on replacing them with others exactly opposite to them in +purport, and for which he claims a like universal validity. He propounds +a new population theory, and a new wages fund theory of his own. The +more population abounds, the more will subsistence superabound, is his +comfortable counter-proposition to Malthusianism. "I assert," says he, +"that in any given state of civilization a greater number of people can +collectively be better provided for than a smaller.... I assert that the +new mouths which an increasing population calls into existence, require +no more food than the old ones, while the hands they bring with them can +in the natural order of things produce more. I assert that, other things +being equal, the greater the population, the greater the comfort which +an equitable distribution of wealth would give to each individual" (p. +99). In a word, his teaching is that "other things being equal" +over-population is a ridiculous impossibility. What may be all concealed +under the reservation, "other things being equal," he does not +enlighten us, but it avowedly contains at least one presupposition of +decisive importance to the question, the presupposition of the unlimited +productiveness of the soil. Mr. George denies the law of diminishing +return. We shall presently find him, in his doctrine about rent, basing +his whole book on the operation of this law. But here in his doctrine +about population it suits him to deny it, and he does so on singularly +fantastical grounds (p. 93). He denies it on the ground that "matter is +eternal, and force must for ever continue to act," as if the +indestructibility of matter was the same thing as its infinite +productiveness. "As the water that we take from the ocean must again +return to the ocean, so the food we take from the reservoirs of nature +is, from the moment we take it, on its way back to those reservoirs. +What we draw from a limited extent of land may temporarily reduce the +productiveness of that land, because the return may be to other land or +may be divided between that land and other land, or perhaps all land; +but this possibility lessens with increasing area, and ceases when the +whole globe is considered. That the earth could maintain a thousand +billions of people as easily as a thousand millions is a necessary +deduction from the manifest truths that at least, as far as our agency +is concerned, matter is eternal and force must for ever continue to +act.... And from this it follows that the limit to the population of the +globe can only be the limit of space. Now this limitation of space--this +danger that the human race may increase beyond the possibility of +finding elbow-room--is so far off as to have for us no more practical +interest than the recurrence of the glacial period or the final +extinguishment of the sun" (p. 94-5). If this passage means anything, it +means that the race may go on multiplying as long as it finds room to +stand on, and that even when that limit is reached it can only be +squeezed to death and not starved. It can in no case apparently be +starved. Subsistence cannot possibly run short, for the inherent powers +of the soil are not permanently destructible. But he might as well argue +that man must be omnipotent because he is immortal. The question is not +one of the durability of the productive powers of the earth--it is one +of their limited or unlimited productive capacity. Up to a certain point +they may yield the same return at the same cost year after year in +_saecula saeculorum_, but will they yield more? Manifestly not. Every +bushel they give after that is got at continuously increasing cost. Now +of course wherever population increases so much, compared with the land +at its disposal, that this increasing cost must be incurred in order to +find them food, the epoch of diminishing return in agriculture has +arrived, and the peril of over-population is already present. Happily, +as we have said, that time is not yet, but it will come long, long +before the human race fails to find elbow-room in this planet. + +Mr. George himself admits that in a country of inconsiderable extent, or +in a small island, such as Pitcairn's Island, over-population is quite +possible before elbow-room is near exhausted--(p. 74)--and in making the +admission he virtually surrenders his case. He admits in detail what he +denies in gross. For is not the soil of a small island or an +inconsiderable country as eternal as the soil of a continent? The only +difference is that it is not so extensive, and therefore comes to the +epoch of diminishing return sooner. That is all. The reason why he makes +an exception of such an island is because its inhabitants "are cut off +from communication with the rest of the world, and consequently from the +exchanges which are necessary to the improved modes of production +resorted to as population becomes dense" (p. 74). But if density of +population is such a sure improver of production as Mr. George +represents it to be elsewhere, why should it fail here? And if it fail +anywhere, how can he argue that it must succeed everywhere? Once he +admits, as he does in this passage, that subsistence has a definite +limit in the modes of production that happen to be known in any age and +country, and that population has a definite limit for such age and +country in the amount of subsistence which the known modes of production +are capable of extracting from the soil, he really admits all that +Malthusians generally contend for, and coming to curse, he has really +blessed them altogether. The limit of subsistence which he here +recognises--the limit imposed by the state of the arts--is far within +the limit which he has just been denying, the natural limit to the +inherent fertility of the soil, on which economists base their law of +diminishing return. The former point is far sooner reached than the +latter. Men will starve because they don't know how to make the best use +of nature long before they will starve because nature is used up; and it +is exactly that earlier limit on which Malthusians lay stress. + +But except for this inconsistent admission in the case of a petty +isolated island, Mr. George persistently refuses to recognise any kind +of limit to subsistence, either in the productive capacity of the soil +or in the state of the arts. He seems to fancy that land will go on +yielding larger and larger harvests _ad infinitum_ to accommodate an +increasing population, and that even if it failed to do so, new +inventions or improved processes of production would be constantly +discovered when they were needed, and keep the supply of food always +equal to the demand. With these crude assumptions in his head, he +arrives very easily at his own peculiar theory, which is, that +subsistence tends to increase faster than population, because the growth +of population itself affords the means of such economies and +organization of labour as multiply immensely the productive capacity of +each individual labourer. A hundred labourers, he is fond of arguing, +will produce much more than a hundred times the amount that one will, +and it is therefore clear folly to think of population as capable of +encroaching on subsistence. On the contrary, it seems almost fitter to +speak of it as a means of positively economizing subsistence. Mr. +George's mistake arises from ignoring the fact that subsistence depends +on the productive capacity of land as well as on the productive capacity +of labour, and the productive capacity of land is not indefinitely +progressive. + +Mr. George's new wages fund theory is based on a precisely analogous +misconception of the real conditions of the case, and is just as much in +the air as his population theory. "Wages," he says, "cannot be +diminished by the increase of labourers, but on the contrary, as the +efficiency of labour manifestly increases with the number of labourers, +the more labourers, other things being equal, the higher wages should +be" (p. 62). Just as he has already argued that food can never run short +before an advancing population, because the new hands can produce much +more than the new mouths can consume, as if the hands span it out of +their own finger nails; so he now argues that wages can never decline +for want of capital to employ labourers, because the capital that +employs them is made by the labourers themselves. They are paid, he +declares, not out of the capital of their employers, but out of the +product of their own labour. Mr. F. A. Walker, the eminent American +economist, had already taught a similar doctrine, but with the +reservation that while wages were really paid out of the produce of the +labour they remunerated, they were usually advanced out of the +employer's capital. But Mr. George throws aside this reservation, and +declares boldly that wages are neither paid nor advanced out of capital, +and that if any advance is made in the transaction at all, it is the +labourer who makes it to the employer, not the employer to the labourer. +"In performing his labour, he (the labourer) is advancing in exchange; +when he gets his wages, the exchange is completed. During the time he is +earning the wages, he is advancing capital to his employer; but at no +time, unless wages are paid before work is done, is the employer +advancing capital to him" (p. 49). + +In this contention Mr. George relies much on the analogy of the +"self-employing" labour of primitive society. When men live by gathering +eggs, he tells us, the eggs they gather are their wages. No doubt; but +in our complicated civilization we don't live by gathering eggs from day +to day, but by sowing the seed in spring which is to yield us food only +in harvest--by preparing work for the market which may take weeks, +months, even years before it is marketable. The energetic Sir John +Sinclair is said to have once danced at a ball in the evening dressed in +a suit the wool of which was still growing on the sheep's back in the +morning; but rapidity like that is naturally foreign to ordinary +commerce. The successive operations of clipping, fulling, teasing, +spinning, dying, weaving, cutting, sewing, occupy considerable time. So +with other things. Houses, ships, railways, are not built in a day, or +by a single workman. The product of a single workman's work for a day at +any of these things has no value apart from the product of the other +workmen's work, nor has the work of them all any value unless the work +is, or is to be, completed. The wages paid during the period of +construction, therefore, cannot possibly have come out of the work for +which they were paid, but must have been advanced otherwise. Who +advances them? Clearly not the labourer himself, for he receives them. +And yet that is what Mr. George unhesitatingly asserts, and his argument +is as courageous as it is ingenious. He does not shrink from applying it +to the extremest case you like to suggest--the Great Eastern, the +Gothard Tunnel, the Suez Canal; even in these cases the labourers, who +spent months and years in doing the work, were paid out of the work +itself, out of the Great Eastern, out of the Gothard Tunnel, out of the +Suez Canal. "For," says Mr. George, "a work that is incomplete is not +valueless, it is not unexchangeable; money may be raised on it by +mortgage or otherwise, and as this money is raised on the product of the +labourer's work, the wages it is employed to pay are really paid out of +that product." But this only shifts the question a little: it does not +answer it. Where does this lent money come from? Certainly not from the +work it is lent on. Perhaps not, Mr. George will rejoin, again shifting +his ground, but it comes from the product of the contemporaneous work of +other labourers. "It is not necessary to the production of things that +cannot be used as subsistence or cannot be immediately utilized that +there should have been a previous production of the wealth required for +the maintenance of the labourers while the production is going on. It is +only necessary that there should be, somewhere within the circle of +exchange, a contemporaneous production of subsistence for the labourers, +and a willingness to exchange this subsistence for the thing on which +the labour is being bestowed" (p. 51). But this is only passing round +the dilemma. For this contemporaneous production has itself the same +difficulty to face; it has to sustain its labourers during the time +taken to complete their work; and it can only do so, according to Mr. +George's explanation, by raising the means through a mortgage on the +unfinished work. It borrows to pay its own wages, but is apparently able +to lend to pay other people's. Mr. George has a happy method of carrying +on the affairs of society by mutual accommodation. Peter is a shoemaker +who wants money to buy leather to make shoes and food to maintain him +till the shoes are made. Paul is a carpenter who is in a like case, and +wants money to buy food and timber. Peter borrows the money he needs +from Paul on mortgage, and then Paul in turn borrows what he needs from +Peter, on the same terms. Utopia is a pleasanter world than ours, and an +IOU probably goes a long way in it; but here on this hard earth Peter +would certainly make no shoes nor Paul any chairs, unless he had either +himself saved enough to purchase the materials, or found a neighbour who +had done so and was ready to make him an advance. Except for this +neighbour he could not work at all, and could not therefore "create any +wages," and the amount of work he got and wages he earned would +manifestly depend greatly on the amount of capital this stranger +possessed and was disposed to invest in such an enterprise. + +It is true that the wages of labour will be guided in amount by the +quantity of the product, but they are not on that account actually paid +out of the product. And it is true that the labourer gives value for his +wages--certainly he would not otherwise be employed--but that value is +not usually marketable until some time, in many cases years, after the +wages have been enjoyed, and therefore cannot have been the source +whence these wages came. The wages were paid out of the saved results of +previous labour--that is, out of capital--and Mr. George has absolutely +no conception of the amount of capital that is necessary to carry on the +work of industry. He says we live from hand to mouth, and so in a sense +we do. Our capital is being constantly consumed and constantly +reproduced again, and economists are fond of showing, from the speedy +recovery of a civilized state after a devastating war, how short a time +it would really take to replace it entirely. But until it is replaced +every inhabitant undergoes considerable privations, which simply means +that the rate of wages has fallen for want of it. There are some trades, +like the baker's, where the product is actually