Ht 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University Library 
 HX243 .P28 
 
 Socialism in England 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 030 333 839 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030333839 
 
All books are subject to recall after two weeks 
 Olin/Kroch Library 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 *l 
 
 
 ??n 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRirfTED IN U.S.A. 
 
OPINIONS OF TH1E PRESS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCE SERIES. 
 
 ""' The Principles of State Interferencn ' is anotiiej: of the Series of Handbooks 
 on Scientific Social Subjects. It would be fitting to close our remarks on 
 this little work with a word of commendation of the publishers of so 
 many useful volumes by eminent writers on qiiestions of pressing interest 
 to a large number of the community. We have now received and read a 
 good number of the handboolis which have been.published in this series, and 
 can speak in the highest terms of them. They are written by men of con- 
 siderable knowledge of the subjects they have undertaken to discuss ; they 
 are concise ; they give a fair estimate of the progress which recent dis- 
 cussion has added towards the solution of the pressing social questions 
 of to-day, are well up to date, and are published at a price within the 
 resources of the public to which they are likely to be of the most use." — 
 Westniiiister Beview, July, 1891. 
 
 "The excellent ' Social Science Series,' which is iDublished at as low a price 
 as to place it within everybody's reach." — Beview of Bevieius. 
 
 " A most useful series. . . . This impartial seriefe welcomes both just writers 
 and unjust." — Manchester Guanlian. 
 
 " ' The Social Science Series ' is doubtless doing u_jseful service in calling atten- 
 tion to certain special needs and defects o£ the body politic, and pointing 
 out the way to improvement and reform." — Bookseller. 
 
 " Conveuient, w^ell-printed, and raoderately-jjriced volumes. " — Beyiwld'sNews- 
 paper. 
 
 ' ' ' The Social Science Series ' has gained distinctibii by the impartial welcome 
 it gives to the expression of every shade of opinion." — Anti-Jacohin. 
 
 ' ' There is a certain impartiality about the attractive and well-printed volumes 
 which form the series to which the works noticed in this article belong. 
 There is no editor and no common design beyond a desire to redress those 
 errors and irregularities of society which all t^ib writers, though they may 
 agree in little else, concur in acknowledging and deploring. The system 
 adopted appears to be to select men known to have a claim to speak with 
 more or less authority upon the shortcomings, of civilisation, and to allow 
 each to propound the views which commend themselves most strongly to 
 his mind, without reference to the possible flat contradiction which may 
 be forthcoming at the hands of the next contributor." — Liierarij World. 
 
 "'' The Social Science Series ' aims at the illustration of all sides of social and 
 economic truth and error. An example of the spirit of candour and inquiry 
 pervading the coUection may be found in Mr. Heaford's translation of M. 
 Nacquet's Collectivism." — Scotsman. 
 
 "-This useful series."— Speaker. 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & GO., LONDON. 
 CHAELBS SCEIBNBR'S SONS, NEW YOEK. 
 
SOCIAL SCIENCE SERIES 
 
 SCARLET CLOTH, EACH $1.00. 
 
 1. Work and Wages. Prof. J. E. Thobold Rogebs. 
 
 " Nothing that Professor Bogera writes can fail to be of interest to thoughtful 
 people." — Athenomm. 
 •2. Civilisation : its Cause and Cure. Bdwakd Cabpenteb. 
 
 " No passing piece of polemics, but a permanent possession."— ScoUM B£view. 
 
 3. Quintessence of Socialism. Dr. ScHiFFLE. 
 
 " Precisely the manual needed. Brief, lucid, fair and wise."— British Weekly. 
 
 4. Darwinism and Politics. D. G. Eitchie, M.A. (Oxen.). 
 
 New Edition, with two additional Essays on Human Evolution. 
 " One of the most suggestive books we have met with." — Literary WmM. 
 
 5. Religion of Socialism. B. Belfoet Bax. 
 
 6. Ethics of Socialism. B. Belfoet Bax. 
 
 " Mr. Bax is by far the ablest of the English exponents of Socialism."— iresi»si?isifi- 
 Review. 
 
 7. The Drink Question. Dr. Kate Mitchell. 
 
 " Plenty of interesting matter for reflection." — Graphic. 
 
 8. Promotion of General Happiness. Prof. M. Macmlllan. 
 
 " A reasoned account of the most advanced and most enlightened utilitarian doc- 
 trine in a clear and readable form." — Scots}nun. 
 
 9. England's Ideal, &c. Edwabd Caepenteb. 
 
 " The literary power is unmistakable, their freshness of style, their humour, and 
 their enthusiasm." — Pall Mall Oazette. 
 
 10. Socialism in Kngland. Sidney Webb, LL.B. 
 
 "The best general view of the subject from the modern Socialist side." — Athetiojum. 
 
 11. Prince Bismarck and State Socialism. W. H. Dawson. 
 
 " A succinct, well-digested review of German social and economic legislation since 
 1870." — Saturday JR&vieio. 
 
 12. Godwin's Political Justice (On Property). Edited by H. S. Salt. 
 
 ** Shows Godwin at his best ; with an interesting and informing introduction." — 
 Glasgow Herald. 
 
 13. The Story of the French Revolution. B. Belfoet Bax, 
 
 " A trustworthy outline." — Scotsman. 
 
 14. Essays and Addresses. Beenabd Bosanquet, M.A. (Oxon.). 
 
 " Ought to be in the hands of every student of the Nineteenth Century spirit."— 
 Echo. 
 
 " No one can complain of not being able to understand what Mr. Bosanquet 
 means."— i»a!i Mall Gazette. 
 
 15. Charity Organisation. C. S. Loch, Secretary to Charity Organisation 
 
 Society. 
 " A perfect little manual." — Athemeum. 
 " Deserves a wide circulation."— ScofBniau. 
 
 16. Self-Help a Hundred Years Ago. ^ G. J. Holyoake. 
 
 "Will be studied with much benefit by all who are interested in the amelioration 
 of the condition of the voor."~ Morning Post. 
 
 17. The New York State Reformatory at Elmira. Alexandee Wihteb. 
 
 With Preface by Havelock Ellis 
 " A valuable contribution to the literature of penology."— Siaci and White. 
 
SOCIAL SCIENCE 5EmES—{C'mtumed). 
 
 10. The Unearned Increment. W. H. Dawson. 
 
 " A concise but comprehensive \ohuae." —Echo. 
 
 19. The Working-Class Movement in America. 
 
 Bdw. Ayeling, DhSo. , and B. Mabx Aveling. 
 *' Will give a gooil idea ct" tlie condition of the working classes in America, and of 
 the vEirious organisations which they have formed."— -Scois Lauh ,\ 
 
 20. Luxury. Prof. Eiiile de Laveleye. 
 
 " An eloqnent plea on moral and economical g:rbunds for simplicity of life." — 
 
 AcPAi*:IUil. 
 
 21. The Land and the Labourers, Eev. G.'W. Stubbs, M.A. (Cantab.). 
 
 "This aduiiratde book should be circulated in ©Very village in the country." — 
 ilaiidu'sli'.}- Giiav'lUuK 
 
 22. The Evolution of Property. Paul LAFiVEeuE. 
 
 " ^Vill prove interesting .and profitable to all students of economic history." — 
 Scots'iiian. 
 ■I'i. Crime and its Causes. W. Douglas Moekisos*, ofH.M. Goal, Wandsworth. 
 
 " Can hardly fail to suggest to all readers several new and pregnant reflections on 
 the subject." — Aiiti-Jacobin. 
 
 24. Principles of State Interference. D. G. Eitchie, M.A. 
 
 " An interesting contribution to the controversy on the functions of the State."— 
 
 Glasgoir Herald. 
 
 2). German Socialism and F. Lassalle. W. H. Dawson. 
 
 "Asa biographical history of Geiinan Socialistic movements during this century 
 it may be accepted a.s complete." — British )J' ekly. 
 
 26. The Purse and the Conscience. H. M. Thompson, B.A. (Cantab.). 
 
 " sh.>\v.s common sense and fairness in his argum^its." — Scutsman. 
 2J. Origin of Property in Land. Fustel de Cqulanges. Edited, with an 
 Introductory Chapter on the English Manor, by Prof. W. .J. Ashley, M.A. 
 
 " His views are clearly stated, and are worth reading." — Sraurday Review. 
 
 28. The English Republic. W. J. LixTOS. Edited by Kineton P.arkes. 
 
 " Characteri.jeil by that vigorous intelleotuaUty which has marked his long life of 
 literary .and artistic activity. — GlcAgow Hindd. 
 
 29. The Co-Operatlve Moyement. Beatiuce Pottee. 
 
 " Without doubt the ablest and most philosophical analysis of the Co-Operative 
 Movement which has yet been produced." — Hpenhrr.\ 
 
 30. Neighbourhood Guilds. Dr. STA^iTo»^ Coit. 
 
 " A most suggestive little book to any one interested in the social question."— 
 Pall Hall Gazette. 
 
 31. Modern Humanists. John M. Eubektson. 
 
 " Mr. Bobertson's style is excellent— nay, even brilJiant— and his purely literary 
 criticisms bear the mark of much acumen."— r;..i'..3. 
 
 32. Outlooks from the New Standpoint. E. Beleobt Bax. 
 
 " Mr. Bax is a very accomplished and very acute student of history and economics." 
 Daily Chrunicle. 
 
 33. Distributing Co-Operatlve Societies. Dr. Luigi Pizzajiiglio. Edited by 
 
 P. J. Snell. 
 " Dr. Pizzamiglio has gatliered together and grauped a wide array of facts and 
 statistics, and they speak for themselves."— Sjj.M^er.; 
 
 34. Collectivism and Socialism. By A. Nacque,t. Edited by W. Heafobd. 
 
 " An admirable criticism. Nothing could be more lucid and intelligi)dc."— Jai/// 
 Chronicle. 
 
 35. The London Programme. Sidney Weed, LL.B. 
 
 " Brimful of excellent i<les,s."—A,ui-Jaa:iHn. 
 
 36. The Modern State. Paul Lekoy Beaulieu. 
 
 " Undoubtedly one of the best of the ' Social Science Series '."—Anti-Jacnhi,i. 
 
SOCIAL SCIENCE SERIES. 
 
 SCARLET CLOTH, EACH $1.00. 
 
 VOLUMES IN PREPARATION— 
 
 " General " Booth's Social Scheme. 
 
 C. S. Loch, B. Bosanqubt and Canon Dwybe. 
 
 The ReYolutionary Spirit. M. Rooquain. Edited by J. D. 
 
 Hunting. With a Preface by Professor Huxley. 
 The Student's Marx : An Introduction to his " Capital ". 
 Poverty : Its Genesis and Exodus. J. G. Godabd. 
 
 Illegitimacy and the Influence of Season on Conduct. 
 
 Studies in Demography. By Albert Lbffingwbll, M.T). 
 
 The Impossibility of Social Democracy. Dr. Schapflb. 
 
 Edited by Bernard Bosanquet, M.A. (Double Vol.). 
 
 The Labour Problem. Lange. Edited by Rev. J. Carter. 
 
 Progress and Prospects of Political Economy. 
 
 Prof. J. K. Ingram. 
 
 The Destitute Alien in England. Arnold White and others. 
 Uniyersity Extension. Dr. M. E. Sadler. 
 
 Life of Robert Owen. Lloyd Jones (Double Vol.). 
 
 Criminal Anthropology. M. C. Lombroso. Edited by K. F. 
 
 Crawford. 
 The Trade Policy of Imperial Federation. 
 
 Maurice H. Hbrvby. 
 Communism and Anarchism. R. W. Burnie. 
 
 Short History of Parliament. B. C. Skottowe, M.A. (Oxon.). 
 Malthus' Essay on Population. Abridged by A. K. Donald. 
 TJie Dawn of Radicalism. J. Bowles Daly, LL.D. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNBR'S SONS, NEW YORK. 
 SWAN SONNENSGHBIN & CO., LONDON. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND 
 
 SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B. 
 
 BARRISTER AT LAW, LECTURER ON ECONOMICS AT THE CITY OF LONDON COLLEGE 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 1890 
 
 CO. 
 
IUNIVER8ITY 
 ^- UBRARV 
 
 "h^- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following account of the development of 
 Socialism, in this country, was originally pre- 
 pared at the request of the President and 
 Council of the American Economic Association, 
 and published in their series of. monographs.^ 
 As it was found of interest to English readers, 
 it has been thoroughly revised and brought up 
 to date for publication here. Full references 
 are given to Socialist publications, with a view 
 to facilitating further study of a movement, the 
 complete significance of which is not yet 
 adequately realised by English politicians. 
 
 SIDNEY WEBB. 
 
 4 Park Village East, London, N.W. 
 Decemher, 1889. 
 
 ^ Vol. iv., No. 2, May, 1889 {Johns Hopkins University, 
 Baltimore). 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 1. The Development of the Socialist Ideal. page 
 
 The Utopias — The Influence of the Evolution Hypo- 
 thesis — The Methods of Revolution — Modern 
 Socialism — Definitions I 
 
 2. The Rise of the English Socialist Movement. 
 
 The Forerunners — "Progress and Poverty" — The 
 Revolt of the Radicals — The Democratic Federation 
 — Socialist Radicalism l8 
 
 3. The English Socialist Organizations. 
 
 General Character — The Social Democratic Federation 
 —The Socialist League — The Fabian Society — The 
 Christian Socialist Society — Socialism at Bristol and 
 Sheffield— The Tyneside District— The "Labour 
 Party" — The "Anarchist" Section — The Land 
 Nationalization Movement — Scotland and Ireland... 28 
 
 4. Socialism in the Churches. 
 
 The Religious Side of the Movement — The Guild of 
 ■ St. Matthew — Sociahsm and the Bishops — Christ- 
 ianity and Democracy 63 
 
 5. Socialism at the Universities. 
 
 The Leaven at Oxford and Cambridge — Toynbee Hall 
 • — Socialist Publications — Character of the University 
 Influence — Abandonment of Individuahsm — Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer 74 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 6. Socialism in Political Economy. page 
 The Change of Tone— The Influence of Evolution — 
 Convergence towards Socialism — English Socialism 
 and Karl Marx — Recent Economic Literature — The 
 Failure of Co-operation — Its Economic Inadequacy 
 — Economic Socialism 8l 
 
 J. Parliamentary and Municipal Socialism. 
 
 The Zenith of Individualism —Factory Acts — Sanitary 
 Restrictions — Municipal Administration of Capital — 
 Limitation of the Hours of Labour — Public Educa- 
 tion and Childfeeding — The Housing of the Poor — 
 Municipalization versus Nationalization — The Social- 
 ising of England — -The Work of the " Practical 
 Man." 98 
 
 8. Socialism in Politics. 
 
 The Tendency to New Legislation — The Fluidity of 
 the English Constitution — ^The Conservative Party — 
 The Liberal Party— The Radical Section— The 
 Programme of Socialist Radicalism — The Political 
 Momentum — Convergence of the Tendencies. . . .■ 118 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIALIST IDEAL. 
 
 "We are all Socialists now," lately avowed Sir 
 
 William Harcourt in the House of Commons, 
 
 and the Prince of Wales recently made the same 
 
 confession. Whatever may be the value of 
 
 these vague declarations, it is certain that the 
 
 progress of Socialism is just now the most 
 
 marked characteristic of English thought.' 
 
 At the same time, the influence of Socialism 
 
 in our public life may very easily be overlooked 
 
 by a casual observer, especially as it is still 
 
 often ignored or misapprehended by public men 
 
 themselves. English politics are, by tradition, 
 
 '^ See the pamphlet by the present writer, Tke Progress of 
 Socialism (Third edition, London, 1890, The Modern 
 Press). 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 SO exclusively an affair of the " classes " that 
 even the greatest movements in democratic 
 thought are apt to escape the notice of those un- 
 accustomed to watch the tendencies of the still 
 largely inarticulate masses. The development 
 of Socialistic institutions has, moreover, been so 
 gradual, and has met with such universal ac- 
 ceptance, that the great majority of citizens are 
 still quite unaware of the extent to which Indi- 
 vidualist principles have been abandoned. The 
 ordinary party politician, intent only upon the 
 issues of the moment, will often deny that 
 Socialism, as a vital political force, has any 
 existence in England at all. 
 
 Few persons indeed, adequately realize the 
 rapid progress of Democracy in England, 
 whether political or social. We are getting be- 
 yond the time of Reform Bills. The changes ; 
 now occurring are much less in the machinery ; 
 of government than in the spirit by which that 
 machinery is worked. Those unfamiliar with i 
 English political life are almost inevitably led to 
 mistake the surviving forms of Feudalism, with| 
 their corresponding social inequalities, forj 
 greater drawbacks and deductions from thej 
 political Democracy than they really are. It 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 may confidently be asserted that the existence 
 of an hereditary peerage offers less of an 
 obstacle to genuine reform than that of the 
 political " rings and bosses," so graphically por- 
 trayed by Mr. Bryce.' The English Conserva- 
 tive Party, moreover, by no means corresponds 
 to the various conservative or reactionary ele- 
 ments in continental politics, but is itself con- 
 stantly being " permeated " by new ideas 
 emanating from the other side. A party whose 
 leaders carried the abolition of the Corn Laws 
 (1846), most of the Factory Acts, household 
 suffrage in the towns (1867), and Democratic 
 local self-government in London and the rural 
 districts (1888), cannot be said to be a mere 
 party of reaction. The fact that all these 
 measures were unwilling concessions to popular 
 pressure only emphasizes their democratic 
 character. 
 
 Nor is it easy to realize the extent of the pro- 
 gress of the economic side of Democracy — that 
 is to say, Socialism itself Students have grown 
 so accustomed to think of Socialism as a mere 
 " Utopia," spun from the humanity-intoxicated 
 brains of various Frenchmen of the beginning 
 ■"• The American Commonwealth, Vol. II. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of the century, that they find great difficulty in 
 recognizing it in any other aspect. But on the 
 part of the critics this is simple ignorance. 
 Down to the present generation the aspirant 
 after social reform, whether Socialist or Indi- 
 vidualist, naturally embodied his ideas in a 
 detailed plan of a new social order, from which 
 all contemporary evils were eliminated. Just as 
 Plato had his " Republic," Campanella his " City 
 of the Sun," and Sir Thomas More his 
 " Utopia," so Baboeuf had his " Charter of 
 Equality," Cabet his " Icaria," St. Simon his 
 " Industrial System," and Fourier his ideal 
 " Phalanstery." Robert Owen spent a fortune 
 in pressing upon a stiff-necked generation a 
 "New Moral World;" and even Comte, 
 superior as he was to many of the weaknesses 
 of his time, must needs add a detailed " Polity " 
 to his " Philosophy " of Positivism. 
 
 The leading feature of all these proposals 
 (not excluding the last) was what may be called 
 their "statical" character. The ideal society 
 was represented as a perfectly balanced equili- 
 brium without need or possibility of future 
 organic alteration. Now-a-days, owing mainly 
 to the efforts of Comte, Darwin and Spencer, 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 we can no longer think of the future society as 
 an unchanging state. The social ideal from 
 being statical has become dynamic. The 
 necessity of the constant growth and develop- 
 ment of the social organism has become axio- 
 matic. No philosopher now looks for anything 
 but the gradual passing of the old order into 
 the new, without breach of continuity or abrupt 
 general change of social tissue. The new be- 
 comes itself old, often before it is consciously 
 recognised as new, and history shows us noth- 
 ing but constant gradual evolution. 
 
 Most Socialists have learnt this lesson^ even 
 better than their opponents, and find now their 
 strongest argument therein. But the common 
 criticism of Socialism has not yet noted the 
 change, and continues to deal mainly with the 
 obsolete Utopias of the pre-evolutionary age. 
 Modern Socialists are still reproached with the 
 
 1 " I am aware that there are some who suppose that our 
 present bourgeois arrangements must be totally distroyed and 
 others substituted almost at a blow. But, however successful 
 a revolution might be, it is certain that mankind cannot change 
 its whole nature all at once. Break the old shell, certainly, 
 but never forget the fact that the new forms must grow out 
 of the old." H. M. Hyndman, Historical Basis of Socialism, 
 p. 305 (London, 1883, Kegan Paul & Co.) Lassalle thought 
 the transformation would take 200 years. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 domestic details of an imaginary " Phalanstery, ' 
 or with the failure of " Queenwood " or " Icaria," 
 whereas they are now advocating the conscious 
 adoption of principles of social organization 
 which advanced communities have already 
 dimly and unconsciously found to be the in- 
 evitable outcome of Democracy and the In- 
 dustrial Revolution. 
 
