CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM A FUND RECEIVED BY BEQUEST OF WILLARD FISKE 1831-1904 FIRST LIBRARIAN OF THIS UNIVERSITY : 1868-I883 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030333953 Cornell University Library HX246 .B25 British socialism olin 3 1924 030 333 953 BRITISH SOCIALISM BT THE SAME AUTHOR (Unipokm with this Volume) THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE NETHERLANDS A Political and Economic History and a Study in Practical Statesmanship Small Demy 8vo, 10s. 6d. net. Tbe Fortnightly Review says : — " There is nothing in any language like it, and when all is said, it remains one of the most striking additions recently made to the political Ubrary. . . . The work is a mine." TAe National Review says : — " We only wish that every Member of Parliament could be compelled to read it." Tbe Spectator says ; — " The warmest devotee of Clio in her tradi- tional garments must admit the writer's' thorough familiarity with the best literature of his subject, the high intellectual tone of his ideas and generahsations, and the polish of the epigrammatic style, reflections, and warnings that give many of his pages a verve and colour of which his great American predecessor would not have been ashamed." The Standard says ; — "Its interest and importance for British readers could hardly be exaggerated. No British subject of ordinary intelligence can read it without drawing the most valuable and necessary of all lessons from it." MODERN GERMANY: Her Political and Economic Problems, Her Foreign and Domestic Policy, Her Ambitions, and the Causes of Her Success. Second and very greatly Enlarged Edition, completely revised and brought up to date. (October 1907.) Small Demy 8vo, 10s. 6d. net. Tbe Saturday Review says: — "We do not know any book which within such moderate limits enables one so well to estimate the ability and energy which are devoted by the State to the purpose of furthering the material prosperity and power of the German people." Tbe Daily Telegraph says : — "It cannot fail to prove, not only informative to the reader on the political and economic problems and foreign and domestic policy of Germany, but indispensable as a con- venient reference book." Tbe Daily Mali says : — " There is much that we would quote, but the best course is to send the reader to a book which should be in every library. It may be recommended to every publicist as an in- valuable repertory of facts concerning the policy, armaments, industries, and commerce of the great rival of England in Europe." London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO,, 15 Waterloo Place, s.W. BEITISH SOCIALISM AN EXAMINATION OF ITS DOCTEINES, POLICY, AIMS AND PEACTICAL PROPOSALS BY J. ELLIS BAEKER AUTHOE OF "MODERN qebmant: hbb polittcai. and economic pboblems, etc' ' THE EISE AND DECLINE OP THE NETHEBLANDa ' LONDON SMITH, ELDEE, & CO., 15 WATEELOO PLACE 1908 [All rights reserved] 5 CONTENTS CHAPTBR PAGE I. Introduction — ^What is Socialism ? . . . . 1 n. Some Socialist Views or Present Society and OF THE Society of the Future ... 10 III. The G-eievances of the Socialists . . . . 30 rv. The Fundamental Doctrines of Socialism . . 50 V. The Aims and Policy of the Socialists . . . 92 VI. The Attitude of Socialists towards the Working Masses 115 VII. The Attitude of Socialists towards Trade Unionists and Co-operatohs 131 VIII. Socialist Views and Proposals regarding Land AND THE Landlords 145 IX. Socialist Views and Proposals regarding Capital AND THE Capitalists 152 X. Socialist Views and Proposals regarding Taxa- tion AND THE National Budget . . . 160 XI. Socialism and the Empire 170 Xn. Socialist Views on International Eelations and Foreign Policy 183 XIII. Socialism and the Army 192 XIV. Socialism and the Monarchy .... 207 XV. Socialist Views on Parliament and the National Administration 209 XVI. The Attitude of the Socialists towards the Two Parliamentary Parties .... 225 XVII. Socialism and Local Government . . . . 240 XVIII. Socialism and Agriculture 261 vi BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTER PAGB XIX. Socialist Views on British Eailways and Shipping 269 XX. Some Socialist Views on Money, Banks, and Banking 278 XXI. Some Socialist Views on Free Trade and Pro- tection 285 XXII. Socialism and Education 302 XXIII. The Attitude of Socialists towards Providence, Thrift, and Temperance 311 XXIV. Socialist Views on Law and Justice . . . 325 XXV. Socialism and Woman, the Family and the Home 330 XXVI. The Socialist Attitude towards Christianity AND Bbligion 354 XXVII. The Religion of Socialism 364 XXVIII. Christian Socialism 375 XXIX. Socialism and Communism 381 XXX. Socialism and Anarchism 394 XXXI. Socialism and Revolution 404 XXXII. State Socialism 411 XXXIII. The Socialist Organisations : their Mutual Relations and their Policy .... 415 XXXIV. The Growth and Danger op British Socialism . 431 XXXV. How THE Progress of Socialism may be Checked 440 XXXVI. Is Socialism Possible ?— A Glance into the Socialist State of the Future . . . 444 XXXVII. Conclusion 470 Appendix — Official Programmes of the Soclslistic Gegan- isations 481 Bibliography 493 Analytical Index 509 BRITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTEE I INTRODUCTION — WHAT IS SOCIALISM? What is Socialism ? It is exceedingly difficult to answer that question in a few words, for Socialism is exceedingly elusive and bewildering in its doctrines, its aims, and its proposals. Its opponents have described it as " a doctrine of sordid materialism and of atheism," they have denounced it as " the gospel of everlasting bellyful," ' and as " the coming slavery." ^ They have stated that Socialism means to abolish religion, that it " would try to put laziness, thrift- lessness, and inefficiency on a par with industry, thrift, and efficiency, that it would strive to break up not merely private property, but, what is far more important, the home, the chief prop upon which our whole civilisation stands." ' The Socialists, on the other hand, claim that " Socialism presents the only living ideal of human existence " * ; that " SociaHsm is science applied with knowledge and under- standing to all branches of human activity " ^ ; that ' Millar, Socialism, p. 21. ' Herbert Spencer, The Man versus the State, p. 18 ff. ^ Koosevelt, Presidential Message, December 1907. ' Walter Crane in Squire, Socialism amd Art, Foreword. * Bebel, Woman, p. 256, B 2 BEITISH SOCIALISM "Socialism is freedom," ^ and that it is exceedingly just, for " the justice of Socialism will see all things, and therefore understand all things." ^ One of the Sociahst leaders has told us " Socialism is much more than either a political creed or an economic dogma. It presents to the modern world a new conception of society and a new basis upon which to build up the life of the individual and of the State." ' Another informs us " Socialism to Socialists is not a Utopia which they have invented, but a principle of social organisation which they assert to have been discovered by the patient investigators into sociology whose labours have distinguished the present century." * A third has stated that " Socialism is really neither more nor less than the science of sociology." ^ A fourth asserts that " it is a scientific scheme of national government entirely wise, just, and practical." ^ A fifth states " Socialism to me has always meant not a principle, but certain definite economic measures which I wish to see taken." ^ Other Socialists have taught that " Socialism is an ethical system founded on justice and truth ; it is a heartfelt, soul-inspiring religion, resting upon the love of God." * " Socialism is a theory of social organisation, which reconciles the individual to society. It has dis- covered how the individual in society can attain to a state of complete development." ^ " Socialism is the right of the community, acting in its corporate capacity, to intervene in the lives and labours of men and women." ^° ' Kessaok, Capitalist Wilderness, p. 2. '' Ford, Woman and Socialism, p. 3. ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 1. ■" Webb, The Difficulties of Individualism, p. 3. ' Hyndman, Socialism and Slavery, Preface. '' Blatchford, Merrie England, p. 100. ' Shaw, The Impossibilities of Anarchism, p. 3. " "Veritas," Did Jesus Christ teach Socialism? p. 1. " Maodonald, Socialism, p. 3. '" Labour Record, February 1907, WHAT IS SOCIALISM? 3 " Socialism is nothing but the extension of democratic self- government from the political to the industrial world." ^ " Socialism is an endeavour to substitute for the anarchical struggle or fight for existence an organised co-operation for existence." ^ " Socialism may be described as an en- deavour to readjust the machinery of industry in such a way that it can at once depend upon and issue in a higher kind of character and social type than is encouraged by the conditions of ordinary competitive enterprise." ' " Socialism is the development of policies concerning the welfare of society." * " It is not arbitrary destruction and reconstruction, but a natural process of develop- ment." ' " The idea of Socialism will conquer the world, for this idea is nothing but the real, well understood interest of mankind."^ "Its principles will carry the whole human race to a higher state of perfection." ' " It is the great modern protest against unreality, against the delusive shams which now masquerade as verities." * " Socialism is of the character of a historical discovery." ' " Socialism, the inspiring principle of all Labour Parties, whether they know it or not, is the next world movement — the movement of the constructive intellect." ^° Socialism is rich in promises, and its claims to our consideration and support are manifold. Are these claims justified or not ? Are the Socialists or the Anti- Socialists right in their conception of Socialism ? The Socialists maintain that all opposition to Socialism is based either on self-interest or ignorance, and princi- ' Webb, The Difficulties of Individualism, p. 15. 2 Will Socialism benefit the British People ? p. 4. " Ball, The Moral Aspects of Socialism, p. 3. * Williams, The Difficulties of Socialism, p. 3. ^ Bebel, Woman, p. 257. " Sorge, SociaUsm and the Worker, p. 13. ' Ibid. p. 16. " Bax, Religion of SociaUsm, p. ix. ' Lafargue, in Bliss, Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 1264. '" Macdonald, Labour and the Empire, p. 108. B 2 4 BEITISH SOCIALISM pally upon the latter. Therefore one of the Socialist leaders wrote : " Those who wish to understand 'Socialism will be wise to study Socialist books and papers. One does not expect a true and fair account of any theory or cause from its enemies. The man who takes his ideas of Trade-Unionism from the Pree Labour League, his ideas of Liberalism from the Tory papers, his ideas of South African affairs — or any other affairs — from the Yellow Press, will be misled into all manner of absurdities and errors. The statements of party politicians and party newspapers on most controversial subjects are prejudiced and inaccurate ; but there is no subject upon which the professional misleaders of the people are so untrustworthy and so disingenuous as they are upon the subject of Socialism." ^ A leading Socialist organ complained : " Our opponents decline to deal with the fundamental principles of Socialism — its unanswerable indictment of the capitalist system, with all its concomitants of wage- slavery and slumdom ; prostitution and child murder — and prefer instead to indulge in calumniation and mis- representation of Socialism. We need not complain about that. It is a tribute to the soundness of the Socialist position, to the irrefutability of its principles, the im- pregnability of the rock of economic truth upon which it is based, that our enemies dare not oppose the prin-' ciples of Socialism, dare not attempt to meet the charge Socialism levels against the existing order." ^ There is much truth in these complaints. The general public and most writers and speakers know very little about Socialism, because this most interesting subject has been very inadequately treated in the existing books. The existing books on Socialism describe, analyse, and criticise the Socialist doctrines only in the abstract ' Blatchford, What is this Socialism ? p. 2. ' Justice, October 19, 1907. WHAT IS SOCIAIiISM? 5 as a rule. However, Socialism is not only an elaborate economic doctrine, it is at the same time a complete system of practical politics. Hence it does not suffice to study the doctrines of Socialism by themselves. In order to understand Socialism we must also investigate its practical proposals. FoUovmig the methods of our political economists, most writers on Socialism have, unfortunately, treated Socialism rather as a scientific abstraction than as a business proposition. Consequently the most important practical details of Socialism, such as : What are the views of the Socialist with regard to the Monarchy, the Army, the Banks, the National Currency, the Law, Education ? what are their practical aims as regards Parliamentary Eepresentation, Foreign Policy, Agriculture, Taxation, Old-age Pensions, Fiscal Policy? what are their rela- tions with the Parliamentary Parties, the Trade-Unions, the Co-operators, etc ? what is their attitude towards International Communism and Anarchism? is English Sociahsm an Evolutionary or a Eevolutionary Move- ment? — these and many other questions are touched but lightly or are not touched at all. It is somewhat difficult to deal fully with the practical proposals of the Socialists, because the Socialists are very averse from formulating their aims and disclosing their plans. An English Socialist wrote : " To dogmatise about the form which the Socialist State shall take is to play the fool." ^ Another one stated : " It is quite impossible, at this time, nor would it be desirable, if possible, to lay down any hard and fast line as to the development of the details of Socialist organisation. Broad principles are all that can with any degree of confidence be spoken about. The details will arrange themselves, as the time arrives when it becomes necessary to settle them."^ ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 96. ^ Ethel Snowden, T?ie Woman Socialist, p. 44. 6 BEITISH SOCIALISM Gronlund, perhaps the most prominent American Socialist, stated : " Socialists do not profess to be architects. They have not planned the future in minute detail." ^ Herr Bebel, the leader of the German Social-Democratic Party, said on February 3, 1893, in the Eeichstag, replying to the Eoman Catholics, "We do not ask from you the details of the future life of which you speak so incessantly- Why, then, do you ask us about the future society ? " ^ Although we are told that " Socialism claims the con- sideration of mankind, because it comes forward and offers a complete scheme to improve the conditions of human life," ^ Socialists carefully abstain as a rule from giving us the details of that scheme. The Socialists of all countries have very excellent reasons for keeping to themselves the details of their plans for the future. Nevertheless, a careful search through their numerous writings will enable us to obtain a fairly clear and comprehensive view of their political and economic plans and intentions. Great Britain does not as yet possess a great Socialist party but only a number of Socialist groups and factions which are totally at variance as regards their aims, policy, and tactics. " They differ as to the best means of getting what they want, and as to the best ways of managing the work, and as to the proper way of sharing the earnings. Some Socialists still believe that Socialism will have to be got by force. I think there are not many. Some are in favour of buying the land, the railways, the machinery, and other things ; and some are in favour of taking them, by force, or by new laws. Then some say that there should be no wages paid at all, but that everyone should do an equal share of work, and take whatever he needed from the nation's goods. Others say that all men should ' Gronlund, Co-operative Commonwealth, p. 126. '' Guyot, Pretensions of Socialism, p. 11. ' Hird, From Brute to Brother, p. 1. WHAT IS SOCIALISM? 7 do an equal share of work, and have an equal share of the goods, or of the earnings. Others say it would be better to pay wages, as now, but to let the wages be fixed by the Government, or by corporations, or other officials, and that all wages should be equal. Others, again, say that wages should be paid, that the wages should be fixed as above stated, and that different kinds of work should be paid for at different rates. In one kind of Socialism the civil engineer, the actor, the general, the artist, the tram guard, the dustman, the milliner, and the collier would all be paid the same wages. In another kind of Socialism there would be no wages, but all would be called upon to work, and all who worked would ' take according to their needs.' In another kind of Socialism the civil engineer would be paid more than the navvy, the opera singer more than the milliner, the general more than the sergeant, and the editor more than the scavenger." ^ Notwithstanding these numerous and important dif- ferences, of which more will be learned in the course of this book, British Socialists are absolutely united in cer- tain important respects. " The policies of Socialism are a changeable quantity, though the principle is as fixed as the Northern Star." ^ " Socialism is as flexible in its form as it is definite in its principles." ' A superficial study of Socialism reveals to us not a single and generally accepted plan, but a confused and confusing mass of mutually contradictory plans and doc- trines. Therefore he who wishes to know what Socialism is, must study the many-headed movement in its entirety and give an impartial hearing to all its advocates. We can understand Socialism only if we are acquainted with practically its entire literature. • Eobert Blatchford, Real Socialism, p. 15. 2 Williams, Difficulties of Socialism, p. 4. ' Bliss, Eneyclopedia of Social Beform, p. 1265, 8 BEITISH SOCIALISM Unfortunately the literature of Socialism is very vast. A complete collection of modern Socialist literature would embrace at least thirty thousand items. Therefore a full analysis of international Socialism based upon the study of the original sources is a forbidding undertaking. I have consequently limited myself to the investigation of the British Socialist movement, although I have cast a cursory glance upon foreign Socialism whenever it seemed necessary to do so. I have consulted altogether about a thousand books and pamphlets, and have given representative extracts from four hundred or five hundred of those which seemed most proper to elucidate the subject of this book. Having given space to the views of all the Socialist groups, this book is a summary of the whole literature of British Socialism and a key to it. It is based exclusively on first-hand evidence, and every statement contained in it can instantly be verified by reference to the original sources indicated in the footnotes. In the Bibliography at the end of this volume the full title, publisher's address, and date of publication of all sources drawn upon are given, so that readers will have no difficulty in procuring any Socialist books they may want for further study. Most of the books quoted are unknown to booksellers, and are not in public libraries. Even the British Museum Library possesses only part of the publications used in this book, which is the first to exploit fully the whole Sociahst party literature. Whilst most books on Socialism take note only of Sociahst text-books addressed to students, the present volume considers chiefly the propaganda literature which is educating the Socialist rank and file and shaping its political views. For all practical political purposes the propaganda literature is undoubtedly by far the more important of the two to the statesman and the citizen. WHAT IS SOCIALISM? 9 The present volume is the only book of its kind, and I hope that the Socialist movement in Germany, France, and the United States will be treated with similar com- pleteness by writers' of these countries. The perusal of the present volume will enable us to form an opinion of the merits or demerits of the Socialistic theories and practical plans, and make it possible for us to separate the grain from the chaff, the wisdom from the folly, in the teachings of the Socialists. Thus we shall be able to see which of their complaints and proposals are justified and practical, and which are unjustified and unpractical. Popular dissatisfaction, Socialistic and non-Socialistic, points to the existence of ills in the body politic, and the Socialistic agitation is exceedingly valuable inasmuch as it draws general attention to these ills. Some complaints of the Socialists will be found to be imaginary, others are very real. It would be a sterile undertaking merely to analyse and criticise Socialism and the Socialistic proposals. Therefore, after having described the policy, ideals, and aims of the Socialists, I mean to analyse the disease of which Socialism is a consequence and a symptom, and to propose practical measures for curing it. In the course of this book I shall show that Socialism seems likely to become a very great danger in this country — a far greater danger than is generally realised.. Therefore its opponents will be wise not to sneer at Socialism, but to study it and to try to understand it. That task will be found worth our while, and only after it shall we be able to further Socialism if it is beneficial, to combat it if it is pernicious, and to correct it if it is only the misguided expression of genuine suffering and want. Indifference to a great and dangerous political movement such as Socialism may have the gravest consequences. Idlers do not make history. They suffer it. 10 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTBE II SOME SOCIALIST VIEWS OP PRESENT SOCIETY AND OP THE SOCIETY OP THE EUTUEB " We are not indebted to reason," wrote the greatest American Socialist, " for the landmarks of human progress, for the introduction of Christianity, the institution of the monastic orders, the Crusades, the Eeformation, the American Eevolution, or the abolition of slavery. Man is only irresistible when he acts from passion. The masses of men are never moved except by passions, feelings, interests." ^ " Socialism has the advantage of appealing to the interests as well as to the enthusiasm of all except the few who think the world good enough as it is. . . . It is, of course, to the discontented wage-workers that the Socialist can appeal with the greatest chance of success." ^ These indiscreet words, which might have been written by the most implacable of Anti- Socialists, sum up and explain the Socialistic agitation and tactics. They are a proclamation and an avowal, and the worst enemy of Socialism would have found it difficult to pen a more damaging statement. Socialists rely not on reason or justice, but on unreason and passion, for the victory of their cause ; and that fact is very much to be regretted, for it is bound to create prejudice and suspicion, and to greatly weaken their case. The British Socialists, seeking to rouse the passions of men, habitually rely on exaggeration and misrepre- sentation. They do not tire of painting the present Gronlund, The Co-operative OommanweaUh, p. 187. '' Ibid. p. 184. SOCIALIST VIEWS OF SOCIETY 11 state of society in the darkest colours and of describing with an unbounded but hardly justifiable optimism and enthusiasm the advantages which will accrue to society when Socialism has come to rule. It will be seen that in describing society of the present and society of the future, Socialists let their imagination run riot in the most astounding fashion. To the SociaHst modern civilisation is worse than a failure. " Our civilisation seems all so savage and bestial and filthy and inartistic ; all so cowardly and devilish and despicable. We fight by cheatery and underselling, and adulteration and bribery, and unmanly smirking for our bone of a livelihood ; all scrambling and biting round the platter when there is abundance for all, if we were orderly and courteous and gentlemanly ; all crushing the weaker ; all strugghng to the platter-side for the privilege of wearing tail hats and of giving good advice to the poor dogs out- side. We, the well-fed, shout lordily to the hungry and cheer them with legends to the effect that though the poor are juggled out of earth, they may be masters in Heaven. Our civilisation is barbarous." ^ Where'er we go, to east or west North or south, 'tis all the same ; Civilisation at it's best Is savagery's newer name. For we see on every hand 'Midst the whirr and noise of trade The toilers, crushed and trampled, and Into beasts of burden made.^ "The one reality of the nineteenth century is the scramble for wealth ; politics, literature, science, religion, art, are, apart from money-getting, mere lifeless wraiths." ^ Government in general, and British Government in • Forward, October 12, 1907. 2 Neil, S(mgs of the Social Revolution, p. 22. '■' Bax, OutlooTcs from the New Stand/pomt, p. 140. 12 BEITISH SOCIAIjISM particular, is vicious, tyrannous, and neglectful, and deserves the utmost contempt. " National Grovernment is devised for other objects than the adjustment of essential, economic, and hygienic arrangements for the redemption of human life ; to use it for such a purpose is gross tyranny and a deadly blow at the very foundations of morality and religion ! Governments exist for quite other purposes than this — to pay a million pounds yearly to one family and its immediate parasites, to supply pov^er of life and death over the people to the exploiting class and fat places to their satellites and creatures, to squander hundreds of millions on gunpowder and armaments, to use the whole socialised power of the nation to overawe, exploit, rob, and ruin the so-called lower races — all these are the proper objects of government according to our orthodox wiseacres, but to use the same obvious instru- ment adequately to protect human life at home, and that life, to quote Mr. Burns, ' the weakest, the smallest, and the dearest to us all,' is to undermine the foundations of British manliness and to poison the fountain of British liberty and greatness. Such is the curious melange of selfishness, hypocrisy, prejudice, ignorance, and incoher- ence which passes muster for argument amongst our anti-Socialist opponents." ^ British social legislation has been a failure. Never was the lot of the workers worse than it is now. " Your legislation for the past hundred years is a perpetual and fruitless effort to regulate the disorders of yom: economic system. Your poor, your drunken, your incompetent, your sick, your aged, ride you like a nightmare. You have dissolved all human and personal ties. The salient characteristic of your civilisation is its irresponsibility. The making of dividends is the universal preoccupation ; the well-being of the labourer is no one's concern. You depend on variations of supply and demand which you ' Fisher, The Babies' Tribute, p. 6. SOCIALIST VIEWS OF SOCIETY 13 can neither determine nor anticipate. The failure of a harvest, the modification of a tariff in some remote country dislocates the industry of millions, thousands of miles away. You are at the mercy of a prospector's luck, an inventor's genius, a woman's caprice — nay, you are at the mercy of your own instruments. Your capital is alive and cries for food." ^ Virtue has disappeared, religion is a fraud, clergy and priesthood are mercenary, cowardly, and interested time- servers. " The priests and the parsons are salary-slaves as much as the workers are wage-slaves. The majority of them dare not preach the Gospel of Humanity, Justice, and Socialism from their pulpits owing to their fear of their paymasters. Eeligion is divorced from business, politics, the administration of public authorities, the treatment of the aged worker, and written across the actions of the professing Christians is ' Self-interest ; every man for himself and the Workhouse take the hindmost.' " ^ Life is hell, and only Socialism can regenerate the world. Things are all wrong, and we must put them right So say all Socialists, and truly too. Man does not get the chance here to subdue The brute in self ; and hence the fearful blight Which makes one sicken at the dreadful sight Of all society in one hell stew.^ Apparently all British workers spend their lives in terrible misery and constant privation. Hunger and despair are their constant companions, and they will see in Socialism their only salvation even if Socialism should destroy individual liberty, for to them individual liberty is a word without meaning. One of the most ' Glyde, The Misfortime of being a Working Mam, p. 1. 2 md. p. 7. = NeU, Scyngs of the Social Revolution, p. 1. 14 BEITISH SOCIALISM prominent British Socialists, Mr. Philip Snowden, M.P., in a pamphlet addressed to working men, writes : " Let those who fear that Socialism will destroy individual liberty and hinder intellectual development go with their talk to the machine- workers of our great northern towns, who are chained for eleven hours a day to a monotonous toil, with the eye of the overseer and the fear of dismissal spurring them on to an exertion which leaves them at the end of their day's work physical wrecks, with no ambition but to restore their wasted energies at the nearest public- house. Let them go with their talk of the blessings of civilisation to the pottery and chemical workers, whose systems are poisoned, whose sight is destroyed, where, through the bodies of the parents being saturated with poison, half the children are born dead, and of the rest not one in four lives to be five — tell them to hold fast to their share of the blessings of our glorious civilisation. Or go to the sweaters' victims, living, eating, working, dying in one room, for which a vampire landlord will take in rent one-half of all the family can earn by working day and night — talk to them of individual liberty and warn them of the tyranny of the coming Socialism. Or go on a bitterly cold winter morning to the dock gates of one of our great ports and see thousands of men waiting in the hope of a day's job, and watch how a few here and there of the strongest are selected, and the rest left to another day of hunger and despair ; or, wait still, and see how a few remain behind in the hope that their mate may meet with an accident andT ' they can snatch at the work he had.' Why, to talk of individual freedom and equality of opportunity under a system of cannibalistic competition Uke this is like the mocking laughter of a raving maniac gloating over the torture of the victim it holds in its murderous grip." ^ In another popular pamphlet the ' Snowden, The Individual under Socialism, pp. 4-5. SOCIALIST VIEWS OF SOCIETY 16 worker is told : " After all, John, does it not strike you that there is some foul iniquity in a system which allows one part of the community to do another portion of it to death and to rob and enslave those it is pleased to let live ? Do you not see that those your capitalists find it con- venient and profitable to employ may live ; and that those they do not choose to employ must die ? Do you not see that these are hurried and driven hither and thither in haggard, destitute misery ; are thrust into festering heaps in your foul slums ; into your gaols, and penitentiaries, and workhouses; that they wander in hopeless misery, hungering within sight of food, penni- less amid plenty, enforcedly idle, and work to which they can have no access lying upon every hand of them, as though the world were under an enchantment and God were dead ! " ^ The British working man, as he is generally known, is a manly and very independent personage. As a rule his master is more afraid of him than he is of his master. Yet, according to the picture drawn of him by the Socialists, he is a timorous, cowardly, whining, pitiful creature who has to cringe to his tyrannic employers : See the toiler, how he slaves For a trifle of his toil. How disease and death he braves. Yet the masters take the spoil ; And how often, cap in hand, Trembling, pleading piteously. He is forced to take his stand In the mart of slavery. Oh ! ye tyrants of the earth, Who make others' ruin your trade, 'Midst licentious love and mirth Fashion, pomp, and church parade. ' Washington, A Corner in Flesh and Blood, p. 15. 16 BRITISH SOCIALISM Do you never think, oh, tell Of the hideous crime and shame That has made this earth a hell Of commercial fraud and shame ? ' During the week the British workers work at most five and a half days out of seven, and as a rule they work during from eight to ten hours a day. Generally speaking, the pace at which British workmen work is not forced. Except in a few special industries overwork among the working men is practically unknown. Besides, the pace at which work is performed is as a rule deter- mined not by the employer, but by the employees. Nevertheless we read, "It is monstrous that, while some half million of men are vainly seeking employment, millions of their fellows should have no respite from arduous ill-requited toil and should be hastening to a premature death through overwork." ^ In prose and verse the British workers are constantly told that they are slaves ^ who are driven into starvation and suicide : Let them brag until in the face they are black That over oceans they hold their sway. Of the flag of Old England, the Union Jack, About which I have something to say. 'Tis said that it floats o'er the free ; but it waves Over thousands of hard-worked, ill-paid British slaves. Who are driven to pauper and suicide graves — The starving poor of Old England. Chorus. 'Tis the poor, the poor the taxes have to pay, The poor who are starving every day, "Who faint and die on the King's highway — The starving poor of Old England. ' Social- Democratic Federation Song Book, p. 29. ' Queleh, Tlie Social-Democratic Federation, p. 7. = Sidney Webb, The Difficulties of Individualism, p. 18. SOCIALIST VIEWS OF SOCIETY 17 There's the slaves of the needle and the slaves of the mine, The postmen, and the sons of the plough, And the hard-worked servants on the railway line. Who get little by the sweat of their brow. 'Tis said that the labourer is worthy of his hire ; But of whom does he get it ? we'd Uke to enquire. Not of any mill-owner, or farmer, or squire, Who grind down the poor of Old England.^ Now let us cast a glance at the Socialist picture of the society of the future under Socialistic rule. The first thing which Socialism would do would be to organise work, for " practical Socialism is a kind of national scheme of co-operation, managed by the State." ^ There would be no more employers, for " under Socialism aU the work of the nation would be managed by the nation for the nation,"^ and all would have plenty to eat, because " Socialism would leave no man to starve." ^ " All the work of the nation would be organised — that is to say, it would be ordered or arranged so that no one need be out of work, and so that no useless work need be done, and so that no work need be done twice where once would serve." ^ It is expected that the national organisation and administration of all the industries would prove more efficient than private enterprise. We are assured that " under Socialism the efficiency of production developed by Capitalism will not only be preserved but improved. Mechanical invention will be encouraged and utilised to the utmost." ^ Compulsory labour, State regulation of v7ork, and increased production would lead to increased consumption and increased comfort. " Who would deny ' Social-Democratic Federation Song Booh, p. 32. ^ Blatohford, Merrie England, p. 100. ' Blatchford, What is this Socialism ? p. 7. * Blatohford, Britain for the British, p. 96. ' Blatohford, What is this Socialism, ? pp. 5, 6. « Maodonald, Socialism, p. 74. 18 BEITISH SOCIALISM that, if it is everybody's duty to work, if the production of unnecessary — nay, even of injurious — articles is abol- ished, if production is organised in conformity with the real wants and pleasures of mankind — who would deny, I ask, that the standard of life of the whole human race might be raised infinitely above its present grade? " ' Although Socialism would make work compulsory to all, and place every man, woman, and child under the direction of the great Socialist organisation with its army of officials, and although it would destroy individual liberty as at present understood, by placing the daily life of every citizen under Government regulations and restrictions, it woald bring with it a greater liberty. Unfortunately the Socialists fail to say what that liberty consists in, and we must take their assurances in lieu of details. " Those who fear that Socialism will destroy individual liberty fail to distinguish between liberty and licence. Individualism is licence — it is the freedom of the individual to do as he likes without regard to the effect of his action on others, or even without regard to his own best welfare. Socialism is liberty ; for it vnll restrict the freedom of the individual to inflict injury upon others or to do what is morally injurious to him- self." ■' Socialism will release the British slaves out of their slavery, and restore them to everlasting freedom. " Such Socialism as we champion means for all future generations not slavery, but full and never-ending freedom." ^ " Socialism declares it to be the duty of man to remove all artificial barriers to the improvement of circumstances, in order that humanity, as a whole, may have freedom and all possible assistance to attain to its full stature, physically, mentally, and spiritually." * ' Sorge, Socialism and the Worker, p. 13. ' Snowden, The Individiml under Socialism, pp. 12, 13. ' Hyndman, Socialism and Slavery, p. 13. ' " Veritas," Did Jesus Christ teach Socialism ? p. 1. SOCIALIST VIEWS OF SOCIETY 19 With the introduction of the Socialist regime the earth would, as by a magician's wand, be transformed into a paradise. Over-population, bad harvests, the mal- adjustment of international demand and supply, and individual folly, laziness, wastefulness, improvidence, and passion would apparently no longer have the same unfortunate consequences which they have now. " The struggle for individual existence disappears. . . ."' " The words ' poor ' and ' charity ' v?ill be expunged from the dictionary as relics of a barbarous past." ^ " There would be no starvation, there would be no pauperism, there would be no sweaters ; there would be no bare- footed children in the streets ; there would be no fraudu- lent trustees, no bankrupts ; there would be no slums, no annual massacre of innocents by preventable disease ; there would be hardly such a thing known as ignorance, there would be scarcely any drunkenness, and crime would shrink to microscopic dimensions." ^ " Practical Socialism would educate the people. It would provide cheap and pure food. It would extend and elevate the means of study and amusement. It would foster literature and science and art. It would encourage and reward genius and industry. It would abolish sweat- ing and jerry-work. It would demolish the slums and erect good and handsome dwellings. It would compel all men to do some kind of useful work. It would recreate and nourish the craftsman's pride in his craft. It would protect women and children. It would raise the standard of health and morality ; and it would take the sting out of pauperism by paying pensions to honest workers no longer able to work." '' " There is something in Socialism to kill ignorance and to destroy vice. There is something in it to shut up ' Engels, SociaUsm : Utopian and Scientific, p. 81. ' Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 170. ' Blatohford, The Pope's SociaUsm, p. 16. " Blatchfoi'd, Merrie England, p. 102. c 2 20 BEITISH SOCIALISM the gaols, to do away with prostitution, to reduce crime and drunkenness, and wipe out for ever the sweater and the slums, the beggars and the idle rich, the useless fine ladies and lords, and to make it possible for sober and willing workers to live healthy, and happy, and honour- able lives." ^ The Socialist Government would apparently be all- powerful and all-wise. At any rate, it would improve the character of the people. " Socialism would teach and train all children wisely; it would foster genius and devotion to the common good ; it would kill scamping, and loafing, and jerrymandering ; it would give us better health, better homes, better work, better food, better lives, and better men and women." ^ When Socialism is introduced and private capital abolished, the golden age of the world will begin : When all mankind are workers. And no drones in the hive ; Oh, what a happy, glorious time They'll have who are alive. This world will be a garden. An Eden Ml of bliss ; Oh, brother — sister — won't you strive For such a state as this ? There will be no starving children, no ; Nor tramps, nor beggars then ; No workhouses, nor prisons, and No slums, nor sweater's den. The land-grabber and the vampire, And the fleecer of our toil, Will all have ceased to crush us In their vile rush for the spoil.' So far we have looked chiefly at the economic con- sequences which the introduction of Socialism is going to ' Blatchford, Britain for the British, p. 89. ' Ibid. p. 89. ' Neil, Songs of the Social Revolution, p. 8. SOCIALIST VIEWS OF SOCIETY 21 bring about. However, according to the Socialists, it is not true that " Socialism is merely sordid and material, and has no regard for the more ideal side of human interests. The Socialist recognises, far more than others, the higher ideals of human life as being its true end." ^ Therefore " Socialism seeks to improve the physical, mental, and spiritual environment of every man, woman, and child, so that all mankind may be purer, healthier, happier, stronger, nobler, and that each generation may be nearer perfection than the one immediately preceding." ^ In other words, " the creation of a higher type of mankind than the modern man will be the result of Socialism. Men will have no need to think, day in, day out, where to get the bread for to-morrow." ' " Material conditions form the fundamental basis of human existence. When these become common property, free to all and abundant for all, they will cease to have that importance they now possess. The sordid struggle for mere material things will disappear ; free play vyill be given to man's higher faculties, and the struggle, competition, or emulation between man and man will be for the realisation of his highest conceivable aspirations." ^ According to many Socialists, money and wages would disappear. Food, clothing, lodging, &c., would be given gratis to the citizens. " Under ideal Socialism there would be no money at all and no wages. The industry of the country would be organised and managed by the State, much as the Post Office now is ; goods of all kinds would be produced and distributed for use, and not for sale, in such quantities as were needed ; hours of labour would be fixed, and every citizen would take what he or she desired from the common stock. Food, clothing, ' Bax and Queleh, A New CatecMsm of Socialism, p. 43. 2 " Veritas," Did Jesus Christ teach Socialism ? r- !• ' Kautsky, The Social Revohition, p. 43. ' Bax and Qaelch, A New Catechism of Socialism, p. 44. 22 BEITI8H SOCIALISM lodging, fuel, transit, amusements, and all other things would be absolutely free, and the only difference between a prime minister and a collier would be the difference of rank and occupation." ^ Not only food, clothing, and shelter would be supplied gratis by a bountiful State to the people. In order to banish ennui from among the workers, entertainments and amusements also would be provided, free of charge. Gratis travel on the railways would make life a per- manent holiday, and the last cause of dissatisfaction would be removed by transferring the surroundings of the gratuitously maintained and amused people into a garden of Eden. " I would have the towns rebuilt with wide streets, with detached houses, with gardens and fountains and avenues of trees. I would make the railways, the carriage of letters, and the transit of goods as free as the roads and bridges. I would make the houses loftier and larger, and clear them of all useless furniture. I would institute public dining-halls, public baths, public washhouses on the best plans, and so set free the hands of those slaves — our English women. I would have public parks, public theatres, music-halls, gymnasiums, football and cricket fields, public halls and public gardens for recreation and music and refreshment. I would have all our children fed and clothed and educated at the cost of the State. I would have them all taught to play and to sing. I would have them all trained to athletics and to arms. I would have public halls of science. I would have the people become their own artists, actors, musicians, soldiers, and pohce. Then, by degrees, I would make all these things free." ^ In the words of the Socialist poet — We'll grow up true men and women And enjoy life from our birth.' ' BlatohJord, Mefi-rie England, p. 103. '•' Ibid. pp. 43, 44. ^ Neil, Songs of the Social Revolution, p. 8. SOCIALIST VIEWS OF SOCIETY 23 Men, being no longer compelled to work hard for a living, will lose the desire for wealth and all that wealth supplies and will devote themselves more and more to the culture of their mind. " Under Socialism the posses- sion of riches will cease to be a ruling passion, for honest labour will be a guarantee against want, and riches will no longer be the passport to social position. Under such conditions the possession of riches will be a superfluous burden which no sane man will wish to bear." ' "When land and capital are the common property of all the people, class distinctions, as we know them at present, will no longer exist. The Mind will then be the standard by which a man's place among his fellows will be deter- mined." ^ Hence " Socialism means the elevation of the struggle for existence from the material to the intellectual plane. Socialism will raise the struggle for existence into a sphere where competition shall be emulation, where the treasures are boundless and eternal, and where the abundant wealth of one does not cause the poverty of another." ' The poet has described in a vision this phase oi the golden age of Socialism as follows : A strain of distant music Floats on the gentle breeze, Its captivating sweetness Bends e'en the proudest knees ; Now soft as angel whispers, Then, loud as trumpet's blast It sounds the knell of sorrows And pains for ever past. Now sweeter and more varied, The music doth appear ; Ten thousand harps Mohsin Seem to be drawing near. ' Snowden, The Individual imder Socialism, p. 9. ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 24. ' Snowden, The Individual under Socialism, p. 8. 24 BEITISH SOCIALISM Ten thousand angels' voices Are mingled with the strain, Chanting the song of Freedom — Justice has come to reign ; Telling of bounteous harvests, Of waving golden corn, Waiting the reaper's sickle. And asking to be shorn ; Lands rich with milk and honey Promised in days of yore ; Asking all those that hunger To eat and faint no more. The song grows loud and mighty As thunder in the storm. The tyrant quakes and trembles, And hides his guilty form ; And stronger and still stronger The joyous chorus grows — Eejoice ! all ye that labour. Ye triumph o'er your foes."- " SocialiBm, being at the same time the sublimest science, art, and religion, will naturally elevate man. The British people will become a nation of scientists and philosophers who, throwing natural enjoyments aside, Will lead a life of pure intellectual happiness. Mortal men will become demi-gods. " Socialism will justify God's way to man." ^ " Socialism comes as the Angel of Light bearing to mankind this message of truth. Socialism, equipped with all the learning of the ages, takes up the ripest teaching of the poet, the philosopher, the economist, the scientist, the historian, and joins the conclusion of each together into one harmonious whole. Now we know that suffering, misery, and poverty are a ' Clarion Song Book, p. 18. " Snowden, Tfie Individual tmder SociaUsm, p. 8. SOCIALIST VIEWS OF SOCIETY 25 violation of God's will. Now we know that the fulness of time has come for us to cast the last relic of our fallen nature from us and to follow the beckoning angel who is waiting to lead us back through the gates of Paradise into an Eden of intellectual joys." ^ These things shall be ! a loftier race Than e'er the world hath known shall rise With flame of freedom in their souls, And light of science in their eyes. They shall be gentle, brave, and strong. To spiU no drop of blood, but dare All that may plant man's lordship firm On earth, and fire, and sea, and air. Nation with nation, land with land. Unarmed shall live as comrades free ; In every heart and brain shall throb The pulse of one fraternity. New arts shall bloom of loftier mould, And mightier music thrill the skies, And every life shall be a song When all the earth is paradise. These things — they are no dreams — shall be For happier men when we are gone. These golden days for them shall dawn. Transcending aught we gaze upon.^ All men will be brothers. The difference among nations and races will disappear by the rule of love and justice. "Justice is to be the foundation on which we must build : not the kind of justice we have hitherto considered as sufficient for us, and which many countries ' Snowden, The Individual under Socialism, p. 9. ^ Clarion Song Book, p. 14. 26 BEITISH SOCIALISM pride themselves is their watchword and standard, but a justice that demands freedom for all." ' Equal rights it gives, my brothers, To the eagle and the dove ; Eight to air, and light, and knowledge. Eight to rise your toil above — Hearken ! hearken ! O, my brothers. For this new gifeaA Eight is Love.^ Wars will be abolished. There's a good time coming, boys, A good time coming ; The pen shall supersede the sword, And right, not might, shall be the lord In the good time coming. Worth, not birth, shall rule mankind, And be acknowledged stronger ; The proper impulse has been giv'n — Wait a little longer.^ Being a religion of peace and love, and preaching the brotherhood of man. Socialism will conquer the world. " Socialism with its promise of freedom, its larger hope for humanity, its triumph of peace over war, its binding of the races of the earth into one all-embracing brother- hood, must prevail." * "We mean the establishment of a political power which shall have for its conscious and definite aim the common ownership and control of the whole of the world's industry, exchange, &c." ° According to many Socialists, Socialism is not an original religion, but it is the most sublime form of Christianity. " Socialism is in accordance with the revealed will of God." ^ " Karl Marx was an utter ' Forcl, Women and Socialism, p. 2. ^ Clarion Song Book, p. 31. '■> Ibid. p. 25. ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 104. ' Bax and Quelch, A New Catechism of Socialism, p. 9. ' "Veritas," Did Jesus Christ teach Socialism? p. 15. SOCIALIST VIEWS OF SOCIETY 27 pagan, but there is not an essential proposition in ' Das Kapital ' that Jesus of Nazareth did not inculcate. Is it a question of rent? You are as much entitled to immunity from it as the birds of the air, or the grass of the fields. Is it a question of usury or interest ? Lend, hoping for nothing again. Is it a question of profit or inequitable exchange ? Do imto others as ye would that they should do unto you." ^ " Did Jesus Christ teach Socialism? Unless we are prepared to deny the truth of the Gospel, there can be but one answer — Yes. And Socialism naturally evolves from Christianity." ^ Socialism will mean the establishment of the rule of Christ upon earth. " The political democracy, dominated by the social ideal, will be the coming of Christ to rule the nations in righteousness." ^ The Socialist leaders see visions. "I do sometimes dream dreams, and I see a vision of what the world will be when this spirit of love and sacrifice which has actuated some noble spirits in all ages and which shone with the glory of full perfection in the life and example of Jesus of Nazareth — I some- times see, as through a glass darkly, a vision of what the world will be when this spirit of love and sacrifice shall animate all men. I see our modern towns swept away, and in their place beautiful cities whose buildings reflect the pride of the community in their common life, and whose healthy homes show the value society attaches to the individual life. I see everywhere a change come over the face of the landscape ; every meadow smiles with plenty, every valley blossoms as the rose, every hill is green with the glory of Lebanon. I see a revived art and a revived literature. I see a people healthy, happy, cultured, contented, whose wealth is life, full and free, ' whose ways are ways of pleasantness, whose flowery ' Davidson, The Gospel of the Poor, p. 153. ' " Veritas," Did Jesus Christ teach Socialism? p. 16. ■• Snowden, The Christ that is to be, p. 13. 28 BEITISH SOCIALISM paths are paths of peace.' And my vision extends, though more dimly, beyond the confines of my own dear land, and I see this spirit of brotherhood among the nations has broken down international barriers, and international hatred is no more. The sword is beaten into a plough- share, the spear into a pruning-hook, and the peoples of all lands are one, each freely sharing of its special bounties to add to the comforts of all." ^ The new Christian religion, like the old one, demands its saints and its martyrs, if not the reincarnation of Christ. " The only way to regain the earthly paradise is by the old, hard road to Calvary — through persecution, through poverty, through temptation, by the agony and bloody sweat, by the crown of thorns, by the agonising death, and then the resurrection to the New Humanity^— purified by suffering, triumphant through Sacrifice." ^ The new Christ also has his forerunner and herald. " Mr. Keir Hardie, M.P., the leader of the Labour Party, resembles John the Baptist," ' and the Socialist leaders will do even greater things than did Christ. We are told : " When Christ told His disciples that it was possible for them to do greater things than they had seen Him do they must have been fairly staggered. Just think for a moment of the nature of the works He had done, most of them in their very presence. Those who are striving to obtain a better social order and provide a fairer distri- bution of the good gifts of God among the sons of men, these men I say, in so far as their efforts are successful, are doing greater things than Christ did when He per- formed the miracle of feeding the hungry." * " Man is only irresistible when he acts from passion. The masses of men are never moved except by passions ' Snowden, The Christ that is to be, pp. 13, 14. ' Ibid. p. 14. ^ " Veritas," Did Jesus Christ teach Socialism ? p. 4. ' Ward, Prevention is Better than Cv/re, pp. 2, 5, and 6. SOCIALIST VIEWS OF SOCIETY 29 feelings, interests. It is of course to the discontented wage-earners that the Socialist can appeal with the greatest chance of success." ^ All Socialists agree in depict- ing to the workers life in present society as hell incarnate and in giving a picture of life in the Socialist State of the future which resembles the descriptions found in the " Arabian Nights " tales. They only disagree in this : that some promise him heaven, whilst those possessed of less enthusiasm promise him only an earthly paradise. ' Gronlund, The Co-operative Comrmmwealth, p. 184. 30 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTEE III THE GRIEVANCES OF THE SOCIALISTS " Socialism is not only a theory of another and better system of society : it is an indictment of the existing order." ^ The SociaHst conception of society as at present constituted, given in the preceding chapter, will have prepared the reader to some extent for the Socialist grievances. These grievances are three in number, and may be summed up as follows : (1) The workers are for all practical purposes slaves who are kept in chains and forced to work by the capitalist class. (2) The rich men cause the poverty of the poor by defrauding them of the largest part of their wages. (3) The workers receive only from one third to one fourth of the wage which is their rightful due. Let us look into these grievances. According to the Socialist leaders, the workers — Helots in hunger nursed Slaves of their reign accursed ^ — keep the rich in affluence. Nevertheless they themselves are kept in poverty, degradation, and slavery by the capitalists whom they nourish by their labour. " The landlord owns the raw material and can live in idleness. The capitalist owns the machinery and can live in idleness. The worker has nothing, except his ability to work, and ' Justice, October 19, 1907. ^ Social- Democratic Federation Song Book, p. 13. THE GEIEVANCES OF THE SOCIALISTS 31 he cannot work without the consent of the landlord and the capitalist. Therefore, he is virtually a slave. He cannot control his own life." ^ As a matter of fact the position of the worker is worse than was that of the slave. " It did not always pay to starve a slave, because if he died you might have to buy another one. Therefore the lot of the slave under a good master was in many respects better than that of the proletariat in our great cities." ^ " Poverty rather than property is the reward of labour to-day."^ "Poverty is our reward for creating plenty, and the class that lives in luxury by exploiting our labour contemptuously informs us that the law of supply and demand condemns us to suffer the most hideous privation whenever our excessive industry has created a glut of all the things that satisfy human needs." * The workers are unfree, being enslaved by the capitalists. It is true that they possess freedom of con- tract, but freedom of contract, like individual liberty, is an illusion, because the workers, being penniless, are com- pelled to accept whatever work is obtainable, and to be satisfied with whatever wages are offered. " The right to sell in the markets is now well established, but the chief difficulty vsdfch the majority of workers lies in the fact that they have nothing but their labour to sell, and a market is not easy to find even for that." ^ Although co-operation has made millions of workers in Germany, France, Belgium, and other countries pros- perous and independent, independence is, according to the Socialists, for some unspecified reason, unobtainable for the workers of Great Britain, and co-operation is a failure. " The chance of the great bulk of the labourers ever coming to work upon their own land and capital in ' The Worker^s Burden, p. 1. ' Hyndman, Social Democracy, p. 9. ' Macdonald, Socialism, p. 12. ^ Protect the Home, p. 1. * John Ball, p. 10. 32 BEITISH SOCIALISM associations for co-operative production, has become even less hopeful than it ever was." '■ " Everywhere the work- man is coming to understand that it is practically hope- less for him, either individually or co-operatively, to own the constantly growing mass of capital by the use of which he lives." ' The advent of the great industry has not benefited but harmed him. "The supersession of the small by the great industry has given the main fruits of invention and the new power over Nature to a comparatively small proprietary class, upon whom the mass of the people are dependent for leave to earn their living." * " The worker is now a mere item in a vast industrial army over the organisation and direction of which he has no control. He is free, but free only to choose to which master he will sell his labour — free only to decide from which proprietor he will beg that access to the new instruments of production without which he cannot exist." ^ As the capitalist class owns the factories, workshops, &c., the worker has become to that class a slave in the full and generally accepted meaning of the word. " The effect of private property in land and capital is in all essential respects the same as was the effect of private property in human beings. In each case slavery is the result. The form may have changed, but the substance remains." ^ " The labourer to-day is a slave, and labour has become a mark of bondage." * Except for a slight difference in outward form, the British wage-slaves are no better off than were the black slaves on the sugar plantations in the past. " Much as the ' free-born Briton ' may dislike to hear the painful truth recited, it is a fact, ' Facts for Socialists, p. 12. ' Sidney Webb, The Difficulties of Indiv^d^lalism, p. 15. ^ Ibid. p. 7. * Ibid. p. 12. ' Keir Hardie, Can a Man be a Christian on a Povmd a Week ? p. 12. ' MoClure, SodaUsm, p. 27. THE GEIEVANCBS OP THE SOCIALISTS 33 not to be controverted, that four-fifths of our total population are bound as completely and as miserably as ever v?as a black African slave to a Western planter. There is no real freedom which is not economic freedom, He is a slave who depends for his bread upon the will or the whim of a man like himself, or of a number of such masters." ' In other words, capitalism and slave-owning are for all practical purposes synonymous words, as may be seen from the Socialist Catechism : " Q. What con- stitutes the chief difference between capitalism and slave- owning ? A. The fact that the capitalist goes through the form of bargaining with the labourer as to the amount of the portion of the produce that shall be returned to him. — Q. What is this farce called? A. Freedom of contract. — Q. In what sense is it free ? ^. In this sense — that the labourer is free to take what is offered or nothing. — Q. Has he anything to fall back upon ? A. He has absolutely nothing in countries where the tyranny of capitalism is untempered by any form of Socialism." - To those working men who might object that it is a gross exaggeration to say that the British worker is a slave, and that he is penniless, the SociaUst agitator answers : " What ? You are a free man and not a slave ? There are no slaves in this country ? What is a slave ? One who works at the bidding of another, and only by permission of another, and for the profit of that other. Does not that fit your case exactly ? Do you work when you like and idle when you like ? Not you ! You work when the capitalist requires your labour, when your services will be useful in making a profit for him. When that is not the case you can starve in the gutter, although there may be all the necessaries of life in profusion around you. These things do not belong to you, although you and your class have made them ; they are so much ' Ethel Snowden, The Woman Socialist, p. 11. ' Joynes, The SociaUst Catechism, p. 5. 34 BEITISH SOCIALISM wealth which your masters have acquired from your unpaid labour, things which you have produced, but for which you have never been paid, out of which you have been swindled by the natural operation of the system of wage-slavery of which you are the unconscious victim. From this condition of things there is no escape while the whole of the people do not own the means of pro- duction. Nothing but the abolition of the class owner- ship of the means of life, and the substitution of owner- ship of the whole people, will abolish this form of slavery." ^ The foregoing grievance is absurd. If regular work for a regular wage, agreed upon by contract, is slavery, then all salaried men from the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor downward are also " wage-slaves." The Socialist agitator, after having told the working men that they are no better off than negro slaves, then asks his hearers, as a rule : " Why is it that the pro- ducers in this country are the poorest of the population ? Why is it that those who do not produce are the richest ? " ^ The manner in which this question is put suggests the reply. Indeed, all Socialists agree in holding the rich responsible for the poverty of the poor, as the following utterances will show : " Socialism contends that the poverty of the poor is caused by robbery on the part of the rich. The mansion explains the hovel. Belgravia has its counterpart in Shoreditch. The factory, the foundry, the ship-building yard account for the shooting lodge, the yacht, and the tours in foreign lands. The long day's toil of one class renders possible the life-long play of the other." ^ "If you have no unemployed at the top of the social ladder you will have none at the bottom."* ' To the Man in the Street, Social-Demooratie Federation Leaflet. 2 Hyndman in Debate, Will Socialism Benefit the English People ? p. 5. ' Leatham, The Class War, p. 4. * Socialism, For and Against, p. 6, THE GEIEVANCES OF THE SOCIALISTS 35 " The riches of the rich class are the cause of the poverty of the masses." ^ " You make the automobile, he rides in it. If it were not for you, he would walk ; and if it were not for him, you would ride." ^ " Colossal poverty is the foundation of colossal wealth ; he who would eliminate the poverty of the masses assails the wealth of the few." ' The foregoing arguments, or rather assertions, may sound very convincing and may be exceedingly useful for propaganda purposes, but they are disproved by facts. If the existence of the rich were the cause of the poverty of the masses, the workers in countries which possess few rich capitalists, such as Ireland, Spain, Italy, Servia, and Bulgaria, should be exceedingly well off ; the workers in the countries where the richest millionaires live, such as the United States, should be the poorest. In reality, the American workmen are the most prosperous, whilst the workers in Ireland and other millionaire-less countries are the poorest. Eich men are not the consumers, but merely the trustees and managers, of the national wealth which is invested chiefly in reproductive undertakings — mills, railways, mines, &c. — which supply comforts and conveniences to all. The capitalists, the employers, British Socialists say, have become rich by defrauding the worker of his wages. The worker must starve so that a few rich people may live in luxury, and things will become better for the worker only when there are no more rich men. " The gains of the capitalist are simply the losses of labour ! The partly or wholly unearned incomes of the rich con- sist of the unpaid, withheld wages of the industrious poor." * " Only by living off another man's labour and ' Snowden, Socialists' Bridget, p. 11. ^ Debs, Industrial Unionism, p. 6. ' Kautsky, Class Struggle, p. 10. ' HaJl, The Old and New Unionism, p. 4. D 2 36 BEITISH SOCIALISM denying another man the fruits of his toil can riches be acquired. Eiches are directly responsible for poverty, and the art of being rich is the art of keeping one's neigh- bour poor. When there are no rich there will be no poor. To the wealth of the few, acquired at the expense of the many, and not to drink or want of thrift, are all the evils of our social life to be ascribed." ^ " Production is carried on to-day purely in the interest and for the profit of the class which owns the instruments of production." " There are ninety-and-nine who live and die In want and hunger and cold, That one may revel in luxury, And be wrapped in its silken fold ; The ninety-and-nine in their hovels bare, The one in a palace with riches rare.-' Ye poor of wealthy England, Who starve and sweat and freeze By labour sore to fill the store Of those who live at ease ; 'Tis time to know your real friends, To face your real foe. And to fight for your right Till ye lay your masters low ; Small hope for you of better days Till ye lay your masters low.* The working men are, according to the Socialist agitators, " excluded " from property by the capitalist class which owns all the land, factories, machinery, &c. The capitalist class has thus reserved for itself a monopoly of all the instruments of production. Consequently, " the only means by which the excluded class can live is by working for the capitalist class — by getting some one or ' Lister, Riches and Poverty, pp. 13, 14. ^ Bax and Quelch, A New Catechism of Socialism, p. 7. ' Poems for Socialists, p. 8. ' Social- Democratic Federatimi Song Book, p. 25. THE GEIBVANCES OF THE SOCIALISTS 37 other of the capitahst class to allow them access to the tools and materials in his possession, and pay them wages in return for their labour." ' However, the capitahsts do not grant to the workers access to the instruments of production free of charge. They exact a toll from them, and employ them only if, by so doing, they can secure a profit for themselves. In the fact that an employer will engage workmen only if he can make a profit by their labour, the Socialists see a cruel injustice. " Your capitahst class draw upon this excluded horde of landless, tooUess, foodless lack-alls, and do actually find work for as many as they can employ at a profit to themselves. This excluded class have no rights — not even the ele- mentary right to exist. What God meant by creating them when He knew, or might have known, that every- thing belonged to the capitalists, nobody can understand." ^ " The whole of our industrial system is founded on a principle existing nowhere else in Nature, the principle of production and distribution for profit. If no employer can make a profit out of the worker's labour he is cast into the unemployed army." ' " Seven out of every eight persons in your community, 37,500,000 of the men. and women, and children who form your nation, ean lay no claim to any right to exist — exist only on sufferance. If one or other of the irresponsible persons who own the country can be induced to allow them to earn their bread, well and good ; if not, they must die. At the present moment there are 700,000 persons shut out in this manner from any chance of obtaining food to eat. You call it being ' out of work,' and can see the spectral army, 700,000 strong, hungry and in want. They are not kept idle and hungry because there is no ' work.' The earth is there with all its boundless store that their ' work ' would turn into wealth if they could but get at it. They ' Washington, A Corner m Flesh and Blood, p. 14. 2 Ibid. ' Benson, Socialism, p. 5. 38 BETTISH SOCIALISM are kept idle because those who own the country cannot find them employment at a profit to themselves, because the blind, fatuous insanity of your ' system of trade ' makes no provision even for keeping its slaves in work." ^ According to the Socialists, the employer of labour has no right to work at a profit, and the capitalist has no right to demand rent or interest. " The great central truth of Socialistic economy, ever to be kept in mind, is Adam Smith's definition of wages : ' The produce of labour is the natural recompense or wages of labour.' From this ' natural recompense ' rent and profit are, in Socialist eyes, unnatural, illegitimate abstractions, to be recovered and added to wages as speedily as possible." ^ " Profit is the result of unpaid labour ; it is the produce of the working man, for which the latter receives no equivalent. If he received his proper and just share, if the capitalist could not deprive him of this, then the capitalist could make no profit." ' Not only are " rent " and " profit " illegitimate abstractions, but they are downright theft. Every land- owner, every banker, every manufacturer, every shop- keeper is a thief. All business for profit is swindling. " Land-rent and capital-rent are thefts from the produce of labour." * " The manufacturer aims primarily at producing, by means of the labour he has stolen from others, not goods, but profits."^ "What is successful business but cheating? What is the whole basis of capitalist industry but the use of the means of pro- duction, not for the legitimate end of producing wealth for use, but for the purpose of making profit for the few ' Washington, Nation of Slaves, p. 11. ' Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 30. ' Some Objections to Socialism, p. 7. ^ Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 45. = Morris, Useful Work and Useless Toil, p. 30. THE GEIEVANCES OE THE SOCIALISTS 39 by despoiling, sweating, pillaging, and murdering the many ? " ^ Even the more moderate Socialists complain that work is carried on by the employers only " at a profit to themselves," and they wish to abolish this state of affairs, which, they argue, is demoraHsing to the working men, and is the cause of low wages and unemployment. " The workman is called into the workshop when capital can profitably employ him, and turned adrift again the moment capital finds it can no longer turn his services to profitable account. He is not consulted as to when he shall be employed or when cast adrift. His necessities and those of his dependents are no concern of anyone save himself. He has no right to employment, no one is under obligation to find him work, nor is he free to work for himself, since he has neither the use of land nor the command of the necessary capital." ^ " So long as industry is carried on for profit instead of for use, for gain instead of for need, so long must the evils of low wages and no wages go on." ' The grievance that the manufacturers manufacture " not for use but for profit " is ridiculous. The manu- facturers manufacture things which the public will buy and use. There is consequently no distinction between manufacturing for use and manufacturing for profit, except this, that no manufacturer will give his time and trouble, and run considerable risks, without adequate compensation. The complaint must therefore be limited to the fact that the employer of labour makes a profit. The question now arises : " What does the manufacturer do with his earnings? " In the vast majority of cases he will use by far the larger part of his profits for renewing machinery and enlarging his works, and thus increase the ' Some Objections to Socialism, p. 20. ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 52. ' Hall, The Old and New Urnoimm, p. 5. 