sold before the wages +are paid; and there are many, like the whaler's mentioned by Mr. George, +where the labourers can afford to wait long terms for part at least of +their remuneration (no great sign, by the way, of the minimum of a bare +living); but even in these much capital must be set aside before a +single hand is engaged. The whalers, for example, must be furnished with +a ship to start with, and be provisioned for the voyage; and if these +requisites are not forthcoming, they must go without work and wages +altogether, or take work at inferior terms in a market glutted by their +own arrival in it. Mr. George speaks lightly of the labourers who +excavated the Suez Canal advancing value to the company who employed +them, and yet before a single pick or spade was stuck into the sand of +the Isthmus the company had laid out, in preliminary expenses and +machinery, as much as six millions sterling--more than a third of the +whole cost of the Canal. They had then to pay other five or six millions +in wages before the work fetched a single fee; and yet Mr. George will +have us believe that those five or six millions actually came out of the +profits, merely because the projectors hoped and believed they might +eventually come out of them. Labourers give an equivalent to the +capitalists for their wages, but their wages are really paid out of the +capital which their employers have saved for the purpose of purchasing +that equivalent. I may have bought a cow in the hope of recouping myself +by selling her milk, but I did not therefore pay her price out of the +milk money--for nobody would have sold her to me if he had to wait for +that; I bought her out of money I had previously saved, and from the +same source exactly, and no other, do capitalists buy labour. + +But, objects Mr. George, that cannot be; wages cannot be paid out of +capital, because they are often lowest when, as shown by the low rate of +interest, capital is most abundant. But Mr. George here confounds +existent capital with employed capital. It is only the capital actually +employed that tells on wages; the low rate of interest merely shows that +there has been an increase in unemployed capital, and since that is +generally a correlative of a diminution of employed capital, it is but +natural that low interest should be attended by low wages. Low wages are +a consequence of unemployed labour, unemployed labour a consequence of +unemployed capital, and unemployed capital a consequence of unfavourable +industrial conditions which labour, either with capital or without it, +cannot evade or reverse. + + +So far then of Mr. George's views on population and the wages fund, for +which much value, as well as originality, has been claimed. The chapters +in which he states them are certainly among the most impressive and +characteristic in his book. Nowhere else does he display more strikingly +his remarkable acuteness, fertility, and literary power, and nowhere +else are these high qualities employed more fruitlessly from sheer want +of grasp of the elements of the problems he discusses. These chapters +are after all, however, something of a digression from the main business +of the book, and they have perhaps detained us too long from Mr. +George's own explanation of the supposed growth of poverty. + +His explanation is this: "The reason why, in spite of the increase of +productive power, wages constantly tend to a minimum which will give but +a bare living is that with increase in productive power, rent tends to +even greater increase" (p. 199). "Rent swallows up the whole gain, and +pauperism accompanies progress" (p. 158). "The magic of property," it +seems, has an unsuspected malignancy; but, in the present case, its +spell is really exercised only over Mr. George's own vision. For who, +with his eyes open, would believe for a moment what Mr. George so +gravely asserts, that of the whole gain won by our multiplied productive +power, none whatever has gone to the great bankers, and brewers, and +cotton spinners, and ironmasters, and corn factors, and shipbuilders, +and stockbrokers, and railway contractors; that our Rothschilds, and +Brasseys, and Barings, and Bairds, the great plutocrats of the time, the +possessors of the largest fortunes in the country, the very men and +classes who have been most conspicuously enriched through the material +progress of the nation, have all the while been conducting a hard +struggle against a fatal tendency in their incomes to sink to a bare +living, and had to feed, exactly like the manual labourers, from the +crumbs that fall from the landowners' table. The assertion is too +violent and preposterous to merit serious refutation. Everybody knows +that the greatest part of the wealth of modern society is not +concentrated in the hands of the landlords at all, that it has not +accrued from rent and that it would not be a farthing the less though +private property in land were abolished to-morrow. + +But violent and preposterous as Mr. George's conclusion is, it has not +been arrived at without the exercise of much perverse ingenuity. Having +been brought by his examination of the wages fund and population +theories to the conviction that the key to his riddle was not to be +discovered in the conditions that regulated production, he concludes +that it must, therefore, be sought in the conditions that regulate +distribution. His problem is thus one in the distribution of wealth, and +it must be explained, if it is to be explained at all, by the laws of +distribution. To investigate these laws, therefore, becomes now his +object, and the first step he takes is a truly amazing one. At the very +outset he throws the most important class of participators in the +distribution--the class that appropriates the largest share--out of +court altogether, and he proceeds to settle the whole question as if +they never got a penny, and as if the entire spoil were divided among +their neighbours. People who live on profits, it seems, have no _locus +standi_ in a question of distribution, and the case must be considered +as if the parties exclusively concerned were the people who live on +wages, the people who live on interest, and the people who live on rent. +"With profits," he says, "this inquiry has manifestly nothing to do. We +want to find what it is that determines the division of their joint +produce between land, labour, and capital, and profits is not a term +that refers exclusively to any one of these three divisions. Of the +three parts into which profits are divided by political economists, +namely compensation for risk, wages of superintendence, and returns for +the use of capital, the latter falls under the term interest, which +includes all the returns for the use of capital and excludes everything +else; wages of superintendence falls under the term wages, which +includes all returns for human exertions and excludes everything else; +and compensation for risk has no place whatever, as risk is eliminated +when all the transactions of a community are taken together" (pp. +113-4). + +Now we have to do here with no mere difference of terminology. Profits +may be employers' wages, if you like to call them so; but it is a fatal +confusion to suppose that, because you have called them employers' +wages, you are therefore entitled to treat them as if they were governed +by the same laws and conditions as labourers' wages. The truth is that +they are governed by opposite conditions, and that the pith of the +labour question is just the conflict between these two kinds of wages +for the better share in the distribution. The battle of labour is not +against the employer receiving fair interest on his capital in +proportion to its quantity, but against the amount of additional profit +which the employer claims as wages of superintendence, and which he also +rates in proportion to capital invested instead of rating it in +proportion to his own trouble or efficiency. One of the chief hopes of +the workman resides in the possibility of breaking down this erroneous +criterion of fair remuneration for superintendence, and so getting the +employers to content themselves with smaller profits than they have been +in the habit of considering indispensable. Profits and wages have thus +opposite and conflicting interests in the distribution, but Mr. George, +having once disguised the one in the garb of the other, is imposed on by +the disguise himself, and treats them in his subsequent speculations as +if they were the same thing, or at any rate--what in the present +connection is equally pernicious in its effects--as if their respective +shares in the distribution were determined by precisely the same +conditions. The result is, as might be expected, a series of singular +_contretemps_ springing from mistaken identity, like those we are +familiar with on the comic stage. The manufacturing millionaire appears +before us as the victim of the same harsh destiny as the penniless +crossing-sweeper, and the banker of Lombard Street is overshadowed by +the same blighting poverty as the lumper of Wapping. Proudhon, in a +powerful passage, describes pauperism as invading modern society at both +extremes; it invaded the poor in the positive form of natural hunger; it +invaded the rich in the unnatural but more devouring form of insatiable +voracity. The burden of Mr. George's prophetic vision contains no such +refinements. He sees a huge wedge driven through the middle of society; +and on the underside of that enchanted wedge he sees the merchant +princes of the world eating the bread of poverty with their lowest +dependents. Mr. George's classification of profits under wages +therefore involves much more than a mere change of nomenclature, for it +has led him to pass off this absurd vision as a literal description of +things as they are. By that classification he has really put out of his +own sight the most important factor in the settlement of the question he +is discussing, and so he begins playing Hamlet by leaving the part of +Hamlet out. + +Having simplified matters by throwing profits out of the cast, Mr. +George's next step is to assign the leading _role_ to rent. In the whole +drama of the modern distribution of wealth, no part is more striking or +more often misunderstood than the part played by rent. Wages never cease +to cost much and to be worth little, but rent seems to have the property +of going on growing while the landlords themselves sleep or play. This +fact has impressed Mr. George so profoundly that, losing sight of things +in their true connection and proportions, he declares that the growth of +rent is the key to the whole situation, and that neither wages nor any +other kind of income, not derived from land, can ever draw any advantage +from the increase of prosperity, because rent always steps in before +them and runs off with the spoil. He professes to found this conclusion +on Ricardo's theory of rent, which he accepts, not only as being +absolutely true, but as being too self-evident to need discussion. +Indeed, he seems disposed, like some others, to have his fling at Mill +for calling it the _pons asinorum_ of political economy; but we shall +presently discover various grounds for suspecting that he has not +crossed the bridge successfully himself, and that here, as elsewhere, he +has been led seriously astray by looking at things through the mist of +doctrines he has only imperfectly mastered. Anyhow, he offers his theory +as a deduction from Ricardo's law of rent, and this deduction claims +particular attention because it is the corner-stone of his speculations, +and constitutes what he would consider his most original and important +contribution to economic science. He says that the law of rent itself +"has ever since the time of Ricardo ... been clearly apprehended and +fully recognised. But not so its corollaries. Plain as they are, the +accepted doctrine of wages ... has hitherto prevented their recognition. +Yet, is it not as plain as the simplest geometrical demonstration that +the corollary of the law of rent is the law of wages, when the division +of the produce is simply between rent and wages; or the law of wages and +interest together, when the division is into rent, wages, and interest" +(p. 120). It is really plainer. It is a mere truism. In any simple +division, if you know how much one of the factors gets, you know how +much is left for the others, and if you like to dignify your conclusion +by the name of corollary, you are free to do so. But the real point is +this, whether the share obtained by rent is fixed irrespectively of the +share obtained by wages and interest, or whether, on the contrary, it +does not presuppose the previous determination of the latter. There is +no doubt, at any rate, as to how Ricardo--Mr. George's own +authority--regarded the matter. According to his celebrated theory, +wages and interest are satisfied first, and then rent is just what is +over. Rent is simply surplus profit. In hiring land, the farmer hires a +productive machine, and under the influence of competition gives, for +the use of that productive machine for a year, the whole amount of its +annual produce which remains as a surplus after paying the wages of his +labourers, and allowing interest on his capital, and what he considers a +fair profit for his own work of superintendence. A certain current rate +of wages and a certain current rate of profit are presupposed, and after +these demands are met, then if the land has yielded anything more, that +surplus is what is paid as rent. Ricardo always presumes that land that +cannot produce enough to meet these demands will not be cultivated at +all, and that the poorest land actually under cultivation is land that +meets them and does no more; in other words, that leaves nothing over +for rent. Let us take Ricardo's law as it is stated by Mr. George +himself (p. 118): "The rent of land is determined by the excess of its +produce over that which the same application can secure from the least +productive land in use." The standard by which, according to this law, +the amount of rent is supposed to be determined, is the produce of the +least productive land in use. Now, what is the least productive land in +use? It is land that produces just enough to pay the wages the labourers +upon it are content to work for, and the profits the farmer of it is +content to farm for. How that rate of wages and that rate of profits are +fixed is no matter here; but one thing is clear--and it is enough for +our present purpose--that they cannot be determined, as Mr. George +represents them as being, by a law of rent which presumes and is +conditioned by their operation. Ricardo's law virtually explains rent in +terms of wages and profits, and it would therefore be the height of +absurdity to re-explain wages and profits in terms of rent. And if that +is so, the circumstance which