 A corresponding change has taken place in 
 the stages by which it is expected that reforms 
 will come. Two generations ago the social 
 prophet, seeing the impossibility of at once con- 
 verting the whole country, founded here and 
 there small companies of the faithful, who im- 
 mediately attempted to put in practice the com- 
 plete ideal as held by their members. The 
 gradual adoption of the ideal by the whole 
 people was expected from the steady expansion 
 of these isolated communities. But this ex- 
 pectation was not fulfilled, and although many 
 of the societies attained, under favourable cir- 
 cumstances, a marked economic success,^ their 
 success outside of the world was often only less 
 
 ^ See NordhofFs Communistic Societies in the United 
 States; Noyes' History of American Socialism; and Holy- 
 oake's History of Co-operation. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 fatal to the real progress of Socialism in the 
 world than the complete failure of others. 
 
 Prophets, now-a-days, do not found a partial 
 community which adopts the whole faith ; they 
 cause rather the partial adoption of their faith 
 by the whole community. Incomplete reform 
 is effected in the world of ordinary citizens, 
 instead of complete reform outside of it. The 
 gradual growth of Socialism is now seen to be 
 by vertical instead of horizontal expansion. The 
 endeavour is now not so much to disintegrate 
 or supersede the existing social organizations, 
 as to expand them. By this method not only is 
 the social " tradition " made use of in the social 
 evolution, but also, though progress may be 
 slow, failure is impossible. No nation having 
 once nationalized or municipalized any industry 
 has ever retraced its steps or reversed its 
 action. No failure of any experiment in such 
 " collectivisation " is anywhere recorded. 
 
 Nor is there any special Socialist method of 
 reform. It may suit the interested defenders 
 of the existing order, or heated journalistic 
 imaginations, to imagine that Socialism neces- 
 sarily implies a sudden and forcible overthrow 
 of police and government in a kind of tumul- 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 tuous rising of the common people. The student 
 of Socialism knows that it is not necessarily, or 
 even usually, bound up with anything of the 
 sort. It is a safe maxim that the character of a 
 revolutionary movement in this respect depends 
 mainly upon the nature of the repressing forces. 
 In Russia, for instance, whatever Socialist 
 thought exists, is a portion of the so-called 
 Nihilist movement. This is, itself, not Socialist 
 in character, (either "collectivist" or "anar- 
 chist,") but seeks merely political and adminis- 
 trative reforms. The violent methods used by 
 some of the Russian Nihilists are, however, not 
 followed in countries enjoying greater political 
 freedom. In Germany, in spite of considerable 
 repression, Socialism is an exclusively Parlia- 
 mentary force of the first magnitude. In 
 France it is mainly a factor in Paris municipal 
 politics. In England to-day the comparatively 
 small avowed Socialist army obtains most of its 
 influence by the unconscious permeation of all 
 schools of thought. In all three countries the 
 development of Socialistic institutions is gradual, 
 persistent, and carried out by legislative enact- 
 ments. Whatever may be the case in other 
 countries, no one acquainted with English 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 politics can reasonably fear that this feature will 
 not continue. No student of society, whether 
 Socialist or Individualist, can doubt that any 
 important organic changes will necessarily be 
 (i) Democratic, and thus acceptable to a 
 majority of the people and prepared for in the 
 minds of all ; (2) gradual, and thus causing no 
 dislocation, however rapid may be the rate of 
 progress ; (3) not regarded as immoral by 
 the mass of people, and thus not subjec- 
 tively demoralising to them ; and in this 
 country, at any rate (4), constitutional and 
 peaceful. 
 
 If Socialism is thus neither a Utopia nor a 
 specially violent method of revolution, what, it 
 may be asked, are its distinctive features ? It 
 is not easy to reply in a single sentence. The 
 ideas denoted by Socialism represent the out- 
 come of a gradual change of thought in 
 economics, ethics and politics. The Socialist is 
 distinguished from the Individualist, not so 
 much by any special Shibboleth as by a com- 
 plete difference as to the main principles of 
 social organization. The essential contribution 
 of the century to sociology has been the super- 
 session of the Individual by the Community as 
 
10 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the starting point of social investigations.' 
 Socialism is the product of this development, 
 arising with it from the contemporary industrial 
 evolution. On the economic side, Socialism 
 implies the collective administration of rent and 
 interest, leaving to the individual only the- 
 wages of his labour, of hand or brain. On the 
 political side, it involves the collective control 
 over, and ultimate administration of, all the 
 main instruments of wealth production. On 
 the ethical side, it expresses the real recognition 
 of fraternity, the universal obligation of personal 
 service, and the subordination of individual ends 
 to the common good. 
 
 These fundamental ideas of Socialism do not 
 always find explicit expression in the pro- 
 gramme of any one exponent. The character 
 of the propaganda, like its practical demands 
 upon the legislature, is necessarily conditioned 
 by the particular circumstances of the locality 
 and the time. Socialism suffers, too, like every 
 other movement, from the imperfections of its 
 
 1 A full statement of this intellectual movement will be 
 found in the articles " Political Economy " and " Socialism " 
 in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (ninth edition). See also 
 T. Kirkup's Enquiry Into Socialism (London, 1887, 
 Longmans). 
 
SOCIALISM m ENGLAND. tl 
 
 advocates and adherents. Springing, as it does 
 from the existence of hideous social wrongs, 
 and the unspeakable misery of tens of thousands 
 of sufferers, we must not be surprised to find it 
 frequently allied with bitterness, hatred and the 
 wild justice of revenge. Long despised and 
 rejected by nearly all the educated class, it is 
 not to be wondered at that Socialism should 
 find expression in forms and proposals often 
 not consistent with science or with themselves. 
 An easy triumph usually awaits those defenders 
 of contemporary institutions who are satisfied 
 with exposing the fallacies of any particular 
 Socialist writer. An easy excuse for standing 
 aloof is afforded to the "philosophic Radical" 
 or other " superior person " by the cruder 
 vagaries of badly organized Socialist bodies or 
 uninstructed Socialist enthusiasts. The more 
 candid student will endeavour to find out what 
 it is, amid these fallacies and inconsistencies, 
 that has secured the allegiance of millions, and 
 has been a beacon of hope to the workers for 
 more than a generation. Worthy opponents 
 will seek to deal with Socialism, not in its 
 weakest, but in its strongest aspects ; and those 
 who have fully realised the processes of social 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 evolution will be prepared to find Socialistic 
 changes taking place under all those disguises 
 by which men love to persuade themselves that 
 the existing order is strong and " endureth for- 
 ever." In England, especially, we shall find 
 that the progress of Socialism is to be sought 
 mainly among those who are unconscious of 
 their Socialism, many of whom, indeed, still 
 proclaim their adherence to Individualism, 
 Self-help and Laissez Faire. But in any useful 
 classification, position will not so much depend 
 upon the label which a man gives to his 
 opinions or actions as upon their actual char- 
 acter. Not all those who are now coming 
 forward to claim the name of Socialist can be 
 admitted as such, whilst many thousands have 
 become Socialists without knowing it. 
 
 A well-considered and sober description of 
 the Socialist Ideal, in its modern development, 
 may be found in the following prospectus of one 
 of the existing English Socialist organizations : 
 
 " The Fabian Society consists of Socialists. It therefore 
 aims at the reorganization of society by the emancipation of 
 land and industrial capital from individual and class owner- 
 ship, and the vesting of them in the community for the 
 general benefit. In this way only can the natural and 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 13 
 
 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 
 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 com- 
 munity of the administration of such industrial capital as 
 can conveniently 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 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 
 et^alityofopportunity will be maintained by the spontane- 
 ous 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 changes consequent thereon. It seeks to promote 
 these by the general dissemination of knowledge as to the 
 relation between the individual and society in its economic, 
 ethical and political aspects." 
 
 This, however, affords merely a summary of 
 the proper principles of social organization, and 
 gives no account of the various modifications of 
 
14 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the existing society through which the ideal is 
 likely to be attained. Another organization 
 supplies this political forecast as follows : — 
 
 The Social-Democratic Federation urges for immediate 
 adoption : — 
 
 " The Compulsory Construction of healthy artizans' and 
 agricultural labourers' dwellings in proportion to the popula- 
 tion, such dwellings to be let at rents to cover the cost of 
 construction and maintenance alone. 
 
 " Free Compulsory Education for all classes, together 
 with the provision of at least one wholesome meal a day in 
 each school. 
 
 " Eight Hours or less to be the normal working day in 
 all trades. 
 
 " Cumulative Taxation upon all incomes above a fixed 
 minimum not exceeding ;£s°° ^ yenr. 
 
 " State Appropriation of Railways ; Municipal Control of 
 Gas, Water and Tramway Companies. 
 
 " The establishment of National Banks which shall absorb 
 all private institutions that derive a profit from operations 
 in money or credit. 
 
 " Rapid Extinction of the National Debt. 
 
 " Nationalisation of the Land, and organisation of agri- 
 cultural and industrial armies under State Control on Co- 
 operative principles." 
 
 As means for the peaceable attainment of these objects the 
 Social-Democratic Federation advocates : 
 
 " Payment of members ; and Official Expenses of Election 
 out of the Rates. Adult Suffrage. Annual Parliaments. 
 Proportional Representation. Abolition of the House of 
 Lords and all Hereditary Authorities. Disestablishment 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. ij 
 
 and Disendowment of all State Churches. Extension of 
 the Powers of County Councils." ^ 
 
 The above list is, however, neither complete 
 nor conveniently classified, and is admittedly 
 merely a rough general forecast of proposals 
 which are indeed now rapidly being adopted by 
 both political parties. 
 
 It may be summed up that the progress of 
 Socialism in England has hitherto been, and is 
 still being accomplished, in four leading direc- 
 tions, viz : 
 
 1. Constantly increasing restrictions upon the 
 private ownership of land and capital. (Factory 
 Acts, &c.) 
 
 2. Gradual supersession of private industrial 
 ventures by public administration. (National 
 Telegraphs, Municipal tramways, Parochial 
 schools). 
 
 3. Progressive absorption by taxation of 
 unearned incomes (rent and interest), and " rent 
 of ability." (Income tax, taxes on real pro- 
 perty, &c.) 
 
 4. The supplementing of private charity by 
 public organisation, aiming at raising the con- 
 
 ^ (Programme and Rules of the Social-Democratic Federation as 
 revised at the Annual Conference at Birmingham, August 5th, 1889.) 
 
l6 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 dition of the " residuum." (Public education, 
 improved dwellings, &c.) 
 
 Philanthropic reformers will be surprised to 
 find some of these measures classed as socialis-i 
 tic. They, as well as many Socialists, have 
 been so accustomed to think of Socialism 
 merely as an Ideal, that they do not recognize 
 the steps by which that Ideal is being gradually 
 realized. Wherever rent and interest are being 
 absorbed under public control for public pur- 
 poses, wherever the collective organization of 
 the community is being employed in place of 
 individual effort, wherever, in the public inter- 
 est, the free use of private land or capital is 
 being further restrained, — there one more step 
 towards the complete realization of the Social- 
 ist Ideal is being taken. Society is reforming 
 itself on Collectivist, not on Individualist prin- 
 ciples, and although the advocates of each 
 particular change intend no further alteration, 
 the result is nevertheless an increasing social 
 momentum in the same general direction. 
 
 The present tendency of English thought is 
 strongly in favour of further development on 
 these lines, and in the following pages some 
 account will be given of this tendency, as ex- 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 17 
 
 hibited, not only in the avowed Socialist 
 movement itself, but also in the Churches, at 
 the Universities, among the economists, in 
 legislation, in current politics, and in municipal 
 life. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE RISE OF THE ENGLISH SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. 
 
 It is characteristic of England that although 
 the present Socialist movement there, as a 
 conscious popular agitation of any vitality, is 
 scarcely more than eight years old, the pro- 
 gressive Socialism in English politics dates 
 from the very beginning of the century." Nothing 
 like an adequate account of this development 
 can here be attempted. It is easy to trace the 
 fore-runners of the present movement, and that 
 in more than one direction,^ but it must more 
 properly be regarded as the conscious and ex- 
 plicit expression of what has long been the 
 growing force in England. It is true that with 
 
 ■"■ See the article on Socialism in English Politics, by 
 William Clarke, in the Political Science Quarterly, Decem- 
 ber, 1888. 
 
 ^ The general course of this development is described in 
 the essay on The Historical Aspect in Fabian Essays in 
 Socialism. (Published by the Fabian Society, 63 Fleet 
 Street, E.G., and 180 Portsdown Road, W., price 6s.) 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 19 
 
 the collapse of the Chartist movement in 1848, 
 all serious agitation of a Socialist character came 
 to an end, and for thirty years popular aspira- 
 tions in England took the forms of a develop 
 ment of trades unions, the progress of co-opera- 
 tive distributive stores and building societies, 
 in conjunction with the purely political agita- 
 tion for the Parliamentary franchise. But the 
 Socialist leaven was still at work. The Chartist 
 survivors continued to be centres of quiet 
 education of their comrades. The ideas of 
 Marx and Lassalle filtered in through French 
 and German refugees, as well as through the 
 personal influence of Marx himself on a select 
 few. The latter influence of the Political 
 Economists, notably that of John Stuart Mill,^ 
 gradually prepared the public mind for Socialist 
 proposals, especially on the subject of the " un- 
 earned increment " of land values. The course 
 of industrial development was bringing about 
 the intervention of the legislature in every fac- 
 tory and in almost every trade. The growth of 
 
 1 See the explicit confession of his conversion, as he says, 
 from mere Democracy to Socialism {Autobiography, p. 231- 
 2) and the change in tone shown in Book IV. of the Foliti- 
 cal Economy. (Popular Edition, 1865.) 
 
SOCIALISM m ENGLAND. 
 
 democratic feeling was compelling the political 
 enfranchisement of one class after another, of 
 poorer and poorer citizens, until now almost as 
 large a proportion of the population as in the 
 United States itself, is registered as entitled to 
 vote. 
 
 The constant denunciations of the current 
 bourgeois ideals' by the " Christian Socialists ; " 
 by Carlyle and his perpetually renewed stream 
 of enthusiastic, if temporary, disciples ; by 
 Ruskin and many of his literary and artistic 
 supporters, as well as by the small but persist- 
 ent band of " Positivists," could not fail to exert 
 a potent disintegrating force. 
 
 All this time popular education was progress- 
 ing at an enormous rate, until the illiterate; 
 workman of the Chartist times has almost dis- 
 appeared. The growth of knowledge of 
 Politicial Economy made it constantly more 
 apparent that the Radical ideal of " Equality of 
 Opportunity " is absolutely impossible of attain- 
 ment, even in infinite time, so long as indivi- 
 dual ownership of land exists. It was, more- 
 over, becoming apparent since 1867, that the 
 mere possession of voting power did not suffice 
 to cure the festering ulcers of urban poverty 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and all sections of the popular party were ripe 
 for the development of an avowedly Socialist 
 policy. 
 
 The occasion out of which the movement 
 arose was an unexpected one. Little as Mr. 
 Henry George intended it, there can be no 
 doubt that it was the enormous circulation of 
 his " Progress and Poverty," which gave the 
 touch which caused all the seething influences 
 to crystallize into a popular Socialist movement. 
 The optimistic and confident tone of the book, 
 and the irresistible force of its popularization of 
 Ricardo's Law of Rent, sounded the dominant 
 " note " of the English Socialist party of to-day. 
 Adherents of Mr. George's views gathered into 
 little propagandist societies, and gradually de- 
 veloped, in many cases, into complete Socialists. 
 During the year 1881, moreover, the coercive 
 measures introduced by Mr. Gladstone's min- 
 istry against the Irish Land League had alien- 
 ated many of the earnest Radicals from the 
 Liberal party, and these were still further re- 
 pelled by the " untoward events," which were 
 happening in Egypt. It became evident that 
 " Liberalism " was not inconsistent with shame- 
 less international aggression in the interests of 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the officers and the bondholders. The years of 
 Mr. Gladstone's administration were success- 
 fully frittered away without any real effort to ac- 
 complish social reforms. Even long promised 
 fiscal reforms were quietly dropped, and not 
 even an attempt was made until 1885 to redress 
 financial iniquities long before admitted by Mr. 
 Gladstone himself. The Land Tax remained 
 unreformed. The Tea Duty remained unre- 
 pealed. The poor man seemed absolutely be- 
 yond the ken of the middle-class " party of pro- 
 gress." The neglect of English social questions 
 became more and more pressingly felt, and it 
 was mainly the feeling due to these political 
 incidents that caused the first definitely Socialist 
 organization to arise. This was a body called 
 the " Democratic Federation," founded in 
 March, 1881, by the efforts of Mr. H. M. 
 Hyndman, Mr. Herbert Burrows, Miss Helen 
 Taylor (stepdaughter of John Stuart Mill) and 
 some others. Mr. Joseph Cowen, at that time 
 member of Parliament for Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
 a life-long Democrat, was one of the active 
 helpers from the first, although this was not 
 publicly known. The only distinctively Social-; 
 ist proposal explicitly set forth in the first pro- 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 23 
 
 gramme of this organization was " Nationaliza- 
 tion of the Land,"^ placed ninth in the list, but 
 it was from the first essentially a Socialist body, 
 and it changed its name in September, 1883, to 
 the " Social Democratic Federation." Under 
 this title it became a propagandist organization 
 of great effect in London, and many of the pro- 
 vincial industrial centres, having scores of ener- 
 getic and self-supporting local branches. It is 
 undoubtedly due to the bold and unsparing 
 personal efforts made by the early leaders of 
 
 "^ This was not borrowed from Mr. George. It had long 
 been one of the proposals of English Democratic leaders ; 
 such, for instance, as Bronterre O'Brien. Something very 
 like it was at the back of the Chartist movement. The 
 " Land and Labour League,'' a popular organization of fifteen 
 years ago, made it the most prominent of its demands. 
 The idea seems to have been originally that of Thomas 
 Spence, whose lecture on the subject in 1775, has been re- 
 published by Mr. Hyndman (The Nationalization of the Land 
 in 177s and 1882. London, 1882. E. W. Allen.) Pro- 
 fessor Ogilvie, of Aberdeen, published similar doctrines in 
 1782. Carpenter's Political Magazine, published in 1831, 
 contains a series of articles on " Social Reform,'' in which 
 the principle is clearly stated (see Financial Beformer, Nov. 
 1889.) The Theory of Human Progression by Patrick 
 Edward Dove, published in 1850, and this author's Ele- 
 ments of Political Science, published in 1854, appear to 
 contain the same ideas. But no doubt Mr. George worked 
 them out quite independently. 
 
24 SO-CIALISM IN ENGLAND 
 
 this society that Socialism has become widely- 
 known in England. Many mistakes were made, 
 and there was much wild talk, but those who 
 criticize should remember both the difficulties 
 and the provocations of the situation. Middle 
 class England shuddered at the very idea of 
 Socialism, and had to be compelled to listen. 
 But the movement progressed in spite of all 
 blunders. Other Socialist societies arose, by 
 fission, or by differentiation, until the influence 
 of Socialism upon Democratic thought and 
 politics has become admittedly enormous. The 
 change in tone of English political leaders since 
 1880, is obvious and daily increasing, until it is 
 not too much to assert that the Radical party, 
 largely the creation of the Individualist Philoso- 
 phers of seventy years ago, is now thoroughly 
 permeated with Socialist ideas. The numerical 
 increase of nominal Socialists is hindered by this 
 very success. Those, who in Germany would 
 naturally be enrolled as members of the Social 
 Democratic party, in England still call them- 
 selves Liberals or Radicals, but demand such 
 Socialist measures as the "municipalization " of 
 urban land, the special taxation of rents and 
 mining royalties, and the public provision of 
 
so ClALISM IN. ENGLAND. 25 
 
 artisans' dwellings. This permeation is appar- 
 ently destined to continue, and the avowed 
 Socialist party in England will probably remain 
 a comparatively small disentegrating and educa- 
 tional force, never itself exercising political 
 power, but supplying ideas and principles of 
 social reconstruction to each of the great 
 political parties in turn, as the changing results 
 of English politics bring them alternately into 
 office. 
 