40 BEITISH SOCIALISM national capital and the national power of production, spending privately only a director's salary which he would also receive as a director-employee of the Socialist commonwealth. " The employer who works without a profit breaks himself," ^ and in breaking himself he breaks up the factory. Universal production regardless of profit would lead to universal bankruptcy, whilst the curtailing of profits may lead to a proportionate curtailment in the expansion of industry and in the production of articles for use, and to general poverty. It has the same effect whether the workers destroy the capitalist's capital or whether they break the machinery and devastate the corn-fields. The complaints of the Socialists as to the way in which the workers are exploited by the capitalist class are foimded not only on arguments such as those given in the foregoing but on figures as well, and these are exceedingly curious and interesting. Under titles such as "How the Worker is Eobbed,"'' statements are made every day, and by all Socialists, which are to prove that the national income is inequitably divided between capitalists and workers. These statements are calculated to make every workman's blood boil, and they seem to confirm the contention of the Socialists that the capi- talists inhumanely plunder the working masses. How- ever, these figures are so palpably false and so grossly misleading that attention cannot sufficiently strongly be drawn to the deception which is constantly being practised upon the workers. I hope, therefore, that my readers will patiently and carefully consider the following. The figures relating to the yearly income of the "capitalist class" and the "working class" which are given in innumerable Socialistic writings, and which are brought forward at almost every Socialist meeting and ' Maodonald, Socialism, p. 6. ' The Socialist Annual, 1907, p. 16 f. THE GEIBVANCES OF THE SOCIALISTS 41 lecture, are usually taken from a pamphlet entitled " Facts for Socialists from the Political Economists and Statisticians," published by theFabian Society. The copy lying before me bears the notice, " Tenth Edition (Eevised), 111th thousand, 1906." That pamphlet furnishes the statistical basis of fact to the Socialist agitation. Its effect may be measured by its enormous circulation. It contains a vast number of quotations from Blue-books, political economists, and statisticians ; and a certain show of learning, of thoroughness, and of conscientiousness gives it at first sight the appearance of being a reliable and honest production. However, appearances are pro- verbially deceptive. According to "Facts for Socialists," the whole national income amounts to 1,800,000,000?. per year (page 3), and is derived from the following sources : " I.— Ebnt " The total profits from the ownership of lands, houses, tithes, &c., the rents of mines, quarries, iron- works, gasworks, waterworks, canals, fishings, shoot- ings, markets, tolls, &c., must amount to at least 290,000,000?.' " II. — Inteeest on Capital " The profits of public companies, foreign invest- ments, railways, &c., assessed to income tax in the United Kingdom, the interest payable from British public funds and from Indian, Colonial, and Foreign Governments' funds, and the interest on capital employed in private undertakings of manufacture or trade cannot be less than 360,000,000?. Adding hereto the rent (290,000,000?.), we have a total of 650,000,000?. for rent and interest together. This represents the proportion ' Fads for Socialists, p. 5. 42 BEITISH SOCIALISM of the nation's income claimed from the workers, not in return for any service rendered to the community, hut merely as the payment for permission to use the land and the already accumulated capital of the country} "III. — Profits and Salaries " The numbers and total income of this large class cannot be exactly ascertained. It includes workers of all grades, from the exceptionally skilled artisan to the Prime Minister, and from the city clerk to the President of the Eoyal Academy. It is convenient for statistical purposes to include in it all those who do not belong to the ' manual labour class.' If we take the ' rent of ability ' to have increased in the same proportion as the assessments to income tax, this prosperous body may be estimated to receive for its work as profits and salaries about 460,000,000Z. annually. 2 " Adding up the income from " Eent," " Interest and Capital," and "Profits and Salaries," the pamphlet con- tinues : "The Classes " The total drawn by the legal disposers of what are sometimes called the ' three rents ' of land, capital, and ability amounts at present to about 1,110,000,000?. yearly, or just under two-thirds of the total produce. "And the Masses "Allowing for the increase since these estimates were made, we may safely say that the manual labour class receives for all its millions of workers only some 690,000,000Z." => ' Facts for Socialists, pp. 6, 7. ^ Ibid. p. 7. ' Ibid. p. 8. THE GEIEVANCES OF THE SOCIALISTS 43 In a short table the distribution of the national income is then given as follows : Eent £290,000,000 Interest 360,000,000 Profits and Salaries .... 460,000,000 Total (that is, the income of the legal proprietors of the three natural monopohes of land, capital, and abihty) . . . 1,110,000,000 Income of manual labour class . . 690,000,000 Total produce A"l,800,000,000 ^ At first sight it seems outrageous that " the income of the legal proprietors of the three natural monopolies of land, capital, and ability " should come to 1,110,000,000Z. per annum, and the income of the manual labour class only to 690,000,0001!. per annum, about one-third of the whole, especially as we learn on page 4 of the pamphlet that the " idle rich " are only a small fraction of the community. This statement would prove the assertion that the idle rich are causing the poverty of the poor to be correct if it were honest and fair, but it is neither the one nor the other. In the first place the foregoing statement divides the nation into two classes "the masses " and "the classes : manual labourers and " the legal proprietors of the three natural monopolies." As the pamphlet is addressed to the uncritical body of general readers, and especially to working men, these will naturally divide, owing to the artful wording of the phrase, the national income between manual labourers and capitalist monopolists. According to this pamphlet everyone who is not a labourer is a capitalist monopolist. Therefore the capitalist monopolist class includes all lawyers and ' Facts for Socialists, pp. 8, 9. 44 BEITISH SOCIALISM doctors, all parsons and clerks, all officers and salaried officials. Every business man, every farmer, every fisher- man, every greengrocer, every baker, every butcher, every sailor, every cobbler, every chimney-sweep, every clerk, being not a wage-earning labourer, is " one of the legal proprietors of the three natural monopolies," or in plainer language, a monopolist. At least, the income of this very large class has barefacedly been credited to the capitalist class, whilst its members have been utilised (on page 4 of the pamphlet) to swell the ranks of the workers. This is dishonesty number one. The income of the exceptionally skilled artisans, who also form a very large class, is credited on page 7 to the "classes" under the heading "profits and salaries." They also are included among the " monopolists," although their number has likewise been utilised (on page 4) to swell the number of the workers. This is dis- honesty number two. Let us now look at the result of the dishonest Fabian juggling with figures by comparing the statement re- garding the national income contained in the Fabian pamphlet with a recent statement of Mr. Chiozza Money, M.P., who is a Socialist, and who divides the national income as follows : Income of working class (33,000,000 people) .... about £650,000,000 Income of middle class (all except manual labourers and the rich — small business men, managers, clerks, public servants, &c., with incomes up to £700—9,750,000 people) .... about 475,000,000 Income of rich (with incomes £700 and above) (1,250,000 people) about 600,000,000 Total . . . about £1,725,000,0001 ' See Daily News, November 28, 1907. THE GEIEVANCES OF THE SOCIALISTS 45 From the foregoing statement it appears that the rich draw not two-thirds, but only one-third, of the national income, and this fact should be carefully borne in mind in view of the contents of the following pages. The pamphlet states on page 6 that 65O,OO0,O0OZ. per annum are paid in the shape of rent and interest, " not in return for any service rendered to the community, but merely as the payment for permission to use the land and the already accumulated capital of the country." The national capital is invested chiefly in perishable objects such as houses, factories, railways, steamships, mines, &c., which depreciate unless kept in proper repair. There is wear and tear in capital as in everything else. Capital is lost and destroyed every day. Lastly, the national capital is growing, and must continue growing, in accordance with the growing capital requirements of the time and the growing number of its inhabitants, or the country will decay. New houses, new factories, new railways, new steamships must be built and new mines be opened to increase the comfort of all. From 200,000,000?. to 300,000,000/. are thus reinvested every year in Great Britain, and only by this constant process of reinvestment is it possible to maintain and increase the productive power of the country for the benefit of all. The 200,000,000Z. to 300,000,OOOZ. which are yearly re- invested in reproductive undertakings are found by the capitalists, the trustees, directors and managers, not the consumers, of the national industry and of the national wealth. This sum comes out of their earnings, which thus benefit not only the capitalists but the whole nation. Much irrelevant statistical matter is given in the pam- phlet, but this large item is left out. That is dishonesty number three. On page 6 the profits of public companies are treated as " Interest on capital," and interest on capital is dis- paragingly called " unearned income " on page 7. Most 46 BEITISH SOCIALISM British industries are carried on by limited companies, and limited companies are as a rule formed in this way, that the partners in the former private enterprise become directors. As directors they receive a purely nominal salary. They work as much as they did whilst the business was a private concern, and their income depends on their usually very large holding of shares. The large director-shareholders, and their number is very great, earn their dividends by hard work. Nevertheless their whole income is included in the item " interest on capital," and called " unearned income." This is dishonesty number four. On page 7 the property of the " manual labour class," or the poor, in land and capital is given as follows : — In 1901 the deposits in P.O. Savings Bank were . . £140,392,916 The deposits in Trustee Savings Banks were . 51,966,386 Consols purchased for small holders were . . . 14,450,877 In 1900 the capital of Building Societies was . . . 46,775,143 The funds of Trade-Unions, Co-operative, Friendly, and Provident Societiea were . 72,219,991 The funds of Industrial Life Assurance Societies were . 22,998,793 Total .... £348,804,1061 In reality the property of the " manual labour class " in land and capital amounts not to 348,804, 1061., but to at least 1,000,000,000^2 This is dishonesty number five. The imports of Great Britain are larger than the exports by about 150,000,000Z. The larger part of the money paid for these imports goes in wages paid to ' Facts for Socialists, p. 7. '' See Mr. Quail's paper in the Contenvporary Review for August 1907, THE GEIEVANCES OF THE SOCIALISTS 47 foreigners, and is paid away by the British capitalist class out of their earnings. British wage-earners surely cannot expect to be paid wages in respect of articles made abroad. However, no allowance for this large item has been made in comparing the appropriation of the national income between capital and labour. This is dishonesty number six. Between one hundred and two hundred million pounds of the national income is derived from foreign invest- ments. The income derived from foreign investments should in fairness either be left out of the account or the income of foreign labour, received in respect of these investments, be added to the British labour income. In comparing the income of capital and labour, the pamphlet takes note of the earnings of British capital on all five continents and on the sea, and compares with it only the income of British labour — although foreign, not British labour, produces the foreign income of British capital. Giving as authority an ancient Board of Trade Eeturn, and wishing to magnify the difference in the earnings of the idle rich and the industrious poor, the average yearly income of " those of the manual labour class who are best off" is given at 481. per adult. This means 18s. per week. Li view of the fact that most British workers earn between 11. and 21. per week, that in many Trade-Unions the average wage is about 35s. per week, the figures given are palpably wrong unless the female workers are in- cluded. Whether this is the case or no is not stated, but even if the wages of both sexes should be joined together they appear to be very considerably understated. This is dishonesty number seven. There are many more unfair, misleading, and dishonest statements in this pamphlet which it would lead too far to enumerate. Most of the important pamphlets issued by the Fabian Society are signed by their authors. The fact that the 48 BEITISH SOCIALISM most effective, " Facts for Socialists," is unsigned seems to indicate that the author— apparently a well-known leader of the Fabians — had some sense of shame, and it is to be hoped that the Fabian Society will immediately, and publicly, repudiate this dishonest pamphlet. The statements contained in the pamphlet " Facts for SociaUsts," may be misleading and utterly dishonest, but they are very useful for propaganda purposes. Nothing is more likely to inflame the masses than to be told that the " idle rich " take more than two-thirds of the national income. The practical effect of this pamphlet may be seen in utterances such as the following : " It has been estimated that in our country of the wealth produced, one- third is enjoyed by those who earn it and two-thirds by those who have not laboured for it. To put it in other words, of every three pounds earned by labour, one pound goes to him who earned it and two pounds to others who have done nothing towards its production." ^ " For two- thirds of his time the worker is a slave, labouring not for himself but for others." ^ " On the average at the present time the workers produce nearly four times as much as they consume."^ "Nearly two-thirds of the wealth produced is retained by an eighth of the popula- tion." * " The great mass of the people, the weekly wage-earners, four out of five of the whole population, toil perpetually for less than a third of the aggregate product of labour, at an annual wage averaging at most 40?. per adult, and are hurried into unnecessarily early graves by the severity of their lives." ^ " Out of the wealth which his labour creates, the worker receives but one-third. He is paid one-third the value of his labour, and when he ' Ward, The Ideal City, pp. 5, 6. ■' Kejr Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 15. ' Queloh, Social- Democratic Federation, p. 5. ^ Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, p. 8. ' Sidney Webb, The Difficulties of Individualism, p. 8. THE GEIEVANCBS OF THE SOCIALISTS 49 seeks to lay it out he is robbed of one-half its piirchasing power, and all this is done by a Christian people." ' " Q. How does the capitalist act? A. He extorts from those labourers who are excluded from the land a share of all that they produce, under threat of with- holding from them the implements of production and thus refusing to let them work at all. — Q. On what terms does the capitalist allow the labourers to work ? A. The capitalist agrees to return to them as wages about a quarter of what they have produced by their work, keeping the remaining three-quarters for himself and his class. — Q. What is this system called? A. The capitalist system." ^ "By analysing the returns of the income-tax, various economists show that the value received by the working class and the superintendents of labour amount to a third or less of the wealth produced. The income-tax returns, however, are not a very reliable test of the degree of exploitation, though, of course, they afford us valuable and incontestable evidence that the worker does not receive more than a third of what he produces. One to four, or one to five, in my opinion, ex- presses more accurately the rate of exploitation." ^ I am not prepared to give an estimate how the national income is distributed between hand workers, brain workers, and men who live on their income without doing any useful work, because such an estimate could be arrived at only by guesswork. However, it is quite clear that it is untrue that the wage-earners receive only one-third, one-fourth, or one-fifth of the wages which they ought to receive, as is constantly stated. ' Keir Hardie, 0am a Mem be a Christian on a Pound a Week ? p. 7. ' Joynes, The Socialist Catechism, p. 2. ' Hazell, Summary of Marx's " Capital," p. 9. 60 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTBE IV THE FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OP SOCIALISM In describing the doctrines of Socialism I do not mean to state in detail the whole of the Socialistic theories. Such a statement would fill a volume, it would be exces- sively tedious to most readers, and it is for all practical purposes quite unnecessary. A statement of the leading doctrines on which the activity of the Socialists is based — the doctrines which are constantly asserted and which are the fundamental dogmas of the Socialist faith — will enable us to obtain a clear view of the foundations upon which the theoretic fabric of Socialism is built, and to judge whether that foundation is scientific and sound, or unscientific and unsound. The basic doctrine of Socialism, upon which the great edifice of Socialistic theory has been reared, may be summed up in the phrase " Labour is the only Source of Wealth " Therefore we read in the celebrated pamphlet " Facts for Socialists," of which some important extracts were given _^*.the preceding chapter : " Commodities are pro- duced solely by the ' efforts and sacrifices ' (Cairns), whether of muscle or of brain, of the working portion of the community, employed upon the gifts of Nature. Adam Smith ' showed that labour is the only source of wealth. . . . It is to labour, therefore, and to labour only, that man owes everything possessed of exchangeable FUNDAMENTAL DOCTKINES OF SOCIALISM 51 value (McCulloch's ' Principles of Political Economy,' Part II., section 1). 'No wealth whatever can be pro- duced without labour ' (Professor Henry Fawcett (Cam- bridge), ' Manual of Political Economy,' p. 13)." ^ This statement is scarcely honest, for it quotes opinions of Adam Smith and others which are erroneous, as will be seen in the following, and which have been generally abandoned. This statement may impose upon the simple by its show of learning, but it is somewhat vague, for it only suggests, but does not distinctly assert, that manual labour is the only source of wealth. How- ever, in most — one might say in nearly all — Socialist books, pamphlets, and declarations of policy we find the basic doctrine of Socialism asserted in a form which leaves no doubt that according to the Socialist theories the manual labour of the labourer is the only source of wealth. The founder of modern Socialism declared, " Labour is the only source of wealth," ^ and his disciples — at least his British disciples — support that declaration. " All wealth is due to labour ; therefore, to the labourers all wealth is due." ^ " Labour applied to natural objects is the source of all wealth." * The Socialist Party of Great Britain declares : " Wealth is natural material converted by labour-power to man's use, and as such is consequently produced by the working class alone." ^ The Independent Labour party asserts : " No man or class of men made the first kind of wealth, such as land, minerals, and water. Therefore no man or class of men should be allowed to call these things their owMjgor to prevent others from using them (except on certaiffson- ditions), as the landowners and mine-owners do now. ' Facts for Socialists, p. 3. ' Hazell, Summary of Marx's " Capital," p. 1 ; Maodonald, Socialism, p. 54. ' Socialism made Plain, p. 8. ' Hobart, Social-Democracy, p. 7. = Manifesto, Socialist Party of Great Britain, p. 8. E 2 52 BEITISH SOCIALISM The only class of human heings who make the second kind of wealth are the workers. Working men and women produce and prepare for us all those things which we use or consume, such as food, clothing, houses, furniture, instruments and implements, trams, railways, pictures, books, gas, drains, and many other things. They produce all the wealth obtained by toil from the land." ' Those who maintain that labour, or, as some Socialists assert, the labourer's labour, is the only source of wealth, look merely at the mechanical factor, but omit the force which directs and controls it. The Socialistic argument " "We can run the mills without the capitalists, but they cannot run them without us " ^ is misleading. Labour is certainly an indispensable ingredient in production, but it is no more indispensable than is direction, invention, and thrift. Hence it is as absurd to assert "All wealth is due to labour " as to say " All wealth is due to invention," or "All wealth is due to thrift." As the brain is more im- portant than the hand, at least in a highly organised state of production, so invention, organisation, management, and thrift are more important than manual labour, because invention, organisation, management, and thrift alone enable manual labour, working with modern machinery, to be highly productive. In fact, it may be asserted that wealth is created not so much by labour as by the saving of labour. A factory-owner who is dissatisfied with the profits of his factory or with its products does not get better workers, but gets a better manager or better machinery, keeping his workers. This fact proves that labour is the least important factor in modern production. The doctrine " Labour is the only source of wealth " is untenable and absurd. ' What Socialism Means : Independent Labour Party Leaflet, No. 8, p. 3. ^ Debs, Industrial Unionism, p. 20. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 53 Another fundamental doctrine of Socialism is that of " The Iron Law of Wages " According to that law, " wages under competition can never be higher than that which will just support the labourer and enable him to renew his kind."^ In the words of Lassalle, the inventor of the Iron Law of Wages, " the wages of the labourer are limited to the exact amount necessary to keep him alive." ^ The British Socialist writers tell us : " The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage — i.e. that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence." * " The labourer cannot as a rule command more than his cost of subsistence in return for his labour. This principle, that the return to labour is determined by the cost of sub- sistence of the labourer, is generally known as ' The Iron Law of Wages.' But has not this law been discarded even by some Socialists? There have been attempts in some quarters to demonstrate that this law does not actually operate vnth the rigidity at first claimed for it ; but in truth, it stands as firmly to-day as when insisted upon by Lassalle." * " Capitalism always keeps the wages down to the lowest standard of subsistence which the people will accept," * for " the basis of wages is the cost of subsistence of the labourer. This is called the ' Iron Law of Wages.' " ^ " By the Iron Law of Wages the re- compense of the workers always tends to the minimum on which they are willing to subsist. If they are content with water to drink and cabbage to eat, they may be sure that the means of buying whisky or roast beef will ' Bliss, Encyclopedia of Social Reform, 1368. ^ Ibid. 807. ' Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 17. * Bax and Queleh, A New Catechism of Socialism, p. 15. ' Blatohford, Merrie England, p. 163. « Queleh, Economics of Labour, p. 13. 54 BEITISH SOCIALISM very soon be taken from them. Messrs. Eentmonger, Interestmonger, and Profitmonger will speedily scent additional swag, and they will have it, too." ^ " The ' Iron Law of Wages ' reduces the wages to as near the level of the means of subsistence as local circumstances will admit of." ^ If these arguments were correct it would follow that the workers could cause their wages to rise by drinking wine instead of whisky, and by smoking Havana cigars instead of pipe-tobacco. This theory of wages is called the " Iron Law of Wages " because of its absolute and pitiless rigidity. For instance, the Iron Law of Wages will prevent lower prices of food benefiting the workman in any way. " If the working class is enabled to buy cheap bread, the operation of the ' Iron Law of Wages ' will secure all the advantage for the capitalists, as it did in the days of the saintly Bright, when the corn laws were repealed. Capital is always the same in its effect on the working- class, whether manipulated by an individual capitalist, joint-stock enterprise, municipality, or government, and with each step in concentration the working-class gets relatively less and the master class gets richer, more corrupt, and more bestial, as recent events in Berlin and elsewhere show." ' The " Iron Law of Wages " is irre- futable and irresistible. " Economists have come to talk about the ' Iron Law of Wages ' with as much assurance as if it were an irreversible law of Nature." ^ The Iron Law of Wages exists chiefly in the imagina- tion of British Socialists. The general wage of British workmen living in towns ranges from, say 18s. to more than 21. per week, and its amount does not depend on the cost of subsistence, but on the working skill and ' Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 107. ■^ Bax, Outlooks from the New Standpoint, p. 99. ' Socialist Standard, December 1907. " Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 32. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 55 various other factors. If the Iron Law of Wages were correct, wages would be almost uniform. The Iron Law of Wages can possibly apply only to one small class of workers, the lowest and least skilled labourers, provided that unemployment is so great among them that they abandon collective bargaining and underbid one another down to the level of subsistence. When workers are organised, the Iron Law of Wages does not apply. The level of wages depends, broadly speaking, on supply and demand. Wages rise when two employers run after one workman ; wages fall when two workmen run after one employer. An employer who engages a workman does not ask, " How much do you eat? " but " What can you do? " and he proportions the worker's remuneration not to his appetite, but to his ability and his value as a producer. The wages paid to married men and to un- married men are identical in the same trade. If there was an " Iron Law of Wages," the wages of married men should be about twice as large as those of unmarried men. The Iron Law of Wages is manifestly absurd. It has therefore been officially abandoned by the German Socialists at the Halle Congress of 1890 " as being scien- tifically untenable."^ "German Social Democracy no longer recognises the Iron Law of Wages." ' The British Socialists have not abandoned it, probably not because they believe it to be scientifically correct — no one can believe that — but because it is a plausible and effective means of poisoning the minds of the people. As regards the factors which determine wages, one of the foremost Socialist authorities says : " Thoughtful workmen in the staple trades have become convinced by their own experience, no less than by the repeated arguments of the economists, that a rising standard of wages and other conditions of employment must depend Stegman und Hugo, Hamdhuch, p. 473. Ohristliche Arbdterpflichten, p. 15. 56 BEITISH SOCIALISM ultimately on the productivity of labour, and therefore upon the most efficient and economical use of credit, capital, and capacity." ^ In other words, productivity and profit determine wages, and it is ridiculous that Socialists argue : " Over 90 per cent, of our women do not drink, back horses, smoke, attend football or cricket matches, they do not stop off their work to watch England and Australia play at cricket, and the result is they are paid less wages than men in our factories for doing the same work." ^ Does Councillor Glyde really believe that women's wages would rise as soon as they took to smoking and drinking ? The Law of Inceeasing Misery According to this law the improvements in machinery, the increase of capital and increase of production do not benefit the worker. They only lead to a decline in wages and thus increase the workers' misery. " In proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases whether by prolongation of the working hours, by increase of the work exacted in a given time, or by increased speed of the machinery, &c." ' " The faster productive capital increases, the more does the division of labour and the employment of machinery extend. The more the division of labour and the employment of machinery extend, so much the more does competition increase among the labourers and so much the more do their average wages dwindle. And thus the forest of arms outstretched by those who are entreating for work becomes ever denser and the arms themselves grow ever leaner."* "The more the worker labours the less reward he receives for it ; ' Webb, Iiidustrial Democracy, p. 548. - Councillor Glyde, A Peep behind the Scenes on a Board of Guardians, p. 5. ^ Marx and Bngels, Manifesto of the Oommmmt Party, p. 12. ■* Marx, Wage, Lahoivr, and Capital, pp. 23, 24. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 67 and that for this simple reason, that he competes against his fellow-workmen and thus compels them to compete against him and to offer their labour on as wretched conditions as he does, and that he thus, in the last result, competes against himself as a member of the working- class." ^ " The worker in the factory gets, as a worker, absolutely no advantage from the machinery which causes the product of his labour to be multiplied a hundred- fold." 2 " John Stuart Mill, it will be remembered, questioned whether mechanical invention had lightened the labours of a single human being." ' " With increasing powers of production, the worker's share, and therefore his purchasing power, grows less." * " Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers." ^ " The iron law of competition means, and must mean, continued degradation for the workers, even though their physical condition in youth may be improved." ^ " The worker in the factory is now seen to work no shorter hours or gain no higher wages merely because the product of his labour is multiplied a hundredfold by machinery which he does not own. ' The remuneration of labour as such,' wrote Cairnes in 1874, ' skilled or unskilled, can never rise much above its present level.' " ^ The celebrated " Doctrine of Increasing Misery " stands in diametrical opposition to those facts with which nowadays every child is acquainted. During the time when our Socialists have been preaching the "Doctrine of Increasing Misery" working hours have been very greatly diminished and wages have not been reduced, but have risen by about 100 per cent. During the same time working hours in Germany have also been 1 Marx, Wage, Labour, and Capital, p. 22. " English Progress towards Social-Democracy, p. 12. ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 99. ■• Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Comnmnist Party, p. 8. s Ibid. p. 16. " Hyndman, Socialism and Slavery, p. 12. ' Sidney Webb, The Difficulties of Individualism, p. 9. 58 BEITISH SOCIALISM reduced and wages have risen up to 400 per cent.^ The German SociaHsts have been honest enough to abandon the Doctrine of Increasing Misery under the guidance of Bernstein ; the French have dropped it under the guidance of Sorel ; the Dutch have seen its absurdity, guided by Vandervelde, their foremost leader. The British SociaHsts, on the other hand, have not abandoned it, though they must see its absurdity, probably because, though palpably and ridiculously false, the Doctrine of Increasing Misery is considered to be a useful and effec- tive part of the Socialist agitator's stock-in-trade. The next doctrine to be considered is The Suepltjs-Valub Doctrine The Socialists argue that the position of the worker cannot improve because the capitalist, possessing the monopoly of property, pockets all that the worker pro- duces except the mere cost of his subsistence, which, owing to the " Iron Law of Wages," is given to the work- man in the form of wages. " The amount of wealth which the labourer produces in the time for which he has sold his labour-force is out of all proportion to what it costs to produce and maintain his labour-force for that time. This, the difference between what he produces and his own cost of production, is surplus-value, and is taken and divided up by the capitalist into rent, interest, profit. This surplus-value, then, this profit, is so much robbery effected by taking advantage of the necessity of the proletarian — the naked property less labourer." ^ All that the worker produces beyond what is absolutely necessary to keep himself and his offspring in life, this surplus beyond subsistence — this difference between the recom- pense of labour and its products — this unrighteous ' Ellis Barker, Modetm Germany, p. 528. ^ Quelch, Economics of Labour, p. 13. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 59 subtrahend, this swag, is the booty alike of slaTslord, serflord, and drudgelord, or capitaUst." ^ The question now arises : " How does the capitaUst secure this surplus- value of labour without paying for it ? If the workman is free, why cannot he insist on receiving, not the mere exchange-value of his commodity — ' labour-power ' — but the full value of the labour he expends for the capitalist ? The capitahst obtains this surplus-value owing to his monopoly of the means of production. The labourer cannot, as a rule, command more than his cost of sub- sistence in return for his labour — although his wages, like the prices of all commodities, sometimes rise above this and sometimes fall below — because, although apparently free, he is really not free. He must sell his labour-power in order to live ; he has no other commodity to dispose of. Consequently he must accept the terms that the purchaser will offer, subject only to two conditions — his own cost of subsistence and the fluctuations of the market." ^ " Owing to the monopoly of the means of production in the past, industrial inventions and the transformation of surplus income into capital have mainly enriched the proprietary class, the worker being now dependent on that class for leave to earn a living." ' The Surplus- Value Doctrine, like the preceding doctrines, is founded rather upon imagination than upon fact. In the first place, it is absurd to speak of a " capitalist class " which, having a " monopoly of the means of production," exploits " the naked and property- less labourer." This picture is a fancy picture. In the second place, " class " is not synonymous with " caste." The population is not divided into two rigidly defined and limited castes of capitalists and wage-earners. There is neither a monopoly of capital nor a monopoly of labour. ' Davidson, The Old Order and tlie New, p. 3. ' Bax and Queloh, A New Catechism, p. 15. " Sidney Webb, The Difficulties of Individualism, p. 19. 60 BEITISH SOCIALISM Capital is founded by thrift. Most respectable workmen are capitalists to a greater or lesser extent. Every day workmen become capitalists. It should not be forgotten that many of the wealthiest men, such as Eockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Krupp, the first Rothschild, Sir Thomas Lipton, Passmore Edwards, and many others, have risen from the ranks and were working men — and every day capitalists lose their money and become work- men. Workmen may become capitalists by thrift. Co- operating workmen in England, France, Germany, and other countries own vast industrial undertakings, banks, &c. In those districts where thrift and co-operation are general (France, Switzerland, Holland) the " naked and propertyless labourers " disappear, whilst in equally prosperous districts where improvidence is general, they are many. The prosperity of the working classes in France, Switzerland, Holland, and other countries dis- proves the assertion that the workman is condemned to everlasting poverty because of the Surplus-Value Doctrine. Assertions in support of the " Surplus-Value Doctrine " such as " Carnegie and other millionaires have wrung their wealth literally out of the bodies of the underfed"^ are as malicious as they are untrue. Men like Carnegie and Krupp have not " wrung their wealth out of the bodies of the underfed," but out of Nature. They have created vast industries in barren places, and the industries which they have created nourish now tens of thousands of working men. Men like Krupp and Carnegie have diminished misery, not increased it. Their capital, created by their brains with the assistance of labour out of Nature, has rather enriched labour than that labour has enriched Carnegie and Krupp. Their wealth is not dead wealth ; it produces wages and articles of use. The " Surplus-Value Doctrine " is a grotesque distortion of, and an unjustified protest against, the fact that manu- ' Clarion, November 29, 1907. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 61 facturers and other organisers and directors of labour will not work for nothing. We have seen in the foregoing that, according to the fundamental Socialist doctrines, " labour is the only source of wealth." We have also seen that, according to the "Iron Law of Wages" and the "Law of Increasing Misery," the workmen are condemned to great, per- manent, and constantly increasing misery. Further, we have learned that, according to the " Surplus- Value Doctrine," all the fruit of their labour, minus the cost of their bare subsistence, is taken from the workers by the capitalists. Hence it is only natural and logical that the assertion of the fundamental doctrines, namely — 1. Labour is the only source of wealth, 2. Wages maintains mere animal existence, 3. The misery of the workers is constantly in- creasing, 4. The position of the worker is hopeless, has led to this fifth doctrine : The Laboubee is Entitled to the Bntibb Peoduct of his Labour This doctrine is put forth by practically all British Socialists, not only as a doctrine but also as a demand. For instance " the New School of Trades-Unionists declare themselves in open and uncompromising revolt against the established relations between capital and labour ; and they expound a new political economy which says that nothing less than the full fruits of industry shall be reckoned the fair reward of the pro- ducing class. They want the whole four-fourths of their earnings, instead of the one-fourth at present doled back in wages." ^ This demand must have precedence over all other measures whatsoever, for "until you have settled ' Hall, The Old and New Umomsm, p. 5. 62 BEITISH SOCIALISM the material question as to how the producers of wealth are to get for themselves the full value of what they produce by their labour, it is impossible to settle any- thing else/^^_ """According to many Socialists, Socialism would im- mediately abolish their grievances and give to the worker the entire produce of his labour. " At present the frugal workman only gets about one-third of his earnings. Under Socialism he would get all his earnings." ^ " Under the new order all will be productive workers, receiving an equivalent for what they produce — not merely one-half of it as now under the wage-system — in some form." ^ Under the heading "Basis of the Fabian Society," the Fabian Society publishes a statement of the fundamental principles of that Society in which we read : "If these measures " (confiscation of all private property) " be carried out, without compensation (though not without such relief to expropriated individuals as may seem fit to the community), rent and interest will be added to the reward of labour, the idle class now living on the labour of others will necessarily disappear, and practical equality of opportunity will be maintained by the spontaneous action of economic forces with much less interference with personal liberty than the present system entails." The absurdity of the demand for "the entire product of labour," which is raised by Socialists on behalf of the labourer is clear even to the most superficial thinker. The majority of Socialists know quite well that writing off, repairs, renewals, the replacing of machinery, the enlargement of factories, &c., cannot be done gratis, that the distribution of the whole produce of labour to the workers can be effected only by neglecting and destroying the means of production. ' Socialism cmd the Single Tax, p. 6. ^ Blatohford, Merrie England, p. 189. ' Gronlund, Co-operative Commonwealth, p. 86. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 63 The impossibility of giving to the worker the " whole product of his labour " by abolishing the private capi- talist is clearly recognised and honestly admitted by the German SocialistSy/'IKautsky, for instance, writes : "If The income of the capitalists were added to that of the workers, the wages of each would be doubled. Un- fortunately, however, the matter will not be settled so simply. /If we expropriate capitalism, we must at the time take over its social functions — among these the important one of capitalist accumulation. The capitalists do not consume all their income ; a portion of it they put away for the extension of production. A proletarian rigime would also have to do the same in order to extend production. It would not therefore be able to transfer, even in the event of a radical con- fiscation of capital, the whole of the former income to the working class. Besides, a portion of the surplus value which the capitalists now pocket, they must hand over to the State in the shape of taxes. For these reasons our Socialists are guilty of wilful deception if they tell the workers that under a Socialist rSgime their wages would be doubled and trebled."^ Nevertheless, the doctrine and the demand that " the labourer is entitled to the entire product of his labour " is not abandoned by^^^^^-Socialists, apparently because it is extremely useful foi?^ arousing the passions of the workers against the capitalists -iii««ieeord«nce^-withr Gronlund-s ■3isrice,^*and for bringing new adherents to the Socialist camp. ~^^Oiily the T'abian Society, the more scientific section of the English Socialists, has mildly protested against this absurd doctrine and demand, but that protest has not been heeded. In a little-read pamphlet of that Society, the following statement may be found : " The Fabian Society steadfastly discountenances all schemes for ' Kautsky, The Social Revolution, pp. 7, 8. '' See ante p. 10. 64 BRITISH SOCIALISM securing to any person or any group of persons the entire product of their labour. It recognises that wealth is social in its origin and must be social in its distribution " (which means in plain English, must be preserved by the thrifty few, of&cial or non-official, for the use of the unthrifty many), " since the evolution of industry has made it impossible to distinguish the particular con- tribution that each person makes to the common product, or to ascertain the value." ' Notwithstanding these emphatic statements, the Fabian Society preserves with characteristic duplicity ^ the statement in its programme that " rent and interest, will be added to the reward of labour." Most British Socialist writers are not aware, or rather pretend not to be aware, of the necessity of preserving and increasing the national capital. In " Land, Labour, and Liberty," we read : " Whilst in 1845 the total wealth of this country was estimated at 4,000,000,000Z., it is now estimated at over 12,000,000,000L The monopolist classes, vnthout denying themselves anything, and whilst producing comparatively nothing, have piled up an addi- tional eight thousand millions. The superfluous handful of mere possessors remain the flowers and foliage of society ; the three-quarters of the nation of indispensable producers remain the manure." ' This writer, like most Socialists, though acknowledging the enormous growth of the national capital of Great Britain, pretends that the "monopolist classes" have not denied themselves anything. If that were true, the national capital would still amount to only 4,000,000,000^. as in 1845. Great Britain would have few factories, no new machinery, no steamships, and but a very few miles of railway. But for the self-denial, the thrift of the " superfluous handful of mere possessors," Englishmen would still live ' Report on Fabicm Policy, p. 8. ° See Chapter XXXIII. ' Hall, Land, Lahov/r, and Liberty, p. 5. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 65 in the Hungry Forties and Great Britain would be able to nourish only about 20,000,000 people as she did in 1845. National capital and the comforts and con- veniences which it supplies to all are at least as much the result of thrift, inventiveness, enterprise, and wise direction as of manual labour. The foregoing shows that, to say the least, the grievances of the Socialists are greatly — one might almost say grotesquely — exaggerated, and that they are largely founded on a perversion of facts; a perversion which can be easily explained by the desire of the Socialist leaders to arouse the blind passions of the dis- contented wage-earners in accordance with Gronlund's advice, quoted on page 10. The next doctrine which should be considered may be summed up in the words : " The Existing Miseey can be Abolished, not by Incbeasing Production, but by Altering the disteibution of the wealth produced " " The Socialist emphatically denies the assertion that the poor must always be with us. The productive capacity of society is now so great that none need want, and all are able to earn their livelihood, and more, except where they are prevented from doing so by sickness, infirmity, or by the existence of laws and customs which the individual cannot himself, acting alone, remove." ^ " There is a demand for the labour of every man under any well-ordered social system. If there is a waste of men now, it is the fault of the wage system." ^ " Sufficient wealth is produced in this country to-day which would, under a well-ordered state of society, enable every man, woman, and child to have a sufficiency ' Jowett, The Socialist mid the City, p. 66. ^ Gronlund, Co-operative Coimnmvwealth, p. 86. 66 BEITISH SOCIALISM of all things essential to a healthy human life. To-day the people produce this wealth, and, after they have produced it, quite two-thirds of it is taken from them by a very small section of the people. Consequently we have a very few rich, and many that are poor." ^ "We may claim to have solved the problem of how to produce enough, and the question which confronts us is how to bring distribution into line with the productive capacity of our people." ^ " The old argument that there is not enough work to do cannot be seriously hstened to by any- one who has walked through a London or Manchester slum. ' There is work in the world for all, just as there is wealth in the world for all, and every man has a right to work, just as he has a right to wealth." ^ " The chief problem is not the production of more wealth, but its equitable distribution." * The increase of production and therefore of repro- ductive capital in the form of machinery, mines, railways, ships, &c., in which most of the " Surplus-Value " is invested, is explained to be a matter of secondary consideration and importance, and it is stated that the world suffers rather from over-production than from under-production. " The tendency of the conditions of employment under present circumstances, under the capitalist system, always is for production to outstrip consumption." ^ " Our power to produce has always, since the beginnings of capitalism, shown a tendency to grow more rapidly than our power to consume." '^ "Then because there is a plethora of goods and a dearth of purchasers, the workshops are closed and Hunger lashes the working population with his thousand-thonged whip. The workers, stupefied by the dogma of work, do not ' Eich and Poor, Introd. * Martyn, Co-operation, p. 3. ' Lister, Riches and Poverty, p. 12. * Fiaher, The Babies' Tribute, p. 16. " Socialism and the Single Tax, p. 7. « Kessaek, The Capitalist Wilderness and tlie Way Out, p. 9. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 67 understand that the cause of their present misery is the overwork that they have inflicted on themselves during the time of sham prosperity." ^ " For some insane reason the capitahst has thought of nothing but production."^ "If, by a fiat from heaven, the wealth of the world were doubled to-morrow and the present system of capitalistic monopoly and commercial com- petition were allowed to continue, the social misery would, in a very short time, reappear in a form even still more accentuated, were that possible. Individualism, commercialism, capitalism — call it what we may — has demonstrably produced the evil." ' The Existing Capitalist System is Eesponsible foe PovEETY, Want, and Unemployment Unemployment is largely caused by commercial crises, commercial crises are caused by over-production, over-production is caused by the fact that the national industries are divided and the industrial output is regulated not by the nation in accordance with the national demand but by irresponsible private individuals whose aim is profit, not the fulfilment of a national demand. " The causes of conunercial depression lie in the non-consumption of the incomes of our millionaires." * Another Socialist v?riter asserts : " Our era is cursed with crises occurring far more frequently than plagues and causing as much misery. Economists say that these crises are caused by over-production. Private enterprise compels every pro- ducer to produce for himself, to sell for himself, to keep all his transactions to himself, without regard to anybody else in the wide world. Merchants have got no measure at hand by which they can, even approximately, either ' Lafargue, Bight to Leisv/re, p. 11. ' TUlett, Trades TJniomsm amd Socialism, p. 14. » FUher, The Babies' Tribute, p. 16. ' Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 67 F 2 68 BEITISH SOCIALISM estimate the effective demand of their customers or ascer- tain the producing capacity of their rivals. Production by all these manufacturers is, and must necessarily be, absolutely planless. This planless production must end in the market being overstocked with commodities of one kind or another ; that is, that it must end in ' over- production.' In the trade which has been thus overdone, prices fall and wages come down ; or a great manufacturer fails and a smaller or greater number of workmen are discharged. Crises are therefore the direct result of private enterprise." ' " Why are men — men that is who are able and willing, nay, eager and anxious, to work — unemployed ? Because, it is said, there is nothing for them to do. Nothing for them to do? Is all the necessary work of the world, then, already finished, so that there is nothing more remaining for anyone to do ? No ; it is not because all the necessary and useful work is done that men are unemployed, it is because all the means of production — all the machines, tools, and, implements of labour and all the raw material — are owned by a class, and may only be used by permission of that class, and when that class can make a profit out of their use." ^ "It is indisputable that modern poverty is artificial. It is neither the result of divine anger nor the niggardUness of Nature. It is the product of the private ownership of land and capital by which men are prevented from earning their living unless the proprietary class can make profit from their labour. The inevitable result of this system is that in all industries and at all times there are more men seeking employment than there is employment for.^ " " Your system of private ownership, in conferring the possession and control of the nation's storehouse of wealth and of the instruments by which all further wealth ' Gronlund, Co-operative Cmnmonwealth, pp. 32, 33. ^ Social-Democratic Federation, The Unemployed, leaflet. ' Smart, The Eight to Work, p. 3. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 69 must be obtained from it, upon your capitalist class, has reduced the nation at large into nothing more nor less than an elaborate machine which your capitalists use for extracting wealth from the earth for their own benefit . . . It is not well that by a foolish and wicked system of government, one small class of the community should be enabled to organise its production in such a manner that the full stream of wealth is diverted into their own possession whilst the mass of the nation by whose labour it is obtained are defrauded of it, and brought into a state of subtle slavery worse both in kind and degree than could be possible under any system of direct and open slavery." ' " Unemployment is an inevitable feature of capitalism, and is impossible of removal without at the same time abolishing the capitalist system that produces it. That is a fact known to any Socialist with the most elementary knowledge of the economics of capitalism. Unemployment is caused by the exactions of the capitaHst class. The prime cause of unemployment is the robbery of the workers by which the capitalist class appropriate the whole of the wealth produced by the workers, return- ing to them just as much on the average as will keep them physically fit to continue working. The difference between the quantities produced and consumed by the working class (a difference continually increasing with every increase in the productivity of labour) represents a surplus which all the waste and all the luxury of its owners cannot absorb, with the result that the markets are glutted with an excess of commodities. Thus the ' over- production,' the crisis, and the slackening of production involving an increase of unemployment." ^ Employers of labour profit directly from unemploy- ment, and will therefore presumably do all they can to bring it about. " Employers and other well-to-do people ' Washington, A Comer in Flesh and Blood, p. 12. 2 The Socialist Standaxd, December 1907. 70 BRITISH SOCIALISM have no interest in finding work for the workless. They benefit from the unemployment of the poor." ^ The foregoing statement is as malicious as it is absurd. Employers do not desire unemployment, partly from humanitarian reasons, partly because it is a loss to them. The father of English Socialism taught : " The labourer perishes if capital does not employ him. Capital perishes if it does not exploit labour." ^ In other words, unem- ployed labour means unemployed capital ; besides, those business men who do not actually dismiss their workers suffer also through unemployment, because the unem- ployed are supported by the rates. The doctrines that " the existing misery can be abolished, not by increased production but by altering the distribution of the wealth produced," and that the " capitalist system is responsible for want, poverty, and unemployment," are manifestly unsound. A larger con- sumption of food, clothing, &c., can be effected only by a larger production. Gluts and crises, with consequent unemployment, occur, not through general over-pro- duction, which would benefit all, but by ill-balanced production, as the following example will prove : Imagine an island off the African coast on which there are two villages, the inhabitants of which require only two com- modities, loin-cloths and mealies. One village manu- factures loin-cloths, the other raises mealies, and these are exchanged against each other. These villages fulfil the Socialistic ideal. There are no capitalists and no middle- men, and production is only " for use," not " for profit." Balanced over-production will result in this, that every native will have a superabundance of loin-cloths and food. But supposing that the agriculturists go in for loin-cloth making, finding that occupation more congenial, and that they abandon much agriculture ; or supposing ' Why Labour Men should be on Town Councils, p. 2. ° Marx, Wage-Labour and Capital, p. 12. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 71 that inclement weather, or a plague of grasshoppers, should seriously curtail the harvest, then there will soon be a glut of loin-cloths and a crisis. The cry of over-pro- duction will arise among the loin-cloth makers, but that cry will be unjustified and absurd. The more the people make the more they will have, provided production is properly balanced. The doctrine that we suffer from over-production and that the capitalist system is at fault, that altered distribution rather than increased production will abolish misery, and that Socialism can prevent want and unemployment by a scientific organisation of pro- dugtioBi,,4s_wrong. "^^ocialists may, of course, argue, " In the Socialist State production would be organised, and controlled, and pro- perly balanced and harmonised," an argument which is irrelevant with regard to the over-production doctrine, and which besides is unsound, although it may be found in most Socialistic writings. As production is world-wide, the Socialists' control of production would also have to be world-wdde. It would involve not only the control of all human energy throughout the world, but also the control of the seasons, of the weather, of insect plagues, of fashions, of appetite, &c. :2:===°'^Ee foregoing proves that " men can never become richer till the produce of their labour increases. The more they produce the richer they vnll be, provided there be a demand for the produce of their labour. If a shoe- maker makes four pairs of shoes in a day he will be twice richer than he would be if he made only two pairs in a day, provided that an increased demand is co-existing. The question, therefore, ' How can we become richer ? ' is reduced to this one, ' How can we increase the produce of labour and at the same time maintain an equivalent demand for that produce? ' " ^ The doctrines that want and unemployment are due to over-production and to the capitalist system are wrong. ' L'Auton, The Nationalisation of Society, p. i. 72 BEITISH SOCIALISM We now come to the DOCTEINE OF THE ClASS Wae Having, by the fundamental doctrines enumerated in the foregoing, proved that all misery of the working masses is caused by the existence of a capitalist class which has enslaved the workers, the Socialists conclude that there is a natural antagonism between capital and labour ; that social life is dominated by the Class War. " The Socialists say that the present form of property- holding divides society into two great classes." ^ " Capital- ist society is divided into two classes : owners of property and owners of no property." ^ " Society is to-day divided into two classes with opposing interests, one class owning the means of life, and the other nothing but their power to work. Never in the history of society was the working- class so free from all traces of property as to-day." ' " There are in reality but two classes, those who live by labour and those who live upon those who labour, the two classes of exploiter and exploited." * " Society has been divided mainly into two economic classes, a relatively small class of capitalists who own tools in the form of great machines they did not make and cannot use, and a great body of many millions of workers who did make these tools and who do use them, and whose very lives depend upon them, yet who do not own them." ' It is usually said that society has three classes, but Socialists maintain that there are in reality only two classes. William Morris still divided society into three groups, which, however, at closer inspection will be found to form but two classes. According to Morris, " Civilised States consist of (1) the class of rich people doing no ' .Taurfes, Stvdies in Socialism, p. 1. ' HandbuchfUr Sozialdeniokratiscfie Wilhler, 1903, p. 233. ' Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, p. 7. * The Socialist Standard, December 1907. " Debs, Industrial TJnimiism, p. 4. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 73 work, who consume a great deal while they produce nothing. Therefore, clearly they have to be kept at the expense of those who do work, just as paupers have, and are a mere burden on the community. (2) The middle class, including the trading, manufacturing, and profes- sional people of our society. It is their ambition and the end of their whole lives to gain, if not for themselves, yet at least for their children, the proud position of being obvious burdens on the community. Here then is another class, this time very numerous and all-powerful, which produces very little and consumes enormously, and is therefore supported, as paupers are, by the real pro- ducers. (3) The class that remains to be considered pro- duces all that is produced and supports both itself and the other classes, though it is placed in a position of inferiority to them, real inferiority, mind you, involving a degradation both of mind and body. To sum up, then, civilised States are composed of three classes — a class which does not even pretend to work, a class which pretends to work but which produces nothing, and a class which works." ^ In other words, William Morris divided society into two classes : propertied non-producers and non-propertied toilers. According to practically all living English Socialists, there are but two classes in society. " Modern society is divided into two classes — the possessors of property and the non-possessors : the dominant class and the subject class ; the class which rules and the class which has to obey. He who possesses sufficient wealth to exercise control over the labour of others, to exploit that labour for his own profit, belongs to the one class ; he who possesses nothing but the power to labour contained in his own body, and who is therefore compelled to sell that labour power in order to live, belongs to the other. It is this struggle and conflict between these two classes ' Morris, Useful Work versus Useless Toil, pp. 22, 25. 74 BEITISH SOCIALISM that Socialists call the class war, a recognition of which is essential to a clear conception of what the Socialist movement involves." ^ " Society is divided into two opposite classes, one, the capitalists and their sleeping partners the landlords and loanmongers, holding in their hands the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and being therefore able to command the labour of others ; the other, the working class, the wage-earners, the prole- tariat, possessing nothing but their labour power, and being consequently forced by necessity to work for the former." ^ "In society there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle between those who possess but do not produce, and those who produce but do not possess." ' " The people of this unfortunate country have been aptly divided by Mr. Gladstone into the ' masses ' and the ' classes ' — that is to say, into those who live by their own labour and those who live on the labour of others. Among the latter tribe of non-producers are included all manner of thieves, pick-pockets, burglars, sharpers, prostitutes. Peers of Parliament, their families and menials, all, or nearly all, the ' six hundred and odd scoundrels of the House of Commons,' the twenty thousand State parsons, who every Sunday shamelessly travesty the Christian religion in the interest of the • classes.' " '' The theory of dividing society into two classes, capitalists and workers, or as others put it, "exploiters and exploited," is manifestly absurd, and its absurdity has been pointed out by a few Socialists. " It is not true that there aire only two great economic classes in the community. The Communist Manifesto, even in its day, admitted as much, but made no place for the fact in its theories. There is an economic antagonism between ' The Class War, p. 1. ^ Programme and Rules, Social-Democratic Federation. ^ Socialist Standard, October 1, 1907. ' Davidson, The New Book of Kings, p. 115. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 75 landlords and capitalists as well as between capitalists and workmen." '- Besides, most capitalists are workers, and probably the great majority of English workers are capitalists to a larger or smaller extent. Now let us study the Socialists' description of the hostile forces which are engaged in the Class War. According to the Socialist teaching, the property- owners as a class are useless idlers who impoverish the workers and who shamelessly spend their whole income on demoralising luxuries. " The idlers and non-workers produce no wealth and take the greater share. They live on the labour of those who work. Nothing is produced by idleness ; work must be done to obtain a thimble, a pin, and even a potato for dinner. The non-workers get the greater share of the wealth, and the greater part of this share is wasted. Therefore it is not good to have any people in the land who do not work. Only those who are old or sick should be kept by the toil of the rest."^ Taking their figures from the pamphlet " Facts for Socialists," of which details have been given on pp. 41-48, the Independent Labour party states under the heading of "Wealth Makers and Wealth Takers": " The total incomes of persons in the United Kingdom amount in round figures to 1,800,000,000^ How is this wealth distributed? 250,000 persons actually receive a total of 585,000,000Z. — that is, one-thirtieth of the popula- tion receive one-third of the national income. Nearly the whole of these large incomes are unearned — i.e. they are made up of rents, interest, dividends, &c. This small class of rent and interest receivers perform no useful function. We may describe these people as social parasites, absolutely useless, yet levying toll to the extent of 6s. 8d. in every 20s. value of wealth created." ' " At ' Maedonald, Socialism and Society, pp. Ill, 112. 2 What Socialism Means, p. 3. ' Wealth Makers amd Wealth Takers, p. 2. 76 BEITISH SOCIALISM present more than 600,000,000^. of the national income goes in the form of unearned rent and interest to support an idle class who spend it mainly on profitless and demoralising luxuries." ' The foregoing extracts make it clear that, in the eyes of Socialists, practically all citizens, manual labourers excepted, are" drones and parasites." Directors, managers, doctors, chemists, ships' captains, teachers, &c., and even workmen of exceptional ability also, rob the general body of workers of half their wages and subsist only owing to the monopoly of property-holders who control the dis- tribution of wealth. Upon these curious premisses are based the conclusions : " The profits and salaries of the class who share in the advantages of the monopoly of the instruments of production, or are endowed by Nature with any exceptional ability of high marketable value, amount according to the best estimate that can be formed, to about 460,000,000?. annually, while out of a national income of some 1,800,000,000?. a year the workers in the manual labour class — four-fifths of the whole population — obtain in wages not more than 690,000,OOOZ. It may be safely said that the workers from top to bottom of society pay a fine of one-half the wealth they produce to a parasitic class before providing for the maintenance of themselves and their proper dependents." ^ " It is this robbery and waste on the part of the minority which keeps the majority poor." ' " So long as the instruments of production are in unrestrained private ownership, so long must the tribute of the workers to the drones continue, so long will the toiler's reward inevitably be reduced by their exactions." * " Socialism regards the capitalist proper not as a useful captain of industry, but as a mere share-holding, dividend- ' After Bread, Education, p. 12. ^ Capital aiid Land, p. 13. ^ Morris, Useful Work versus Useless Toil, p. 26. ' Sidney Webb, Tlw Difficulties of Individtuilism, p. 8. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF SOCIALISM 77 drawing parasite upon labour, and the Socialist party presses forward to his elimination from the field of pro- duction." ^ " The workers who have produced all this wealth only get a part — the smallest part at that — of the wealth they produce. Now we Socialists say that this wealth produced by the labour of the workers should belong to them, and not to the capitalists who produce nothing. Seeing that the interest of the worker is to get as much of this wealth, and on the other hand the capitalist wants as much of this wealth, as he can get, therefore we say that the interests of the workers and of the capitalists are not identical, but opposite." '^ " The interest of the working class can only be served even in the smallest degree by the curtailment of the power of the master class ; that every material advance is useless except in so far as it helps to effect other achievements, and that the realisation of Labour politics, the well-being of the working class, can only be accomplished by its complete emancipation from capitalism." ^ In other words, the Socialist writers quoted agree in this : that the lot of the wage-earners can be improved only by taking the wealth from the rich. In order to introduce Socialism the present social order must be overturned. With this object in view they have addressed declarations of war to the owners of property. "We owe to Marx not only the Class War doctrine, but also a declaration of war to the propertied class : " The Communists everjrwhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time. Finally they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries. ' Leatham, Was Jesus a, Socialist ? p. 4. ' The Socialist, October 1907. ' The Socialist Annual, 1907, p. 42. 78 BEITISH SOCIALISM The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolu- tion. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite ! " ^ Marx's disciples have issued similar declarations. For instance, in the official programme of the Social Demo- cratic Federation we read: "The Social Democratic Federation is a militant Socialist organisation whose members, men and women, belong almost entirely to the working class. Its object is the realisation of Socialism, the emancipation of the working class from its present subjection to the capitalist class. To this end the Social Democratic Federation proclaims and preaches the Class War." ^ " There is no way in which the Class War can be avoided. You cannot have the reward of your labour and the idler have it too. There is just so much wealth produced every day. It may be more, it may be less ; but there is always just so much, and the more the capitalist gets the less you will get, and vice versa. We preach the gospel of hatred, because in the circumstances it seems the only righteous thing we can preach. The talk about the ' Gospel of Love ' is simply solemn rubbish. It is right to hate stealing, right to hate lying, it is right to hate meanness and uncleanness, right to hate hypocrisy, greed, and tyranny. Those who talk of the Gospel of Love with landlordism and capitalism for its objects want us to make our peace with iniquity." ' " The Class War is inevitable under the present form of property-holding, and for it there can be neither truce, quarter, nor ending, save by the extinction of the class ' Marx and Engels, Manifesto, pp. 30, 31. '•' Queloh, The Sooial-Democrafic Federation, p. 1. ' Leatham, The Class War, p. 10, FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 79 system itself. The identity of interests between capitalism and labour is a shibboleth that can only be given any sane meaning at all in the cynical sense that the interests of the wolf and the lamb are also ' identical ' when the wolf has got the lamb inside him." ^ The doctrine of the Class War is a holy faith, the expropriation of property-owners is a divine task. " Unless we hate the system which prevents us from being what we otherwise might have been, we will not be able to strive against it with the patient, never- flagging zeal which our work, to be well done, requires. And to keep alive and undimmed this flame of hatred, divine not diabolical, we require to not only look around us, but especially to look back upon the world as it has been and to the example of those who have fought the good fight. To Socrates, to Savonarola, to John Ball, Wat the Tyler, and Jack Cade, in our land the first forerunners of Socialism ; to Bruno and Vanini, to Cromwell, Milton, Hampden, and Pym, to John Eliot, Harry Vane ; to Defoe, Mure, and Thomas Spence ; to Ernest Jones, Bronterre O'Brien, and Eobert Owen ; to Wolfe Tone and Eobert Emmet ; to Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien ; to Vera Sassoulitch, Marie Spiridonova, Sophia Perovsky ; to Karl Marx." ^ The company of reformers and revolutionists seems somewhat mixed. The doctrine that the interests of employers and employees are irreconcilably opposed, not identical, is false. Socialist rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. As soon as a calamity threatens capital — for instance, a rise in raw cotton or a cotton famine— masters and men are seen to be in the same boat and devise combined measures for meeting the difficulty. The doctrine of the Class War is opposed to common experience and to common-sense. ' Hall, The Old and the New Unionism, p. 4. ' Leatham, The Class War, p. 11. 80 BKITISH SOCIALISM Let us now take note of the doctrine Peivatb Phopeety is Immoral and Private Wealth is a Crime In the Class War right is, according to the Socialists, on the side of the propertyless. Not only are the owners of property objectionable in their persons, being " drones and parasites " who squander the earnings of the poor on riotous living, as we have learned in the foregoing pages, but private property as an institution is immoral in itself and ought to be abolished. No man has a right to be rich ; no man can become rich honestly. Hence it follows that all rich men are robbers, thieves, and swindlers. " The poor owe no duty to the rich, unless it be the duty which an honest man owes to the thief who has robbed him. The rich have no right to any of their possessions, for there is but one right, and that is the right of the labourer to the fruits of his labour, and the rich do not labour. No man has any right to be rich. No man ever yet became rich by fair means. No man ever became rich by his own industry." ' " No man or class of men made the first kind of wealth, such as land, minerals, and water. Therefore no man or class of men should be allowed to call these things their own." ^ As private property is immoral in itself, it is doubly immoral to lend out such property and to charge rent or interest for the use of it. Mr. G. J. Wardle, M.P., said, in a recent speech at Glasgow, that rent " was social immorality, and the State or society which allowed crimes of that kind to go on unpunished could never be a moral society. The same thing applied to interest on money. From the moral standpoint interest is unearned by the man who gets it, and it does not matter how that is cloaked over, that is the fact. Nowadays it was counted the ' Blatchford, The Pope's Socialism, p. 2. ' What Socialism Metvns p. 3. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 81 greatest virtue to lend at so much per cent. That was a socially immoral proceeding, and because it was socially immoral it ate like a canker into the heart of society. As Socialists they objected to profit." ^ There are Socialists who preach the same doctrine of immorality and criminality of private property in more decided terms. They assert that it is criminal and immoral to make a profit as a compensation for the work of directing and taking heavy capital risks in productive business because such profits are opposed to the principle, "The labourer is entitled to the whole product of his labour" (see page 61). "A man has a 'right' to that which he has produced by the unaided exercise of his own faculties ; but he has not a right to that which is not produced by his own unaided faculties ; nor to the whole of that which has been produced by his faculties aided by the faculties of another man." ^ " Everyone who pockets gains without rendering an equivalent to society is a criminal. Every millionaire is a criminal. Every com- pany-chairman with nominal duties, though his salary be but 4001., is a criminal. Everyone who lends his neigh- bour 51. and exacts 51. 5s. Od. in return, is a criminal." ^ " When Proudhon advanced the somewhat startling pro- position, ' Property is theft,' he merely stated positively what good, orthodox Adam Smith, in his ' Wealth of Nations ' set forth more urbanely when he wrote, ' The produce of labour (it is clear from the context that he meant the whole produce), is the natural recompense or wages of labour.' " * " ' Property ' is theft, said Proudhon, and surely private property in the means of production is not only theft, but the means of more theft." " ' Forward, November 23, 1907. 2 Blatohford, Merrie England, p. 58. » Gronlnnd, Co-operative Gonnmumwealth, p. 166. * Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 4. ' McClure, Socialism, p. 16. a 82 BEITISH SOCIALISM Starting from the premiss that profit is immoral, the philosopher of British Socialism logically concludes : " The cheapest way of obtaining goods is not to pay for them, and if a buyer can avoid payment for the goods he obtains, he has quite as much right to do so as the seller has to receive for them double or treble their cost price and call it profit."^ Private property being, according to the Socialist doctrines, immoral and criminal, it follows that " Private Peopeety ought to be Abolishbb " Let us take note of an utterance in support of that doctrine : " If the life of men and women were a thing apart from that of their neighbours, there would be no need for a Socialist party nor any call for social reform. But man is not an entity ; he is only part of a mighty social organism. Every act of his has a bearing upon the like of his fellow. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the moral title to private property in any- thing. Private property exists entirely on sufferance. Private property therefore cannot be justly allowed when it interferes with the law of our social life or intercepts the progress of social development." ^ Let us now consider the doctrine " Competition should be Eeplaced bt Co-opeeation " Socialists teach : " Under Socialism you would have all the people working together for the good of all. Under non-Socialism you have all the persons working separately (and mostly against each other), each for the good of himself. So we find Socialism means co-opera- tion and non-Socialism means competition." ^ " Socialism ' Bax, Outlooks from the New Standpoint, p. 98. ^ Williams, The Difficulties of SociaUam, pp. 3, 4. ' Blatohford, Real Socialism, p. 11. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF SOCIALISM 83 is constructive as well as revolutionary, and Socialists propose to replace competition by co-operation." ' The question now arises : "On what ground do capitalists defend the prinpiple of competition ? A. On the ground that it brings into play a man's best qualities. — Q. Does it effect this ? A. This is occasionally its result, but it also brings out his worst qualities by stimulating him to struggle with his fellows for the relative improve- ment of his own position rather than for the absolute advancement of the interests of all." ^ " Apart altogether from its injustice, competitive capitalism, regarded as a system of serving the com- mimity, is a business bungle. What the party of the Fourth Estate objects to in the existing commercial and industrial system is, not merely the stealages which go on under the guise of rent, profit, and interest, but the enormous waste arising from lack of consolidation and co-operation in the processes of production and distribu- tion." ' " During the last half -century we have lost more by our ' business principle ' of dividing up our national work into competing one-man and one-company specula- tions, and insisting on every separate speculation paying its own separate way, than by all the tariffs and blockades that have been set up against us." * " In our age there is, as we have seen, throughout our whole economic sphere, no social order at all. There is absolute social anarchy. Against this anarchy Socialism is a protest." ' " There is only one remedy for both the waste and the stealages, and that is the substitution of public enterprise with organisation for private enterprise with competition." ® "Socialism means the socialising of the means and ' Hyndman, Social-Democracy, p. 24. 2 Joynes, The Socialists' Catechism, p. 13. ' Leatham, The Evolution, of the Fourth Estate, p. 3. * Fabianism and the Fiscal QiMstion, p. 19. ' Gronlund, Co-operative Commonwealth, p. 41. " Leatham, The Evolution of the Fourth Estate, p. 3. o 2 84 BEITISH SOCIALISM instruments of production, distribution, and exchange. For the individual capitalist it would substitute, as the director and controller of production and distribution, the com- munity in its organised capacity. The commercial and industrial chaos and waste which are the outcome of monopolistic competition would give place to the order- liness of associated effort, and under Sociahsm society would for the first time in history behave like an organism." ^ Private capitalism and consequent com- petition are reponsible not only for waste and muddle, but also for the adulteration of food and other necessaries of life. " Every man who knows anything of trade knows how general is the knavish practice of adulteration. Now all adulteration is directly due to competition. Did not Mr. John Bright once say that adulteration is only another form of competition ? " ^ There is much truth in the contention of the Socialists that co-operation is mightier, and often better, than free competition. However, that is no new discovery, and the introduction of Socialism is not needed to bring about co-operation. In Germany, Switzerland, and Denmark national and private co-operation are far more developed than in Great Britain, and waste, muddle, and stealages are rare in those countries, although none of these is ruled by a Socialist Government. Co-operation, national as well as private, is developing also in Great Britain, and it will continue to develop as its value becomes more and more understood. It is a curious fact that Socialists, though they recommend co-operation in the abstract, oppose it in the concrete for similar reasons. They fear that satisfied and prosperous co-operators will oppose Socialism.' The assertion that adulteration is due to competition is not founded upon fact. Adulteration springs from ' Leatham, Was Jesus a Socialist ? p. 4. 2 Elatohford, CompeUticm, p. 15. ' See Chapters VII & XXIII. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 85 many causes, and would continue to flourish even under the Socialistic rigime. If all cowkeepers were salaried officials of the Socialist State or municipality, they might nevertheless mix water with the milk to obtain milk for their own consumption and that of their families, and to diminish the labour of milking. Adulteration may be abolished by efficient supervision and well-devised and rigorously enforced sanitary laws. Let us now glance at the doctrine "The Socialist State will Arise by Nattjeal Development, and it will Handle Business MOBE Efficiently than do Pbivatb Individuals " " The State now registers, inspects, and controls nearly all the industrial functions which it has not yet absorbed. The inspection is often detailed and rigidly enforced. The State, in most of the larger industrial operations, prescribes the age of the worker, the hours of work, the amount of air, light, cubic space, heat, lavatory accommodation, holidays, and meal-times ; where, when, and how wages shall be paid ; how machinery, staircases, lift-holes, mines, and quarries are to be fenced and guarded ; how and when the plant shall be cleaned, repaired, and worked." ^ " Step by step political power and political organisation have been used for industrial ends, until a Minister of the Crown is the largest employer of labour in the country, and at least 200,000 men, not counting the army and navy, are directly in the service of the community, without the intervention of the profit of any middleman." ^ From the fact that the State inspects many things and carries on some business, it does not by any means follow that the State should inspect all things and could efficiently carry on all business. Questions such as " If the ' Eiiglish Progress towards Social-Democracy, p. 14. ^ Ibid. p. 13. 86 BEITISH SOCIAIiISM State can build battleships and make swords, why not also trading ships and ploughshares," ^ are ridiculous. One might as well ask, " If Messrs. Whiteleyor Marshall Field can supply furniture, houses, dresses, and funerals, being universal providers, why not also battleships, armies, and colonies ? It is also not true that the State or municipal corporations have more business ability than private business men. As an example of successful business management Socialists are fond of pointing to the Post Office, and of asserting that no private company could work as efficiently and as cheaply. These statements are erroneous. The success of the British Post Office, as of every post office, is due not to ability but to monopoly, as the following example will prove. Private individuals in Germany discovered some years ago a flaw in the legis- lation regarding the Post Office which enabled them to compete with the Imperial Post Office, not in postal business between different towns, but in local delivery. Private post offices sprang up in many towns and began to deliver letters at the rate of two pfennigs (one farthing) each. Although the German Post Office is the most efficient Post Office in Europe, it could not compete with these private post offices, and, after lengthy competition, steps had to be taken to extend the postal monopoly to town deliveries. The British Post Office, like most public offices, is a most conservative institution. Every progress and every reform had to be forced upon it by outside agitation. Services such as money dehvery at private residences, cash on delivery parcels, &c., which other countries have enjoyed during several decades, are stubbornly denied to England. Private competition would probably have furnished these conveniences long ago. In London the Messenger Boy Company competes with the Post Office in the carrying of express letters, and various private carriers compete with it in delivering parcels, and ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 15. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 87 in both instances the private trader supplies a better and cheaper service than the Government Post Office. A comparison of the Post Office telephone in England and the private telephone in America shows the great supe- riority of the latter. The slow and ultra-conservative British Post Office supplies no proof that the Government would handle production and distribution better than private enterprise. On the contrary. British Socialists claim unanimously that their theories and demands are founded upon science. " The Socialist doctrine systematises the industrial changes. It lays down a law of capitalist evolution. It describes the natural history of society. It is not, therefore, only a popular creed for the market-place, but a scientific inquiry for the study. Like every theory in Sociology, it has a political bearing, but it can be studied as much detached from politics as is Darwinism." ^ Do the funda- mental doctrines of British Socialism bear out the claims of its champions? The foregoing pages prove that the scientific basis of Socialism, or rather of British Socialism, consists of a number of doctrines which cannot stand examination and which are disproved by daily experience and by common-sense. The question now suggests itself: "How is it that the British Socialists base their demands on pseudo- scientific doctrines of obvious absurdity ? " British Socialism has been imported from Germany. Marx, Bngels, Lassalle, Eodbertus, and various other Germans are the fathers of modern scientific Socialism. "To German scholars is largely due the development of Socialism from the Utopian stage to the scientific. Universality is its distinguishing feature." ^ " Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1847 laid, through the 'Com- munist Manifesto,' the scientific foundation of modern ' Maodonald, Socialism, p. 3. '' MoClure, Socialism, p. 13. 88 BBITISH SOCIALISM Socialism."' "And 'Capital,' Karl Marx's great work, has become the loadstar of modern economic science." ^ Karl Marx's " Manifesto " appeared in 1847 ; the first volume of his " Capital " was published in 1867. Since the appearance of the former sixty years, and since the publication of the latter forty years, have passed by. Much has changed in the world, but the Marxian doc- trines have remained unchanged. The worst about speculative doctrines is that time is apt to disprove them. Whilst the German Socialists have thinkers in their ranks who have adapted the older Communist theories to present conditions, leaving out those theories which are palpably false, English Socialists have stood still and are satisfied to repeat those ancient doctrines which the Germans have abandoned long ago. English Socialists try to impose upon an uncritical public by parading the worn-out stage properties of the forties. Marx is to the vast majority of British Socialists still an oracle and the fountain head of all wisdom. " Marx is the Darwin of modern sociology." ' " All over the world his brain is put on pretty much the same level as Aristotle's."^ " Modern Socialism is based, nationally and inter- nationally, theoretically and to a large extent practically, on the writings of Karl Marx. These writings have been expounded, and where necessary applied, extended, and amplified, to meet conditions which have developed since his death nearly a quarter of a century ago, in every civilised country. It is safe to say that no one who does not understand and accept in the main the views set forth by Marx, comprehends the real position of capitalist Society, nor, what is even more important, can ' Kautsky, The Class Struggle, p. 24. ^ Kautsky, Tlie Socialist Republic, p. 21. ' Hyndman, Historic Basis of Socialism, p. 436. * Justice, October 12, 1907. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 89 fuUy master the problems of the coming time." ^ " The Social-Democratic Federation, which is by far the oldest and still the most active Socialist organisation in this country, bases its teaching to-day, as it has always done, upon the words of Karl Marx." ^ Most active Socialists in Great Britian think Marx and Lassalle infallible. It is true that the Fabian Society has pointed out " the necessity of maintaining as critical an attitude towards Marx and Lassalle, some of whose views must by this time be discarded as erroneous or obsolete," ^ but that protest appears to have been left unheeded by most British Socialists. In fact, the aban- donment of revolutionary Marxianism has caused the Fabians to be treated with open hostility by the other Socialist sections. The reasons for that hostility are obvious. The doctrines of Marx and Lassalle, though they are, to say the least, erroneous and obsolete, are admirably fitted to inflame the passions of the masses. Their doctrines may not be true, but they are useful to professional agitators. Independent Socialists in all countries have not disguised their opinion of Marx's "Capital,"which, in the words of an English Socialist, " is not a treatise on Socialism ; it is a jeremiad against the bourgeoisie, supported by such a mass of evidence and such a relentless Jewish genius for denunciation as had never been brought to bear before." * British Socialism is neither scientific nor sincere. Its leaders know that the Iron Law of Wages (see p. 53), the Law of Increasing Misery (see p. 56), and other doctrines, which are exceedingly useful to the agitator who vsrishes to poison the mind of the masses, have been thrown into the lumber room in (Germany and ' Justice, October 12, 1907. ^ The Social- Democrat, November 1907, p. 676. ' Beport on Fabian Policy, 1896, p. 6. * G. B. Shaw, quoted in Jackson, Bernard Shaw, p. 100. 90 BEITISH SOCIALISM most other countries (see the writings of Bernstein, Jaures, and others), but they do not abandon them. Apparently it is their pohcy rather to create strife and confusion than to alleviate existing misery. That atti- tude must have covered English Socialists with ignominy in the eyes of foreign Socialists. The very humiliating treatment which the English Socialists received at the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart of 1907 from their Continental comrades suggests that the curious attitude and the not very estimable tactics of British Socialists have not found the approval of their Continental colleagues. The doctrines of the English SociaUsts vdth regard to property are identical with those of most Anarchists (see Eltzbacher, " Der Anarchismus "). For instance, Proudhon taught : " We rob (1) by murder on the highway ; (2) alone, or in a band ; (3) by breaking into buildings, or scaling walls ; (4) by abstraction ; (5) by fraudulent bankruptcy; (6) by forgery of the hand- writing of public officials, or private individuals ; (7) by manufacture of counterfeit money; (8) by cheating; (9) by swindling ; (10) by abuse of trust ; (11) by games and lotteries ; (12) by usury ; (13) by farm rent, house rent, and leases of all kinds ; (14) by commerce, when the profit of the merchant exceeds his legitimate salary ; (15) by making profit on our product, by accepting sinecures, and by exacting exorbitant wages." ' " "V^Tiat is property? It is robbery."^ " Property, after having robbed the labourer by usury, murders him slowly by starvation." ' Practically the identical doctrines are pro- pounded by British Socialists. Further instances of the resemblance between Socialism and Anarchism will be found in Chapter XXX. " Socialism and Anarchism." Society is at present based upon individualism. In ' Proudhon, What is Property ? pp. 252-256. ' Ibid. p. 37. ' Ibid. p. 184. FUNDAMENTAL DOCTEINES OF SOCIALISM 91 their anxiety to prove the failure of modern civilisation British Socialists deny that the world has progressed under individualism. " Not by individual selfishness, or national selfishness, has the progress of the human race been advanced." ^ And they boldly declare that all history, having been written by men of the dominant class, is a deception. " Are we then to understand that the whole of history, so far, has been written from the point of view of the dominant class of every age ? Most assuredly so ; and this applies to well-nigh the whole of the sources of past history." ^ The foregoing should suffice to make it clear that the Socialist agitation is not based on irrefutable scientific doctrines, as Socialists pretend, but on deception. It may be said that no agitation is free from deception, that the end justifies the means, that Socialism means for the best. We have been told " Socialism is a religion of humanity. Socialism is the only hope of the race. Socialism is the remedy — the only remedy — which Lord Salisbury could not find." ^ We must look into the practical proposals of British Socialism in order to be able to judge its character. ' Snowden, The Christ that is to be, p. 6. ^ Bax and Queleh, A New Catechism of Socialism, p. 32. ' Blatchford, What is this Socialism 1 p. 11. 92 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTER V THE AIMS AND POLICY OF THE SOCIALISTS Those people who formerly caUed themselves Communists now call themselves Socialists. Marx and Bngels wrote in their celebrated " Manifesto " : " The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence : Abolition of private property." ' The policy of modern British Socialism may be summed up in the identical words. Indeed, we are told by one of its most eager champions that " The programme of Socialism consists essentially of one demand — that the land and other instruments of production shall be the common property of the people, and shall be used and governed by the people for the people." ^ " We suggest that the nation should own all the ships, all the railways, all the factories, all the buildings, all the land, and all the requisites of national life and defence." ' According to the Socialist doctrines which have been given in Chapter IV, private property is the enemy of the workers. Therefore they quite logically demand that all private property must be abolished. "The problem has to be faced. Either we must submit for ever to hand over at least one-third of our annual product to those who do us the favour to own our country without the obligation of rendering any service to the community, and to see this tribute augment with every advance in our industry and numbers, or else we ' Page 17. ^ Blatohford, Merrie Englana, p. 100. ' Clarion, October 11, 1907. SOCIALIST AIMS AND POLICY 93 must take steps, as considerately as may be possible, to put an end to this state of things." ^ " The modern form of private property is simply a legal claim to take a share of the produce of the national industry year by year without working for it. Socialism involves discon- tinuance of the payment of these incomes and addition of the wealth so saved to incomes derived from labour. The economic problem of Socialism is thus solved." ^ A general division of the existing private property among all the people is not intended, because it is con- sidered to be impracticable. " Socialism does not consist in violently seizing upon the property of the rich and sharing it out amongst the poor." ' " Plans for a national ' dividing up ' are not Socialism. They are nonsense. ' Dividing up ' means individual ownership. Socialism means collective ownership." "• " It is obvious that, in the present stage of economic development, individual ownership is impossible. All the great means of produc- tion are collectively owned now. Individual liberty based upon individual property is therefore out of the question, and the emancipation of the working class can only be achieved in social freedom, based upon social property, through the transformation of privately owned collective property into publicly owned collective property." ^ Starting from these premisses, the Socialists arrive at the demand that " all the means of production and distri- bution, all the machinery, all the buildings, everything that is necessary to provide the fundamental necessaries of life, must be common property." ^ " We want all the instruments for the purposes of trade to be the property of the State. With that will have come at the same ' Sidney Webb, The Difficulties of IndividiMlism, p. 10. ' Fabian Essays im Socialism, pp. 26, 27. ' BlatcUord, Merrie England, p. 99. ' Blatcbford, Whxit is this Socialism? p. 1. ' Socialist Annual, 1907, p. 39. ' Kirtlan, Socialism for Christians, p. 15. 94 BEITISH SOCIALISM time the abolition of power permitting any individual to exact rent or interest for the loan of land or of the implements of production. The abolition of all private property v?ill mean the extinction of the parasite." ' " The overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interest of the whole community: That is Socialism."^ "The Fabian Society aims at the reorganisation of society by the emancipation of land and industrial capital from individual and class ownership, and the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit. The Society accordingly works for the extinction of private property in land, and of the consequent individual appropriation, in the form of rent, of the price paid for permission to use the earth, as well as for the advantages of superior soils and sites. The Society, further, works for the transfer to the community of the administration of such industrial capital as can conveniently be managed socially." ' " Here in plain words is the principle, or root idea, on which all Socialists agree — that the country and everything in the country shall belong to the whole people (the nation), and shall be used by the people and for the people. That principle, the root idea of Socialism, means two things : (1) That the land, and all the machines, tools, and buildings used in making needful things, together vpith all the canals, rivers, roads, railways, ships, and trains used in moving, sharing (distributing) needful things, and all the shops, markets, scales, weights, and money used in selling or dividing needful things, shall be the property of (belong to) the whole people (the nation). (2) That the land, tools, ' Tillett, Trades Unionism and Socialism, p. 12. ^ Mamifesio of the Socialist Party of Great Britam, p. 9. ' Basis of the Fabian Society. SOCIALIST AIMS AND POLICY 95 machines, trains, rivers, shops, scales, money, and all the other things belonging to the people, shall be worked, managed, divided, and used by the whole people, in such way as the greater number of the whole people shall deem best." ^ A perusal of the party programmes and other Socialist documents contained in the Appendix will show that the abolition of all private property, and its transference to the State, is the aim of all the Socialist organisations and parties, and no further extracts need be given in order to prove the unanimity of the Socialists on this point. The question now arises : How is this transference of all private property to the State to be effected ? Will the present holders of property be fully compensated, partly compensated, or not compensated at all ? Do the Sociahsts aim at purchase or at confiscation of existing private property. Will they respect existing rights, or are they bent upon open or more or less disguised spoliation ? It is, unfortunately, very difficult to obtain a plain and straightforward answer upon this important point. Instead of giving this answer, British Socialists loudly protest that it is not their aim to destroy or abolish property. As nobody has suspected the Socialists to be foolish enough to abolish or destroy property — which means the instruments of production, such as factories, machines, railways, &c., by the use of which the people Hve, and thus bring starvation upon themselves — their eagerness to explain that they do not intend to abolish or destroy property can only be explained by the surmise that they hope shallow simpletons will say, "The Socialists have no intention to take our capital away from us by force and without compensation, for they have declared that they do not intend to abolish pro- perty." A few of these declarations should here be ' Blatchford, Beal Socialism, p. 10. 96 BKITISH SOCIALISM given : " So far from abolishing property, Socialism desires to establish it upon the only basis which makes property secure — that of service, of creative service." ^ " Socialism does not propose to abolish land or capital. Only a genius could have thought of this as an objection to Socialism." ^ " Socialism is far from aiming at the destruction of private property. Its object is to increase private property amongst those whose property is so limited that they have a difficulty in keeping themselves aUve." ' Another Socialist makes the very irrelevant and unnecessary observation : " It is a firm principle of Socialism never to interfere with personal property in order to investigate its origin or to arrange it in a dif- ferent way. Never and nowhere ! And whoever asserts to the contrary either does not know the principles of SociaHsm or willingly and knowingly asserts an untruth. The Socialists deem an investigation into the origin of an acknowledged personal property an unnecessary trouble. They consider the personal property an accom- plished fact and respect it : so much so, that they consider stealing a crime."* Mr. Blatchford informs us, "We do not propose to seize anything. We do propose to get some things and to make them the property of the whole nation by Act of Parliament or by purchase." ^ As regards the question whether compensation or no compensation will be given, our Socialist leaders give us very vague and unsatisfactory replies, which rather contain highly respectable but perfectly irrelevant commonplaces than definite proposals. Most Socialists will answer the plain question of confiscation or no confiscation with a quibble or a conundrum, as the follow- ing examples will show : " One view of Socialism is that ' Maodonald, Socialism, p. 103. ^ Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 11. " Ethel Snowden, The Woman, Socialist, p. 3. ■• Sorge, Socialism and the Worker, p. 9. '^ Blatchford, Beal Socialism, p. 3. SOCIALIST AIMS AND POLICY 97 it is a scheme of confiscation of property from one class to give it to another class — that Socialists are Dick Tmrpins made respectable by using Acts of Parliament instead of pistols. Now the real fact is that the Socialist has come to put an end to Dick Turpin methods. Socialism is a rational criticism of our present methods of production and distribution. It desires to say to the possessors: Show us by what title you possess; and it proposes to pass its judgments upon the axiom that whoever renders service to society should be able to have some appropriate share in the national wealth." ^ In other words, an inquisitorial tribunal with arbitrary powers would be empowered to confiscate at will. " Socialism is not a plan to despoil the rich : it is a plan to stop the rich from despoiling the poor. Socialism is not a thief ; it is a policeman." ^ " Do any say we attack private property? We deny it. We attack only that private property for a few thousand loiterers and slave-drivers which renders all property in the fruits of their own labour impossible for millions. We challenge that private property which renders poverty at once a necessity and a crime." ^ " Socialism would not rob anyone. It would distinguish between the lawful possessor and the rightful possessor, and it would compel the ' lawful ' possessor to restore to the rightful possessor the property of which he had robbed him."'' "We do not propose to rob the rich man of his wealth; we deny that it is his wealth. Wealth is a social product, and therefore belongs to society. It is not an act of brigandage to demand that society shall own and use what society has created." ^ Some Socialists consider the question of compensation ' Macdonald, Socialism, p. 103. 2 Blatohford, What is this Socialism ? p. 2. ' Socialism made Plain, p. 10. ' Blatohford, The Pope's Socialism, p. 3. ' Hobart, Social-Democracy, p. 7. H 98 BRITISH SOCIALISM or no compensation as one of very minor import- ance. "The question of compensation need not greatly worry us. Socialists hold that plutocrats owe all their wealth to society ; and therefore that society has the right at any moment to take it back." ^ The more cautious and moderate French and German Socialists are apt to promise compensation in terms such as the following : " We declare expressly that it is the duty of the State to give to those whose interests will be damaged by the necessary abolition of laws which are detrimental to the common interest compensation as far as it is possible and consistent with the interests of all." 2 It will be observed that the plain word compensation is circumscribed by the phrase, "compensation as far as it is possible and consistent with the interests of all." In other and plainer words, compensation is to be arbitrarily given, and its proportion to the property acquired is apparently to be determined not by its value or by fairness and equity, but by the will of those who may be in power. English Socialists, on the other hand, are apt to recommend a far more drastic treatment of property- owners. "We claim that land in country and land in towns, mines, parks, mountains, moors, should be owned by the people for the people, to be held, used, built over, and cultivated upon such terms as the people themselves see fit to ordain. The handful of marauders who now hold possession have, and can have, no right save brute force against the tens of millions whom they wrong." ^ The most moderate school of British Socialism, the Fabian Society, favours in its statement of policy given under the heading "Basis of the Fabian Society" the ' Gronlund, Go-operative Commoniuealth, p. 94. ' Jaur^s, Practical Socialism, p. 3. ^ Socialism Made Plain, p. 8. SOCIALIST AIMS AND POLICY 99 expropriation of all private capital " without compen- sation, though not without such relief to expropriated individuals as may seem fit to the community." In other words, expropriated property-owners may, or may not, be given something to protect them from starvation, not as a matter of right, but of charity. Most Socialists who favour compensation recommend that it should be given only in the form of consumable articles such as food, clothes, &c., or in bonds which are changeable only into consumable articles. " Eothschild will be paid in bread and meat and luxury and wine and theatre tickets." ^ " When capitalistic property shall have been socialised, the holders of compensation deeds will not be able to purchase either fresh means of production or producers ; they will only be able to buy products." ^ Some Socialists suggest that the bonds given in ex- change for property acquired by the State might be cancelled later on. The property-owners could be de- prived of their possessions without any difficulty, either gradually by taxation or at one blow by confiscation at the option of the men in power. "When the entire capitalistic property takes the form of State bonds, the property which it is impossible to ascertain to-day would then be known to everybody. It would only be necessary to decree that all bonds are to be registered in the name of the owner, and it would be possible to estimate exactly the capitaHst income and the property of everyone. It would then also be possible to screw up the taxes to any extent without fear of their being evaded by any concealments. It would then be also impossible to escape them by emigration, since it is the public institutions of the country, and in the first place the State, from which all interest comes, and the latter can deduct the tax from Gronlund, Co-qperative Comrncnwealth, p. 105. Jaures, Practical Socialism, p. 6. 100 BRITISH SOCIALISM the interest before it is paid out. Under these circum- stances it would be possible to raise the progressive income and property tax as high as necessary — if necessary as high as would come very near, if not actually amount to, confiscation of the large property." ' The foregoing is a simple plan of swindling property- owners out of their holdings. Some of the more moderate Socialists argue : " There is much to be said in favour of the liberal treatment of the present generation of proprietors and even of their children. But against the permanent welfare of the community the unborn have no rights." " " On the other hand, Bax, the philosopher of British Socialism, quite logically and honestly states that the idea of compensation has no room in the Socialist code of ethics, that the bourgeois idea of compensation on grounds of justice is irreconcilable with the Socialist conception of justice. He says : " Between possession and confiscation is a great gulf fixed, the gulf between the bourgeois and the Socialist worlds. Well-meaning men seek to throw bridges over this gulf by schemes of compensation, abolition of inheritance, and the like. But the attempts, as we believe, even should they ever be carried out practically, must fall disastrously short of their mark and be speedily engulfed between the two positions they are intended to unite. Nowhere can the phrase ' He that is not for us is against us ' be more aptly applied than to the moral standpoint of modern individualism and of modern Socialism. To the one, individual possession is right and justice, and social confiscation is wrong and injustice; to the other, individual possession is wrong and injustice, and confiscation is right and justice. This is the real issue. Unless a man accept the last-named standpoint unreservedly, he has no right to ' Kautsky, The Social Revolution, p. 10. ' Sidney Webb, Ths Difficulties of Individualism, p. 10. SOCIALIST AIMS AND POLICY 101 call himself a Socialist. If he does accept it, he will seek the shortest and most direct road to the attainment of justice rather than any longer and more indirect ones, of which it is at best doubtful whether they will attain the end at all. For be it remembered the moment you tamper with the sacredness of private property, no matter how mildly, you surrender the conventional bourgeois principle of justice, while the moment you talk of compensation you surrender the Socialist principle of justice, for compensation can only be real if it is adequate, and can only be adequate if it counterbalances, and thereby annuls, the confiscation. It is just, says the individualist, for a man to be able to do what he likes with his own. Good; but what is his own?"' "The great act of confiscation v?ill be the seal of the new era ; then and not till then will the knell of civilisation, with its rights of property and its class society, be sounded ; then, and not tiU then, will justice — the justice not of civiUsation but of Sociahsm — become the corner-stone of the social arch." ^ I think the straightforwardness of Bax is preferable to the crooked and insincere explanations and proposals of the British and foreign Socialist given in the foregoing. Bax's opinion is irrefutable. According to the doctrines of Socialism given in Chapter IV., labour is the source of all wealth; the greater part of the products of that labour is dishonestly abstracted from the labourer by the capitalist class, which has converted the result of that labour into property. Hence Sociahsts think with Proudhon, and they very often openly declare, that property is theft. Capitalist society will not compensate the thief when taking from him his booty. Socialism will not compensate property-owners when taking away their property. Besides, compensation would be utterly opposed to the root idea of Socialist justice. At present ' Bax, Tlw Ethics of Socialism, pp. 75, 76. ^ Ibid. p. 83. 102 BEITISH SOCIALISM expropriation without indemnity is called theft, but it would not be called theft under a Socialist regime. The chapter on " Law and Justice under Socialism " will make that quite clear. Socialism teaches that no man is entitled to anything except that which he has made himself. "No man has a right to call anything his own but that which he himself has made. Now, no man makes the land. The land is not created by labour, but it is the gift of God to all. The earth belongs to the people. For the nonce please take the statement on the authority of Herbert Spencer, All men ' have equal rights to the use of the earth.' So that he who possesses land possesses that to which he has no right, and he who invests his savings in land becomes a purchaser of stolen property." ' " No man made the land, and laws and lawyers notwithstanding no man has any moral right before God to call a solitary strip of God's earth his than has the burglar to call his stolen goods his personal property. It is therefore evident that the bite named ' rent ' given to landlords for permission to live upon and use God's free gift to man is as much the fruit of robbery, the spoil of plunder, as is the result of a burglar's night's marauding, a common pickpocket's day's ' takings.' " ^ Capital is in the same position as land, for " Land and capital are indistinguishable." ^ The more honest Socialists agree with Bax that compensation for property acquired would be inadvisable and impracticable. " In a pamphlet called ' Collectivism and Bevolution ' M. Jules Guesde said, ' Expropriation with indemnity is a chimera. And whatever regret one may feel, however dif&cult may appear to peaceful natures the last method, we have no other way than to retake violently that which belongs to all, by— let us say the ' Blatohford, The Pope's Socialism, p. 6. '^ Muse, Poverty and Drunkenvsss, p. 9. ' Facts for Socialists, p. 7. SOCIALIST AIMS AND POLICY 103 word — the Eevolution.' He added, ' Capital which it is necessary to take from individuals, such as the land, is not of human creation ; it is anterior to man, for whom it is a sine qua non of existence. It cannot therefore belong to some to the exclusion of others, without the others being robbed. And to make the robbers deliver up, to oblige them to restore in any and every way is not so much a right as a duty, the most sacred of duties." ^ A repeated English Socialist says bluntly, " How to secure the swag to the workers is the problem." ^ A Christian Socialist clergyman sarcastically proposes : "If you are a Christian and love your rich neighbour as yourself, you will do all you can to help him to become poorer. For if you believe in the Gospel, you know that to be rich is the very worst thing that can happen to a man. That if a man is rich, it is with the greatest difficulty that he can be saved ; for ' it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God ' (Mark x. 25). This is startling now, but it was not less strange and startling to the disciples who ' were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, "Who then can be saved ? ' But the needle's eye has not grown any larger since then, and the camels certainly have not grown smaller ! All true Christians then must desire to relieve the rich man of his excess for his own sake, since the inequality that ruins the body of Lazarus ruins the soul of Dives ; and Dives is the more miserable of the two, because the soul is more precious than the body." * The abolition of private property requires also the abolition of the right of inheritance, as otherwise capital might again be accumulated in the hands of the thrifty and the enterprising. Therefore the manifesto of Marx and Engels already demands the " abolition of all right of ' Guyot, Fretensicyns of Socialism, p. 16. ' Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 0. " Dearmer, Socialism and Christianiiy, pp. 17, 18. 104 BEITISH SOCIALISM inheritance." ' Other Socialists say that this right should not be abolished. " Socialists used to insist upon the abolition of the right of inheritance and bequest. But if what I gain by my own labour is rightfully my property — and the Co-operative Commonwealth will, as we have seen, declare it to be so — it will be inexpedient in that Commonwealth to destroy any of the essential qualities of propertyship ; and I can hardly call that my property which I may not give to whom I please at my death. No man in a Co-operative Commonwealth could acquire so much more wealth than his fellows as to make him dan- gerous to them." ^ " Socialists do not object to property; they are not opposed to private property. They are therefore not opposed to inheritance. The right to acquire and hold involves the right to dispose by will or by gift. We only object to such a use of property as enables classes for generation after generation to live on the proceeds of other people's labour without doing any useful service to society." ' This very diplomatic sentence may be explained in a variety of ways. Probably it means that holders of property of large size could summarily be deprived of their possessions by order of the Government, as has been indicated by that writer in another passage (see page 97). Such a power would make the right to hold and to bequeath property a farce. Property could be held then only on the same terms on which, I believe, it is held by Central African negroes. Another Socialist states, "If I am entitled to what I produce, then it follows that I am entitled to dispose of all that I produce ; " and then denies the right to personal property by continuing : " The Socialists say, ' Not thine or mine, but ours.' " * ' Marx and Bngels, Manifesto, p. 22. ' Gronlund, Co-operative Commonwealth, p 105. ' Macdonald, Socialism, p. 105. •■ Socialism, For aiul Against, p. 9. SOCIALIST AIMS AND POLICY 105 It would be only logical that the Socialist State, after abolishing private property by following the principle "not thine but ours," should not allow its re-creation and re- accumulation. " This pernicious right (wrong) of inherit- ance must be abolished. It is the means by which the ' classes ' perpetuate their robbery of the ' masses ' from generation to generation and age to age. The disinherited would of course have the community to look to for sound education in youth, suitable employment in years of maturity, generous pension in old age, &c., and to what else can any rational human being lay just claim ? " ^ Some Socialists argue that in the Socialist State " there will be nothing to bequeath, unless we choose to regard household furniture as a legacy of any importance. This settles the question of the right of inheritance, which Sociahsm vsdll have no need to abolish formally." ^ " Socialism condemns as reactionary and immoral all that tends to the debasement of humanity. It condemns our industrial and commercial system as a degrading system — degrading both to the few who amass wealth and to the many who by their labour enable the few to lay up riches. It is degrading to those who rob and to those who are robbed ; to those who cheat and to those who are cheated ; to those who swim and to those who sink ; to those who revel in luxury and to those who, barely sustaining their own lives, are compelled by their toil to supply luxuries for others to enjoy." ^ There- fore Socialism means to abolish the present system root and branch, and the most straightforward Socialists are frankly in favour of the most thorough measures for abolishing private property. Children and poets proverbially speak the truth. Let us see what the Socialist poets think of the expropriation of property-owners. ' Davidson, TJie Old Order amd the New, p. 158. 2 Bebel, Womcm, pp. 231, 232. 8 " Veritas," Did Jesiis Christ teach Socialism ? p. 2. 106 BEITISH SOCIALISM Some of the poets tell the workers that the labourers not only produce all the wealth, but are also all-powerful, and, if they wish to, they can do what they like with the country. Shall you complain who feed the world — Who clothe the world, who house the world ? Shall you complain who are the world Of what the world may do ? As from this hour you use your power, The world must follow you. As from this hour you use your power, The world must follow you.'^ Others remind them of their grievances, and urge them to drive the rich man out of the country : Think on the wrongs ye bear, Think on the rags ye wear, Think on the insults endured from your birth ; Toiling in snow and rain. Bearing up heaps of gain. All for the tyrants who grind ye to earth. Your brains are as keen as the brains of your masters, In swiftness and strength ye surpass them by far, Ye've brave hearts that teach ye to laugh at disasters, Ye vastly outnumber your tyrants in war. Why, then, like cowards stand. Using not brain or hand. Thankful, like dogs, when they throw ye a bone ? What right have they to take Things that ye toil to make ? Know ye not, boobies, that all is your own ? ^ Arise, unite each scattered band, To sweep all masters from our land, Then shall each mine and loom and field Its produce to the workers yield.^ ' Social-Democratic Federation Song Booh, p. 56. ^ Ibid. p. 30. ^ Independent Labour Parly Song Book, p. 33. SOCIALIST AIMS AND POLICY 107 Others, again, urge the workers to seize all property and to make the rich man work for them. They're never done extolling The nobility of work ; But the knaves ! they always take good care Their share of toil to shirk. Do they send their sons and daughters, To the workshop or the mill ? Oh ! we'll turn things upside down, my lads ; It will change their tune, it will ! ' We'll drive the robbers from our lands, our meadows and cm- hills ; We'll drive them from our warehouses, our workshops and our mills ; We'll make them fare upon their bonds, their bankbooks and their bills. As we go marching to liberty.^ Some Socialists believe that they vWll come to power suddenly and by violence, and abolish private capital at a stroke. Others are inclined to think that they will only gradually abolish it. Karl Marx was of the latter opinion. Therefore he vsrote in his " Manifesto " : " The first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State — i.e. of the pro- letariat organised as the ruling class ; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course in the beginning this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property and on the conditions of bourgeois production : by means of measures therefore which appear economically insuffi- ' Social-Democratic Federation Song Book, p. Socialism and Trade Unionisin : Wherein do they Differ ? pp. 2-8. 140 BEITISH SOCIALISM which only have value through their labour. Let the co-operators co-operate with each other, with trade unionists, and Social Democrats for the same object. Let us all agitate, educate, and organise to form the workers of the world into a gigantic Trade Union, an International Co-operation, a Social-Democratic Common- wealth." ^ Since the time when these words were written attempts have constantly been made by the Socialists to co-operate with the unionists, and, at least outwardly, their relations have become intimate. Many Socialists have high hopes for a united Socialist Labour party. At a recent conference of the Social-Democratic Federation the chairman declared, in his opening address : " There can be but one Independent Labour Party, and there ought to be a united Socialist party. Not many years will pass before the new Labour party will join the Socialist movement, but in the meantime everything seems ripening for a united Socialist party, consolidating both forces and funds, preventing overlapping and remov- ing friction. Never were the times so favourable to Socialism. In spite of the boycott, the misrepresen- tation, the influence of the temporal powers against us, the word Socialism is no longer unknown or feared. In the workshop, the mine, the train, or the tram, men are eagerly discussing Socialism. The workers need grumble of their chains no longer ; they can fling them off at will ; for they, and they alone, hold the keys of freedom. This poor blind Samson is waking up and groping his way ; Socialists must be ready to lead him." ^ Socialism has of late years strongly permeated the unions. Will it succeed in capturing them ? The Socialists are very optimistic on that point. " The out- ' Queloh, Trade Unimiism, p. 16. '' Opening Address, Chairman Hartley at Annual Conference, Social- Democratic Federation, Anrntal Report, 1906, pp. 3, 4. SOCIALISTS AND TEADE UNIONISTS ]41 look is full of promise for the political Labour roovement. It only requires the adoption of a candidate by the united local societies to turn every trade union institute or office, miners' lodge and branch meeting-room into a committee-room, and when the call is made by the Parliamentary group there will be plenty of voluntary workers. The great fact stands out prominently : Labour is moving ; and that fact points to stirring times and a new phase in the history of the nation." ^ The character of the trade unions has undoubtedly been greatly changed through Socialist agitation. The trade unionist has almost ceased to be an individualist. " The modern trade unionist is out for a pohtical revolu- tion. He has dismissed, as an obsolete absurdity, the idea of paying for his benefits, pensions, sick-pay, unemployed relief, out of his union subscriptions. He intends to combine with his fellows of all trades in a demand for Parliamentary legislation which will provide these benefits out of national funds, mainly by way of a graduated income-tax. So he demands old-age pensions and an Unemployed Act. He has given up the tedious task of bargaining with his master for higher wages and shorter hours ; he intends to compel him by the more drastic method of an eight-hour day and a minimum wage and State Arbitration Act." ^ There is much truth in this description. As the real nature of the relations between the trades unions and the Socialists is known to only a few, the following documents should be of great interest : — "In consequence of a decision of the International Socialist Bureau (June 9, 1907), its secretary sent a circular to the affiliated parties in order to obtain from them official notes on the relations between the political parties and trade unions of their country, and he received ' John Penny, The Political Labour Movement, p. 15. 2 New Age, November 30, 1007. 142 BEITISH SOCIALISM the following replies from the Social-Democratic Federa- tion, the Labour party, and the Independent Labour Party : — " ' Although from its formation in March 1881 the Social-Democratic Federation has strongly opposed the abstention of the older trade unions from politics, and has still more strongly objected to the very close alliance which some of its leading members have made with the capitalist Liberal party, resulting in high office and even Cabinet rank ' " [another hit at Mr. John Burns] " ' for those who have thus deliberately betrayed the interests of their fellows and supporters of the working class ; never- theless, we have never at any time failed to help in every way possible, personally and pecuniarily, every strike which has taken place since 1881 (even in spite of our doubting the value of the mere strike as a weapon against organised capitalism), and our organisation has invari- ably agitated in favour of every Parliamentary measure accepted by the trade unions which could at all help the trade unionists and the workers at large. Our relations with the trade unions may therefore be described as friendly whenever bhey take action against capitalism, and appreciative of their increasing tendency towards Socialism. We always recommend all workers to join the trade union of their trade. No Socialist propaganda is officially carried on by the trade unions, but as quite 76 per cent, of the members of the Social-Democratic Federation are also trade unionists in their respective trades, by their agency Socialist thought is steadily permeating the ranks of trade unionism. As also the older leaders, brought up entirely in the bourgeois school of thought and action, die or are superannuated, there can be no doubt whatever that they will be succeeded by Socialists, and in fact they are being so replaced at the present time. Trade union Socialist leaders, of course, will then use the trade union organisation SOCIALISTS AND TEADE UNIONISTS 143 to spread Socialism. So far as they have been elected to executive office, they do this even now. — H. W. Lbb, Secretary.' " ' The Labour party is a federation of Socialist societies and trade union organisations. Trade unions are directly affiliated, their membership forming, together with the membership of the Socialist organisations, the member- ship of the Labour party. In some cases Socialist propaganda is conducted by the trade unions, several of them embracing the Socialist basis in their rules. — J. S. MiDDLETON, for J. Eamsay Macdonald.' " 'The Independent Labour Party is affiliated to the Labour party, which is a federation of trade unions, co-operative societies, . and Socialist societies, for political action. The Independent Labour Party consists of individual members, and not of federated organisations. Our membership is only open to Socialists individually. Our association with the trade unions comes through the Labour party, with which both we and they are affiliated. The trade unions of Great Britain do not carry on any specific Socialist propaganda among their members, although several of the unions state in their constitution that they believe in Socialism. Many Socialist speeches are made from trade union platforms and demonstra- tions held under the auspices of trade unions. — Francis Johnson, Secretary.' " ' The foregoing three letters are most interesting and most important, and they should be carefully read because they prove that the forces of trade unionism and Socialism are commingling, and that the trade unionists may reckon upon the support of the Socialists whenever they come into conflict with capitahsts. Although in constructive policy Socialism and trade unionism are as yet things apart, they possess a common working basis as soon as trouble occurs between capital and labour. ' Social Democrat, September 1907, pp. 548, 549. 144 BEITISH SOCIALISM To increase the intimacy between them and the repre- sentatives of labour pure and simple, and to accustom them to co-operation, the Socialist cannot do anything better than to cause conflicts to arise between capital and labour. Therefore it is only natural that the Socialists will urge the trade unionists to make great, and ever greater, demands upon capital ; that every concession will only be considered as a stepping-stone to a further con- cession. Every conflict between capital and labour, everything that will increase the dissatisfaction of the workers, will serve the Socialists, because it will cause the workers to believe in the doctrine of the Iron Law of Wages, in the Law of Increasing Misery, and in the pro- mised Socialist paradise. Therefore the Socialists will do all they can to embitter the relations between capital and labour, and to bring about strikes. For instance, at the time when, in the autumn of 1907, the difl'erences between the British railway companies and the men were acute, practically the whole Socialist press urged the rail- way servants to declare a strike, and the settlement of the difficulty by Mr. Lloyd George was greeted with derision and regret. Mr. Bell, who had accepted the settlement, was treated with contempt, and the result of the Railway Conference was declared to be the Sedan of the British trade union movement.^ Owing to the persistent agitation of the Socialists, the trade unions are becomiag permeated with Socialism. Of late years there have been few great strikes in Great Britain, but, unless the relations between Socialists and trade unionists alter, it seems likely that great and violent industrial disputes will occur in the near future. ' See the Labour Leader, Clarion, Justice, Socialist Staiidard, Socialist, &o., for November 1907. CHAPTEE VIII SOCIALIST VIEWS AND PBOPOSALS EEGAEDING LAND AND THE LANDLORDS Beitish Socialists, as we have learned in Chapter IV./ adopting the celebrated formula of Proudhon, have pro- claimed "Property is theft," and they are of opinion that property in land is a particularly heinous form of theft. Therefore they demand the restitution of the land to the people, not as a matter of expediency but as a matter of right. " Man has a right only to what his labour makes. No man 'makes' the land." ^ "Land is the gift of Nature. It is not made by man. Now, if a man has a right to nothing but that which he has himself made, no man can have a right to the land, for no man made it." ' " The land belongs by inalienable right not to any body of individuals but to all." * high cliffs looking heavenward, valleys green and fair, Sea cliffs that seem to gird and guard Our island once so dear, In vain your beauty now ye spread, For we are numbered with the dead ; A robber band has seized the land. And we are exiles here. The ploughman ploughs, the sower sows. The reaper reaps the ear ; The woodman to the forest goes Before the day grows clear, ' Page 81. ^ Blatchford, Merrie England, p. 61. ' Ibid. p. 60. * Washington, A Corner in Flesh and Blood, p. 60. L 146 BEITISH SOCIALISM But of our toil no fruit we see ; The harvest's not for you and me : A robber band has seized the land, And we are exiles here.^ Appealing to the passions, hatred, and greed of their followers, and relying on their credulity. Socialist leaders proclaim not only that the landlords are useless, but also that the people will have the land rent free as soon as the present owners have been expropriated. " The landlord, qua landlord, performs no function in the economy of industry or of food production. He is a rent-receiver; that, and nothing more. Were the landlord to be abolished, the soil and the people who till it would still remain, and the disappearance of the landowner would pass almost unnoticed." ^ " Rent is brigandage reduced to a system. So long as the English people are content to be tenants-at-will on their own soil, and to pay for the privilege, they will remain virtually slaves." ' " The tenant earns the rent. The landlord spends it. If the tenant had not to pay the rent he could spend it himself, and so it would get spent, and get spent by the man who earns it and has the best right to spend it." * Whilst some Socialist agitators are unscrupulous enough to make their followers believe that in the Socialist State they may have land for the asking, others are so unkind as to destroy that pleasing illusion. For instance, we learn from a Fabian pamphlet, " A Socialist State or municipality will charge the full economic rent for the use of its land and dwellings, and apply that rent to the common purposes of the community." ^ Another Socialist authority very pertinently remarks : " It is of ' Clarion Song Book, p. 6. ^ Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 11. ■' Davidson, Book of Lords, p. 25. ' Blatohford, Land Nationalisation, p. 9. = Sidney Webb, Socialism, True and False, p. 19. LAND AND LANDLOEDS 147 not the least consequence to the person who rents the land whether he pays the rent for it to an individual or whether he pays it to the State," ' and therefore it is clear that statements such as "If the tenant had not to pay the rent he could spend it himself," are merely meant to deceive the simple. Tenants, instead of paying their rent to a human landlord, would have to pay it to an impersonal State or municipality, and the latter might prove as grasping and as heartless as rating committees are now. Others base their demand for the spoliation of land- lords upon the Bible and upon the ideal of a " Divine brotherhood," forgetting that the Bible contains a com- mandment " Thou shalt not steal," as well as many warnings against lying, deceit, cant, and covetousness. One of the champion Bible-Socialists, for instance, writes : " If all men are brothers, as Christ undoubtedly taught, then the land, the source of wealth, the means by which men can earn their livelihood, should not be the property of any set of individuals, but should belong to the whole community. The fact of a man being born into the world gives him the divine right to the oppor- tunity of earning his living, and that right cannot be enjoyed so long as there is a single man on earth deprived of access to the land from which to earn his bread. When the spirit of brotherhood prevails, it will be a simple and a natural thing to arrange that these things shall be used not in the interests of the few, but for the common good. There are innumerable signs that the hearts and minds of men are now turning in this direction, and that they are coming to see that the only just and permanent arrangement is the divine solution of working on the basis of universal brotherhood." ^ There is a fraternity among Sicilian bandits. The " Divine ' Socialism imd the Single Tax, p. 7. 2 Ward, Are All Men Brothers 1 pp. 14, 15. i 2 148 BRITISH SOCIALISM brotherhood" of the writer would be based on robbery, and have robbery as its object. Others demand the confiscation of all land by relying upon misrepresentation : "If the injustice of the land monopoly is great in the country, by robbing the grower of his improvements or scaring him from making any, by robbing the nation of its own legitimate independent food supply, and by laying waste vast tracts of the surface, the injustice is even greater in the towns, if only by reason of the greater numbers whose interests are now involved : (1) by flooding the town labour markets with surplus labourers, and so — by their competition between each other for jobs of any sort at any terms, rather than starve — keeping wages down at the privation point ; (2) by robbing the town workers of that proper and legitimate home market which a flourishing and proportionately numerous agri- cultural population would afford ; (3) by the bloated rentals in cities, only made possible by driving and crowding the people into our unnaturally swollen centres ; and (4) by the continuous re-investment of those enormous rent extortions in all those secondary monopolies of transit, finance, and business generally, which can only arise from the primary monopoly of the soil, and which complete this devil's chain of the subjection of labour and the dependence of the community." ^ The complaints that land is going out of cultivation, that the British home market has been spoiled, and that towns are overgrown and overcrowded are unfortunately only too well justified, but these phenomena are not due to private property in land. Private property in land is universal, but the desertion of the country and overcrowding in towns are not universal. These evils are to be found chiefly in Great Britain, because British economic policy, whilst fostering trade and the manufacturing industries, has deliberately sacrificed to them the rural industries. That ' Hall, Land, Labour, and I^iberty, p. 12, LAND AND LANDLOEDS 149 fact is acknowledged by many Socialists, as will be seen in Chapter XXI., " Some Socialist's Views on Free Trade and Protection." The question now arises : How do the Socialists propose to deal with the land and the owners of land ? Mr. Blatchford informs us : " The titled robbers of England have always done their robberies in a legal manner. We propose to enforce their cessation in a legal manner. We respect the law, and mean to use it. We are not mere brigands. We are the new police ; our duty is to ' arrest the rogues and dastards ' ; our motto is, ' The law giveth and the law taketh away, blessed be the name of the law." ' A leading Christian-Socialist clergyman tells us " As for compensation, from the point of view of the highest Christian morality, it is the landlords who should compensate the people, not the people the landlords. But practically if you carry out this reform by taxation, no compensation would be necessary or even possible." ^ Mines and mine-owners are to be treated in the same way as land and land-owners. " The minerals should be at once taken over without compensation ; the present owners should think themselves well off if they escape paying compensation for previous robbery of the people." ^ Views such as those expressed in the foregoing are held not only by some unscrupulous agitators. At the last Annual Conference of the Independent Labour Party the following resolution was carried : " This Conference, being of opinion that the high price of coal is a serious menace to the nation, and bears extremely hard upon householders and especially upon the working classes of the country, declares in favour of the nationalisation of the mines and municipalisation of the coal-supply." * At the last Annual Conference of the Miners' Federation of ' Blatchford, Some Tory Socialisms, p. 6. ' Headlam, Christian Socialism, p. 14. ' Forward, October 12, 1907. ' Independent Labour Party Report, Annual Conference, 1907, p. 59. 150 BEITISH SOCIALISM Great Britain, various resolutions urging the nationalisa- tion of all mines were proposed and carried. Mr. W- E. Harvey, M.P., for instance, moved " That the members of Parliament supported by this federation be instructed to direct the attention of the Government to bring in a Bill for the nationalisation of land, mines, and mining royalties, as we believe that it is only by such reforms that the workers can obtain full value for their labours." ^ It will be observed that nothing is said about compensation in this resolution, which was passed unanimously. How is the nationalisation of the land to be effected ? " The land of every country belongs of natural and inalienable right to the whole body of the people in each generation. We say therefore, ' You need not kick the landlords out ; you must not buy them out ; you had better tax them out.' " ^ "If the people rose in revolt, took up arms, confiscated the lands of the nobles, and handed them over to the control of a Parliament, that would not be brigandage ; it would be revolution. But if the people by the exercise of constitutional means, passed an Act through Parliament making the estates of the nobles the property of the nation, with or without com- pensation, that would be neither brigandage nor revolu- tion ; it would be a legal, righteous, and constitutional reform. We propose to be neither revolutionaries nor brigands, but legal, righteous, and constitutional re- formers." ^ Legality implies and presupposes justice, but Socialist law and justice are different from that con- ception of law and justice which has been held hitherto. Chapter XXIV. will make that point clear. The foregoing should suffice to show that the Socialists intend to abolish private property in land by " taxing landowners out of existence." ' Times, October 12, 1907. ' Headlam, Christian Socialism, p. 7. " Blatohford, Some Tory Socialisms, p. 3. LAND AND LANDLOEDS 151 They apparently forget that not all the owners of land are rich ; that many small farmers, shopkeepers, artisans, &c., own freehold land and freehold houses ; and that the insurance companies have a very large proportion of their funds invested in land and on the security of land. A confiscation of land would therefore ruin a vast number of hard-working people. It would cripple some insurance companies and ruin others. Hence the savings of thrifty workers would be confiscated or destroyed by the State together vdth those of the larger capitalists. The Socialists are not entirely agreed as to the way by which the abolition of private ownership in land should be effected, but some interesting proposals will be found in Chapter X., " Socialist Views and Proposals regarding Taxation and the National Budget." The purely agricultural aspect of the land question is treated in Chapter XVIII., " Socialism and Agriculture," and in Chapter XXI., " Some Socialist Views on Free Trade and Protection." 152 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTEE IX SOCIALIST VIEWS AND PEOPOSALS EEGAEDING CAPITAL AND THE CAPITALISTS We have seen in Chapter VIII. that Socialists claim that " Man has a right to nothing but that which he has himself made," that therefore, " No man can have a right to the land, for no man made it." May, then, owners of property keep at least that part of their property which is not invested in land ? The reply is, of course, in the negative. " As land must in future be a national possession, so must the other means of producing and distributing wealth." ^ " Sup- posing we assume it true that land is not the product of labour and that capital is ; it is not by any means true that the rent of land is not the product of labour and that the interest on capital is. Since private ownership, whether of land or capital, simply means the right to draw and dispose of a revenue from the property, why should the landowner be forbidden to do that which is allowed to the capitalist, in a society in which land and capital are commercially equivalent? Yet land nationalisers seem to be prepared to treat as sacred the landlords' claim to private property in capital acquired by thefts of this kind, although they will not hear of their claim to property in land. Capital serves as an instrument for robbing in a precisely identical manner. In England industrial capital is mainly created by wage workers — who get nothing for it but permission to create in addition enough subsistence ' Socialism Made Plain, p. 9. CAPITAL AND CAPITALISTS 1S3 to keep each other alive in a poor way. Its immediate appropriation by idle proprietors and shareholders, whose economic relation to the workers is exactly the same in principle as that of the landlords, goes on every day under our eyes. The landlord compels the worker to convert his land into a railway, his fen into a drained level, his barren seaside waste into a fashionable watering- place, his mountain into a tunnel, his manor park into a suburb full of houses let on repairing leases ; and lo ! he has escaped the land nationalisers ; his land is now become capital and is sacred. The position is so glaringly absurd and the proposed attempt to discriminate between the capital value and the land value of estates is so futile, that it seems almost certain that the land nationalisers will go as far as the Socialists. Whatever the origin of land and capital, the source of the revenues drawn from them is contemporary labour." ' Most Socialists think it wiser to tax capital gradually out of existence than to confiscate it at one stroke. " The direct confiscation of capital affects all, the small and the great, those unable to work and the able-bodied, every- body in an equal way. It is difficult by this method, often quite impossible, to separate the large property from the small invested in the same undertakings. The direct confiscation would also proceed too quickly, often at one stroke, while confiscation through taxation would permit the abolition of capitalist property being made a long- drawn process, working itself out further and further in the measure as the new order gets consolidated and makes its beneficent influence felt." ^ The argument that excessive taxation would drive capital out of the country is laughed at by Socialists. A Socialist pamphlet says: "It is true that the land- sweaters and labour-skinners whom the people keep on ' Capital ami, Land, pp. 5, 6. - Kautsky, The Social Revolution, p. 11. 