excites Mr. George's surprise, that +economists have always so clearly apprehended the law of rent itself, +and yet failed so completely to recognise the corollaries which he +plumes himself on being the first to deduce from it, admits of a very +simple explanation: the economists understood the law they expounded, +and were better reasoners than to employ it as a demonstration of its +own postulates. + +This will become still plainer, if we look more closely at the fact +which has struck Mr. George so much--the constant rise of rent in modern +society. He attributes that rise to many causes; in fact, there are few +things that will not, in his opinion, raise rent. Progress of population +will do so; but if population is stationary, it will be done all the +same by progress in the arts; the spread of education will do it; +retrenchment of public expenditure will do it; extending the margin of +cultivation will do it; and so will artificial contraction of that +margin by speculation. In short, he is so haunted by the idea, that he +seems to believe that so long as rent is suffered to survive at all, +whatever we do will only conduce to its increase. Every step of progress +we take extends its evil reign, and if progress were to reach +perfection, rent would drive wages and interest completely off the field +and appropriate "the whole produce" (p. 179). These fears are not sober, +but they could never have risen had Mr. George first mastered the theory +of rent he founds them on. For rent, being the price paid by producers +for the use of a productive machine, cannot rise unless the price of the +product rises first (or its quantity, if so be that it does not increase +so much as to reduce its price), for unless the price of agricultural +produce rises, the farmer cannot afford to pay a higher rent for the +land than he paid before. No part of Ricardo's theory is more elementary +or more unchallenged than this, that the rent of land constitutes no +part of the price of bread, and that high rent is not the cause of dear +bread, but dear bread the cause of high rent. Rent cannot rise further +or faster than the price of bread (or meat, of course) will allow it, +and the price of bread is beyond the landowner's control. He cannot +raise it, but once it rises, he can easily raise rent in a corresponding +degree. If a rise of rent depends on a rise in the price of bread, what +does a rise in the price of bread depend on? On two things which Mr. +George ignores or misunderstands--the progress of population and the +diminishing return in agricultural production. The growth of population +increases the demand for food so much as to raise its price, and renders +it profitable to resort to more difficult soils or more expensive +methods for additional supplies. The price will then remain at the +figure fixed by the cost of the costliest portion that is brought to +market. + +Now Mr. George laughs at the idea of increase of population causing any +difficulty about the supply of food--population, which he is never tired +of telling us, is the very thing most wanted to multiply that supply, +and possesses a power of multiplying it in even a progressive ratio to +its numbers. "The labour of 100 men," he says, "other things being +equal, will produce much more than one hundred times as much as the +labour of one man" (p. 163). And he laughs in the same way at the idea +of a diminishing return in agriculture, as if, says he, matter were not +eternal, and as if an increasing population did not of itself increase +the productive capacity of the land through increasing the productive +capacity of the labour upon it. These two misunderstandings lie at the +bottom of all Mr. George's vagaries about rent, and they are perhaps +natural to a speculator, resident in a rich new colony, which, as he +describes it himself, "with greater natural resources than France, has +not yet a million people." No doubt in a country at that particular +stage of its historical development, increase of population may involve +an increase, and even a more than proportional increase, of food as well +as of other commodities; but that particular stage is a temporary and +fleeting one, and the world in general is very differently situated from +the State of California thirty years ago. Where there is plenty of good +land, the increase of population occasions no increase in the cost of +producing food, because there is no need to resort to poorer land for +the purpose; and while food is got as cheaply as before, other things +are got much more easily and abundantly in consequence of the economies +of labour and the many mutual services which result from the increased +numbers of the community. But that state of matters only continues so +long as there remains no occasion to resort to poorer soils for the +production of food, and that time is long past in most countries of the +world. Mr. George no doubt contends that in all countries it is just the +same as in California, because even though it may have become more +difficult in some places to produce food, it has become everywhere much +easier to produce other commodities, and (so he argues) the production +of any kind of commodity is practically equivalent to the production of +food, for it can always be exchanged for food. So it can, if food is +there to exchange for it; but the very question is whether food is +there, or is there in the same relative quantity. If I say it is more +difficult to get food, it is no answer to tell me that it is much easier +to get other things. And because other things may be multiplied +indefinitely at the same cost, that is no reason for denying that food +can only be multiplied indefinitely at increasing cost. Yet Mr. George +reasons as if it were. This confusion is repeated again and again in the +course of his book, and has evidently had much influence on his whole +speculations. He describes the advantages which the colonist derives +from the arrival of other settlers. "His land yields no more wheat or +potatoes than before, but it does yield far more of all the necessaries +and comforts of life. His labour upon it will bring no heavier crops, +and we will suppose no more valuable crops, but it will bring far more +of all the other things for which men work" (p. 168). That is true, but +it is not to the purpose. The new settler required a market, and +population brought it; but although population up to a certain point is +beneficial, you cannot for that reason declare that beyond that point it +cannot possibly become embarrassing; for on Mr. George's own hypothesis +the ground yields no more wheat and potatoes than before, and the limit +to convenient population is prescribed by the amount of food the ground +yields, and not by the quantity of other commodities which skilled +labour can produce. If population were to exceed what that stock of food +would adequately serve, then new-comers would find little comfort in Mr. +George's rhetorical commonplace that they had two hands and only one +mouth. His simple confidence, that they never can be at a loss, because +they can get food by exchange as well as by direct production, is a mere +dream, because he forgets that the people they are to exchange with are +in the same case as themselves. They can only give food in exchange for +other things so long as they raise more food than serves their own +numbers, and when their numbers increase beyond that point, they will +have no food to sell. The limit to subsistence is not the productive +capacity of labour, but the productive capacity of land. + +Mr. George's argument rests on another very curious fallacy. He builds +his whole theory of distribution on the fact of the extension of the +margin of cultivation from better to worse soils, but in the same breath +he denies the existence of the very conditions that alone make that fact +possible. Nobody would resort to worse land unless the better were +unable to furnish indefinite supplies at the old cost, _i.e._, unless +the principle of diminishing return prevailed in agriculture. Nor would +any one resort to worse land until it paid him to do so, _i.e._, until +the produce of this worse land became, through a rise in its price or +through improvements in the art of agriculture, equal in net value to +the produce previously yielded by the worst land then in cultivation. +Mr. George denies the principle of diminishing return. He denies "that +the recourse to lower points of production involves a smaller aggregate +of produce in proportion to the labour expended." He denies this, "even +where there is no advance in the arts and the recourse to lower points +of production is clearly the result of the increased demand of an +increased population. For," says he, "increased population of itself, +and without any advance of the arts, implies an increase in the +productive power of labour" (p. 163). But the question is, does it imply +any increase in the productive power of the soil? Mr. George contends +that it does, but only on the superior soils, not on the inferior. +Increasing population, in his opinion, renders all labour so much more +effective that "the gain in the superior qualities of land will more +than compensate for the diminished production on the land last brought +in" (p. 165). Now to all this there is one simple answer: why then +resort to inferior soils at all? If crowding on the superior soils can +make those soils indefinitely productive, why go farther and fare worse? +There can be no reason for having recourse to worse land, but that the +better has ceased to yield enough at the old cost. Organization and +economy of labour are excellent things, but they cannot press from the +udder more milk than it contains, or rear on the meadow more sheep than +it will carry, or grow on a limited area available for cultivation more +than a definite store of food. + +But while Mr. George denies that there is anything to force people to +poorer soils, he supposes at the same time that they go freely in order +to get a less profit. He holds the amount of return obtained from +cultivating the least productive land in use to be the lowest rate of +return for which anybody will invest his capital, and therefore to serve +in some sense as a standard rate of remuneration for all applications of +capital and labour. Nobody, he declares, will work for less than he can +make on land that pays no rent. But will any one work such land for less +than he can make in other industries? That is what Mr. George supposes +to be done every day, although he laughs at the idea of there being any +necessity for doing it. It need not be said that men are not such +lunatics. They are really forced to go to worse soils because the better +cannot increase their yield indefinitely at the same cost, and they +never go till they possess a reasonable expectation of making as much +out of the worse land as they did before out of the better. + +From all these remarkable misconceptions of the working of rent, and of +the theory of Ricardo on the subject, which he professes to follow, he +draws his first law of distribution, which is nevertheless, so far as it +goes, undoubtedly correct: "Rent depends on the margin of cultivation, +rising as it falls and falling as it rises" (p. 155). + +To find the law of rent, he has told us, is to find at the same time its +correlatives, the laws of wages and interest, and these laws accordingly +he states thus: "Wages depend on the margin of cultivation, falling as +it falls and rising as it rises. Interest (its ratio with wages being +fixed by the net power of increase which attaches to capital) depends on +the margin of cultivation, falling as it falls and rising as it rises" +(p. 156). He is not content, however, with merely inferring these two +laws as corollaries from the law of rent, but thinks it necessary to +construct for wages and interest a certain independent connection with +the movement of the margin of cultivation. To do so, he first reduces +interest, as he had already reduced profits, to a form of wages; he then +erects all the different forms of wages (_i.e._, every form of income +except rent) into a single hierarchical system, in which there are many +different rates of remuneration, occasioned by the necessity of +compensating different risks and exertions, but all moving up and down +concurrently with a certain general rate of wages at the bottom of the +scale; and he finally connects this general or standard rate of wages +with the margin of cultivation, by saying that no one would work at +anything else for less than he can make on land open to him free of +rent, and that therefore the income made by cultivating such land must +be the lowest going. + +Mr. George's view of the nature of interest is peculiar. He considers it +to be the natural increase of capital, the fruit of inherent +reproductive powers, like the increase of a calf into a cow, or of a hen +into a hen and chickens; and because interest comes in this way freely +from nature, he believes the private appropriation of it to be +thoroughly just, although he presently gives precisely the same reason +for declaring rent to be theft. It is unnecessary to discuss either the +truth or the consistency of this doctrine here, and I refer to it now +merely to explain that although Mr. George thus justifies interest as +being the price of a natural force, he introduces it into his theory of +the origin of poverty, as the price of human labour. "The primary +division of wealth," he says, "is dual, not tripartite. Capital is but a +form of labour, and its distinction from labour is in reality but a +subdivision, just as the division of labour into skilled and unskilled +would be. In our examination we have reached the same point as would +have been attained had we simply treated capital as a form of labour, +and sought the law which divides the produce between rent and wages; +that is to say between the possessors of the two factors, natural +substance and powers and human exertion--which two factors, by their +union, produce all wealth" (p. 144). The difference between interest and +wages is but as the difference between the wages of skilled labour and +the wages of unskilled; the wages of skilled labour is only the wages of +unskilled, _plus_ some consideration for the skill, or for the time +spent in training, or for drawbacks of various kinds; and the wages of +unskilled labour is fixed by the amount that can be made on land that +pays no rent. Profits, salaries, stipends, fees are, in the same way as +interest, declared to be modes of wages. The L50,000 a year of the +merchant prince, it seems, is just the L50 of the day-labourer, with +L49,950 added to compensate him for the additional perils or drawbacks +or discomforts of his life. All incomes, except the landowner's, row in +the same boat, and the day-labourer's sets the stroke. When the margin +of