 So steady and gradual is this permeation that 
 few Radicals realise how far they have already 
 travelled from the principles upon which their 
 party was founded, and to which it still fre- 
 quently professes to adhere. This very ignor- 
 ance and repudiation is, of course, the most 
 striking evidence of the change which has 
 come over political thought. So ashamed is 
 adult Radicalism of its political swaddling 
 clothes, that it even denies their former 
 existence. It will be convenient to set forth 
 in parallel columns some of the more striking 
 differences between the principles of the Radi- 
 calism of 1 840- 1 874, into which Whiggism and 
 Liberalism have merged, and those of the 
 current Socialist Radicalism of the present day. 
 
26 
 
 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Individualist Radicalism, 
 1840-1874. 
 
 " That the best govern- 
 ment is that which governs 
 least." 
 
 Corollary. — Wherever you 
 can make a " soft place " 
 for a contractor, do so. 
 
 " That the utmost possible 
 scope should be allowed to 
 individual enterprise in in- 
 dustry." 
 
 Corollary. — The best social 
 use to which you can turn 
 a profitable monopoly is 
 to hand it over to some 
 lucky individual to make 
 a fortune out of it. 
 
 " That open competition 
 and complete freedom from 
 legal restrictions furnish the 
 best guarantees of a healthy 
 industrial community." 
 Corollary. — John Bright's 
 opinion that adulteration 
 is only a form of competi- 
 tion: the " individualism " 
 of Mr. Auberon Herbert. 
 
 Socialist Radicalism, 
 1889. 
 
 "That the best govern- 
 ment is that which can 
 safely and successfully ad- 
 minister most." 
 Corollary. — Wherever the 
 collective organisation of 
 the community can dis- 
 pense with a contractor 
 or other "entrepreneur," 
 it should do so. 
 " That, wherever possible, 
 industries of widespread pub- 
 lic service should be organ- 
 ised and controlled for the 
 public benefit." 
 Corollary. — Every industry 
 yielding more than a fair 
 remuneration to the actual 
 managers should be " muni- 
 cipalized " or " national- 
 ized," or else specially 
 taxed. 
 
 " That only by gradually 
 increasing legal restrictions 
 can the worst competitors be 
 prevented from ousting their 
 better rivals." 
 
 Corollary. — " The answer of 
 modern statesmanship is 
 that unfettered individual 
 competition is not a prin- 
 ciple to which the regula- 
 tion of industry may be 
 entrusted." (Mr. John 
 Morley, " Life of Cobden," 
 Vol. I., ch. xiii., 298.) 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 ■2.1 
 
 "That the desired end of 
 ' equality of opportunity ' 
 :an be ultimately reached 
 Dy allowing to each person 
 :he complete ownership of 
 my riches he may become 
 possessed of." 
 
 Corollary. — The policy of 
 the " Liberty and Pro- 
 perty Defence League." 
 
 "That the best possible 
 social state will result from 
 sach individual pursuing his 
 own interest in the way he 
 thinks best." 
 
 Corollary. — " Private vices, 
 public benefits." 
 
 " That Political Economy 
 indubitably proves ' equality 
 of opportunity ' to be ab- 
 solutely impossible of even 
 approximate attainment, so 
 long as complete private 
 ownership exists in land and 
 other economic monopolies." 
 
 Corollary. — The policy of 
 "Nationalization" or 
 "Municipalization'' of 
 Land and other economic 
 monopolies. 
 
 "That social health is 
 something apart from and 
 above the interest of in- 
 dividuals, and must be con- 
 sciously pursued as an end 
 in itself." 
 
 Corollary. — The study of 
 the science of sociology, 
 and of the art of politics. 
 
 It follows, as a consequence of the permea- 
 tion already referred to, that Radicals often 
 deny that the above principles were really 
 those of their predecessors. They discover 
 now-a-days exceptions and qualifications, which 
 were not present to the minds of the " Man- 
 chester School." Individualist Radicalism is, 
 in fact, not only dead, but even largely for- 
 
 B^otten. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ENGLISH SOCIALIST ORGANISATIONS. 
 
 The difficulty in describing the English Socia- 
 list organisations is their constant fluidity. 
 Their programmes and principles remain, and 
 even their leaders, but their active membership 
 is continually changing. A steady stream of 
 persons influenced by Socialist doctrines passes 
 into them, but after a time most of these cease 
 to attend meetings the subjects of which have 
 become familiar, and gradually discontinue their 
 subscriptions. These persons are not lost to 
 the movement : they retain their Socialist tone 
 of thought, and give effect to it in their trades 
 unions, their clubs, and their political associa- 
 tions. But they often cease to belong to any 
 distinctly Socialist organisation, where they are 
 replaced by newer converts. 
 
 The character of the organisations them- 
 selves is no less unstable. It was intended, in 
 almost every case, that they should be federal 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 29 
 
 in form, the Executive consisting of delegates 
 from the local "branches." As a matter of 
 fact they have really consisted of propagandist 
 committees, usually in London, with more or 
 less organised knots of adherents in other parts 
 of London and in certain provincial towns. It 
 need hardly be said that petty jealousies and 
 personal quarrels have not been wanting in this 
 as in every other popular movement, and its 
 organisation has constantly suffered from these 
 causes. The so-called " branches " fluctuate 
 continually in strength, and vary in character 
 from almost independent autonomous and self- 
 supporting societies, down to mere centres to 
 which lecturers are supplied, and through which 
 literature is distributed. Neither the size nor 
 the number of these " branches " is of so much 
 importance as the existence, in many constitu- 
 encies, of a few energetic political werkers wh» 
 see the weakness of the programmes of the 
 great political parties, and who, knowing pre- 
 cisely what they want, and giving voice to the 
 vague popular feeling, are able to exercise an 
 altogether disproportionate influence on the 
 candidates and party managers. It is the weight 
 of the Socialist criticism of the merely "poll' 
 
30 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND 
 
 tical " programmes of both parties, not its 
 numerical strength, which has made it, under 
 one name or another, the most potent influence 
 in English politics to-day. 
 
 The largest as well as the oldest of the ex- 
 isting socialist societies in England, is the 
 Social Democratic Federation. Founded by a 
 small number of educated middle-class re- 
 formers, it became, almost from the first, a 
 democratic and popular body, and to it belong 
 the great majority of the avowed Socialists of 
 the wage-earning class. It consists nominally 
 of a central council of delegates, sitting in 
 London, and about 30 " branches " in London 
 and most of the large provincial towns. Each 
 of these branches carries on an active local pro- 
 paganda by means of incessant lectures, open- 
 air meetings and the sale of literature.: 
 Some of them bring, in addition, considerable 
 pressure to bear on current politics by influenc- 
 ing candidates, and by running candidates of 
 their own at local elections. This influence has 
 been particularly successful at Battersea 
 (London), where Mr. John Burns, the local 
 leader, was in 1889 returned at the head of the 
 poll for the London County Council, and at 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 31 
 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne, where three Socialists were 
 in the same year elected to the School Board in 
 face of the combined opposition of all other 
 parties, religious, educational and political. 
 The Council in London maintains friendly re- 
 lations with the Socialist party in other coun- 
 tries, issues manifestos on matters of current 
 interest, organises demonstrations in London, 
 and maintains a weekly newspaper, "Justice," 
 (price one penny) which has the largest circula- 
 tion of any Socialist periodical. In economics 
 it professes to follow Karl Marx ; in politics it 
 is " collectivist " as well as extremely demo- 
 cratic, and is marked by a tone of bitter re- 
 pudiation of both liberal and conservative 
 politicians. It denounces especially the " Con- 
 servatism " of the trades union leaders, and the 
 working members of Parliament, as well as the 
 " Jingo " foreign policy carried on by both 
 great parties in the interests of capitalists and 
 the aristocracy. 
 
 The most active members of the Social Demo- 
 cratic Federation are Mr. H. M. Hyndman,' 
 
 '^ Graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge ; author of 
 The Historical Basis of Socialism (London, 1883 ; Kegan 
 Paul & Co.) ; The Bankruptcy of India (London 1886, 
 
32 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Mrs. Annie Besant ' and Mr. Herbert Bur- 
 rows. 
 
 The central office of the Social Democratic 
 Federation is 337 Strand, London. Among 
 their more important issues may be named 
 " Socialism Made Plain " (71st thousand), " The 
 Socialist Catechism," by J. L. Joynes, M. A. 
 (20th thousand), Mr. Hyndman's '' A Commune 
 for London," and "The Emigration Fraud" 
 
 Swan, Sonnenschein & Co.) England for all {}-.<ycvii<y!\, i88i; 
 E. W. Allen) ; The Coming Revolution in England (London, 
 W. Reeves) : Socialism and Slavery (London, Modern 
 Press) ; and many other pamphlets and articles on Social- 
 ism. 
 
 ^ The well known author and lecturer, late co-editor 
 with Mr Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., of The National Re- 
 former, vice-president of the National Secular Society and 
 of the Malthusian League; secretary of the Matchmakers' 
 Trade Union; member of the Fabian Society and of the 
 Social Democratic Federation ; member of the London 
 School Board (returned at the top of the poll for the Tower 
 Hamlet Division, November, 1888) ; prosecuted with Mr. 
 Bradlaugh in 1877, for publishing Dr. Knowlton's i^rwifs 0/ 
 Philosophy I because of her atheistic and Malthusian 
 opinions deprived in 1878 of the custody of her daughter, a 
 " ward of court," by order of the court of chancery ; author 
 of My Path to Atheism, The Law of Population., Autobio- 
 graphical Sketches, Modern Socialism, and numerous Free- 
 thought, Political and Socialist pamphlets and essays. 
 (Freethought Publishing Co., 63 Fleet Street, London). 
 
SOCIALISM m ENGLAND 33 
 
 (one penny each) ; " The Principles of Social- 
 ism," by Mr. Hyndman and Mr. Morris, price 
 fourpence ; Prince Kropotkine's " Appeal to the 
 Young," and Karl Marx' " Wage-Labour and 
 Capital " (one penny each). 
 
 The other large popular organization in Eng- 
 land Is the " Socialist League," founded in 1883 
 by Mr. William Morris,' who has been one of 
 the active members of the Social Democratic 
 Federation. The grounds of his secession 
 were mainly personal, but the new body devel- 
 oped important differences as to the method of 
 advancing the Socialist cause. Whilst accepting 
 the collectivist principle of public control over 
 the instruments of wealth production, the 
 Socialist League insists strongly upon the 
 necessity of this control being exercised by free 
 communal groups, only loosely and voluntarily 
 associated in larger aggregates. On this ground 
 it has often leanings towards the " Anarchist " 
 section, in resisting the tendency to an over- 
 centralized administration, to which collectivists 
 are prone. This attitude is emphasized by the 
 
 ^ The eminent poet and art worker, author of The 
 Earthly Paradise and many other poems. His chief 
 Socialist publication is Signs of Change, a series of lectures. 
 (London, 1889, Reeves & Turner). 
 
 
 
34 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 repugnance of its leader to the machinery and 
 methods of current politics which causes it to 
 confine itself to the dissemination of the Social- 
 ist principles and ideal, without endeavouring 
 directly to influence the actual mode of their 
 application to the current social evolution. 
 This purely educational attitude which gives 
 most of the publications of the League some- 
 what of an " Utopian " character, whilst not un- 
 attractive to students, and to literary and 
 artistic workers, fails to interest the mass of the 
 wage-workers. On the other hand, it attracts, 
 most of the foreign Socialist refugees in this 
 country, who have brought from the continent 
 a distrust of the merely " bourgeois " politics of 
 French and German Liberalism. These give 
 the Socialist League a disposition occasionally 
 to coquet vaguely with those " counsels of de- 
 spair " to which the oppressed classes are prone 
 when hope of political regeneration dies out 
 among them ; and while such influences inflame 
 the prevalent feeling against the feeble and 
 hesitating efforts of even the Radical political 
 leaders, they prevent the League finding ad- 
 herents among the ordinary working men.' It 
 ^ This is typical of the change of thought among the 
 
so CIALISM IN ENGLAND. 35 
 
 is accordingly diminishing in numerical strength, 
 and many of its members have fallen away to 
 set up separate local organizations or to join 
 other bodies. 
 
 The Socialist League is nominally organised 
 on a plan similar to that of the Social Demo- 
 cratic Federation, with a central council and 
 a number of local branches. These have, 
 however, latterly become much less numerous. 
 
 The organ of the League is the " Common- 
 weal," published weekly, price one penny. 
 This has now a smaller circulation than 
 " Justice," but it often contains poems and 
 articles of high literary merit. It is marked 
 
 masses. The Trades Union leaders still belong, in great 
 measure, to the school of Individualist Radicalism, out of 
 which their followers have already passed, and the leaders' 
 dislike and distrust of political action causes them, as it 
 does the Socialist League, occasionally to throw themselves 
 into the hands of the wilder revolutionary party. This 
 happened, for instance, at the international Trades Union 
 Congress in London in November, 1888, when the English 
 delegates coalesced with the Foreign Anarchists, rather than 
 support the mildly " collectivist " proposals as to the legisla- 
 tive shortening of the hours of labour. (See Mr. Adolphe 
 Smith's Critical Essay on the Congress; London, 19 
 Barclay Road, Walham Green.) A great advance was, 
 however, shown by those Trades Unionists who represented 
 England in the annual Congress at Paris in 1889. 
 
36 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND 
 
 by an equally acrid denunciation of all poli- 
 ticians, and it may be added that, with doubtful 
 wisdom, both papers unite in attacking Mr. 
 Henry George, and the Land Nationalisation 
 movement generally. 
 
 The most active member of the Socialist 
 League, besides Mr. William Morris, is Mr. E. 
 Belfort Bax.' 
 
 The head office of the Socialist League is at 
 24 Great Queen Street, W.C, London, but its 
 most important centre is Mr. Morris' residence, 
 Kelmscott House, Upper Mall, Hammersmith, 
 London. Its chief publications other than the 
 lectures of Mr. Morris and Mr. Bax, already 
 -mentioned, are " The Manifesto of the Socialist 
 League" (price one penny,) and a series of 
 rather inflammatory leaflets for free distribu- 
 tion. 
 
 The Fabian Society occupies a different 
 sphere as a Socialist society from that of the 
 two larger bodies. It was founded in 1883 as 
 an educational and propagandist centre, and 
 ^ Author of a History of Philosophy, a biography of Jean 
 Paul Marat, and other philosophical and historical works j 
 editor of Bohn's edition of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, 
 author of The Religion of Socialism, The Ethics of Socialism, 
 and many other socialist writings. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 37 
 
 includes members of all the other organisations, 
 with a number of active workers chiefly of the 
 middle class, and "literary proletariat." It 
 furnishes lecturers in considerable number to all 
 meetings where Socialism, in any guise what- 
 soever, can possibly be introduced, and its own 
 fortnightly discussions have been useful in 
 formulating and adapting Socialist principles in 
 relation to actual contemporary conditions. 
 Two of its members were elected in 1888 on 
 the London School Board. The Society ex- 
 ercises a considerable influence, more real than 
 apparent, by the personal participation of its 
 members in nearly all reform movements, as 
 well as by their work at the Universities and in 
 the fields of journalism and the teaching of 
 Political Economy. It is not, however, a 
 numerous body, and makes no attempt to in- 
 crease its numbers beyond a convenient limit. 
 Its influence on the Socialist movement has 
 been marked by the present predominance of 
 the ideas of gradual social evolution, and the 
 importance of correct economic analysis. The 
 address of the Secretary is 180 Portsdown 
 Road, London. The chief publication of the 
 Society, is the series of lectures published in 
 
38 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND 
 
 January 1890, price 6s., entitled '■'■Fabian 
 Essays in Socialism.'''' This is a complete ex- 
 position of modern English Socialism in its 
 latest and maturest phase. The book consists 
 of eight monographs by Socialists who are 
 known as practical speakers, writers, and poli- 
 tical workers. The relation of Socialism to 
 economic and moral science is dealt with by G, 
 Bernard Shaw and Sydney Olivier, B.A. ; its 
 evolution, as traced in the history of politics and 
 industry, by Sidney Webb, LL.B., and William 
 Clarke, M.A. ; its effect on political parties in 
 the immediate future, by Hubert Bland; its 
 consequences upon property and industry, by 
 Graham Wallas, M.A. and Annie Besant. 
 The practical steps by which the transition to 
 Social Democracy is likely to be completed are 
 the subject of a separate essay, by G. Bernard 
 Shaw, which was prepared at the request of the 
 officers of the economic section of the British 
 Association, and read at the Bath meeting in 
 September 1888. 
 
 The fullest account of the practical proposals 
 of Socialists for dealing with the pressing social 
 problems of the metropolis is given in " Facts 
 for Londoners " (Fabian Tract No. 8, price 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 39 
 
 sixpence), which contains an enormous mass of 
 official statistics and other trustworthy inform- 
 ation on all London affairs. 
 
 The other publications of the society which 
 are still in print are (No. i) " Why are the 
 many poor ? " (one shilling per loo) ; (No. 5.) 
 " Facts for Socialists from the Political Econo- 
 mists and Statisticians ; " (No. 7) " Capital and 
 Land ; " and (No. 9) " An Eight Hours Bill in 
 the form of an Amendment of the Factory 
 Acts " (price one penny each). All these can 
 be obtained from the Secretary, 180 Portsdown 
 Road, London, W., or at ^i oi" 185 Fleet Street, 
 E.G. 
 
 The Christian Socialist Society consists of 
 Socialists who desire to lay special stress upon 
 the fact that the doctrines and principles of 
 Christianity, as taught by Jesus Christ, neces- 
 sarily involve a Socialistic state of society. The 
 members consist largely of ministers of religion 
 of various denominations all over the country, 
 who give effect to their views in frequent ser- 
 mons and religious writings. One of them was 
 in 1889 elected unopposed to the County 
 Council of Staffordshire. The " Christian 
 Socialist," a monthly newspaper, is practically 
 
40 SO C TALIS M IN ENGLAND. 
 
 maintained by the adherents of the society, 
 under the editorship of Mr. W. H. P. Camp- 
 bell (8 Lome Villas, Brockley Road, Forest 
 Hill, London, S. E.). Their other chief pub- 
 lication is a pamphlet, " Social Reformation on 
 Christian Principles " (price one penny), in 
 which the case for Socialist reforms is ably 
 stated from a religious point of view. The 
 tone of the newspaper, as well as of the 
 Society's publications, is that of broad unsectar- 
 ian Christianity, with great insistance upon the 
 moral obligation of the" individual, and the 
 necessity of unselfish subordination to the 
 common weal. 
 
 The four organizations already mentioned 
 are the only existing definitely Socialist bodies 
 of more than local influence. The " Guild of 
 St. Matthew " will be noticed in connection 
 with " Socialism in the Churches." Several 
 local societies are, however, of considerable im- 
 portance. In London, the Battersea branch of 
 the Social Democratic Federation has become 
 almost an independent society, completely dom- 
 inating the political life of the important indus- 
 trial constituency in which it is situated. 
 (Office, Sydney Hall, 36 York Road, Batter- 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 41 
 
 sea.) It is probable that a Socialist member of 
 Parliament will be returned there at the next 
 election, in place of the present capitalist 
 Liberal representative. 
 
 It is significant of the attitude of the Liberal 
 party towards Socialism that, immediately after 
 the triumphant election of Mr. John Burns to 
 the London County Council for the constituency 
 of Battersea, its Liberal Member of Parliament 
 announced that he would not again contest the 
 seat. Owing to local jealousies, a Liberal 
 candidate was actually chosen, but every 
 possible pressure was brought to bear upon him 
 and his supporters by the Liberal leaders and 
 organizers, in order that the way might be clear 
 for the Socialist candidate, who alone stands any 
 chance of success. No attempt is made by any 
 Liberal leader to oppose or withstand Mr. 
 Burns' triumphant progress. 
 
 An active former " branch " of the Socialist 
 League has now ■ become the Bloomsbury 
 Socialist Society, having differed from the par- 
 ent organization in desiring to take part in 
 current politics. It is now carrying on an inde- 
 pendent existence, its meetings taking place at 
 49 Tottenham Street, Tottenham Court Road. 
 
42 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 It is, however, more significant as marking the 
 growth of dissatisfaction with all non-political 
 methods, than for its size or strength. 
 
 In the provinces the independent societies at 
 Bristol and Sheffield deserve special notice. 
 The " Clifton and Bristol Christian Socialist 
 Society " is mainly a middle class body, with 
 frankly democratic sympathies. It has exer- 
 cised considerable influence in its own locality, 
 its secretary (Mr. H. H. Gore, 22 Clare Street, 
 Bristol,) having been elected a member of the 
 Bristol School Board, and afterwards a member 
 of the Town Council, after a sharp contest in 
 each case. 
 