154 BEITISH SOCIALISM electing to rule and rob them can still frighten noodles by threatening that they will run away from the country and take their capital with them ; that They'll ship the mines and farms to Amsterdam, The houses and the railways to Peru, The canals and docks to Eussia, The woods and workshops off to Prussia, And all the enterprise and brains to Timbuctoo. " "We calmly reply that there is not one single service that all the landlords, financiers, and their lesser parasites pretend to perform for society that could not be performed far more efficiently and infinitely more cheaply without them." Straightway those rich men started To move their capitals. On board of ships they carted Their railways and canals ; "With mines mine-owners scurried, The bankers bore their books. With mills mill-owners hurried, The bishops took their crooks.' The despoiled capitalists might leave the country, but they would have to leave in the country all their property except perhaps a few valuables which they might remove. Property being theft, capitalists as well as landowners are thieves who possess no claim whatever to consideration or even to mercy. " To talk about ' the respective claims of capital and labour ' is as inaccurate as to talk about the ' respective claims ' of coals and colliers, or of ploughs and ploughmen. Capital has no claims. This is not a quibble. The distinction between capital and the capitalists is one of vital importance. Capital is a necessary thing. The capitalist is as unnecessary as any other kind of thief or interloper. The capitalist, though as loud as greedy in his ' claims,' has no rights at all." ^ ' Blatohford, The Clarion Ballads, p. 9. ^ Blatohford, The Pope's Socialism, p. 2. CAPITAL AND CAPITALISTS 155 " Do you mean to say, then, that the capitalist does not perform a useful function in running a risk for the profit he receives? — ■'No. In so far as he exercises the function of management and receives remuneration for this, his remuneration is not profit at all, but wages of superintendence, and the functionsof management would be undertaken by the organised society of the future through its appointed representatives. As to any necessary risks, all individuals would be relieved from this under Socialism, as it would be borne by the whole of society." ' " If capitalists attempt to justify their way of making profit by saying that they have to run risks sometimes, that a part of their property might occasionally be lost, we answer that labour has nothing to do with that." ^ Capital large and small is the result of thrift. If capital is theft, then thrift also is theft. The thrifty investor, being an immoral person, has no right to protest against the confiscation of his property. " By capitalist I mean the investor who puts his money into a concern and draws profits therefrom without participating in the organisation or management of the business. Were all these to disappear in the night, leaving no trace behind, nothing would be changed." ^ Nothing would be changed for the Socialist agitator, the loafer, and the tramp. On the contrary, they would profit from the ruin of the industrious and the thrifty. The fact that honest and hardworking men who do their duty to their family and who wish to leave their children provided for should have the result of the economy of a lifetime confiscated matters little to the Socialist leaders. According to the Sociahst doctrines the industrious and the thrifty are thieves and exploiters of those workers who have never saved a penny. On the other hand, those men who live > Bax and Queloh, A New Catechism of Socialism, p. 17. ' Sorge, Socialism and the Worker, p. 11. ^ Eeir Hardie, Frmn Serfdom to Socialism, p. 11, 156 BEITISH SOCIALISM from hand to mouth, who work only a few days each week and loaf on the remaining days, who waste all their earnings in drink, gambling, and music-halls, and who possess nothing they can call their own, are honest and excellent citizens. They are entitled to the savings of the thrifty. In accordance with the Socialist principles stated in the foregoing, all shareholders, being merely exploiters of labour, would be expropriated. "Are shareholders in companies useful in organising labour? — As a rule they employ others to organise labour, and the work done by the company would go on just as well if the share- holders disappeared." ^ Besides, " Stocks when analysed, in nine cases out of ten simply mean the right to squeeze tribute out of workers who are nominally free. By far the greatest part of what is set down as national ' capital ' is merely slave flesh-and-blood." ^ Holders of Government stocks would be treated no better than landowners and shareholders. Fore- most among the "immediate reforms" demanded in the programme of the Social-Democratic Federation' ranges the " Eepudiation of the National Debt." The repudiation of the National Debt has during many years been demanded, and is still demanded, by the Social-Democratic Federation, as may be seen from a recent issue of "Justice," its weekly publication, in which we find the following statement : " The National Debt is simply a means of extracting unearned incomes from the people of this country. It is idle to nationalise or municipalise industries by means of loans on which interest is paid. Such interest would be only another form of rent and profit. When capitalism is abolished, every one of its many forms will necessarily have to go."^ ' Joynes, The Socialist Cateohism, p. 3. " Davidson, The Oospel of the Poor, p. 54. ■■ See Appendix. ' Justice, October 19, 1907. CAPITAL AND CAPITALISTS 157 The repudiation of the National Debt is demanded by many Socialist leaders and leading writers. "The National Debt (falsely so-called) has already been paid thrice over in usury. All future interest-payments should be held as part of the principal." ^ " The few thousand persons who own the National Debt, saddled upon the community by a landlord Parliament, exact 28,000,000^. yearly from the labour of their countrymen for nothing." ^ " Outside the land monopoly, the most infamous source of usury is unquestionably the so-called ' National Debt.' There the whole of the capital is absolutely spurious. The real capital consisted of the gunpowder and the lead which Sovereigns and statesmen expended so liberally about a century ago in attempt- ing to murder liberty on the Continents of Europe and America. Our war debt is the most stupendous monu- . ment of human crime and folly in existence ; and worst of all, the ' butcher's bill ' has already been paid by the unhappy toilers thrice over in usury." ' " The entire national liability has been discharged to the money- lenders by the people once during the last thirty-seven years. We repay public debts once every thirty-seven years without wiping out a penny of the said debts. We pay away in blank usury 20,000,000?. per year on this one head, or enough to provide old-age pensions for three-fourths of our aged poor in the United Kingdom on the basis of 7s. 6d. per head per week."^ "236,514 blackmailers suck the udder of industry through the con- venient teat of what, with audacious cynicism, is called the 'National Debt.'" 5 The largest part of the National Debt was not created ' Davidson, The Democrat's Address, p. 5. '' Socialism Made Plain, p. 8. ' Davidson, The Oospel of the Poor, p. 49. * MacLaehlan, Tyranny of Usury, p. 13. Davidson, The Old Order (md the Nenv, p. 76. 158 BEITISH SOCIALISM by "murdering liberty" but by fighting the armies of the French Eevolution and of Napoleon I. Besides, the defence against the French Eevolution and Napoleon was not a " crime," but a necessary duty. Furthermore, the holders of the National Debt are not "black- mailers " but industrious, useful, and thrifty citizens, or the children and descendants of industrious, useful, and thrifty citizens. About one-half of the National Debt is held by thrifty wage-earners, as all the money deposited in the savings banks, and most of the savings deposited with friendly societies, &c., is invested in Consols, and as a very large part of the assets of the industrial and other insurance societies consists of Government Stocks. Property being theft, and thrift being akin to it, the thrifty workman whose savings are invested in Consols has apparently no right to complain of being robbed of his savings by the Socialists. Some Socialist agitators have the audacity to tell the thrifty worker that he will not suffer, but benefit, by the confiscation of his savings. " Opponents try to scare this man against Socialism by the fear of losing his interest. Granting for a moment he would do so, would he not gain by the general abolition of interest, &c., which would double his wage in common with that of all workers? " ^ — The worker is to be indemnified for his positive and certain loss in property through the con- fiscation of his savings, or at the least of the interest paid on them, by a problematical rise in general wages which would benefit the unthrifty quite as much as the thrifty. But if the promised doubling of wages should not take place, what will happen? The Socialist agitators will explain that they are sorry to have made a mistake, whilst the thriftless are squandering the property of the thrifty. ■ Wealth Makers and Wealth Takers, p. 1. CAPITAL AND CAPITALISTS 159 According to the Socialist teachings, the capitalist is a perfectly useless being in the national household. " Does he himself want to work : to do something useful ? Par from it. His money works for him; his money makes money, as the saying is." ^ Most capitalists — and I think the large majority of wage-earners are capitalists to some extent — are engaged in useful productive work of hand or brain. However, the capitalist of the Socialist imagination, the wealthy man who lives without any work, who studies the money market and Stock Exchange quotations, and who is occupied solely in investing and reinvesting his money to the best advantage, is an extremely useful member of society. It is of the utmost consequence to all workers, and to the whole nation, that the national capital should grow, that mines, railways, ships, machinery, houses, &c., should multiply and be constantly improved. Now the thrifty, not the wasteful, preserve and increase the national capital. Wise and cautious capitalists in enriching themselves will enrich the nation. Careless ones will lose their money and impoverish the nation. The wealth of Prance has, to a very large extent, been created by cautious and far-seeing rentiers, and thus Prance has become the banker among nations. Socialists teach that the wealth of the few causes the poverty of the many ; that therefore the private capitalist should be destroyed. Why, then, are the workers most prosperous in those countries which possess the wealthiest capitalists, such as Prance and the United States, and why are they poorest in countries, such as Turkey and Servia, where wealthy capitalists do not exist? And may not the destruction of the capitalists reduce Great Britain to the level of Turkey and Servia ? ' Sorge, Socialism and the Worker, p. 10. 160 BRITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTEE X SOCIALIST VIEWS AND PEOPOSALS REGAEDING TAXATION AND THE NATIONAL BUDGET To Socialists taxation is chiefly a means for impoverish- ing the rich and the well-to-do. It is their object to transfer by taxation the wealth from the few to the many, as they believe that the impoverishment of the rich will mean the enrichment of the poor. Therefore they do not aim at economy in national and local expenditure. On the contrary, they wish to spend as much as possible. As money is to be obtained solely from the rich, " An increase in national taxation has no terrors for Socialists." ' Every increase in expenditure is greeted by them with joy, and wasteful- ness in national and local undertakings is rather en- couraged than condemned. " Socialists look to the Budget as a means not only of raising revenue to meet unavoidable expenditure, but as an instrument for redress- ing inequalities in the distribution of wealth." ^ Let us first look into the financial views of the Socialists, and then into their positive proposals. " The purpose of Socialism is to transfer land and industrial capital to the people. There are two ways in which, simultaneously, this object may be carried out. The one way is by the municipal and national appropria- tion — with such compensation to the existing owners as the community may think fit to give — of the land and industrial concerns. The second method is by taxation. ' Snowden, Socialist Budget, p. 1. '' Ibid. TAXATION AND THE BUDGET 161 Taxation has its special sphere o£ usefulness in helping the community to secure some part of its own by divert- ing into the national parse portions of the rent, interest, and profit which now go to keep an idle class in luxury at the expense of the industrious poor." ^ " The existence of a rich class, whose riches are the cause of the poverty of the masses, is the justification for the Socialist demand that the cost of bettering the con- dition of the people must be met by the taxation of the rich. The Socialist's ideas of taxation may be briefly summarised as follows : (1) Both local and national taxation should aim primarily at securing for the com- munal benefit all ' unearned ' or ' social ' increment of wealth. (2) Taxation should aim deliberately at pre- venting the retention of large incomes and great fortunes in private hands, recognising that the few cannot be rich without making the many poor. (3) Taxation should be in proportion to ability to pay and to protection and benefit conferred by the State. (4) No taxation should be imposed which encroaches upon the individual's means to satisfy his physical needs." * " To the Socialist taxation is the chief means by which he may recover from the propertied classes some portion of the plunder which their economic strength and social position have enabled them to extract from the workers; to him, national and municipal expenditure is the spending for common purposes of an ever-increasing proportion of the national income. The degree of civilisation which a State has reached may almost be measured by the proportion of the national income which is spent collectively instead of individually. To the Socialist the best of Governments is that which spends the most. The only possible policy is deliberately to tax the rich, especially those who live on wealth which ' Snowden, The Socialist's Budget, p. 2. ' Ibid. pp. 7, 8. M 162 BEITISH SOCIALISM they do not earn ; for thus, and thus only, can we reduce the burthen upon the poor." ^ The Fabian Society suggests the following reform of national taxation : " In English politics successful ends must have moderate beginnings. Such a beginning might be an income-tax of 2s. 6d. in the pound. Un- earned incomes above 5,000L a year would pay 2s. &d. in the pound, below 5,000Z. a year Is. 8d. in the pound. The estate duty might be handled upon similar principles. Estates between 500,000L and 1,000,000Z. would be charged twelve and a half per cent, instead of seven and a half, and estates exceeding 1,000,000Z. fifteen per cent, instead of eight." ^ The Fabian Society does not disguise its aim in proposing the foregoing : " These suggestions are doubtless confiscatory, and that is why they should recommend themselves to a Labour party. But even so, the confiscation is of a timorous and a slow-footed sort. The average British millionaire dies worth about 2,770,000Z., on which the death duty would be 415,500?., leaving the agreeable nest-egg of 2,254,500Z. to the heirs. Even if we assume that the inheritance passes to one person only, so as to be subject to the highest rate of duty, it would not be until five more lives had passed that it would be reduced to a pitiful million. The most patient Labour party might not unreasonably demand something a trifle more revolutionary than this." ^ According to the above proposals the income-tax would return 47,600,000Z. per annum. This sum seems far too moderate to most Socialist writers. Councillor Glyde, for instance, gives in a widely read pamphlet elabo- rate tables in which the produce of a graduated income- tax is carefully calculated. The Fabian Society would make "a moderate beginning" by taxing large incomes 2s. 6d. in the pound. Councillor G-lyde would begin ' Socialism and Labour Policy, p. 4. ' Ibid. pp. 4, 5. ' Ibid. p. 5. TAXATION AND THE BUDGET 163 by levying a 3s. income-tax on them. Taxation of incomes in accordance with his proposals would bring in 70,281,839Z. per annum, i Mr. Smart, of the Independent Labour Party, gives lengthy details of a taxation reform scheme in which figure a foundation-tax, a special property-tax, and a super-tax. Large incomes would have to pay 17| per cent., or 3s. 6d. in the pound, and his property and income tax would bring in 78,000,000Z. per annum.^ Mr. Philip Snowden, M.P., submits a different scheme of taxation. There is to be an income-tax of Is. in the pound and a graduated super-tax up to 6s. in the pound. Whilst the three authorities mentioned so far propose to take from the large incomes 2s. 6c?., 3s., and 3s. 6a!. in the pound as a "moderate beginning," Mr. Snowden would, presumably also as a "moderate beginning," take 7s. in the pound from them. He is quite touched with his own generosity and magnanimity, for might he not demand at once 17s. or 20s. in the pound ? " To console the possessors of incomes in the higher grade, say 50,000Z. a year, to the payment of an income-tax of 7s. in the pound, we may remind them that they still retain 33,500L a year, which is a very generous payment by labour to them for the privilege of seeing them exist in gorgeous splendour and sumptuous idleness." ^ The proposals regarding the estate duty to be charged also vary. The Eabian Society proposes a maximum of 15 per cent. Mr. Smart would be satisfied with a graduated estate duty with a maximum of 25 per cent, instead of the present maximum of 8 per cent.* ' Glyde, A Peep Behind the Scenes on a Board of Guardians, pp. 28, 29. ' Smart, Socialism and the Budget, pp. 14, 15. ^ Snowden, The Socialist's Budget, pp. 78, 79. ■• Smart, Socialism and the Budget, p. 8. M 2 164 BEITISH SOCIALISM Mr. Snowden proposes a scale of duties which ranges from 1 per cent, up to 50 per cent.^ Besides the very greatly increased income-tax and estate duty, there would be, according to Mr. Snowden, a land value tax of a penny in the pound of its capital value, which is equal to 10 per cent, annual value. It is to be the small beginning of the policy of taxing landowners out of existence, to be speedily followed by confiscation. "The annual value of land being 250,000,000?., the produce of the land value tax would be 25,000,000L a year." ^ The author justifies the creation of that tax as follows : " Liverpool, London, Glasgow owe their existence and their prosperity to their respective situations, which are natural advantages and which ought not in justice to be enjoyed solely by those who live upon the sites. Every town and village in the country contributes to the prosperity of every other part. The nation is a unit ; its resources and its obligations should be mutually shared." " Land values are so obviously not created by individual effort that the justice of taking the increment for the use of the community appeals to those who may have some difficulty in grasping the working of the ' unearned increment ' in commercial concerns, where, however, it operates just as truly though not so obviously. The imposition of an Imperial tax of one penny in the pound on the capital value of the site would be a beginning, but by no means the end, of the process of diverting socially-created rent of land into the public exchequer. Taxation will do something towards that end ; but taxation would be a long, irritating, and un- trustworthy way of trying to secure the whole annual value of the land for the community." ^ " The taxation of land values is not a land reform. To get the full use- ' Snowden, The Socialist's Budget, p. 81. ^ xbid. p. 82. " Ibid. pp. 82, 83. TAXATION AND THE BUDGET 165 fulness and the full value of the land for the community there is no way but for the State to own the land." ^ The contemplated reform of taxation will not be limited to taxing the rich and the well-to-do out of existence. Eelief will be afforded to the masses by the repeal of all duties on food, and, indeed, of all indirect taxation. " The reforms which the Labour party will endeavour to obtain from the Government, in which it believes it will be expressing the democratic sentiment of the country, are : 1. Eepeal of the duties on foods. 2. A minimum wage of 30s. to all workers in Government employ or working under a contractor for the Government. (3) Old-age pensions of 7s. a week for persons over sixty." 2 Practically all Socialists agree that all indirect taxation should be abolished. " Indirect taxation has nothing whatever to recommend it to an intelHgent people, however advantageous it may be to the weU-to-do. Indirect taxation violates every principle of sound economy." ' " Its maintenance is excused on the ground that indirect taxation is the only means by which the working class can be made to contribute to the cost of national government at all. The poorer working classes should not be taxed by the Government at all." ^ " Under a just system of taxation all indirect taxation for revenue purposes would be abolished." ^ " With 43 per cent, of the working classes living in poverty, vrith an average wage over the whole working class not sufficient to provide themselves with the standard of workhouse comfort, it becomes a crime to tax them for the pro- tection of their property and the enjoyment of their ' Snowden, The Socialisfs Budget, p. 84. ' Smart, Socialism a/nd the Budget, p. 15. " Snowden, The SodaUst's Budget, p. 15. * Ibid. p. 31. * Ibid. p. 16. 166 BEITISH SOCIALISM privileges " ^ — Is it true that, as Mr. Snowden, M.P., writes, the whole working class of Great Britain is so badly paid that it cannot provide for itself the standard of workhouse comfort ? How then can he reconcile with that assertion the following statement which he gives in the same book a few pages further on : " Experts assign the proportion of the total annual drink bill of the United Kingdom contributed by the wage-earning classes at 100,000,000?. A committee of the British Association, reporting on the ' appropriation of wages,' in 1882 said that 75 per cent, of the total consumption of beer and spirits, and 10 per cent, of the wine bill, might be assigned as the shares of the working class." ^ As a matter of fact experts estimate that the British working men spend even more than 100,000,000?. per year on drink, and that they spend about 50,000,000?. on betting. It is really very inartistic for a professional agitator to tell us that the British workers are too poor to pay any taxes, that it is a " crime " to tax them at all, and then to remind us that the same starving ill-used workers can afford to spend more than the amount of the whole nation's Budget in drink and betting, that about one-sixth of the workman's wages are spent at the public-house, that many workmen spend the larger half of their income in drink, and that the British nation is the most drunken in the world, although drink is far more expensive in Great Britain than in any other country. With part of the money taken by means of extor- tionate taxation from the rich, whole sections of the population are to be bribed into supporting Socialism. " Two objectionable heads of revenue would find no place in a Socialist national balance-sheet — the profit from the Post Office and the stamp duties. Improve- ments in the wages and conditions of labour in the lower grades of the postal service would absorb a considerable ' Snowden, The Socialist's Budget, p. 17. * Ibid. pp. 21, 22. TAXATION AND THE BUDGET 167 part of the present annual profit of 5,000,000?. and the rest might, with benefit, be utihsed for cheapening the cost to the public of postal rates and services." ^ Mr. Snowden, in promising in one phrase the repeal of stamp duties and cheapening of postage, very likely thought that that step vrould reheve the poor. He apparently imagined that duty stamps were identical with postage stamps. If he had known that stamp duties are largely derived from Stock Exchange trans- actions and the sale of every kind of property on a large scale, from legal documents, &c., he would probably have proposed that they should be increased tenfold in order to strike another blow at private property, not that they should be abolished. Even the policy of confiscation requires an elementary knowledge of facts. Furthermore, " The Socialist Budget would provide for a very considerable increase of the grants-in-aid, retaining for the central Government just sufficient con- trol or inspection over the expenditure as would not interfere with the reasonable freedom of the local authority." ^ " Control which would not interefere " is at present illogical and impossible, because the one ex- cludes the other. It may be possible in the Socialist State of the future, because logic will have to be abolished in it. At all events it seems clear that Mr. Snowden wishes to secure the support of the local authorities by the same curious means by which he strives to secure the support of the Post Office servants. The foregoing extracts should suffice to show that the Socialists mean to ruin the owners of property of every kind by indirect confiscation in the form of extortionate taxation, which is to be constantly increased and which may be followed by direct confiscation, and that they rely upon force for achieving their aim. Capitalists may leave the country, but they must leave their capital ' Snowden, The Socialist's Budget, p. 71. ^ Ibid. p. 59. 168 BEITISH SOCIALISM behind, and their disappearance, Socialists assert, will be no loss. " The vast majority of our employers are routineers, who could no more contribute an intelligent statement of their industrial function to this paper than a bee could write the works of Lord Avebury. Routineers can always be replaced, and replaced with profit, by educated functionaries. Consequently when the employers threaten ns with emigration, our only regret as to the majority of them is that it is too good to be true." ^ " Supposing those who have the money were to threaten to leave the country and to take their money with them, would not that upset your plans? Money is not wealth. You would have cause to rejoice. So would the country which was fortunate enough to see its capitalists emigrate." ^ According to the Socialist teaching, the workers main- tain the capitalists. The brain is mightier than the hand, though the brain requires the hand. In reality it rather seems that the capitalists maintain the workers. It cannot too often be pointed out that those countries which have many wealthy capitalists are highly civilised and prosperous, and their workers are well off. On the other hand, those countries which have few or no wealthy capitalists are little civilised and poor, and their workers are exceedingly badly off. The masses may conceivably rob the capitalists of their property, and try to manage the national capital themselves, but whether they will benefit by spoliation remains to be seen. Lacking direction, foresight, unity, organisation, discipline, and thrift, the masses will probably quickly waste the national capital, and national ruin and distress and starvation will be the consequences of wholesale robbery. The confiscation experiment has often been tried in the past, and it has always failed. The last time it has ' G. B. Shaw in the New Age, November 30, 1907. ' Wheatley, How the Mmers are Bobbed, p. 12. TAXATION AND THE BUDGET 169 been tried was at the time of the French Kevolution. The money secured by robbery was recklessly squandered. Production was neglected, and the people became poorer than ever. In the country agriculture came to a stand- still, weeds grew where corn had been growing, gardens became a natural wilderness, and wolves roamed in thou- sands.' The great manufacturing towns were dead, manufacturers in Paris who had employed sixty or eighty men employed but ten.^ The people in town and country were starving. Many lived on roots and bark. Many of the poor in Paris waited outside the slaughter- houses and lapped the blood from the gutters like dogs. Private capital has existed in all countries and at all times, because it is a plant of natural growth. One can destroy it, but it will ever grow again. ' Vandal, Avinement de Bona/parte, 1903, vol. i. p. 25. 2 Schmidt, Tableaux de la Bivolution, vol. iv. p. 383. 170 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTEE XI SOCIALISM AND THE EMPIRE Most British Socialists object to the Empire on various grounds, and desire its downfall and dissolution. Accord- ing to their views Great Britain should, in the first place, give up her non-self-governing colonies. Let us take note of some Socialistic pronouncements to that effect : " Governments have no right to exist except with the consent of the governed, and the British have no more right to dominate other peoples than other peoples have to dominate us. What we can only hold by maintaining an alien garrison had better be given up. The people of these islands would not be losers, but the gainers by such a course." ^ " Is it possible for a self-governing people to rule a subject race, and yet keep its own love for liberty ? Neither the Greeks nor the Romans could do it, and we are not doing it very well ourselves. The reason is obvious. No nation can play the part of the despot (even the benevolent despot) abroad and that of the democrat at home." ^ " Socialists should oppose the creation of empires on this simple ground — that empire- building is accompanied by terrible misery and suffering for those subject races, as they are called, which are the chosen victims sacrificed on the altar of cupidity and pride." ^ "A people gain power and influence in the world in proportion as they solve for themselves the great prob- ' Queloh, Social Democracy and the Armed Nation, p. 14. ' Imperialism : Its Meaning and Its Tendency, p. 10. " Norman, Empi/re and Murder, p. 3. SOCIALISM AND THE BMPIEE 171 lems of democratic self-government. We shall do more to civilise Africa by civilising the East End of London than by governing from Cape to Cairo." ^ " It is not only impossible for one nation to civilise another by governing it ; it is wrong that it should attempt to do so. Conquest may have opened up one civilisation to another in times long antecedent to the steam engine and a world com- merce, but to-day its only effect is to crush out and level down all national life to the dead uniformity of an alien political routine." ^ " What is the attitude of Socialism towards backward races, savage and barbaric peoples who are to-day outside the civilised world ? The position of Socialism towards these races is one of absolute non-interference. We hold that they should be left entirely alone to develop themselves in the natural order of things ; which they must inevitably do or die out. It is the duty of Socialists to support the barbaric races in their resistance to aggres- sion." ' " It is the duty of International Socialists, the only international non-capitalist party, to denounce, and wherever possible to prevent, the extension of colonisation and conquest, leaving to each race and creed and colour the full opportunity to develop itself until complete economic and social emancipation is secured by all." '' " Duty, like charity, begins at home, and if the civilisation of the blacks is to be purchased only by the destruction of our own democratic spirit, the balance to the world is of evil, not of good. There is another view of Imperialism expressed with brutal candour by Mr. Ehodes when he said that the flag was our best commercial asset, that trade follows the flag. Trade does no such thing. Trade follows business enterprise. Imperialism is, indeed, a policy of industrial deterioration, and by impoverishing ' Imperialism : Its Meaning ami Its Tendency, p. 15. ' Ibid. p. 7. " Bax and Queloh, A New Catechism, of Socialism, p. 36. ' Hyndman, Colonies and Dependencies, p. 14. 172 BEITISH SOCIALISM the skill of the country and encouraging the worst forms of financial capitalism, must crush out every budding hope that labour has of becoming economically and politically free." ^ The foregoing extracts should suffice to show that there is among British Socialists a strong desire to abandon the non-self-governing colonies. The attitude of the British Socialists towards the great self-governing dominions is not much more favour- able than it is towards tropical colonies. Their attitude is one of hardly disguised hostility, which appears to spring partly from jealousy of the colonists, partly from hatred of the British capitalists who have invested money in the colonies. The loss of British capital invested in the colonies would probably be greeted with jubilation by the Socialists. " The well-to-do sections of society in Great Britain have found a secure and profitable outlet for their capital in loans and advances to the colonists alike as organised communities and as individual property- owners. But the drain for interest and dividends to England on this account is heavy, and is severely felt at times of depression, such as that which Australia as a whole has been suffering from during the recent seven years of almost continuous drought. It seems tolerably certain, therefore, that this comparative handful of colonists, eleven millions in all, of which only four millions in Australia, will in time to come, and as the Labour party and Socialists gain strength, repudiate, or at any rate reduce, these onerous obligations. It is also probable that with regard to Australia, as the white population does not increase and England's day as a colonising power proper is practically over (having no longer any agricultural population to send out as emigrants), this huge territory will not be permanently left at the sole dog-in-the-manger control of its present * Imperialism : Its Meaning and Its Tendency, pp. 12, 13. SOCIALISM AND THE EMPIEE 173 handful of inhabitants. We may expect, at least, that Australia will not be permanently able to retain its position without an infusion of entirely fresh blood, and should other peoples require an outlet in that direction, the present preposterous policy will have to be aban- doned." 1 Socialists seem, on the whole, to be opposed to the federation of the British Empire. " The Labour party approaches Imperial problems with the politics of the industrious classes as guide on the one hand, and the internationalism of its nature as guide on the other." ^ Its " internationalism " apparently prevents it from approving of any practical scheme of Imperial Federa- tion. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., of the Labour party, has not expressed actual hostility to the Empire. In fact, he has even declared : " Socialism did not intend to re-write history. It accepted the facts of life, and one of these facts was that we were responsible for the Empire, and, whether we liked it or not, we had to rule that Empire. He was overjoyed the other day to find that at Stuttgart their Dutch and German and French friends were fully aware of the fact that, if Socialism was to play the proper part that belonged to it, it must devise a colonial policy." ^ Nevertheless, Mr. Macdonald's views do not appear to be very practical, as will be seen in the following pages. "These free colonies, though of enormous extent, count for little in the matter of population. Their wealth is out of all proportion to their numbers, as their pretensions are out of all proportion to their power. That they will play any very great part in the future of the world, either federated to the mother country or in any other way, seems exceedingly improbable." * ' Hyndman, Colon/ies and Dependencies, p. 8. ^ Macdonald, Labour and the Empire, p. 108. ' Labowr Leader, October 10, 1907. * Hyndman, Colordes and Dependencies, p. 8. 174 BEITISH SOCIALISM " Imperialism is crudely ineffective. Imperial Federation would give the colonies a fuller sense of independence and liberty, and thus far would benefit them. But Imperial Federation is not approved on this account, but because it is supposed to be a way of uniting the Empire. That, it will not do : it vsrill very likely do the opposite. In whatever form it comes, it will give to the independent interests of the colonies new importance. We shall then hear less of the Empire and more of Canada, or New Zealand, or South Africa, and a great danger will arise that a purely sectional view of Imperial interests may secure the support of the might and the arrogance of the whole Empire." ^ " Canada has almost claimed that it is a right of self-governing States to be allowed to make treaties for themselves. When that happens, the colonies might as well sever themselves from the mother country altogether. For under present circumstances the authority which makes treaties is the authority which ultimately controls armies. To give any of our colonies the power to embroil us in war, or to determine our relations with European Powers, is to give the first shattering blow to Imperial solidarity." ^ Nearly all British Socialists passionately oppose the retention of India. They never tire of condemning British rule in India, and of endeavouring to incite the native races to rebellion. According to the assertions of Socialists, the British Government has " manufactured " famine and plague in India, and its rule is the worst, the most cruel, and the most pernicious form of despotism which the world has seen. Mr. Hyndman says : " India is the greatest and most awful instance of the cruelty, greed, and short-sightedness of the capitalist class of which history gives any record. Even the horrors of Spanish rule in South America are ' Imperialism : Its Meaning and Its Tendency, p. 5. Macdonald, Labour and the Entire, pp. 76, 77. SOCIALISM AND THE EMPIRE 175 dwarfed into insignificance in comparison with the cold, calculating, economic infamy which has starved, and is still deliberately starving, millions of people to death in British India." ^ " I charge it against the British Govern- ment, at this moment, that the economic condition of India is much more horrible than ever it was. I declare that the despotism of Eussia is more apparently cruel, but the actual economic effect of the British Government's rule in India is more desperate than anything in the situation in Eussia." ^ Mr. Hare also speaks of " famine made by Govern- ment " ^ — India suffers from two great evils : famine and the plague. India is very densely populated. The natives live chiefly upon rice, and rice requires an enormous quantity of moisture. If rain fails, there is famine, and no Government can prevent it, though it may alleviate it. Therefore all rice countries — China, India, Japan — are periodically stricken by famine. It is difficult enough, and taxes the resources of a country to the utmost, to feed in a barren country an army of 500,000 men who are closely assembled. It is impossible to feed a population of 60,000,000, even if funds and stores of food are unhmited. With the most perfect system of harbours, canals, railways, &c., the distribution of food for 60,000,000 people offers insurmountable obstacles. Plague is caused by infection, and may be stamped out by the observance of those sanitary rules which Indians refuse to observe. Cases of plague are not reported to the authorities, but are hidden from them, so that the sanctity of the home may not be defiled by the entrance of a medical man. Nevertheless, Socialists never tire of preaching : " If there is one disease which is more directly the outcome of poverty than any other, 1 Hyndman, Colcmes and Dependencies, p. 12. 2 Hyndman, The Unrest m India, p. 13. Hare, Famine in India, p. 17. 176 BEITISH SOCIALISM it is the plague." ' " Just think of 250,000 people dying of manufactured black plague in one month. It is not the people of England who benefit by our murderous despotism in India. It is not the working classes who would suffer if India were relieved from its present frightful oppression. If the present trade is beneficial, it is beneficial to the wealthy rather than to the workers." ^ " If ever there was a population in the history of the world possessed of a remarkable climate, with a fruitful soil, with all the opportunities for making wealth, and having been the source of wealth to the peoples who have traded with them for centuries, the population of India is that people and Hindostan is that country which ought to be supremely wealthy." ' Socialists have done all in their power to arouse the hostility of Europe and America against Great Britain by denouncing British misrule, cruelty, and tyranny in India. " I rejoice, as an Englishman, that I have done my share for nearly thirty years to expose in Europe, America, and Asia the systematic rascality of my aristocratic and plutocratic countrymen."'' "I appeal to this Interna- tional Socialist Congress to denounce the statesmen and the nation guilty of this infamy before the entire civilised world, and to convey to the natives of India the heartfelt wish of the delegates of the workers of all nations here assembled that they may shortly, no matter in what manner, free themselves finally from the horrors of the most criminal misrule that has ever afflicted humanity." * Socialists unceasingly work for the overthrow of British rule in India. Theirs is a larger humanity. They wish to bring about a rising of the Indian popula- tion, and they seem to care little if the 250,000 British people residing in that country are incidentally exter- ' Hyndman, The Unrest in India, p. 7. ' Ibid. p. 16. ' Ibid. p. 7. * Hyndman, Colonies and Dependencies, pp. H, 12. " Ibid. p. 14. SOCIALISM AND THE EMPIEE 177 minated. Their hatred of the " capitalist " Empire is apparently greater than their sense of humanity and duty towards their own countrymen. At a recent Socialist meeting in connection with the unrest in India, Mr. Hyndman submitted the following motion : " This meeting of the citizens of London expresses its deepest sympathy and admiration for Lajpat Eai, Adjit Singh, and the Sikh leaders at Eawal Pindi, Amritsar, and Lahore, now undergoing imprison- ment without trial, at the command of Mr. John Morley and the Liberal Government, and sends its cordial greetings to the agitators all over India who are doing their utmost to awaken their countrymen of every race and creed to the ruinous effect of our rule, which, by draining away 35,000,000^. worth of produce yearly from India without return, has manufactured poverty upon a scale un- precedented in history and is converting the greatest Empire the world has ever seen into a vast pauper warren and human plague farm. This meeting further records its fervent hope that this infamous British system which crushes all economic, social, and political life out of 230 millions of people will ere long be peaceably or forcibly swept away for ever." ' Proceeding, Mr. Hyndman said : " I may mention I have just finished a pamphlet on India I have written for the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart, which is going to be translated by the International Socialist Bureau into German and French, and I will take care it is translated into some other languages — Eastern languages — including the Japanese language." ^ Attempts to incite the native Indians to rise in re- bellion and to massacre the British garrison and the British people residing in India are not restricted to Mr. Hyndman. We read in the leading Socialist monthly : "The maintenance of British rule in India means that ' Hyndman, The Unrest in India, p. 1. ' Ibid. p. 4. N 178 BRITISH SOCIALISM the working people of Great Britain are engaged in helping their masters — the class which robs them — to plunder the unfortunate people of India of over thirty millions sterling every year. "We desire to see the people of India, as of every other country, not only possessed of national independence and political rights, but of social and economical liberty and equality. We assert the right of the Indian people to manage their own affairs, and ardently desire the destruction of British rule there." ^ From the official organ of the Independent Labour Party we learn that that party also " has declared itself wholly in favour of constitutional government in India and the social emancipation of the poverty-stricken Indian people. We believe that Mr. Hardie has had that purpose solely in view, and the party will stand solidly with him in conveying to the Indian people the strongest expression of the sympathy and support of British Socialists in their struggle against social and political oppression." ^ If British subjects are murdered in India by the ten thousand, we may thank our revolutionary Socialists. Mr. Eamsay Macdonald, M.P., of the Labour party very sensibly recommends with regard to India : " The Government should win the confidence and assent of the people." * He then continues : " The immediate reforms necessary are a lightening of India's financial load by relieving it of the Imperial burdens which it now un- justly bears, and a readjustment of taxes ; the extension of local and State self-goverment and further opportunities for natives to be employed in public offices ; the freeing of the press." * It is easy to formulate a policy by expressing generous abstract sentiments. Is Mr. Mac- donald aware that "the lightening of India's financial load " would mean its transference to English shoulders, ' Social-Democrat, July 1907, pp. 393, 394. ^ Labov/r Leader, October 11, 1907. ° Macdonald, Labour and the Eiwpire, p. 104. ' Ibid. p. 108. SOCIALISM AND THE EMPIEE 179 that the granting of self-government and the freeing of the press might lead to a position which would put before this country the alternative of a war of repression in India or of its abandonment, and that the abandonment of India would ruin Lancashire ? "We have taken note of the destructive part of the policy which Socialists wish to pursue towards the Empire. Now let us take note of their constructive proposals, though these are not nearly as numerous as their destructive ones. Mr. Eamsay Macdonald, M.P., of the Labour party, is dissatisfied with Imperial administration in its present form. He would democratise it and replace the present Imperial Governors by labour men and Socialist agitators and orators. " The Crown cannot be the custodian of an Imperial policy, though it may be an Imperial link — and even in this respect its influence is greatly exaggerated at home." ' " The real difficulty lies in securing the con- fidence of the Imperial States for whatever authority is to be custodian of the Imperial standard. Downing Street is ignorant of colonial opinion and needs. Above all. Downing Street is the surviving symbol of the era of the British ' dominions ' and the real ' colonies.' The Imperial States will not repose confidence in Downing Street, therefore Downing Street cannot remain the custodian of Imperial standards. What is to take its place? "2 " The failure of our Empire, except to produce mechanical results, such as keeping warring tribes at peace, is largely owing to the fact that the Empire is governed by the most narrow-visioned of our social classes. National pride may be a valuable possession, but when it becomes a consciousness of racial superiority it ceases to be an Imperial virtue. Thus it is not only in its origin, but also in its present administration, that the ' Macdonald, Labotw and the Empire, p. 70. ' Tbid. pp. 67, 68. N 2 180 BEITISH SOCIALISM Empire in a special sense is a perquisite of the rich classes, and the influence of the Labour party on Imperial politics must be to democratise the personnel of the Imperial machine. A trade union secretary could govern a province prima facie better than the son of an ancient county family or someone who was a friend of the Colonial Secretary when he was passing time at Balliol. We honestly think that the colonies appreciate our aristo- cracy, but the colonies laugh at our amiable illusions." ^ Is Mr. Macdonald sure that the dominions and colonies would welcome a change, and that " trade union secretaries " in their very narrow circle of activity might not become even more " narrow- visioned " than our present pro-consuls ? At the same time it cannot be doubted that all labour leaders and Socialist agitators will highly approve of his proposals to make all vice- royalties and governorships their "perquisites." Apart from a few not very practical proposals. Socialists follow not a constructive, but a purely destructive, policy with regard to the Empire, which in their eyes is merely a capitalist institution. Pursuing consciously or uncon- sciously a policy of revolutionary anarchism, they would break up the Empire and even Great Britain herself. Therefore many Socialists advocate the legislative inde- pendence of both Ireland and Scotland, although some preach, " ' Home Eule ' per se will not rid Ireland of Lord Deliverus and the gang he represents ; the remedy for Ireland's distress, as the early leaders of Irish discontent perceived, is release from the grip of the brigands who stole the nation's heritage. In other words, the real object of the Irish movement is Socialism ; their cause is ours, and our paths lie side by side. But they too have been tricked and led astray by the old political will-o'- the-wisp, the seeming angel of ' Liberty ' translated in their case to 'Home Eule.' For many years now they ' Macdonald, Labowr and the Empire, pp. 27, 28. SOCIALISM AND THE EMPIEE 181 have pursued this shifty light through the arid, desert of politics, and unless they can come to a clear understanding of their own original purpose again, and join with their English Socialist comrades to find a way out of our common difficulties, they are like to ahide in that dreary desert for ever." ^ Whilst the vast majority of British Socialists are unpatriotic, anti-national, and anti-Imperial, and would act as traitors to their country, the powerful Socialist party of Germany is strongly, one might almost say passionately, national and Imperial. Many German Socialists are enthusiastic supporters of the German Navy League, and they would not hesitate in depriving, if possible, and if need be by force. Great Britain of those colonies which her Socialists desire to get rid of. The attitude of German Socialists towards their Fatherland, Empire, colonial possessions, and native races, may be gauged frona the words of Herr Bernstein, one of her most prominent Socialist leaders : " The national quality is developing more and more. Socialism can and must be national. Even when we sing Ubi bene, ibi patria we still acknowledge a patria, and therefore, in accordance with the motto ' No rights without duties,' also duties towards her. To-day the Social-Democratic party is, and that unanimously, the most decided Imperial party that Germany knows. No other party is so keen to make over more and more legislative authority to the Empire and to widen its competence as the Social-Democratic party. The idea that in a country there exists a powerful party which is only waiting for war in order to make difficulties for its own Government, to set on foot a military strike and such-like, this idea may become the greatest menace to peace by being a spur to adventurous politicians to work towards a war with that country. But the home Government knows very well that the ' Thompson, That Blessed Word Liberty, p. 10. 182 BEITISH SOCIALISM declaration that the Social-Democrats would, in case of need, give their lives for the independence of Germany against a foreign Power is by no means a free pass for them to take war easily." '■ In another periodical Herr Bernstein wrote : " The advantages of colonial possessions are always con- ditional. At a given period a nation can only sustain a certain quantity of such possessions. As long as she was ahead of all other nations in productive power, England could support a much larger amount than any other modern nation. But the time of her industrial supremacy has passed away, or at least is nearing its end. Pro- tectionism on the Continent and in the United States may protract the advent of the inevitable in some degree. But its hour will strike one day, and when the advantages which free trade secures her to-day disappear, she would either have, I believe, to free herself of part of her colonial burdens or lose more and more of her trade, and with it her regenerative force. So much for England. With Germany the question is quite different. Although her rural population is now decreasing, she could, with a yearly increase of about 800,000, well stand more colonial possessions than she actually holds, nor would the costs and outlays for her colonies press very hard on her finances. Where two civilisations clash, the lower must give way to the higher. This law of evolution we cannot overthrow, we can only humanise its action. To counter- act it would mean to postpone social progress." ^ It "is sad to compare the sane, manly, national, and patriotic attitude of German Socialists with the foolish, anti-national cosmopolitanism of British Socialists, who, parading beautiful motives of the largest humanity, would not hesitate to sacrifice their country and their country- men, their Empire and their colonies. • Ed. Bernstein in the Sozialistiache Monatshefte, translated in the Social-Democrat, July 1907. ' Nation, October 12, 1907. CHAPTEE XII SOCIALIST VIEWS ON INTEBNATIONAL RELATIONS AND FOBEIGN POLICY "Socialism," Mr. Eamsay Macdonald writes, "has a great part to play immediately in international politics. It alone can banish national jealousies from the Foreign Of&ces ; it alone offers the guarantees of peace which are a necessary preliminary to disarmament. Socialism has a world policy as well as a national one — a coroUary to its belief in the brotherhood of man."^ These words contain assurances, not a plan, and therefore we must inquire. What is the foreign policy of Socialism ? As regards foreign policy one may divide the Socialists into two classes : revolutionaries and visionaries. It will be seen in the following pages that the aims of both are similar. The foreign policy of the revolutionary Socialists of Great Britain is based on the celebrated " Communist Manifesto " of Marx and Engels, which contains the following programme regarding foreign policy : " The Cominunists are distinguished from the other working- class parties by this only : in the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality." ^ " The Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question of each, the property ' Macdonald, Socialism, p. 120. ^ Marx and Engels, Mamfesto, p. 1 184 BEITISH SOCIALISM question, no matter what its degree of development at the time. Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries. The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of aU existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolu- tion. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite ! " ^ In accordance with the foregoing proclamation of Marx and Engels, the philosopher of British Socialism teaches : "For the Socialist the word 'frontier' does not exist ; for him love of country, as such, is no nobler sentiment than love of class. Eace pride and class pride are, from the standpoint of Socialism, involved in the same condemnation. The establishment of Socialism, therefore, on any national or race basis is out of the question. The foreign policy of the great international Socialist party must be to break up these hideous race monopolies called empires, beginning in each case at home. Hence everything which makes for the disruption and disintegration of the empire to which he belongs must be welcomed by the Socialist as an ally. It is his duty to urge on any movement tending in any way to dislocate the commercial relations of the world, knowing that every shock the modern complex commercial system suffers weakens it and brings its destruction nearer. This is the negative side of the foreign policy of Socialism. The positive is embraced in a single sentence ; to con- solidate the union of the several national sections on the basis of firm and equal friendship, steadfast adherence to definite principles, and determination to present a solid front to the enemy." '^ ' Marx and Engels, Manifesto, p. 31. ' Bax, Beligion of Socialism, pp. 126, 127. FOEBIGN POLICY 185 The head of the Social -Democratic Federation informs us : " We have never failed to hold up before the people the high ideal of a complete social revolution, which shall replace the capitalist sweating system and its terrible class war by the happiness, contentment, and glory of a great co-operative commonwealth for all mankind." ^ Faithful to the teaching of Karl Marx, Mr. Tom Mann proclaims : " We do not want any walls built round cities or nations for fear of invasion ; what we do now stand in urgent need of is an international working alliance among the workers of the whole world. The only position of safety will be found in international action among the organised workers of the world." ^ These being the doctrines of revolutionary Socialism, it is only natural that many British Socialists take the enemy's part in case of war. ^ The foreign policy of the visionary Socialists is based on the idea of human brotherhood and the equality of men of all races, creeds, and colours. " Socialism is brotherhood ; and brotherhood is as wide as the heavens and as broad as humanity. The growth of international Socialism is the promise of the realisation of the angels' natal song : On earth, peace ; Good will toward men. Socialism will remove the causes of international antagonism and make the interests of all nations the same." * " Socialism implies the inherent equality of all human beings. It does not assume that all are alike, but only that all are equal. Holding this to be true of individuals, the Socialist applies it also to races. Only by a full and unqualified recognition of this claim can peace be restored to the world. Socialism implies ' Debate, Hyndman, Will Socialism Benefit the English People? Introduction. ' Mann, International Labour Movement, p. 6. ' See, for instance, Hyndman in The Transvaal Wa/r and the Degrada- tion of England. ' Snowden, The Indwidtuil imder Socialism, p. 14. 186 BEITISH SOCIALISM brotherhood, brotherhood implies a Hving recognition of the fact that the duty of the strong is not to hold the weak in subjection but to assist them to rise higher and ever higher in the scale of humanity, and that this cannot be done by trampling upon and exploiting their weakness, but by caring for them and showing them the better way." ^ Thus Socialism will bring to the world eternal peace. In the words of the poet : There's a good time coming, boys, A good time coming ; And war in all men's eyes shall be A monster of iniquity. In the good time coming. Nations shall not quarrel then, To prove which is the stronger ; Nor slaughter men for glory's sake — Wait a little longer.^ The ideas expressed in the above are very noble, but they seem to be hardly in accordance with historical experience or with human nature as we know it. The race war on the Pacific coast, and the murderous attacks by strikers on free labourers who have taken their place which are of frequent occurrence in all countries, show that even Socialists are apt to rely rather on threats, violence, and superior force than on brotherliness and reason, although the Chinaman and the Japanese have, according to the Socialist doctrines given in the foregoing, as much right to earn a living as any white man. " Socialism is essentially international. It recognises no distinction between the various nations comprising the modern civilised world. ' My country, right or wrong,' the expression of modern patriotism, is the very antithesis of Socialism. . . . This internationahsm means liberty and equality between nations as between ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 10. 2 Clarion Song Book, p. 25. FOEEIGN POLICY 187 individuals, and amalgamation as soon as feasible, and as close as possible, under the red flag of Social Democracy, which does not recognise national distinctions or the division of progressive humanity into nations and races." ' " The new community will be built up on an international basis. The nations will fraternise together, will shake hands over old quarrels, and unite in gradually extending the new State over all peoples of the earth." ^ " Nationalisation is only the beginning of Socialism. Once let any nation be thoroughly imbued with the Socialist spirit, it will become a missionary nation. It will preach the glad tidings of salvation to people of other tongues, and that which was national shall become universal : East and West, North and South, all shall realise, all shall rejoice in, the glorious brotherhood of man." ^ The " brotherhood of man " reminds one of the French Eevolution. Like the French Eevolution, Socialism has imposed upon itself the mission to convert the world to its doctrine, and people may again be placed before the alternative "La Fratemite ou la Mort." Let despots frown and tyrants sneer, The red flag is unfurled ; We'll to our principles adhere And socialise the world.* Being anxious to " socialise the world," Socialists eagerly note every progress of Socialism in foreign countries from Paris to Pekin. For instance, we read in the ' Eeformers' Year Book " : " The belief that the quick-witted Japanese would, at the beginning of their new civilisation, avoid the evils of European capitalism ' Bax and Queleh, A New Catechism of Socialism, p. 31. 2 Bebel, Woma/n in the Past, Present, and Future, p. 235. 3 " Veritaa," Did Jesus Christ teach Socialism 1 p. 2. * Neil, Songs of the Social Eevolution, p. 13. 188 BEITISH SOCIALISM by accepting a scheme of Socialism is not being fulfilled. The dividend-hunter, who has been to Europe and received a business training, is fastening the chains of monopoly upon the people. To meet this grovying danger there is already a thriving Socialist-Labour party, which has a daily newspaper, the ' Hikari ' (' Light ')." ■ To facili- tate the " socialisation of the world " and the introduction of "the brotherhood of man " by making Socialism truly inter- national. Socialists are urged to study Esperanto, which apparently is to be the international Socialist language of the future. The " Clarion " and other SociaUst papers regularly contain articles written in Esperanto, and the anti-patriotic writings of Herv6 and Gohier — an extract from the writings of the former will be found in Chapter XIII. — have been translated into Esperanto, apparently in the hope that these incendiary pamphlets may help in bringing about the great Socialist revolution. Among the ' immediate reforms ' demanded in the programme of the Social-Democratic Federation (see Appendix) are to be found the demands : " The people to decide on peace and war. The establishment of international courts of arbitration." In view of these demands, which are made by most Socialist organisations, it is quite natural that Socialists condemn the secret action of diplomacy. For instance, a Socialist writer remarks on the Anglo-French agreements : " Are we the masters of our destinies, when a Delcass6 may at any moment immerse us in international troubles of the first magnitude ? Lord Lansdowne, as the accomplice of Delcassd, was equally guilty, and Sir Edward Grey, by now securing this triple alliance without the consent or the knowledge of the 150 millions of people whom it most vitally concerns, completes a trio of international plotters and murderers." ^ ' Reformers' Year Booh, 1907, p. 195. '' Social-Democrat, September 1907, p. 534. POEEIGN POLICY 189 Many Socialists believe that wars may soon be abolished by international agreement, either among the nations or among the working masses, who will force their views upon the governments. According to a very prolific Socialist writer, " There are many signs and portents to-day that the evil of war, which is not more deeply rooted than was slavery a hundred years ago, will, ere long, meet a similar fate." ^ And what are the " signs and portents " upon which the belief is based that war will be abolished? "It is a significant fact that whenever the working classes meet to discuss this question of war, they invariably express themselves in favour of its speedy end. A few days ago, when the Trades Union Congress met at Liverpool, when delegates were present representing some two millions of the organised workers of the country, the representative of the Navvies' Union declared, amid the resounding cheers of the Congress, that it was impossible for a man to be a Christian and in favour of war at the same time." ^ The Navvies' Union will no doubt play a great part in the foreign policy of the Socialist commonwealth, but is the importance of their declaration not exaggerated ? Wars begin, as a rule, by an act of aggression. What would the Navvies' Union and the Trades Union Congress have said if the secretary had read a telegram stating that British ships had been fired upon and sunk by an enemy, or that British territory had been invaded and British blood had been spilt ? I fear that eternal peace is not yet in sight, notwithstanding the " sign and portent " of the statement made by the representative of the Navvies' Union. Indeed, clear-headed foreign Socialists are aware of the very limited usefulness of Peace Conferences, and they deride disarmament proposals, such as that submitted to the last Hague Conference by Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman. ' Ward, The War Dnim shall Throb no Longer, p. 13. ' Ibid. p. 14. 190 BEITISH SOCIALISM An exceedingly able article in the foremost Socialist organ of Germany gave, early in the spring of 1907, the following views on the probable result of The Hague Conference and on the British proposals regarding the limitation of armaments, views which are particularly interesting because they show the sound good sense of the German Socialists and the difference between the political views of German and British Socialists. The article stated : " Just as the first Hague Conference of 1898 in reality achieved nothing more than a few secondary amend- ments to the law of nations, conformity with which was left completely to the fancy of the individual Powers, so the second Hague Conference will, it is highly probable, result in nothing further than a few general peace assertions and international arrangements which, when it comes to a war, will not outlive the first interchange of shots. Certainly the English Premier is right. There does exist among the thoughtful persons in all European States an intellectual tendency towards the peaceful settlement of differences between the nations and the diminution of the gigantic military and naval armaments. But this body of thoughtful people is — as the last elections in Germany have again proved — on the whole rather small ; and above all, these thoughtful people do not belong to the economically powerful class who determine the policy of Governments. " The old ideologic conception of the English free trade doctrine, that the free exchange of goods between the nations leads to the abolition of war, to the brother- hood of humanity, that conception which found its most original expression in Dr. Bowring's exclamation ' Free trade is Jesus Christ,' still haunts some people's minds. With the greatest number of the liberal advocates of disarmament, their point of view originates simply in the consideration that the strong naval and military FOEEIGN POLICY 191 armaments demand more and more, not only from England's purse, but from her human material, while, on the other hand, England possesses all that she can expect, and has, on that account, not much more to gain. All over the earth's surface she has the most valuable colonies, and is, since the alliances with Japan and France, in a perfectly secure position, which awakens in her the wish to consolidate her position and to economise her finances for the upholding of her supre- macy. It is that satisfied state of mind which makes the fortunate winner of the game say, ' Let us leave off ; I am tired of playing now.' English capitalists feel themselves in a safe position. Nothing can easily go wrong at present. The thing is, therefore, to secure what they have got and to diminish the heavy burdens. This desire is comprehensible — only the other Powers will probably not respect it. " The working-class party is very much in sympathy with the disarmament idea in itself. For this party ia the most consistent opponent of militarism, and demands in its programme not only the formation of a citizen army in place of the standing army, but also that questions of peace and war should be determined by the people themselves, and that all international differences should be settled by arbitration. But no amount of sympathy can get over the fact that in the present capitalist world there is very little chance of a general disarmament of the Powers. The conception that war is only a product of human unreason is on the same level as the idea that revolutions are only mental aberrations of the masses. War is rooted in the opposing interests of the nations, as are revolutions in the opposing interests of the classes." ' ' Vorioarts, March 10, 1907, translated in the Social-Democrat, April 1907, pp. 220-224. 192 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTEE XIII SOCIALISM AND THE AEMY Most Socialists, British and foreign, are opposed to the existing armies, for two reasons : (1) Because they wish to overturn practically all existing institutions from the Monarchy downwards, and they fear that the military may defend the status quo ; (2) Because they aim at the abolition of States and of nationality and at the disappearance of frontiers, as the ideal Socialist State of the future would, for economic and political reasons, have to embrace the world. The Socialist State of the future, embracing the whole universe, can be created only after the existing States have been overturned. Therefore the more immediate aim of Socialists is to seize upon the political power in accordance with the advice given by Karl Marx in his celebrated " Manifesto." ^ Most Socialists apparently believe that not by Parliamentary means but only by violence will they succeed in making themselves supreme, for we are told : " The ballot-box is no doubt a safer weapon than the rifle ; but even when there will be a sufficient number of people in these islands convinced of the necessity and possibility of the co-operative commonwealth, the end will not yet be certain. There are the classes in posses- sion to be considered. Are they going to allow them- selves to be voted out ? Will they respect a franchise and ballot-box which will vote that they shall get off the backs of the workers ? Franchise ' Eeform ' Bills — • ' See p. 107. SOCIALISM AND THE AEMY 193 and it is astonishing to what use ' reform ' can now be put — can be rushed through Parliament, like Crimes Acts, in twenty-four hours ; and there is the ' voluntary ' professional army, under military law, to overawe the recalcitrants who may resent the suffrage and the ballot- box being jerrymandered against the popular interest. But none are so likely to be overawed by threatened displays of armed force — whether voluntary or con- script — as those who have a difficulty in distinguishing the butt end of a rifle from its muzzle." '■ Under the heading "Will it come to barricades?" we read : " The barricade is to-day, all will agree, in this country at any rate, an impossible weapon. Armed insurrection on the part of the workers in this country would to-day be the height of folly, and will continue to be so, so long as our standing army of hired mercenaries exists. Standing armies are the instruments of capitalist oppression at home and aggression abroad. But so long as even one great Power maintains the present form of military organisation, so long as war is possible, so long will it be necessary that some form of military organisation exist in all countries. We dare not preach peace when we know there can be no peace. This is why the Socialists of all countries are to-day in favour of an educational policy which will make every citizen fit for military service within the ranks of a citizen army, organised and maintained for purposes of defence only. The advantages of such a force, from the Socialist stand- point, are so obvious that they need hardly be stated. And it would at least put the working class in a position to understand what a barricade means, and how, if need be, to act in their own defence. There are, I am well aware, a handful of individual Socialists with us who are against universal military training, but they are a diminishing quantity, and will in due season find their ' H. W. Lee in the Social-Democrat, June 1, 1907. 