cultivation descends, he is the first to suffer, and then all the +rest suffer with him. If he loses L10 a year, they successively lose L10 +too; the doctor or bank-agent will have L490, instead of L500; the +railway chairman, L4,990, instead of L5,000; the merchant prince, +L49,990, instead of L50,000; and their loss is the landlord's gain. Here +then we see the whole mystery of iniquity as Mr. George professes to +unravel it. "The wealth produced in every community is divided into two +parts by what may be termed the rent line, which is fixed by the margin +of cultivation, or the return which labour and capital could obtain from +such natural opportunities as are free to them without payment of rent. +From the part of produce below this line, wages and interest must be +paid. All that is above goes to the owners of land" (p. 121). + +Mr. George here confounds the margin of cultivation with the margin of +appropriation. When economists speak of an extension of the margin of +cultivation, they mean a resort to less productive land, and that is +always accompanied by a rise of rent; but an extension of the margin of +appropriation may be a resort to more productive land, and may occasion +a fall of rent, as has been done in Europe to-day through appropriation +in America. But what in reality he builds his argument on is neither +the movement of the margin of cultivation, nor the movement of the +margin of appropriation, but simply the existence of abundance of +unappropriated land. Where that exists, rent will, of course, be low, +and wages will be high, for nobody will give much for land when he can +get plenty for nothing at a little distance off, and nobody will work at +anything else for less than he can make on land that he may have for +nothing. For such land supplies labourers with an alternative. It is not +the best of alternatives, for it needs capital before one can make use +of it, and it takes time before any return is made from it. A diversity +of national industries, for example, is better, and raises wages more +effectively. Agricultural wages are higher in the manufacturing counties +of England than in the purely agricultural; and they are higher in the +manufacturing Eastern States of Mr. George's own country than in the +purely agricultural States of the West, which possess the largest amount +of unappropriated land. The reason of this is twofold: other industries +increase the competition for labour generally, and create, at the same +time, a better market for farm produce. Unoccupied land would +act--though less effectually--in the same way as an alternative; but few +countries are fortunate enough to possess much of it, and as Mr. George +does not propose to interfere with the occupation of land, but only to +tax the occupiers, he has no scheme for showing how countries that have +it not are to get it. It is easy, of course, to call it from the vasty +deep. "Put to any one capable of thought," says Mr. George, "this +question: 'Suppose there should arise from the English Channel or the +German Ocean a Noman's land on which common labour to an unlimited +amount should be able to make ten shillings a day, and which would +remain unappropriated and of free access like the commons which once +comprised so large a part of English soil. What would be the effect upon +wages in England?' He would at once tell you that common wages +throughout England must soon increase to ten shillings a day" (p. 207). +Perhaps so; but a little more thought would teach him that "a Noman's +land on which common labour to an _unlimited_ amount should be able to +make ten shillings a day" must be itself unlimited in extent, and could +not be accommodated in the English Channel. Apart from preternatural +conditions, it could not afford remunerative employment to more than a +definite number of occupants and cultivators, and when it came to be +entirely occupied, England would stand exactly as it does at present. If +the millennium of the working class is to depend on the discovery of a +Noman's land of infinite expansibility, it must be indefinitely +postponed. + +But supposing such an alternative existed and did influence the amount +employers pay their workmen, how is it to influence in the same +direction the amount they reserve to themselves? It is true, as a matter +of fact, that wages and interest generally rise and fall together, for +the simple reason that they are generally subject to the same +influences. When capital is busily employed, so is necessarily labour, +and then both wages and interest are high; when capital is largely +unemployed, so is naturally labour also, and then both wages and +interest are low. But an influence like that which is now adduced by Mr. +George does not act on labourer and employer alike. It supplies the +labourer with an alternative which strengthens his hands in his battle +for wages with employers. Does it then at the same time strengthen the +employer in his battle with the labourer? Does it first raise wages at +the expense of profits, and then raise profits at the expense of wages? +It clearly cannot. To argue as if the existence of alternative work +which benefits the labourer, must benefit the employer in the same +degree, and as if the want of it must injure the employer because it +injures the labourer, is simply to misunderstand the very elements of +the case. One might as well argue that because the heights of Alma were +a decided strategical advantage to the Russians, who were posted on +them, they were therefore an equal advantage to the Allies, who had to +scale them. + +Laws of distribution, which are founded on a series of such arbitrary +absurdities as those which I have successively exposed, are manifestly +incapable of throwing any rational light on the causes of poverty, or +giving any practical guidance to its amelioration. But, absurd as they +may be, they are at least propounded with considerable parade, and we +are therefore quite unprepared for the strange turn Mr. George next +chooses to take. It will be remembered that the only reason why he +undertook to search for these laws at all was, that by means of them he +might explain why wages tended to sink to a minimum that would give but +a bare living; but now that he has discovered those laws, he declines to +apply them to the solution of this problem. He will not draw the very +conclusion he has laid down all his apparatus to establish. He will not +solve the problem he has promised us to solve; in fact, he tells us he +never meant to solve it; he never thought or said wages tended to sink +to a minimum that would give a bare living; he never said they tended to +sink at all; all he meant to assert was that if they increased, they did +not increase so fast as the national wealth generally. He used "the word +wages not in the sense of a quantity, but in the sense of a proportion" +(p. 154). He will not therefore, after all, show us why the poor are +getting poorer; but he will read for us, if we like, another riddle, why +they are not growing rich so fast as some of their neighbours. In the +name of the patient reader, I may be permitted to lodge a humble but +firm protest against this eccentric and sudden change of front. Mr. +George ought really to have decided what problem he was to write about +before he began to write at all, and we may therefore for the present +dismiss both his problem and his explanation till he makes up his mind. + + +III. _Mr. George's Remedy._ + +After our experience of his problem and his explanation, we cannot +indulge expectations of finding any serious or genuine worth in the +practical remedy Mr. George has to prescribe; and we hear, without a +thought of incongruity, the lofty terms in which, like other medicines +we know of, it is advertised to the world by its inventor as a panacea +for every disease society is heir to. "What I propose," he says, "as the +simple yet sovereign remedy which will raise wages, increase the +earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give +remunerative employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human +powers, lessen crimes, elevate morals and taste and intelligence, purify +government, and carry civilization to yet nobler heights, is--to +appropriate rent by taxation" (p. 288). And the direction for applying +the remedy is equally simple: it is to "abolish all taxation save that +upon land values" (_ibid._). This remedy is currently described as the +nationalization of land; but nationalization of land is a phrase which +stands for several very different and even conflicting ideas. With the +usual fatality of revolutionary parties, the English land nationalizers +are already broken into three separate organizations, and represent at +least three mutually incompatible schemes of opinion. There is first the +socialist idea of abolishing both individual ownership and individual +occupation of land, and cultivating the soil of the country by means of +productive associations or rural communes. Then there is the exactly +opposite principle of Mr. A. R. Wallace and his friends, who are so much +in love with both individual ownership and individual occupation that +their whole aim is to compel us all by law to become occupying owners of +land, whether we have any mind to be so or no. And, finally, we have the +scheme of Mr. George, which must be carefully distinguished from the +others, because he would destroy individual ownership but leave +individual occupation perfectly intact. His non-interference with +individual occupation is remarkable, because, as we have seen, he +declares the cause of poverty to be the exclusion of unemployed labour +from the opportunity of cultivating land, and because that exclusion is +chiefly due to the prior occupation of the land by earlier settlers. Mr. +George, however, thinks he can provide a plentiful supply of unoccupied +land, at a nominal price, for an indefinite number of new-comers without +disturbing any prior occupant. He would do it by merely abolishing the +private owner and asking the occupant to pay his rent to the State +instead of to a landlord, and he explains to us how it is that this +simple expedient is to effect the purpose he desires. "The selling price +of land would fall; land speculation would receive its death-blow; land +monopolization would no longer pay. Millions and millions of acres, from +which settlers are now shut out by high prices, would be abandoned by +their present owners, or sold to settlers upon nominal terms. And this +not merely on the frontiers, but within what are now considered +profitable districts.... And even in densely populated England would +such a policy throw open to cultivation many hundreds of thousands of +acres now held as private parks, deer preserves, and shooting grounds. +For this simple device of placing all taxes on the value of land would +be in effect putting up the land at auction to whoever would pay the +highest rent to the State. The demand for land fixes its value, and +hence if taxes were placed so as to very nearly consume that value, the +man who wished to hold land without using it would have to pay very +nearly what it would be worth to any one who wanted to use it." (p. +309). + +Putting up land to auction will not secure cheap or nominally rented +farms to an indefinite number of new-comers, unless there is an +indefinite supply of land to divide into farms, but in the present world +that is not so; and when the existing stock of agricultural land is +exhausted, and every man has his farm, but there is no more for any +new-comer, what is Mr. George's remedy then? Abolition of property in +land will of course abolish all trading in such property; but trading in +landed property does not restrict its occupation. The land speculator, +while he holds the land, of course keeps out another competitor from the +ownership, but he keeps nobody from its occupation and cultivation. He +is surely as ready as anybody else to make money, if money is to be +made, by letting it, even by putting it up to auction, if Mr. George +prefers that mode of letting. The transfer of the power of letting to +the State will not secure a tenant any faster. And as to the private +parks, deer forests and shootings of England, Mr. George forgets that +they are, most of them, at present rented, and not, as he seems to +fancy, owned by their occupants, and that it would not make a straw of +difference to them whether they paid their rents to the Crown factor or +to the landlord's agent. Since Mr. George does not prohibit the making +of fortunes, he cannot prevent commercial kings from America or great +brewers from England hiring forests in the Scotch Highlands. And since, +in spite of his celebrated declaration, that "to the landed estates of +the Duke of Westminster the poorest child that is born in London to-day +has as much right as has his eldest son," he would still leave the Duke +a princely income from the rents of the buildings upon his estates, and +would suffer him to enjoy it without paying a single tax or rate on it +all (p. 320), why should the Duke give up his forest in Assynt, merely +because the Crown is to draw the rent instead of the Duke of Sutherland? +Mr. George accordingly proposes a remedy that would remedy nothing, but +leave things just as they are. Deer forests and the like may not be the +best use of the land, but the particular change Mr. George suggests +would not suppress them or even in the slightest degree check their +spread, and would not throw the ground now occupied by them into the +ordinary market for cultivation. And, besides, even if it did, the land +so provided for new-comers would necessarily soon come to an end, and +with it Mr. George's "simple and sovereign remedy," at least in its +specific operation. + +But it is noteworthy that in his lectures in this country in 1884, Mr. +George made little account of the specific operation of his remedy as a +means of furnishing unemployed labourers with a practicable alternative +in agricultural production, to which they might continue indefinitely to +resort, and that he preferred for the most part drawing his cure for +poverty from the public revenue which the confiscation of rent would +place at the disposal of the community. Now as to this aspect of his +remedy, it is surely one of the oddest of his delusions to dream of +curing pauperism by multiplying the recipients of poor relief, and +taking away from it, as he claims credit for doing, through the +countenance of numbers, that reproach which has hitherto been the +strongest preventive against it. Besides, he and his friends greatly +exaggerate the amount of the fund the country would derive from the rent +of its ground. It would really fall far short of paying the whole of our +present taxation, not to speak of leaving anything over for wild schemes +of speculative beneficence. The rural rent of the