 The " Sheffield Socialists " derive much of 
 their Inspiration from Mr. Edward Carpenter/ 
 their most prominent member, and exhibit a 
 tendency to Rusklnian Socialism, not free from 
 influences akin to those emanating from Thor- 
 eau on the one hand, and from Tolstoi on the 
 other. The duties of citizenship are, how- 
 ever, not neglected, and here a second Socialist 
 (Rev. Charles Peach) was elected on the School 
 
 '^ Author of Towards, Democracy, England's Ideal, Civiliza- 
 tion, its Cause and Cure, (Socialist Lectures) and other works. 
 (London : Swan, Sonnenschein & Co). 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 43 
 
 Board in 1889, Mr. Jonathan Taylor having 
 occupied that position for some years. 
 
 The development of Socialism among the 
 Northumberland miners and the workers of 
 Tyneside has been specially interesting. This 
 district Is, in many respects, the most prosperous 
 industrial centre in England, and the miners, 
 in particular, by a well organized trades union 
 and successful co-operative societies, stand al- 
 most at the head of the so-called " aristocracy 
 of labour." Both the Social Democratic Federa- 
 tion and the Socialist League have pushed their 
 propaganda with great vigour in all the populous 
 centres. Numerous branches have been formed, 
 which at one time possessed a local federal 
 organization, and a large number of members 
 have been at various times enrolled. Their in- 
 fluence was seen in the warning vote of " want 
 of confidence" passed on the "Miners' Mem- 
 ber " of Parliament (Mr. T. Burt), which was, 
 however, afterwards rescinded, and, more recent- 
 ly, in the triumphant election, already referred 
 to, of three Socialists to the Newcastle School 
 Board. The Socialist movement in this district 
 has now, however, become almost merged, as far 
 as organization and machinery are concerned, 
 
44 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 in the growing " Labour Party," which is 
 stronger as a conscious force in Newcastle than 
 anywhere else. 
 
 The " Labour Party " is the product of the 
 popular dissatisfaction on the one hand with the 
 " middle class politics " of the provincial 
 Liberal, and on the other, with the long pre- 
 valent abstention of the Trades Unions from 
 ordinary political work. Various attempts have 
 been and continue to be made to form a " Third 
 Party," but these have hitherto resulted chiefly 
 in increasing the wide-spread belief that the 
 wage-earning class has little reason to care for 
 one political party more than another. The 
 various " labour parties " have not hitherto been 
 powerful in numerical strength. The Ameri- 
 can "Knights of Labour" have been imitated 
 in an organization in the midland industrial 
 centres. The " Labour Federation " about 
 Tyneside is a similar movement. The " Labour 
 Electoral Association " endeavours to organize 
 a "labour vote," and is of some strength at 
 Newcastle, where Mr. John Morley, M.P., has 
 been already driven by the local society to 
 declare a much more advanced programme 
 than hitherto promulgated by him. The 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 45 
 
 programme of the Newcastle " Labour 
 Electoral Organization," has accordingly be- 
 come of some general interest, and as it is 
 typical of them all, it is given below, with these 
 special local demands : — 
 
 Parliamentary Programme. 
 
 I — Adult suffrage, with abolition of plural voting. 
 
 2— Triennial Piifliaments, the elections to be all on one 
 day. 
 
 3 — Payment of Members by the State, and of official 
 election expenses from the rates. 
 
 4— Second Ballot, to ensure the representation of 
 majority. 
 
 5 — Nationalisation of land and minerals. 
 
 6— Free compulsory education : Boards to have power 
 to provide free meals for the children. 
 
 7 — Home Rule for each separate nationality of country 
 demanding it, in the British Empire, with an Imperial 
 Parliament for Imperial affairs. 
 
 8— Labour Legislation : (a) an Eight Hours Act ; 
 (6) Reform of present Poor Law system, and creation of 
 State Insurance for sickness, accident, superannuation and 
 death ; (c) Weekly Pays ; (d) Application of Factories' and 
 Workshops' Act to all premises, whether public or private, 
 in which work is performed. 
 
 9 — State acquisition of Railways and other means of 
 transit. 
 
 10— Complete control of liquor traffic by the Ratepayers. 
 
 II — Abolition of the House of Lords and of all other 
 hereditary offices. 
 
46 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 12— Simplification and codification of the Civil and 
 Criminal Law, and free administration of justice to all 
 classes alike. 
 
 Municipal Programme. 
 
 I — To acquire and work for the benefit of the public all 
 monopolies which minister to the convenience of the 
 citizens, and especially ; (a) Supply of Water ; (6) Supply of 
 Gas or Electric light ; (c) Tramways. 
 
 2 — To secure for the citizens freedom from the antiquated 
 nuisance of tolls, by acquiring, freeing, or building substi- 
 tutes for : (a) the Byker Bridge ; (6) the Redheugh Bridge ; 
 (c) the High Level Bridge ; {d) and all other tolls on the 
 approaches to the city. 
 
 3 — To put into immediate operation the Artizans 
 Dwellings Act by the erection of good dwellings to be let at 
 a rate to cover cost and maintenance alone, on the Walker 
 estate, or elsewhere. 
 
 4 — ^To create a labour exchange for male and female 
 workers, including domestic servants. 
 
 5 —To increase the utility of the Public Free Library by 
 instituting Branches in various districts of the city. 
 
 6 — To institute a Public Gallery of Art. 
 
 7 — To build restaurants with facilities for workmen to 
 transact business on the same principle as the Public Baths. 
 
 8 —To build a Public Gymnasium, and provide all the 
 public parks with complete gymnastic appliances. 
 
 These empirical "labour" programmes re- 
 present in some sense a reaction against the 
 more theoretic visions of the earlier Socialist 
 speeches, and they are in some cases the direct 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 47 
 
 results of a better realisation by Socialists 
 themselves of the means and difficulties of 
 social progress. There can be no doubt that 
 most of the measures thus crudely adumbrated 
 will be gradually adopted by the Liberal party 
 and some of them possibly by the Conservatives. 
 
 The most prominent workers in the so-called 
 "Labour" movement are Messrs. Cunninghame 
 Graham, M.P., H. H. Champion, John Burns, 
 L.C,C.,' Tom Mann, (Amalgamated Engineers), 
 J. Keir Hardie, (Ayrshire Miners), T. R. 
 Threlfall (Lancashire), and Alexander Stewart 
 (Newcastle School Board). 
 
 Mr. H. H. Champion was for some years an 
 active worker for the Social-Democratic Fed- 
 
 ^ A working engineer, with a magnificent gift of oratory 
 and extraordinary capacity for organization and leadership ; 
 long one of the leading members of the Social-Democratic 
 Federation, from which he has now resigned ; unsuccessful 
 as a SociaUst candidate for Parliament at Nottingham, 1885; 
 prosecuted for sedition in April, 1886, but acquitted ; con- 
 victed of " unlawful assembly " and obstructing the police 
 at Trafalgar Square, "Bloody Sunday," November 13, 1887, 
 and imprisoned; triumphantly elected to the London 
 County Council by Battersea, January, 1889; organizer and 
 leader of the dock and other strikes, 1889 ; accepted by the 
 Liberal Association of Battersea as their candidate for 
 Parliament, though standing frankly as a " Social Democrat.' 
 
48 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 eration, but his conduct being disapproved, he 
 was expelled, and now carries on an agitation 
 independently, the chief aim of which is the 
 legislative shortening of the hours of labour. 
 He has taken the leading part in trying to 
 enforce the " Shop Hours Regulation Act," 
 passed in 1886 at the instance of Sir John 
 Lubbock, M.P. His newspaper, "The Labour 
 Elector" (Modern Press, 13 Paternoster Row, 
 London, weekly, price one penny), has now 
 a considerable circulation, and is mainly devoted 
 to the advocacy of an " Eight Hours' Bill," and 
 the exposure and denunciation of capitalist 
 members of the Liberal party. 
 
 The whole "Labour movement'' received 
 during 1889 an immense impetus from (i) the 
 successful intervention of the Working Men's 
 Clubs and Trades' Unions in the London 
 School Board and County Council Elections ; 
 (2) the general success and reasonable modera- 
 tion of the International Trades' Union Con- 
 gress at Paris ; and, above all, (3) the remark- 
 able series of strikes mostly led and organized 
 by Mr. John Burns, L.C.C. 
 
 The success of Socialist candidates at the 
 School Board and County Council elections has 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 49 
 
 already been referred to, but an even greater 
 effect has been produced upon public opinion 
 by the decision of both these bodies not to 
 allow any of their work to be executed by firms 
 not paying the standard wages, and otherwise 
 conforming to the standard usages of each 
 trade. This decision, which has been sternly 
 adhered to, is much strengthening the influence 
 of the Trades' Unions, and is going far to 
 establish a " moral minimum " rate of wages. 
 
 The International Trades' Union Congress 
 at Paris, though frowned upon by the more old- 
 fashioned of the English leaders, received 
 widespread support from labour organizations of 
 all kinds, including many Socialist bodies. 
 Its proceedings were marred by an unfortunate 
 split between the so-called " Possibilists," and 
 the " Marxists," but they have greatly fa- 
 cilitated the general labour movement by re- 
 sulting, almost with international unanimity, 
 in the following moderate and practicable 
 "labour programme," which is being pressed 
 for simultaneously in all industrially developed 
 countries. 
 
 I. Eight hours a day to be the maximum of 
 the day'e work fixed by international law. 2. 
 
50 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 At least one day's holiday to be given each 
 week, and no work to be done on fete days. 
 
 3. Abolition of night work as far as practicable 
 for men, and entirely for women and children. 
 
 4. The total suppression of labour by children 
 under the age of fourteen, and protection of 
 children up to the age of eighteen. 5. Complete 
 technical and professional education. 6. Over- 
 time to be paid for at double rates, and limited 
 to four hours in twenty-four. 7, Civil and 
 criminal responsibility of the employers for 
 accidents. 8. An adequate number of quali- 
 fied inspectors to be nominated by the workers 
 themselves, and paid by the State or the 
 commune, with full power to enter workshops, 
 factories, or religious establishments at any 
 time, and to examine the apprentices at their 
 own homes. 9. Workshops to be organised 
 by the workers with subsidies from the muni- 
 cipalities or the State. 10. Prison and work- 
 house labour to be conducted under the same 
 condition as free labour, and to be employed as 
 far as possible on great public works. 11. No 
 foreign labourers to be allowed to accept em- 
 ployment, and no employers to be allowed to 
 employ such labourers, at rates of wages 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 51 
 
 below the trade union rates fixed for their 
 trade. 12. A minimum wage to be fixed in 
 every country, in accordance with a reasonable 
 standard of living. 13. The abrogation of all 
 laws against the international organization of 
 labour. 14. Equal pay and opportunities for 
 women and men for equal work. 
 
 The significant new development in labour 
 disputes is the victory of the weak, through 
 general public sympathy with their demands. 
 
 The first of the recent strikes was that of the 
 girls employed in making lucifer matches. 
 They form one of the commonest grades of 
 labour, and they possessed absolutely no or- 
 ganization of any kind. Attention having 
 been directed to their hardships by Mrs. 
 Besant, the whole of these workers employed 
 by Bryant and May (Limited) came out on strike 
 in 1888 without funds, without organization 
 and without leaders. No labour revolt ever 
 seemed more hopeless. But by dint of almost 
 unceasing labour, Mrs. Besant organized, con- 
 trolled and directed the most successful strike 
 of modern times. Public opinion practically 
 ostracised the Directors of the Company; the 
 conscience, or at any rate, the fear of the 
 
52 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 shareholders was touched ; the Liberal party- 
 leaders, for the first time in the history of 
 labour, were compelled to take an active, 
 though a hidden part, and the Liberal " whip," 
 (Mr. Arnold Morley, M.P.) actually used per- 
 sonal pressure on the Liberal members of 
 Parliament and other politicians who found 
 themselves involved as shareholders. The 
 London Trades Council, for the first time, took 
 up the cause of unskilled labour, and threat- 
 ened a universal "boycott." The Directors 
 ignominiously collapsed, and a new era in the 
 labour war was inaugurated. 
 
 The next important conflict was that of the 
 gas stokers. Having formed a union, the 
 London men struck for a reduction of their 
 hours of labour from 1 2 to 8 per day, with some 
 minor improvements. This strike was com- 
 pletely successful, and the fact that the Gas 
 Companies were by the shortening of hours 
 immediately compelled to engage several thou- 
 sand additional men, is likely to be long 
 remembered as a powerful argument in favour 
 of the "Eight Hours Bill." The gas stokers 
 in the municipal gas-works at Bristol, Leeds, 
 etc., shortly afterwards obtained the same boon. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 53 
 
 The example of the gas stokers proved con- 
 tagious. The London dock-labourers, probably 
 the very " residuum " of London labour, had 
 long been slowly organizing into a union, under 
 Mr. B. Tillett, and in August, 1889, some ten 
 thousand of them struck, closing every dock in 
 London. Nearly the whole of the riverside 
 labourers, including especially the stevedores 
 and the lightermen, struck in sympathy, and 
 the whole trade of the world's greatest port was 
 absolutely stopped. The strike was admirably 
 led and managed by Messrs. Burns, Tillett and 
 Mann ; but only the widespread public sym- 
 pathy with the strikers made it successful. 
 Public disapproval hindered the Dock Com- 
 panies from obtaining sufficient " blacklegs " to 
 take the strikers' place ; public subscriptions of 
 ;i^48,ooo enabled Burns to organize a splendid 
 system of " strike pay," which bribed every 
 East End "loafer "not to offer himself; and 
 finally the concentrated pressure of editors, 
 clergymen, shareholders, shipowners and mer- 
 chants enabled Cardinal Manning and Mr. 
 Sydney Buxton, M.P., as "arbitrators," to 
 compel the Dock Directors to concede practi- 
 callv the whole of the men's demands, a delay 
 
54 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of six weeks being granted to allow of the new 
 arrangements being made. Two further in- 
 cidents of this strike must be noted, as pro- 
 foundly affecting public opinion. The "docker's 
 tanner " — sixpence per hour — became marked 
 out as the " moral minimum " London wage. 
 And over ^30,000 was subscribed to the strike 
 fund in Australia, and remitted by telegraph. 
 The electric cable has at last made labour 
 questions international. 
 
 The political effect of this series of incidents 
 has been momentous. The political centre of 
 gravity has been finally and decisively shifted 
 from the middle class to the wage earners — 
 from the provincial industrial centres to London. 
 The result has already been seen in the rapidly 
 accelerating plunge of the Liberal party into an 
 almost avowed Socialism. 
 
 Nothing need be said of other movements of 
 Socialist import in various parts of England, 
 most of which are much behind the Metropolis 
 in this respect. 
 
 Description of the English socialist organisa- 
 tions would however be incomplete without 
 mention of the " Anarchist " section,' although 
 
 '' It is necessary to explain to the candid student that the 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 55 
 
 this is infinitesimal in numbers. The high 
 personal character and intellectual attainments 
 of its leaders enable it to command a respect 
 which neither its strength nor its doctrines 
 would otherwise procure. 
 
 The English " Anarchists," unlike many of 
 the American, and some of the Continental, 
 claimants of that misleading appellation, are 
 advocates of a free and voluntary communism, 
 regulated only by moral suasion. They do not 
 overlook the imperfect moral nature of existing 
 humanity, but they lay great stress on the un- 
 doubted fact that many of our selfish and anti- 
 social feelings are fostered by the existing com- 
 petitive and authoritative system, and might be 
 expected to disappear with it. Some of them 
 admit that a free communism is only a remote 
 ideal, to be reached only after a considerable 
 development of Collectivism, but their practical 
 tendency is usually against further advances of 
 collective activity. The constant autonomy of 
 the individual needs, they think, to be increased 
 
 '.' Anarchist " is, in no respect, an advocate of what is 
 commonly known as " anarchy." He is so far from being 
 a mere "criminal lunatic "that his main defect may be 
 characterised as being " too good for this world." 
 
S6 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 rather than diminished, even if the restriction 
 originates at the desire of the individual him- 
 self. 
 
 The chief exponents in England of this 
 scientific " Anarchism " are Prince Kropot- 
 kine " and Mrs. C. M. Wilson, and there is 
 issued a monthly journal of uncertain vitality 
 entitled "Freedom" (London, 19 Cursitor 
 street — price one penny.) 
 
 There are various other groups and minor 
 organizations of Socialists, of a local and us- 
 ually extremely fluctuating character. But, as 
 has been already explained, by far the largest 
 part of English Socialism is unconscious of it- 
 self as Socialism, and the avowed exponents of 
 the principle appear, on a mere superficial 
 glance, to be of quite minor importance in En- 
 glish public life. 
 
 The movement for Land Nationalization 
 proper is largely participated in by Socialists, 
 but maintains two independent organisations of 
 
 '^ Prince Kropotkine's services to science and to prison 
 reform are well-known. His most important socialist con- 
 tribution is a most eloquent pamphlet entitled Aux jevnes 
 gens, translated into English under the title of An Appeal to 
 tlie Young. (London : The Modern Press, and Social 
 Democratic Federation.) 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 57 
 
 importance. The " Land Nationalization 
 Society " (London, 1 1 Southampton Street, 
 Strand), has for its principal exponent the 
 eminent naturalist, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, 
 who now declares himself a Socialist. A 
 monthly organ of this Society was started in 
 Nov. 1889, under the title " Land and Labour" 
 (price one penny). The " English Land Re- 
 storation League " (London, 8 Duke Street, 
 Adelphi), a very vigorous organization of wide- 
 spread influence, adheres more closely to the 
 principles of Mr. Henry George. The Rev. J. 
 E. Symes, Professor of Political Economy at 
 University College, Nottingham, author of " A 
 Short Text-book of Political Economy " (Lon- 
 don, Rivingtons, 1888), is a member of the 
 Council of this body, which also includes several 
 members of Parliament. Not a few Liberal 
 candidates for Parliament now boldly declare 
 themselves in favour of Land Nationalization, 
 much to the disgust, it need hardly be said, of 
 their more cautious supporters. But the 
 avowal is found to " pay," and the election, in 
 Oct. 1889, of Mr. Seymour Keay as member 
 for Elgin and Nairn, upon the declared plat- 
 form of complete Land Nationalization, in spite 
 
S8 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND 
 
 of the defection of middle-class Liberals, pro- 
 duced a considerable sensation in official 
 Liberal ranks. 
 
 The accepted method of land nationalization is 
 the taxation of rental values, and the "Joint 
 Committee for the Taxation of Ground Rents 
 and Values," (London i8 Bouverie Street, E. 
 C), formed by the English Land Restoration 
 League, in conjunction with the London Muni- 
 cipal Reform League, has enjoyed in succession 
 the presidency of Lord Hobhouse, K.C.S.I., 
 and Earl Compton, M.P., and has succeeded in 
 enlisting nearly all the Liberal (and some Con- 
 servative) members of Parliament in support of 
 the special taxation of urban land values. 
 Its first important pubHcation "A Plea for the 
 Taxation of Ground Rents," (price tv/opence) 
 was, at the request of the Committee, written 
 by a Socialist, and the arguments used therein 
 support the complete Nationalization or Muni- 
 cipalization of all Rent. A second pamphlet 
 dealing with the question in more detail, has 
 been prepared by Mr. Fletcher Moulton, Q.C. 
 (late M.P. for Clapham). This committee, 
 presenting its aims in the moderate and practical 
 way dear to the English mind, has already ex- 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 59 
 
 ercised a most potent influence, and at least 
 two- thirds of the members of the London County- 
 Council adopt its programme. The move- 
 ment for the absorption by taxation of the site 
 value of great cities is making enormous strides, 
 and the lectures of Mr. Henry George during 
 his visit in 1889 were presided over by Liberal 
 members of Parliament and candidates for that 
 honour, as well as by ministers and other 
 leaders of the great Nonconformist religious 
 bodies, who, on his two former visits, usually 
 regarded his doctrines with horror and con- 
 tempt. 
 
 The Financial Reform Association, a mainly 
 capitalist organization founded by Cobden and 
 Bright for the abolition of customs duties, has 
 been completely swept into the current set up 
 by Mr. Henry George, and its monthly organ, 
 the " Financial Reformer," now presses frankly 
 and persistently for an immediate imposition of 
 a 25 per cent, tax on the full annual value of 
 land, which, as it says, would at once absorb 
 over forty millions sterling annually of the rent 
 now paid to individual proprietors. This 
 association receives the support of a large 
 number of Liberal Members of Parliament and 
 
6o SOCIALISM m ENGLAND. 
 
 associations, by whose aid it carries on a vigor- 
 ous campaign all over the country. 
 