194 BBITISH SOCIALISM natural vocation within the ranks of the Liberty and Property Defence League." ' Mr. Quelch, the editor of "Justice," shares the fore- going opinion, for he tells us : " Eevolutions, it is said, can no longer be accomplished by force, but only by peaceful means — the vote. Parliamentary action, and legislation. It may be so, but it \7ill be unprecedented if the present ruling class surrender without a struggle. And if they had the armed force of the nation at their command, they would struggle successfully no matter what the Legislature may have done. The ruling class will not be made to submit to law and order which is not their law and order, except by overwhelmingly superior force. Nobody supposes that in such a contest the people could -win against the ruling class unless they had been able first to win over the army. With a professional ' voluntary ' army, well paid and well affected to its pay- masters, such winning over would be practically impos- sible. But with the armed nation there would be no winning over required. An armed nation — whatever it may do or submit to — is essentially a free nation, and whatever such a nation determines upon, that it can do and have, in spite of any ruling class." ^ Similar opinions have frequently been expressed by leading Continental Socialists. Herr Kautsky, for in- stance, wrote under the heading " Expropriation of the Expropriators," as follows : " The arming of the people is a political measure. It can, under certain circum- stances, cost just as much as a standing army, but it is needed for the safety of the democracy in order to deprive the Government of its most important weapon against the people." ^ ' Thomas Kennedy in Forward of May 25, 1907, reprinted in the Social-Democrat, June 1907. - Queleh in the Social- Democrat for Ootoher 1907. ' Kautsky, Social Revolution, p. 4. SOCIALISM AND THE AEMY 195 Those who are of opinion that only the extreme sec- tion of British Socialists, the revolutionary wing, is hostile to the army, are mistaken. This may be seen from the following resolution of the Fabian Society, which is the most moderate exponent of British Socialism : " Armies act as a standing menace not to neighbouring States, but to the working populations of their own countries. A study of the strategical disposition of many of the great railway stations and barracks of the Continent will prove that the most important function of the modern army is to suppress the resistance of labour to capital in the war of classes." ^ Among the "immediate reforms" demanded in the programme of the Social-Democratic Federation ^ we find a demand for " the abolition of standing armies and the establishment of national citizen forces." Army and police are to most Socialists very objectionable because it is their function to protect the national order and national property against predatory, anarchistic, and revolutionary attempts. Therefore it is only natural that " No Social Democrat regards the present police system as a satisfac- tory one, or a professional police as other than a dubious expedient." ^ According to the opinion held by many Socialists, " The soldier's primary function is to come to the rescue of the policeman when the latter is over- powered." ^ Voluntary armies of the British type are quite as objectionable to Socialists as are the national armies of the compulsory type raised on the Continent of Europe. " We are told that the advantage of our present military system is that it is not compulsory, that people are free to join the service or not as they please. The freedom of the average recruit to join the army is about on a par with ' Report Menger, L'Mat Socialiste, 1904, p. 187. ^ Ibid. p. 188. ' Davidson, The Old Order and the New, pp. 164, 166. SOCIALISM AND THE FAMILY 345 the protector of the husbandless mothers and the father- less children. " Woman stands to gain much from the growth of a Socialist State. Among the free communistic services the right of the wife to maintenance during the period of maternity will quickly find a place." ^ " For every child born, the State will make provision. Either the mother will be paid so much per child so long as it lives and thrives, as her wages for important work done for society in bearing and rearing it " (it should be noted that children will belong no more to their parents but to " society," that childbearing vsdll be " work " paid for by " wages," and that the breeding of children will become as much a business on the part of independent women as is now the breeding of cats and dogs for profit), " or her absolute independence of her husband will be secured in some other way. The State doctor (a woman for this office) will prescribe and care for the child from the moment of its birth, and State nurses will be in attend- ance to see that the mother is in need of nothing for her own and the child's well-being." ^ " Socialism will simply be the scientific development of those natural tendencies which augment the happiness or improve the comfort of the people. It is conceivable that every child shall come under the care of the administrative assembly. The right of the child is not interwoven with parental responsibility. They are separate considerations. Only a madman will hold that in the event of its parents being unmindful of their duties a helpless little one should be allowed to suffer. The fact of its being is the child's title to what- ever provision society is able to make for it." ' " Socialism therefore teaches men to expect a communal watchful- ness over infant life. If parents refuse, or are unable, to ' Benson, Wcmum the Comnmnist, p. 15. ' Ethel Snowden, The Woman Socialist, pp. 48, 49. ' Eussell Williams, Tlie Difficulties of Socialism, p. 9. 346 BEITISH SOCIALISM meet the requirements of the case, the State will supply the deficiency." ' "A State that truly represents its members will legislate generously for those who announce frankly and without cant that they have no desire for the care of children." ^ In the Socialist State of the future, people could there- fore get rid of new-born babes far more easily than they now can of puppies and kittens. The institution round the corner would be the general foster-mother. Hordes of fatherless and motherless children would throng the State nurseries. The words " father " and " mother " would lose their meaning. However, we are told that " Socialism would begin by making sure that there should not be a single untaught, unloved, hungry child in the kingdom." ' Love would evidently also be " organised " by the authorities. Some Socialists fear that, under a regime of free love and free State maintenance for mothers and children, life will become a riot, that husbands will constantly change wives and wives husbands, and that, owing to the absence of all responsibility on the part of the parents for their offspring, over-population and consequent pauperisation will take place. Therefore some Socialists think that " A time will come when the patriot will consider it to be his duty, not to kill as many enemies as possible in time of war, but to restrict his family as far as possible in time of peace." ■* Socialist daydreamers seem to be unaware that the best preventive against over-popula- tion lies in the duty of parents to bring up and educate their children, a duty which they wish to abolish. As Aristotle pointed out 2200 years ago, the all- regulating State would also have to regulate the increase ' Eussell Williams, The Difficulties of Socialism, p. 10. ' New Age, Letter to Editor, November 14, 1907. ^ Blatchf ord, What is this Socialism ? p. 7. ' A. Menger, Volkspolitik, p. 51. SOCIALISM AND THE FAMILY 347 of population. " If the State is to guarantee wages, it is bound in self-protection to provide that no person shall be born without its consent. The State is to sanction the number of births; all others are immoral, because anti-social. As national wealth increased, a larger number of births would be allowed, or a larger sum would be expended on such as were allowed. An unsanctioned birth would receive no recognition from the State, and in times of over-population it might be needful to punish, positively or negatively, both father and mother. As such births may be due to ignorance or inefficiency of some check system, it would be the duty of the State to scientifically investigate the whole system of checks, and to spread among its citizens a thorough knowledge of such as were harmless and efficient in practice." ^ The State would control procreation. Intending couples would apparently have to take out a procreation licence, which would be granted only to those able to pass a searching examination. " Marriage between the mentally weak will not be allowed. Imbeciles, lunatics, and those with dangerous and ineradicable criminal tendencies will not be permitted to reproduce their species at all." - Unfortunately the writer fails to specify how un- authorised reproduction of the species would be pre- vented, and how contravention of the procreation laws would be punished. These details are furnished by another writer. " All those actually certified as degene- rates must be prevented from procreating. Society has not only a right but a duty to protect itself against such by-products, and it can only do this by State control of marriage." * " Marriage without a satisfactory medical certificate should be subjected to a penalty which would be in effect prohibitive. In certain cases asexualisation ' Karl Pearson, Socialism cmd Sex, pp. 12, 108. '^ Ethel Snowden, The Woman SociaKst, p. 49. ' Victor Fisher, The Babies' Tribute, p. 14. 348 BEITISH SOCIALISM and sterilisation should be applicable under special safe- guards and conditions." ^ Free love has apparently its limitations and its dangers. The procreation inspector might make an irreparable mistake. There are, of course, Socialists who think that the family ought to be preserved, and who oppose State nurseries. One of them writes : " The State, in its own interests, will do everything it can to develop individuahty in its children. The barrack school and State nursery — never much more than the Utopian dreams of amiable people — are condemned by up-to-date psychologists. The personal touch and affection of the mother, the surround- ings and ethics of a small community, the sense of con- tinuity which comes to the maturing child's mind from a personal organisation like the family, are all invaluable to a State which must take as much care of its citizens of to-morrow as it does of its citizens of to-day." ^ Mr. Macdonald's views on Socialism are hardly orthodox, and he has been denounced by thorough-going Socialists as an agent of the bourgeoisie. As women may be the strongest opponents to the dissolution of the family. Socialists addressing themselves to women try to persuade them that they are forced into matrimony by necessity, that marriage is a degradation to them and to their children, and that Socialism will elevate them and make them free and happy. " The average young woman of the working class, who is not herself employed in some well-paid occupation, has nothing but marriage to which to look forward. She gives herself and all she has or is in exchange for such board as her husband's means permit." ' "For the sake of bread and shelter she marries and becomes the unpaid ' Victor Fisher, The Babies' Tribute, p. 15. '' Macdonald, Socialism, p. 98. ' Keir Hardie, Frcym Serfdom to Socialism, p. 64. SOCIALISM AND THE FAMILY 349 cook and housekeeper of a husband and the mother of his children." ^ " Woman has been degraded, the mother has been kept down ; so the children have been born with slavish instincts, ready to creep for any favour, and only just awakening to the need for self-assertion and independence of action." ^ Socialism vfill change all that, for " Socialism means freedom for women, just as it does for men." ^ What is the Socialistic conception of " freedom for women " ? What are its privileges and its advantages ? — " In considering the position of the woman Socialist, one great central fact must be borne constantly in mind. What she will be, what she will do, how she will live — all will depend upon one great fact, the greatest fact in Socialism — a fact which constitutes Socialism — namely, that she will be economically free." * " The new order will make husband and wife equals simply by enabling the wife to earn her living by fitting employment." ^ "A living will be assured to every woman." ^ "In the new community woman is entirely independent, a free being, the equal of man. Her education is the same as that of man except where the difference of sex makes a deviation from this rule and special treatment absolutely unavoidable. She works under exactly the same con- ditions as a man."' "Under a Socialist regime every profession will be open to women as to men." * " Socialism means enfranchising them, giving them the vote, so that they can lift their voice alongside with men's voice and fight with the same weapon for a better, happier life." ' ' Ethel Snowden, The Woman Socialist, p. 13. ^ Ibid. p. 42. ' Independent Labow Party Leaflet, No. 5. ' Ethel Snowden, The Woman Socialist, p. 37. * Gronlund, Co-operative Commonwealth, p. 148. " Ethel Snowden, The Woman Socialist, p. 57. ' Bebel, Woman, p. 229. ' Ethel Snowden, The Wornmi Socialist, p. 86. 9 What Socialism means for Women, p. 1. 350 BEITISH SOCIALISM " It is only by removing the disabilities and restraints imposed upon woman, and permitting her to enter freely into competition with men in every sphere of human activity, that her true position and function in the economy of life will ultimately be ascertained." ^ " Socialism alone offers woman complete economic emancipation, with all that that implies. It provides her with suitable work, and it pays her exactly as men are paid. It educates her as men are educated, and protects her in pregnancy with tender regard ; and, in so doing. Socialism will raise the whole level of society to a height of moral grandeur never yet attained and hardly ever dreamed of by the most optimist of poets and philosophers." ^ Apparently Socialists will elevate downtrodden woman by compelling her to work for a living, and it is doubtful, as will be seen in Chapter XXXVI., whether she will be allowed to select her task or whether she will have to work under a system of forced labour. She will be given that freedom and liberty which is now called licence by the abolition of all the laws of morality. In the words of an exceedingly straightforward Socialist, " Indepen- dence for women will mean a heavy sacrifice for them, for it will mean for them compulsory work."' In return for such work they will be given full sexual license and the vote. There is another aspect to be taken note of with regard to the emancipation of woman. Many Socialists, in giving to woman equality with man as a wage-earner and voter, wish to unsex her completely. They wish to deprive her of those privileges which she possesses at present owing to her sex. The philosopher of British Socialism informs us : " The law nowadays makes no ' Keir Hardie, Citizenship of Women, p. 6. " Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 113. " Menger, L'Etat Socialiste, p. 191. SOCIALISM AND THE FAMILY 351 distinction of persons between men. True ; but it makes distinctions between men and women, and where law draws no distinction, practice does. ' Benefit of clergy ' is superseded by ' benefit of sex.' " • " The tendency of the bourgeoisie world, as expressed in its legislation and sentiment, has been towards a factitious exaltation of the woman at the expense of the man — in other words, the cry for ' equality between the sexes ' has in the course of its realisation become a sham, masking a de facto inequality. The inequality in question presses, as usual, heaviest upon the working man, whose wife, to all intents and purposes, now has him completely in her power. If dissolute or drunken, she can sell up his goods or break up his home at pleasure and still compel him to keep her and live with her to her life's end. There is no law to protect him. On the other hand, let him but raise a finger in a moment of exasperation against this precious representa- tive of the sacred principle of ' womanhood,' and straight- way he is consigned to the treadmill for his six months amid the jubilation of the ' Daily Telegraph ' and its kindred, who pronounce him a brute and sing pseans over the power of the ' law ' to protect the innocent and helpless female. Thus does bourgeois society offer sacri- fice to the idol ' equality between the sexes.' For the law jealously guards the earnings or property of the wife from possible spoliation. She on any colourable pretext can obtain magisterial separation and protection."^ Bax concludes that if the law is right in flogging men it should flog women too, for " the brutality and cowardice of the proceeding is no greater in the one case than in the other." ' The abolition of the marriage tie may mean that general barracks wiU take the place of private houses. Is the home worth preserving ? Most Socialists think it is ' Bax, Ethics of Socialism, p. 66. '' Bax, BeUgion of Socialism, p. 116. = Ibid. p. 117. 352 BEITISH SOCIALISM not. " It may be doubted after all whether it is neces- sary to regard ' the home ' in the sense in which the phrase is here used as the final and immutable form of social organisation. Humanity does not stand or fall by the arrangement whereby families take their food in segre- gated cubicles." ' " The entire preparation of food will be undertaken by society in the future. The private kitchen will disappear." ^ " Instead of a hundred kitchens and fires and cooks, we shall have one. In- stead of a hundred meals to prepare, we shall have one. Instead of a hundred homes being made to reek of unsavoury dishes, or the detestable odour of bad cooking, the offensive effluvia will be confined to one building. Under Socialism domestic duties will be reduced to a minimum." ^ " We set up one great kitchen, one general dining-hall, and one pleasant tea-garden." * Only a few Socialists are in favour of individual houses, believing that " Each house should be self-contained." '^ The proposals of British Socialists regarding woman, the family, the home, and marriage are not new. They were tried in the French Eevolution, and the conse- quences of the experiments recommended by the philoso- phers of the Eevolution were as follows : " The legislation of the Eevolution diminished the paternal authority and converted the family into a republic. Marriage became a contract which could be broken at will by either party, a contract which allowed of short notice and which could be concluded for any space of time. People married for a year, sometimes only for a month. They married for fun or for profit, and marriages were dissolved and others contracted if it paid to do so." ^ The French police reports tell us : " The depravity ' After Bread, Education, p. 10. ' Bebel, Wcnnan, p. 227. ' Ethel Snowden, The Woman Socialist, p. 70. ' Blatohford, Merrie England, p. 49. '' Jowett, The Socialist amd the City, p. 60. " Vandal, L'Avinement de Bonaparte. SOCIALISM AND THE FAMILY 353 of morals is extremely great, and the new generation is growing up in a state of disorder which promises to have the most mifortunate and most far-reaching consequences to future generations. Sodomy and Sapphic love flourish with the same shamelessness as prostitution, and the progress of all these vices is terrifying." ^ From another source we learn : " Society has become terribly depraved ; fornication, adultery, incest, and murder by poison or violence are the fruits of philosophism. Things are as bad in the villages as in Paris. Justices of the peace report that immorality has spread to such an extent that many communes will soon no longer be inhabitable by decent people." "- This is the new and the better world towards which Socialism is steering. ' Rapports de police publies par Schmidt, iii. p. 389. ^ Boussel, Uii Evique assermenti, p. 298. A A 354 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTBE XXVI THE SOCIALIST ATTITUDE TOWARDS CHRISTIANITY AND RELIGION What is the attitude of Socialism towards Christianity and religion ? A clerical apologist of Socialism informs us that " Socialism is founded on the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man." ' Another reverend gentleman states: "Socialism in the first place means combination, bringing together men for the building up of a sacred, holy life on this earth. It means the building up together of the different elements of human life. It is, in the grand words of the New Testament, which we were told Socialists did not believe in, ' No man liveth unto himself, and no man diethunto himself.' " ^ A third clergyman tells us that " The ethics of Socialism are identical with the ethics of Christianity." ^ Some British Socialist leaders explain that Socialists are good Christians, and that Socialism attacks only the Church and professed Christians, but not religion. " Much of what is regarded as anti-Christian Socialist doctrine is only an attack upon the Churches and pro- fessed Christians, and, so far from being anti-Christian, is, as a matter of fact, inspired by the ethics of Christ's teaching." ■* Other British Socialist leaders say that ' Rev. E. T. Russell in Forward, November 23, 1907. ' Rev. L. Jenkyns Jones in Forioard, November 16, 1907. ' Rev. Frank Ballard in Socialism : A Cancerous Growth, p. 19. * Maodonald, Socialisvi, p. 99. SOCIALISM AND EELIGION 355 Socialism, not being a religious doctrine, has no concern with religion and does not meddle with it. "A charge against Socialists is that they are Atheists whose aim is to destroy all religion and all morality. This is not true. It is true that many Socialists are Agnostics, and some are Atheists. But Atheism is no more a part of Socialism than it is a part of Toryism, or of Eadicalism, or of Liberalism." ^ " Socialism has no more to do with a man's religion than it has with the colour of his hair. Socialism deals with secular things, not with ultimate beliefs." ^ It is quite true that " there is at present no consensus of Socialist opinion on religious questions,"'* but it is hardly honest on the part of Socialist leaders to assert that Socialism has nothing to do with religion. The leading journal of the Fabian Society frankly confesses : " There is the argument that Socialism has nothing whatever to do with subjects such as religion and marriage. But if Socialism is a theory of the State, nothing human is alien to it. It may be true that no one of the specific theories of religion or marriage so far put forward by Socialists has any claim to be regarded as the Socialist view ; but there is all the difference in the world between such an admission and the denial that Socialism has any concern with the questions at all."'' Some Socialists proclaim that Socialism will carry out the will of Christ upon earth. Mr. Keir Hardie, for instance, says : " Christ laid down no elaborate system of either economics or theology. No great teacher ever did. His heart beat in sympathy with the great human heart of the race. His words are simple and not to be mis- understood when taken to mean what they say. His prayer-^Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven — was surely meant to be taken literally ' Blatohford, Real Socialism, p. 4. ^ Macdonald, Socialism, p. 101. ' New Age, October 10, 1907. " Ibid. p. 10. A A 2 356 BBITISH SOCIALISM Are our opponents prepared to assert that in Heaven there will be factories working wonaen and children for star- vation wages ; coal-mines and private property in land, dividing the population of Heaven into two classes, one revelling in riches and luxury, destructive of soul and body, the other grovelling in poverty, also destructive of all that is best in life ? If not, how can they consistently support the system which inevitably produces that state of things upon earth ? " ^ Other Socialists frankly confess that Sociahsm is absolutely incompatible with Christianity and all other religions ; that Socialism can succeed only if religion be abolished, and that therefore religion must be abolished. The philosopher of British Socialism states : " Socialism utterly despises the ' other world ' with all its stage properties — that is, the present objects of religion. It brings back religion from heaven to earth." ^ "As to the ethical teaching of Christ, with its one-sided, introspective, and individualistic character, we venture to assert that no one acquainted with the theory of modern scientific Socialism can for one moment call it Socialistic. Socialism has no sympathy with the morbid, eternally- revolving-in-upon-itself transcendent morality of the Gospel discourses. This morality sets up a forced, to the vast majority impossible, standard of 'personal holiness ' which, when realised, has seldom resulted in anything but (1) an apotheosised priggism, e.g. the Puritan type, or (2) in an epileptic hysteria, e.g. the Catholic saint type." ^ Mr. Blatchford states: "I have been asked why I have ' gone out of my way to attack religion.' In reply I beg to say that I am working for Socialism when I attack a religion which is hindering Socialism, that we must pull down before we can build up, and that I hope to do a little building, if only on the ' Keir Hardie, Can a Man he a Christian on a Poimd a Week ? p. 18. ' Bax, Religion of Socialism, p. 52. ' Ibid. p. 97. SOCIALISM AND EELIGION 357 foTxndation. I oppose the Christian religion because I do not think the Christian religion is beneficial to man- kind, and because I think it an obstacle in the way of humanism." ^ Another very influential writer says : " Personally I feel called upon to attack Christianity as I would any other harmful delusion. I do not believe in the theology of Jesus any more than I do in his sociology. It is no use pretending that Socialism will not profoundly revolutionise religion. The change in the economic basis of society is the more important thing to strive for ; but if the triumph of the Socialist ideal does not crush supernatural religion, then we shall still have a gigantic fabric of falsity and convention upon which to wage war. Happily Christianity becomes less and less of a power every day. So far, indeed, from Christianity being able to support Socialism, it goes hard with Christianity to stand by itself. As a support to Socialism it would surely prove a broken reed." ^ A Socialist poet proclaims : The name of Christ has been the sovereign curse, The opium drug that kept us slaves to wrong, Fooled with a dream, we bowed to worse and worse. " In heaven," we said, " He will confound the strong.'' hateful treason that has tricked too long ! Had we poor down-trod millions never dreamed Your dream of that hereafter for our woe, Had the great powers that rule, no Father seemed. But Law relentless, long and long ago Had we risen and said, " We will not suffer so ! " Christ, O You who found the drug of heaven. To keep consoled an earth that grew to hell. That else to cleanse and cure its sores had striven, We curse That name ! " ' ' BlatoMord, Qod and My Neighbour, p. 189. ^ Leatham, Was Jesus a Socialist ? p. 14. ' Francis Adams, The Mass of Christ, p. 12. 358 BEITISH SOCIALISM There is an eminently practical reason for the hostility of Socialists to Christianity. Beligious people are not likely to become Socialists. " Christianity is like a set of manacles fastened upon the minds of those who believe in it. It is vain for ns to look for aid from the Church and Christianity. It might be supposed that a hungry Christian vfould rebel against his himger as readily as a hungry Atheist. But it is not the case." ' The belief in a life after death also is incompatible with Socialism, and must therefore be combated : " We are compelled to abandon the belief in immortality. He who is given to meditating on his latter end and for whom the question of a post-physical future life for himself as an individual is of primary importance, is, generally speaking, indifferent where not positively hostile to social ideals." ^ " The moment this belief in an after-death existence is erected into a dogma, the moment it comes to be looked upon as an article of faith, which it is a duty to hold, or at least which it is the evidence of an ignoble disposition of mind not to hold, then it becomes an enemy to be combated." ^ The practical teachings of Christ are directly opposed to the practical teachings of Socialism : " Jesus said, ' Blessed are the poor.' Socialism recognises that wealth is a good thing, and it exists for the purpose of securing a better share of it for the ' blessed ' poor. Socialism declares that all ought to work ; but Jesus did no manual work after he was thirty years of age, and he encouraged his disciples to leave their occupations, to wander about and to beg, and this last feature of discipleship has in all ages been well maintained. Socialism incites the workers of all countries to unite for the prosecution of the class war ; but Jesus approved of obedience, con- tentment, and humility of spirit." '' ' Leatham, Was Jesus a Socialist? p. 14. '' Bax, Ethics of Socialism, pp. 192, 193. ^ Ibid. pp. 196, 197. * Leatham, Was Jesus a Socialist ? p. 6. SOCIALISM AND EBLiaiON 359 Socialism has no use for Christianity. " To-day we have to settle down to our primers and our programmes, our Blue-books and our social experiments, just as if Jesus had never lived, or perhaps all the more because he lived. We get no assistance from Him. His followers are our enemies in every country which owns His influence — and the worst enemies of all because ever professing friendship." ^ Christianity is, according to Socialists, an outworn creed. " As Marx says, ' The religious world is but the reflex of the real world. Christianity, like all religions, is but an expression of material conditions, a direct out- come of social relations, the unsubstantial image of a world reflected in the muddy pool of human intellect. Jesus varies with the ages. Eedeemer of Eoman slave ; War-God of Crusader ; General Overseer of Manufac- turing Capitalist." ^ Besides, Socialists resent " the con- tinual reference of ideal perfection to a semi-mythical Syrian of the first century when they see higher types even in some now walking this upper earth, but in vulgar flesh and blood and without the atmosphere of nineteen centuries to lend enchantment to them." ' Lastly, Christianity has been a failure : " The success of Christianity as a moral force has been solely upon isolated individuals. In its effects on societies at large it has signally and necessarily failed."* "Holiness ! Your religion does not make it. Its ethics are too weak, its theories too unsound, its transcendentalism is too thin. There ought to be no such thing as poverty in the world. The earth is bounteous : the ingenuity of man is great. He who defends the claims of the individual, or of a class, against the rights of the human race is a criminal. A hungry man, an idle man, an ignorant man, a destitute or degraded woman, a beggar or pauper child, is a reproach ' Leatham, Was Jesus a Socialist ? p. 10. ■' Socialist Standard; December 1, 1907. ■■ Bax, The Religion of Socialism, p. 96. * Ibid. p. 98. 360 BEITISH SOCIALISM to society and a witness against existing religion and civilisation. In such a world as this, friend Christian, a man has no business reading the Bible, singing hymns, and attending divine worship. He has not time. All the strength and pluck and wit he possesses are needed in the work of real religion, of real salvation. The rest is all ' dreams out of the ivory gate and visions before mid- night.' " 1 " In a really humane and civilised nation there should be and need be no such thing as poverty, ignorance, crime, idleness, war, slavery, hate, envy, pride, greed, gluttony, vice. But this is not a humane and civilised nation, and never will be while it accepts Christianity as its religion." ^ Our belief in God also must be abandoned, but if we continue believing in God it follows that man is not re- sponsible for his actions, that he cannot do wrong : " Man is what God made him ; could only act as God enabled him or constructed him to act. If God is responsible for man's existence, God is responsible for man's act. Therefore man cannot sin against God." ^ " If God is all-knowing, He knew before He made man what man would do. If God is all-powerful. He need not have made man at all, or He could have made a man who would be strong enough to resist temptation. Or He could have made a man who was incapable of evil. If God had never made man, then man could never have succumbed to tempta- tion. God made man of His own divine choice and made '-"im to His own divine desire. How then could God blame man for anything man did ? Man might justly say to God : ' I did not ask to be created. You knew when You made me how I should act. If You wish me to act otherwise, why did You not make me different ? I was fore-ordained by You to be and to do what I am and have done. Is it my fault that You fore-ordained me ' Blatohford, Ood and My Neighbour, p. 194. ' Ibid. p. 197. ' Ibid. p. 124. SOCIALISM AND EELIGION 361 to be and to do thus ? ' The actions of a man's will are as mathematically fixed at his birth as are the motions of a planet in its orbit. God, who made the man and the planet, is responsible for the actions of both." ^ " Divine law says that certain acts are good and that certain acts are evil ; and that God will reward those who do well and will punish those who do ill. And we are told that God will so act because God is just. But I claim that God cannot justly punish those who disobey, nor reward those who obey His laws. If God created all things. He must have created the evil as well as the good. Who, then, is responsible for good and evil ? Only God, for he made them. He who creates all is responsible for all. God created all : God is responsible for all. He who creates nothing is responsible for nothing. Man created nothing : man is responsible for nothing. There- fore man is not responsible for his nature, nor for the acts prompted by that nature. Therefore God cannot justly punish man for his acts. Therefore the Divine law, with its code of rewards and punishments, is not a just law and cannot have emanated from a just God." ^ " I do not pretend to say whether there is, or is not, a God, but I deny that there is a loving Heavenly Father who answers prayer. I deny the existence of Free Will and possibility of man's sinning against God. I deny that Christ is necessary to man's salvation from Hell or from Sin. I do not assert or deny the immortality of the soul. I know nothing about the soul, and no man is, or ever was, able to tell me more than I know." ^ "I do seriously mean that no man can, under any circumstances, be justly blamed for anything he may say or do. That is one of my deepest convictions." ■* Mr. Blatchford's philosophy excuses, and therefore encourages, every action based upon a bad impulse, every • Blatehford, Qod, and, My Neighbour, pp. 135, 136. 2 Blatehford, Not Guilty, pp. 11, 12. ' Blatehford, Ood and My Neighbour, p. 122. * Ibid. p. 137. 362 BEITISH SOCIALISM vice and every crime, and his creed should find the un- qualified approval of habitual criminals and loafers. Views similar to those of Mr. Blatchford are expressed by many other Socialists. We read, for instance : " It was pleasant to believe that a benevolent hand was guiding the steps of society ; overruling all evil appearances for good ; and making poverty here the earnest of a great blessedness and reward hereafter. It was pleasant to lose the sense of worldly inequality in the contemplation of our equality before God. But utilitarian questioning and scientific answering turned all this tranquil opti- mism into the blackest pessimism. Nature was shown to us as ' red in tooth and claw ' : if the guiding hand were indeed benevolent, then it could not be omnipotent, so that our trust in it was broken : if it were omnipotent, it could not be benevolent ; so that our love in it turned to fear and hatred." ^ As long as childhood pines in City slum ; As long as Landlords steal their racldng rent ; As long as Love and Faith to gold succumb ; As long as human life in war is spent ; While false religion teaches men to pray To a false Tyrant, whom they misname God ; Whose " Holy Will " is — so they glibly say— The poor should suffer 'neath His chast'ning rod ; As long as men do buy and sell the soil, And thereby make their fellow men their slaves ; While selfishness exacts its cruel spoil ; While yet the poor are ground into their graves ; Until these crying wrongs are made to cease Nowhere upon this earth can there be peace.^ Although the Socialists have declared war against the Christian religion and the Christian Churches, they freely quote the Scriptures and the Fathers if it suits their pur- pose, and shamelessly misuse the name of Christ. In support of their maxim " Property is theft," they quote ' Fabian Essays m Socialism, Tp.2T. ' The Deadly Parallel, Octohet 1901. SOCIALISM AND EELIGION 363 St. Jerome's saying : " Opulence is always the result of • theft : if not by the actual possessor, then by his pre- decessors." ^ They quote Christ in support of their demand for the abolition of private property, marriage and the family. " Christ abolished all private property, and with it the State. He abolished all distinctions of race, rank, sex, and intellect. He made the first last and the last first, acknowledging only devoted service as true greatness ; the only law, the Law of Love. In His sweeping condemnation of egoism in every form it seems doubtful if He did not even lay iconoclastic hands on marriage and the family, as they existed and exist. In the resurrection they neither marry nor give in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven. Woman (to His mother), what have I to do with thee? Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven the same is My brother, and sister, and mother." ^ They use the name of Christ for electioneering purposes. At a West Ham election, for instance, the electors received leaflets which stated " If you vote for the Municipal Alliance you vote against God. If Christ were in Plaistow Ward, Christ would vote for Coe." ^ Professor Schaffle, perhaps the most fair-minded and moderate scientist who ever criticised Socialism, was perfectly right in stating : " Socialism of the present day is out-and-out irreligious, and hostile to the Church. It says that the Church is only a police institution for upholding capital, and that it deceives the common people with a 'cheque payable in heaven,' that the Church deserves to perish." ■• The above words were written with regard to German Socialism, and British Socialism is far more irreligious, violent, and revolu- tionary than is the German variety. ' Wheatley, How the Mmers are Robbed, p. 13. ' Davidson, Oospel of the Poor, p. 149. '' Times, Municipal Socialism, p. 42. * Schaffle, Quintessence of Socialism, p. 116. 364 BRITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTEE XXVII THE RELIGION OF SOCIALISM We have seen in Chapter XXVI. that Socialism makes war upon Christianity and upon religion, that it strives to eradicate religion out of the people's hearts. Now the question arises : How do Socialists propose to fill the void ? What do they intend to put into the place of that religion which they wish to destroy ? " Socialism involves a change which would be almost a revolution in the moral and religious attitude of the majority of mankind." '^ " Eeligion will share the fate of the State. It will not be ' abolished,' God will not be dethroned, religion will not be ' torn out of the people's hearts.' Eeligion will disappear by itself without any violent attack." ^ " The establishment of society on a Socialistic basis would imply the definitive abandonment of all theological cults, since the notion of a transcendent god or semi-divine prophet is but the counterpart and analogue of the transcendent govejming class. So soon as we are rid of the desire of one section of society to enslave another, the dogmas of an effete creed will lose their interest. As the religion of slave industry was Paganism ; as the religion of serfage was Catholic Chris- tianity, or Sacerdotalism ; as the religion of Capitalism is Protestant Christianity or Biblical dogma, so the religion of collective and co-operative industry is Humanism, which is only another name for Socialism."* ' Ball, The Moral Aspects of Socialism, p. 23. ' Bebel, Woman, p. 213. ^ Bax, Beligioti of Socialism, p. 81. THE KELIGION OF SOCIALISM 365 " The religion of the future is to be the religion of the common life. It will have for its ideal the complete organic unity of the whole human race. And this reUgion will be a political religion. It will be a religion which will seek to realise its ideal in our industrial and social affairs by the application and use of political methods. The popular conception of politics as some- thing apart from religion is a cunning device of the devil to serve his own ends ; just in the same way as the popular impression that politics is something apart from bread and butter, and shorter hours, and better homes, and better industrial conditions. There can be no separa- tion between politics and religion. The religion of the future will be an application of the moral truths of religion through politics to our industrial and social conditions.' To root out the very memory of Christianity, Socialists would abolish the Sunday. " We would surrender once and for all this chimerical notion of one day of universal rest and institute three days a week, or, if necessary, more, as days of partial rest, i.e. on which different sections of the community would be freed from labour in turn." ^ This proposal, like so many Socialist proposals, reminds us of the French Eevolution, which also simul- taneously abolished the Christian religion and changed the calendar. The month was divided into three periods of ten days. The tenth day, the " decadi," replaced Sunday.^ The people were compelled to rest on decadi and to work on Sunday. Peasants who on Sundays did not bring their vegetables to market were prosecuted.* Policemen who on decadi heard suspicious noises broke by force into houses to find out whether people were ' Snowden, T/ie Christ tliatis to be, pp. 6, 7. ' Bax, Beligicm of Socialism, pp. 58, 59. ' Mignet, Bivolution Frangaise, ch. viii. ■* Soiout, iii. 176. 366 BKITISH SOCIALISM " desecrating " decadi by work, and the people complained, " Where is the liberty you promised us when we may not even dance on any day we like ? " '^ The French Revolutionaries destroyed the statues and pictures in the churches. British Socialists at present only propose to replace the effigies of Christ and the saints by Socialist heroes : " Let the painters, sculptors, poets, and musicians do honour to the heroes of humanity, the apostles of science and progress, as they have heretofore lavished their taste and skill and imagination on a con- ventional Jesus, an ideal Madonna and imaginary saints, and Gospel scenes; let statues arise to Bruno, Vanini, Servetus ; let the historian and the biographer recount with loving wealth of detail their struggles, controversies, flights, imprisonments, and martyrdoms ; let poets and painters cast the halo of romantic art around Caxton, Galileo, William the Silent, Milton, Harry Vane, and great masterful Cromwell ; let hymns be sung to Copernicus, Newton, Harvey, to Massaniello, Danton, Garibaldi, Delescluze, to Grace Darling, Sister Dora and Father Damien." ^ " To the Socialist, Marx has said the last word that need be said on the subject of the relation of Socialism and religion. ' The religious reflex of the real world can only finally vanish when the practical relations of every- day life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellow men.' Material conditions rule. ' The English Established Church will more readily pardon an attack on thirty-eight of its thirty-nine articles than on one-thirty-ninth of its income.' This is as true to-day as when written in 1867." ' Among the "Immediate Eeforms " demanded by the Social-Democratic Federation is, of course, " the dis- estabhshment and disendowment of all State churches." ■* ' Soiout, iv. 386. ^ Leatham, Was Jesus a Socialist ? p. 16. ' Socialist Standard, December 1, 1907. * See Appendix. THE EELIGION OF SOCIALISM 367 British Socialists, like the French Eevolutionaries, have issued numerous travesties of the Christian church service. The following are extracts from a widely read " Socialist Eitual." " A Catechism for the Mob " Q. What is thy name ? A. Wageworker. — Q. Who are thy parents ? A. My father was called Wageworker — my mother's name is Poverty. — Q. Where wast thou born? ^. In a garret under the roof of a tenement house which my father and his comrades built. — Q. What is thy religion '? A. The Eeligion of Capital. — Q. What duties does thy religion lay upon thee with regard to society? A. To increase the national wealth — first through my toil, and next through my savings, as soon as I can make any. — Q. What does thy religion order thee to do with thy savings? A. To entrust them to the banks and such other institutions that have been established by philanthropic financiers, to the end that they may loan them out to themselves. We are com- manded to place our earnings at all times at the disposal of our masters." "A Litany for the use of the respectable classes. Edited by Edward Carpenter. " God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners. — Eemember not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers, neither take thou vengeance of our sins. Spare us, good Lord; spare us whom thou hast brought into honour and good position through the precious blood of the toiling masses, and be not angry with us for ever : Spare us, good Lord. — From all evil and mischief, from the crafts and assaults of the thief and the burglar, from poverty and the everlasting 368 BEITISH SOCIALISM damnation of the workhouse: Good Lord, deliver us. — From bad trade and bogus dividends, from shady and un- profitable investments, from all unsuccessful speculation and losses, whether on the turf or in the City : Good Lord, deliver us." "The Capitalist's Ten Commandments " I am Capital, thy Master, that brought thee out of the Land of Liberty into a State of Slavery. Thou shalt not become thine own Master, nor have any other Masters but me. Thou shalt commit murder for my sake only. Thou shalt give thy daughters in prostitution and thy wife in adultery to me." The Latest Decalogue Thou shalt have one God only, who Would be at the expense of two ? No graven images may be Worshipped, except the currency. Swear not at all, as for thy curse Thine enemy is none the worse. At Church on Sunday to attend Will serve to keep the world thy friend.' The foregoing representative statements and extracts clearly prove that the teachings of Socialism, far from being in harmony with Christianity, are incompatible and directly hostile not only to Christianity but to all religion. The philosopher of British Socialism has very truly said, " Socialism has been well described as a new conception of the world, presenting itself in industry as co-operative Communism, in politics as international Eepublicanism, in religion as atheistic Humanism, by which is meant the recognition of social progress as our being's highest end and aim." ^ As there is very little difference between "atheistic Humanism" and Atheism pure and simple, ' A Socialists' Bitual, pp. 7-16. '' Bax, Religion of Socialism, p. 81. THE BBLIGION OP SOCIALISM 369 Socialists have really no right to complain if their opponents, relying on Bax's high authority, reproach them with being Atheists. The excerpts given above show that the religion of Socialism is a political and economic one. Its character and principles may be found in the publications of the Labour Church Union and of the Socialist Sunday School Union. The prospectus of the Labour Church Union contains the following declaration of principles : " (1) That the Labour Church exists to give expression to the rehgion of the Labour movement. (2) That the religion of the Labour movement is not theological, but respects each individual's personal convictions upon this question. (3) That the religion of the Labour movement seeks the realisation of universal well-being by the establishment of Socialism — a Commonwealth founded upon justice and love. (4) The religion of the Labour movement declares that improvement of social conditions and the development of personal character are both essential to emancipation from social and moral bondage, and to that end insists upon the duty of studying the economic and moral forces of society." It will be noticed that the words Christianity, God, morality, virtue, &c., do not occur in the foregoing state- ment. Now let us study the details of the Socialist religion. These details are taken from a statement of the aims, methods, &c. of the Socialist Sunday Schools, published for the enlightenment of the public by the Glasgow and District Socialist Sunday School Union, the prin- cipal SociaHst Sunday School Union of Great Britain. In that official publication we read : " Socialism, which the children are taught, is an idealism. It has been described as ' the highest flight of the ideal into the realm of the practical.' It is a faith — a faith based on the divine B B 370 3EITISH SOCIALISM brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity — irrespective of class, colour, or creed. It is a religion — a reUgion greater than creeds or dogmas. It is a religion of love ! Its followers and disciples are lovers of mankind ! Its worship is service to humanity ! Socialism has absorbed not only all the essential spiritual elements contained in the Christ teaching, but it has also, as Christianity itself has done before it, absorbed all the highest altruistic teaching of the ages. But Socialism has done something more — it has struck a new note, deep-sounding, far- reaching, and its vibrations are stirring in the hearts of the nations ! Socialism has proclaimed its tenets, de- claring the only possible ways and means whereby the sacred rites of the religion of love can be observed, and without which there can be no realisation of the divine sentiment — ' the brotherhood of man.' " The Church, the State, and the people alike, in so far as they sanction and sanctify unrighteous social con- ditions, are equally guilty of breaking the very first laws of brotherhood, and thereby of violating the pure and holy religion of love. When the Sun of Social Justice — Socialism — has arisen in its full glory, all the artificial and unnatural causes of evil and error will have been rooted out from the pathway of human progress. The sons and daughters of men may then, without mockery, stand before the great throne of love and worship the beauty and the wonder and the glory of the earth, sky, and sea, as brothers and sisters in one holy unity, and be more worthy to fathom the deeper mystery. Thus SociaHsm, or the law of the religion of love, unfalteringly maintains : That private property in land is public robbery. It is public robbery because, the land being the source of all the necessaries of life, it should belong equally to all, by birthright of our common inheritance in the brotherhood of the world. ' Let them know that the earth from which they were created is the common THE EELIGION OF SOCIALISM 371 property of all men, and that therefore the fruits of the earth belong indiscriminately to all. Those who make private property of the gift of God, pretend in vain to be innocent, for they are the murderers of those who die daily for want of it.' Such is the terrible and unassailable dictum of one of the great founders of the early Christian Church, Saint Gregory I. Private property in capital — whether in money, railways, mines, factories, machinery, tools, &c. — is public robbery. It is public robbery because it creates and divides the human family into classes. Classes of rich and idle people who claim and hold all these things as by right — and classes of hirelings who are thus forced to pay for the use of them — as rent in land, interest in capital, profit on labour. This means that the hireling classes require to give all the work of their hands and brains in order to secure a small share of the things which they need to live, and which they themselves have produced out of Nature's ample store. And this at once hinders the possibility of any unity of brotherhood or sisterhood and breaks the law of love." ^ It will be noticed that in this lengthy statement God is mentioned only for party purposes, and that the chief aim of the "religion of love" is to sow hatred and to incite to plunder. The Labour Church Union and the Socialist Sunday Schools use the same form of the Socialist Ten Com- mandments, which are as follows : "Love your schoolfellows, who will be your fellow- workers in life. Love learning, which is the food of the mind, and be grateful to your teacher as to your parents. Make every day holy by good and useful deeds and kindly actions. Honour good men, be courteous to all, bow down to none. Do not hate or speak evil of anyone, do not be revengeful, but stand up for your rights and resist oppression. Do not be cowardly, be a friend to the weak ' Glasier, Socialist Sunday Schools, p. 9. B B 2 372 BEITISH SOCIALISM and love justice. Eemember that all the good things of the earth are produced by labour. Whoever enjoys them v?ithout V70rking for them is stealing the bread of the workers. Observe and think in order to discover the truth. Do not believe what is contrary to reason, and never deceive yourself or others. Do not think that he who loves his own country must hate and despise other nations, or wish for war, which is a remnant of barbarism. Look forward to the day when all men will be free citizens of one fatherland and live together as brothers, in peace and righteousness. Socialism is the hope of the world." Here also the words Christianity and God do not occur. We are officially told that " Socialist Sunday Schools are intended to serve as a means of teaching economic causes of present-day social evils and of implanting a love of goodness in the child mind." ^ The following extracts from the "Eed Catechism" serve to show how "love of goodness" is inculcated in the Socialist Sunday Schools : " Q. Is there any difference in the teachings at Socialist Sunday schools and other Sunday schools ? A. Yes. — Q. What is taught in Christian schools ? A. Christian morals and capitalist teachings. — Q. What is meant by the term ' employing men for profit ' ? A. Capitalists, when they pay wages, make the workers produce three or four times the amount they pay them. The extra which the men produce over their wages is called profit. — Q. What evidence is there that the workers earn a great amount and get very little ? A. The national amount of wealth produced every year is two thousand minions and the amount paid out in wages is only five hundred millions, showing that the poor are poor because they are robbed. — Q. Who creates all wealth? ' Glasier, Socialist Sunday Schools, p. 10. , THE RELIGION OF SOCIALISM 373 A. The working class. — Q. Who creates all poverty? A. Our capitalist society. — Q. Who are the workers ? A. Men who work for wages. — Q. What class of men get into Parliament ? A. The capitalist and aristocratic class? — Q. How is that? A. Because the workers are opposed by men interested in keeping them poor. — Q. How many children are there in London who go to school insufficiently fed and clothed? A. It is stated as many as 100,000 ; a number equal to the population of a small county. — Q. To what class do these poor starving children belong ? A. The working class. — Q. Is it not the working class which creates all wealth? A. Yes. — Q. Do the rich trouble about the poor children of London who are iU-fed and clothed ? A. No. — Q. What is a pauper? A. One who lives upon others, while being able to work? — Q. Are the rich class able to work? A. Yes ; because they are well cared for when young and grow up strong? — Q. Do they work ? A. No ; they consider it menial and beneath them. — Q. Then they are paupers ? A. Yes. — Q. Do the rich and their children live at the expense of those who work ? A. Yes. — Q. What does machinery enable the workers to do? A. To pro- duce wealth quicker. — Q. Do the workers benefit by machinery? A. No. On the contrary. It generally reduces their wages and throws them out of work, — Q. Why is that? A. Because the machinery is con- trolled by the capitalist class. — Q. What is a wage-slave ? A. A person who works for a wage and gives all he earns to a capitalist. — Q. What proportion does a wage-slave receive of what he earns? A. On the average about a fourth. The slave and serf always had food, clothing, and shelter. The wage-slave, when he is out of work, must now starve or go into the workhouse and be made miserable, or commit suicide. — Q. What is the remedy for wage-slavery? A. Socialism. — Q. Who pays the rent? A. Father and mother. — Q. Who demainds the 374 BEITISH SOCIALISM rent ? A. The landlord. — Q. Can you say how much the landlord takes from the wages of father, generally for rent ? A. Yes ; a fourth. — Q. That is sheer robbery, is it not? A. Yes; but working men cannot help it. — Q. Why is that ? A. Because the landlord class have a monopoly of land and houses, and workmen have no land and are too poor to build for themselves." ^ "With this mendacious stuff the " Religion of Love " systematically poisons the innocent minds of little children. The religion of Socialism is indeed a political religion, as Mr. Snowden, M.P., has stated. ' Hazell, Tlw Bed Catechism, pp. 3-10. CHAPTEE XXVIII CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM The position of the Christian Churches and of Christian ministers towards Sociahsm is one of considerable diffi- culty. Socialism and Christianity are two words which are not easily reconcilable. Chapters XXVI. and XXVII. show that the attitude of British Socialists, not only towards Christianity but towards all religion, is in the main a hostile one. Their attitude is only logical. Socialists see in religious men and in religious corpora- tions obstacles to their revolutionary and predatory pro- gress. However, as many Socialists have declared that the teachings of Christ and of Socialism are identical, some large-hearted Christian ministers have tried to reconcile Christianity and Socialism. Working under the banner of Christian Socialism, these are rather trying to exercise practical Christianity than to assist the Socialist agita- tion, as may be seen from their programmes given in the Appendix. Many Christian Socialist ministers are pious and worthy men whose actions are wise and moderate. Others have adopted an attitude of hysterical enthusiasm and admiration towards Socialism. Whilst the former have only a few adherents, some of the latter have rapidly secured for themselves a considerable Socialist following, and if one takes note of their views, one cannot help doubting whether their motives are entirely disinterested. The following utterances, for instance, one would expect 376 BEITISH SOCIALISM from the mouth of a Soudanese dervish or an Indian fakir, but not from the pen of a Christian minister : " Socialism is the Greatest Movement for Justice and Brotherhood that this old Planet has ever known. Socialism is the Greatest Passion for the Eelease and Freedom of the Human Soul that this world has ever felt. Socialism is the Greatest Urge of the Average Man to stand erect, independent, and free, without a Master and without a slave, that the human race has ever experienced. " The Spirit of the Lord of Life within me, burning as a fierce flame in my bones, saith ' Speak unto the people these words ' : There is only one Sacred Thing beneath the stars — Human Life. Human Life is the Incarnation of the Desire of the Lord of Life. Behold ! He awaits the Full Expression, the Complete Emancipation, the Perfect Freedom of that Human Life, as Life, in all its undis- closed majestic meanings. And it doth not yet appear what it shall be ! The Average Man at your side in the street, next door — the average woman, any woman, the child, any child — Behold here is the Sacred One. Love, Worship, and Bless in the name of the Lord of Life. ' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.' No artificial, con- ventional, social, or financial dignity can make that Human One worthy ; no present degradation or humilia- tion can finally obscure that Eadiant One. ' I see through your sham tinsel and title ; I see through the dirt and despair to the Human One shining there,' saith the Living Truth. ' The worship that passeth these Darlings of My Heart and leaveth them — that worship I am against,' saith the Lord of Life. stand erect now, just where you are, just as you read these words. Thou hast no Superior ! Thou art very Beautiful ! Thou art the Freedom Incarnate, whose Heart-beat shall dissolve all slaveries E|,nd Injustice, I Love thee, Tiiou Hijmain CHEISTIAN SOCIALISM 377 One. There is only one Sacred Thing beneath the stars — Human Life. Whatever hurts, harms, makes cheap, blights, hinders, enslaves, subordinates, or profits off Human Life is Wrong tho' demanded by ten thousand priests, tho' framed in a thousand laws, tho' hoary v?ith ten thousand years. Whatever hurts the Son of man — that — that is the Blasphemy. What- ever helps, releases, emancipates, makes free, glorifies, makes sacred, enlarges, enricheth Human Life, that is the Eight and Good, tho' persecuted by private inte- rests ; that is the Truth, tho' withstood by dead men's creeds. Whatever emancipates the average man — that — that is the coming of the Lord. The Fundamental fact of Life is Bread. Man doth not — cannot live by Bread alone. But man cannot live without Bread. In the eating of Bread, behold the Divine Democracy of Human Life. The necessity of eating Bread — there is the Universal Sacrament — all are present — all partake. Behold, the Supper of the Lord is — just Bread — our common Daily Bread. Why is this Bread Sacred ? Not in itself. No! Why, then? It is the food of the Sacred Ones — the Human Ones. It is the Food of the Incarnation of the Lord of Life. And the first Basic Sacred Ceremony of Man is — Labour in securing that Bread — the Fact of Bread-Getting. If that is not Just, True, Eight, Good, a Blessing — then nothing is. All else is measured here. You cannot build a Sacred Ceremony in the superstructure of Human Life if the Basis in Bread-getting is a Lie, a Fraud, a Cheat, a Theft, a Slavery, a Service to the Gain-god— Mammon, a Gamble with Human Flesh. Nay, verily ! ' I will not hear your prayers, your chants, your liturgies, your praises ; My soul hateth even your solemn meeting,' said the Lord of Life, if thou wilt not see Me in these Human Ones as they struggle for Bread, if thou wilt not make thy Bread-getting Just, and Holy, p,nd Good, and True, 378 BEITISH SOCIAIjTSM "And now, Capitalism, Thou art doomed! I am against thee, saith the Spirit. Capitalism, I have weighed thee in My balances — thou art found wanting. Capitalism, thou hast gambled with the Land that 1 gave to all for Bread. Capitalism, thou hast gambled with the great machines that are for the bread-getting of the people. Capitalism, thou hast made Human need an asset of thy gains. Thy Purse is filled with Bloody Coin. Thy Store-Houses burst where the many Hunger. The Little Ones cry in the streets whilst thou hidest thy Plunder. I am against thee, Capitalism, I am against thee ! Thou hast gambled with the very Bodies and Souls of men in thy Mad Mammonism. Thy fierce Profit-Hunger Hath rejoiced in the Hunger of Man. I am against thee, Capitalism ! " Behold ! the Day Dawns ! I see Justice arise. I see the Land redeemed ! I see the Titans of Iron, the machinery of shops, used for man ! I see the Toilers go forth to their labours and return with the product of their toil ! I see Capitalism lie prone ! I see Mammonism fallen ! I see the Profit of the Many Arise ! I see Freedom ! I see Brotherhood ! I see the Socialist Age ! I see the Commonwealth of Man ! 'Tis the coming of the Lord of Life." ^ Much of the foregoing is printed in half-inch letters. At the end of these wild utterances we read in letters an inch tall : " Eally, Eally, Eally ! Great Social Crusade ! Eally, Eally, Eally ! " — which unpleasantly reminds one of the shouting butcher's insistent cry, " Buy, Buy, Buy ! " to be heard in crowded thorough- fares on Saturday nights. The moderate Christian Socialists cannot help opposing the most important item in the Socialist programme. For example, "The Christian Social Union asserts that ' The Social Crusade to Herald the Message of Truth and Freedom to this Age, conducted by Rev. J. Stitt Wilson, M.A., November 1907. CHEISTIAN SOCIALISM 379 it has not the slightest sympathy with confiscation." In fact, " the whole question of expropriation is tacitly ignored in the literature of Christian Socialism." ^ " The Christian who believes in the words : ' Take heed, and keep yourselves from all covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth,' cannot easily be a Socialist, and a Christian minister cannot easily approve of the spoliation of the Church." ^ Professor Flint stated quite correctly : " What is called Christian Socialism will always be found to be unchristian in so far as it is socialistic, or unsocialistic in so far as it is truly and fully Christian." ' Christian Socialist leaders urge Socialists to join the Christian Socialist movement. " Every Socialist who understands how deeply religion has been concerned in every movement that has ever won the enthusiasm of men, every Socialist who realises how enormous is the work before him, must welcome the assistance of this ancient and imperishable organ of love and justice. And every Christian who rejoices in the singular growth of religious zeal in recent years must long to see all that huge force given to the service of the Humanity which Jesus Christ has taken up into the Godhead. For the man that loves much is a Socialist, and the man that loves most is a saint, and every man that truly loves the brotherhood is in a state of salvation." * These words seem rather perfunctory and laboured. By far the largest number of Socialists regard the Christian Socialist movement with suspicion and dislike. The philosopher of British Socialism, Mr. Bax, for instance, wrote contemptuously : " The leaders of the Guild of St. Matthew wish to accomphsh vast changes through • a clarified Christianity ' — a Christianity which ' Woodworth, Christian Socialism in England, p. 161. ' Church and Socialism, p. 39. ' i'lint, Socialism, p. 441. • Dearmer, Socialism and Ch/risHamty, pp. 22, 23. 380 BEITISH SOCIALISM shall consist apparently of the skins of dead dogmas stuffed with adulterated Socialist ethics." A leading Socialist weekly wrote of the early Christian Socialists : "Whether their labours were largely beneficial depends on the way one looks at these things. We have no doubt that for the capitalist class these labours were eminently beneficial, and that is why Maurice and his friends are held in such great esteem by them. For the working class, however, their labours spelt slavery, and ought always to be remembered when similar attempts to ' Christianise ' Socialism are made by the ' servants ' of the Church. Here, as in many other things, the motto of the worker must be ' I fear the Greeks, even when they come with gifts.' " ^ ' Justice, October 19, 1907. CHAPTEE XXIX SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM Socialism is not a simple but a complex movement. It contains a powerful strain both of Communism and of Anarchism. In fact one might almost divide all Socialists into two classes : Communist Socialists and Anarchist Socialists. A study of the history of Socialism, Com- munism, and Anarchism shows that all three movements have much in common. It shows instances of Socialistic parties branching out and having Communist and An- archist offshoots, and shows instances of Anarchist and Communist groups combining under the red banner of Socialism. Owing to its intimate historical and sentimental con- nection vpith Communism and Anarchism, Socialism is hostile to the State, and many Socialists desire its down- fall : " The expropriation of all the private proprietors of the means of production being effected, society starts on a new basis. The conditions of existence and of human life are changed. The State Organisation gradu- ally loses its foundation. The State expires with the expiration of a ruling class, just as religion expires when the belief in supernatural beings or supernatural reasoning powers ceases to exist." ^ "The first act wherein the State appears as the real representative of the whole body social — the seizure of the means of production in the name of society — is also its last independent act as State. ' Bebel, Woman, p. 178. 382 BEITISH SOCIALISM The interference of the State in social relations becomes superfluous in one domain after another and falls of itself into desuetude. The place of a government over persons is taken by the administration of things and the con- duct of the processes of production. The State is not ' abolished,' it dies out." ^ " The representatives of the State will have disappeared along with the State itself — ministers, parliaments, standing armies, police and gens- d'armes, law courts, lawyers and public prosecutors, prisons, rates, taxes and excises — the entire political apparatus. The great and yet so petty parliamentary struggles have given place to administrative colleges and administrative delegations, whose function it is to settle the best methods of production and distribution." ^ " The Co-operative Commonwealth will incorporate the whole people into society. The whole people does not want, or need, any government at all. It simply wants administra- tion — good administration." ' The arguments contained in the foregoing extracts are exceedingly shallow. The various authorities quoted tell us in more or less involved language that the State disappears because " governments " will be replaced by "administrations." Unconvincing verbiage apart, the only change which would take place would be a change of name. Countries would be ruled by Socialist govern- ments instead of by non- Socialist ones. The State could disappear only with the disappearance of nations and of frontiers, with the advent of the " Brotherhood of Man." The first Socialist State might of course proclaim the Brotherhood of Man in accordance with the precedent set by the French Eevolution, but other nations might feel as little inclined to join it as during the time when blood- thirsty demagogues ruled France in the name of Liberty, ' Engels, Socialism : TJtcrpian and Scientific, pp. 76, 77. " Bebel, Wmnan, p. 212. ' Gronlund, Co-o;geratiAie Commowwealth, p. 123 SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM 383 Fraternity, and Equality, with the liberal assistance of the rifle and the guillotine. What is Communism ? John Stuart Mill tells us : "The assailants of the principle of individual property may be divided into tv70 classes — those whose scheme implies absolute equality in the distribution of the physical means of life and enjoyment, and those who admit inequality, but grounded on some principle, or supposed principle, of justice or general expediency, and not, like so many of the existing social inequalities, dependent on accident alone. The characteristic name for the former economical system is Communism." ^ "Palgrave's Dictionary of Political Economy" says: " Communism is the theory which teaches that the labour and the income of society should be distributed equally among all its members by some constituted authority." ^ Let us now take note of some Socialist views on Communism. " Laurence Gronlund, whose ' Co-operative Commonwealth ' has been styled the New Testament of Socialism (as the ' Capital ' is its Old Testament), has tried to distinguish between Socialism and Communism by de- scribing Communism as meaning ' each according to his needs,' and Socialism 'each according to his deeds.' " ^ " As soon as the principle of equality is applied to Socialism, Socialism becomes 'Communism.'"'' "Socialism and Communism are very generally confounded, but they are quite distinct economic systems. Socialists seek only to control the instruments of production — Land and Capital ; Communists leave nothing to the individual which he can call his own. St. Paul was a Socialist, Christ a Com- munist." ' Many so-called Socialists are in reality avowed ' Mill, Political Economy, Book iii. ch. i. par. 2. ' Palgrave's Dictionary of Political Eccmomy, vol. i. p. 297. ' Leatham, Socialism and Cha/racter, p. 89. * Menger, L'Etat Socialiste, p. 35. " Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 93. 384 BEITISH SOCIALISM Communists who look forward to the introduction of Communism more than to the advent of Socialism. They see in Socialism merely an intermediate stage towards their final goal. " If the millennial haven of Communism is to be reached by mankind generally, it must be through the disciplinary portal of Socialism." ^ " Communism, the final goal of Socialism, is a form of Social Economy very closely akin to the principles set forth in the Sermon on the Mount." ^ " Socialism and freedom ' gang the- gither.' Socialism implies the inherent equality of all human beings. It does not assume that all are alike, but only that all are equal." ' " Between complete Socialism and Communism there is no difference whatever in my mind. Communism is, in fact, the completion of Socialism ; when that ceases to be militant and becomes triimaphant it will be Communism." ^ " The vision of freedom is an ever-expanding conception of life and its possibilities. The slave dreams of emancipation, the emancipated workman of citizenship ; the enfranchised citizen of Socialism ; the Socialist of Communism." ^ Some Socialists champion Communism because Com- munism, the equality of all, is "natural," whilst indi- vidualism is " unnatural " : " Capitalistic individualism has no prototype in Nature and is therefore unnatural. But some opponent will say, ' It is here, and therefore it must be a natural product.' The answer is simple. It is here, but it is one of Nature's failures. We have seen how, low down in the organic scale, Nature makes many failures in order to achieve one success. Sometimes even millions perish in order that one of high type may survive. Nature always accomplishes her purposes in the end. We know that her aim is Communism, for some of ' Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 94. ^ Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialistn, p. 36. * Ibid. p. 9. * Morris, Communism, pp. 11, 12. " Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 77. SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM 385 the higher species have already reached it, and all are tending towards it." ^ The assertion, "We know" (who are we ?) " that Nature's aim is Communism," can hardly be called a sufficient scientific proof of the foregoing proposition. Other Socialists assert that Communism is in accordance with the Bible : " Christ's teaching is often said to be Socialistic. It is not Socialistic, but it is Communistic, and Communism is the most advanced form of the policy generally known as Socialism." ^ A Socialist Bible student and very prolific writer says : " Can anything be conceived more diametrically opposed to the principle laid down by Christ than the present system, based as it is on the principle of competition ? 