country is only +seventy millions, and that sum includes the rent of buildings, which Mr. +George does not propose to touch, and which would probably in the +aggregate balance the ground rent of towns, which he includes in his +confiscation project. Now our local taxation alone comes very near that +figure, and certainly the people generally can scarcely be expected to +rise from a condition of alleged poverty to one of substantial wealth, +or even comfort, through merely having their local rates paid for them. + +The result would therefore be poor, even if no compensation were to be +made to the present receivers of the rent; but with the compensation +price to pay, it would be really too ridiculously small to throw a whole +nation into labour and disorder for. Much may be done--much must be +done--to make the land of the country more available and more profitable +for the wants of the body of the people, but not one jot of what is +required would be done by mere nationalization of the ownership, or even +done better on such a basis than on that which exists. The things that +are requisite and necessary would remain still to be done, though land +were nationalized to-morrow, and they can be equally well done without +introducing that cumbrous innovation at all. With compensation the +scheme is futile; without it, it is repugnant to a healthy moral sense. +Mr. George indeed regards confiscation as an article of faith. It is of +the essence of the message he keeps on preaching with so much conviction +and courage and fervour. Private property in land, he tells us, is +robbery, and rent is theft, and the reason he offers for these strong +assertions is that nothing can rightly be private property which is not +the fruit of human labour, and that land is not the fruit of human +labour, but the gift of God. As the gift of God, it was, he believes, +intended for all men alike, and therefore its private appropriation +seems to him unjust. Under these circumstances he considers it as +preposterous to compensate landowners for the loss of their land, as it +would be to compensate thieves for the restitution of their spoil. To +confiscate land is only to take one's own, Mr. George has no difficulty +about the sound of the word, nor is he troubled by any subtleties as to +the length it is proper to go in the work. Mr. Mill, whose writings +probably put Mr. George first on this track, proposed to intercept for +national purposes only the future unearned increase of the rent of land, +only that portion of the future increase of rent which should not be due +to the expenditure of labour and capital on the soil. Mr. George would +appropriate the entire rent, the earned increase as well as the +unearned, the past as well as the future; with this exception, that +interest on such improvements as are the fruit of human exertion, and +are clearly distinguishable from the land itself, would be allowed for a +moderate period. He says in one place, "But it will be said: These are +improvements which in time become indistinguishable from the land +itself! Very well; then the title to the improvements becomes blended +with the title to the land; the individual right is lost in the common +right. It is the greater that swallows up the less, not the less that +swallows up the greater. Nature does not proceed from man, but man from +nature, and it is into the bosom of nature that he and all his works +must return again" (p. 242). And in another place, speaking of the +separation of the value of the land from the value of the improvements, +he says: "In the oldest country in the world no difficulty whatever can +attend the separation, if all that be attempted is to separate the value +of the clearly distinguishable improvements made within a moderate +period, from the value of the land, should they be destroyed. This +manifestly is all that justice or policy requires. Absolute accuracy is +impossible in any system, and to attempt to separate all the human race +has done from what nature originally provided would be as absurd as +impracticable. A swamp drained, or a hill terraced by the Romans, +constitutes now as much a part of the natural advantages of the British +Isles as though the work had been done by earthquake or glacier. The +fact that after a certain lapse of time the value of such permanent +improvements would be considered as having lapsed into that of the land, +and would be taxed accordingly, could have no deterrent effect on such +improvements, for such works are frequently undertaken upon leases for +years" (p. 302). The sum of this teaching seems to be that Mr. George +would recognise no separate value in any improvements except buildings, +and would be disposed to appropriate even them after such lapse of time +as would make it not absolutely unprofitable to erect them. + +What Mr. George fails to perceive is that agricultural land is in no +sense more a gift of God, and in no sense less an artificial product of +human labour, than other commodities--than gold, for example, or cattle, +or furniture, in which he owns private property to be indisputably just. +Some of the richest land in England lies in the fen country, and that +land is as much the product of engineering skill and prolonged labour +as Portland Harbour or Menai Bridge. Before the days of Sir Cornelius +Vermuyden it was part of the bottom of the sea, and its inhabitants, as +they are described by Camden, trode about on stilts, and lived by +snaring waterfowl. Some of the best land in Belgium was barren +sand-heaps a hundred years ago, and has been made what it is only by the +continuous and untiring labour of its small proprietors. "God made the +sea, man made the dry land," is a proverb among the Dutch, who have +certainly made their own country as much as Mr. George has made his +book. In these cases the labour and the results of the labour are +obvious, but no cultivated land exists anywhere that is not the product +of much labour--certainly much more labour than Mr. George seems to have +any idea of. In the evidence taken before the recent Crofters' +Commission, Mr. Greig, who conducted the Duke of Sutherland's +improvements in the Strath of Kildonan, stated that the cost of +reclaiming 1,300 acres of land there, and furnishing them with the +requisite buildings for nine variously sized farms, was L46,000. Apart +from the buildings, the mere work of reclamation alone is generally +estimated to have cost L20 an acre, and in another part of the same +estates an equally extensive piece of reclamation is said to have cost +L30 an acre. By means of this great expenditure of capital and labour, +land that would hardly fetch a rent of a shilling an acre before was +worth twenty or thirty shillings an acre after. Not the buildings only, +but the land itself has been made what it is by labour. It has been +adapted to a useful office by human skill as really as the clay is by +the potter, or the timber by the wright. Deduct from the rent of these +reclaimed acres the value contributed by human labour, and how much +would remain to represent the gift of God? And would it be greater or +less than would remain after a like process applied, say, to a sovereign +or to a nugget of gold? Mr. George has no scruple about the justice of +private property and inheritance in the nugget, and indeed in all kinds +of movable wealth. "The pen with which I am writing," he says, for +example, "is justly mine. No other human being can rightfully lay claim +to it, for in me is the title of the original producers who made it" +(p. 236). The original producer of the nugget appropriated what was +surely a gift of God as much as the clays or loams of husbandry; and if +he, as Mr. George admits, has "a clear and indefeasible title to the +exclusive possession and enjoyment" of his nugget, and may transmit that +title by bequest or sale unimpaired for an unrestricted period of time, +why is the original producer of agricultural land to be held up as more +than half a thief, and the present possessor as one entirely? And if a +proprietor has spent L20,000 in buildings, and L26,000 in reclamations, +in order to convert the surface of the earth into useful arable soil, +why is he to be allowed rent on the L20,000, and denied it on the +L26,000? + +So far as the distinction between gifts of nature and products of labour +goes, movable wealth and immovable stand on precisely the same footing. +Both are alike gifts of nature, and both are alike products of labour. +In thinking otherwise Mr. George is certainly supported by the high +authority of Mr. Mill, who has also failed to recognise how far arable +land was really an artificial product. He says: "The land is not of +man's creation, and for a person to appropriate to himself a mere gift +of nature, not made to him in particular, but which belonged to all +others until he took possession of it, is _prima facie_ an injustice to +all the rest" (Dissert. iv., 289). But what is of man's creation? He +finds his materials already created, and he merely appropriates them, +and adapts them to his own uses by labour, exactly as he does with the +soil that in his hands becomes fruitful fields. Land is as much a +creation of man as anything else is, and everything is as much a gift of +God as land. That distinction is therefore of no possible help to us. +The true ground for observing a difference between the right of property +in land and the right of property in other things must be sought for +elsewhere. It is not because land is a gift of nature, while other +things are products of labour, but because land is at once limited in +quantity, and essential to the production of the general necessaries of +life. These are the characteristics that make land a unique and +exceptional commodity, and require the right of property in it to be +subject to different conditions from the right of property in other +products of labour. The justification of the restriction of that right +in the case of land accordingly rests neither on theological dogma nor +on metaphysical distinction, but on a plain practical social necessity. +Where land is still abundant, where population is yet scanty as compared +with the land it occupies, there is no occasion for interference; the +proprietor might enjoy as absolute a title as Mr. George claims over his +pen, without any public inconvenience, but, on the contrary, with all +the public benefit that belongs to absolute ownership in other things. +But as soon as population has increased so much as to compel recourse to +inferior soils for its subsistence, it becomes the duty of society to +see that the most productive use possible is being made of its land, and +to introduce such a mode of tenure as seems most likely effectually to +secure that end. Under these circumstances private property in land +requires an additional justification, besides that which is sufficient +for other things; it must be conducive to the best use of the land. +Society has become obliged to husband its resources; if it will do so +most efficiently by means of private property, private property will +stand; if not, then it must fall. Of course land is not the only kind of +property that is subject to this social claim. All property is so held, +but in the case of other things the claim seldom comes into open view, +because it is only on exceptional occasions that it is necessary to call +it into active operation. Provisions are among the things Mr. George +considers not gifts of God but products of labour, but in a siege +private property in provisions would absolutely cease, and the social +right would be all in all. These products of labour would be +nationalized at that time because in the circumstances the general +interests of the community required them to be so, and the reason why +they are not nationalized at other times is at bottom really this, that +the general interest of the community is better served by leaving them +as they are. In some parts of the world all products of labour actually +are nationalized; in Samoa, for example, a man who wants anything has a +latent but recognised claim to obtain it from any man who has it; but +Dr. Turner explains that the result is most pernicious, because while it +has extinguished absolute destitution, it has lowered the level of +prosperity and prevented all progress, no man caring to labour when he +cannot retain the fruits of his labour. Civilized communities, however, +have always perceived the immense public advantage of the institution of +private property, and the right to such property, of whatever kind, +really rests in the last analysis on a social justification, and is held +subject to a social claim, if any reason occurred to exert it. In this +respect there is nothing peculiar about land. The only peculiarity about +land is that a necessity exists for the practical exercise of the claim, +because landed property involves the control of the national food +supply, and of other primary and essential needs of the community. The +growth of population forces more and more imperatively upon us the +necessity of making the most of our land, and consequently raises the +question how far private property in such a subject is conducive to that +end. + +Now, in regard to capital invested in trade or manufactures, it has +always been justly considered that the private interest of its possessor +constitutes the best guarantee for its most productive use, because the +trader or manufacturer is animated by the purely commercial motive of +gaining the greatest possible increase out of the employment of his +capital. But it must be admitted that the private interest of the +landlord does not supply us with so sure a guarantee. He desires wealth +no doubt as well as the trader, but he is not so purely influenced by +that desire in his use of his property. He is apt to sacrifice the most +productive use of land--or, in other words, his purely pecuniary +interest--to considerations of ease or pleasure, or social importance, +or political influence. He may consolidate farms, to the distress of the +small tenants and the injury of the country generally, merely because +there is less trouble in managing a few large farmers than a number of +small; or he may refuse to give his tenants those conditions of tenure +that are essential to efficient cultivation of the land, merely to keep +them more dependent on himself in political conflicts. Mr. George, +however, has a strong conviction that even the purely pecuniary interest +of the private owner tends to keep land out of cultivation, but he +builds his conclusion on the special experiences of land speculation +rather than on the general facts of land-owning. Of course if there were +no land-owning, there would be no land speculation; but to abolish +land-owning merely to cure the evils of land speculation is, if I may +borrow an illustration of his own, tantamount to