 The special rating and taxation of urban land 
 values, the amount being left unspecified, is in- 
 deed now fully accepted as a part of the official 
 Liberal programme, and this fact is the more 
 significant of the popular pressure in that pro- 
 bably not one of the present Liberal leaders 
 really desires or intends any such "confiscatory " 
 taxation, though they take no trouble to disclaim 
 it. By the people at large the mere landlord is re- 
 cognised, as Matthew Arnold put it, as a costly 
 anachronism whose moral claim even to compen- 
 sation for expropriation is constantly getting 
 weaker. The Irish landlord has absolutely no 
 friends, and in defence of Irish rents, the Eng- 
 lish landlord is fast jeopardising his own position. 
 A large Irish land purchase scheme, if forced 
 upon England and Scotland, would probably so 
 ripen opinion on the subject as immediately to 
 bring the British land question into practical 
 politics. 
 
 In Scotland the Socialist propaganda has had a 
 successcorrespondingtothatin England, andthere 
 have been, from time to time, active "branches" 
 in all the industrial centres. The " Scottish 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 6l 
 
 Land and Labour League " has become a defi- 
 nitely Socialist organization, and the Land 
 Nationalization movement, which is very wide- 
 spread, is every day taking on more of a Social- 
 ist character. The most influential Scotch 
 Socialists are perhaps, the Reverend John 
 Glasse (Presbyterian), Old Grey Friars Church, 
 Edinburgh, and Professor Mavor, who holds the 
 chair of Political Economy in St. Mungo's 
 College, Glasgow. The chief Socialist organiza- 
 tion in Scotland is now the " Scottish Socialist 
 Federation," meeting at the Moulder's Hall, 105 
 High Street, Edinburgh. 
 
 Ireland has not proved a successful field for 
 avowed and conscious Socialist propaganda, in 
 consequence, no doubt, of its relatively back- 
 ward industrial development. The whole 
 tendency of the Parnellite movement is in favour 
 of ultimate peasant proprietorship, and hardly 
 anyone among the popular leaders, except Mr. 
 Michael Davitt, recognises the necessity even 
 of Land Nationalization. It need, however, 
 hardly be said that the Irish land movement has 
 struck a heavy blow against landlordism, and it 
 may very likely prove to be the case that this 
 attack on " private property " will carry the 
 
62 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Irish leaders, as it has their English supporters 
 to lengths as yet unsuspected by themselves 
 There is a Dublin Progressist Club, of Socialisi 
 sympathies, but of small influence, at 87 Mont- 
 gomery Street, Dublin. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Socialism in the Churches. 
 
 In spite of numerous statements to the contrary, 
 it is apparent that Socialism in England is by 
 no means an atheistic or irreligious movement. 
 It is true that many prominent Socialists are 
 agnostics or atheists, but the same remark could 
 be made of every reform movement. One or 
 two enthusiastic Socialists have gone so far as 
 to denounce Clericalism, and even Christianity, 
 as the necessary enemies of the Democracy. 
 But the movement on the whole has kept itself 
 remarkably clear of theological controversies, 
 and every Socialist society includes numbers of 
 earnest Christians. 
 
 The Christians have, indeed, not been back- 
 ward in taking their own part in the movement. 
 The " Christian Socialist Society " is a standing 
 assertion that Socialism is a necessary outcome 
 of a sincere acceptance of Christian principles. 
 
64 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 In some localities, notably in parts of Scotlan 
 and the west of England, the greater part ( 
 the movement is religious in tone. 
 
 The Socialist influence in the churches is nc 
 confined to any one denomination. The est. 
 blished Episcopalian Church, strongly consei 
 vative in general bias, contains a large numbe 
 of outspoken Socialist clergymen, especiall 
 among the younger " High Church " party. 
 
 The " Guild of St. Matthew," a widesprea 
 sacramental organization, with several hundre 
 clerical and lay members, has become an e 
 sentially Socialistic body, and its founder an 
 head, the Rev. Stewart D. Headlam, is 
 prominent worker in the Socialist cause, an 
 was elected as such to the London Schoi 
 Board at the recent election. The monthl 
 newspaper, " The Church Reformer," which : 
 the organ of Mr. Headlam and the Guild, is 
 frankly Socialist medium of great ability. Th 
 " Christian Social Union " was formed i 
 October 1889, under the auspices of Cano 
 Scott Holland, to carry on a similar work. 
 
 Socialism now forms a regular subject ( 
 discussion at diocesan conferences and at th 
 annual " Church Congress," and it was a pn 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 65 
 
 minent item at the Pan-Anglican Conference of 
 Bishops in 1888. In no case has it met with 
 general condemnation, the tone being usually 
 one of inconsistent and timid approval. The 
 bishops, indeed, paid it the tribute of a special 
 committee, whose well-intentioned but ill-in- 
 formed report contained the following exhorta- 
 tion : 
 
 "No more important problems can well occupy the 
 attention — whether of clergy or laity — than such as are 
 connected with what is popularly called Socialism. To 
 study schemes proposed for redressing the social balance, to 
 welcome the good which may be found in the aims or 
 operations of any, and to devise methods, whether by 
 legislation or by social combinations or in any other way, 
 for a peaceful solution of the problems without violence or 
 injustice, is one of the noblest pursuits which can engage 
 the thoughts of those who strive to follow in the footsteps 
 of Christ." 1 
 
 The memorial of the Guild of St. Matthew to 
 this Pan-Anglican Conference, which drew forth 
 the above Episcopal blessing, is perhaps the 
 best exposition extant of the feeling of the 
 Socialist members of the Established Church. 
 After referring to the hideous revelations of the 
 recent Royal Commission on the Housing of 
 
 1 Report of Pan- Anglican Conference (London, 1888. 
 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge). 
 
66 SOCiALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the Poor, and the increasing instability of 
 the commercial system, the Memorial proceeds 
 to declare the growing conviction that — 
 
 " Our present social system — if the words ' social 
 system ' can be used of that which is largely the outcome 
 of anarchic competition — is cruel and dishonest, and needs 
 drastic reform and radical reorganisation. The start- 
 ling contrast between the hovels of the poor and the houses 
 of the rich within the same city, between the pitiful wage of 
 the labourer and the vast income of the idler, between the 
 poverty of the tenant and the luxury of the landlord, 
 especially in our large towns, has been put before English 
 society with startling vividness. A wave of Socialist 
 thought has swept over England. The older party divisions 
 are becoming less and less distinct. Socialism seems 
 destined to produce in the near future a perfectly new 
 moral ' line of cleavage ' in English society. 
 
 " Herein, we respectfully submit to your Grace, are great 
 moral questions with which it is the plain duty of the 
 Church to deal. It has long been conceded by many 
 Churchmen that the housing and feeding of ' Christ's poor ' 
 are pre-eminently matters with which the followers of Him 
 who fed the hungry and healed the sick should concern 
 themselves. Under the ' Housing ' question lies the Land 
 question, as surely as the house stands on the land. Mr. 
 George denounces our present land system as one that robs 
 the many for the benefit of the few. His opponents retort 
 with a charge of ' plunder,' and describe the movement for 
 restoring to the people the value which they give to the 
 land as one of 'robbery plus cant.' Shall the Church of 
 Christ be dumb when men turn to her for guidance in this 
 matter ? Her priests, in the name of God, from the altars 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 67 
 
 of His Church, proclaim ' Thou shalt not steal.' What is 
 it to steal ? 
 
 "Again, the Socialist objects to the competitive com- 
 mercial system under which we live that it ' robs the poor 
 because he is poor ; ' that it enables and encourages the 
 capitalist to 'build his house by unrighteousness and his 
 chambers by wrong,' inasmuch as it gives him the power, 
 by taking advantage of the competition for a mere liveli- 
 hood, to ' use (a large part of) his neighbour's service with- 
 out wages, andgive him nought for his work.' The differences 
 between political party programmes sink into insignificance 
 beside the moral question here involved. Churchmen are 
 beginning to ask, ' Is it frue that the landlord and capitalist 
 are able, independently of any work done by themselves, 
 to appropriate a large share of the results of the labour of 
 their unprivileged brethren ? If it be true that this is so, is 
 it jusi?" 
 
 The Memorial then proceeds to insist on 
 
 two Christian principles, viz. : 
 
 " First, Every man should work. There should be no 
 idle class ; no class of those who consume but do not pro- 
 duce ; no privileged body allowed to live upon the produce 
 of others' labour without rendering a due equivalent. 
 
 " Secondly, The produce of labour must be distributed on a 
 much more equitable system than at present. Tiie landlord 
 and the capitalist, say the Socialists, secure by far too great 
 a share of the wealth created by labour. They take the 
 first and often the largest share with an acknowledged 
 tendency to increase their takings till no more than 
 a bare subsistence is left to the labourer. The Socialist 
 claim may not be orthodox economy from the stand-point 
 oi laissez faire, but it sounds strangely like an echo of St. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Paul's dictum, ' The husbandman that laboureth must be 
 the fint to partake of the fruits.' ' He that plougheth 
 ought to plough in hope, and he that thresheth to thresh in 
 hope of partaking.' And yet it has needed almost a revo- 
 lution within the last generation to bring ' hope ' within the 
 life of the English husbandman.' " 
 
 This remarkable declaration of Christian 
 politics concludes as follows : 
 
 "Your memorialists respectfully submit, therefore, that 
 with the main contentions of the Socialist, the Christian is 
 not only able but bound to agree. With the moral ques- 
 tions herein involved, the theologian is bound to concern 
 himself The suggestion of practical remedies belongs 
 rather to the province of the politician. All suggested 
 remedies must, of course, be tested by the Christian 
 standard of right and wrong, and no so-called reform which 
 robs a man of that which is rightfully his own, can be 
 sanctioned. But the question of the moral basis of pro- 
 perty, ' What is riglitfully a man's own ? ' has to be boldly 
 faced and answered." 
 
 Few of the Bishops, it need hardly be said, 
 ever venture to tackle the question so strongly 
 urged upon them, but they do not now dare to 
 condemn it. The great majority, of the bene- 
 hced clergy, especially in the rural districts, 
 scarcely yet realise that Socialism is anything 
 more than the "red spectre" dreaded of con- 
 tinental bourgeoisie, but those who look out 
 into the world are slowly becoming conscious 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 69 
 
 that it is not without its import for Anglican- 
 ism. The EstabHshed Church is, indeed, 
 obviously a Socialist institution in form, and 
 adherents of the " Establishment " are be- 
 ginning to see that Socialist influence is rather 
 tending to weaken the prevailing Radical in- 
 clination to separate Church and State, than to 
 incense the masses against theology. The 
 prevailing evil of the English Church is the 
 aristocratic taint of the majority of its beneficed 
 clergy. As Ruskin put it, they dine with the 
 rich, and preach to the poor. Until they are 
 more willing to dine with the poor, and preach 
 to the rich, its popular infl uence will be limited. 
 Signs are not wanting: that its more earnest 
 leaders are now beginning to perceive this. 
 
 In other denominations the Socialist leaven is 
 strong among the younger ministers, and even 
 the leaders are now frequently Socialistic in 
 tone and spirit. Among the Wesleyans, Rev. 
 Hugh Price Hughes and Rev. Mark Guy 
 Pearse have made various outspoken declara- 
 tions on the subject, and the "religious weeklies" 
 devote a large and increasing space to the 
 " labour problem " and the evil effects of 
 " landlordism." 
 
70 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Among other Christian ministers of various 
 denominations who are either avowed Socialists, 
 or who have written approvingly on Socialism, 
 may be cited the following : Rev. Canon West- 
 cott, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity at 
 Cambridge ; Canon Vaughan ; Canon Scott 
 Holland ; Prebendary Eyton ; Rev. Wilfrid 
 Richmond, late Warden of Glenalmond 
 School ; Rev. John Oakley, D.D., Dean of 
 Manchester ; Rev. S. A. Barnett (" Practicable 
 Socialism ") ; Rev. H. C. Shuttleworth, Rev. 
 T. Hancock ("The Banner of Christ in the 
 hands of the Socialists ") ; Rev. E. D. Girdle- 
 stone (" Society Classified," "Christian Social- 
 ism vs. Present Day Unsocialism ") ; Rev. P. 
 H. Wicksteed (" Christianity and Personal 
 Life," etc., also author of a remarkable 
 " Alphabet of Political Economy," etc.) ; Rev. 
 John Glasse, Rev. T. Travers Sherlock, Rev. 
 C. E. Brooke, Rev. A. W. Jephson, M.L.S.B., 
 and many others. 
 
 A very remarkable article by the Dean of 
 Wells (E. A. Plumptre), in the Contemporary 
 Review for Nov. 1889, sets forth, under the 
 title of " Christianity and Socialism," a frankly 
 sympathetic account of the relations between 
 
so CIALISM IN ENGLAND. 7 1 
 
 these two forces, as they appear to a high 
 dignitary of the Church. 
 
 The Roman CathoHc Creed is so largely the 
 faith of the pious poor in the most poverty 
 stricken districts of London and the Lanca- 
 shire towns that its priests could not escape the 
 prevailing Socialist influence. They are more- 
 over frequently of Irish race, and are neces- 
 sarily much interested in the Irish attack on 
 " landlordism." It is therefore not surprising 
 to find that, notwithstanding Papal denuncia- 
 tions of Continental " Socialism," a considerable 
 number of the younger priests in urban centres, 
 especially in London, are very Socialistic in 
 tone and sympathy. The well-known keen in- 
 terest of Cardinal Manning for social reforms, 
 and his ultra democratic Christianity, stimulate 
 this tendency, and it is beginning to be 
 mentioned that the Fathers furnish excellent 
 argument against private property, an institu- 
 tion which the Church tolerates, but of which it 
 has never approved. The rehousing of the 
 poor by public authorities is now set forth as 
 an obvious Christian duty, and a small " Catholic 
 Guild for the Furtherance of Social Reform " 
 has been started to pursue the matter. 
 
72 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 It is indeed beginning to be suspected by 
 not a few earnest Christians that the future of 
 Christianity in England is very largely bound 
 up with Socialism and Democracy. Unless 
 Christianity can once more become the accepted 
 faith of the masses, its influence must inevitably 
 undergo a serious popular decline, and it is al- 
 ready certain that the masses will accept no 
 anti-socialist faith. The churches are accord- 
 ingly turning timidly towards the rising sun, 
 and the eager reception, by evangelical 
 Christian reformers, of Mr. Henry George as a 
 notable champion of the faith, is significant of 
 the change of tone. English Protestantism, in 
 short, is gradually discarding its individualistic 
 quietism and " other worldliness," and is coming 
 more and more forward as an active political 
 influence towards the creation of " the Kingdom 
 of God on earth." 
 
 But however well disposed they may be to 
 social reforms, the great bulk of the ministers 
 of religion of all denominations are, it need 
 hardly be said, still attached strongly to the ex- 
 isting industrial order, and for want of 
 economic knowledge, are usually unable to im- 
 agine any other, even as an ideal. The rural 
 
so CIALISM m ENGLAND. 73 
 
 clergy, moreover, are usually hopelessly Con- 
 servative in politics. Those who believe that 
 Christian principles involve the acceptance of 
 Socialism are still in an insignificant minority, 
 but their influence is already apparent and is an 
 obviously growing one. How the " social 
 question " appeals to the " Free Churches " 
 may be judged from the remarkable paper read 
 by Mr. Albert Spicer, J. P. (Liberal candidate 
 for Monmouth borough) at the Congregational 
 Union Meeting at Hull in October, 1889. 
 This paper has been published under the title 
 of " Christian Economics with reference to the 
 Land Question." (London : Unwin Brothers, 
 71a Ludgate Hill, price one penny.) 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 SOCIALISM AT THE UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 Oxford and Cambridge have long ceased to 
 occupy the position of leaders of advanced 
 thought in any department of study, and in 
 biology and sociology in particular they have 
 followed, rather than led, their generation. But 
 as the places of education of a large though 
 diminishing majority of the " classe dirigeante," 
 their influences have an immense ultimate effect 
 upon social administration. It is, therefore, not 
 without significance that considerable attention 
 should just now be paid to Socialism at both of 
 these ancient seats of learning. At each of 
 them several Fellows and Tutors of Colleges 
 avow themselves Socialists, and are members of 
 one or the other of the Socialist organizations. 
 The teaching of history and economics is much 
 influenced by social tendencies. The subject of 
 Socialism is frequently discussed in one aspect 
 or another, at College debating societies, and 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 7S 
 
 Socialist resolutions at the "Union " occasionally 
 even command a majority of votes. Socialist 
 lectures have lately been given in several 
 Colleges by permission of the authorities, this 
 part of the propaganda being chiefly performed 
 by the Fabian Society, which has a standing 
 " Universities Committee." The Guild of St. 
 Matthew, a strongly Socialistic organization (see 
 page 64), has a permanent branch composed of 
 Oxford undergraduates, which is, however, now 
 likely to be merged in a branch of the " Chris- 
 tian Social Union," (see page 64). 
 
 At Oxford the influence of T. H. Green and 
 Arnold Toynbee^ has formed the centre round 
 which has grown up a distinctly Socialist mode 
 of thought, the influence of which is at present 
 hardly checked by any formulated resistance. 
 The "Toynbee Hall Settlement" in White- 
 chapel, itself a marked example of the recent 
 growth of " social compunction," is a nucleus 
 of real, though somewhat sentimental and un- 
 
 ^ See his Industrial Revolution, notably the lecture en- 
 titled " Are Radicals Socialists ? " A sympathetic account 
 of Toynbee's life and work is given as Part I. in the Seventh 
 Series of Johns Hopkins' University Studies in Historical and 
 Political Science, by Mr. F. C. Montague, M.A., Oxford, 
 author of The Limits of Individual Liberty. 
 
76 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 practical Socialism, fed by a constant stream of 
 University graduates, who are themselves mostly 
 Socialists of one type or another. The main 
 defect of this movement is the absence of really 
 democratic management, and the inevitable pre- 
 valence of a tone of patronage and philan- 
 thropy. 
 
 Cambridge is, perhaps, less Socialistic than 
 Oxford, though more economic. More than 
 one of its Professors confess, however, to belief 
 in the ultimate triumph of Socialist principles, 
 and the younger generation of economic students 
 is largely Socialistic in spirit. Several of the 
 " Extension lecturers " supplied to the larger 
 provincial towns are Socialists, and there is 
 every sign of the movement growing. King's 
 College, indeed, lent its lecture-room in the 
 Lent Term, 1889, for delivery of a series 
 of seven lectures on the Basis and Idea 
 of Socialism, by members of the Fabian 
 Society, well known as Socialist lecturers. 
 These lectures have been published as 
 " Fabian Essays in Socialism," (see page 
 38). 
 
 Among recent notable publications from the 
 Universities may be instanced Professor Karl 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 77 
 
 Pearson's (of King's College, Cambridge, and 
 University College, London) ; " The Ethic of 
 Freethought," a collection of Socialist Essays 
 (London, 1888 : Fisher Unwin) ; " Darwinism 
 and Politics," by D. G. Ritchie, M.A., Fellow 
 and Tutor of Jesus College, Oxford (London, 
 Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1889); "The 
 Moral Function of the State" (same author, to 
 be obtained from the Guild of St. Matthew, 8 
 Duke Street, Adelphi, London), and a transla- 
 tion of Schaffle's " Quintessence of Socialism," 
 by Bernard Bosanquet, M.A., late Fellow of 
 University College, Oxford (London, Swan, 
 Sonnenschein & Co.). 
 
 It is, however, easy to exaggerate the extent 
 to which a vague Socialism has unconsciously 
 obtained a hold upon the two older Universi- 
 ties. It must not be forgotten that seven out of 
 ten of the younger members of both Universities 
 are in the stage of belonging merely to the un- 
 thinking " Junkerthum," which, in such an 
 inquiry, counts for no more than the " pigs and 
 Philisters " whom Heine excluded from the 
 population of Gottingen. The great bulk of the 
 intellectual life, moreover, is still cynically criti- 
 cal and suspicious of Democracy, and the Uni 
 
78 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 versity influence makes, on the whole, for 
 Conservatism. A Socialist movement, none the 
 less potent because largely unconscious of itself, 
 is, however, obviously at work. 
 