'You are all brothers,' says Christ, and if all are brothers, then it needs no philosopher to tell us that all should work together for the common good." ' In support of this doctrine that Communism is in accord- ance with the Bible, the said writer quotes Acts iv. 32-35, "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul : neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own ; but they had all things common. Neither was there any among them that lacked : for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet : and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need."" The Socialist can quote Scripture for his purpose — and misquote it too. There- fore the pious Socialist writer leaves out the lines which follow : " But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his v^ife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price." ' Will there be no Ananiases in the Socialist ' Connell, Socialism and the Survival of the Fittest, p. 19. ' Blatehiord, Beat Socialism, p. 3. " Ward, Are All Men Brothers ? p. 19. * Ward, All Things in Common, p. 5. Acta v. 1, 2. C C 386 BKITISH SOCIALISM Commonwealth? Besides, the early Christian Com- munism was voluntary and dictated only by charity. It certainly was not enjoined as a religious duty. ^ Lastly, the first Christian experiment in Communism proved immediately a failure, probably because there were many Ananiases, and because Communism is opposed to human nature and leads to poverty and strife, not to prosperity and peace. Hence, St. Paul founded no more Communist settlements, but collected everywhere for the "poor saints at Jerusalem " in order to relieve them in their " deep poverty," as may be seen in Eomans xv. 26-27, 1 Corinthians xvi. 1-3, 2 Corinthians viii. and ix. To misquote Scripture in support of Socialist Communism with an attitude of deep piety is not only in bad taste, but also dishonest. It is cant and hypocrisy. Another prolific Socialist writer, under the title " Was Jesus a Socialist ? " tells us that Socialism " claims complete equality of rewards for all members of society, not on any theologico-metaphysical ground, such as the Christian abstract principle of brotherhood, but because it sees men to have on the whole the same natural endow- ments, and the same natural needs."'' Have they? Considered merely as two-legged animals requiring only food, warmth, and shelter, men have not even the same physical needs. It is very difficult to make out a good case in favour of Communism, an equal reward for all, a doctrine which will be attractive only to the lowest rank of workers, the lazy, and the inefficient. Therefore Socialist Communists endeavour to make Communism appear more palatable to the active and the efficient by the lavish use of poetry and hyperbole. For instance, we learn : " He who makes the canvas is as useful as he that paints the picture. He who cleanses the sewer and prevents disease is as useful as the physician who cures the malady after it has been ' Acts V. 4. ' Leatham, Was Jesus a Socialist ? p. 5. SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM 387 contracted." ^ To learn painting or medicine requires at least ten years' study ; sewer-cleaning requires no study. The offer of equal rewards for an hour's work at painting, at amputating in a hospital, and at cleaning sewers must be very attractive to sewermen. Will it prove equally attractive to surgeons and painters ? Socialism is to be world-wide. Will the highly skilled British trade unionist agree to work side by side with unskilled Chinamen and for equal wages ? In youth, as I lay dreaming, I saw a country fair. Where Plenty sheds its blessing down, And all have equal share. There Poverty's sad features Are never, never, seen ; And each soul in the Brotherhood Scorns cunning arts or mean.'^ I think skilled workers will hardly hail with enthusiasm the day of liberty and equality and of sewermen's wages all round, poetry notwithstanding. Other Socialists try to recommend Communism by a ridiculous and dishonest play upon words : " He who de- clares himself an enemy of Communism declares himself an enemy of common interest, an enemy of society and mankind. Whoever wishes to annihilate Communism will have to destroy the common roads, the schools, he will have to destroy the public gardens and parks, he will have to abolish the public baths, the theatres, the water- works, all the pubHc buildings ; he will have to destroy the railroads, the telegraphs, the post-office. For all these belong to Communism." ' It would be as logical to say, " He who opposes Socialism will have to destroy the Eoyal Society, and all clubs, for all these are social institutions. The Social-Democratic Federation says ' Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 139. 2 Clarion Song Booh, p. 27. ' Sorge, Socialism, and the WorHrs, p. 8. c c 2 388 BRITISH SOCIALISM about Communism : " Has there not always been the aggregation of wealth in the hands of a few in all stages of human society ? — Certainly there has been a tendency to such concentration throughout history. In what did tribal society differ from civilised society ? — Briefly, it differed in that its underlying principle was that of social solidarity and Communism. We may instance such examples as survived in the village communities of India before the establishment of British institutions ; in the Eussian Mir, in its older form; in the Arab tribal organisation and the Javan village communities." ' That "primitive Communism" of "tribal society," the organisation of savages and semi-savages, of the decadent and of the unfit, Socialists wish to foist upon a highly cultured nation. The above arguments, penned by the philosopher of British Socialism and the editor of "Justice" in recommendation of Communism, suffice to condemn it. We have a survival of ancient Communism in the Eussian Mir, and to the Mir is the great backwardness of Eussian agriculture chiefly to be attributed.^ The Eussian peasants, recognising the disadvantages of the Communist Mir, are gradually abandoning it and con- verting common into individual properties. Nevertheless some Socialists have the hardihood to ascribe the universal disappearance of ancient Communism to the tyranny of man, not to the logic of facts and the action of Nature which replaces inefficient by efficient organisa- tions. " There have been attempts in all ages to intro- duce some system of holding things in common in order to alleviate and soften the hard struggle with Nature for food, clothing, and shelter. This voluntary Com- munism rendered the workers too independent for the ' Bax and Queloh, A New Catechism of Socialism, pp. 20, 21. " See Simkhowitsoh, Die Feldgemeinschaft, 1898 ; Haxthausen, StucUen, &o. SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM 389 governing classes, and the jealousy of Church and State invariably destroyed it as the Eussian village communes are now being destroyed by the Government." ^ Another Socialist quotes with approval the pronounce- ment of Gregory the Great " Let them know that the earth from which they spring, and of which they are formed, belongs to all men in common, and that therefore the fruits which the earth brings forth must belong, without distinction, to all." ^ China suffers from over- population and is very poor. Would the writer give to the Chinese a share of Great Britain's wealth since " the earth and its fruits belong without distinction to all? " Mr. Keir Hardie, M.P., who has apparently a some- what elementary knowledge of ancient history, and who seems to rely for information on a primer such as " Little Willie's First History Book," recommends Communism because " In Sparta there were not only common lands, but also a common table, whilst dogs and horses were practically common property also. Sparta, which kept its Communism almost to the end, was also the Eepublic from which came the immortal heroes who made the pass of Thermopylae one of the great inspirations of the world." ^ The Spartans were barbarians among the Greeks. Spartan Communism was founded on slavery and on the virtual community of women. Slave-murder, child-murder, rape, and theft were legally enjoined, and that is the community which Mr. Keir Hardie bids us consider as our model. Mr. Keir Hardie concludes : " We have seen how mankind when left free has always, and in aU parts of the world, naturally turned to Communism. [Has it ? When, and where ?] That it will do so again is the most likely forecast of the future which can be made, and the great industrial organisations, the Trade Unions, the Co-operative Movement, the Friendly ' Benson, Socialism, p. 4. ^ Ward, All Things in Common, p. 1. ' Keir Hardie, Frcnn Serfdom to Socialism, p. 17. 390 BEITISH SOCIALISM Orders, the Socialist organisations and the Labour party are each and all developing the feeling of solidarity and of mutual aid which will make the inauguration of Communism a comparatively easy task as the natural successor to State Socialism." ^ The ideas of Socialists with regard to Communism are incredibly confused. For instance, we find in the same book the following contradictory statements describing Socialism : " Socialism is the common holding of the means of production and exchange, and the holding of them for the equal benefit of all" ^ (the italics are in the original), and " To distribute the gifts of Nature justly according to the labour done by each in the collective search for them. This desire is Socialism." ' These absolutely contradictory statements, telling us that Socialism is both individualistic and that it is also Com- munistic, are taken from the fundamental book of the Fabian Society, the most scientific body of Socialists, and they have been reprinted again and again down to the edition bearing the imprint "43rd Thousand." Socialism is eternally between the horns of a dilemma. It promises to make all men happy. If it rewards men by results, the inefficient and the lazy will be dissatisfied. If it rewards all men alike (Communism), the efficient, able, and energetic will be dissatisfied. Eeward by result will, in the absence of self-regulating commercial demand and supply, require an autocratic and absolute authority which arbitrarily apportions the unequal rewards of labour. It would be the tyranny of the few over the many, and would mean the abolition of democracy. Communism, equal rewards for all, would lead to the tyranny of the many over the few, and would stifle all motives to excel. Well might the Fabians ask : " Since we are too dishonest for Communism without taxation or compulsory labour, and ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, pp. 96, 97. " Fabiam, Essays in Socialism, p. 212. ' Ibid. p. 4. SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM 391 too insubordinate to tolerate task work under personal compulsion, how can we order the transition so as to introduce just distribution without Communism and maintain the incentive to labour without mastership ? " ^ Unfortunately for the Socialists, that question is unanswer- able. It is likely always to remain so, and the impossi- bility of answering it makes Socialism impossible. How- ever, since Socialists wish to array the masses against the classes, the poor against the rich, they naturally incHne, for tactical reasons rather than from honest conviction, to Communism, the worst of all tyrannies, and the most retrograde and inefficient of economic organisations. " Communism in proposing the appropriation of the results of the unequally productive labour for a uniformly equal distribution according to needs, seeks to establish a universal and monstrous appropriation by one set of persons of the surplus value belonging to others. Socialism would, in short, do to a far greater degree the very thing with which to-day it so indignantly and bitterly reproaches capitalism." ^ Whilst Mr. Keir Hardie and his numerous followers enthusiastically support a free Communism in which " the rule of life will be — Prom each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," ' " the Fabian Society resolutely opposes all pretensions to hamper the Socialisation of industry with equal wages, equal hours of labour, equal official status, or equal authority for everyone. Such conditions are not only impracticable, but incompatible with the equality of subordination to the common interest which is funda- mental in modern Socialism." * The Communistic idea is not yet dead. The short- sightedness and folly of mankind is such that Communism, ' B. Shaw, The Impossibilities of Ana/rchism, p. 17. 2 Sohaffle, The Iimpossibility of Social Democracy, p. 60. •■ Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 89. * Report on Fabian Policy and Resolutions, p. 7. 392 BETTISH SOCIALISM in spite of a record of more than 2,000 years of universal failure, is still a power to be reckoned with. Visionaries like Saint-Simon and Owen, and madmen like Fourier, are still able to lead the people astray. Fourier taught that Communism would alter not only man but the physical world as well. The duration of the human race on earth would be 80,000 years, divided into two periods of ascending and two of descending vibrations. Lions would be taught to draw waggons, as a symbol of the victory of man over Nature. Human life would on an average last 144 years. The aurora borealis, which now rarely appears in northern regions, would become permanently visible and be fixed at the Pole. It would give out, not only light, as at present, but also heat. It would decompose the sea water by the creation of citric boreal acid and convert it into a kind of lemonade which would dispense with the necessity of provisioning ships with fresh water. Oranges would grow in Siberia and tame whales would pull becalmed sailing-ships. The full indulgence of human nature in all its passions would produce happiness and virtue. Society would harmoniously be organised in groups (phalanxes) of 1,600 persons to inhabit a large palace called a phalanstery. If England would introduce these phalanxes, her labour would become so productive that she could pay off her national debt in six months by the sale of hens' eggs. Labour would be organised and occupation be changed every two hours. Workers would be taken in carriages to and from their work, and agricultural labourers would work under tents so as to be protected against the rain. The relations between the sexes would be of the freest. All should freely satisfy all their passions, and all passions would naturally combine in one grand harmony. The world would become a huge Eepublic which would be governed from Constantinople, and French would be the universal language.^ ' See Fourier, (Euvrcs ; Pellarin, Fourier ; Sargant, Social Innovators. SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM 393 Notwithstanding the evident insanity of Fourier's proposals, and the almost equally extravagant proposals of Owen, more than a hundred phalansteries and other Communistic settlements were founded in Great Britain and elsewhere, especially in the United States. Their failure was universal and their immorality was very great.^ " The trouble with all the Fourierite communities was that they were fanciful and theoretical schemes, not simple and natural growths. They had little definite religious spirit to hold them together. They had little business headship. At the least discouragement and mis- fortune they melted away. Only religious communism, the facts seem to prove, can be successful." ^ Only the communism of the convent and of the monastery, the equality of all based on a fervent religious belief, on a firm discipline, on an equal and absolute poverty, and on the almost insurmountable difficulty of re-entering the world, has hitherto proved practicable from the time of the Essenes to the present day. ' See Noyes, History of American Socialism ; Nordhoff, Communistic Societies of the United States. ' Bliss, Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 319. 394 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTEE XXX SOCIALISM AND ANAECHISM Socialism is, on the whole, hostile to the State. All Socialists hate the State as at present constituted, because it protects the property which they wish to seize. How- ever, many Socialists hate not only the State in its present form. They have become doubtful whether private capital or the State is the greater evil. They long for liberty, and would not welcome the restraint of any State, and least of all that of the absolute, all-regulating, and constantly interfering Socialistic State. Hence many Socialists have become Anarchists. Socialists may be divided into two classes — Communists and Anarchists — and Prince Kropotkin, the foremost Anarchist leader living, described the two Socialistic sections as follows : " A section of Socialists believes that it is impossible to attain Socialism without sacrificing personal liberty on the altar of the State. Another section, to which we belong, believes, on the contrary, that it is only by the abolition of the State, by the conquest of perfect liberty by the individual, by free agreement, association, and absolute free federation, that we can reach Communism." ^ Many Socialists, seeing the enemy rather in the State than in private capital, express their passionate hatred of the State : " The State at present is simply a huge machine for robbing and slave-driving the poor by brute force." ^ " The Parliament ever cries for more ' Prince Kropotkin, Anarchism, p. 16. '^ B. Shaw, The Impossibilities of Anarchism, p. 24. SOCIALISM AND ANAECHISM 395 money, more money for the service of the State. Just heavens ! Of what service is the State ? Of very little service to honest, industrious men." ' The philosopher of British Socialism frankly confesses himself a revolutionary Anarchist : " As an international revolutionist I have alvyays been strongly sympathetic vyith all movements for local autonomy as most directly tending to destroy the modern ' nation ' or centralised bureaucratic State." ^ "It is quite true that Socialism will have to take over the accursed legacy of existing national frontiers from the bourgeois world-order ; but Socialism will take it over merely with the view of killing it off and burying it at the earliest possible moment. The modern nation or centralised State is a hideous monstrosity, the offspring of capitalism in its various phases ; in its present shape the outcome of the developed capitalism of the great industry. We quite admit that in form it may, and probably will, survive the earlier stage of Socialism, but its ultimate disappearance is none the less certain. The sentiment of the national patriotism will then, let us hope, be reduced to its last expression— the holding of annual dinners, or some harmless festivity of this sort, such as is affected by the natives of certain English counties resident in the metropolis. The Nationalist movement, therefore, is an old Eadical ' plank ' which clearly no longer belongs to us as Socialists." ^ The Socialist-Anarchist hates State government in every form. To him a Social-Democratic State is quite as hateful as any other form of government : " The State is the evil, the inveterate foe of labour — be the Govern- ment Autocratic, Bureaucratic, or Social-Democratic. For what, after all, is our vaunted nose-counting, majority-ridden Democracy but an expansion of the ' Davidson, The Democrat's Address, p. 15. '' Bax, Pa/ris Commune, p. 35. Bax, Essays m Socialism, pp. 98, 99. 396 BEITISH SOCIALISM old-time tyranny of monarch and oligarch, inasmuch as the Governmentalist, whatever his stripe, is doomed to act on the two root principles of statecraft — force and fraud ? And, obviously, so long as that is so, his particular profession of political faith is almost a matter of indifference."^ "What was, what is the State, wherever it exists, but a community of human beings barbarically held together by a well-drilled gang of magistrates, soldiers, policemen, gaolers, and hangmen ? " ^ Mr. Blatchford, who is apparently never quite sure in his mind whether he is a Socialist, a Communist, or an Anarchist, gives voice to his Anarchist sentiments in the words : " Eightly or wrongly, I am opposed to god- ship, kingship, lordship, priestship. Eightly or wrongly, I am opposed to imperialism, militarism, and conquest. Eightly or wrongly, I am for universal brotherhood and universal freedom." ' Another influential Socialist writer exclaims : " What is freedom but the unfettered use of aU the powers which God for use has given?"* — a sentiment which is heartily endorsed by all Anarchists. However, the unfettered use of all powers means that the will of the individual, not the will of society, is the supreme law. It means the denial of the supremacy of society, the State, government. Similar sentiments are expressed with greater energy and greater fulness by many Socialist writers. Mr. Davidson, for instance, says : " In the new order every man (woman, of course, included) will be his ovTn legislator. In the state of ultimate and universal freedom to which we aspire, when the greatest of all tyrants, poverty, is slain and plenty sits on the throne which the lean monster has so long usurped — it may well be that there shall be no necessity for any law ' Davidson, Christ, State, and Oomrmme, pp. 16, 17. ' Ibid. p. 6. " Blatohtord, Ood and My Neighbour, p. 195. ' Thompson, That Blessed Word Liherty, p. 13. SOCIALISM AND ANAECHISM 397 except that which the purified conscience of every individual man and woman will readily supply. Then will have come the true Golden Age, the millennium of Christian Anarchism." ' The claims, programme, and aims of Socialism and Anarchism are curiously alike. Prince Kropotkin, the leading exponent of Anarchism, writes : " Anarchy appears as a constituent part of the new philosophy, and that is why Anarchists come in contact on so many points with the greatest thinkers and poets of the present day. In fact, it is certain that in proportion as the human mind frees itself from ideas inculcated by minorities of priests, military chiefs, and judges, all striving to establish their domination, and of scientists paid to perpetuate it, a conception of society arises, in which conception there is no longer room for those dominating minorities. A society entering into possession of the social capital accumulated by the labour of pre- ceding generations, organises itself so as to make use of this capital in the interests of all, and constitutes itself without reconstituting the power of the ruling minorities. Acknowledging as a fact the equal rights of all its mem- bers to the treasures accumulated in the past, it no longer recognises a division between exploited and exploiters, governed and governors, dominated and dominators, and it seeks to establish a certain harmonious compatibility in its midst not by subjecting all its members to an authority that is fictitiously supposed to represent society, not by trying to establish uniformity, but by urging all men to develop free initiative, free action, free associa- tion." ' There is little difference between the Anarchism of Proudhon, Bakounin, and Kropotkin, and the Socialism of many British Socialists. The economic doctrines ' Davidson, The Old Order cmd the New, p. 172. ' Kropotkin, Atmrchism, p. 8. 398 BEITISH SOCIALISM of Socialism and Anarchism are practically identical. Socialism has taken the most important doctrines from Proudhon/ and, owing to the similarity of their views and aims, Socialists and Anarchists are commingling and fraternising. Anarchists see in Socialists a wing of the great Anarchist army of destruction, and Socialists see in Anarchists associates and friends and partners in the revolution and general pillage which both movements equally strongly desire to bring about. Therefore a lead- ing Fabian Socialist tells us : " Kropotkin is really an advocate of free Democracy, and I venture to suggest that he describes himself as an Anarchist rather from the point of view of the Russian recoiling from a despotism compared to which Democracy seems to be no govern- ment at all, than from the point of view of the American or Englishman who is free enough already to begin grumbling over Democracy as 'the tyranny of the majority ' and ' the coming slavery.' " ^ If Kropotkin is a " Democrat," then Eavachol, Vaillant, Henry, Pallas, and Bresci were also merely Democrats. British Anarchists are closely watching the British SociaUst Labour movement, which they wish to lead into Anarchist channels. Thus we learn from an Anarchist monthly : " The question of the position to be taken in relation to the labour movement is certainly one of the greatest importance to Anarchists. It does not suffice for us to form groups for propaganda and for revolutionary action. We must convert as far as possible the mass of the workers, because without them we can neither overthrow the existing society nor reconstitute a new. one. And since to rise from the submissive state in which the great majority of the proletarians now vegetate to a conception of Anarchism and a desire for its realisa- tion, is required an evolution which generally is not passed ' Brockhaus, Konoersations Lexikon, vol. i. p. 578. ^ Shaw, The Impossibilities of Anarchism, p. 2C. SOCIALISM AND ANAECHISM 399 through under the sole influence of the propaganda ; since the lessons derived from the facts of daily life are more ef&cacious than all doctrinaire preaching, it is for us to take an active part in the life of the masses and to use all the means which circumstances permit to gradually awaken the spirit of revolt, and to show by these facts the path which leads to emancipation. Amongst these means the Labour movement stands first, and we should be wrong to neglect it. In this movement we find numbers of workers who struggle for the amelioration of their conditions. They may be mistaken as to the aim they have in view and as to the means of attaining it, and in our view they generally are. But at least they no longer resign themselves to oppression nor regard it as just — they hope and they struggle. We can more easily arouse in them that feeling of solidarity towards their exploited fellow-workers and of hatred against exploita- tion, which must lead to a definitive struggle for the abo- lition of all domination of man over man." ^ Anarchists therefore constantly try to influence the British Socialist Labour movement. When, for instance, in the autumn of 1907 the possibility of a railway strike was being dis- cussed. Anarchists did their best to bring about a revolu- tionary struggle : " The railway crisis must have shown very clearly that if the men had but the will, they have the power to bring about at any time a revolutionary situation in the struggle of labour against capital. Some day they will have to do this, for the conditions of the conflict will leave them no choice. They will perhaps learn also that the glorification of a man like Bell — whose fooling of their cause is his method of advertisement — means putting powers into one man's hands that no man ought to possess. Nothing could be more absurd than the prolongation of this ' crisis ' which has been done so that one man might have the centre of the stage, ' Freedom, November 1907. 400 BEITISH SOCIALISM while hundreds of thousands of men toil on in suspense. Bell is everything : the workers are mere cyphers. Yet this man is mistrusted by many ; and everyone knows how on occasion he can join the feast of the directors and be one of them. And if generalship were needed, what an ass this would be to attempt to lead the men to victory ! Successful strikes are never made by the farcical tactics of a Bell. Eecognition, forsooth ! They'll recognise you when you strike. Workers, watch your leaders ! " ^ In view of the connection existing between British Socialism and Anarchism, it is but natural that Socialists have become the apologists of Anarchism. " The vulgar notion that Anarchism is a synonym for disorder is as nearly as possible the reverse of the truth. It is Governments and Laws that do all the mischief. They produce the very evils they pretend to remedy." ^ " Verily the State is the evil. Back to the land. Back to the simple life. Away with Governments, palavers, Dumas, and Courts of Law. Long live the Commune." ^ Anarchists contend that the " Social Bevolution " for which most Socialists strive will become an Anarchist revolution : " If the workers succeed by revolt in destroying the mutual insurance society of landlords, bankers, priests, judges, and soldiers ; if the people become masters of their destiny for a few months, and lay hands on the riches they have created and which belong to them by right — will they really begin to reconstitute that blood-sucker, the State?"* "On the day when ancient institutions splinter into fragments before the axe of the proletariat, voices will be heard shouting : Bread for all ! Lodging for all ! Eight for all to the comforts of life ! And these voices will be ' Freedom, November 1907. ^ Davidson, Christ, State, and Commune, p. 22. " Ibid. p. 31. * Kropotkin, Anarchism,, p. 19. SOCIALISM AND ANAECHISM 401 heeded. The people will say to themselves : Let us begin by satisfying our thirst for the life, the joy, the liberty we have never known. And when all have tasted happiness we will set to work ; the work of demolishing the last vestiges of middle-class rule, with its account- book morality, its philosophy of debit and credit, its institutions of mine and thine. ' While we throw down we shall be building ' as Proudhon said, ' we shall build in the name of Communism and of Anarchy." ^ Anarchists are authorities on revolutions. Very likely Prince Kropotkin's view is right. There are two kinds of Anarchists : Philosophic Anarchists who propagate their views by speech and pen, and Anarchists of action who propagate their views by dynamite and_ dagger, and the former are responsible for the crimes of the latter. Many British Socialists defend not only philosophic Anarchism, but also that form of Anarchism which finds its expression in murder. Leading British Socialists refer, for instance, to the four Anarchists, Spies, Fischer, Engel, and Parsons, the heroes of the Chicago bomb outrage, who were respon- sible for the death of six policemen and for the wounding of about sixty, and who were hanged in November 1886 in Chicago, as " martyrs," ^ and British Socialists are urged to follow the glorious footsteps of the Chicago Anarchists : Then on to revolution, boys ! Keep Freedom's highway broad The path where Spies and Parsons fell — as fearlessly they trod ; And though we fall as they fell — millions follow on the road. To carry the Bed Flag to victory.' The sympathy which British Socialists feel for the Chicago Anarchists arises from the similarity of their ' Kropotkin, The Wage System, p. 15. ' See Leatham, Livea of tlio Chicago Martyrs. ' Social-Democratic Federation Song Book, p. 33. D D 402 BEITISH SOCIALISM aims. The programme of the American Anarchists was, according to the Pittsburg proclamation, as follows : (1) Destruction of the existing class rule, by all means, i.e. by energetic, relentless, revolutionary, and international action. (2) Establishment of a free Society based upon co-operative organisation of production. (3) Free exchange of equivalent products by and be- tween the productive organisations without commerce and profit-mongery. (4) Organisation of education on a secular, scientific, and equal basis for both sexes. (5) Equal rights for all without distinction of sex or race. (6) Eegulation of all public affairs by free con- tracts between the autonomous (independent) communes and associations resting on a federalistic basis." ^ The attitude of many leading British Socialists towards the murdering of monarchs and statesmen may be gauged from the following extracts : " On the occasion of the assassination of any potentate or statesman, the public opinion of the possessing class and its organs is lashed up to a white heat of artificial fury and indigna- tion against the perpetrator, while they have nothing but approbation for the functionary^ — military or civil — who puts to death a fellow-creature in the course of what they are pleased to call his duty. Evidently force and blood- shed, when contrary to the interests of the possessing class, is a monstrous crime, but when it is in their favour it becomes a duty and a necessity." ^ "We believe the ' potting ' of the ' heads ' of States to be a foolish and reprehensible policy, but the matter does not concern us as Socialists. We have our own quarrel with the Anarchists, both as to principles and tactics, but that is no reason why, as certain persons seem to think, we should put on sackcloth and ashes, and dissolve ourselves in tears because, say, M. Carnot or the head of any other ' Bliss, Encyclopedia of Social Beform, p. 63. ' Bax and Queloh, A New Catechism of Socialistn, p. 31, SOCIALISM AND ANAECHISM 403 State has been assassinated by Anarchists. What is Carnot to us or we to Carnot, that we should weep for him ? We do not specially desire the death of political personages, while we often regret their slaying on grounds of expediency, if on no others. But at the same time Socialists have no sentimental tears to waste over the heads of States and their misfortunes. To the Socialist the head of a State, as such, is simply a figure-head to whose fate he is indifferent — a ninepin representing the current political and social order." ' We're low, we're low, we're very very low, And yet when the trumpets ring, The thrust of a poor man's arm will go Through the heart of the proudest king.^ The " Socialist Annual " contains in its calendar pages numerous items under the heading "For the Working Class to Eemember," which is filled with Socialist dates such as " birth of Mr. Blatchford," and with the records of the most conspicuous Anarchist, Nihilist, and Eevo- lutionary crimes. Details regarding the deeds of Orsini and Louise Michel, Jack Cade and Wat Tyler, the execution of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, the assassination of Presidents Lincoln, McKinley, and Carnot, the attempt on King Alfonso, and other facts are there recorded — "for the working class to remember." Earlier or later the Socialist-Communist-Anarchist agita- tion in Great Britain may, and very likely will, lead to Anarchist outrages. ' Bax, A Short History of the Paris Commimn, p. 78. ' Iiidependent Labour I'arly Song Booh, p. 33. D D 2 404 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTEE XXXI SOCIALISM AND EEVOLUTION The " Socialist Catechism " contains the following passage : " Q. How are forms of government changed so as to readjust them to the economical changes in the forms of production which have been silently evolving in the body of society? A. By means of revolution. — Q. Give an instance of this ? A. The French Eevolution of 1789." 1 Many British Socialists are revolutionaries. They hope to introduce Socialism into Great Britain by revolutionary means. They have studied the French revolutions, and have become pupils of the French revolutionary leaders. " Socialism is essentially revolu- tionary, politically and economically, as it aims at the complete overthrow of existing economic and political conditions. We should organise and be prepared for what might be described as a revolutionary outbreak. The economic changes which are taking place, and the corresponding changes in other conditions, are bringing about a revolutionary transformation in human society, and what we have to do is to help on this development, and to prepare the way for it." ^ " We Socialists are not reformers ; we are revolutionists. We Socialists do not propose to change forms. We care nothing for forms. We want a change of the inside of the mechanism of society; let the form take care of itself."^ British ' Joynes, A Socialist Catechism, p. 13. ' Bax and Queloh, A New Catechism of Socialism, p. 37. " De Leon, Befonn or. Revolution, p. 3. SOCIALISM AND EEVOLUTION 405 Socialism was founded by revolutionary Communists. Marx was a revolutionary. "For a number of years the late William Morris, the greatest man whom the Socialist movement has yet claimed in this country, held and openly preached this doctrine of cataclysmic upheaval and sudden overthrow of the ruling classes." ' That idea has been revived by modern British Socialists, many of whom believe that " The only effective way to induce the ruling class to attempt to palhate the evils of their system is to organise the workers for the over- throw of that system." ^ " In the International Socialist movement we are at last in the presence of a force which is gathering unto itself the rebel spirits of all lands and uniting them into a mighty host to do battle, not for the triumph of a sect, or of a race, but for the overthrow of a system which has filled the world with want and woe. ' Workers of the world, unite ! ' wrote Karl Marx ; ' you have a world to win and nothing to lose but your chains.' And they are uniting under the crimson banner of a world-embracing principle which knows nor sect, nor creed, nor race, and which offers new life and hope to all created beings — the glorious gospel of Socialism." ^ In many respects the French Eevolution has served as a model to British Socialists of the Anarchist-Eevolu- tionary type. They have adopted its outward emblems, its songs, and its most effective catch-phrases : " Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity was the brave and splendid legend inscribed on the blood-red banners of the French Eevolutionists. And in strange ways the oppressed and hunger-maddened people sought to realise their ideal. It is still the battle-cry of the English Socialists — indeed, of the world-wide Socialist movement." * In the Socialist ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 25. '' Socialist Standard, October 1, 1907. ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 86. ■• Ethel Snowden, Tlie Woman Socialist, p. 10. 406 BEITISH SOCIALISM song-books a translation of the " Marseillaise " is to be found, which is sung at Socialist gatherings : Shall hateful tyrants, mischief-breeding. With hireling hosts, a ruffian band, Affright and desolate the land, While Peace and Liberty lie bleeding ? To arms ! to arms, ye brave ! The avenging sword unsheathe ! March on ! March on ! all hearts resolved On Liberty or death. ^ In the eyes of many British Socialists the French Eevolution vyas not sufficiently democratic, not sufficiently radical, not sufficiently violent. We are told that the French revolutionaries were soft-hearted men, and that our sympathy with their innocent victims, such as Queen Marie Antoinette, is quite uncalled for. " The Revolution was in its conception, its inception, and its results a middle-class revolution. The revolution was inaugurated by the Parlement of Paris — a pettifogging legal assembly. Marie Antoinette was but one fine useless woman among the millions, and she personified the heedless prodigal selfishness of autocracy. We of the Socialist movement, who are full of the idea of social service, of making a full return to society for the bread we eat, the clothes we wear out, and the house-room we occupy, how can we be expected to think so much of the suffering of one idle extravagant woman and so little of the age- long privation and torture of the hard-working useful mothers and sisters of France ? The crimes of ignorant, passionate democracy, of which Burke and Carlyle have made so much, are as a drop in the ocean by comparison with the deliberate enormities perpetrated by enlightened cold-blooded autocracy, from Herod to Nicholas. The democracy has always been pitiful, extremely pitiful. ' Independent Labour Party Song Book, p. 20. SOCIALISM AND EEVOLUTION 407 Even the September massacres, carried out by the lowest of the low in an enraged and degraded and terror-stricken populace, are brightened by golden patches of clemency and love such as the annals of class punishment nowhere reveal." ' The outbreak of the Paris Commune of 1871, having been less a " middle-class " revolution, is considered by Socialists with greater approval than the French Revolu- tion of 1789. The philosopher of British Socialism writes : " The Commune of Paris is the one event which Socialists throughout the world have agreed with single accord to celebrate. Every 18th of March witnesses thousands of gatherings throughout the civilised world to commemorate the (alas ! only temporary) victory of organised Socialist aspiration over the forces of property and privilege in 1871."^ Another leading Socialist writer says: "Year by year as the 18th of March comes round, it is the custom vdth Socialists to commemorate the proclamation of the Commune of Paris. As a Socialist I am a friend of the Commune." ' What was the Paris Commune, and what did it do ? In the words of an impartial publication, " The Com- munard chiefs were revolutionaries of every sect, who, disagreeing on governmental and economic principles, were united in their vague but perpetual hostility to the existing order of things. History has rarely known a more unpatriotic crime than that of the insurrection of the Commune." ^ " The Commune was an insurrection which initiated a series of terrible outrages by the murder of the two generals Lecomte and Thomas. . . . The incapacity and mutual hatred of their chiefs rendered all organisation and durable resistance impossible. . . . The Communists ' Leatham, French Revolution, pp. 13, 14. ' Bax, Paris Commwne, Preface. ' Leatham, The Commune of Paris, p. 3. ' Encyclopedia Brita/nnica, vol. xxviii. p. 480. 408 BEITISH SOCIALISM were committing the most horrible excesses : the Arch- bishop of Paris, President Bonjean, priests, magistrates, journahsts, and private individuals, whom they had seized as hostages, were shot in batches in prisons, and a scheme of destruction was ruthlessly carried into effect by men and women with cases of petroleum. The Hotel de Ville, the Palais de Justice, the Tuileries, the Ministry of Finance, the Palace of the Legion of Honour, that of the Council of State, part of the Eue de Eivoli, &c., were ravaged by the flames ; barrels of gunpowder were placed in Notre Dame and the Pantheon ready to blow up the buildings, and the whole city would have been involved in ruin if the national troops had not gained a last and crowning victory." ' Socialists have nothing but praise for the Communards, who killed and burned, desecrated the churches and de- vastated the town. They speak with enthusiasm of the leaders of that outbreak as of heroes who fought for the " Brotherhood of Man," and they exalt them above the saints of early Christianity. The philosopher of British Socialism exclaims : " Limitless courage and contempt of death was displayed in defence of an ideal, the colossal pro- portions of which dwarf everything in history, and which alone suffices to redeem the sordidness of the nineteenth century. Here was a heroism in the face of which the much-belauded Christian martyrs cut a very poor figure." ^ "It was in the Commune that we saw manifested as never before the strong compelling force of a secular altruism. Without hope of heaven and without fear of hell, men lived and died for the idea of a brotherhood of self-governing and self-respecting men and women." ^ Even the murderous Paris Commune was too moderate for the taste of many British Socialists, who favour sterner ' Encyclopczdia Brita/iimca, vol. xviii. p. 294. ' Bax, Paris Commune, p. 59. ^ Leatham, Tlie Commwze of Pa/ris, p. 18. SOCIALISM AND EEVOLUTION 409 measures. The philosopher of British Socialism informs us : " The Commune had one special fault, that of a fatuous moderation in all its doings. Probably never since history began have any body of men allowed them- selves and theirs to be treated as lambs in the slaughter- house with more lamb-like forbearance and absence of retaliation than the Commune and its adherents ; we have seen this illustrated by the incredible fact that up to the last, amid all the slaughterings of Communists, the vast majority of the hostages and prisoners in its hands remained unscathed." ^ " One of the most unfortunate characteristics of the leaders of the Commune was their sensitiveness to bourgeois public opinion. The first thing for the leader of a revolutionary movement to learn is a healthy contempt for the official public opinion of the 'civilised world.' He must resolutely harden his heart against its ' thrills of horror,' its ' indignation,' its ' abomi- nation,' and its ' detestation,' and he must learn to smile at all the names it will liberally shower upon him and his cause." ^ Whilst the revolutionary criminals who ruled by murder and arson were heroes and martyrs, the defenders of law and order were criminals according to British Socialists : " The thirst of the well-to-do classes for the blood of the Communards was insatiable. The latter were tried and shot in batches." ^ " The Communards, desperate as they were, only faintly imitated the wholesale savagery of the regular troops." '' Peaceful M. Thiers, being at the head of the government, was " probably the cleverest, most hypocritical, and most unscrupulous villain that ever defiled the pages of history." ' Although Socialists pose as democrats, they do not believe in majority government." Being aware that they ' Bax, Paris Commune, p. 74. " Ibid. p. 88. 3 Leatham, The Commune of Paris, p. 13. •■ Ibid. p. 19. = Bax, Paris Commwie, p. 86. " See Chapters XV. and XXX. ante. 410 BEITISH SOCIALISM will hardly be able to gain over the majority of the people to their revolutionary and visionary plans, they may, like the Paris Commune, try to force Socialism upon an unwilling majority. Therefore the attempt of the Parisian Socialists to overrule France is not condemned but regretted by the British Socialists : " The revolt was open to the objection that may be urged against most insurrections. It was an attempt to impose the will of a minority on a large majority of the people. The Sociahsts in the Commune must have realised at times that the people of France were not prepared for even the small instalments of Socialism which they sought to introduce. The revolu- tionists may have thought to impose their policy upon France by a mere coup de main." ' The attitude of Socialists makes it appear possible that the revolutionary outbreak of 1871 will not be the last. The next revolutionary attempt may conceivably take place in Great Britain. " One man with an idea in his head is in danger of being considered a madman ; two men with the same idea in common may be foolish, but can hardly be mad ; ten men sharing an idea begin to act ; a hundred draw attention as fanatics, a thousand and society begins to tremble, a hundred thousand and there is war abroad." ^ " Whilst our backers at the polls are counted by tens, we must continue to crawl and drudge and lecture as best we can. When they are counted by hundreds, we can permeate and trim and com- promise. When they rise to tens of thousands, we shall take the field as an independent party. Give us hundreds of thousands, as you can if you try hard enough, and we will ride the whirlwind and direct the storm." ^ ' Leatham, The, Comimme of Paris, p. 15. ' Morris, Art, Labour, and Socialism, p. 24. ■" Shaw, The Fabian Society and its Early History, p. 28. CHAPTER XXXII STATE SOCIALISM Most Socialist agitators in Great Britain oppose and condemn State Socialism for two reasons : firstly, be- cause, owing to their Communist and Anarchist leanings, they oppose and hate the State as such, as has been shown in the Chapters on " Socialism and Communism," " Socialism and Anarchism," " Socialism and Eevolu- tion " ; secondly, because with the introduction of State Socialism their occupation would be gone. Socialist agitators do not wish others to govern the State. They wish to govern it themselves. The welfare of the masses is to them apparently only a secondary consideration. Hence most British Socialist agitators condemn the State Socialism of Germany, though it has greatly benefited the masses, and perhaps because it has greatly benefited the masses. They also condemn the British Post Office, although, being not overburdened with scruples, they praise it to the skies as a Socialistic model institution when it happens to suit them. In fact, most Socialist leaders condemn all existing Govern- ment institutions, ostensibly because they are capitalistic enterprises which are run at a " profit," and because they " exploit " their workers. It would of course be fatal to the Sociahst agitators had they to preach the gospel of envy and hatred, of destruction and pillage, to the contented. " The State of to-day, nationally and locally, is only the agent of the possessing class." ^ " Mere nationalisa- tion or mere municipalisation of any industry is not ' Bax and Queleh, A New Catechism of Socialism, p. 8. 412 BEITISH SOCIALISM Socialism or Collectivism ; it may be only the substitu- tion of corporate for private administration; the social idea and purpose with which Collectivism is concerned may be completely absent." ^ " Mere Statification, as we may term it, does not mean Socialism. The State of to-day is mainly an agent of the possessing classes, and industrial or commercial undertakings run to-day by Governmental bodies are largely run in the interests of these classes. Their aim in all cases is to show a profit, in the same way as ordinary capitalistic enterprises. This profit accrues to the possessing classes in the form of relief of imperial or local taxation, mainly paid by them, interests on loans, &c. In other words, these industrial undertakings are run for profit and not for use, and their employees are little, if at all, better off than those of private employers." ^ " The modern State is but the organisation which capitalist society gives itself in order to maintain the external conditions of capitalist production against the attacks both of the workmen and of individual capitalists. The modern State, whatever its form, is essentially a capitalist machine." ' " State administration is very far from being the same as a Socialistic administration, as is sometimes erroneously supposed. The State administration is just as much a system of capitalistic exploitation as if the institutions. in question were in the hands of private undertakers." "* " A bureaucracy — that is, a body of permanent officials, entrenched in Government departments, according to whose piping ministers themselves have willingly or unwillingly to dance — is totally incompatible with the very elementary conditions of Socialistic administra- tion." ^ "Bismarckian State control is brusque and ' Ball, The Moral Aspects of Socialism, p. 9. ^ Bax, Essays m Socialism, p. 7. '•> Engels, Development of Socialism fro^n Utopia to'Scieiice, p. 71. ' Bebel, Woman, pp. 198, 199. ' Bax, Essays in Socialism, p. 9. STATE SOCIALISM 413 baneful, and is certainly not the desire of the true Socialist." ^ " State ownership, State tyranny, State interference exist to-day. We have to bear them now; we have to submit to them now; we have to pay for them now. The people, as such, own nothing. And the SociaHsts demand that the people shall own everything. Not the ' State,' the ' People.' So great is the difference between the word 'State' and the word ' people.' " ^ "Do you propose that all these means of production which are now owned by individuals, by this class, as you say, should be made the property of the Government, like the Post Office and the telegraph system are in this country, and the railways as well in some others, or that they should be owned by municipal bodies, as waterworks, tramways, gasworks, and so on, are in many cases already? — No. Socialism does not mean mere Governmental owner- ship or management. The State of to-day, nationally or locally, is only the agent of the possessing class ; the Post Office and the other State-owned businesses are run for profit just as other businesses are ; and the Govern- ment, as the agent of the possessing class, has, in the interests of its employers, to treat the employees just as other employees are treated. The organised democratic society contemplated by Socialists is a very different thing from the class State of to-day. When society is organised for the control of its own business, and has acquired the possession of its own means of production, its officers will not be the agents of a class, and pro- duction will be carried on for the use of all and not for the profit of a few." ^ "The Post Office to-day is an organised sweating-den. The Government get the largest possible amount of work for the lowest possible wages. ' Ben Tillett, Trades Uiuomsm mid Socialism, p. 14. 2 Clarion, October 18, 1907. » Bax and Queloh, A New Catechism of Socialism, pp. 8, 9. 414 BEITISH SOCIALISM That is capitalist wage-slavery under Grovernment con- trol." ' " The country postman has to walk excessive distances for miserable wages in order that the profit on the Post Office may be filched from the employees and from the public by the Chancellor of the Exchequer." ^ The Fabians, on the other hand, advocate State Socialism, but they are a small minority. " The Socialism advocated by the Fabian Society is State Socialism exclu- sively." ' Some Socialists would welcome State Socialism in the hope that it would prepare the way for free Com- munism. Mr. Keir Hardie, for instance, says : " State Socialism with all its drawbacks, and these I frankly admit, will prepare the way for free Communism, in which the rule, not merely the law of the State, but the rule of life will be — From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." * " Socialists only believe in the fraternal State. Paternal State Socialism all Socialists unanimously oppose."'^ ■ Hyndman, Soaial-Bemocracy, p. 22. '' Fabian Election MoAiifesto, 1892, p. 3. ■* Report on Fabian Policy, 1896, p. 5. ^ Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 89. " Bliss, Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 1262. CHAPTEE XXXIII THE SOCIALIST OEGANISATIONS : THEIR MUTUAL RELATIONS AND THEIR POLICY The Social-Democratic Federation is the most honest and straightforward of the various Socialist organisations. Its aims are revolutionary, as the following statement proves : " The Social-Democratic Federation is a militant Socialist organisation whose members — men and women — belong almost entirely to the working classes. Its object is the realisation of Socialism — the emancipation of the working class from its present subjection to the capitalist class. The means by which it seeks to attain that end are : agitation, education, and the organisation of the working class into a class-conscious political party — that is, a party clearly conscious of the present position of the workers as a subject class, in consequence of all the means of production being owned and con- trolled by another class, and clearly conscious of its duty and mission to free them from that position by the conquest of all the powers of the State, and by making all the means of production collective common property, to be used for the benefit of all instead of for the profit of a class. To this end the Social-Democratic Federation proclaims and preaches the class war." ^ " According to the report for the year ending March 190-7 it has 186 branches and affiliated societies. One of its members sits in Parliament as a member of the ' Queloh, Tlie Social- Democratic Federation, p. 3. 416 BEITISH SOCIALISM Labour party, and about 120 are members of various local bodies. Its gross income and expenditure through- out the country is estimated at 15,500Z. It has a weekly paper, ' Justice,' and a monthly magazine, ' The Social- Democrat.' " ^ In its own estimation "Justice " is "the most respected of Socialist newspapers." ^ The various Socialist organisations do not love each other. The Fabian Society caustically remarks : " The Federation runs a newspaper called ' Justice ' which has not hitherto been worth a penny to any man whose pence are so scarce as a labourer's, and which has made repeated attacks on the ordinary working-class organisa- tions without whose co-operation Socialists can at present do nothing except cry in the wilderness. The branches are expected to sell this paper at their meetings." ^ " The Social-Democratic Federation is virtually the oldest Socialist society and is certainly the most con- servative. It was founded as the Democratic Federation about 1880, and adopted its present name in 1884. Mr. H. M. Hyndman, its most prominent member, imported its doctrines — which were of German origin — and the S.D.F. (as it is familiarly called) has ever since endeavoured to maintain an unshaken faith in all the teachings of Karl Marx. In fact, the S.D.F. changes its doctrines not with the times, but a dozen years or so after ; so that it is always rather out of touch with the actualities of politics and attracts the type of mind that prefers clear-cut principles to practical political progress." * Other Socialist organisations which are less straight- forward than the Social-Democratic Federation hide ' Beformers' Tear Book, 1908, pp. 74, 75. ' Annual Report, Social-Democratic Federation Conference 1906, p. 2. ' Shaw, Tlie Fabian Society, p. 23. * The Secretary of the Fabian Society in Daily Mail Year Book, 1908, p. 72. THE SOCIALIST OEGANISATIONS 417 their identity and object under misleading titles. The Independent Labour Party, for instance, is a purely Socialist party notwithstanding its name. " Its object is, an Industrial Commonwealth founded upon the Socialisation of land and capital. Its methods are the education of the community in the principles of Socialism ; the industrial and political organisation of the workers ; the independent representation of Socialist principles on all elective bodies." ^ " No one will find much difference in the programmes of the Social- Democratic Federation and the Independent Labour Party." ^ " The Independent Labour Party, commonly called the I.L.P., which must be carefully distinguished from the Labour party, is much the largest, and politically the most important, Socialist organisation. It was founded at Bradford in 1892, by Mr. Keir Hardie, M.P., and others, and it has from the first advocated Socialism of the English type and endeavoured to work in harmony with trade unionists. The Labour party is mainly due to its initiative, and through its members in trade unions it largely controls the policy of the party. In August 1907 it had over 700 branches, of which 155 had been formed in the preceding six months- Its operations have recently expanded with extraordinary rapidity, its central office expenditure for the years ending February 28 having been 955?. in 1905, 1,817Z. in 1906, and 3,552L in 1907. It does a very large business in the publication and sale of pamphlets and books, and has a weekly paper, " The Labour Leader." At the general election of 1906, eighteen of its members were returned to Parliament, all belonging to the Labour party, and two more have since been elected, one for the Labour party, and one, Mr. Victor Grayson, as an independent ' Beformers' Tear Book, 1906, p. 73. . ' Beport of the Twenty-sixth Awemal Conference, Social-Democratic Federation, 1906, p. 1. E E 418 BEITISH SOCIALISM Socialist. Over five hundred of its members sit on tov?n councils and other local bodies. The total membership is estimated at 40,000, and its income and expenditure at perhaps 100,000Z." ^ " The Independent Labour Party v?as formed in January 1893. As years have passed the Independent Labour Party has steadily strengthened its programme, until it is to-day entirely Socialist, but it has not quite got rid of the strain of opportunism, at elections its independence being more in evidence in its name than in its conduct." ' Wishing to secure Socialist and non-Socialist adhe- rents, and masquerading as a Liberal Labour party, the attitude of the Independent Labour Party is not a straightforward one. One of its competitors states : " The Independent Labour Party has continued its policy of bargain-making vyith capitalist politicians. The leaders at times call themselves Socialists, and at other times protest against frightening their supporters by intro- ducing the word into resolutions. At the general election, Mr. Eamsay Macdonald at Leicester, and Mr. James Parker at Halifax, were amongst the candidates who entered into compacts with the Liberals. At the Amsterdam International Congress they voted for a reso- lution extolling the ' tried and victorious policy based on the class war,' and on their return to England referred to the class war as a ' shibboleth ' and as a ' reactionary and Whiggish precept, certain to lead the movement away from the real aims of Socialism.' " ^ The Eabian Society is the least open and the least straightforward Socialist organisation. Ostensibly it adopted its curious name because " for the right moment you must wait, as Fabius did most patiently when warring against Hannibal, though many censured his ' Beforviers' Tear Book, 1908, p. 73 ; Daily Mail Year Book, 1908, p. 72. ^ Annual Report, Social-Deinocratic Federation Conference, 1906, p. 3. ' Manifesto of tlie Socialist Party of Great Britain, p. 2. THE SOCIALIST OEGANISATIONS 419 delays ; but when the time comes you must strike hard as Fabius did, or your waiting will be in vain, and fruit- less." ^ In reality the misleading title was probably adopted because the Fabian Society habitually and on principle sails under a false flag, wishing not to arouse suspicion as to its objects. The object of the small but powerful Fabian Society is a peculiar one : " Founded on a small scale in 1884 and actually the oldest of the three great Socialist organisa- tions, the Fabian Society has never aimed at a large membership or endeavoured to become a political party. Its work has been mainly educational, its endeavour to translate the principles of Socialism into practical politics suited to English conditions. From the first it refused to accept Marxian teaching. The Fabian Society is not a political body, in that it allows its members complete freedom to adopt any method of carrying out the principles they profess. Hence its members in Parlia- ment belong to the Liberal or the Labour party, and they sit as Progessives on London local bodies. The Society is mainly middle-class, and the majority of its members belong to London, where fortnightly meetings are held for the discussion of Socialism. Its great force lies in the ability of many of its members, some of whom, Mr. Bernard Shaw, the dramatist; Mr. Sidney Webb, the political writer; Sir Sydney Olivier, now Governor of Jamaica, have belonged to it from the start ; whilst others, such as Mr. H. G. Wells and the Eev. E. J. Campbell, are more recent recruits. Eecently it has greatly increased its membership, now nearly 2,000, and has formed substantial branches in the Universities and in many large towns. Eleven of its members sit in Parliament." - *' The chief object to which the Society devotes its ' Capital mid Land, Motto. ^ Secretary of Fabian Society in Daily Mail Year Book, 1908, p. 72. £ £ 2 420 BEITISH SOCIALISM resources is the education of the people in political, economic, and social subjects. To effect this purpose it must in the first place educate itself by the discussion of those problems which from time to time appear ripe for solution. Its members therefore undertake the study of such problems, and lay the results before the Society, where they are considered from various points of view. Finally the conclusions adopted and generally approved by the members are published, usually in penny tracts, and by this means made available for the information of all. The Society further endeavours to promote social amelioration by the dissemination of information about existing institutions, in order that better use may be made of the powers already possessed by local adminis- trative authorities, now too often neglectful of their obligations. The same ends are sought to be attained by means of circulating libraries supplied to Working- men's Clubs, Co-operative Societies, Trade Unions, and similar bodies, and by the publication of lists of best books on social and political subjects. The Society also at times engages trained lecturers to give courses of lectures during the winter months on social politics to working- class and other organisations. The members of the Society who control its policy are Socialists ; that is to say, are committed to the theory of the probable direc- tion of economic evolution which is now often called Collectivism."^ " The object of the Fabian Society is to persuade the| English people to make their political constitution thoroughly democratic, and so to socialise their indus- tries as to make the livelihood of the people entirely independent of private Capitalism. The Fabian Society endeavours to pursue its Socialist and Democratic objects\ with complete singleness of aim. For example : It has \ no distinctive opinions on the Marriage Question, ' Official Circular : The Fabicm Society. THE SOCIALIST OEGANISATIONS 421 Keligion, Art, abstract Economics, historic Evolution, Currency, or any other subject than its own special business of practical Democracy and Socialism. It brings all the pressure and persuasion in its power to bear on existing forces, caring nothing by what name any party calls itself, or what principles, Socialist or other, it professes, but having regard solely to the tendency of its actions supporting those which make for Socialism and Democracy and opposing those which are reactionary. It does not propose that the practical steps towards Social Democracy should be carried out by itself, or by any other specially organised society or party. It does not ask the English people to join the Fabian Society. The Fabian Society does not claim to be the people of England, or even the Socialist party, and therefore does not seek direct political representation by putting forward Fabian candidates at elections. But it loses no oppor- tunity of influencing elections and inducing constituencies to select Socialists as their candidates." ^ " The Fabian Society, far from holding aloof from other bodies, urges its members to lose no opportunity of joining them and permeating them with Fabian ideas as far as possible." ^ " The typical Fabian is an uncom- promising Socialist and Democrat ; but he holds aloof from no association that can possibly be induced to push in his direction. Instead of wasting time in forming new sects, he tries to inoculate with his Socialism the existing organisations — the political clubs, the caucuses, the trade unions,, the Press, the co-operative societies, and the rival party leaders." ^ Whilst the other Socialist organisations rely chiefly on direct driving force, the Fabian Society relies chiefly on subtle, indirect action and on intrigue. One of its , ' Report on Fabian Policy, 1896, p. 3. ^ Ibid. p. 4. ' Scottish Leader, September 4, 1890, reprinted by Fabian Society and issued in form of a leaflet. 422 BEITISH SOCIALISM most prominent men boasted : " In 1888 it only cost us twenty-eight postcards, written by twenty-eight members, to convince the newly-born ' Star ' newspaper that London was aflame with Fabian Socialism." ^ " Our policy has been to try to induce some of these regular papers to give a column or two to Socialism, calling it by what name they please, And I have no hesitation in saying that the effect of this policy as shown in the ' Manchester Sunday Chronicle,' the ' Star,' the London ' Daily Chronicle,' and other more exclusively working-class papers, notably the ' Clarion,' has done more for the cause than all the time and money that has been wasted on ' Justice ' since the ' Star ' was founded. Our mission is to Socialise the Press as we hope to Socialise Parliament and the other estates of the realm, not to run the Press ourselves." ^ Owing to these peculiar methods, by which they secured the support of many people who did not know they were Socialists, the Fabians have been very successful in their policy : "In 1888 we had not been found out even by the ' Star.' The Liberal party was too much pre- occupied over Mr. O'Brien's breeches and the Parnell Commission, with its dramatic climax in the suicide of the forger Pigott, to suspect that the liveliness of the extreme left of the Eadical wing in London meant any- thing but the usual humbug about working-class interests. We urged our members to join the Liberal and Eadical Associations of their districts, or if they preferred it, the Conservative Associations. We told them to become members of the nearest Eadical club and co-operative store and to get delegated to the Metropolitan Radical Federation and the Liberal and Eadical Union if possible. On these bodies we made speeches and moved resolutions, or better still, got the Parliamentary candidate for the constituency to move them, and secured reports and encouraging little articles for him in the ' Star.' We ' Shaw, The Fabian Society, p. 26. » Ibid. p. 24. THE SOCIALIST OEGANISATIONS 423 permeated the party organisations and pulled all the wires we could lay our hands on with our utmost adroitness and energy ; and we succeeded so far that in 1888 we gained the solid advantage ot a Progressive majority, full of ideas that would never have come into their heads had not the Fabian put them there, on the first London County Council. The generalship of this movement was undertaken chiefly by Sidney Webb, who played such bewildering conjuring tricks with the Liberal thimbles and the Eabian peas that to this day both the Liberals and the sectarian Socialists stand aghast at him." ^ Fabians rely for their success chiefly on their artfulness. " Always remember that, even if you cannot convert a man to Socialism, you may get his vote all the same." ^ Fabian middle-class Socialism differs from the democratic Socialism of the larger Socialist organisations which appeal to the working class : " The Socialism advocated by the Fabian Society is State Socialism exclusively." ^ " We have never advanced the smallest pretensions to represent the working classes of this country." '' Therefore the Fabians are very cordially hated , by the Democratic Socialists. The Social-Democratic \ Federation blames them for their " cynical oppor- tunism." ^ Another organisation declares : " The Fabian Society poses as a Socialist organisation, for we are told that this Society ' consists of Socialists.' It is indeed composed of middle-class men who naturally deny the class struggle, profess to believe in permeating the capitalist class with Socialism, and hold that the ten- dency of society is towards government by the expert- Fabianism therefore tends towards the rule of the bureau- ' Shaw, T}ie Fabian Society, pp. 18, 19. ' How to Lose aaid Bow to Win an Election, p. 1. ' Beport on Fabian Policy, 1896, p. 5. ' Shaw, The FabioM Society, p. 23. * Anniial Beport, Social-Democratic Federation Conference, 1906, p. 2. 424 BEITISH SOCIALISM crats or that section of the educated middle-class. The Fabians are the cult of the civil service and are Socialists j neither in name nor in fact." ^ Let us now consider the genesis and character of the' great Labour party. Formerly Socialists and trade unionists marched and fought apart. However, " On the 27th February, 1900, a joint Socialist and Trade Union Conference met in the Memorial Hall, London. One hundred and seventeen delegates were present representing sixty-seven Trade Unions, seven representing the Independent Labour Party, four the Social-Democratic Federation, one the Fabian Society. The result was the formation of the Labour Eepresentation Committee," ^ simultaneously representing trade unions and Socialists. " At the General Election of 1906, the Labour Eepresentation Committee ran fifty candidates for Parliament and re- turned thirty. That year its name was changed to the Labour Party." ^ The Labour party therefore unites trade unionists and Socialists. The Fabian Society and the Independent Labour party have joined it. Only the Social-Democratic Federation has so far kept aloof from it. The Labour party, being chiefly composed of trade unionists, is fond of posing as a non-Socialist party. It is true that " Mr. Keir Hardie, the Labour leader, said they did not want Toryism, Liberalism, or Sociahsm, only Labourism, but the same Keir Hardie sits as a delegate on the International Socialist Bureau." * " Many of the Labour members in Parliament are avowed Socialists. The working-class movement already is largely a Socialist movement, and is in continual pro- cess of becoming more so. With the speculative side of Socialism the average man with us has but small ' Manifesto, Socialist Party of Great Britain, p. 11. ' Macdonald, Socialism, p. 52. ' Ibid. p. 53. ^ Manifesto, Socialist Party of Great Britain, p. 13. THE SOCIALIST OEGANISATIONS 425 concern ; it is its common-sense which appeals to him. By inherited instinct we are all Communists at heart." ^ " The Labour party, which now has thirty-one mem- bers in the House of Commons, is not purely Socialist, but twenty-three or twenty-four of its M.P.s, and nearly all its elected executive, are Socialists. It has no official programme; but in view of its membership its policy is and must be Socialist. This is not because the majority rules. It is because the Socialist section has a policy and the non- Socialist section approves of that policy so far as it can be translated into Bills or resolutions to be laid before Parhament. There is no anti-Socialism in the Labour party. There is far more difference between sections of Liberals or Conservatives than there is between Socialist and non- Socialist Labour men. All these bodies are working more or less together for the same great ends." ^ The connection between organised Labour and organised Socialism is further illustrated by the important letters printed on pages 141-143 of this book. The demands and semi-official programme of the Labour party are practically indentical with those of avowed Socialists, as may be seen from the following statement of its Secretary : "We are in favour of the special taxation of land values, of a minimum income-tax on earned incomes, and a super-tax on a graded scale on all incomes over, say, 1,000?. This is described as robbing the rich. That does not express either the purpose or the spirit of the Labour party however. We call it — securing for the public values created by the public. Our critics, if they are to have any effect on intelligent public opinion, must under- , stand this cardinal point in our creed, this axiom in our programme- making. We do not regard taxation as a ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, pp. 33, 34. * Secretary, Fabian Society, in Daily Mail Year Booh, 1908, p. 73. 426 BEITISH SOCIAIjISM taking by the State of property which belongs to other people, but the appropriation of property which ought to belong to itself. This theory of taxation goes very far, and its full application involves the complete destruction of parasitic classes. It can only be applied slowly, but as people get clearly to understand that socially-created values should be socially-owned values, many of our most recondite problems, like overcrowding, waste-lands, high rating, will be in a fair way to settlement." ^ The foregoing shows that the Labour party, like the most predatory Socialist, wishes to tax all private capital out of existence. " The Labour party is not as yet a purely Socialist organisation, because any attempt to make it such would disrupt it." ^ However, its rank and file are rapidly being permeated with Socialism. The following table shows the composition of the Labour party and its numerical strength and growth : "Gbowth op the Labour Paety Trades Union Socialist Membership Membership Total 1900-1 . 353,070 22,861 375,931 1901-2 . 455,450 13,861 469,311 1902-3 . 847,315 13,835 861,150 1903-4 . 956,025 13,775 969,800 1904-5 . 885,270 14,730 900,000 1905-6 . 904,496 16,784 921,280 1906-7 . 