burning a house to +roast a joint. Besides, all that is alleged is that speculation keeps a +certain amount of land in America out of the market. In other countries +it suffers from a contrary reproach. The evil of the _bandes noires_ of +France and the _Landmetzger_ of Germany is their excessive activity in +bringing land into the market, by which they have aggravated the +pernicious subdivision of estates that exist. In America the effect of +speculation may be different, but at any rate keeping land out of the +market is one thing, keeping it out of cultivation is another; and it is +hard to see how speculation should prevent the extension of cultivation, +because cultivation may be as well undertaken by tenant as proprietor, +and why should a speculator, who buys land to sell it in a few years at +a high profit, object to taking an annual rent in the interval from any +one who thought it would pay him to hire the land? It would not be fair +to condemn the landlord for the sins of the land speculator, even if the +latter were all that Mr. George's curious horror of him represents him +to be, and if he exercised any of the irrationally extravagant effects +which Mr. George ascribes to his influence over the economy of things; +but as a matter of fact a sober judgment can discover no possible reason +why the private interest of a land speculator as such should stand in +the way of the cultivation of the soil he happens to hold. What concerns +us here, however, is not the private interest of the speculator, but the +private interest of the landlord, whether a speculative purchaser or +not. Now, much land lies waste at present through the operation of the +Game Laws, which establish an artificial protection of sport as an +alternative industry against agriculture, but then the general +institution of private property in land must not be credited with the +specific effects of the Game Laws, and need not be suppressed in order +to get rid of them. The abolition of these laws would place the culture +of wild animals and the culture of domestic animals on more equal terms +in the commercial competition, and would probably restore the balance of +the landlord's pecuniary advantage in favour of the latter. Besides, it +is not a question of ownership but of occupation of land that is really +involved. If the land were nationalized to-morrow, the State would have +to decide whether it would let as much land as had hitherto been let to +sporting tenants; and of course it can decide that, if it chooses, now. + +So far as I am able to judge, there is only one respect in which the +pecuniary interest of the landlord appears to be unfavourable to an +extension of cultivation. There is probably a considerable quantity of +land that might be cultivated with advantage to the community generally +by labourers who expected nothing from it but the equivalent of ordinary +wages, and which is at present suffered to lie waste, because its +produce would be insufficient to yield anything more than wages, and +would afford nothing to the capitalist farmer as profit or to the +landlord as rent. How far this operates I have, of course, no means of +knowing; but here again one may deal with waste ground if it were judged +requisite to do so, without resorting to any revolutionary schemes of +general land nationalization. Of course much land is kept in an inferior +condition, or perhaps absolutely waste, through want of capital on the +part of its owners, but the same result would happen under the +nationalization plan, through want of capital on the part of the +tenants. Mr. George does not propose to supply any of the necessary +capital out of public funds, but trusts to the enterprise and ability of +the tenants themselves to furnish it; so that the occupier would be no +better situated under the State than he would be under an embarrassed +landlord, if he enjoyed compensation for his improvements. In either +case he would improve as far as his own means allowed, and he would +improve no further. But if by nationalization of land we get rid of the +embarrassed landlord, we lose at the same time the wealthy one, and the +tenants of the latter would be decidedly worse off under the State, +which only drew rents, but laid out no expenses. The community, too, and +the general cultivation of the country would be greatly the losers. Mr. +George has probably little conception of the amount of money an +improving landlord thinks it necessary to invest in maintaining or +increasing the productive capacity of his land. A convenient +illustration of it is furnished by the evidence of Sir Arnold Kemball, +commissioner of the Duke of Sutherland, before the recent Crofters' +Commission. Sir Arnold gave in an abstract of the revenue and +expenditure on the Sutherland estates for the thirty years 1853-1882, +and it appears that the total revenue for that period was L1,039,748, +and the total expenditure (exclusive of the expenses of the ducal +establishment in Sutherland) was L1,285,122, or a quarter of a million +more than the entire rental. Here, then, is a dilemma for Mr. George: +With equally liberal management of the land on the part of the State, +how is he to endow widows and pay the taxes of the _bourgeoisie_ out of +the rents? And without such liberal management how is he to promote the +spread of cultivation better than the present owners? + +The production of food, however, is only one of those uses of the land +in which the public have a necessary and growing interest. They require +sites for houses, for churches, for means of communication, for a +thousand purposes, and the landlord often refuses to grant such +altogether, or charges an exorbitant price for the privilege. He has +refused sites to churches from sectarian reasons; for labourers' +cottages in rural districts for fear of increasing the poor-rate; in +small towns with a growing trade from purely sentimental objections to +their growth; he has refused rights of way to people in search of pure +air, for fear they disturbed his game, and he has enclosed ancient paths +and commons which had been the enjoyment of all from immemorial time. I +do not speak of the ground rent in large cities where owners are +numerous, because that, though a question of great magnitude, involves +peculiarities that separate it from the allied question of rural +ground-rent, and make it more advantageously treated on its own basis. +But in country districts where owners are few, and the possession of +land therefore confers on one man power of many sorts over the growth +and comfort of a whole community, that power ought certainly to be +closely controlled by the State. Its tyrannical exercise has probably +done more than anything else to excite popular hostility against +landlordism, and to lend strength to the present crusade for the total +abolition of private property in land. But here again the cure is far +too drastic for the disease. What is needed is merely the prevention of +abuses in the management of land, and that will be accomplished better +by regulations in the interest of the community than by any scheme of +complete nationalization. A sound land reform must--in this country at +least--set its face in precisely the contrary direction. It must aim at +multiplying, instead of extirpating, the private owners of land, and at +nursing by all wise and legitimate means the growth of a numerous +occupying proprietary. State ownership by itself is no better guarantee +than private ownership by itself for the most productive possible use of +the land; indeed, if we judge from the experience of countries where it +is practised, it is a much worse one; but by universal consent the best +and surest of all guarantees for the highest utilization of the land is +private ownership, coupled with occupation by the owner. + + + + +INDEX. + + +A. + +Agriculture, Russian, 291. + +Albrecht, the Prophet, 137. + +Alexander II., Czar, 264, 265; + death, 283. + +Alliance, Republican Socialist, 47. + +Amorphism, 274. + +Anabaptist Socialism, 219. + +Anarchism, 4; + in France, 47; + Austria, 55; + Italy, 58; + Spain, 62; + Portugal, 66; + Belgium, 70; + Holland, 73; + Switzerland, 74; + Boston, 77, 248; + United States, 80; + London, 86; + Melbourne, 91; + ultra-socialistic, 249; + ultra-democratic, 250; + ultra-revolutionary, 255; + anti-religious, 254; + Warsaw, 296. + +_Anarchist, The_, 86. + +Anarchists, Congress at Geneva, 254. + +Applegarth, Mr., 320. + +Arbitration, Papal, 245; + courts of, 431. + +Arendal Congress, 66. + +Ashburnham, Lord, 243. + +Austria, Socialism in, 54; + condition of people in, 56. + +Aveling, Dr. and Mrs., on America, 81; + on Knights of Labor, 84; + on Anarchists, 249. + + +B. + +Babbage, C., 26. + +Baboeuf, C. G., 17, 188. + +Bakunin, M., in Italy, 57; + Hegelian, 261; + with German Hegelians, 261; + escape, 273; + in London, 274; + Amorphism, 274; + Lyons insurrection, 278; + in Zurich, 278. + +Bamberger, M., 203. + +Barton, Mr., 370. + +Bastiat, M., 297. + +Bax, Belfort, 84. + +Baxter, Dudley, 303. + +Beaconsfield, Lord, 210. + +Bebel, A., 34; + on armaments, 37, 41, 125. + +Becker, B., 108. + +Beesley, Professor, 149. + +Beggars in Russia, 286. + +Belgium, Socialism, 45, 70; + forests, 412; + railways, 416. + +Bellamy, E., 79, 403, 434. + +Besant, Mrs., 88. + +Bismarck, Prince, State Socialism, 12; + Rodbertus on, 34; + peasant-catching, 52; + right to labour, 421. + +Black Division Party, The, 283. + +Black Division, The, 292. + +Black Hand, The, 62. + +Blanc, Louis, 2, 3, 95, 122; + theist, 254. + +Blanquists, 53. + +Boeckh, Professor, 97. + +Boehmert, V., 315. + +Boerenbond, The, 245. + +Bonar, Mr., quoted, 75. + +Boston Anarchists, 77. + +Boycotting, 42. + +Birmingham, 433. + +Brassey, Lord, 310, 330. + +Brentano, Professor L., on A. Smith, 198; + on condition of people, 204; + working-class claims, 213; + trade unions, 216; + working class insurance, 216. + +Brimstone League, 148. + +Brissot, M., 16. + +Brook Farm, 402. + +Brousse, M., 50. + +Broussists, 51, 52. + +Buchsel, Dr., 239. + +Buda Pest Congress, 54. + +Burns, John, 85. + +Burt, T., M.P., 86. + + +C. + +Cabet, 3. + +Cairnes, Professor, on Mill, 5; + on working-class prospects, 297; + cost of labour, 310. + +California, 435. + +Carpenter, E., 89. + +Castelar, E., 61. + +Catholic Church on employer's responsibility, 72. + +Catholic Socialists, 223. + +Catholic Workmen's Clubs, 223, 229; + in France, 243. + +Caudron, Father, 243, 244. + +Cavour, Count, 288. + +Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J., M.P., ransom, 385, 386; + overgovernment, 395. + +Channing, W. H., 403. + +Chevalier, Michel, 348. + +China, Socialist Clubs, 92. + +Christian Socialism in England, 87, 220; + Germany, 223; + Austria, 242; + France, 243. + +Christian Social Association, 229. + +Christian Social Politics, 242. + +Church, Primitive Communism of, 237. + +Clemenceau, M., 47. + +Coaches, Stage, 451. + +Cobden, R., 221; + on Government intervention, 372; + on Prussian Government, 393. + +Colins, M., 2. + +Colinsian Socialists, 2, 72. + +Colonization, Nihilist, 281. + +Companies, Joint Stock, 417. + +Communards, 46. + +Commune, Paris, 277; + Russian, 259, 289. + +Communist League, 142, 144. + +Conciliation Courts, 35. + +Congress at Halle, 33, 37; + Gotha, 88; + Havre, 47, 48; + Wyden, 44, 126, 421; + Zurich, 76; + Eisenach, 202; + D'Etienne, 50; + Buda Pest, 54; + Lisbon, 66; + Arendal, 86; + Stockholm, 67; + Copenhagen, 69; + Newark, U.S.A., 80; + Leipzig, 103, 179; + Geneva, 150. + +Co-operative production, 338, 339. + +Copenhagen Congress, 59. + +Costa, A., 58. + +Councils of Labour, 35. + +Crises, Commercial, 323, 451. + + +D. + +Dave, V., 86. + +Davenant, Dr., 303, 455. + +Davitt, Michael, 90. + +Dawes, Mr., quoted, 60. + +Day of labour, Normal, 240, 434. + +Day of labour, Eight hours, 36, 52; + Cardinal Manning on, 244; + international compulsory, 434; + in Victoria, 435; + California, 435. + +Death-rate, 452. + +Delitzsch. _See_ Schultze-Delitzsch. + +Democracy, relation to socialism, 16, 18; + American and Continental, 20. + +Denmark, socialism, 67. + +Denny, William, 315, 322. + +Distribution of incomes, 456. + +Dockyards, English, 410. + +Dolgourouki, the revolutionist, 274. + +Doellinger, Dr. von, 223. + +Doennigsen, Helena von, 106. + +Dynamite, 256. + + +E. + +_Egaux_, Conspiracy of, 17. + +Eight Hour Day. _See_ Day of labour. + +Eisenach Congress, 202. + +Ely, Professor, 77, 80. + +Emancipation of serfs, 270, 284, 286. + +Engel, Dr., 31, 203. + +Engelhardt, Professor, 293. + +Engels, F., 93, 131, 142, 146. + +England, Socialism in, 83. + +Equality, Love of, 24. + +Equality of conditions, 385. + +Ethical School of Economics, 209. + +Eudes, General, 53. + + +F. + +Fabian Society, 88. + +Familistere of Guise, 2. + +Farmer, Small, 27, 28, 30. + +Federalism of C. Marlo, 178. + +Ferroti (Schedo), 267. + +Ferroul, M., 52. + +Feuerbach, Friedrich, 133. + +Feuerbach, L., 131, 132. + +Fleischmann, M., 42. + +Fluctuations, Commercial, 323. + +Forbes, Father, 243. + +Forestry, 412. + +Fourier, 23, 254. + +France, Liberty in, 21; + socialism, 45; + municipal socialism, 50. + +Franklin, B., 13; + on high wages, 365. + +Fraternity, 269. + +Freiligrath, F., 146. + +Froebel, F., 130. + +Frohme, M., 35. + +Fulda Conference, 229. + + +G. + +Gallenga, A., on unemployed in Italy, 59. + +Game Laws, 497. + +Geneva Congress, 150. + +George, Henry, United Labour Party, 78; + a semi-socialist, 78; + Mayoralty of New York, 79; + in Australia, 90; + "Progress and Poverty," 440; + his problem, 445; + his explanation, 461; + theory of population, 464; + of wages, 465; + profits, 474; + rent, 476; + his remedy, 486; + land nationalization, 485. + +Germany, Socialism in, 33; + Crown lands and industries, 345. + +Giffen, R., 449, 452. + +Gilbert's Act, 424. + +Glennie, J. S., 34. + +Gneist, Professor, 203. + +Goethe, 127. + +Goltz, T. von der, on piecework, 315. + +Goschen, Right Hon. G. J., State intervention, 346; + rationale of Factory Acts, 350; + distribution of wealth, 460. + +Gotha Congress, 38. + +Gotha Programme, 38, 40. + +Graham, Mr. Cunninghame, M.P., 85. + +Greig, George, 490. + +Greeley, Horace, on socialist communities, 402. + +Gronlund, L., 81. + +Guesde, J., 48, 50, 73. + +Guesdists, 51, 52. + + +H. + +Hadley, Professor, 416. + +Hale, Sir M., 301. + +Halle Congress, 33, 37, 41. + +Hartmann, E. von, 355. + +Hasselmann, 45, 72. + +Havre Congress, 47. + +Haxthausen, Professor, 259, 262. + +Headlam, Rev. S., 84, 88. + +Hearn, Professor, 347. + +Hegel, 131, 261. + +Hegelians, Young, 3, 5, 130, 139. + +Heine, H., on Lassalle, 96, 98; + on parties, 126. + +Held, Professor, 196. + +Herder, 127. + +Hermann, 309. + +Herring brand, 412. + +Herzen, Alexander, 261, 262, 264, 265; + letter renouncing revolutionism, 273, 274. + +Herzenism, 266. + +Hildebrand, Professor B., 201, 203. + +Hill, Sir R., 382. + +Hime, Dr., Sheffield, quoted, 341. + +Hirsch, Max, 