 It cannot be said that the English Universities 
 have as yet had any influence on the Socialist 
 movement itself. Unlike the " Katheder 
 Socialisten" of Germany, they have been 
 affected by it, but have not themselves affected 
 it. The radical vice of University life — the 
 divorce of thought from action^ — has tended to 
 deprive many resident University men, of all 
 capacity for real political work in national 
 matters, whilst their ^social and municipal sur- 
 roundings, far removed from the pressing 
 industrial problems of the great cities, tend to 
 hypnotize their minds and to lull even the most 
 advanced of them to a placid acquiescence in, 
 or merely spasmodic protest against, the status 
 quo. This timidity has especially affected the 
 University economists, and though these are 
 largely Socialist in opinion and In conversation, 
 their published works still retain, in form as 
 well as In matter, a strong impress of the crude 
 Individualism which they unanimously profess 
 to repudiate. A great change in this respect is, 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 however, visible among the younger Fellows, 
 who are shaking off the corrupting influence of 
 the old style. 
 
 The University influence, hesitating and un- 
 practical as it is, is, nevertheless, exercising a 
 potent effect upon the current opinion of the 
 English cultivated classes. A wide divergence 
 of thought is here apparent between England 
 and the United States. In England the old 
 a priori Individualism is universally abandoned. 
 No Professor ever founds any argument, whether 
 in defence of the rights of property or otherwise, 
 upon the inherent right of the individual to his 
 own physical freedom and to the possession of 
 such raw material as he has made his own by 
 expending personal effort upon. " The first 
 step must be to rid our minds of the idea that 
 there are any such things in social matters as 
 abstract rights" ("The State in Relation to 
 Labour," ch. i, p. 6, by the late W. Stanley 
 Jevons, Professor of Political Economy at Uni- 
 versity College, London). The whole case on 
 both sides is now made to turn exclusively on 
 the balance of social advantage, and practically 
 no Individualist axiomata media are allowed to 
 be taken for granted. The older Individualist 
 
So SOCIALISM IN, ENGLAND. 
 
 arguments are to be found now only in the 
 "Liberty and Property Defence League,'" which 
 has no philosophic importance, or in the writings 
 of Mr. Herbert Spencer" and Mr. Auberon 
 Herbert. It would be safe to say that the poli- 
 tical influence of these latter gentlemen is abso- 
 lutely imperceptible. 
 
 ^ The almost exclusively Conservative organization of 
 landlords and capitalists which has been formed to resist 
 the prevailing democratic "attacks" upon the "rights of 
 property." 
 
 2 It must not be overlooked, moreover, that Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer bases the whole of his ideal Individualism upon 
 what he considers the indispensable basis of complete Land 
 Nationalization. (See Social Statics, passim). The editor 
 of the Personal Bights Journal, the only distinctively Indi- 
 vidualist organ, agrees in this view. Such " Individualists " 
 as these find themselves in constant opposition to the de- 
 fenders of " private property " as property, as Mr. Spencer 
 discovered on the occasion of his correspondence in the 
 Times, October 1889. The effect of his declarations on 
 that occasion is that, whilst still maintaining the thesis that 
 individual land ownership is absolutely wrong, he deprecates 
 the confiscation of the property of innocent owners, and 
 regards it impossible for any State Government to manage;, 
 land. His objections do not, however, appear to apply to 
 the generally proposed method of land nationalization, viz,' 
 the gradual increase of local and national taxation of rent, i. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SOCIALISM IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 In no department of thought has the change 
 been more apparent during the present genera- 
 tion than in the accepted tenets and general 
 tone of PoHtical Economy. For the first two 
 generations of its history the Smith-Ricardo 
 economics made, on the whole, for Individualism. 
 The prevailing reaction against the monarchic 
 and obligarchic bureaucracies led the earlier 
 economists of this century to lean towards 
 Laissez Faire, and this tendency was accentu- 
 ated by their essentially atomistic conception of 
 society, and the shallow optimism which they 
 had caught from Rousseau. The industrial re- 
 volution, which was all the time proceeding, 
 had however the incidental effect of rendering 
 obsolete most of their practical deductions, al- 
 most before they were formulated, and the 
 obviously destructive effects of complete indi- 
 vidual freedom of use of the means of produc- 
 
 s 
 
82 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 tion, compelled the statesman and the " practical 
 man " to disregard the economist's mistaken 
 warnings. Beginning in 1802, Factory Act 
 after Factory Act was passed in the teeth of 
 stubborn economic resistance, and the legisla- 
 tion of England for the last generation has been 
 one long record of limitations on private pro- 
 perty for the public good.^ 
 
 Meanwhile a new conception of the State had 
 arisen. From Comte, Darwin and Spencer 
 the idea of the social Organism was gradually 
 filtering into men's minds, and unconsciously 
 altering all their political theories and ideals. 
 It has gradually become recognized that a Per- 
 fect City was something different from any 
 number of good citizens, something to be tried 
 by other tests and weighed in other balances. 
 The lesson of Evolution, at first thought to be 
 the apotheosis of anarchic individual competi- 
 tion, is now recognized to be quite the contrary. 
 We have to learn. Professor Huxley tells us,^ 
 to substitute consciously adapted co-ordination 
 
 ^ See Mr. Herbert Spencer's animated but isolated pro- 
 test, Man vs. The State. 
 
 ^ Nineteenth Century, February, 1888. See also Ritchie's 
 Darwinism and Politics, already referred to. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 83 
 
 for internecine competition, if the Organism 
 which will prove to be the "Fittest to Survive," 
 is to be also the best. Even the Political 
 Economists are learning this lesson, and the 
 fundamental idea of a Social Organism para- 
 mount over and prior to the individual of each 
 generation, is penetrating to their minds and 
 appearing in their lectures, though it has not 
 even yet affected to any great extent their more 
 elaborate treatises. 
 
 The progress towards Socialism has, how- 
 ever, been strikingly apparent even in economic 
 literature. The publication of J. S. Mill's 
 " Political Economy," in 1848, conveniently 
 marks the boundary between the old and the 
 new economics. Every edition of Mill's book 
 became more and more Socialistic in tone, until 
 his death revealed to the world in the " Auto- 
 biography " (p. 231-2) his emphatic and explicit 
 repudiation of mere political democracy in favour 
 of complete Socialism. Since then the progress 
 has been rapid. By the definite rejection of 
 the Wages Fund Theory, the development and 
 extension of the Ricardian Law of Rent,^ and 
 
 1 See numerous suggestions on this point throughout Mr. 
 Sidgwick's Principles of Political Economy, and the article 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the gradual modification and subordination of 
 " Malthusianism," the scientific difference 
 between the "orthodox" economists and the 
 economic Socialists has now become mainly one 
 of terminology and relative stress, with the re- 
 sult that one competent economist/ not himself 
 a Socialist, publishes regretfully to the world 
 that all the younger men are now Socialists, 
 with many of the Professors. 
 
 Professor Henry Sidgwick (Professor of 
 Moral Philosophy, Cambridge), the most 
 cautious of men, even publishes an article with 
 a view to correct the world's mistaken impres- 
 sion that Political Economy is opposed to 
 Socialism, and shows that, on the contrary, the 
 Socialist proposals are a plain and obvious de- 
 duction from accepted economic principles.^ 
 
 This convergence has been facilitated by the 
 fact that/English Socialists are by no means 
 
 by the present writer, " The Rate of Interest and the Laws 
 of Distribution " {Quarterly Journal of Economics, January, 
 1888), 
 
 ^ Rev. F. W. Avelling, M.A., Principal of the Indepen- 
 dent College, Taunton, in leaflet of August, 1888, Down 
 with the Socialists. 
 
 " "Economic Socialism" in Contemporary Review, 
 November, 1886. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 85 
 
 blind worshippers of Karl Marx. Whilst re- 
 cognizing his valuable services to economic 
 history, and as a stirrer of men's minds, a large 
 number of English Socialist economists reject 
 his special contributions to pure economics. 
 His theory of value meets with little support in 
 English economic circles, where that of Jevons/ 
 is becoming increasingly dominant. Although 
 the leaders of the two largest Socialist organiza- 
 tions have been strongly influenced by Marx, 
 the rank and file of the Socialist party do not 
 found their Socialism on any special economic 
 theories, but upon the patent results of indi- 
 vidual ownership, as shown in the large payments 
 for rent and interest. The great bulk of the 
 unconscious Socialism of the English voter and 
 statesman has been based merely upon empiri- 
 cal observation, and has certainly not been 
 affected by any notion of " surplus value." The 
 economic influence most potent among the 
 Socialist Radicals is still that of John Stuart 
 Mill. 
 
 Recent economic publications betray the 
 dominant collectivist influence even where this 
 is not intended. The latest popular handbook 
 of " orthodox " Political Economy, published by 
 
86 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 one of the universities, is written by a College 
 lecturer who declares himself a Communist, and 
 another recent manual, "for the use of schools," 
 is the production of a college professor of 
 economics, who is an energetic public advocate 
 of complete Land Nationalization. 
 
 It was computed In December, 1887, that out 
 of a total of fourteen courses of lectures on 
 economics being delivered under the auspices of 
 various public bodies in London, eight, and 
 possibly more, were being given by professed 
 Socialists. One of the " University Extension " 
 societies lately found some difficulty in obtain- 
 ing young economist lecturers sufficiently free 
 from what some of its older members thought 
 the Socialistic taint. If it were not for the 
 friendly services of such persons as Mr Auberon 
 Herbert (who serve the purpose of the stakes 
 at the side of the glacier by which we note its 
 motion), it would indeed be difficult to measure 
 a progress which Is so general. 
 
 When the editors of the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica needed for their ninth edition an 
 article setting forth the development and posi- 
 tion of political economy, it was tea Socialistic 
 Posltivlst that they addressed themselves, and 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 87 
 
 the article took the form of a lengthy survey of 
 the steady convergence of all the tendencies 
 towards a Socialist state. 
 
 " We have been suffering for a century," 
 says one " orthodox " Professor, " from an 
 acute outbreak of individualism, unchecked by 
 the old restraints, and invested with almost a 
 religious sanction by a certain soulless school 
 of writers."' Economists fully recognise that 
 this industrial anarchy cannot last. The 
 ordinary middle-class citizen still believes that 
 " free competition " and individual liberty re- 
 present the perfection of social order, but the 
 economic philosopher sees this regime melting 
 away before his eyes. It is significant that 
 both Mr. Spencer aid Mr. Auberon Herbert, 
 practically the only two surviving philosophic 
 adherents of complete Laissez Faire, betray in 
 their writings that they are not political 
 economists,'' and it is a matter of common ex- 
 
 ^ H. S. Foxwell,M.A.(St. John's College, Cambridge, Pro- 
 fessor of Political Economy at University College, London) 
 p. 249 of essay in The Claims of labour (Edinburgh, 1886, 
 Co-operative Printing Company). 
 
 ^ In 1884 Mr. Spencer was still basing his arguments on 
 the old "Wages Fund" theory (see, for instance, Man 
 versus the State, page 23). 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 perience that a course of lessons in the " law of 
 rent " will usually convert a mere Radical into 
 something very like a Socialist. And this in- 
 terest in political economy is increasing. The 
 first edition of the English translation of 
 Marx's " Capital " (by Dr. E. B. and Eleanor 
 Marx Aveling) was soon exhausted, and more 
 popular writings on economics now find a 
 ready sale. Works like Gronlund's "Co- 
 operative Commonwealth " (Modern Press : 
 is.), and Bellamy's "Looking Backward" 
 (Reeves : is., of this, over 40,000 have been 
 sold in England, and 210,000 in America), are 
 exercising a potent influence on public ideals, and 
 are but premature popularisations of the current 
 economic views as to the future of society. 
 
 " It is indeed certain," sums up Dr. Ingram, 
 " that industrial society will not permanently 
 remain without a systematic organization. 
 The mere conflict of private interests will 
 never produce a well-ordered commonwealth 
 of labour."' 
 
 ^ Article Political Economy in Encyclopedia Britannica, 
 
 Vol. XIX. 1886, p. 382, by J. K. Ingram, LL.D., Librarian 
 
 and late Professor at Trinity College, Dublin. The article 
 
 , has since been published, with revisions, as a History of 
 
 Political Economy. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 English economists formerly looked for escape 
 from the present evil state of individualist chaos 
 to the progress of voluntary co-operation. John 
 Stuart Mill-^ seemed to hope that, in some un- 
 explained way, the growth of this movement 
 would induce the present owners of land and 
 the other indispensable means of wealth pro- 
 duction voluntarily to cede to the public the 
 unearned incomes which this ownership secures 
 to them. This optimistic vagueness was per- 
 haps merely one of the devices sometimes 
 adopted by Mill to avoid a premature expres- 
 sion of actual political schemes. No one pro- 
 fesses any belief to-day in this chimera. Even 
 so lately as 1874, it was possible for Professor 
 Cairnes to think that help might be found (at 
 any rate, by the better paid labourers) by 
 means of co-operation in production, and in no 
 other way. He then wrote, in words pregnant 
 with import to the social reformer : "If work- 
 men do not rise from dependence upon capital 
 by the path of co-operation, then they must 
 remain in dependence upon capital ; the margin 
 for the possible improvement of their lot is 
 confined within narrow barriers which cannot 
 1 gee Book IV. of the Political Economy. 
 
90 SO CIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 be passed, and the problem of their elevation is 
 hopeless. As a body, they will not rise at all. 
 A few more energetic or more fortunate than 
 the rest will, from time to time, escape, as they 
 do now, from the ranks of their fellows to the 
 higher walks of industrial life, but the great 
 majority will remain substantially where they 
 are. The remuneration of labour, as such, 
 skilled or unskilled, can never rise much above 
 its present level." (J. E. Cairnes, Emeritus 
 Professor of Political Economy at University 
 College, London, " Some Leading Principles 
 of Pohtical Economy,'' page 348, 1874). 
 
 Fifteen years have passed away since these 
 words were written, and it must now be ap- 
 parent, even to the most sanguine of indi- 
 vidualists, that the chance of the great bulk of 
 the labourers ever rising by associations for 
 co-operative production has become even less 
 hopeful than it ever was, and Dr. J. K. Ingram 
 has to tell us that modern economists, such as 
 T. E. Cliffe Leslie, (late Professor of Political 
 Economy at Queen's University, Ireland), 
 and President F. A. Walker, regard the idea 
 as " chimerical " (Article on " Political Econ- 
 omy," in Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. XIX. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 91 
 
 p. 382). Even" so friendly an economist as 
 Mr. Leonard Courtney ' agrees in this view. 
 Yet this, according to authorities so eminent, 
 is the only hope for the labourer under the 
 present arrangements of society, or any modi- 
 fication of them resting on the private owner- 
 ship of the means of production. 
 
 Co-operation would be a seductive means of 
 escape, as enabling the poor to become richer 
 without making the rich poorer, and most social 
 reformers cannot, even now, refrain from keep- 
 ing alive lingering hopes that some means of 
 performing the impossible may here be found. 
 But a whole generation of experiment has done 
 little more than show the futility of expecting 
 real help from this quarter. Less than one 
 four hundredth part of the industry of the 
 country is yet carried on by co-operation. The 
 whole range of industrial development seems 
 against it, and no ground for hope in co-opera- 
 tion as an answer to the social problem can be 
 gained from economic history. It does not so 
 much as attempt to deal with economic rent, or 
 
 1 Speech at Toynbee Hall, 24th January, 18&7, p. 34, of 
 Co-operation vs. Socialism (Manchester, Central Co-operative 
 Board). 
 
92 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 with such pubHc services as railways, gasworks 
 or schools. It affords a valuable moral training, 
 a profitable but somewhat hazardous savings 
 bank for small investments, and a temporary- 
 means of interesting the worker in the indus- 
 trial affairs of his country. But it is merely a 
 survival from the days before Limited Com- 
 panies and Savings Banks existed, and ordinary 
 joint stock investment is now rapidly elbowing 
 it out of the field at an ever increasing rate, 
 and, measured by the capital employed, is al- 
 ready a hundred and sixty times as great as 
 co-operation. Even the most enthusiastic be- 
 liever in the virtues of association will hardly 
 expect salvation merely from a regime of Joint 
 Stock Companies, and this, and not co-opera- 
 tion, is clearly the line in which our industrial 
 development is rapidly travelling. It will, of 
 course, be some time before the more enthusi- 
 astic co-operators realise it, or even become 
 aware that modern economic science turns re- 
 gretfully against their panacea for all industrial 
 difficulties, but the rank and file are rapidly 
 learning the lesson, and are gradually turning 
 towards those principles of Socialism, out of 
 which the present co-operative movement 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 93 
 
 sprang.' Its more democratic leaders have 
 never ceased to hold them and to regret the 
 general neglect of citizenship for mere huckster- 
 ing and scramble for dividends, into which so 
 much of the noble co-operative ideal has sunk. 
 
 But even a universal extension of voluntary- 
 co-operation, productive or distributive, would 
 not obviate the tribute of labour to ownership, 
 which private property in land and all its modi- 
 fications necessarily involves." Co-operation 
 aims at abolishing, not economic rent, but in- 
 dustrial competition, and it has positively no 
 vision of anything beyond ownership by co- 
 operative groups, the workers paying a fixed 
 instead of an uncertain interest on all their land 
 and other "capital." This might improve the 
 relations between the capitalist and the labourer, 
 and even put an end to competition between 
 traders, but it prefigures no abolition of the 
 tribute from labour to ownership, and few En- 
 glish economists would now be inclined to dis- 
 pute with John Stuart Mill that, " as Feugueray 
 
 ^Holyoakes' History of Co-operation (London, 1875, 
 Triibner) Vol. I, passim. 
 
 ^ Pointed out in an article on the Economic Limitations of 
 Co-operation by the present writer, in the Co-operative News, 
 January 12, 1889. 
 
94 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND 
 
 well says, ' the deepest root of the evils and in- 
 iquities which fill the industrial world is not 
 competition, but the subjection of labour to 
 capital and the enormous share which the pos- 
 sessors of the instruments of industry are able to 
 take from the produce! " ' 
 
 It is essentially this " enormous share " of 
 rent and interest ; now amounting in the 
 United Kingdom to over one-third of the pro- 
 duce," to which Socialists object, and not, as is 
 generally supposed, to the high " rent of albility" 
 earned by managers and other workers of scarce 
 personal attainments. Much, of course, of the 
 so-called " profits " of modern capitalist industry 
 are now seen to be merely the fruits of specula- 
 tion and of the unnecessary multiplication of 
 dealers and distributors. Much of the so-called 
 " rent of ability " is due merely to the advant- 
 ages of social position and the possession of an 
 expensive education. Genuine " rent of 
 ability " the scarce worker will always be able 
 to obtain under any social system, if he insists 
 upon it, but English economists would now us- 
 
 '^ J. S. Mill Political Economy, People's Edition, p. 477. 
 ^ See the evidence of Mr. Giffen and other statisticians in 
 Facts for Socialists. (Fabian Tract, No. 5.) 
 
SOCIALISM m ENGLAND. 95 
 
 ually agree that the rent and interest could con- 
 ceivably be gradually diverted from individuals 
 to the public exchequer by appropriate legisla- 
 tive enactments, without dislocation of industry 
 or depriving any contemporary worker of the 
 product of his toil. 
 
 The recent development of companies, rings 
 and trusts merely accentuates the industrial 
 situation and prepares the way for further public 
 control. All the salt mines in England are 
 practically managed by one small board of di- 
 rectors, who are thus enabled to work each mine 
 up to -its economic " margin of cultivation " 
 without hindrance from conflicting personal 
 interests. Competition is now admitted to fail 
 as a regulator of private greed and to give way 
 before ordered industrial association.^ It is al- 
 ready clear that the democracy will not allow 
 this " monarchizing " of industry to pass beyond 
 its control, and consequently the further progress 
 of factory legislation, of municipal and national 
 industrial administration, and the increasing 
 absorption of rent and interest by taxation now 
 
 ^ See Professor Foxwell's paper on this subject at the 
 British Association Bath Meeting (September, 1888), Econ- 
 omic Section. 
 