975,182 20,885 *998,338 * This total includes 2,271 co-operators." ^ Apparently only one-fiftieth of the members of the Labour party are Socialists, but in reality their pro- portion is very much larger, because only a few working men with Socialistic leanings have actually joined a ' E. Maodonald, M.P., in Daily Mail Year Booh, 1908, p. 109. '' Manifesto, Socialist Party of Oreat Britain, p. 3. = Reformers' Year Book, 1908, p. 8. THE SOCIALIST OEGANISATIONS 427 Socialist party. " When the daily Press states that out of a million affiliated members of the Labour party there are only 17,000 Socialists, its readers naturally inquire, ' How then is it that there are at least twenty Socialists among its thirty M.P.s ? ' The reply is that as the trade union candidates were elected by the ballot of the members of their respective societies, it must be supposed that those candidates with Socialist views were the most acceptable to the majority of members. This situation was strikingly reflected in the results of the election of 1906. The votes cast for declared Socialists account for 232,378, or 70 per cent, of the total Labour Eepresentation Committee poll of 331,280, whilst of the whole Labour poll, comprising that of the L.E.C., Scottish workers, miners, trades union group, and Socialists, the votes for declared Socialists accounted for 274,631 out of 580,643, or nearly 52 per cent." ^ " The Labour party is not a Socialist party yet, but those who possess an ear for the great changes now taking place in the depths of the nation will understand that the Labour party is going to be a Socialist party one day." ^ It seems likely that the more or less Socialist Labour party in Parliament will soon absorb practically the whole trade union group. " Of the eighteen miners' repre- sentatives in the House of Commons fifteen are in the trade union group. In October 1907, at the Conference of the Federated Miners' Associations, a resolution was adopted declaring that the time had come for joining the Labour party and ordering a ballot of the whole Federa- tion area to be taken. It is practically a foregone con- clusion that the proposal will be carried, in which case the fifteen miners' representatives now sitting on the Ministerial benches will cross the House and practically double the effective power of the Labour party as against ' Reformers' Year Booh, 1907, p. 51. ■^ Social-Democrat, October 1907, p. 607. 428 BEITISH SOCIALISM the Government. The trade union group will then practically cease to exist. The railway servants have decided that all their candidates at the next election must join the Labour party. Therefore Eichard Bell must sign the constitution of the Labour party or retire in favour of someone who will. Of the remaining seven members of the group W. C. Steadman is the only recognised leader of trade unionism." ^ Apart from the larger Socialist parties described in the foregoing, there are two smaller organisations com- posed of revolutionary Socialists of the most violent type, whose Socialism is a misnomer for Anarchism. They are " The Socialist Party of Great Britain " domiciled in London, and " The Socialist Labour Party " (an American importation), domiciled in Edinburgh. Their programmes, as those of the other Socialist organisations, will be found in the Appendix. The numerous Socialistic organisations mentioned in this Chapter oppose and fight one another. Many Socialists recommend that a united Socialist party should be formed, but it is clear to all who are acquainted with the inner history of British Socialism that "the vital differences that exist among Socialist parties as to tactics — as to the way to attain Socialism — cannot be glossed over by a few expressions of brotherly love." ^ The Socialists are divided among themselves, and the rivalry and enmity between some of the sections is deep- seated and bitter. Nominally they differ with regard to the policy to be pursued, but in reality their differences seem to be rather of a personal nature. Socialist leaders, though they have the words "democracy," "freedom," " liberty," and " love " constantly on their lips, are apt to be very autocratic as soon as their sphere of political influence is threatened by competition, and as soon as their private property, their political capital which they have created, ■ Beformers' Year Book, 1908, p. 23. « Socialist, December 1907. THE SOCIALIST OEGANISATIONS 429 IS threatened with " socialisation." The men who so glibly recommend the world-wide brotherhood of man, and the socialisation and co-operation of the world, cannot even co-operate among themselves although they pursue the identical immediate aim : the plunder of the well-to-do. It is an old experience that revolutionaries always eAd in cutting one another's throats. Some Socialist groups have been formed owing to very peculiar and very unsavoury circumstances. A comparatively innocent though psychologically highly interesting and characteristic Socialist new formation has recently occurred in that ally of the Socialists, the Women's Social and Political Union. " In September 1907 a bombshell was thrown into the camp of the Women's Social and Political Union by the extraordinary action of Mrs. Pankhurst, who, as 'the founder,' an- nounced that she had discharged the Executive Com- mittee of the Union." ^ In the words of an opponent : " Mrs. Pankhurst tore up the constitution, robbed the branches and members of all control over the National Committee, abolished the annual conference, and elected herself and a few personal friends as an autocratic permanent committee answerable to no one in the world and to sit at her pleasure." ^ The consequence of this personal squabble among leaders for supremacy was of course the splitting up of the party, and the aggrieved ladies formed a new party, the " Women's Ereedom League." Socialists never tire of declaiming against competition, and of praising co-operation. At present there are two " competitive " Women's Freedom societies. If they continue pushing the identical article of agitation, all custom will go to the larger party. Therefore we may expect that, unless the breach is healed, the two parties will agree to differ " on the basic principles of women's ' Independent Labour Party Year Booh, 1908, p. 28. 2 Forwa/rd, November 23, 1907. 430 BEITISH SOCIALISM freedom " and will recommend slightly different political mixtures. The example of France, Germany, and other countries shows that the jealousy and envy of leaders and party tyranny is nowhere greater than among Socialists. It will not he easy for British Socialists to found a united party, especially as it is more difficult to create unity among individualistic Englishmen, who are by their nature impatient of restraint, than among Frenchmen and Germans, who are more used to co-operation and who through their military training have learned the necessity of discipline and the duty of obedience. CHAPTEE XXXIV THE GEOWTH AND DANGER OP BEITISH SOCIALISM Up to a recent date the Socialists in Great Britain had neither power nor influence. Whilst Germany, France, and other countries had large Socialist parties, British Socialism was practically unrepresented in Parliament. Many Englishmen thought that the free British demo- cracies did not offer a soil favourable to the growth of Socialism, whilst many Socialist leaders believed that England possessed ideal conditions for effecting a social revolution because no other country contains, proportion- ally, so large a propertyless proletariat as England.^ In view of the large number of propertyless people in Great Britain and the nervous restlessness of the race since it has become a race of town-dwellers we cannot wonder at the rapid growth of British Socialism, and we must look forward to its further increase. ' The following most interesting table gives a picture of the growth of the Socialist vote in the three most Socialistic countries on the Continent of Europe, and in Great Britain. It shows that Socialism has apparently passed the zenith on the Continent of Europe, but that it has not yet reached maturity in Great Britain. ' See Karl Marx, Capital ; Yorke, Secret History of the International ; Stegmann und Hugo, Handlmch, p. 177 ; Kautsky, Social BevokiUcm. 432 BRITISH SOCIALISM ' Gbbmany 1867 1878 1887 1890 1893 1896 1903 1907 Votes 30,000 437,158 763,123 1,427,298 1,876,738 2,107,076 3,010,472 3,258,968 Members of Parliament 8 9 11 35 44 57 81 43 Gkbat Beitain Members of Votes Parliament 1895 . 46,000 1900* . 65,000 2 1906* . 335,000 30 * This is the vote of the Labour Socialists." ' Peance Members of Votes Parliament 1887 47,000 19 1889 120,000 9 1893 440,000 49 1898 790,000 50 1902 805,000 48 1906 896,000 Belgium 52 Members of Votes Parliament 1894 320,000 32 1900 344,000 33 1902 467,000 34 1904 463,967 28 1906 469,094 30 party candidates, not all of whom were A glance at the above table shows that the Socialist vote in Great Britain is as yet insignificant by comparison with other countries, and it seems likely to increase very greatly. More than a third of the Australian House of Representatives and Senate consists of Socialists. May not proportionately as large a Socialist party arise in Great Britain, especially as no political party can outbid the Socialists ? The Socialist danger is probably greater in Great Britain than it is in France, Germany, or Belgium. In those countries a vast body of freehold peasants exists who are absolutely opposed to revolu- tionary schemes. Besides, owing to the fact that the majority of Continental workers have a substantial stake in the country, either in the form of land, houses, or other property, Continental Socialism is comparatively mode- rate, whilst it is violent, Anarchistic, and revolutionary in Great Britain, where the majority of workers possess far ' Maodonald, Socialism, pp. 125, 126. GEOWTH AND DANGEB OP SOCIALISM 433 less property than the majority of French, German, and Belgian workers. The German Socialists, since Germany's unity, have gone the way of Lassalle, the patriot Socialist. " They have ceased to denounce the churches. From a necessary evil or a mere stop-gap, the present State has become to them gradually, and perhaps unconsciously, their own State." ^ It is true that the Socialist vote is ten times larger in Germany than in Great Britain. Never- theless the danger of Socialist troubles of the very gravest kind is perhaps greater in England than in Germany, especially as unemployment is far greater in Great Britain than in Germany.^ It seems that Great Britain will pass through bad industrial times, and it should not be for- gotten that the French Eevolutions of 1789 and of 1848 were made by unemployed workmen upon whom Socialist and Communistic doctrines had taken a firm hold ; that the distress caused by the siege of Paris led to the rising of the Commune in 1871 ; that between 1837 and 1848 the Chartist movement in Great Britain rose and declined in almost exact correspondence with the variations in the economic distress of the people. The present aspect of Great Britain resembles the aspect of pre-Eevolution France, owing to the unequal distribution of property. " Almost three-quarters of the soil of France belonged to the nobility and the clergy, or to 360,000 people. The whole of the rest of the nation possessed less than one-third of the soil." ' The absence of a sturdy property-owning lower middle-class, the dis- appearance of the yeomen, is a source of instability and weakness to Great Britain. Vast numbers of British workers live from hand to mouth. They are being in- flamed by Socialist agitators against the wealthy, and they are being promised an equal share in the whole wealth of ' Encyclopcedia Britannica, vol. xxxii. p. 666. ' Ellis Barker, Modern Germany, p. 546. ' Block, Dictionnaire Giniral, vol. ii. p. 822. 434 BKITISH SOCIALISM the nation. In case of very acute distress, either through purely economic causes or through a war with a strong naval power, which might lead to starvation in a country which is absolutely dependent on foreign countries for its food, a revolutionary outbreak in the overgrown towns of Great Britain seems by no means impossible. The revolutionary centre of the world may conceivably move from Paris to London. The Socialists in Great Britain may not always remain a chaotic multitude led by rival agitators who fight and intrigue against one another. Socialists be- lieve : " So soon as Socialism becomes popular, great statesmen and philosophers will arise and take their stand boldly with the people in their fight for industrial freedom." ^ There are more than 2,000,000 trade unionists in Great Britain, and Socialism is spreading rapidly among them. " Already the working-class move- ment is largely a Socialistic movement and is in continual process of becoming more so." ^ The political character of the trade unionists is changing owing to the influence of Socialism and of the new unions. " The differences be- tween the ' old ' and ' new ' unions are becoming more and more accentuated. The former adhere to the ' No politics ' cry, i.e. no working-class politics, and still pin their faith to the Liberal or even Tory party ; while the latter, like their Continental comrades, understand that their eman- cipation can only be achieved by means of political action as a class." ^ " It is not possible for the working-class movement to dissociate itself from the Socialists, or from Socialism, because Socialism, however vaguely the fact jnay yet be recognised, is as essentially the political expression of that movement as Toryism was the political expression of landlordism and Liberalism is that of the bourgeoisie. In other words, there can be no working- ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 28. " Ibid. p. 34. ' Aveling, Working-Class Movement in England, p. 40. GEOWTH AND DANGBK OF SOCIALISM 435 class movement as sucli without Socialism."' "It is true that the present Parliamentary Labour party is committed to independence on ' Labour questions only,' but no one has yet defined what is a ' Labour question,' and still less has anyone attempted to show what political questions are not labour questions." ^ The letters printed on pages 141-143 of this book show that Socialism and Labour are commingling. Socialism and Socialist influence have grown far more rapidly in Great Britain than is generally known. Their growth can be gauged not so much by the result of the General Election of 1906, and of some startling by- election results, as by the reports of the Socialist societies, and especially by the sale of their literature. Therefore the following facts indicating the growth of British Socialism should prove to be of considerable interest. The Independent Labour Party reported at its yearly meeting held at Derby on April 1 and 2, 1907 : " No department of our activities has been more en- couraging in its work this year than that of literature. Last year our literature sales amounted to 1,200Z., which was 6001. more than the previous twelve months. This year they amount to 2,830/., or 1,600/. more than last year. The sales of books and pamphlets are nearly double that of last year. This is a magnificent result. Many branches have established literature stalls in the markets or public streets of their towns, and have met with much success. The fruits of this propaganda are certain, and will be reaped sooner or later by the branches concerned. The income is larger than has been the case in any former year, and amounts to the sum of 6,064/. 12s., as against 1,884/. 7s. 9d. for last year. The excess of assets over liabilities amounts to 3,729/. 2s. 5d., as against ' The Socialist Anmial, 1907, p. 38. 2 jjj(^_ p_ 39_ FF 2 i36 BEITISH SOCIALISM 1,511^ last year. The financial position of the party is thus becoming increasingly solid and stable." ' Since the time when that report was given, the Inde- pendent Labour Party has continued its rapid growth, as may be seen from the following " Facts of Progress " recently published by that party. " At the time of the Fifteenth Annual Conference of the Independent Labour Party, held at Derby at Easter 1907, there were then in existence 545 branches of the party. Now (November 1907), there are 709 branches. Gain in seven months, 164 branches. There are few Parliamentary constituencies in the United Kingdom without branches, and it is hoped before the present year to make even these omissions good. There are now six branches of the Independent Labour Party in Ireland, and more to follow. The Inde- pendent Labour Party has now 845 of its members on local governing bodies, endeavouring to put into opera- tion locally the principles for which the party stands. During the summer nearly 2,000 meetings have been held each week throughout the country. Twenty-two special organisers have been at work for this last six months." "^ The latest reports of the other Socialist Societies give a picture of a similarly great activity, and of a similarly rapid growth. It is true that the funds of the Socialist organisations are comparatively small, but it must not be forgotten that " 1,000 men who subscribe Id. are stronger in the poll than one man who subscribes 1,000?."^ Besides, the Independent Labour Party has since 1893 spent more than 250,000^. for purposes of propaganda. That is a large sum to be spent in agitation. Furthermore, it is significant that many Socialist pamphlets and books have been sold in more than a hundred thousand copies, and ' Independent Labour Party Annual Report Conference, pp. 10, 12, 9. ' LahoiLr Leader, November 29, 1907. ' Reformers' Tear Book, 1906, p. 80. GKOWTH AND DANGEK OF SOCIALISM 437 a few even in more than a million copies. The Socialist periodicals have a considerable circulation. " The circula- tion of the ' Clarion ' alone is 74,000." ^ The danger of British Socialism lies not only in its rapid increase among the workers, but also in the fact that it is making converts among the large class of people who possess no settled conviction of their own, and who are easily carried away by a plausible catch-phrase. The persons who count are the multitude of loose thinkers who are drifting towards Socialism without knowing it. "Politicians who have no suspicion that they are Socialists are advocating further instalments of Socialism with a recklessness of indirect results which scandalises the conscious Social-Democrat." ^ " Year by year more legislation is proposed of which the effect is to draw upon the earnings of the efficient for the benefit of the inefficient. Year by year Parliament makes life harder for those whose labour benefits the State and easier for those who are a drag upon it." ^ " There is in fact no definite and declared Socialist party in the present House of Commons, and yet what may be called the spirit of Socialism pervades the whole House to a greater extent than in any previous ParHament."^ For instance, Mr. Eutherford, M.P., in an anti-Socialistic speech brought forward a "Democratic Tory Programme " which, in the words of a Socialist periodical, was " cribbed almost bodily from the Socialist programme. He advocated among other reforms — nationalisation of the railways, State provision of work for the unemployed, payment of Members, manhood and womanhood suffrage, the suppression of adulteration, town planning on the German system, crime to be treated as a disease, compulsory closing of slums, taxation of site ' Clarim, December 20, 1907. ^ Fabian Essays m Socialism, p. 188. " Lord Balfour of Burleigh in the Times, October 3, 1907. "> Cox, Socialism, p. 7. 438 BEITISH SOCIALISM values, and State powers to purchase any site at the price on the rate-book, a national system of insurance against accident and sickness, feeding and clothing poor children, free opening of secondary schools and uni- versities." ' In giving prominence to this " anti-Socialist " speech the "Labour Leader" sarcastically remarked: " The items do not, of course, take us quite as far as we Socialists would go ; but they are fairly good to be going on with. Ours is to once again cordially welcome Mr. Eutherford as champion against Socialism." ^ A further danger consists in this, that many Socialists in Parliament and out of it like to sail under a false flag, in accordance with the tactics usually employed by the Fabian Society (see ante. Chapter XXXIII). Socialist pub- lications inform us : "Among Socialists who stood and were elected as official Liberals are P. Alden, Clement Edwards, and L. G. Chiozza Money." ^ " Many Liberals, like Mr. Chiozza Money, Mr. Masterman, Mr. J. M. Eobertson, not to speak of the Liberal-Labour group, are committed to Socialist or semi-Socialist legislation. Many Liberal newspapers, we cannot fairly deny, are avowedly on the side of Socialism. The Liberal rank and file are also in the majority of instances quite favourable to the general principles of municipalisation and Labour legislation. Above all, as has so often been predicted by us, the two political camps of landlordism and capitalism are bound to combine together against Socialism, and they can only do so effectively under the Imperialist, Tariff Eeform, anti-Land Eeform, and anti-Municipalisation flags. The Liberal party cannot attempt single-handed to withstand us." * Socialism often poses as Liberalism and is accepted as such by the unwary. A further danger of British Socialism lies in the fact ' Labour Leader, October 18, 1907. ' Ibid. ^ Reformers' Year Book, 1907, p. 58. * Labour Leader, October 11, 1907. GEOWTH AND DANGEE OF SOCIALISM 439 that it leads to the deterioration of the national character. " The strength of every community must finally depend on the character of the individuals who compose it. If they are self-reliant, energetic, and dutiful, the community v?ill be strong ; if, on the contrary, they have been taught to rely upon others rather than on themselves, to take life easily and to avoid unpleasant duties, then the community will be weak. Teach men that they owe no duty to their families, no duty to their country, and that their only responsibility is to humanity at large, and they will quickly begin to think and act as if they had no responsibility to anyone but themselves." ^ " Many workmen are being ruined morally and materially by Socialistic doctrines, because directly a man becomes imbued with the idea that he is not receiving full recompense for his labours he thinks himself justified in doing as^ little as he can for his employer. The con- sequence is that his labour, which is to him his stock-in- trade, depreciates in value and when business slackens down he is one of the first to get the ' sack.' " ^ ' Cox, Socialism, p. 20. ' Daw, Socialism Unmasked, p. 7. 440 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTEE XXXV HOW THE PROGEBSS OP SOCIALISM MAY BE CHECKED What can be done to check the growth of Socialism? Some most interesting statistics supplied by the German Social-Democratic party will furnish the best reply to that question. An analysis of the electorate of Magdeburg and Bremen, two typical commercial and industrial towns, gave the following result : Composition of Blectoeate Magdeburg Bremen Numbers Per cent. Numbers Per cent 1. Capitalists 4,491 = 8-08 5,085 = 8-34 2. High officials . 559 = 106 197 = 0-32 3. Medium officials 2,304 = 4-35 615 = 1-01 4. Lower officials . 4,364 = 7-75 3,567 = 5-85 5. Professional men 1,422 = 2-55 1,047 = 1-72 6. Newer middle- class . 3,924 = 7-06 4,882 = 801 7. Independent artisans 8,704 = 6-67 5,196 = 8-53 8. Bakers and grocers . 932 = 1-57 1,124 - 1-84 9. Older middle-class 2,787 = 5-01 4,074 = 6-68 10. Clerks and bookkeepers 3,121 = 5-62 5,247 = 8-61 11. Working men in State and municipal employment 1,424 = 2-55 1,415 = 2-32 12. Working men in private er nploy- ment 26,423 = 47-73 28,573 = 46-77 55,568 = 100 60,962 :100' Commenting upon the foregoing table, a German Socialist periodical wrote : " An analytical comparison of ' Die Neue Oesellschaft, September 1907, p. 325. HOW SOCIALISM MAY BE CHECKED 441 the electorate of Hamburg and Bremen reveals an extra- ordinary similarity in its social composition. It shows that the workers form hardly a majority of the population. They can be victorious only when they march hand in hand with professional men, the lower officials, and the newer middle-class. However, not all working men are Socialists. At the last election 3,000 working men in Magdeburg, and 2,500 working men in Bremen, voted against Social-Democracy. The patriotic anti-Socialist working-men's associations are rapidly increasing their membership. A thousand workmen, one-third of the whole occupied at the Krupp-Gruson Works in Magde- burg, have joined the anti-Socialist working-men's associations. The ' working-men's associations for fight- ing Social-Democracy ' have grown in a surprising fashion." ' The lower middle-class forms the strongest bulwark against the progress of Socialism, and Socialists know it. The philosopher of British Socialism, for instance, wrote : " The proletariat proper, the class which bears the future Socialist world in its womb, by no means at present everywhere outweighs, numerically, all other classes. On the contrary, so far as I am aware, this is only the case in Great Britain and some of the North American States, and even in these countries the majority is not large. The bulk of the non-proletarian sections of the democracy are by no means proletarian or Social-Democratic, even in their instincts, let alone Socialistic in their convictions. The predominating, or at all events most influential, elements in the non-proletarian democracy are what, for brevity, I have rather loosely termed the clerk and the shopkeeping class : in other words, they who are, or hope to become, small capitalists, the small middle-class. This last section of the ' people ' or the democracy is, as such, the most formidable, because the most subtle, enemy ' Die Neue Oeselltcha/t, September 1907, pp. 326, 326. 442 BEITISH SOCIALISM with which the SociaHst movement has to contend. The aim of the small capitalist, and of him who hopes to become one, is security and free play under the most advantageous conditions for his small capital to operate. On this account the little bourgeois, the small middle- class in its various sections, is the great obstacle which will have to be suppressed before we can hope to see even the inauguration of a consciously Socialist policy. It must be destroyed or materially crippled as a class before real progress can be made." ^ Whilst many Socialists wish to destroy the lower middle-class, others, especially the Fabians, endeavour to convert it to Socialism, and to set it on against the wealthy. They argue : " The commercial clerk with his reading, his writing, his arithmetic, and his shorthand is a proletarian, and a very miserable proletarian, only needing to be awakened from his poor little superstition of shabby gentility to take his vote from the Tories and hand it over to us. The small tradesmen and ratepayers who are now allying themselves with the Duke of "Westminster in a desperate and unavailing struggle against the rising rates entailed by the eight hours day and standard wages for all public servants, besides great extensions of corporate activity in providing accommoda- tion and education at the public expense, must sooner or later see that their interest lies in making common cause with the workers to throw the burden of taxation directly on to unearned incomes." ^ " It only needs one evening's intelligent discussion of this monstrous state of affairs to make a beginning of a really sensible and independent organisation of the middle classes for their own defence and for their escape from between the two millstones of organised Labour and organised Plutocracy, which are at present grinding the last penny in the pound out of ' Bax, Essays m Socialism, pp. 40, 41. '' Shaw, The Fabian Society, p. 26. HOW SOCIALISM MAY BE CHECKED 443 them." ' It is estimated that there are in England 500,000 clerks.'^ With the object of permeating this large section of the middle class with Socialism, a new monthly paper, the " Clerk," has recently been started under Fabian auspices. Socialism is undermining the lower middle-class, and it is unconsciously being assisted in this policy by short- sighted anti-capitalistic Parliamentary legislation, which, as usual, hits hardest the smaller capitalists. If Great Britain wishes to erect a dam against the rising tide of Socialism, she must strengthen the lower middle-class in town and country by well-devised legislation, and she should before all re-create her peasantry. Great Britain should encourage the accumulation of small capitals by encouraging thrift. At present thrift is discouraged by the difficulty which small savers experience in obtaining satisfactory investments. The low interest of 2| per cent, paid by the British savings-banks — Continental savings-banks give 4 per cent. — is quite inadequate ; and the British Company Laws are so bad and sound invest- ments so scarce that the small investor who wants a higher return than 2| per cent, is almost certain to lose his money if he buys stocks or shares. Leasehold invest- ments are very unsatisfactory, because the object bought automatically reverts to the landlord, and small freehold properties are as a rule unobtainable under the present system of land-holding. Therefore the first and most important step to encourage thrift should be to enable the small saver to invest his savings profitably and securely in land and houses where it is under his own control. Co-operation also should be encouraged. Co- operative banking, which is highly developed in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, but almost unknown in Great Britain, would at the same time greatly benefit the small investor and the small bond-fide borrower. ' New Age, November 1907, p. 23. " Clerk, January 1908. 444 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTER XXXVI IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE ?— A GLANCE INTO THE SOCIALIST STATE OP THE FUTURE The realisation of Socialism, the creation of a Socialistic commonwealth in which private property does not exist, seems impossible. Socialists entirely leave out of their calculations two elementary factors : Natube, and Human Natuee A State devoid of private property is an unthinkable proposition. Private property is not a fortuitous creation, but a natural growth. It is founded not merely upon law, but upon immemorial custom which owes its rise to a fundamental human instinct, an instinct which has been a characteristic of the human race in all countries, and which is as old as humanity itself. The instinct of acquisition, of accumulation, and of property is common to all men from Central Africa to the poles. It is equally strongly developed in the most civilised nations and among savages. However, supposing that the instinct of acquisition, of accumulation, and of property, which is found not only among all races of mankind but even among the higher animals, could be overcome, would human nature allow of the creation of a co-operative commonwealth based on voluntary co-operation, not on compulsion? Could the brotherhood of man be made a reality, and would men co-operate without strife in that mutual friendship and IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE? 445 good-feJlowship which one finds but rarely, even among those who are connected by the closest ties of affection and blood relationship, unless self-interest acts as the determining factor? Did not Plato found his ideal commonwealth upon perfectly wise and virtuous men ? " Does not Socialist society presuppose extraordinary human beings, real angels, as regards unselfishness and gentleness, joy of work and intelligence? Is not the Social Eevolution, with the present brutal and egoistical race of men, bound to become the signal for desolating struggles for the booty or for general idleness in which it would go to ruin ? " ^ " Who is more ready to tilt against society than the average Socialist? And if the individuals in it are so deeply imbued with a double dose of original sin as not to be able to handle any part of distribution and exchange, it follows that you cannot trust the individual." ^ " In a social State you must consider two things — man and his surroundings. You often forget man, because you think it easier to alter his surroundings. The real question is : Can you produce men fit for the new social State ? " ^ " Socialism postulates an intelligent democracy." * "The proletariat will require high intelligence, strong discipline, perfect organisation of its great masses. We may expect that it will only succeed when it will have developed these qualities in the highest degree." ^ " Socialists demand a higher morality than any now to be found." ^ " It is incumbent upon Socialism to recognise the existence of an intellectual motive, and it must place that motive above the economic, because without it the economic struggle would be devoid of any constructive ' Kautaky, Social Revolution, p. U. ' Socialism, For and Against, p. 7. ' Clemenceau, in Jaur^s' Practical Socialism, p. 11. ' Snowden, Ths Indimidiial under Socialism, p. 12. ' Kautsky, The Social Revolution, p. 42. " Blatchford, Real Socialism, p. 5. 446 BEITISH SOCIALISM value ; it would be a mere tug-of-war ; it would never bring us to Socialism. It would lead to a scramble for the spoils and mutual throat-cutting." ^ " If ' each for all and all for each ' be nothing more than a text for a banner or a motto for a wall ; if its truth has not captured the hearts and minds of men and women in that new society, we shall be an official-ridden people with our eye on the best posts in the State for ourselves or our sons ; and we shall be as pitiable in our spiritual deformity as we are in our enconomic bondage." ^ " Socialism de- mands more than that we should merely import Socialistic institutions into our midst. It insists on a moral regenera- tion of society of the most complete and searching kind in order to make a lasting foundation for the political and social changes we many of us long to see." ^ " Convey it in what spirit we may, an appeal to class interest is an appeal to personal interest. Socialist propaganda carried on as a class war suggests none of those ideals of moral citizenship with which Socialist literature abounds, ' each for all and all for each,' ' service to the community is the sole right of property ' and so on. It is an appeal to individualism " [which seems to be a euphemism for envy and cupidity], " and results in getting men to accept Socialist formulae without becoming Socialists." * Unfortunately there is nothing ideal and elevating in the Socialist teachings, as the previous chapters show. Socialism appeals to all the passions and to all the vices, such as hatred, jealousy, envy, cupidity. It encourages, or at least excuses, wastefulness, improvidence, profligacy, and drunkenness. Its aim is plunder. The voluntary co-operation of all for the benefit of all presupposes the existence of wise, virtuous, and unselfish ' Maodonald, Socialism and Society, p. 126. ' Ethel Snowden, The Woman Socialist, p. 7. ' Ford, Woman and Socialism, p. 2. ' Macdouald, Socialism and Society, pp. 122, 123. IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE? 447 citizens. Do the people in England, or in any other country, possess these high qualities, or are these quali- ties likely to be created by the teachings of the Socialists ? A distinguished Socialist despairingly exclaimed : " That spirit which animated the apostles, prophets, martyrs, is alive in Japan to-day. Is it alive in us as a nation ? If not, if we have replaced it to any extent by some selfish opposite, by any such diabolically careless sentiment as ' after me the deluge,' then we as a nation have lost our soul, sold it for mere individual prosperity, sold it in some poor cases for not even that, for mere liquid refreshment, and we are on the down grade." ^ Another Socialist wrote : " We are all of us great-great-grandchildren of the beasts. We carry the bestial attributes in our blood, some more, some less. Who amongst us is so pure and exalted that he has never been conscious of the bestial taint ? " ^ " Descendants of barbarians and beasts, we have not yet conquered the greed and folly of our bestial and barbarous inheritance. Our nature is an unweeded garden. Our hereditary soil is rank." ^ The Socialists themselves acknowledge that Socialism presupposes a nation composed of ideal individuals, industrious, gentle, mutually helpful, unselfish, forbear- ing, and wise. They also acknowledge that men are the descendants of barbarians and beasts. Do Socialist agitators really believe that they can convert the descend- ants of barbarians and beasts into ideal beings by con- stantly preaching to them the gospel of hatred, envy, selfishness, self-indulgence, and plunder, and by even encouraging them to continue poisoning themselves and their descendants by over-indulgence in alcoholic drink ? * Surely " the defective natures of citizens will show them- selves in the bad acting of whatever social structure they ' Sir Oliver Lodge, Public Service v. Private Expenditure, p. 11. 2 Blatohford, Not Gmlty, p. 37. ' Ibid. p. 251. ' See ante. Chapter XXIII. 448 BEITISH SOCIALISM are arranged into. There is no political alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of leaden instincts." ^ It is clear to most thinking Socialists that human nature, as at present constituted, will make the realisation of Socialism impossible. How do Socialists, then, propose to meet the difficulty ? Very simply. By bold asser- tions and prophecies. That which all religions and all philosophers have been unable to accomplish during 3,000 years. Socialists will effect as by the touch of a magician's wand. " Socialism will change human nature. The opportunity makes the man. Socialism will take away the desire for accumulating riches. Under such conditions the possession of riches will be a superfluous burden which no sane man will wish to bear."^ "As soon as high purpose, intense human attachments, are the springs of action and resolve, discipline will come into our move- ment to crush out base selfishness, vanity, and personal ambition."* This is very nice, but how are "high purpose" and "intense human attachment" to be made the " springs of action " ? Unfortunately the writer keeps the secret to himself. The philosopher of British Socialism states : " Socialism only calls for enlightened selfishness. But the fact that this selfishness is enlightened and recognises that it can serve itself by serving the common interest will completely change its character, so that it will cease to be the narrow selfishness of to-day, which so often defeats its own ends. Selfishness passing through the refining fire of economic change ceases to be selfishness and becomes Socialism." ■* If selfishness ceases to be selfishness and becomes Socialism, then it changes merely its name, and Socialism and selfishness are identical, which is quite correct. Other ' Herbert Spencer, The Man versus the State, p. 43. ' Snowden, The Individual under Socialism, p. 9. ^ Ben Tillett, Trades Unionism and Socialism,, p. 14. ' Bax and Queloh, A Neio Catechism, p. 30. IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE? 449 Socialist leaders prophesy : " May we not assume that under these conditions a new type of mankind will evolve which will surpass the highest type which culture has produced up till now ? An overman, if you please, not as an exception, but as the rule." ^ " Selfishness will become public spirit." ^ " The desire to serve the common life, to advance its welfare, will be the highest ambition of the individual."''' "Just as the nightingale sings in the evening shades, or the lark trills in the summer sky, so man in natural surroundings" [does Socialism create "natural" surroundings or un- natural ones ?] " will seek to gratify his higher nature. Socialism will create a condition of things favourable to the development of the higher type of individuality." * " This is the religious aspect of labour. It is dignified, ennobling. That is the divine ideal, the aspect con- cerning labour which God intended should be realised. Just think of it ! The ordinary working man as divinely taught and inspired as the prophets and seers of old, and having the capacity to understand the sublimest truths and the profoundest philosophy concerning human life and the eternal destinies." ^ The statements given above, with their superlatives, their laboured philosophy, their lyrics, hysterics, and prophecies, are singularly unconvincing. The manner in which the simple question, " How do you propose to fit actual human nature into your scheme? " is answered by the Socialists, proves that they find that question unanswerable. History teaches us that revolutions based on plunder, euphemistically called confiscation, expropria- tion, or socialisation, have indeed altered human nature, but they have altered it for the worse. All revolutions ' Kautsky, The Social BevoluUon, p. 43. ' Joynes, The Socialist Catechism, p. 14. ^ Snowden, The hidvvidiial under Socialism, p. 11. '' Ibid. p. 18. Ward, Religion and Labour, pp. 7, 8. GG 450 BEITISH SOCIALISM have hitherto caused a fearful depravation of manners and led to the most hideous crimes — and will a Socialistic revolution prove an exception ? Why should it be an exception? Are its teachings such as make it seem likely that a Socialistic revolution will prove an exception ? An attempt to establish the Socialist Commonwealth would undoubtedly lead, not to a revolu- tion, but to a series of revolutions, to Anarchism and to civil war. The tragedy of the great French Eevolution might be acted over again. Now let us look into some practical questions which the Socialist State of the future will have to settle. Let us, for instance, inquire : How WILL Labour be Ebmunbeated? Many Socialists think that different workers should get different wages : " The citizens shall be consciously public functionaries, and their labours shall be rewarded according to results." ^ " Socialism does not propose that everyone shall have an equal share of the product of collective labour." ^ How, then, is the amount of the unequal wages to be calculated? Some Socialists, following Marx, propose to determine wages by means of labour-time. "Ascertain the time taken to produce two commodities and we know their relative exchange value. And this quality tallies with market valuations. So far as creating value is concerned, then, one man creates as much value as another, and on the basis of equal labour-time equal value, Socialists rest their argument of social equality." ' " The working time which the making of an article requires is the only scale by which its social value can be measured. Ten minutes ' Gronlund, Co-operative Commonwealth, p. 77. ' Kautsky, The Social Republic, p. 32. ' Hazell, Summary Ma/rx^s Capital, p. 6. IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE? 451 of social work in one branch are exchangeable for ten minutes of social work in another. It will be easy to calculate how much social working time each single product requires." ^ A hunter hunts all day and shoots a deer. A fisher fishes all day and catches a sprat. Will the hunter exchange his deer for the sprat, on the principle of equal labour-time? Will highly skilled workers be satisfied to receive the same wages as the most unskilled labourers? Will equal labour-time pay for all not lead to universal dawdling, shrinkage in production, and consequent starvation ? Would workers not strive to get the maximum pay for the minimum work ? To prevent dawdling, could it be ascertained how long it should take to repair a machine, paint a picture, amputate a leg, plough an acre ? It is manifestly impossible to pay men of varying capacity and productive power equal labour-time wages. Therefore many Socialists, especially the Fabians, main- tain : " The principle of inequality of payment must be recognised. It is a necessary consequence of inequality of ability." ^ " Every man should receive from the Commonwealth a fair equivalent in payments or services for the payments or services which the Commonwealth receives from him. It is not possible to say exactly how much each citizen has contributed to the wealth of the State, and absolute economic justice is therefore impossible." ' The question now arises how is the " fair equivalent for services rendered" to be determined? Many Socialists teach the doctrine that " the labourer is entitled to the entire product of his labour." '' Should the labourer be given an equivalent to the product of his labour minus various necessary expenditures ? Could the value of the labour of an individual be calculated at all ' Bebel, Woman m the Past, Present, and the Future, p. 193. ' Sir Oliver Lodge, Public Service versus Private Expenditure, p. 10. ' New Age, November 21, 1907. ■* See ante, p. 61 ff. Q Q 2 452 BEITISH SOCIALISM in the complicated processes of modern industry ? What is the value produced by a day's labour of a ploughman, a railway porter, a postman, a book-keeper, a policeman, a machine-minder? Mr. Bax very sensibly argues: " What does each man produce of himself as an individual? Show me how much cotton any given factory operative has produced in the course of a year? I don't mean the amount of wages the capitalist has given him for the exploitation of his labour power during that period — but the actual product of his labour in the manufactured article. You could not do so, because his labour, like all modern labour, is associated; and the work of the individual producer is completely and indissolubly merged in that of the group (factory, mill) to which he belongs, which is again inseparable from that of the machinery employed in the process and from that of other groups." ^ It is impossible to calculate the exact value of service to the community by work in a factory or a field as soon as the wages system based on demand and supply has ceased to exist. Besides, differential pay will be impos- sible, because none will be satisfied with the pay received, except those who receive the highest pay. Therefore the same Fabian Society which in other writings, such as those quoted in the foregoing, advocates unequal pay- ment, concludes : " Inequality of pay would be odious ; the impossibility of estimating the separate value of each man's labour with any really valid result, the friction which would arise, the jealousies which would be pro- voked, the inevitable discontent, favouritism, and jobbery that would prevail : all these things will drive the Com- munal Council into the right path — equal remuneration of all workers." ^ The Fabians, like so many other Socialists, cannot apparently quite make up their mind ' Bax, Outlooks from the New Standpoint, p. 81. '' Fabian Essays in Socialism, pp. 163, 164. IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE? 453 whether to plunge into the Scylla of equal pay or into the Charybdis of unequal pay. Therefore they plunge alternately into the one or the other. Many Socialists are in favour of equal pay: "The credits granted to the citizens will be equal in all cases, without reference to skill, intelligence, or the nature of the service performed." ^ " The labours of the bus driver or the mangier will be appraised just as highly as those of the Prime Minister, with this difference perchance, that if it can be clearly shown by statistics that buscraft uses up the life energy of a man more rapidly than statecraft, four hours of busmanship shall count, say, as five of statesmanship." ^ Equal wages should logically be followed by equal treatment for all. "An anti-Socialist will say, ' How will you sail a ship in a Socialist condition ? ' How ? "Why, with a captain and mates and sailing-master and engineer (if it be a steamer) and A.B.s and stokers, and so on, and so on. Only there will be no first and second and third class among the passengers, the sailors and stokers will be as well fed and lodged as the captain or passengers, and the captain and the stoker will have the same pay." ' So confused are the minds even of the leading Socialists with regard to the important question of the remuneration of labour that Mr. William Morris, one of the founders of British Socialism, in a poem first recommends indivi- dualistic Socialism and pay according to results : For that which the worker winneth shall then be his indeed, Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed no seed. Two lines later in the same poem he recommends Com- munism and equal pay for all, regardless of the work done : 1 Leatham, Socialism and Cha/racter, p. 91. ' Davidson, The Old Order and the New, p. 170. ^ Morris, Communism, pp. 14, 15. 454 BEITISH SOCIALISM Then all Mine and Thine shall be Ours, and no more shall any man crave For riches that serve for nothing but to fetter a friend for a slave.^ The above extracts shovs^ that confusion reigns in the Socialist camp regarding the settlement of the Wage Question. Wage-earners are not philanthropists. Highly skilled men will not be content with wages equal to those of unskilled labour, not even in the name of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. In the absence of a free demand and supply, which automatically graduates wages in accordance with the social value of the work done, its attractiveness or unattractiveness, &c., it cannot scien- tifically, though it can perhaps autocratically, be deter- mined how wages should be graduated. When it comes to the fixing of differential wages in the Socialist State of the future, quarrels will immediately arise, which will lead to strife and rebellion, for all workers will use arguments such as the following ones recently put forward by Mr. Smillie, President of the Lanarkshire Miners' County Union. In reply to the reproach that miners, by unduly high wages, increased the cost of coal to the poor, Mr. Smillie answered : " Miners are being blamed in some quarters for the high price of coal. Their wages at present range from 6s. 6d. to 8s. per day, or from 30s. to 21. 5s. per week when broken time is taken into con- sideration. Will anyone grudge an income of this kind to a worker whose labour is of a most uncomfortable and exhausting nature, and who takes his life in his hand from the moment he steps into the cage until he reaches the surface again? The miner recognises that high- priced coal means pinching and suffering in the homes of the poor, and he has real sympathy for this class, but he argues that the true value of coal must include a reasonable sustenance for those who risk their lives in ' Indepeiident Labour Party Song Book, p. 40. IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE? 455 its production." ' If miners claim higher wages than other workers because their work is uncomfortable and dangerous, railway workers, sailors, and many others will raise the same claims ; fishers and butchers will claim higher wages because their work is disgusting ; factory workers because their work is sedentary and monotonous ; waiters because it is menial ; postmen because they have to walk ; drivers because they have to sit still ; washer- women because they have to stand ; farm labourers because they have to work in the cold ; bakers because they have to work in the heat, &c. All workers would of course demand the maximum pay, and who could adjudicate on all the rival claims ? The Wages Question seems likely to prove insoluble. How WILL Labour be Oeganisbd and Dieectbd? We are told : " Labour will be organised on principles of perfect freedom. Everyone decides for himself in which branch he desires to be employed. If a superfluity of workmen occur in one branch and a deficiency in another, it will be the duty of the executive to arrange matters and readjust the inequality." ^ In accordance with the variations in demand and supply and the rise and decay of industries, the introduction of labour- saving machinery, &c., labour requires continual redistri- bution. That redistribution is at present automatically effected largely through the rise and fall of wages. A rise in the wages of industries which require more labour, and a decline in the wages of industries which require less labour, cause labour to turn from shrinking to growing industries. When wages are no longer fixed with reference to commercial demand and supply, how will the periodical and necessary redistribution of labour ■ Forward, October 12, 1907. 2 Bebel, Woma/n in the Past, Present, and Future, pp. 183, 184. 45 6 BEITISH SOCIALISM be effected? Some Socialist leaders think: "As the workers, of course, will not be drafted into the different branches of production under military compulsion, irre- spective of their wishes, it may well turn out that some will have a superfluity of labour, while others will suffer from scarcity. The necessary equilibrium could then be restored by reducing the wages in those in- dustries where the applicants are too many and by raising them in those where the applicants are too few, till each branch has just the number of workers which it requires. It could be restored also by other means ; for instance, by the shortening of the hours of labour in those industries that are short of workers. With all that, however, the general rate of wages throughout the working class will be influenced no longer by supply and demand, but by the quantity of available products. A general fall of wages in consequence of over-production will be impossible." ^ In other words, the beautiful schemes of remuneration independent of the laws of supply and demand discussed in the foregoing would immediately break down. In order to redistribute labour, workers would either have to be compelled by direct force to work in those trades which required additional labour, or their wages or hours of work would arbitrarily be altered in order to effect the necessary changes by economic pressure — that is, by reducing their food. In other words, commercial demand and supply would break down the Utopian regulations of the Socialist Common- wealth as soon as they had been framed. While some Socialists wish to distribute and re- distribute labour by arbitrarily changing wages and hours of labour, some of the more logical and scientific Socialist leaders are frankly in favour of compulsory labour : " We already see official salaries regulated, not according to the state of the labour market, but by ' Kautsky, The Social Revolution, pp. 16, 17. IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE? 457 consideration of the cost of living. This principle we seek to extend to the whole industrial world. Instead of converting every man into an independent producer, working when he likes and as he likes, we aim at enrolling every able-bodied person directly in the service of the community for such duties and under such kind of organisation, local or national, as may be suitable to his capacity and social function. If a man wants freedom to work or not to work, just as he likes, he had better emigrate to Eobinson Crusoe's island or else become a millionaire. To suppose that the industrial affairs of a complicated industrial State can be run without strict subordination and discipline, without obedience to orders, and without definite allowances for maintenance, is to dream, not of Socialism but of Anarchism."^ " Everyone should have a legal right to an oppor- tunity of earning his living in the society in which he has been born ; but no one should or could have the right to ask that he shall be employed at the particular job which suits his peculiar taste and temperament. Each of us must be prepared to do the work which society wants doing, or take the consequences of refusal." ^ And what consequences would refusal to do the allotted work at the allotted pay entail ? Either dismissal, which would mean starvation — for the State, as the sole employer, would control all employment and all the food — or bodily chastisement, or imprisonment. There could be no strike on the part of dissatisfied workers, for the State — that is, the officials — holding all the wealth, would be able to starve them out in a week. Socialists admit : " Mankind is as lazy as it dares to be."^ "In the average man there is a strong tendency to mere idleness and aimlessness which, but for the ' Sidney Webb, Socialism True mid False, pp. 17, 18. ^ Socialism aiid Labour Policy, p. 7. " The Economics of Direct Employment, p. 6. 458 BEITISH SOCIALISM compulsions and temptations of existing circumstances, might run to great lengths. The trouble is that, while the average man is willing to work occasionally where his choice is free, he considers his lot a hard one if necessity compels him to continue regularly at a given task. He is willing to work at almost anything save that at which he is asked to work. It is a common thing to hear even good workmen profess a dislike to their trade." ^ How will shirking and idling be prevented in the Socialist Commonwealth when men are no longer com- pelled by economic necessity and free competition to do their best ? The leading American exponent of Socialism prophesies that workers will work no longer in order to live in comfort, but that they will henceforth see in work a semi-religious duty, which they perform owing to their strong sense of beneficence : " In the New Common- wealth the butcher will be conscious and satisfied that ' the essential thing is not that he shall have a living, but that meat shall be supplied.' The work of the citizen will be the willing performance of social office. He will be a worker whose best efforts, best ardour, and highest aims will be drawn out by his sense of the beneficence of his work, even though it be such a coarse routine of manual labour as machinery should soon remove altogether from human hands. He will be habituated to regard his wages, not as a quid pro quo, but as the provision made by society to enable him to carry out his labour." ^ "Will the " sense of beneficence " induce men who are not satisfied with the condition and remuneration of labour to transport milk and other provisions during the night so that the townspeople may have them early in the morning ? Will men be induced by their sense of duty to clean the sewers ? To ' Leatham, Socialism and Character, pp. 102, 103. ■^ Gronlund, Co-operative Commonwealth, p. 169. IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE? 459 ask these questions is to answer them. Bebel puts the question, "What becomes of the difference between the industrious and the idle, the intelligent and the stupid? " and answers, " There will be no such difference, because that which we associate with these conceptions will have ceased to exist." ^ "If there is one vice more certain than another to be unpopular in a Socialist community, it is laziness. The man who shirked would find his mates making his position intolerable even before he suffered the doom of expulsion."^ Arguments such as the above should really not be placed before grown-up people. They are only fit for the nursery. The tendency towards lazing and idling, the desire to make money without exertion, is strongly developed in Great Britain. " The essence of gambling is the craving to obtain something from others without giving an equiva- lent." ^ Perhaps in no country is betting and gambling in every form so much in evidence as it is in Great Britain. Betting on the turf, missing-word competitions, limerick competitions, &c., draw every year many millions of pounds from the pockets of millions of British workers. How then can the natural tendency of men to loaf and idle and to live rather by their wits than by their work, which is strong in all men, be overcome in the Socialist State of the future ? The fundamental book of the Fabian Society, the most scientific Socialist body in Great Britain, tells us : "A very small share of the profits arising from associated labour acts as a tremendous stimulus to each individual producer," * and it suggests, as do many Socialist writers, that the workers will do their best because they know that the more they produce the greater will be their individual share in the general production. Great Britain has 12,000,000 workers. Therefore a worker will make as his own share an extra sovereign if ' Bebel, Woman, p. 194. " Fabian Essays in Socialism, p. 167. ^ Ward, The Ideal City, p. 7. ' Fabian Essays in Socialism, p. 167. 460 BEITISH SOCIALISM by extra exertion he succeeds in producing an extra 12,000,000^. worth of goods, a feat the accomplishment of which will require several thousand years. That is a " tremendous stimulus " to the individual producer ! Can any argument be more foolish than the foregoing one ? An influential Socialist writer tells us : " The credits granted to the citizens will be equal in all cases, without reference to skill, intelligence, or the nature of the service performed ; but no credits will be given to the able-bodied shirkers, who will thus be starved into doing their share of the world's work without other compulsion." ^ Other Socialist writers have put forth similar views. This is a cheerful outlook for the free citizens of the free Socialist Commonwealth. The workers will become " wage-slaves " in the fullest sense of the term. They will have to sub- mit to forced labour, arbitrary wages, and arbitrary hours of labour, and those who do not produce as much as the official overseers require — and they may have a private grudge against some unfortunate worker who does his best — will be starved until they work harder. The lot of savages ruled by the knout, the kourbash, and the sjambok will be preferable to the lot of men ruled by starvation in the free Socialist Commonwealth of the future. The former have at least some liberty, while the latter will be kept by officials, who will distribute food and force them to work by rewards of food alternated by starvation, like performing dogs and apes. To carry on the business of the country the Socialist Government would have to drop the principle of perfect freedom and to rely on coercion, and it would be justified in doing so. If, as Mr. Blatchford has repeatedly told us, " man has no right to himself because he did not make himself," if man belongs not to himself and his family, but to "society," it logically follows that society may compel him to work, apportioning to him his task and ' Leatham, Socialism and Character, p. 91. IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE? 461 his pay, without reference to his wishes. Society being represented by its officials, elected or appointed, these officials would absolutely dispose of the people. Great Britain would be ruled like a gigantic convict prison. The spirit in which even moderate Socialists already contemplate the freedom of the individual may be seen from an address on Sweated Labour which Mr. Eamsay Macdonald, M.P., delivered in Glasgow in autumn 1907. He said : " There was no use tinkering with the problem. Personally, he was not in favour of home work at all. To eliminate it might seem a cold-blooded way of dealing with sweating, but it was the only way that would give definite and final results. He would, however, proceed carefully and scientifically. Home work had got extremes, but one section was much riper for treatment than the other, and he would begin with the worst. The first difficulty was to find out the sweated workers. It was certain that a great percentage escaped detection by sanitary inspectors. Now his proposal was that, instead of the sanitary inspectors hunting for the home worker, the home worker should hunt for the inspector ; and this he sought to accomplish under the Bill introduced last session, by making it necessary for the home worker to take out a licence and by making it obligatory on the employer to keep an absolutely complete list of his workers. The factory inspector must have right of access, and a certificate must be obtained from him for a separate licence. The casual home-worker would be dis- couraged." In other words, factory inspectors should apparently be authorised to break without a search warrant into private houses. They should certainly be empowered to prosecute a working man if he defended the privacy of his house by refusing the inspector admit- tance. That measure would abolish the sanctity of the home. The " Eight to Work," which the Socialists so loudly champion, would be taken from the home-worker, 4n^, BEITISH SOCIALISM and one cannot help asking : Is that high-handed measure devised for the benefit of the sweated or for that of the highly paid workers, represented by Mr. Macdonald, who wish to abolish the competition of underpaid home- workers ? Sweated labour can be abolished and must be abolished, and it can be abolished, as I may show in an- other book, without destroying the home. If Mr. Mac- donald should have his way, the Socialist principle, "Property is robbery," will have to be supplemented with the principle " Liberty is tyranny." The unchecked absolutism of a Socialist State will hardly be palatable to Socialist workers who have been told that Socialism means freedom, and these see the only solution in the establishment of Anarchism : " The damnable idea of being marshalled and drilled or numbered and docketed like any other merchandise in a state of glorified capitalism is not the Socialist's ideal, but its antithesis, no matter what the capitalists and their protagonists, the pseudo- Socialists, choose to name it. We don't want to be driven to the gate of the municipal or other factory to hustle and elbow our fellows out of the way so that we may catch the official's eye in the mad and sordid scramble for mere belly food, for a mere animal subsistence. With the advent of Socialism, the whole of the capitalist State and its superstructure will collapse, with its cant of living wages, its Brotherhoods of Man, and the rest of its nauseous humbug." ^ " If the worker continues to be paid in wages, he necessarily will remain the slave or the subordinate of the one to whom he is forced to sell his labour force ; be the buyer a private individual or the State — it would still be an odious tyranny."^ "Socialism will entail compulsory service on all able-bodied members of the community, or rather the State. For that is what we shall have ; the ' Socialist, December 1907. ^ Kropotkin, Anarchism, its Philosophy and Ideal, p. 15. IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE? 463 State with its hosts of functionaries, its big pots and its little pots, and its never-ending officialism and petty tyrannies. Organisation must either be compulsory or free. If compulsory, you have the military spirit with all its attendant evils ; if free, you have the Anarchist spirit with all the advantages that arise when the fetters that hinder individual initiative and development are removed." ^ The foregoing should suffice to show that the Socialist State could organise work only by relying on forced labour and by creating the most unbearable despotism which the world has seen, or by "organising " the chaos of Anarchism, and it is difficult to say which of the two would be the more hideous solution. How WILL THE Socialist State be Govbenbd? Socialists tell us rather vaguely : " Socialism means the elevation of the struggle for existence from the material to the intellectual plane. Socialism will raise the struggle for existence into a sphere where competition shall be emulation, where the treasures are boundless and eternal, and where the abundant wealth of one does not cause the poverty of another." ^ " State employment, when the State itself is only an organised democracy and class distinctions cease, means not slavery, but freedom." ' " Freedom and equality will then be no longer empty and cheap phrases, but will have a meaning; when all men are really free and equal, they will honour and advance one another." * " In Socialistic administrations there are no employers, no superiors, no oppression ; all are equals and enjoy equal rights." * " Under Socialism ' Freedom, October 1907. ^ Snowden, The Individual under Socialism, p. I. ^ Hyndman, Socialism and Slavery, p. 10. * Sorge, Socialism and the Worker, p. 14. " Bebel, Woman, p. 199 464 BEITISH SOCIALISM all the work of the nation would be managed by the nation." ^ " Under Socialism the State, as we have known the State in the past, will have disappeared ; for under Socialism there will be no classes, but all the people will form one class, and the Government and organisation will be democratic, each individual having an equal voice in directing the affairs of the common life."^ "The State will no longer be the bureaucratic State of to-day, but a democratic State assisted directly by the whole people." ^ " All adult members of the commune, without distinction of sex, take part in the necessary elections, and determine to what persons the conduct of affairs shall be entrusted. There is no such thing as a hierarchical system."^ "Appointments will be made from below. In the Post Of&ce Department, for example, the letter carriers will elect their immediate superiors ; these, we will say, the post-masters ; and these, in their turn, the Post-Master General." " In other and plainer words, the Socialist State would, according to the authorities quoted, be ruled by the same system by which it is ruled at present, although elections might be more numerous, and although the suffrage might be given a wider basis. Now if the system of govern- ment remains the same as it is at present, is there any reason for anticipating better results than those obtained at present? Will the elected administrators no longer place personal and party interests above national ones ? And will not the infinitely greater range of administrative functions make it more difficult to exercise control and to allocate responsibilities, and thus make irresponsibility, favouritism, dishonesty, and the evasion of punishment more easy and more frequent ? Is a larger number of ' Blatchford, Real Socialism, p. 14. '' Snowden, The Individual under Socialism, p. 12. ' Jaur6s, PraoUcal Socialism, p. 6. ■■ Bebel, Woman, p. 181. ' Gronlund, Co-operative Commonwealth, p. 126. IS sociALisM Possible? 465 voters likely to pick out abler administrators than a small one? Does not the elective system, according to the Socialists themselves, cause the scum to rise to the top, and result in the election of plausible windbags ? ^ Are the people's votes never won by any other means than the testimony of results? Will there no longer be the fascination of eloquence, the attraction of boundless promises, the glamour of prejudice, the tie of party, the pressure put by an Association upon its members ? If amateurs show now little ability in administering a few comparatively simple things, is it likely that results will be better when they have to administer everything ? Will not amateur government prove an absolute failure ? Most thinking Socialists clearly foresee that the Socialist State of the future could not possibly be administered by amateurs ; that it would have to be administered by experts, by permanent officials ; that Socialism would mean the death-knell of elected governors, and therefore of democracy, as may be seen in Chapter XV. of this book. The philosopher of British Socialism tells us : " Socialism aims at the supersession of democracy, as of every other form of government. The will of the majority of an ideal democracy, a social democracy, must, as regards its special expressions, be subordinate to the general moral canon of a Socialist Commonwealth. That in affairs of management, of tactics, of administration, or in decisions requiring special knowledge, authority, in its nature dictatorial, is necessary, all must admit. There must be a controlling, an authoritative voice in direction ; so much must be clear, one would think, to all practical or reasonable persons when once stated. The real point to determine is the nature and limits of that amount of dictatorial power which, we must admit, is essential in any organised community of which we can at present conceive. Social Democracy, while it means all for the ' Thompaon, Hail Refereiidum, pp. 3, 4. H H 466 BEITISH SOCIALISM people, does not mean the impossible absurdity that everything should be directly regulated hy the people, i.e. by a direct popular vote." ' These views seem irrefutable, and it follows that not only for economic reasons, but for political reasons as well, the establishment of the Social- ist State will lead to the establishment of a " dictatorial authority." If Socialism be introduced, the fall of democracy and the establishment of absolutism cannot possibly be avoided. Democratic States are ruled by public opinion. The voice of an individual does not carry very far. Therefore public opinion can be formed only by means of an independent Press. An independent Press is the strongest, one might almost say the only, guarantee of national liberty. As long as there are numerous in- dependent papers owned by private people, papers which represent all shades of opinion, everyone who has some- thing to say can always freely express his opinion in one set of papers or the other. A striking speech is read the next day by the whole nation ; a striking injustice to a single individual, or a Government blunder, may be taken up by the whole nation. The disappearance of private property will necessarily mean the disappearance of the free Press, and therefore of public opinion. All newspapers would be owned, edited, and printed by the Government, and is any Government likely to assist a hostile opposition by printing its views, and to assist in bringing about a revolution, probably accompanied by bloodshed and its own destruction? Such a thing has never been. Such a thing will never be. People might be dissatisfied and be ill-treated by the Socialist Govern- ment ; they might be starved to death or shot by the thousand ; there might be risings and rebellions and civil war in some parts of the country; the fleet might be ' Bax, Essays in Socialism, pp. 75, 76. IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE? 467 defeated and the colonies lost — yet not a word need appear in the Socialist Government Press. Some Socialists are childish enough to argue : " Though the printing press will be a collective institution, it will be available to all. Anyone, whatever unpopular opinions he may entertain, however hostile to the administrators he may be, will be entitled to have anything decent printed, provided he is ready to pay for the work done, or to guarantee, or induce his friends to guarantee, that the cost will be defrayed." ^ " It would always be open to individuals or to groups of individuals to publish anything they pleased on covering the cost of publication. With the comparative affluence which would be enjoyed by each member of the community, anyone who really cared to reach the public ear would be able to do so by diminishing his expenditure in other directions." ^ The Government would certainly neither print, nor circulate through its post-office and newsagents, matter which it would consider to be dangerous to its existence or seditious. The assertion that a private individual in the Socialist Commonwealth might at his own expense circulate his views throughout the country — there would be no more millionaires but only wage-earners — is like asserting that a bricklayer might with his savings pay off the British National Debt. Lacking an independent public opinion, elections could be managed by the officials through the official Press in their own interest ; elections would become a sham, and would no doubt soon fall into disuse. The official class would become a caste of hereditary rulers governing millions of serfs. The foregoing makes it clear that in political as in economic matters the Socialist State must fall a prey to the most complete absolutism which the world has ' Gronlund, Co-operative Gommomoealth, p. 135. ^ Pabian Essays in Socialism, p. 159. B u 2 468 BEITISH SOCIALISM known, an absolutism which probably, through a series of revolutions and civil wars, would at last end in anarchy. At present a dissatisfied worker can change his employer, he can get justice in the Law Courts, and in extreme cases he can put his grievances before the nation. In the Socialist State there would be only one authority — the all-controlling and all-powerful State, or rather an all-controlling and all-powerful bureaucracy. The nation would be composed of two classes : permanent officials possessing absolute power, and ordinary citizens possessing neither power nor right ; overseers and workers ; slave-drivers and slaves ; and the only way of escaping the tyranny of the State — for absolute and un- checked power has always led, and will always lead, to tyranny^ — would be by committing suicide. As in Rome under the rule of Nero and Caligula, suicide would be the only way to liberty. A leading Socialist wrote with unconscious humour : " The Utopist needs no knowledge of facts. Indeed such a knowledge is a hindrance. For him the laws of social evolution do not exist. He is a law unto himself ; and his men are not the wayward, spasmodic, irregular organisms of daily life, but automata obeying the strings he pulls. In a word, he creates, he does not construct. He makes alike his materials and the laws within which they work, adapting them all to an ideal end. In describ- ing a new Jerusalem the only limits to its perfection are the limits of the writer's imagination . . . Humanity will rise to heights undreamed of now ; and the most exquisite Utopias, as sung by the poet and idealist, shall to our children seem but dim and broken lights compared with their perfect day. All that we need are Courage, Prudence, and Faith. Faith above all." ^ Every reader of this book will no doubt heartily agree with the latter ' Fabian Essays in Socialism, pp. 149, 169. IS SOCIALISM POSSIBLE? 