203. + +Hoedel, 33. + +Holland, Socialism in, 72. + +House Communities of Russia, Dissolution of, 289. + +Housing of poor, in Sheffield, 341; + McCulloch's view, 367. + +Howell, G., M.P., on piecework, 315. + +Hughes, Thomas, 222. + +Humboldt, A. von, 98, 102. + +Humboldt, W. von, on freedom, 334; + on marriage, 353; + on energy, 396. + +Humphreys, Mr., 482. + +Hyndman, H. M., 84. + + +I. + +Icarians, 2, 77. + +"Illegal Men," 257. + +Incomes, Distribution of, 486. + +Increment, Unearned, 488. + +Ingram, Dr. J. K., 371. + +Insurance, National, 423; + in New Zealand, 417. + +International Working Men's Association, in France, 46; + Italy, 57; + Spain, 60, 62; + Denmark, 68; + Belgium, 70; + Holland, 70; + Jurassian Federation, 73; + origin, 147; + Paris Commune, 152; + disruption, 153; + in Russia, 276. + +International Working People's Association, U.S.A., 80. + +Internationality, 126. + +Ireland, Poor Law, 385. + +Irish labour, 365. + +"Iron and Cruel Law," view of Lassalle, 121; + of Ketteler, 226; + of Todt, 237; + refuted, 300. + +Italy, Socialism in, 57. + + +J. + +Jacobites, 126. + +Janson, Professor, pauperism in St. Petersburg, 284. + +Jevons, Professor W. Stanley, commercial statistics, 327. + +Jews become Nihilists, 271, 296. + +Jurassian Federation, 73, 250. + +_Justice_, 84. + + +K. + +Karakasoff's attempt, 276. + +Kemball, Sir Arnold, 495. + +Ketteler, Bishop, 224; + iron and cruel law, 226; + right of property, 227; + part of Church in Social Question, 228. + +Kildonan Strath improvements, 490. + +King, Gregory, occupiers of land, 29; + classes of population, 301; + distribution of wealth, 303; + rent of land, 454. + +Kingsley, Charles, 221. + +Knies, Professor, 201. + +Knights of Labor, 82. + +Koegel, Dr., 139. + +Koelping, Father, 223. + +Koscheleff, 267. + +Krapotkin, Prince, 45; + Lyons anarchist, 48; + English anarchism, 86; + housing the poor, 250; + the Municipal Councils, 252; + painter, 280. + + +L. + +Labour, Cost of, in different countries, 310. + +Labour Department of State, 35. + +Labour Emancipation League of Russia, 295. + +Labouring class prospects, 297, 312. + +Labour, Knights of, 82. + +Labour Party of Belgium, 71. + +Labour Statistical Bureaux, 326. + +Lafargue, P., 52. + +"Land and Liberty" Society, 283. + +Land, diminishing return, 467; + an artificial product, 489; + Mill on, 491: + speculation in, 493; + reform, 496. + +_Landmetzger_, 484. + +Land Nationalization in Belgium, 72; + in England, 89. + +Land Restoration League, 90. + +Laing, Samuel, 411. + +Laisant, M., 64. + +_Laissez-faire_, 336, 352; + repudiated by McCulloch, 361; + never adopted in England, 373; + and property, 394. + +Lange, F. A., 216. + +Laveleye, E. de, on Italian peasantry, 59; + no revolutionary Metropolis in Italy, 60; + Spanish socialist clubs, 61; + the Portuguese, 65; + the Scandinavians, 67; + Belgian socialism, 71; + State Socialism in England, 346; + professes State Socialism, 384. + +Lavergne, M. de, on French and English rural population, 46. + +Lavrists, 280. + +Lavroff, P., 278; + his principles, 279; + followers, 295. + +Lassalle, F., 92; + Heine, 96; + character, 96; + epitaph, 97; + a revolution, 97; + Humboldt, 98; + Countess Hatzfeldt's defence, 99; + theft of _cassette_, 100; + conviction for treason, 101; + literary work, 102; + "Working Men's Programme," 103; + summary of, 109; + General Working Men's Association, 105; + progress of propaganda, 105; + Helena von Doennigsen, 106; + death, 108; + apotheosis, 108; + reply to Schultze-Delitzsch, 114; + new socialistic constitution of property, 116; + anarchic socialism of existing _regime_, 117; + Ricardo's doctrine of value, 119; + "iron and cruel law," 121; + productive societies, 122; + a national socialist, 124; + letter to Feuerbach, 172; + on the modern economists, 201; + popularity in Russia, 277; + on increase of production, 336. + +Le Basse, Father, 243. + +Ledru-Rollin, quoted, 22. + +Leipzig Congress, 103, 179. + +Leo XIII., 243; + encyclical, 245. + +Le Play, 284. + +Leroux, P., 3. + +Leroy-Beaulieu, Paul, 219. + +Lessing, 127. + +Levi, Professor Leone, 304. + +Liberalism, Marlo on, 185. + +Liberty in America, 20; + in France, 21; + under democracy, 24. + +Lichtenstein, Prince, 243. + +Liebknecht, W., 34; + on revolution, 42; + peasant catching, 42; + religion, 42; + future socialist State, 43; + expulsion from General Working Men's Association of Germany, 125; + foundation of Social Democratic Labour Party, 125; + speech at Leipzig, 249. + +Liege, Congress, 243. + +Lilyenkrantz, Jacquette, 69. + +Limitation of production, 313. + +Limousin, M., minimum of socialism, 14. + +Lisbon Congress, 66. + +Locke, John, 353. + +London, death-rate, 302. + +Ludlow, Edmund, 127. + +Ludlow, J. M., 221. + + +M. + +Mably, 161. + +Macaulay, Lord, quoted, 214. + +Macdonald, Mr., Owenite, 403. + +Machiavelli, secret societies, 257. + +Malet, Mr., 45. + +Malikowsy, 280. + +Malthus, T. R., 369, 421. + +Malthusianism, 17. + +Manchester Party of Germany, 201, 212. + +Manchester School, view of Maurice, 221; + of Kingsley, 221; + of Todt, 235; + their real doctrine, 372. + +Manning, Cardinal, Liege letter, 244. + +Marlboro' Association, 405. + +Marlo, Carl, 178. + +Marr, W., 136, 137. + +Marshall, Professor A., 437. + +Martensen, Bishop, Catholicism and socialism, 233. + +Marx, Karl, historical necessity of socialism, 23; + social revolution impossible without English participation, 83; + despair of English participation, 84; + reception of _Das Kapital_, 127; + life, 129; + Young Hegelian, 130; + early views, 139; + Communist League, 142; + communist manifesto, 144; + International, 149; + inaugural address to, 151; + summary of _Das Kapital_, 156; + value, 160; + wages, 161; + normal workday, 161; + machinery, 170; + piecework, 172; + over-population, 174; + letter from Proudhon, 255; + popularity in Russia, 277. + +Massachusetts, Joint Stock management in, 417. + +Maurice, F. D., 11, 221. + +McCulloch, J. R., disciple of Ricardo, 360; + Wages fund, 360; + _laissez-faire_, 361; + State management, 362; + factory system, 363; + pauper labour, 364; + factory legislation, 366; + housing the poor, 366; + poor law, 368; + agricultural produce, 456. + +"Medalmen," 294. + +Meeker, Mr., Fourierist, 408. + +Melbourne anarchists, 91. + +Menger, Prof. A., historical necessity of socialism, 23. + +Meyer, Rudolph, 242, 383. + +Michel, Louise, 48. + +Mill, James, 360. + +Mill, John Stuart, profession of socialism, 5; + liberty, 334; + province of Government, 353; + over-government in democracy, 395; + industrial habits under socialism, 404; + unearned increment, 488; + land, 472. + +Ministry of Labour, 35. + +Mint, The, 412. + +_Mir_, The, 252, 262. + +Molinari, G. de, 3, 45. + +Montefiore, L., 97. + +Morelly, 16. + +Morier, Sir R., 288. + +Morris, William, 84, 85. + +Most, John, 44, 80, 248. + +Moufang, Canon, 230, 231. + +Mulhall, M., wages, 308; + textile workers, 323; + agricultural rent, 456. + +Mun, Count A., de, 243. + +Municipal management, 413. + +Municipal socialism in France, 51. + +Mutualists, 3. + + +N. + +Napoleon I., 380. + +Nasmyth, James, manual dexterity, 317, 440. + +Nasse, Professor E., economic individualism in England, 346. + +Neale, E. Vansittart, 87. + +Netchaieff, 276. + +Newark Congress, 80. + +New Zealand, State insurance, 348. + +Nicholas, Czar, 263, 264. + +Niewenhuis, D., 72. + +Nihilism, Russian, 45, 259; + name, 266. + +Nobiling, 33. + +No Man's land, 482. + +Nordhoff, Mr., 403. + +North American Phalanx, 408. + +Norway, Socialism in, 66; + the poor, 452. + +Noyes, Mr., 403. + + +O. + +Oldham, co-operative mills, 338. + +Old Believers, 292. + +Oppenheim, M., 195. + +Overtime, 320. + +Owen, R. D., 405. + +Owen, Robert, 77, 360. + +Owenites, 2, 11, 77, 148; + in America, 404. + + +P. + +Palm, 67. + +Pan-destruction, 274. + +Parsons, 249. + +Patriotism, disparaged by socialists, 126; + by great writers, 127. + +Paul, St., slave emancipation, 242. + +Pauperism, St. Petersburg, 260; + aged, 423; + England, 449; + able-bodied, 450; + Norway, 452. + +Peasant proprietary, prospects, 27; + in the International, 46. + +Peasants' League in Belgium, 245. + +Pensions, National, 423. + +Perowskaia, Sophia, 280. + +Pestel, 264. + +Peukert, 55. + +Piecework, 314. + +Pio, 68. + +Poles, The, 271. + +Poor Law, England, 402; + McCulloch, 368; + S. Webb, 423. + +Population theory, 464. + +Porter, G. R., good wages and temperance, 318; + working class houses in Sheffield, 341. + +Portugal, Socialism in, 65. + +Possibilists, 50, 51. + +Post-office management, 410. + +Potter, George, piecework, 320. + +Production, Limitation of, 313. + +Productive associations, 79. + +Profit-sharing, 339. + +Propaganda of Deed, 256. + +Property, diffusion, 23; + advantages of institution, 333. + +Proudhon, anarchy, 250; + letter to Marx, 255; + pauperism, 475. + +Prussia, socialism, 31; + condition of people, 31; + occupation of land, 32; + forests, 42. + + +R. + +Railways, State, 416. + +Rappists, 405. + +Realistic School of Economics, 205. + +Reclus, Elisee, anarchist, 48; + on Russian agriculture, 290. + +Renan, E., 384. + +Rent, Fair, 429; + agricultural, 456; + H. George, 476. + +Republican Socialist Alliance in France, 54. + +Revolutionist, The complete, 275. + +Reybaud, M., 179. + +Ricardo, D., law of value, 226; + "iron law of wages," 300; + real theory of wages, 306; + province of Government, 359; + National Bank, 360; + working class annuities, 360; + rent, 477. + +Right to existence, 421. + +Right to labour, in Convention of 1793, 22; + Bismarck on, 421; + in English Poor Law, 424. + +Rights, Natural, 420; + Primitive economic, 385. + +Rodbertus on Bismarck's social policy, 34; + differences from Lassalle, 123; + social question, 127; + relation to socialist movement, 178; + converts Wagner, 380; + acknowledges Hohenzollerns, 381; + views, 381. + +Rodriguez de Capada, Professor, 245. + +Rogers, Professor Thorold, 350. + +Roscher, Professor W., time as reformer, 199; + historical method, 200, 204; + Eisenach Congress, 203; + economic ideal, 205; + task as economist, 207; + piecework, 321. + +Rousseau, J. J., 16. + +Ruge, Arnold, 131. + +Ruskin, John, 88. + +Russia, Nihilism in, 259. + +Russo-Turkish war, 282. + + +S. + +St. Etienne Congress, 50. + +St. Joseph associations, 229. + +St. Petersburg pauperism, 260. + +St. Simon, 218, 254. + +Samoa, Socialist customs in, 401, 492. + +Samter, V., on Mill, 198. + +Sassulitch, Vera, 277, 282. + +Say, Leon, State Socialism, 345. + +Schaeffle, Professor, 326. + +Scheel, Professor von., social question, 215. + +Schmoller, Professor, 195; + on Socialists of Chair, 200; + Eisenach Congress, 203; + Province of Government, 211; + distributive justice, 213 + +Schoenberg, Professor, 203, 213. + +Schorlemer-Abst, Baron, 229. + +Schulte, Professor, 229. + +Schultze-Delitzsch, 4; + co-operative societies, 103; + Lassalle's reply, 114. + +Schweitzer, Dr. von, 124. + +Self-interest, 375. + +Senior, N. W., 464. + +Shakers, 405. + +Shaw, G., Bernard, 88. + +Sheffield, socialists, 89; + housing of working-class, 341. + +Shuttleworth, Canon, 88. + +Sidgwick, Professor, 360, 428. + +Sinclair, Sir John, 469. + +Sisyphism, 443. + +Smith, Adam, as viewed by Socialists of the Chair, 198; + on Government trading, 345; + his theory of social politics, 353; + national education, 354; + military training, 355; + English Government management, 356; + truck, 357; + usury, 357; + corporate management, 417. + +Smith, E. Peshine, effect of education on wages, 321. + +Social Democratic Party in Germany, 33; + in Reichstag, 34; + France, 48; + programme, 49; + Italy, 58; + Spain, 61; + Norway, 66; + Denmark, 69; + Belgium, 70; + Holland, 73; + Switzerland, 74; + U.S.A., 80; + England, 84; + Scotland, 90; + Sydney, 91. + +Social Monarchical Union, 241. + +Social Politics, English theory, 373; + Christian, 242. + +Social Reform, Central Union for, 239. + +Socialism, before 1848, 2; + contemporary, 3; + labourers' claim of right, 7; + variable use of word, 8; + inequitableness its ruling characteristic, 9; + old and new, 10; + minimum of, 14; + relation to democracy, 15; + Christian, 224; + State, 345; + meanings of word, 374. + +Socialist Laws of Germany, 33. + +Socialists of the Chair, 195. + +Society of Public Utility in Switzerland, 76. + +Society of Social Peace, 243. + +Spain, Socialism in, 60; + anarchism, 62; + condition of people, 64. + +_Spectator, The_, testamentary statistics, 459. + +Speculation, 493. + +Spencer, Herbert, believes in socialist ideal of society, 8; + the coming slavery, 346; + functions of Government, 351, 352; + land nationalization, 385; + natural rights, 420. + +Stahl, quoted, 16. + +State management, 409. + +State railways, 415. + +State Socialism, 345; + in Germany, 379 + +State, The, 211. + +Statistics, Commercial, 326. + +Stein, Professor L. von, 94, 132. + +Stephanovitch, 293. + +Stepniak, on _mir_, 252; + Paris Commune, 277; + Russian proletariat, 284; + Russian peasantry, 285, 286, 288; + break-up of the Russian Commune, 289; + Russian agriculture, 291. + +Stoecker, Dr., 234, 236, 241, 242. + +Stockholm Congress, 67. + +Strachey, Mr., 68. + +Strikes, 44. + +Studnitz, A., 320, 331. + +Suez Canal, 348. + +Sumner, Archbishop, 370. + +Sunday Schools, Nihilist, 269, 272. + +Surplus Value, Marx's doctrine, 167. + +Sweating System, 432. + +Sweden, Socialism in, 66. + +Switzerland, Socialism in, 73; + Society of Public Utility, 76; + secret societies, 136. + +Sylvania Association, 404. + + +T. + +Taylor, Helen, 84. + +Tchaikowsky, 280. + +Tchernycheffsky, 269, 272. + +Telegraphs, State management of, 410. + +Thompson, William, anticipation of Marx's doctrine, 148. + +Thornton, W. T., 464. + +Thuenen, J. von, natural wages, 121. + +Thun, Professor A., 278, 281, 284, 285, 287. + +Tocqueville, A. de, socialism and democracy, 19; + democratic passion for equality, 24; + middle-class materialization, 24; + political necessity of religion, 25; + the plutocracy, 186. + +Todt, R., 234. + +Trade Unions, 311. + +Tramps, 450. + +Treitschke, H., 203. + +Trepoff, Assassination of General, 282. + +Trial of the, 193, 280. + +Troglodytes, Secret Society, 283. + +Trumbull Phalanx, 404. + +Tucker, B. R., 91. + +Turgenieff, 266. + +Turner, Dr., Samoa, 401, 492. + + +U. + +Unemployed, 424. + +Unionism, The New, 85, 86. + +United States, Liberty in, 20; + socialism, 77; + nationalism, 79; + anarchism, 80. + + +V. + +Vaillant, M., 53. + +Value, Marx's doctrine, 160; + true theory, 327. + +"Versaillais," The, 126. + +Victoria, State railways, 411, 417; + eight hours day, 436. + +Volmar, Herr von, 35. + +Vogt, K., 148. + + +W. + +Wages Fund, 464, 465. + +Wages, "iron law," 226, 237, 300; + rise since English Revolution, 301; + Ricardo's theory, 306; + true theory, 307; + fair, 430; + minimum, 431. + +Wagner, Professor A., ground-rents, 199; + State and the social question, 213; + Evangelical Social Congress, 241; + converted by Rodbertus, 380; + his State Socialism, 387. + +Walker, President F. A., 332, 469. + +Wallace, A. R., 89, 485. + +Warren, Josiah, 77. + +Watts, Dr. J., 434. + +Webb, Sidney, 88; + State pensions for the aged, 423. + +Weitling, W., 80, 137. + +Westminster, Duke of, 486. + +Wieland, 127. + +Will of the People Party, 283, 295. + +Winchester, Bishop of, definition of socialism, 376. + +Winkelblech, Professor, 180. + +Woeste, M., 244. + +Working classes, prospects, 297, 312; + habits, 318; + legitimate aspirations, 333. + +Workmen's Chambers, 35. + +Wyden Congress, 44, 126. + + +Y. + +Yellow Springs, 404. + +Young, Arthur, 455. + +Young England Party, 380. + + +Z. + +Zurich Congress, 76. + + * * * * * + +OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE FIRST EDITION. + + +"A work of commanding ability and great practical value. It deserves to +be studied by everybody who wishes to understand a series of questions +which are just now attracting a large share of attention.... Admirably +adapted to dissipate erroneous impressions on the subject."