96 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 receive the hesitating support/ instead of en- 
 countering the determined resistance, of the 
 economic Professors and their students. The 
 well-worn platitudes about the universal para- 
 mountcy of " self-help," and the almost divine 
 honours paid to " the law of supply and demand," 
 appear now only in the leading articles of Con- 
 servative newspapers or the speeches of poli- 
 ticians or Bishops — that is to say, in nearly all 
 the directions which assume to guide our public 
 action. The English economist himself knows 
 them no more, and (if he is of democratic sym- 
 pathies) finds himself, to his surprise, differing 
 from the reasonable Socialist agitator only in 
 matters of detail and terminology, or as to the 
 desirable rate of progress and the relative em- 
 phasis on various points. The usual distinction 
 is one of individual temperament, accompanied 
 by a very general ignorance of each other's real 
 position. Neither in economic theory nor in 
 political application is there any longer a real 
 divergence of principle between them. 
 
 It must, however, be observed that those 
 
 ■■■ See The, State in Relation to Labour, by the late W. 
 Stanley Jevons, Professor of Political Economy at University 
 College, London (1882.) 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 97 
 
 "chaplains of the middle class," the University 
 Professors of Political Economy, are not usually 
 either Democratic in their sympathies or explicit 
 in their political utterances, so that their in- 
 fluence in correcting the ignorant fallacies which 
 still pass current for Political Economy among 
 the mass of " respectable " citizens, is not great. 
 The obsolete crudities of " Manchesterism " 
 will, therefore, probably continue to invest the 
 senate, the exchange and the editor's office for a 
 considerable time to come, although they have 
 long since been swept out of the economist's 
 study. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Parliamentary and Municipal Socialism. 
 
 It is difficult to assign a beginning to English 
 Socialist legislation, even in the modern sense 
 of the term. Before the Mediaeval conception 
 of the State has passed away, the Elizabethan 
 Poor Laws, culminating in the great Act of 
 1 60 1, definitely asserted the right of the very 
 poorest to participate in the results of the 
 national industry. During the next two 
 centuries Socialistic legislation was almost 
 confined to this form of collectivist philanthropy, 
 while the commercial development of the 
 country was preparing the way for the great 
 industrial revolution and the triumph of private 
 capitalism. At the beginning of the present 
 century the zenith of industrial individualism 
 seems to have been reached. Political tyranny 
 was at its height, but the fullest liberty was 
 left to the owner of land and capital, so far, at 
 least, as all the new industries were concerned, 
 to use them for his utmost personal advantage, 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 99 
 
 however many lives of men, women and 
 children were destroyed in the process. The 
 results upon the national life were so appalling 
 that practical statesmen were compelled to 
 intervene. The first Factory Act was passed 
 in 1802/ and others followed in 1819 (59 Geo. 
 
 ^ 42 Geo. III., c. 73, See English Factory Legislation by 
 E. von Plener (London 1873, Chapman and Hall,) which 
 contains an instructive introduction by Mr. Mundella, M.P., 
 whose industrial experience renders him specially qualified 
 to give an opinion as to the results of Factory legislation, 
 and the limitation by law of the hours of adult labour. He 
 expresses his complete agreement with the Duke of Argyle 
 ("Reign of Law," ch. vii.) that "progress in Political 
 Science has been in nothing happier than in Factory 
 Legislation." Nor is his testimony less emphatic as regards 
 what the late Professor Newmarch called the " wholly 
 successful " limitation of the hours of labour by law. No- 
 where has this limitation been longer and more thoroughly 
 applied than among the textile operatives in Lancashire and 
 Yorkshire. In their case the limit of 56 J hours per week 
 virtually applies to adult men as well as to adult women. 
 Mr. Mundella can bear the following decisive testimony as 
 to the results of this legislation. " An argument which is 
 freely advanced against the interference of the State with 
 the relations of capital and labour is that it tends to under- 
 mine the independence and self-reliance of the class 
 which it seeks to protect, and teaches them to look to the 
 State rather than to their own exertions to remedy evils 
 requiring redress. My answer to this is that the factory 
 operatives of Lancashire and Yorkshire have made greater 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 'III. c. 66), 1825 (6 Geo. IV. c. 63), and 1831 (i 
 Wnd 2 Wm. IV. c. 39). It was however left for 
 the gradually developing humanitarian influence, 
 led by Tory and aristocratic members, such as 
 Mr. M. T. Sadler and Lord Shaftesbury, to 
 make these limitations upon private property 
 really effective, in the teeth of the most em- 
 bittered opposition from the contemporary 
 Liberals and political economists. 
 
 ^ Since that day the progress has been rapid. 
 Every decade has seen a notable stride taken 
 towards genuine popular government, and every 
 
 I such advance has been used by the people to 
 procure thepassage of futher Socialist legislation. 
 ly The Reform Bill of 1832, mere middle-class 
 enfranchisement as it was, resulted in 1833 (3 
 and 4 Wm. IV. c. 103) in the first really effective 
 Factory Act, and enabled Lord Ashley (after- 
 wards Lord Shaftesbury) to carry his Acts of 
 1842, 1844 and 1847, each imposing fresh 
 
 advances in self-reliance and independence during the past 
 fifty years than any other class of English operatives. Build- 
 ing and Benefit Societies, Co-operative Associations, both 
 for distribution and production, have taken their rise and 
 flourish amongst them on a scale of magnitude unknown in any 
 other part of the United Kingdom." See " The Limitation of 
 the Hours of Labour," Contemporary Review^ Dec, 1889. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 restrictions on private ownership of the means 
 of production. The same reforming impulse 
 gave us the Mining Act of 1842 (5 and 6 Vic. 
 c. 99) and by the Municipal Corporations Act 
 of 1835 created several hundred energetic 
 centres of local Socialistic development. The 
 same period saw the beginning of sanitary 
 legislation, by which a further series of limi- 
 tations were imposed on land and capital owners 
 for the common weal. During the first 45 
 years of the century nearly 400 " Local Improve- 
 ment Acts " were passed, conferring sanitary 
 powers upon more than 200 local authorities.^ 
 
 In 1847 and 1848, these scattered legislative 
 powers were gathered up into important codes, 
 finally consolidated in the " Public Health 
 Act" of 1875. This legislation is wholly 
 Socialist in character. Innumerable restrictions 
 upon the free use of private property are im- 
 posed, and the rights of ownership are thereby, 
 in the public interest, considerably curtailed. 
 The value of the inferior kinds of house 
 property is frequently much diminished by the 
 enforcement of these provisions. The com- 
 munity, by its local political organisations, has 
 
 ^ Clifford, History of Private £illLeffislation,Yo\. II., p. 300. 
 
102 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 assumed the collective administration of in- 
 numerable social services and levies, mainly to 
 the advantage of the poorer classes, a series of 
 " rates," or assessments upon real property, 
 which now absorb a large percentage of its 
 annual rental. This class of Socialist legisla- 
 tion is constantly increasing. 
 
 It is not only in matters of sanitation that 
 this '' Municipal Socialism " is progressing. 
 Nearly half the gas consumers of the Kingdom 
 already consume gas made by themselves as 
 citizens collectively, in i68 different localities,' 
 as many as 14 local authorities obtained power 
 to borrow money to engage in the gas in- 
 dustry in a single year.^ Water supply is 
 rapidly coming to be universally a matter of 
 public provision, no fewer than 71 separate 
 governing bodies obtaining loans for this 
 purpose in the year 1885-6 alone.^ The pre- 
 vailing tendency is for the municipalities to 
 absorb also, the tramway industry, 31 localities 
 already owning their own lines, comprising a 
 quarter of the total mileage in the Kingdom. "^ 
 
 ^ Board of Trade Return, 1889. 
 
 ^ Report of Local Government Board for 1886-7, C-5S26. 
 
 8 lUd. 
 
 * House of Commons Return, H. C. 347, 1888. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND 103 
 
 Most of these authorities lease their lines, but 
 one does not shrink from this public organiza- 
 tion of labour and successfully administers its 
 own property. The example thus set by 
 Huddersfield, will probably be followed shortly 
 by Liverpool and the Metropolis. The con- 
 cessions of the London Tramway Companies 
 expire in a few years, and there is already a 
 strong feeling in favour of the lines being 
 worked directly by the County Council as the 
 only practicable means of securing shorter 
 hours and proper treatment for the employes. 
 The present Chairman of the County Council 
 (Lord Rosebery) has publicly declared himself 
 in favour of this course. 
 
 Besides the numerous acts regulating 
 factories and worshops, and similar legislation 
 dealing with mines, printworks, fishcuring 
 establishments, bakehouses, alkali works, and 
 many other industries, there are now extensive 
 codes regulating merchant shipping, and sea- 
 men, gasworks, railways, tramways, theatres, 
 public houses, and, in fact, nearly every large 
 trade. 
 
 Nor is there any sign of a slackening in this 
 progress. The " Shop Hours Regulation 
 
ro4 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Act" of 1886 limited the hours during which 
 any shop employing " young persons " may be 
 kept open ; and it is already apparent that a 
 formidable agitation will soon compel the ex- 
 plicit restriction of the working day for adults. 
 The Political Economists will offer no opposi- 
 tion as to principle. " I see nothing," said 
 Professor Jevons already in 1882, referring to 
 the proposal for an "Eight Hours Bill," "to 
 forbid the State interfering in the matter if it 
 could be clearly shown that the existing 
 customs are injurious to health, and that there 
 is no other probable remedy. Neither prin- 
 ciple, experience nor precedent in other cases 
 of legislation, prevents us from contemplating 
 the idea of State interference in such circum- 
 stances."' 
 
 The " Extension of the Factory Acts " is 
 already a plank in the Liberal platform. 
 " Unfettered individual competition," says Mr. 
 John Morley, " is not a principle to which the 
 regulation of industry may be entrusted."^ 
 Mr. Morley, indeed, still resists the reduction of 
 the hours of labour prescribed by law, from ten 
 
 ^ The State in Relation to Labour, ch. 3, p. 65. 
 ^ "Life of Golden" Vol. I. ch. xiii, p. 298, 303. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 105 
 
 to eight, and the general extension to all in- 
 dustries of the legal limitation of the working 
 day which has been found (to use Professor 
 Newmarch's words) so " wholly successful " in 
 Lancashire. Other members, however, are not 
 so firm, and Liberal candidates are pledging 
 themselves in all directions, to support some 
 such " Eight Hours Bill " as that drafted by 
 the Fabian Society.' 
 
 Public education would not appear a Socialist 
 measure in the United States, where the ample 
 resources of the reserved public lands prevent 
 its essentially collectivist character from being 
 recognized. In England, however, the rapid 
 progress towards free government schools is 
 rightly cited as a marked instance of Socialist 
 progress. The increasing absorption of the K 
 incomes of the comparatively rich, to provide 
 for the education of their poorer brethren, makes 
 its Socialist character disagreeably obtrusive to I 
 the capitalist as well as to the private school / 
 proprietor. No schoolmaster now looks for- f 
 ward to acquiring a school of his own, and the 
 contemplation of a whole career passed as the 
 
 1 Fabian Tract, No. 9, An Eight Hours Bill in the form 
 of an Amendment of the Factory Acts, price id. 
 
io5 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 salaried officer of one public body or another 
 does not seem either to check the zeal or to 
 raise the salaries of persons entering the pro- 
 fession. This branch of industry has been 
 virtually nationalized or municipalized without 
 loss of stimulus or failure of enthusiasm. The 
 movement towards the public provision of meals 
 in the schools of poor districts is a still stronger 
 testimony to the growth of the "collective" 
 spirit. Many hundreds of thousands of 
 gratuitous or cheap meals are already supplied to 
 city children by organized charitable efforts with 
 the co-operation of the school authorities. The 
 London School Board has already decided to 
 place these private collective agencies under 
 public control and supervision. " One free 
 meal a day," to be provided by the School 
 Board itself, out of the rates upon property, was 
 in the programme of not a few School Board 
 candidates last year ; and Mrs. Besant, the 
 leading socialist advocate of this measure, was 
 triumphantly returned at the head of the poll in 
 East London. What is perhaps more surpris- 
 ing is that even the straitest sect of the econo- 
 mic Pharisees of the last generation are aban- 
 doning their opposition to it. Mr. John Morley 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 107 
 
 professes no objection, and is quite clear that 
 some collective arrangements must immediately 
 be made to provide the meals. If the voluntary 
 aid now being organised and centralised by the 
 London School Board proves insufficient to 
 supply all the meals required, for every destitute 
 child in London, Mr. Morley is prepared to 
 make up the deficiency from the rates.^ 
 
 The necessity of providing public work for 
 the "unemployed," now a chronic winter feature 
 of our great cities, is becoming daily more gener- 
 ally recognized. The government has already 
 been forced to issue circulars to all local authori- 
 ties urging them to set on foot extra works for 
 the sake of offering employment at low wages 
 to those demanding it. This is now done each 
 winter, to a small extent, in many localities, and 
 there is now a demand for the permanent public 
 organization of the labour of all the recipients 
 of Poor Lav/ relief. The whole system of Poor 
 Law relief will obviously be remodelled on 
 Democratic lines. Plans suggested by the Rev. 
 Herbert Mills and others, based on the Indus- 
 trial Colonies of Holland and Germany, are 
 likely to be tried, as it is now universally ad- 
 1 Speech at Eighty Club, Tima, November 20, 1889. 
 
io8 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 mitted that only by collectivist measures can the 
 evils be dealt with.-'- 
 
 The "Housing of the Poor" in England's 
 great cities is another problem already begin- 
 ning to be solved on essentially Socialist lines, 
 'Over i\ millions sterling have already been 
 spent by London local authorities in subsidizing 
 the building of cheap artisans' dwellings, and it 
 is now strongly urged that the London County 
 Council should take up the work with greatly 
 increased energy. The Council has accordingly 
 decided itself to provide artisans' dwellings on a 
 site at Deptford, to be let at such rents as the 
 local inhabitants can fairly afford. The city of 
 Glasgow has, indeed, gone much further, the 
 municipality (which already provides gas, water, 
 markets, baths, washhouses, slaughterhouses, 
 parks, botanic gardens, art galleries, museums, 
 libraries, tramways, " houses of refuge," and 
 industrial and other schools) having demolished 
 vast areas of " slum " property, and itself built 
 large blocks of dwellings for the poor, let at 
 " moderate " rents. The municipality also 
 
 ^ See Mr. Charles Booth's "Life and Labour in East 
 London " (Williams and Norgate). 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 109 
 
 maintains a number of "common lodging houses" 
 with most successful results.-^ 
 
 This " Municipal Socialism " is being rapidly 
 imitated by other local authorities with the effect 
 of absorbing in " rates " a constantly increasing 
 share of the rental of the country. Our pro- 
 gressive " municipalization of rent," by increase 
 of local rates, is clearly only an unconscious 
 form of gradual Land Nationalization. Many 
 students, however, still have the idea that 
 Socialism implies a rigidly centralized national 
 administration of all the details of life. This is 
 an entire misapprehension of the Socialist posi- 
 tion. Such a society would be as abhorrent to 
 Mr. William Morris as to Mr. Auberon Her- 
 bert. Socialists have, in fact, as yet contributed 
 nothing to the difficult problem of political 
 science as to the proper line of division between 
 the functions of the central government and 
 those of local authorities. All that can be said 
 is, that, in England, Socialists and Individualists 
 alike will more probably desire to make the 
 regulation and taxation of private industry 
 matters of centralization, whilst actual public 
 
 ^ Report of City of Glasgow Improvement Trust, 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 administration will probably be municipal. 
 Factory Acts^ and the Land Tax will be national, 
 but gasworks and tramways local. 
 
 Subject to this distinction, hardly anyone now 
 objects to the extension of local government 
 activity. The innumerable multiplicity of 
 services now performed by the local governing 
 authorities makes it indeed impossible to record 
 them all, and causes the English Government, 
 in its various ramifications, to be by far the 
 largest direct employer of labour in the country. 
 ' Besides our international relations and the 
 army, navy, police and the courts of justice, the 
 community now carries on for itself, in some 
 part or another of these islands, the post-office, 
 telegraphs, carriage of small commodities, coin- 
 age surveys, the regulation of the currency and 
 note issue, the provision of weights and measures, 
 the making, sweeping, lighting and repairing of 
 the streets, roads and bridges, life insurance, 
 the grant of annuities, ship-building, stock brok- 
 ing, banking, farming, and money lending. It 
 provides for many thousands of us from birth to 
 burial, midwifery, nursery, education, board and 
 
 '^ See the experimentum crucis recorded by Jevons (The 
 State in delation to Labour, ch. III., p. 59.) 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 lodging, vaccination, medical attendance, medi- 
 cine, public worship, amusements and burial. 
 It furnishes and maintains its own museums, \ 
 parks, botanic gardens, art galleries, libraries, 
 concert halls, roads, streets, bridges, markets, ' 
 fire engines, light-houses, pilots, ferries, surf ' 
 boats, steam tugs, life-boats, slaughter-houses, ■ 
 cemeteries, public baths, wash houses, pounds, 
 harbours, piers, wharves, hospitals, dispensaries, \ 
 gas works, water works, tramways, telegraph 
 cables, allotments, cow meadows, artisans' 
 dwellings, common lodging houses, schools, i 
 churches, and reading rooms. It carries on and \ 
 publishes its own researches in geology, meteor- \ 
 ology, statistics, zoology, geography, and even 
 theology. In our colonies the English Govern- i 
 ment further allows and encourages the com- 
 munities to provide for themselves railways, 
 canals, pawnbroking, theatres, forestry, cinchona 
 farms, irrigation, leper villages, casinos, bathing 
 establishments, and immigration ; and to deal 
 in ballast, guano, quinine, opium, salt, and what 
 not.'^ Every one of these functions, including 
 even the army, navy, police and courts of justice, 
 was at one time left to private enterprise, and 
 ^ See the Colonial Office List (London, annually, Harrison.) 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 was a source of legitimate individual investment 
 of capital. Step by step the community has 
 absorbed them, wholly and partially, and the 
 area of private exploitation has been lessened. 
 Parallel with this progressive nationalization or 
 municipalization of industry, there has gone on, 
 outside, the elimination of the purely personal 
 element in business management, The older 
 economists doubted whether anything but bank- 
 ing and insurance could be carried on by joint 
 stock enterprise ; now every conceivable in- 
 dustry down to baking and milk-selling is 
 successfully managed by the salaried officers of 
 large corporations of idle shareholders. More 
 than one-third of the whole industry of England, 
 measured by the capital employed, is now done 
 by joint stock companies,^ whose shareholders 
 could be expropriated by the community with 
 little more dislocation of industry than is caused 
 by the daily purchase of shares on the Stock 
 \Exchange. 
 
 Besides all its direct supersession of private 
 enterprise, the State now registers, inspects 
 and controls nearly all the industrial functions 
 
 1 See Mr. Giffen's statistics, brought up to date in Capital 
 and Land (Fabian Tract No. 7). 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 113 
 
 which it has not yet absorbed. In addition to , 
 births, marriages, deaths, and electors, the State 1 
 registers all solicitors, barristers, notaries, 1 
 brokers, newspaper proprieters, playing-card 
 makers, brewers, bankers, seamen, captains, 
 mates, doctors, cabmen, hawkers, pawn-brokers, 
 tobacconists, distillers, plate dealers, game 
 dealers, all insurance companies, friendly 
 societies, endowed schools and charities, limited 
 companies, lands, houses, deeds, bills of sale, 
 compositions, ships, arms, dogs, cabs, omnibuses, 
 books, plays, pamphlets, newspapers, raw 
 cotton, trade marks, and patents ; lodging 
 houses, public houses, refreshment houses, 
 theatres, music halls, places of worship, elemen- 
 tary schools, and dancing rooms. 
 
 Nor is the registration a mere form. Most 
 of the foregoing are also inspected and 
 criticised, as well as all railways, tramways, 
 ships, mines, factories, canal boats, public con- 
 veyances, fisheries, slaughter houses, dairies, 
 milk shops, bakeries, baby farms, gas meters, 
 schools of anatomy, vivisection laboratories, ex- 
 plosive works, Scotch herrings and common 
 lodging houses. -^ 
 
 The inspection is often detailed and exhaus- 
 
 H 
 
114 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 five. The State in most of the larger in- 
 dustrial operations prescribes the age of the 
 worker, the hours of work, the amount of air, 
 light, cubic space, heat, lavatory accommoda- 
 tion, 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. 
 Even the kind of package in which some 
 articles shall be sold is duly prescribed, so that 
 the individual capitalist shall take no advantage 
 of his position. On every side he is being re- 
 gistered, inspected, controlled, and eventually 
 superseded by the community, and is compelled 
 in the meantime to cede for public purposes an 
 ever increasing share of his rent and interest. 
 
 It will be objected by many persons that this 
 
 is not what they understand by Socialism. 
 