469 remark. Socialists are wise to appeal rather to blind faith than to plain common-sense. The philosopher of British Socialism tells us : " Socialism is the great modern protest against Mwreality, against the delusive shams which now masquerade as verities." ^ Another Socialist leader asserts : " Socialism is a scientific scheme of national government entirely wise, just, and practical." ^ A third leader affirms : " Socialism is neither more nor less than the science of Sociology."* The " Socialist Catechism" asks: "How may Socialists reply to the taunt that their scheme is impracticable? By quoting the opinion of John Stuart Mill that the difficulties of Socialism are greatly over- rated ; and they should declare that, so far from being an impracticable Utopian scheme, it is the necessary and inevitable result of the historical evolution of society."* Socialism stands condemned, not so much by the criticism of its opponents as by the doctrines and proposals of its leaders, and these are the men who aspire to rule the universe and who claim : " We mean the establishment of a political power in place of the present class- State, which shall have for its conscious and definite aim the common ownership and control of the whole of the world's industry, exchange, &c."* I think the readers of the foregoing pages will be inclined to believe that Socialism is methodised insanity. ' Bax, Beligion of Socialism, p. ix. 2 Blatehford, Merrie England, p. 100. ' Hyndman, Socialism and Slavery, Preface. * Joynes, The Socialist Catechism. ^ Bax and Quelch, A New Catechism, p. 9, 470 BEITISH SOCIALISM CHAPTEE XXXVII CONCLUSION The leading Socialists claim that Socialism is at the same time a scientific doctrine and a practical policy. A perusal of this book should suffice to prove that it is neither the one nor the other. On its scientific side it consists of twenty catch-phrases which are very effective for propaganda purposes, but which are contrary to general experience and to common-sense. On its practical side it consists of a number of fantastic proposals which are likewise contrary to general experience and to common-sense. Socialism has two faces. The one which is turned towards the cultured and towards the non- Socialists of the middle class constantly asserts that Socialism is a scientific and perfect system of well-ordered government and co-operation, which will evolve order and harmony out of the chaos of individualism and of competition, and which will raise men to the highest level of perfection. The other, which is turned towards the masses, and which is by far the more important, is purely predatory in character. It appeals to all the passions of the multitude. It denounces law, religion, charity, thrift, temperance, and all existing institutions. It preaches envy, hatred, greed, selfishness, violence, civil war, and general plunder. It sets class against class, and creates among its supporters a frame of mind which makes not for harmony, order, and co-operation, but for disorder, revolution, and anarchy. CONCLUSION 471 The followers of Socialism do not see in it a science. " With the speculatiYe side of Socialism the average man has but a small concern ; it is its common-sense which appeals to him. By inherited instinct we are all com- munists at heart." ^ The attraction of Socialism to the masses lies in its promise of the spoliation of the rich and of the general division of. their wealth. It is true that Socialists habitually and very emphatically protest that Socialism is not a system of robbery and of general division. It is true that Socialists merely propose that all private property should be transferred to the State by expropriation— which is a euphemism for confiscation — and that the State should manage it for the general good of the masses. However, that is a distinction without a difference. Property is valuable because of the income which it yields. Therefore it comes for all practicable purposes to the same, whether the Socialist leaders propose dividing all the private property or all the income derived from that property. A prominent Socialist writer has asked : "Is not honesty— the sense of right of possession in the fruits of our labour — the very basis of Socialism? " ^ Eegretfully one must answer that question with a very emphatic " No." Socialism is not a system of organisation and of national co-operation, but merely a plan of spoliation and of general division. That may clearly be seen from the fact that the Socialist leaders have not the slightest desire to create a Socialistic model commonwealth, and thus demonstrate the practical value of their highly speculative doctrines, in a new country where Socialism could be introduced peacefully, easily, and without a revolution, where co-operation and exchange would be comparatively simple because wants are simple, the com- modities produced are few, and the opposition of vested ' Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, pp. 33, 34. ^ Lefttham, Socialism and Character, p. 96. 472 BEITISH SOCIALISM interests would be nil. In spite of all these great advantages, the Socialist leaders prefer introducing Socialism into old countries where the confiscation of the existing property seems a shorter way to wealth than work, and where confiscation will have the most satis- factory results to the despoilers. We have seen that the various Socialistic organisations agree on hardly one point in their constructive policy. However, they absolutely agree in their main purpose — spoliation. On that point there is absolute unanimity among all the British Socialists, and they condemn State Sociahsm (see Chapter XXXII.) because State Socialism would not mean confiscation and general division. Besides, it would not enable the Socialist leaders to overturn the State and to seize the reins of Government. British Socialism is purely destructive in character, and if Socialism should ever be established in Great Britain it would lead not to national co-operation, but to civil war among the various Socialistic sections for the spoils, and to a series of sanguinary coups d'Stat similar to those which arose out of the great French Eevolution. The " scientific " proposal of transferring all private property to the State, and of using that property for the common good, merely circumscribes the word and act of confiscation and of general division. Therefore we may say that Socialism has no scientific basis, unless we choose to call science a collection of fallacies expressed in involved terms so as to deceive the simple. Karl Marx was not a scientist but a professional demagogue and revolutionist, and his merit from the Socialists' point of view consists only in this, that he elaborated a formula of roundabout spoliation and general division, which he took from his Anarchist predecessors, and gave it a much needed, though rather transparent, cloak of scientific respectability. Socialism is, in the first place, a business proposition. CONCLUSION 473 Therefore, if it were practical, it should appeal particularly to business men. However, it is noteworthy that the loudest champions of British Socialism are not business men, of whom but few are to he found in the Socialist ranks, but pushing writers in search of self-advertise- ment, whose special domain is the highly spiced and the sensational, writers who, knowing that many people mistake eccentricity for genius and paradoxical absurdity for brilliancy, have discarded common-sense, let their imaginations run riot, and outbid one another for notoriety. The complaints of the Socialists about the unequal distribution of wealth are as old as is humanity itself. Since the earliest times demagogues have endeavoured to obtain a following by working upon the misery, envy, short-sightedness, and passions of the poor, by promising them equality and boundless wealth to be obtained by the simple process of seizing and dividing up the property of the well-to-do. The identical arguments and proposals which are now put forward in the name of Marx, and of modem " scientific " Socialism, as something new and original may be found throughout literature since the very davsm of history.^ However, history teaches us that, although countless Socialistic experiments have been made, all attempts at enriching the poor by spoliation and at creating an artificial equality among men have proved a failure. They have invariably ended in national ruin, and have left the masses poorer and more miserable than ever. The reason of this universal failure is obvious. Man cannot reconstruct Nature. He may violate, but cannot alter, the laws of Nature. Inequality rules throughout Nature, and it seems as little possible to ' See Menoius' Worka in Legge's Chinese Classics; Euripides, The SuppUants; Aristotle, PoUUcs, vii. 5; Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae and Plutm ; Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus, 9 ; Livius, ii. 32 ; Sallust, Catilkie's Conspiracy, 20, 23, 37-39 ; Virgil, Oeorgics, i. 125 ; Tibullus, i. 3, 35 PropertiuB, ii. 13, iii. S, 11 ; Seneca, Epistles., 90, &c 474 BEITISH SOCIALISM equalise the fortunes, as it is to equalise the bodily and mental powers, of men. We all are the slaves of Nature. The inequality of natural gifts and the division of labour are the principal causes of the division of men into classes and of the unequal distribution of wealth. Nature is only governed by obeying her. We can certainly diminish poverty, but we cannot, for any length of time, maintain an artificial equality among naturally unequal men. The first duty of the State, as of the individual, is self-preservation. British Socialism, being by those teachings which it addresses to its supporters a revo- lutionary doctrine in the worst sense of the term, and therefore a purely destructive factor, must unconditionally be resisted and combated. However, at the same time all that can be done must be done to alleviate the distress of the British masses, which is undoubtedly very great, and which makes them exceedingly receptive to the revolutionary doctrines of Socialism. As it would require too much space to deal with the social problem in Great Britain in its entirety, only a few of the most important points can be touched upon. The greatest scourge of the British worker is no doubt irregular and ill-paid employment. The first step to improve his position is therefore to improve employ- ment. Hence the most urgent reform is the revision of Great Britain's economic policy. Great Britain's present economic policy, Free Trade, was based upon the suppo- sition that Great Britam, as Cobden prophesied, was, and always would remain, the workshop of the world ; that other countries were compelled to buy British manu- factures because British manufactures were as necessary to them as foreign foodstuffs are now to Great Britain. In 1846, when Free Trade was introduced, there was some reason for that supposition. Before the advent of electricity manufacturing was based exclusively upon coal. CONCLUSION 475 Great Britain's absolute predominance in manufacturing for the markets of the whole world immediately before the introduction of Free Trade may therefore best be seen from the following table : Pboduction of Coal in 1845 ^ Great Britain . Belgium . United States . France Prussian States Austrian States Quantity produced. Percentage of Tons world's production 31,600,000 64-2 4,960,077 10-1 4,400,000 8-9 4,141,617 8-4 3,500,000 7-0 659,340 1-4 49,161,034 100 The above table shows that Great Britain produced two-thirds of the world's coal, and the coal of most other countries was supposed to be unsuitable for manufacturing purposes. However, Great Britain pro- duced not only two-thirds of the world's coal, but she produced likewise two-thirds of the world's iron, she consumed two-thirds of the world's cotton, and she possessed two-thirds of the world's shipping. Her railway mileage was greater than that of the whole Continent of Europe.^ Times have changed. Great Britain is no longer the workshop of the world. British manufactures are no longer indispensable to foreign countries. In the present age of steel, the production of steel is the best index of a nation's manufacturing eminence, and how greatly con- ' Taylor, Statistics of Coal, p. xxi. ^ See Encyclopedia Britannica, 8th edition, 1853-1860, articles : Cotton, Iron, Eailways ; Meyer, Kowversaiions Lexihon, 1839-1855, article : Gross- britannien ; Porter, Progress of the Nation, 1847 ; MacCuUoch, British Empire, 1846 ; MaoCullooh, Dictionary of Cominerce, 1847 ; Maegregor, Commercial Statistics, 1844-1850, &c. 476 BEITISH SOCIALISM ditions have changed, and are still changing, to England's disadvantage may be seen from the following figures : Output of Steel United States. Germany. Great Britain. Tons Tons Tons 1890 . . 4,277,000 2,127,000 3,679,000 1906 . . 23,246,000 11,135,000 6,462,000 Great Britain, which formerly produced nine- tenths of the world's steel, produces now little more than one-tenth of the world's steel. As Great Britain has to buy vast quantities of food and raw material from foreign countries, she must sell to foreign countries vast quantities of manufactured goods. However, market after market is being closed to her industries by ever-rising tariff walls, and the profits from her exports have been greatly diminished through foreign competition. Her home market has been reduced through the decay of her agriculture and the shrinkage of her agricultural population, and it is systemati- cally spoiled by combinations of foreign manufacturers. Foreign syndicates determine not only the price of British wheat and meat, but of British iron and other manufactures too, and they endeavour to ruin the British industries completely. Great Britain, far from being the world's manufacturer, has become the world's dumping ground. From the richest country in the world she is rapidly becoming one of the poorer countries of the world. Her industries are suffering, and the result is bad times, low wages, irregular employment, unemployment, poverty, and distress. It is noteworthy that, on an average, un- employment among the skilled workers in free-trade Great Britain is always five times greater than it is in pro- tectionist Germany ; ^ that British emigration per million is eleven times larger than German emigration ; that ' See Board of Trade Labour Oazette and Beichs Arbeitsbloitt. CONCLUSION 477 German savings-banks deposits are four times larger than British savings-banks deposits, and that the former in- crease ten times faster than the latter.^ What can be done to improve the position of the British workers? Emigration on the largest scale has proved a palliative, but no remedy. During the last tvpenty years almost five million people have Ifeft Great Britain. Yet the labour market is as over-stocked, and unemploy- ment and poverty are as great, as ever. Besides, the United States and the British colonies may not always be able to absorb the vast and ever-growing numbers of British unemployed workers. Employment and wages depend upon the prosperity of industries, and the pro- sperity of industries depends on a sufficiency of markets. The British industries have not a sufficiency of markets. Therefore the British population suffers from irregular employment, unemployment, and consequent want and misery ; and want and misery among the British masses are likely to continue increasing and ever increasing until Great Britain adapts her economic policy to the altered circumstances of the time, protects the industries by which her workers live, and secures a sufficient outlet for their productions by preferential arrangements with the self-governing Dominions. Under the shelter of Pro- tection at home and with the aid of preferential arrange- ments throughout the empire, Great Britain will be able vastly to extend her manufacturing industries. Great Britain has unrivalled facilities for manufacturing. "Whilst the manufacturing centres of the United States, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Eussia, Italy, and other countries lie far inland near their coalfields. Great Britain has the unique advantage of being able to manu- facture on the seashore, where coal, iron, great manu- facturing towns, and excellent harbours lie in close proximity. The potentialities of the British industries ' Ellis Barker, Modern Oermany, 546 ff. 478 BEITISH SOCIALISM under fair conditions and under the wise care of a fostering Government are boundless. Under the shelter of Protection the rural industries of Great Britain may be revived, especially if the British peasantry be re-created. A hundred years ago the great agricultxiral authority, Arthur Young, wrote : " The magic of property turns sand into gold. Give a man a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden. Give him a nine years' lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert." Since the time when these words were written most European countries have created a freehold peasantry by buying out the landed proprietors and settling the rural labourers on the land, and Great Britain will be wise in following their example. The tripartite question of Fiscal Protection for the home market, of an Imperial Customs Union, and of Imperial Federation is not a party question. It is a question of life or death for Great Britain. It may soon become a question of prosperity or starvation for the masses. Great Britain stands at the parting of the ways. She must either protect and re-create her indus- tries, federate with her colonies, and make the British Empire a reality, or sink into insignificance, and history knows no instance of a great nation becoming a small one without the most intense suffering to the masses of the people. Great Britain must either adopt that constructive and protective national policy which the greatest statesmen and Empire builders of modern times — Eichelieu, Cromwell, Colbert, Lord Chatham, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Stein, and Bismarck — have pursued, or she will share the fate of the great commercial world empires of the past, from Phoenicia to the Netherlands. She must either follow the policy of Mr. Chamberlain, build up the Empire and make it strong and prosperous, or that of revolutionary demagogues, who will wreck the Empire CONCLUSION 479 and drag Great Britain through plunder and ruin to destruction and anarchy. The experience of other industrial nations allows us to conclude that a wisely framed protective tariff will save the British industries and improve employment and wages. But better wages alone will not improve the position of the workers. A large part of the British working class must alter their personal habits, and especially their drinking habits. At present every rise in wages leads immediately to a great increase in the Drink Bill, and therefore benefits rather the brewer than the worker. " The strongest answer to the theory that poverty causes drink is the statistical fact that as wages rise general drunkenness follows, insanity increases, and criminal dis- orders due to drink keep pace with all three. Wherever one seeks for information dispassionately, one sees that drink does cause poverty to a greater extent, overwhelm- ingly so, than that poverty causes drink. Poverty is due to intemperance in varying degrees from twenty-five to fifty-one per cent, of cases and areas investigated." ^ " The Committee on Physical Deterioration in 1904 declared that if the drink question were removed three- fourths of the difficulty with regard to poverty and deterioration would disappear with it." ^ The drinking section of the working class spends 181. 15s. Ad. per family on drink,^ a sum much larger than that spent on rent. " There are two great causes of physical deteriora- tion — these are dirt and drink. The former is responsible for nearly every form of disease. The latter is the direct cause of the vast number of defects." '' " The most urgently needed public health reform of the present day ' Burns, Labour and Drink, pp, 15, 18. '' Newman, The Health of the State, p. 189. ' Whittaker, Drink Problem, p. 10. * McMillan, The Child and the State, p. 4. 480 BElTISS SOCIALISM is not so mucli one of environment as one of personal life." 1 Many British workmen are incredibly wasteful. When one visits public-houses and working-men's clubs, when one goes to racecourses, football or other matches, and music-halls, the British workers seem to be the richest in the world. When one looks at their homes, their clothes, and especially their savings, they seem to be the poorest in the world. British working men drink, waste, and gamble to a much greater extent than foreign working men. Therefore not only the higher paid American workers, but also the lower paid French, German, and Swiss workers, are better housed, better clothed, and better fed — and are therefore better off and healthier — than British workers.^ Besides, as their savings are much larger they are better able to stand a short spell of ill-luck or of bad times. Whether a working man is prosperous or poor, happy or unhappy, depends — under fair conditions of employment, which Protection should create — perhaps more on his personal habits and on those of his wife than on the actual amount he receives in wages. Social reform, to be effective, must be assisted in the home. The worker must aid the social reformer. Outside assistance alone will little benefit wasteful and improvident men who refuse to help themselves. ' Newman, Health of the State, p. 194. ^ See Reports of the Mosely Industrial Commission to the United States ; The Brassworkers of Berlin and of Birmingham ; The Gains- borough Commission, Life and Labour in Germany; Horsfall, The Im- provement of the Dwellings — The Example of Germany ; Marr, Sousing Conditions in Manchester ; City of Birmingham, Report of the Housing Committee ; Steele, The Working Classes in France ; Eowntree and Sherwell, The Temperance Problem ; Eowntree, Poverty ; the publication of Charles Booth, &o. APPENDIX OFFICIAL PEOGEAMMBS OF THE SOCIALISTIC OEGANISATIONS SOCIAL DEMOCEATIC FEDEEATION Programme and Bules as revised previous to the Annual Conference held at the Labour Institute, Bradford, Easter 1906 Object. — The Social-Democratic Federation is a part of the International Social-Democracy. It believes : — 1. That the emancipation of the working class can only be achieved through the socialisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and their subsequent control by the organised community in the interests of the whole people. 2. That, as the proletariat is the last class to achieve free- dom, its emancipation will mean the emancipation of the whole of mankind, without distinction of race, nationality, creed, or sex. 3. That this emancipation can only be the work of the working class itself,' organised nationally and internationally into a distinct political party, consciously striving after the realisation of its ideals : and, finally, 4. That, in order to ensure greater material and moral faciUties for the working class to organise itself and to carry on the class war, the following reforms must immediately be carried through : — ' This paragraph is not to be understood as debarring Individual members of the possessing classes from participating in the worlc of the movement. I I 482 BKITISH SOCIALISM Immediate Eefoems Political. — Abolition of the Monarchy. Democratisation of the Governmental machinery, viz. Abolition of the House of Lords, Payment of Members of Legislative and Administrative bodies, Payment of Of&cial Expenses of Elections out of the Public Funds, Adult Suffrage, Proportional Eepresentation, Triennial Parliaments, Second Ballot, Initiative, and Eeferendum. Foreigners to be granted rights of citizenship after two years' residence in the country, without any fees. Canvassing to be made illegal. All elections to take place on one day, such day to be made a legal holiday and all premises licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquors to be closed. Legislation by the people in such wise that no legislative proposal shall become law until ratified by the majority of the people. Legislative and Administrative independence for all parts of the Empire. Finaiioial and Fiscal. — Eepudiation of the National Debt. Abolition of all indirect taxation and the institution of a cumulative tax on all incomes and inheritances exceeding 300Z. Administrative. — Extension of the principle of Local Self- Govern ment. Systematisation and co-ordination of the local administrative bodies. Election of all administrators and administrative bodies by Equal Direct Adult Suffrage. EdViCational. — Elementary education to be free, secular, industrial, and compulsory for all classes. The age of obligatory school attendance to be raised to 16. Unification and systematisation of intermediate and higher education, both general and technical, and all such education to be free. State Maintenance for all attending State schools. Abolition of school rates ; the cost of education in all State schools to be borne by the National Exchequer. Public Monopolies and Services. — Nationalisation of the land and the organisation of labour in agriculture and SOCIALIST PAETY PEOGEAMMES 483 industry under public ownership and control on co-operative principles. Nationalisation of the Trusts. Nationalisation of Eailways, Docks, and Canals, and all great means of transit. Public ownership and control of Gas, Electric Light, and Water supplies, as well as of Tramway, Omnibus, and other locomotive services. Public ownership and control of the food and coal supply. The establishment of State and municipal banks and pawnshops and public restaurants. Public ownership and control of the lifeboat service. Public ownership and control of hospitals, dispensaries, cemeteries, and crematoria. Public ovmership and control of the drink traffic. Labour. — A legislative eight-hour working day, or 48 hours per week, to be the maximum for all trades and industries. Imprisonment to be inflicted on employers for any infringement of the law. Absolute freedom of combination for all workers, with legal guarantee against any action, private or public, which tends to curtail or infringe it. No child to be employed in any trade or occupation until 16 years of age, and imprisonment to be inflicted on employers, parents, and guardians who infringe this law. Public provision of useful work at not less than trade union rates of wages for the unemployed. Free State Insurance against sickness and accident, and free and adequate State pensions or provision for aged and disabled workers. Public assistance not to entail any forfeiture of political rights. The legislative enactment of a minimum wage of 30s. for all workers. Equal pay for both sexes for the performance of equal work. 5ocmZ.— Abolition of the present workhouse system, and reformed administration of the Poor Law on a basis of national co-operation. Compulsory construction by public bodies of healthy dwellings for the people ; such dwellings to be let at rents to I I 2 484 BEITISH SOCIALISM cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone, and not to cover the cost of the land. The administration of justice and legal advice to be free to all ; justice to be administered by judges chosen by the people ; appeal in criminal cases ; compensation for those innocently accused, condemned, and imprisoned; abolition of imprison- ment for contempt of court in relation to non-payment of debt in the case of workers earning less than 21. per vyeek ; abolition of capital punishment. Miscellaneous. — The disestablishment and disendowment of all State Churches. The abolition of standing armies, and the establishment of national citizen forces. The people to decide on peace and war. The establishment of international courts of arbitration. The abolition of courts-martial ; all offences against discipline to be transferred to the jurisdiction of civil courts. INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY Constitution and Rules. 1907-8 Object. — An Industrial Commonwealth founded upon the Socialisation of Land and Capital. Methods. — The education of the community in the principles of Socialism. The Industrial and Political Organisation of the Workers. The Independent Eepresentation of Socialist Principles on all elective bodies. Programme. — The true object of industry being the production of the requirements of life, the responsibility should rest with the community collectively, therefore : The land, being the storehouse of all the necessaries of life, should be declared and treated as public property. The capital necessary for industrial operations should be owned and used collectively. Work, and wealth resulting therefrom, should be equitably distributed over the population. SOCIALIST PAETY PEOGEAMMES 485 As a means to this end, we demand the enactment of the following measures : 1. A maximum of 48 hours working week, with the reten- tion of all existing holidays, and Labour Day, May 1, secured by law. 2. The provision of work to all capable adult applicants at recognised trade union rates, with a statutory minimum of sixpence per hour. In order to remuneratively employ the applicants. Parish, District, Borough, and County Councils to be invested with powers to : (a) Organise and undertake such industries as they may consider desirable. {b) Compulsorily acquire land ; purchase, erect, or manu- facture buildings, stock, or other articles for carrying on such industries, (c) Levy rates on the rental values of the district, and borrow money on the security of such rates for any of the above purposes. 3. State pensions for every person over 50 years of age, and adequate provision for all widows, orphans, sick, and disabled workers. 4. Free secular, moral, primary, secondary, and university education, with free maintenance while at school or university. 5. The raising of the age of child labour, with a view to its ultimate extinction. 6. Municipalisation and public control of the drink traffic. 7. Municipalisation and public control of all Hospitals and Infirmaries. 8. Abolition of indirect taxation and the gradual trans- ference of all public burdens on to unearned incomes with a view to their ultimate extinction. The Independent Labour Party is in favour of adult suffrage, with full political rights and privileges for women, and the immediate extension of the franchise to women on the same terms as granted to men ; also triennial Parliaments and second ballot. 486 BEITISH SOCIALISM THE LABOUE PAETY has no ofScial programme. A semi-official programme, con- tained in a statement of its Secretary, Mr. Eamsay Macdonald, M.P., will be found on page 425 of this book. THE FABIAN SOCIETY Basis. — The Fabian Society consists of Socialists. It therefore aims at the reorganisation of Society by the emancipation of Land and Industrial Capital from individual and class ownership, and the vesting of them in the community for the general benefit. In this way only can the natural and acquired advantages of the country be equitably shared by the whole people. The Society accordingly works for the extinction of private property in Land and of the consequent individual appropria- tion, in the form of Eent, of the price paid for permission to use the earth, as well as for the advantages of superior soils and sites. The Society, further, works for the transfer to the community of the administration of such industrial Capital as can con- veniently be managed socially. For, owing to the monopoly of the means of production in the past, industrial inventions and the transformation of surplus income into Capital have mainly enriched the proprietary class, the worker being now dependent on that class for leave to earn a living. If these measures be carried out, without compensation (though not vnthout such relief to expropriated individuals as may seem fit to the community), Eent and Interest will be added to the reward of labour, the idle class now living on the labour of others will necessarily disappear, and practical equality of opportunity wiU be maintained by the spontaneous action of economic forces with much less interference with personal liberty than the present system entails. For the attainment of these ends the Fabian Society looks to the spread of Socialist opinions, and the social and political SOCIALIST PAETY PKOGEAMMES 487 changes consequent inereon, including the establishment of equal citizenship for men and women. It seeks to achieve these ends by the general dissemination of knowledge as to the relation between the individual and Society in its economic, ethical, and political aspects. THE SOCIALIST PABTY OF GEEAT BRITAIN Object. — The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community. Declaeation of Pkinciples The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds that society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living [i.e. land, factories, railways, &c.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess but do not produce, and those who produce but do not possess. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipa- tion of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their demo- cratic control by the whole people. That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, vnthout distinction of race or sex. That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself. That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by 488 BEITISH SOCIALISM the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation, and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic. That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working-class emancipation must be hostile to every other party. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be vreought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom. PLATFORM OP THE SOCIALIST LABOUB PARTY The Socialist Labour Party is a political organisation seeking to establish political and social freedom for all, and seeing in the conquest by the Socialist Working Class of all the govern- mental and administrative powers of the nation the means to the attainment of that end. It affirms its belief that political and social freedom are not two separate and unrelated ideas, but are two sides of the one great principle, each being incomplete without the other. The course of society politically has been from warring but democratic tribes within each nation to a united govern- ment under an absolutely undemocratic monarchy. Within this monarchy again developed revolts against its power, revolts at first seeking to limit its prerogatives only, then demanding the inclusion of certain classes in the governing SOCIALIST PAETY PEOGKAMMES 489 power, then demanding the right of the subject to criticise and control the power of the monarch, and finally, in the most advanced countries this movement culminated in the total abolition of the monarchical institution, and the transforma- tion of the subject into the citizen. In industry a corresponding development has taken place. The independent producer, owning his own tools and knowing no master, has given way before the more effective productive powers of huge capital, concentrated in the hands of the great capitalist. The latter, recognising no rights in his workers, ruled as an absolute monarch in his factory. But within the realm of capital developed a revolt against the power of the capitalist. This revolt, taking the form of trade unionism, has pursued in the industrial field the same line of develop- ment as the movement for political freedom has pursued in the sphere of national government. It first contented itself vnth protests against excessive exactions, against all undue stretchings of the power of the capitalist; then its efforts broadened out to demands for restrictions upon the absolute character of such power, i.e., by claiming for trade unions the right to make rules for the workers in the workshop ; then it sought to still further curb the capitalist's power by shortening the working day, and so limiting the period during which the toiler may be exploited. Finally, it seeks by Boards of Arbitra- tion to estabhsh an equivalent in the industrial world for that compromise in the political world by which, in constitutional countries, the monarch retains his position by granting a parliament to divide with him the duties of governing, and so hides while securing his power. And as in the political history of the race the logical development of progress was found in the abolition of the institution of monarchy, and not in its mere restriction, so in industrial history the culminating point to which all efforts must at last converge lies in the abolition of the capitalist class, and not in the mere restriction of its powers. The Socialist Labour Party, recognising these two phases of human development, unites them in its programme, and seeks to give them a concrete embodiment by its demand for a Socialist Bepublic. 490 BEITISH SOCIALISM It recognises in all past history a preparation for this achievement, and in the industrial tendencies of to-day it hails the workings out of those laws of human progress which bring that object within our reach. The concentration of capital in the form of trusts at the same time as it simplifies the task we propose that society shall undertake, viz. the dispossession of the capitalist class, and the administration of all land and instruments of industry as social property, of which all shall be co-heirs and owners. As to-day the organised power of the State theoretically guarantees to every individual his political rights, so in the Socialist Eepublic the power and productive forces of organised society will stand between every individual and want, guaranteeing that right to life without which all other rights are but mockery. Short of the complete dispossession of the capitalist class which this implies there is no hope for the workers. SPEED THE DAY. THE CHEISTIAN SOCIAIi UNION The Union consists of members of the Church of England who have the following objects at heart :— 1. To claim for the Christian law the ultimate authority to rule social practice. 2. To study in common how to apply the moral truths and principles of Christianity to the social and economic difficulties of the present time. 3. To present Christ in practical life as the living Master and King, the enemy of wrong and selfishness, the power of righteousness and love. THE CHUECH SOCIALIST LEAGUE Principles. — The Church has a mission to the whole of human life. Social and Individual, Material and Spiritual. SOCIALIST PAETY PEOGEAMMES 491 2. The Church can best fulfil its social mission by acting together in its corporate capacity. 3. To this end the members of the League accept the principles of Socialism. Object. — To secure the corporate action of the Church on these principles. Method. — 1. To cultivate by the regular use of prayer and sacraments the life of brotherhood. 2. Members undertake to help each other in fulfilling the object of the League by speaking and lecturing and in other ways. 3. Members shaU co-operate as far as possible to secure the consideration of social questions at their various Euridecanal and Diocesan Conferences and the election of Socialists on these and other representative bodies. 4. Members shall work for the disestablishment of the patron and the substitution of the Church in each parish in conjunction with the Church in the diocese in the patron's place. 5. To secure the representation of the wage-earning classes upon all the representative bodies of the Church. GUILD OF ST. MATTHEW Objects. — 1. To get rid, by every possible means, of the existing prejudices, especially on the part of " Secularists," against the Church, her sacraments and her doctrines : and to endeavour to " justify God to the people." 2. To promote frequent and reverent worship in the Holy Communion, and a better observance of the teaching of the Church of England as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer. 3. To promote the study of social and political questions in the light of the Incarnation. BIBLIOOEAPHY OP BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, PEEIODICALS, EEPOETS, AND PAPBES QUOTED IN THIS VOLUME Abolition of Poor Law Gua/rcHcms. Fabian Society. London. 1906. Adams, Francis : " The Mass of Christ." Labour Press Society. Manchester. The Advance of Socialism. (Leaflet.) Independent Labour Party. London. 1907. After Bread — Education. Fabian Society. London. 1905. Allotments, and How to Get Them. Fabian Society. London. 1894. An Appeal to Soldiers. (Leaflet.) Social Democratic Federation. London. Are You a Socialist ? (Leaflet.) Independent Labour Party. London. 1907. AvELiNG, E. M.: The Worlcing -class MovementinEnglamd. Twentieth Century Press. London. 1896. Bakotinine : Dieu et VEtat. Paris. 1895. Ball, John, Priest and Prophet of the Peasa/nts' Bevolt. Twentieth Century Press. London. Ball, Sydney : The Moral Aspects of Socialism. Fabian Society. London. 1896. Barker, J. Ellis : Modern Oermany. Smith, Elder & Co. London. 1907. Battersea Vamguard. (Monthly Newspaper.) Battersea Socialist Council. Battersea. London. Bax, E. Belfoet : Essays in Socialism. Grant Richards. London. 1907. 'BAX,'Ei.BEh¥ORT: Ethics of Socialism. Swan Sonnensohein. London. 1902. Bax, B. Belfoet : Outloohs from the New Standpoint. Swan Sonnensohein. London. 1903. 494 BEITISH SOCIALISM Bax, E. Bblfort : The Beligion of Socialism. Swan Sonnenschein. London. 1902. Bax, E. Belfoet : A Short History of the Paris Oormnune. Twentieth Century Press. London. 1907. Bax, E. Bblfort, and H. Queloh : New Catechism of Socialism,. Twentieth Century Press. 1907. Bbbbl, August : Wom,an in the Past, Present, amd Future. William Beeves. London. Benson, T. D. : Socialism. Independent Labour Party. London. Benson, T. D. : Socialism and Service. Independent Labour Party. London. Benson, T. D. : Woman, the Communist. Independent Labour Party. London. A Bill to Provide Work through Public Authorities for Unemployed Persons. Independent Labour Party. London. 1907. Birmingham Housing Committee, Report. Jones Ltd. Birmingham. 1906. Blatchfobd, R. : Britain for the British. Clarion Press. London. 1902. Blatchfobd, E. : Clarion Ballads. Clarion Newspaper Co. London. 1896. Blatchfobd, E. : " Competition " : a Plain Lesson for the Worhers. Clarion Press. London. 1906. Blatchfobd, E. : God and My Neighbour. Clarion Press. London. 1907. Blatchfobd, E. : Land Nationalisation. Clarion Press. London. 1906. Blatchfobd, E. : Merrie England. Clarion Ofi&ce. London. 1894. Blatchfobd, E. : Not Ouilty : a Defence of the Bottom Dog. Clarion Press. London. 1906. Blatchfobd, E. : The Pope's Socialism. Clarion Office. London. Blatchfobd, E. : Beal Socialism : What it Is, and what it is Not. Clarion Press. London. 1907. Blatchfobd, E. : Socialism : a Reply to the Encyclical of the Pope. Clarion Office. London. Blatchfobd, E. : Some Tory Socialisms. Clarion Newspaper. London. 1895. Blatchfobd, E. : What is this Socialism London Clarion Scouts. London. 1907. Bliss: Encyclopedia of Social Reform. Funk & Wagnalls Company. New York. 1897. Block : Dictionmwire OinAral de la Politique. O. Lorenz. Paris. 1863. BIBLIOGEAPHY 495 Brockhaus : Konversations-LexiJcon. Brockhaus. Berlin. 1901- 1903. BrassworTcers, The, of Berlin and of Birm/ingham. King & Son. London. 1905. Burns, John : Labour a/nd Dri/iik. Lees and Baper Memorial Trustees. London. Bv/rns, John, and the Unemployed. Twentieth Century Press. London. Burns, John : The Man with the Bed Flag. Twentieth Century Press. London. Capital and Land. Fabian Society. London. 1904. The Case for an Eight Hours Bill. Fabian Society. London. 1891. The Case for a Legal Minimum, Wage. Fabian Society. London. 1906. " Casey " : Who are the Bloodsuchera ? Independent Labour Party. London. Christliche ArbeiterpfUchten. BuchhandlungVorwarts. Berlin. 1905. The Church and Socialism,. The Church Family Newspaper. London. 1907. Clarion. (Weekly Paper.) Clarion Newspaper Co. London. Clarion Song Booh. Clarion Press. London. 1907. The Class War. (Leaflet.) Social-Democratic Federation. London. The Clerk. (Monthly Paper.) Speaight & Sons. London. Oliftoed, Eev. John : Socialism and the Teaching of Christ. Fabian Society. London. 1897 and 1906. CormnerciaUsm and Child Labour : an Indictment and Some Bemed/ies. Independent Labour Party. London. 1900. CoNNELL, John : Socialism amd the Survival of the Fittest. Twentieth Century Press. London. Cottage Plans and Common Sense. Fabian Society. London. 1902. Cox, Harold : Socialism in the House of Commons. Longmans, Green & Co. London. 1907. Daily Mail Year Book. Associated Newspapers, Ltd. London. 1908. Davidson, J. Morrison : Book of Lords. Henderson's. London. 1907. Davidson, J. Morrison : Christ, State, and Commune. C. W. Daniel. London. 1906. Davidson, J. M. : TJie Democrat's Address. William Beeves. London. 1892. Davidson, J. M. : Free Bails and Trams. William Beeves. London. Davidson, J. M. : Free Trade versus Fettered Transport. Francis BiddeU Henderson, London. 1904. 496 BEITISH SOCIALISM Davidson, J. M. : Gospel of the Poor. 4tli edit. Francis Biddell Henderson. London. Davidson, J. M. : New Book of Kings. Francis Riddell Henderson. London. 1902. 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ANALYTICAL INDEX Note. — The abbreviation "/." following a page number signifies "and following page " ; "ff." " and following pages." Absolutism, Socialism makes for, 460 ff. Abstinence, Co-operation, and Thrift denounced by Socialists, 131 ft., 311 ff. Administeation, Imperial, Socialist views regarding, 179 f. National, Socialist views regarding, 213 f. Adult suffrage demanded, 213 Adulteration, cause of, 84 f. Agitatobs, Socialistic, appeal to passions, 10, 446, 470 Socialist wish to govern themselves, 411 Ageioultuke, Socialist views on, 261 ff., 288 ff. Aims and policy of Socialists, 92 ff. Alcoholio dkink, expenditure of British workers on, 166, 319, 479 Allotments, 262 ff. Ananias, the story of, 385 Anabchism and Socialism, similarity of views and aims of, and connection between them, 81, 90, 118, 328, 381 f., 394 ff. Anabchists, Chicago, and Socialists, 401 f. Anglo-F BENCH agreements, views of Socialists on, 188 Antwebp Dock strike, 295 Appbopeiation without adequate compensation is theft, 102 Aebitbation, international. Socialists on, 188, 190 f. Abmed nation, why many Socialists are in favour of, 193 ff. Aemies, standing, are to be dissolved, 194 ff. Aemt reform of Mr. Haldane, condemned by Socialists, 197 ff. Socialist propaganda to undermine discipline and cause revolt in, 200 ff. Socialist proposals regarding the, 192 ff. AssiGNATS, history of the, 283 f. Atheism, Socialism and, 354 ff. Banks and banking, Socialist views on, 258 f., 278 ff. Babbicades, Socialist views on, 258 f., 278 ff. Baetee, international, proposed by Socialists, 279 Beneficence, sense of, relied on by Socialists as principal motive in men, 458 f. Betting, expenditure of working men on, 166 Blacklegs, British, in Antwerp and Hamburg, 295 f. Bbemen, Socialism in, 440 Beitish Empiee — see Empire, British 510 BEITISH SOCIALISM Bbothebhood of man promised and proclaimed by Socialists, 25 f., 185 ff., 370, 382, 444 Budget, national, Socialist proposals regarding, 160 ff. Cade, Jack, 326 f. Capital is theft, 81 f., 102, 370 national growth of, owing to savings of capitalists, 64 f. private, cannot leave the country, 153 f. is immoral, 80 fi. is not to be tolerated, 152 ff. why its constant increase is necessary, 45 Capitaiists and landowners are thieves, 38, 102, 370 f. and workers, division of national income between, 40 ff., 75 ff. relations between, 30 ff., 75 ff. are the managers and trustees of the national wealth, 35 employ labour only at a profit, 33 exploit the poor, 31, 75 ff. greatest, were originally working men, 60 live in idleness, 30, 75 ff. maintain the workers, not the workers the capitalists, 168 private, are responsible for commercial crises, 67 ff. unemployment, 65 ff., 125 f. useless and unnecessary, 155, 168 benefit from unemployment, 69 f. have no rights and no claims to consideration, 154 their disappearance would be a blessing, 155, 168 usefulness of, 64 f., 168, 315 Cakneoie, Andeew, on drink, 321 f. Catechism for the mob, 367 the Bed, 372 «. Cheapness, Socialist views on, 290 ff. Chicago Anarchists and Socialists, 401 f. Chileken, free maintenance of, demanded, 138 meals for — see Free Maintenance production of, to be regulated by the State, 347 f. will belong not to parents but to society, 345 f. to parents, 348 Christ, name of, used for electioneering purposes, 363 Cheistian Socialism, 375 fi. programmes of, 490 f. Cheistianitt and religion. Socialist attitude towards, 354 fi. CrviLisATioN, Socialist views on, 11 ff. " Claeion," circulation of, 437 Class war doctrine, the, 72 ff. disproved, 79 Classes of society, are there only two ? 72 ff. Cleegt, Socialist views on the, 13 Coal, production of, in 1845, 475 CoBDEN, Socialists on, 287 Code Napoleon, 329, 344 Coin — see Money Commandments, the capitalists' ten, 368 the Socialist ten, 371 t. Commons, House of, Socialist views on the, 209 ft. ANALYTICAL INDEX 611 CoMMBNE of Paris, Socialists and the insurrection of the, 407 ff. Communism and Socialism, 381 ff. early Christian, 386 in Sparta, 389 of Fourier, 392 f. Socialist recommendations of, 21, 381 ff. why it is impossible, 393 Communist manifesto quoted, 77 f., 92, 103, 107, 112, 183 f., 332 f., 405 Community of women, 831 ff. Compensation has no place in SociaUst ethics, 100 f. or no compensation in expropriating private property ? 95 ff., 149 f. Competition and co-operation, 82 ff., 312 ff., 444 ff., 470 Complaints, the, of Socialists, 30 ff. CoMPULSOKT labour, necessity of, in Socialist commonwealth, 455 ff. Confiscation, plans of, 95 ff. probable result of, 168 f., 251 f., 254 Contbact, freedom of, useless to workers, 33 Co-OPEBATION and competition, 82 ff., 312 ff., 444 ff., 470 cannot benefit British worker, 31 greatly benefits British worker, 315 ff. is opposed by Socialists, 84, 131 ff., 311 ff. thrift and abstinence denounced by Socialists, 131 ff., 311 ff. Co-OPEKATIVE societies, record and statistics of the British, 315 ff. Coubts-maetial, Socialist agitation against, 201 f. Cbime — see Justice, Theft Ceimes, sexual. Socialist views on, 340 ff. Ceibes caused by private capitalists, 67 ff. could they be prevented by Socialists ? 70 f ., 124 f . Ceown, the — see also Monarchy is unfit to administer the Empire, 179 CuEEENOY — see Money Debt, Local, huge increase and danger of, 246 ff. will it be repudiated ? 248 National, repudiation of, 110, 156 ff. Demonetisation of gold and silver — see Money Deseetion of family, frequency of, 307 Disaemament, Socialists and, 189 ff. DiSTBiBUTiON, alteration of, wiU abolish misery, 65 ff. is more important than production, 65 ff. disproved, 70 f. Division, general, of existing property disclaimed, 93 is the principal aim of Socialists, 471 f. Docteines, fundamental, of Socialism, 50 ff. Downino Steeet, SociaUst views regarding government from, 179 f. Deink, expenditure of workers on, 166, 319, 479 Deunkenness, condemned and combated by foreign Socialists, 322 ff. excused and encouraged by British Socialists, 319 ff. Duties — see Budget Economic policy of Great Britain, 474 ff. Education, Socialist views and proposals on, 302 ff. 512 BEITISH SOCIALISM Emiqbation, 476 1 Empire, British, federation of, opposed by Socialists, 173 f. is necessary, 478 German Socialists' views on the, 181 f. has been a failure, 179 Socialists and the, 170 fi. Bmploieks and capitalists benefit from unemployment, 69 f. and ■workers' interests are opposed, 77 identical, 79 are useless, 168 England — see Great Britain Enterpbise, Governmental and municipal, inefficiency and wastefulness of, 85 fi., 251 ff. municipal, 240 fi. is undertaken regardless of cost and profit, 252 fi. Equality of all races proclaimed by Socialists, 185 ff. Esperanto, why studied by Socialists, 188 Estate Duty— see Budget Expenditure, local, 246 Expropriation of private property without compensation, 95 ff., 149 f. Fabian Society, details regarding, 94, 418 ff. programme of, 486 f. Family, desertion of, very frequent, 307 Earl Marx on, 832 Socialism and the, 380 ff. Fatalism of Socialists, 327 f., 360 f. Federation, Imperial, opposed by Socialists, 173 f. why necessary, 478 Feeding of school-children — see Free Maintenance Fiscal policy. Socialist views on, 285 ff. reform, why it is necessary, 474 ff. Food — see Agriculture and Protection Forced labour, necessity of, in Socialist Commonwealth, 455 ff. Foreign policy. Socialist views on, 188 ff. Fourier, Communism of, 392 f. France, aspect of, before the Eevolution, 433 Franchise and suffrage in Great Britain and other countries, 213 Freedom of contract useless to workers, 33 Free love, 330 ff. maintenance for children, 138, 303 ff. trade and protection, Karl Marx on, 300 Socialist views on, 285 ff. why it must be abandoned, 474 ff. Frontiers are to be abolished, 184 ff. Gambling spirit in Englishmen, 459 German and British Socialism compared, 88, 236, 432 f. Socialists' patriotic and imperial attitude, 181 f., 190 f., 205, 433 views on colonial policy, 181 f., 190 f. Great Britain, 181 f., 190 f. Germany, composition of electorate in, 440 Glasgow, vast Socialist plans regarding, 252 ANALYTICAL INDEX 513 God — see Eeligion Gold and silver money are to be abolished, 21, 258 £., 278 S. GovEBNMENT — See also Administration complaints about, 11 f., 394 £E., 411 ff. of Socialist State, 463 ff. Geeat Britain, aspect of, resembles pre-Eevolntion France, 433 changed economic position of, 475 ff. dangerous position of, 434 f. German Socialists' views on, 181 f., 190 f. GiiiEVANOES of Socialists, 30 ff. Gromland advises Socialists to appeal to the passions, 10 Haldanb, Mr., and Woolwich Arsenal dismissals, 296 Hambubo Dock strike, 295 History, all, is untrue, 91 Home — see FamOy Home Eule, Socialists and, 180 House of Commons, Socialist views on the, 209 ft. Lords, Socialist views on the, 211 to be abolished, 109, 110, 216 f. Human nature and Socialism, 444 ff. HuNGEY children — see Free Maintenance Idlino, how it is to be prevented, 457 ff. Immorality, sexual. Socialist views regarding, 336 ff. Imperial federation opposed by Socialists, 173 f. Income, national, how divided between capitalists and workers, 40 ff., 75 S. of workers and capitalists compared, 40 ff , 75 ff. Income-tax — see Budget Increasing misery, law of, 56 ff. disproved, 57 f. Indebtednbs, local, 246 ff. Independent Labour Party, details regarding, 417 {., 485 t. programme of, 485 f . India, Socialist views and aims regarding, 174 ff. Inheeitance, right of, 103 ff., 108 Intemperance — see Drink, Drunkenness, Temperance Interest, profit and rent are theft, 38, 80 ff., 102, 371, 374 Socialist objections to, 38, 80, 258 f., 280 f. International Arbitration, Socialists on, 188, 190 f. relations. Socialist views on, 183 ff., 469 Intoxioatinq drink — see Drink, Drunkenness, Temperance Iron law of wages, 53 ff., 245, 312 f., 319 f. disproved, 54 ff., 313 f., 320 JuDOEB, English, Socialists on, 325 f. Justice and Law, Socialist views regarding, 100 f., 114, 325 ff., 396 f. Keib Habdie resembles John the Baptist, 28 L L 514 BEITISH SOCIALISM Laboub Church, the, and its teaching, 369 fewer hours of, promised by Sociahsts, 117 f. forced, would be necessary in Socialist commonwealth, 455 ff. is the only source of wealth, 50 ff. disproved, 52 organisation of, in Socialist commonwealth, 455 ff. Party, details regarding, 424 ff. informal programme of, 425 f. representation committee, details regarding, 424 remuneration of, in Socialist commonwealth, 450 ff. sweated, proposals regarding, 461 -time theory, 450 f . Laboueek is entitled to entire product of labour, 38, 61, 451 absurdity of demand, 62 ff., 451 ff. receives only from one-third to one-fifth of his rightful wage, 30, 43, 48 f. Laboceeks, rural, 266 f. Land — see also Agriculture and Landlords and Socialists, 145 ff. belongs to aU, 102 f., 145 ff. individual men have no right to, 102 f., 145 ff. is to be had rent free from Socialist State, 146 is not to be had rent free from Socialist State, 146 f. is to be seized without compensation to owners, 95 ff., 149 f., 486 property in, is robbery, 88, 102, 145 ff., 370 Land settlement policy of Socialists, 262 ff. Lahd Tax — see Budget Landownees and capitalists are thieves, 38, 102 Law and Justice, Socialist views regarding, 100 f., 114, 325 fl., 396 f. iron, of wages, 53 ff., 245, 312 f., 319 f. disproved, 54 ff., 313 f., 320 of increasing misery, 56 ff. disproved, 57 f. Laziness, how it is to be prevented, 457 ff. LiEEEAL Paety, Socialist dissatisfaction with, 233 ff. views of and attitude towards the, 226 ff. LiTERATUEE, Sooialist, increase of sales of, 435 ff. LoAFEBS and tramps, ideal conditions for, to be created by Socialists, 254 Local expenditure, 245 f. Government, Socialist views and proposals regarding, 166, 240 ff. indebtedness, 246 ff. London, fantastic schemes regarding, 249 ff. LoKDS, abolition of the House of, demanded, 109, 110, 216 f. House of, views of Socialists on the, 211 Love, free, 330 ff. Maodebceg, Socialism in, 440 Maintenance, free, for children, demanded, 138, 303 ff. why demanded, 138, 308 Man, brotherhood of, promised and proclaimed by Socialists, 25 f., 185 ff., 370, 382, 444 has no right to himself, 102 is not responsible for his actions, 327 1 ANALYTICAL INDEX 515 Man, nature of, and Socialism, 444 S. Mabbiaqe — see also Family, Women is akin to prostitution, 335 f. Marx and Bngels, Communists' manifesto quoted, 77 f., 92, 103, 107 f., 112, 183 f., 332 £., 405 ■ Marx, Kabl, appreciation of, 89 on Christianity and religion, 359, 366 on Free Trade and Protection, 300 on women and the family, 332 f. political programme of, 107 f. unmerited praise of, 88 f. was not a scientist, but a demagogue and a revolutionary, 472 Meals, free, for school children — see Free Maintenance Members of Parliament, payment of, advocated, 213, 216 Middle Class, importance of strengthening the, 441 fi. Socialistic attempt to permeate the, 442 f. Middleman, promised suppression of, by Socialists is illusory, 241 f. MiLiTARy Law, Socialist agitation against, 201 f . Millionaibes are criminals, 81 Mines and minerals to be taken over without compensation, 149 MiR, the, 388 Mirabeau on paper money, 283 f. Misery, law of, increasing, 56 fi. disproved, 57 f. MoNABOHT, aboUtion of, 109, 110, 207 f. Socialism and the, 207 f. Money, abolition of gold and silver proposed, 21, 258, 278 ff. consequences of, 279 f . banks and banking. Socialist views on, 258 t, 278 fi. Morality, sexual, Socialist views regarding, 336 fi. MuNiCEPAL and national enterprise, inefficiency and wastefulness of, 85 ff., 251 fi. enterprise, 240 fi. enterprises are undertaken regardless of cost and profit, 252 ff. Socialism, 240 ff. National budget, Socialist views regarding, 160 ff. debt, repudiation of, 110, 156 ff. enterprise, inefficiency and wastefulness of, 85 ff., 251 ff. income, how divided between capitalists and workers, 40 fi., 75 ff. Nationalisation of land — see Land Nature, human, and Socialism, 444 ff. Offences, sexual. Socialist views on, 340 ff. Old-aoe pensions. Socialist plans regarding, 19, 122 f. Opinion, public, under Socialism, 466 f. , c « Organisation of work proposed by Socialists, 17, 70 f., 124 f., 455 ff. fallacies regarding, 70 f., 85 ff., 124 f., 241 f. Organisations, Socialist, and their policy, 415 ff. OvER-PRODtrcTioN, complaints as to, 66 f. are not justified, 70 f. can it be prevented by Socialists ? 70 f ., 124 f. L L 2 516 BEITISH SOCIALISM OvEB-PRODncTioN is not the cause of crises and unemployment, but ill-balanced production, 70 f. Overwork, complaints of, 16 Paper money, unlimited issues of, proposed, 258 f., 278 ff. consequences of, 279 f . Paris Commune, Socialists and the insurrection of the, 407 ff. Parliament, Socialism and, 209 ft. Socialist spirit in, 437 f. unofficial Socialists in, 438 Parliamentakt Government to be abolished, 218 fi. Parties, SociaMst attitude towards the, 225 ff. the Socialist and their policy, 415 ff. Passions, Socialists appeal to the, 10, 446, 470 Patriotism, Socialism is destructive of, 114, 186 f., 202 ff. Pauperism and distress, growth of, under Socialist regime, 242 f . Payment of Members of Parliament advocated, 213, 216 Peace conference, 189 ff. Peasant proprietors are everywhere hostile to Socialism, 263 Socialists object to, 262 ff. Peasantry, importance of re-creating the, 443 Pensions to workers, 19, 122 Policy, agricultural, of Socialists — see Agriculture and aims of Socialists, 92 ff. fiscal, of Socialists — see Free Trade and Protection foreign, of Socialists — see Foreign Policy Poplar, 243 Postage, Socialist proposals regarding, 166 f. Post Office, British, praised by Socialists, 21 condemned by Socialists, 411, 413 fallacies regarding business aptitude of, 85 ff. servants. Socialist proposals regarding, 166 f. Poverty and drink and gambling, 166, 319, 479 f. extravagant Socialist estimates of, 165, 242, 302 f. complaints about, 16, 33, 165 of the poor is caused by wealth of the rich, 30, 34 ff., 161 disproved, 35, 159 Press, the, under Socialism, 466 f . Private trader to be abolished, 242 ff. Production, ill-balanced, causes crises and unemployment, 70 f. is carried on for the profit of a class, 36 is less important than distribution, 65 ff. is more important than distribution, 71 Profit, what it is and why it is necessary, 89, 45 interest and rent are theft, 38, 80 ff., 102, 371, 374 the working at a, objected to, 33, 38 ff., 252 ff. sharing in Socialist commonwealth, 459 Programme, political, of Karl Marx, 107 f. Peoorammes of Socialism, 92, 107 ff., 481 ff. Property — see also Capital, Land, Mines instinct of, is as old as humanity, 444 " Property is theft," 81 f., 102, 370 f. Property, private, general division of, disclaimed, 93 is the real object of Socialism, 471 ff. ANALYTICAL INDEX 517 Pbopertt, private, is immoral, 80 ff. is to be acquired without oompensation, 95 ff., 149 f., 486 ought to be abolished, 82, 92 Socialist plans regarding, 95 ft., 149 f. right to, defined by Socialists, 80, 96 ff., 102, 145 Pbostitution, 339 ff. is akin to marriage, 335 f. Pbotection, why it must be adopted, 474 ff. and Free Trade, Karl Marx on, 300 Socialist views on, 285 ff. Pboudhon quoted, 81, 90 Peotidenoe — see Thrift Public opinion under Socialism, 466 f. Batlway rates, preferential to foreigners denounced, 269 ff. Bailways and shipping. Socialist views on, 269 ff nationalisation of, demanded, 271 f. seems too speculative an undertaking, 277 should be run free of charge to all, 272 ff. wastefulness and inefficiency of, 269 ff. Bates, alarming increase of, 245 f . increase of, means increase of rent, 243, 245 Bed Catechism, the, 372 ff. BEFEEENDnM demanded by Socialists, 217 ff. opposed by Socialists, 220 Bufoem, fiscal, why it is necessary, 474 ff. social, the true, 480 Beligion and Christianity, Socialist attitude towards, 354 ff. Socialism is a, 26, 364 ff. Socialist views on present, 13, 354 ff. the, of SociaUsm, 364 ff. Bent, interest and profit are theft, 38, 80 ff., 102, 871, 374 Bevolution, French, parallels furnished to Socialist proposals by the, 168 f., 283 f., 352 f., 365 f. aspect of France before the, 433 SociaHsts and, 404 ff. Bevoldtionaey aims and plans of Socialists, 77 ff., 112 ff., 183 ff., 200 ff., 894 ff., 408, 404 ff., 410, 470 ff. Bevolutions always cause depravity of morals, 450 BiCH, the, are the managers and trustees of the national wealth, 35 are thieves, 80, 102, 870 f. cause poverty of the poor, 80, 84 ff., 161 disproved, 35, 159 EiCHES of the rich are the cause of poverty, 30, 34 ff., 161 disproved, 35, 159 Bight to work, sinister aim of Socialists in proclaiming, 128 f. disregarded by Socialists, 461 Eights of individual defined, 102 EoBBEEr encouraged by Socialists, 82, 114 BoCHBAiyE PioNEEES, history of the, 815 f. Eueal labourers, 266 f. Saving— see Thrift Savings, contemplated confiscation of, 157 ff. 518 BEITISH SOCIALISM Savinos banks deposits, 46 Selfishness and Socialism, 444 ft. Sexual crimes. Socialist views on, 340 ff. ofienoes and crimes, 340 ff. Small holdings, 262 ff. SociAL-Democratic Federation, details regarding, 415 ff. programme of, 481 ff. Socialism and Anarchism, similarity of views and aims of, and oonneotion between, 81, 90, 118, 328, 381 f., 394 ff. and Christianity and religion, 354 ff. and Communism, 381 ff. and education, 302 ff. and Free Trade and Protection, 285 ff. and law and justice, 325 ff. and the monarchy, 207 f. and Parliament, 209 ff. and revolution, 395 fi., 404 ff. appeals to passions, 10, 446, 470 British and German compared, 88, 206 Christian, 375 ff. definitions of, 1 ff., 390, 469 flourishes on dissatisfaction and misery, 131 fundamental doctrines of, 50 ff. growth and danger of, 431 ff. is a religion, 2, 26 ff., 364 ff. is a science, 1, 2, 3, 87 is based, not on science, but on deception, 91 is destructive of patriotism, 114, 186 f., 202 fi. is it possible ? 444 ff. is merely a plan of spoliation and of general division, 471 f . is not a science, 87, 89 f., 470 ff. means absolutism, 460 ff. municipal, 240 ff. disregards cost and profit, 252 ff. presupposes perfect men, 444 ff. principal demand of, 92 programme of, 92 ff. progress of, how it may be checked, 440 ff. promises to alter human nature, 448 f. to abolish war, 186 f., 189 to make all races equal, 185 ff. why it is impossible, 390 f., 444 ff. Socialist and Anarchist doctrines compared, 81, 90 f. Labour Party, details regarding, 428 programme of, 488 ff. literature, increase of sales of, 435 ff. organisations, the, and their policy, 415 if. Party of Great Britain, details regarding, 428 programme of, 487 f. spirit in Parliament, 437 f . State, how will it be governed ? 463 ff. of the future, 5 f., 17 ff., 444 ff. -enterprise, will it be more ef&cient than private enterprise ? 85 ff. Sunday schools, 369 ff. ANALYTICAL INDEX 519 Socialists, aims and policy of, 92 ff. and Chicago Anarchists, 401 f . and land and landlords, 145 ff. and revolution, 395 ft., 404 ff. and rural labourers, 266 f. and terrorist outrages, 402 f . and the Empire, 170 fi. and the two Parties, 225 fE. and the working masses, 115 ff. and Trade Unionists, official connection between, 141 ff., 434 t. relations between, 181 ff., 424 ff., 434 f. are antagonistic to providence, thrift, and temperance, 312 ff. are hostile to the Empire, 170 fi. to their own country, 114, 186 f. assert that aU history is garbled, 91 assert that man has no right to himself, 102 condemn imperial administration, 179 f . national administration, 213 f., 394 ff., 411 ff. State Socialism, 411 fi. consist of two classes, revolutionaries and visionaries, 183 demand free maintenance for children, 138 Government purchase of all British railways and shipping, 271 fi. denounce co-operation, thrift, and abstinence, 181 ff. desire the destruction of the State, 381 f., 394 ff., 411 ff. different aims, proposals, and views of, 6 f . disregard right to work, 461 encourage theft, 82 excuse and encourage drunkenness, 819 ff. grievances of the, 30 fi. numbers of, in various countries, 432 on Free Trade and Protection, 285 ff. oppose co-operation, 84, 312 promise brotherhood of man, 25 f., 185 ff., 370, 382, 444 equal wages for all, 22 gratis amusements, 22 baths, 250 clothing, 21 concerts, 250 food, 21 fuel, 21 libraries, 250 lodging, 21 travel and transport on railways and tramways, 22, 250, 272 fi. on ships, 275 f. wash-houses, 250 working men's clubs, 250 to transform the world into a paradise, 19 ff. propose issuing paper money in unlimited quantities, 258 f., 278 ff. revolutionary aims and plans of, 77 ff., 112 ff., 183 ff., 200 ff., 894 ff., 408, 404 fi., 410 try to destroy discipline in the army and so cause it to revolt, 200 ff. 520 BEITISH SOCIALISM Socialists, unofficial in Parliament, 438 wish for an international language, 188 to abolish parliamentary government, 218 ff. the army, 192 B. the existing languages, 310 the monarchy, 109, 110, 207 f. to capture or abolish Parliament, 209 ff. to conquer Parliament, 238 f. to dissolve the army, 192 ff. German, on Peace Conferences, disarmament, and international arbitration, 190 f. patriotic and imperial attitude of, 181 f., 190 f., 205, 433 views of, on colonial policy, 181 f., 190 f. regarding Great Britain, 181 t, 190 f. SooEETT, Socialist views on, 10 ff. Spabta, Communism in, 389 Spencer, Herbert, 447 f. Spoliation, plans of, 95 ft., 149 f. probable result of, 168 f., 251 f., 254 Stamp duties, proposals regarding, 166 f. State enterprise usually inefficient, 85 ff., 251 ff. Socialism, Socialist attitude towards, 411 ff. Socialist, of the future, 5 f., 17 ff., 444 ff. how will it be governed ? 463 ff. Socialists are hostile to the, and desire its destruction, 381 f., 894 ft., 411ft. Stocks, Municipal, are no longer first-class investments, 258 Stuttgart, International Socialist Congress at, 90, 177 SuFFEAGE, adult, demanded, 213 and franchise in Great Britain and other countries, 213 reform demanded, 213 f. Sunday, will it be abolished ? 365 schools. Socialist, 369 ff. Surplus-value doctrine, 58 ff., 244 f. disproved, 59 f. Sweated labour proposals of Socialists, 461 Tariff reform. Socialist views on, 285 ff. Taxation, indirect, condemned by Socialists, 165 f. leading Socialist principle of, 255 local — see Rates national — see Budget Taxing private property out of existence, plans for, 99 f., 149, 153, 160 ft., 244 f., 255 Temperance condemned by British Socialists, 319 ff. praised and encouraged by foreign Socialists, 322 ff. providence, and thrift are antagonistic to Socialism, 131 ff., 312 ff. Socialistic views on, 131 ff., 311 ff. Ten Commandments, the capitalists', 368 the Socialist, 371 f. Terrorist outrages. Socialist views on, 402 f. Theft encouraged by Socialists, 82, 114 ANALYTICAL INDEX 521 Thkift denounced by Socialists, 131 ff., 155, 311 ff. is immoral, 314 f. is theft, 155 providence, and temperance are antagonistic to Socialism, 131 fi., 312 ff. Socialist views on, 131 ft., 311 ff. Trade Unionists and Socialists, official connection between, 141 ff., 434 f. relations between, 131 ff., 424 ff., 434 f. Unions and unemployed problem, 127 ff. have become Socialistic, 141 ff., 434 f., 471 secretaries are to administer the Empire, 179 Tradek, private, to be abolished, 242 fi. Tramps and loafers, ideal conditions for, to be created by Socialists, 254 Undebpeedins — see Free Maintenance Unemployed, the, 37, 474 fi. and agriculture, 266 Unemployment benefits employers, 69 f. could it be prevented by Socialists ? 124 f. is due to private capital, 65 fl., 125 f. disproved, 126 f. real causes of, 70 f., 124 fi., 474 ff. sinister aims of Socialists regarding, 128 f. Socialist plans regarding, 123 fi. views on, 67 fi., 123 fi. Usury — see Interest Votes for women, 222 ff. Wages, amount and purchasing-power of, depends on production, 120 f. are to be abolished, 6, 21 are not to be abolished, 22, 278, 386 f., 450 ff. are to be equal for all, 22, 278, 386 f., 450 ff. are not to be equal for all, 390, 450 ff. different views of Socialists regarding, 6, 450 ff. factors determining amount of, 54 ff., 313 f. great increase of, in Socialist State promised by Socialists, 118 ff. doubted by German Socialists, 120 iron law of, 53 ff., 245, 312 f., 319 f. disproved, 54 ff., 313 f., 320 rise in, 57 f. War will be abolished by Socialists, 186 f., 189 Wealth creates poverty, 30, 34 ff., 161 disproved, 35, 159 is a crime, 80 ff. labour is the only source of, 50 ff. disproved, 52 love of, will disappear, 23, 448 various sources of, 52 why unequally distributed, 473 West Ham, 243, 363 522 BEITISH SOCIALISM Woman, the family, and the home, Socialism and, 330 ft. wiU be given the vote, 222 ff., 349 will be made equal to man, 349 f . will be made free, 349 will have to work for a living, 349 f . will her privileges be abolished ? 350 f. will receive wages for ehUdbearing, 345 Women, community of, 331 Karl Marx on, 332 f. Women's Freedom League, 429 Social and Political tTnion, 429 split in, 429 suffrage. Socialist views on, 222 £f. Woolwich Ai'senal dismissals, 296 WoEK, fewer hours of, promised by Socialists, 117 f. is a curse, 115 organisation of, in Socialist Commonwealth, 455 ff. remuneration of, in Socialist Commonwealth, 450 ff. Socialist views regarding, 115 ff. 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