--_Scotsman._ + +"The reader will find much to interest him in Mr. Rae's volume. His +introductory chapter is well worth studying, as are also his sketches of +Lassalle, Karl Marx, and Professor Winkelblech."--_Times._ + +"Mr. Rae has made a special study of the various phases of Continental +socialism, and has therefore peculiar qualifications for this part of +his task.... With a special recommendation of the last chapter, we take +leave of a useful and ably written book."--_Saturday Review._ + +"Mr. John Rae has already won his spurs as a writer on socialism. The +book on that subject which he has just published is the best of its +kind, in English at least, that we have seen. Holding an intermediate +position between the socialists and the Manchester School, Mr. Rae has +just that amount of sympathy with the aims of the socialists which +enables him to look at the problems involved from their point of view, +and thus to meet their errors fully and directly while doing justice to +them in some respects in which hitherto they have hardly received +it."--_Westminster Review._ + +"In Mr. Rae's interesting volume full information will be found +respecting the leaders of the socialistic movement in Europe, and a +clear statement of their teaching."--_Literary World._ + +"A very admirable piece of work, displaying thorough research in the +presentation of the various forms of socialistic theory, keen +discrimination in their analysis, and a masterly comprehension of the +whole economic situation. Mr. Rae's essay on Nihilism is as good as +anything that we have seen on this mysterious subject, but there are few +persons who are interested in the history of the present century that +will not be glad to read the whole book, and some parts of it more than +once. We will only add that the analysis of Mr. Henry George's theories +is extremely well done. It undermines the very foundations on which Mr. +George's structure is built, and the whole fabric dissolves before our +eyes."--_Evening Post_ (New York). + +"These studies attracted much attention when they first appeared, and +readers will be glad to meet them again in this book. A short analysis +could not do justice to Mr. Rae's work. What characterizes the work +most, is the impression derived from it as a whole; it is the +conscientiousness and sincerity with which the author has studied the +writers he discusses. The judgments he pronounces are his own. Those who +wish, if not a new, yet a more enlarged idea of the principle +socialistic theories, will find pleasure in following the effect which +they produce on an enlightened mind, the remarks they suggest to him, +and the objections he makes to them."--_Journal des Economistes_ +(Paris). + +"It is the best English text-book on the important subject of which it +treats, and like all good text-books, it whets the reader's +appetite."--_Glasgow Herald._ + + * * * * * + + POLITICAL SCIENCE AND ECONOMY. + + + +POLITICAL SCIENCE; Or, The State Theoretically and Practically + Considered. By THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D.D., LL.D.; late President of + Yale College. 2 vols., 8vo, $5.00.+ + + + THE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT.--"No work on Political Science has ever been + published in America which covers so wide a ground and which treats + the subject so fairly and impartially, and with so thorough + knowledge and judgment." + + THE CINCINNATI GAZETTE.--"This work is indeed one of the most + important contributions of the century to the science of natural + and national law and ethics." + + THE N. Y. TRIBUNE.--"In the discussion of the manifold questions + suggested by the general theme of the work Dr. Woolsey exhibits the + same cautiousness of judgment, moderation of tone, and vigor of + expression which characterize his previous writings. His volumes + abound with the signs of profound study and copious erudition as + well as of original thought." + + + +INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. Designed as an Aid + in Teaching and in Historical Studies. By THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, + D.D., LL.D., late President of Yale College. Fifth edition, revised + and enlarged. Crown 8vo, $2.50.+ + + + A complete outline of that grand system of ethical jurisprudence + Which holds, as it were, in one community the nations of + Christendom. Its appendix contains a most useful list of the + principal treaties since the Reformation. The work has no rival as + a text book. + + Special attention is directed to the fact that this FIFTH EDITION + of Dr. Woolsey's International Law is entirely re-written and + enlarged, and is printed from new plates. + + THE ST. LOUIS REPUBLICAN.--"A compendium treatise, intended not for + lawyers nor for those having the profession of law in view, but for + young men who are cultivating themselves by the study of historical + and political Science. While the work gives the state of the law of + nations as it is, it compares the actual law with the standard of + justice, and, by exhibiting the progress of science in a historical + way, brings it into connection with the advances of humanity and + civilization." + + + _STANDARD TEXT BOOKS._ + + + +POLITICAL ECONOMY. By ARTHUR LATHAM PERRY, Professor of History and + Political Economy in Williams College. Crown 8vo, $2.50.+ + + + Professor Perry's book has passed through many editions and has + recently been subjected to a thorough revision and recasting. His + work is a complete exposition of the Science of Political Economy + both historically and topically, his style is admirably clear and + racy; his illustrations are forcible and well chosen, and he has + made a subject interesting and open to the comprehension of any + diligent student, which has often been left by writers vague and + befogged and bewildering. This work has stood excellently the test + of the class room, and has been adopted by many of the chief + educational institutions in this country. Among them are Yale + College, Bowdoin College, Dartmouth, Trinity, Wesleyan, University + of Wooster, Denison University, Rutgers College, New York + University, Union College, and many other colleges and normal and + high schools. + + T. D. WOOLSEY, _President of Yale College_.--"Your book interests + students more than any I have ever instructed from." + + THE NEW YORK TIMES.--"As a manual for general reading and popular + instruction, Prof. Perry's book is far superior to any work on the + subject before issued in the United States." + + THE NATION.--"We cordially recommend this book to all, of whatever + school of political economy, who enjoy candid statement and full + and logical discussion." + + THE INDEPENDENT.--"There is more common sense in this book than in + any of the more elaborate works on the same subject that have + preceded it. It Is the most interesting and valuable one that has + been given to the American public on this important subject." + + + +INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL ECONOMY. By ARTHUR LATHAM PERRY, + Professor of History and Political Economy in Williams College. + Revised edition. 12mo, $1.50.+ + + + FROM THE PREFACE.--"I have endeavored in this book so to lay the + foundations of Political Economy in their whole circuit, that they + will never need to be disturbed afterwards by persons resorting to + it for their early instruction, however long and however far these + persons may pursue their studies in this science." + + THE N. Y. EVENING POST.--"This work is not meant in any way to take + the place of its author's larger treatise, but rather to occupy a + field which, in the nature of the case, that work cannot occupy. It + is not an abridgment of that work but a separate treatise, intended + primarily for the use of students and readers whose time for study + is small, but who wish to learn the broad principles of the science + thoroughly and well, especially with reference to the scientific + principles which are involved in the practical discussions of our + time. * * * We need scarcely add, with respect to a writer so well + known as he, that his thinking is sound as well as acute, or that + his doctrines are those which the greatest masters of political + science have approved." + + + +AMERICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY. By FRANCIS BOWEN, Professor of Natural + Religion and Moral Philosophy in Harvard College. 8vo, $2.50.+ + + + This treatise presents views compatible with the idea that "every + country has a political economy of its own, suitable to its own + physical circumstances of position on the globe, and to the + character, habits, and institutions of the people." + + THE PHILADELPHIA AGE.--"If our members of Congress would vote + themselves a copy of this book, and read it, fewer wild schemes + would be concocted by them, and a great saving of time and the + people's money would be secured." + + THE SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN.--"His arguments are worth considering, + and his whole book is of high value to any American to study + economical questions." + + + +CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM. By JOHN RAE, M.A. 8vo, $2.50.+ + + + Such a book as this which Mr. Rae has written--a thorough history + and analysis by a man of singularly candid and liberal mind, + equally without prejudice and fanaticism--has long been needed and + earnestly wished for by every student of socialism, and in all + countries. + + THE LONDON SATURDAY REVIEW.--"A useful and ably written book." + + THE CONGREGATIONALIST.--"No subject more needs thorough and + impartial discussion at present than this, and the work before us + by John Rae is eminently able and helpful. It is distinguished in a + remarkable degree by breadth of view and the grasp of underlying + and widely reaching principles, and also by his minuteness of + detail and the careful relation of facts and figures in support of + its position." + + + +COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM. In their History and Theory. A Sketch. By + THEODORE D. WOOLSEY, D.D., LL.D., late President of Yale College. + 12mo, $1.50.+ + + + This book is the only comprehensive review of its subject, within + small compass, yet exactly meeting the needs of the reader, that is + accessible in English. The candor of the discussion is remarkable; + the book is the argument of a perfectly fair reasoner, painting + nothing in too dark colors, but taking his opponents at their best. + + THE N. Y. COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER.--"The work is an epitome of the + history of the socialistic and communistic movement, and will prove + a most valuable text book to all who have not made themselves + familiar with this great subject." + + + _AN ADDITION TO THEODOR MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME._ + + + +THE PROVINCES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. From Caesar to Diocletian. By + THEODOR MOMMSEN. Translated with the author's sanction and + additions, by William P. Dickson D.D., LL.D. With ten maps, by + Professor Kiepert. 2 vols., 8vo, $6.00.+ + + CONTENTS: The Northern Frontier of Italy--Spain--The Gallic + Provinces--Roman Germany and the Free Germans--Britain--The + Danubian Lands and the Wars on the Danube--Greek + Europe--Asia Minor--The Euphrates Frontier and the + Parthians--Syria and the Land of the Nabataeans--Judea and the + Jews--Egypt--The African Provinces. + + + N. Y. SUN.--"Professor Mommsen's work goes further than any other + extant, or now looked for, to provide us with a key to the mediaeval + history of the Mediterranean world." + + PROF. W. A. PACKARD, _in Presbyterian Review_.--"The author draws + the wonderfully rich and varied picture of the conquest and + administration of that great circle of peoples and lands which + formed the empire of Rome outside of Italy, their agriculture, + trade, and manufactures, their artistic and scientific life, + through all degrees of civilization, with such detail and + completeness as could have come from no other hand than that of + this great master of historical research in all its departments, + guided by that gift of historical imagination, for which he is + equally eminent." + + + +THE HISTORY OF GREECE. By Prof. Dr. ERNST CURTIUS. Translated by + Adolphus William Ward, M. A., Fellow of St. Peter's College, + Cambridge, Prof. of History in Owen's College, Manchester. Uniform + with Mommsen's History of Rome. Five volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top. + Price per set, $10.00.+ + + + LONDON ATHENAEUM.--"Professor Curtius' eminent scholarship is a + sufficient guarantee for the trustworthiness of his history, while + the skill with which he groups his facts, and his effective mode of + narrating them, combine to render it no less readable than sound. + Prof. Curtius everywhere maintains the true dignity and + impartiality of history, and it is evident his sympathies are on + the side of justice, humanity, and progress." + + LONDON SPECTATOR.--"We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius' + book better than by saying that it may be fitly ranked with Theodor + Mommsen's great work." + + N. Y. DAILY TRIBUNE.--"As an introduction to the study of Grecian + history, no previous work is comparable to the present for vivacity + and picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of + statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which + enrich the literature of the age." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Contemporary Socialism, by John Rae + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM *** + +***** This file should be named 37351.txt or 37351.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/3/5/37351/ + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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