 There are doubtless still some who might be 
 
 compelled to admit that they imagined that 
 
 Socialists wanted to bring about a sanguinary 
 
 , conflict in the streets, and then the next day to 
 
 I compel all delicately nurtured people to work 
 
 ! at a fixed rate of wages, in the government 
 
 I factories. This, however, is merely part of the 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. ' 115 
 
 obstinate survival of the " Utopian " conception 
 of Socialism already referred to. Whether we 
 so describe them or not, these features of 
 modern English society are essentially " col-i 
 lectivist " in character, and are utterly contrary! 
 to the Individualist principles lately dominant 
 in thought. Mr. Herbert Spencer quite 
 properly regards the whole course of legislation 
 during the present generation as subversive of 
 that unrestrained individual liberty which forms 
 his ideal of social order.^ He also foretells its 
 inevitable issue. 
 
 " The numerous Socialistic changes made by 
 Act of Parliament, joined with numerous others 
 presently to be made, will by and by be all 
 merged in State Socialism — swallowed in the 
 vast wave which they have little by little 
 raised." " It is indeed certain," the political 
 economists now agree, " that industrial society 
 will not permanently remain without a syste- 
 matic organisation. The mere conflict of 
 private interests will never produce a well- 
 ordered commonwealth of labour."^ 
 
 ^Man versus the State (London, 1884, Williams & Norgate.) 
 ^ Dr. J. K. Ingram in article on Folitical Economy in 
 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica, ninth edition. Vol. XIX., p. 382 
 
 (1886.) 
 
1 15 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND, 
 
 / Our unconscious acceptance of this progres- 
 sive Socialism is a striking testimony to the 
 change which has come over the country of 
 1 Godwin and Malthus. The "practical man,'' 
 oblivious or contemptuous of any theory of the 
 Social Organism or general principles of social 
 organisation, has been forced by the necessities 
 Jof the time, into an ever deepening collectivist 
 ichannel. Socialism, of course, he still rejects 
 ;and despises. The Individualist Town 
 ' Councillor will walk along the municipal pave- 
 i ment, lit by municipal gas and cleansed by 
 j municipal brooms with municipal water, and 
 1 seeing by the municipal clock in the municipal 
 ; market, that he is too early to meet his children 
 ; coming from the municipal school hard by the 
 ; county lunatic asylum and municipal hospital, 
 I will use the national telegraph system to tell 
 them not to walk through the municipal park 
 but to come by the municipal tramway, to meet 
 him in the municipal reading room, by the 
 ) municipal art gallery, museum and library, 
 ; where he intends to consult some of the national 
 j publications in order to prepare his next speech 
 ! in the municipal town-hall, in favour of the 
 ! nationalization of canals and the increase of the 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 117 
 
 government control over the railway system, i 
 "Socialism, sir," he will say, "don't waste the! 
 time of a practical man by your fantastic absur-l 
 dities. Self-help, sir, individual self-help, that's) 
 what's made our city what it is." / 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SOCIALISM IN POLITICS. 
 
 It is probable that In no other country are 
 statesmen so ready as in England to carry out 
 political proposals pressed upon them from be- 
 low. Political platforms tend to be constructed, 
 not so much out of abstract statements of rights 
 and principles, as out of lists of new laws to be 
 passed by the successful party. The English 
 Constitution is admittedly deemed in need of 
 perpetual legislative tinkering, and every Eng- 
 lishman, not excluding the most conservative, 
 has his own pet list of necessary reforms. In 
 the United States the popular cry seems to be 
 mainly for good administration ; in England it 
 is undoubtedly for new laws. " Measures, not 
 men," is still the English voter's motto. 
 
 This striking difference, in itself not without 
 significance, leads to important consequences 
 when public feeling is pressing in any political 
 direction. The gradual " socialising " of poll- 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 1 19 
 
 tics, out of which the parliamentary and munici- 
 pal Socialism has sprung, is rendered possible 
 by the fluidity of the English Constitution. " It 
 may be fearlessly said that no social transforma- 
 tion would be too great to be commended and 
 attempted if only it could be clearly shown to 
 lead to the greater happiness of the community. 
 No scheme of Bellers, or Baboeuf, or Robert 
 Owen could be resisted, if only their advocates 
 could adduce scientific evidence of their practi- 
 cability and good tendency. No laws, no cus- 
 toms, no rights of property are so sacred that 
 they may not be made away with, if it can be 
 clearly shown that they stand in the way of 
 the greatest happiness. Salus popuii stiprema 
 
 Statesmen have, as we have seen, not been 
 backward in availing themselves of this philo- 
 sophic permission to improve the condition of 
 
 ^ Jevons' The State in Eelation to Labour (1882), ch. i., 
 p. 12. It is interesting to compare with this deliberate 
 statement of the English economist the opinion of Professor 
 W. G. Sumner (Yale), " It is not to be admitted for a mom- 
 ent that liberty is a means to social ends, and that it may be 
 
 impaired for major considerations It is not at all 
 
 the function of the State to make men happy." {What 
 Social Classes owe to Each other, pp. 34-5.) 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 society by national or municipal action. Nor 
 do they meet with resistance from their trained 
 staff of permanent officials. The Civil Service 
 is generally " coUectivist " in its influence, even 
 where not democratic, but nearly every govern- 
 ment office now contains a number of advanced 
 Socialists. The universal adoption of " open 
 competition " is rapidly making the whole ser- 
 vice democratic in sympathy, instead of being a 
 happy hunting ground for younger sons and 
 aristocratic parasites. The present condition of 
 English politics makes it apparent that the pro- 
 gress in the future will be even greater than in 
 the past. The near approach to genuine " man- 
 hood suffrage " . has already compelled both 
 great parties to profess their intention of passing 
 further remedial legislation, and whilst they still 
 weakly repudiate Socialism, almost every pro. 
 posal bears the Socialist stamp. ^ 
 
 The Conservative party, now in power 
 through the alliance of the " Liberal Unionists," 
 can admittedly only retain office on condition of 
 passing measures acceptable to the urban Demo- 
 cracy. The old rural Tory element, with 
 
 ^ See " Socialism in English Politics," by William Clarke, 
 M.A., Political Science Quarterly, December, 1888. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 tendencies towards a protective tariff, and a 
 feudal extension of the Poor Law, is becoming 
 more and more subordinated to the so-called 
 " Tory Democracy," whose members appeal to 
 the city artisans by promising Socialistic legis- 
 lation against their employers. The almost 
 revolutionary extension of local self-government 
 conceded by the Conservative Government in 
 1888, will undoubtedly be used for a further 
 extension of " Municipal Socialism." The ur- 
 ban Conservatives feel compelled to promise 
 additional remedies for the poverty of our great 
 cities, and talk of state-assisted emigration, the 
 exclusion of foreign labour and the possibility of 
 compulsory state insurance of all wage-earners. 
 All these, be it noted, however ill-considered, 
 are essentially " collectivist " proposals, opposed 
 to every principle of Individualism. Meanwhile 
 the leaders in Parliament are forced to act, and 
 every adverse bye election drives them to fur- 
 ther popular reforms. Free Schools granted in 
 Scotland cannot long be withheld in England. 
 The " Sweating System " and the excessive 
 hours of labour call loudly for legislation. 
 
 The "Allotments Act" of 1886 enabled 
 local authorities to acquire land compulsorily in 
 
.24 SOCIALISM IM ENGLAND. 
 
 order to let it to small cultivators, and marks 
 the beginning of " land municipalization." Both 
 parties are now committed, to its extension. Ex- 
 tensions of the Factory Acts, Truck Acts, 
 Sanitary Acts, and especially Artisans' Dwell- 
 ings Acts, are only other instances of the Con- 
 servative tendency towards Socialism, prema- 
 turely predicted by their great leader fifty years 
 ago.^ 
 
 But the Conservative Patty, essentially the 
 party of wealth and privilege, is naturally less 
 advanced than its rival. The Liberal Party 
 has now definitely discarded the Individualist 
 Laissez Faire, upon which, as a middle class 
 organization, it was so largely founded, and, 
 with every approach towards democracy, be- 
 comes more markedly Socialist in character. 
 Ireland has already led so " conservative " a 
 statesman as Mr. Gladstone to deal successive 
 blows at " landlordism," from theefffect of which 
 all private property in land and rent now totters. 
 The Liberal Party is fully committed to free 
 schools, special taxation of urban land values 
 and large schemes of " Housing the Poor." 
 The London Liberal and Radical Union, 
 ^ See Lord Beaconsfield's Sybil, or The Two Nations. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 123 
 
 the official party organisation in the Metro- 
 poHs, with Mr. John Morley, for president, ex- 
 pressly promoted in 1889 a measure to enable 
 the London County Council to build unlimited 
 artisans' dwellings, to be let at moderate rents, 
 and to be paid for by a special tax, to be levied 
 on London landlords only/ No more extreme 
 " Socialist " proposal could possibly be made, 
 short of complete communism itself. 
 
 This, however, is merely the proposal of the 
 " official Liberal " party. The Radical wing, 
 every day increasing in relative influence, 
 demands measures much more general in their 
 Socialistic tendency. 
 
 One of the most significant changes is the 
 attitude of the London working men's clubs. 
 These two hundred or more spontaneous 
 democratic organisations of the metropolitan 
 artisans, constitute the most important part of 
 the fighting strength of London Liberalism, 
 and directly control at least one-fifth of its 
 votes. Statistics are only available for about 
 
 ■1 See the series of bills introduced into the House of 
 Commons by Professor Stuart, M.P., and other London 
 Liberal members, forming what is known (in 1889) as the 
 " London Programme." 
 
124 SOCIALTSM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 half these institutions, but of that half, most 
 are quite new. Fifteen years ago there were 
 only twenty or thirty of them ; between 1874 
 and 1884, 50 still surviving, were established, 
 and in the 4 years, 1884-88, no fewer than 78 
 sprang into durable existence.' Ten years ago 
 their prevailing tone was a somewhat harsh, 
 secular Radicalism, seeking extreme reforms 
 in political machinery, but leaving social 
 problems entirely to individual effort and an 
 exaggerated faith in trades unionism. Now 
 these organizations are pulling the party in 
 quite the other direction. Merely political 
 reforms are becoming daily more subordinated 
 to attempts to deal with social problems. The 
 prevailing note of the clubs is now a progres- 
 sive collectivism. The nationalisation of the 
 land hardly meets with dissent, and free schools 
 (secondary as well as primary), the special 
 taxation of urban land values, a steeply 
 graduated income tax, and the widest possible 
 extension of municipal administration are 
 unanimously demanded. London Radicalism 
 is rapidly merging its harsh atheistic Indi- 
 vidualism in a broad humanitarian Collectivism. 
 ^Report of Club and Institute Union, 1889. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 125 
 
 Socialist lecturers are in incessant demand, and 
 the Liberal party managers have avowedly- 
 come to the conclusion that London needs a 
 specially Socialist platform. The " Star," the 
 chief organ in the press of this Socialist 
 Radicalism, constantly presses for a complete 
 programme of social reconstruction, and the 
 " abolition of undeserved poverty." The late 
 School Board and County Council elections in 
 London, as well as the recent Parliamentary 
 " bye elections," were " run " on this policy, with 
 a success which makes it certain that the next 
 Parliamentary election, though obscured by the 
 Home Rule issue, will follow on much the 
 same lines. The following " programme for 
 London," extracted from the " Star," 8th of 
 August, 1888, will serve not only as a graphic 
 example of what English Radicalism has now 
 come to mean, but also, significantly enough, 
 as a concrete statement of all the proximate 
 demands of the English Socialist Party. 
 
 Revision of Taxation. 
 
 Ohject. — Complete shifting of burden from the workers, 
 of whatever grade, to the recipients of rent and interest, 
 with a view to the ultimate and gradual extinction of the 
 latter class. 
 
126 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Means. — i. Abolition of all customs and excise duties, 
 except those on spirits. 2. Increase of income tax, 
 differentiating in favour of earned as against unearned in- 
 comes, and graduating cumulatively by a system of succes- 
 sive levels of abatement. 3. Equalisation and increase of 
 death duties, and the use of the proceeds as capital, not 
 income. 4. Shifting of local rates and house duty from 
 occupier to owner, any contract to the contrary notwith- 
 standing. 5. Compulsory redemption of existing land tax, 
 and re-imposition on all ground rents and increased values. 
 6. Abolition of fees on licences for employment. 7. 
 Abolition of police court fees. 
 
 Extension of Factory Acts. 
 
 Object. — To raise, universally, the standard of comfort 
 by obtaining the general recognition of a minimum wage, 
 and a maximum working day. 
 
 Means. — i. Extension of the general provisions of the 
 Factory and Workshops Acts (or the Mines Regulation 
 Acts, as the case may be) to all employers of labour. 2. 
 Compulsory registration of all employers of more than 
 three (?) workers. 3. Largely increased number of In- 
 spectors, and these to include women, and to be mainly 
 chosen from the wage-earning class. 4. Immediate 
 reduction of maximum hours to eight per day in all govern- 
 ment and municipal employment, in all mines, and in all 
 licensed monopolies, such as railways, tramways, gas-works, 
 water-works, docks, harbours, etc., and in any trade in 
 which a majority of the workers desire it. 5. The com- 
 pulsory insertion of clauses in all contracts for government 
 
SOCIAUSM IN ENGLAND. 127 
 
 or municipal supplies, providing that (a) there shall be no 
 sub-contracting ; (h) that no worker shall be employed 
 more than eight hours per day, and (c) that no wages less 
 than a prescribed minimum shall be paid. 
 
 Educational Reform. 
 
 Olject — To enable all, even the poorest, children to obtain 
 not merely some, but the best education they are capable 
 of. 
 
 Means — i. The immediate abolition of all fees in public 
 elementary schools, board or voluntary, with a corresponding 
 increase in the goverment grant. 2. Creation of a Minister 
 for Education, with control over the whole educational 
 system, from the elementary school to the University, and 
 over all educational endowments. 3. Provision of public 
 technical and secondary schools wherever needed, and 
 creation of abundant public secondary scholarships 4, 
 Continuation, in all cases, of elementary education at 
 evening schools. 5. Registration and inspection of all 
 private educational establishments. 
 
 Reorganization of Poor Law Administration. 
 
 Object. — To provide generously and without stigma for 
 the aged, the sick, and those destitute through temporary 
 want of employment, without relaxing the " tests " against 
 the endowment of able-bodied idleness. 
 
 Means. — i. The separation of the relief of the aged and 
 the sick, from the workhouse system, by a universal system 
 of aged pensions and public infirmaries. 2. The industrial 
 
128 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 organization and technical education of all able-bodied 
 paupers. 3. The provision of temporary relief works for 
 the unemployed. 4. The supersession of the Boards of 
 Guardians by the local municipal authorities. 
 
 Extension of Municipal Activity. 
 
 Object. — The gradual public organizati^on of labour for all 
 public purposes, and the elimination of the private capitalist 
 and middleman. 
 
 Means. — i. The provision of increased facilities for the 
 acquisition of land, the destruction without compensation of 
 all dwellings found unfit for habitation, and the provision of 
 artisans' dwellings by the municipality. 2. The facilitation 
 of every extension of municipal administration, in London 
 and all other towns, of gas, water, markets, tramways, 
 hospitals, cemeteries, parks, museums, art galleries, libraries, 
 reading-rooms, schools, docks, harbours, rivers, etc. 3. The 
 provision of abundant facilities for the acquisition of land by 
 local rural authorities, for allotments, common pastures, 
 public halls, reading-rooms, etc. 
 
 Amendment of Political Machinery. 
 
 Object. — To obtain the most accurate representation and 
 expression of the desires of the majority of the people at 
 every moment. 
 
 Means. — i. Reform of registration so as to give a vote, 
 both parliamentary and municipal, to every adult. 2. 
 
SOCIALISM m EXGLAND. 129 
 
 Abolition of of any period of residence as a qualification 
 for registration. 3. Bi-annual registration by special 
 public ofiScer. 4. Payment of election expenses, including 
 postage of election addresses and polling cards. 5. Payment 
 of all public representatives, parliamentary, county or 
 municipal. 6. Second ballot. 7. Abolition or painless 
 extinction of House of Lords. 
 
 This is the kind of programme to which a 
 generation of trades unionism and political en- 
 franchisement has brought the English artisan 
 since the crude political reforms advocated by 
 the Chartists. Like John Stuart Mill, though 
 less explicitly, he has abandoned mere poli- 
 tical Democracy for an almost complete Social- 
 ism. 
 
 It need hardly be said that no such pro- 
 gramme of legislation can be carried out in a 
 single session. It is probable, indeed, that for 
 much of it the rest of England is not yet suffi- 
 ciently prepared. The tendency is, however, 
 strong in that direction, and the " political mo- 
 mentum which, instead of diminishing or re- 
 maining constant, increases,"^ will inevitably 
 carry us rapidly forward. 
 
 The greatest obstacle in the way of more 
 
 Herbert Spencer, Man versus the State, p. 23. 
 
130 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 speedy realization of the public desires is now 
 the divergence in thought between the leaders 
 of the Liberal Party and the great mass of the 
 wage earners. The Liberal Party is rapidly be- 
 coming the " Party of the Masses," as Mr. 
 Gladstone predicted in 1885, but its leaders and 
 its chief provincial supporters are still either 
 Whigs, or Radicals not yet free from the taint of 
 the "Manchester" school. It is already becoming 
 apparent that the " Party of Progress " must 
 either become the " Labour Party," or be super- 
 seded by the latter, and there can be little doubt 
 that the first of these alternatives will be chosen. 
 As this will imply the further secession of most 
 of the remaining capitalists and middle class, de- 
 cisive action will be postponed as long as 
 possible. The long traditional political subser- 
 vience of the wage-earners, not to mention their 
 disorganization and their divisions, will probably 
 enable the Liberal wire-pullers, as between 1880 
 and 1885, greatly to delay any organic social 
 reforms. The complications arising out of the 
 Irish Question, possible foreign entanglements 
 or amendments of political machinery, may all 
 serve as temporary defences of rent and interest. 
 If these fail, the Disestablishment of the Church. 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 131 
 
 or the Abolition of Hereditary Legislators, 
 may easily divert the attack for ' half a genera- 
 tion. 
 
 The mass of the people cannot, however, be 
 wholly denied their desires, and various fiscal 
 and social reforms — all in one direction — will in- 
 evitably be getting carried out. Meanwhile, 
 the local administrative bodies will necessarily 
 be passing more and more out of the hands ol 
 the middle class into real democratic control. 
 It is mainly for " Municipal Socialism " that the 
 near future is bright, but the potentialities ol 
 this as a means of the elevation of the poor are 
 as yet hardly suspected. 
 
 National action cannot, however, be entirely 
 suspended, and it is possible that the wage 
 earners may refuse to be cajoled by the leaders 
 of either of the obsolescent parties, and will in- 
 sist on a genuine attempt being made to deal 
 with social problems. 
 
 The steady growth of "social compunction ' 
 among all classes will promote the same result. 
 Just now (Dec. 1889) the tendency is strong in 
 this direction, and it may perhaps carry us for- 
 ward more rapidlythan anypoliticianyet foresees, 
 The individual appropriation of rent and interesi 
 
132 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 is becoming more and more discredited among 
 the mass of the population who are practically 
 unable to share in this income ; and they are 
 quickly coming to demand that social arrange- 
 ments shall be deliberately based on what are 
 essentially Socialist principles. The Christian 
 is every day inclining to the feeling that his 
 faith requires him to support the same demand ; 
 the Political Economist has ceased to resist, 
 counselling merely circumspection and modera- 
 tion ; the Practical Reformer is driven by the im- 
 possibility of otherwise adequately dealing with 
 social evils into the same direction, and the 
 Statesman sees more and more clearly that this 
 is the outcome of urban Democracy in advanced 
 industrial communities, with their excessive de- 
 velopment of city life. The industrial evolution, 
 as usual, precedes and accompanies the political, 
 and all social tendencies point to the same end. 
 What the exact form and machinery may be, it 
 is, of course, impossible to predict, nor how long 
 each stage may last, but no student of English 
 thought and politics can doubt that England is 
 destined to become constantly more and more 
 " collectivist " as it advances in industrial com- 
 plexity, in realized wealth, and in political de- 
 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 133 
 
 mocracy. The Individualism of the past is 
 buried, and the immediate future is unmistalc- 
 ably with a progressive Socialism, the full ex- 
 tent of which no man can yet see. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Cowan &^ Co., Limited, Friu. era. Pet tli.