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THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY.
tion on the part of authority. This point of view was further
developed with great force by Adolf Wagner, professor at the
University of Berlin, in his famous address on the Social
Question,* * * § in an article on private property, and in his
“Financial Science.”f Furthermore, A. Rosier, professor at
Rostock, in his critical works on the fundamental principles of
Adam Smith ; Brentano, professor at the University of Breslau,
and now of Strasburg, in his fine book on the Working Men's
Guilds of our epoch ; $ Held, professor at Bonn and after
wards at Berlin, in his article on the present conflict of
principles in Political Economy ; § and Engel, the eminent
director of the Bureau of Statistics at Berlin, in an article written
in 1867 on the contract of hiring labour, have all admitted
that the notion of what is just and fair should preside over and
influence free contract I am citing only the principal works
which prepared the way for the new school. Afterwards, when
these doctrines became the subjects of polemics, numerous
publications appeared on both sides.
The idea of gathering together the partisans of the new
Economic School in an annual congress emanated, it is said,
from Roscher. The session of 1872 at Eisenach was a great
success, and excited considerable attention. Besides the pro
fessors already named, the following were to be seen there ;—■
Nasse of Bonn, Gneist of Berlin, Knapp of Leipzig, Conrad
of Halle, Hildebrand of Jena, Holtzendorf of Berlin, now of
Munich, Knies of Heidelberg, Neumann of Basel, now of
Tübingen, and, in addition, a large number of deputies, states
men, higher officials, proprietors, and eminent men. Professor
Schmoller, in his opening address, freely admitted that there
was, in our times, a social question. “ The marked division
of classes in the midst of existing society,” he said, “ the open
war between masters and workmen, between owners and pro
letarians, and the danger, still distant but threatening the
future, of a social revolution, have for some years caused
* Die Soziale Frage, 1872.
+ Kau'sehe Lehrbuch der Finanzauissenschaft, 1870.
j Arbeite:-gilden der Gegenwart, 1871.
§ Gegenwärtige Principienstreit in der Nationaloekonomie.
