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SOCIALISM  IN  ENGLAND.

tion  given  to  social  subjects  in  the  Church  Congresses,  the
revival  of  guilds  and  of  religious  communities  in  the  Church  of
England,  most  of  which  are  Socialistic  in  principle,  and  many
of  the  latter—the  brotherhoods  and  sisterhoods—even  Communistic ­
  in  practice,  seem  to  bear  out  Mr.  Headlam’s  statement.
Among  the  various  Dissenting  communities,  too,  Christian
Socialism  appears  to  be  gaining  ground,  though  they  have  no
such  organized  Socialist  body  as  the  Guild  of  St.  Matthew,  nor
do  they  share  its  peculiar  views  as  to  the  nature  of  theft.
Dr.  Parker,  in  opening  the  autumn  session  (1884)  of  the
Congregational  Union,  said,  “  The  land  could  not  always  be
held  as  it  was  in  England  to-day.  But  the  rearrangement  of
its  tenure  must  express  in  its  altered  and  popularized  terms  the
moral  preparedness  of  the  people,  and  therefore  have  no  taint
of  injustice  to  proprietors.”  He  is  also  stated  to  have  said  that
he  and  his  party  “  would  abet  and  sanction  no  public  burglary,”
and  to  have  bidden  his  hearers  beware  lest  “  the  word  Christian
be  only  the  handle  with  which  the  knife  Socialism  is  worked.”
I  have  now  to  notice  a  socialistic  movement  conducted  by
a  group  of  men  who  differ  widely  from  all  other  sections  of
Socialists  in  England  :  a  group  of  men  in  whose  eyes  Lord
Salisbury  is  a  “  marauder,”  Mr.  Chamberlain  a  “  slave-driver,”
and  the  leaders  of  the  Trades  Unions—that  “  aristocracy  of
labour  ”—the  hireling  tools  of  the  capitalists  ;  a  group  who  think
that  Mr.  George  is  “  tilting  at  windmills,”  and  look  upon  him
as,  except  on  one  point  (the  “  windmills  ”),  “  a  typical  middleclass
  reformer,  believing  in  the  virtues  of  free  contract  and  competition ­
  ;  ”  who  sneer  at  the  Christian  Socialists,  and  “  utterly
despise  the  other  world  with  all  its  stage  properties  ;  ”  who  have
accepted  Das  Kapital  as  their  Bible,  and  who  look  for  a  new
world  “  presenting  itself,”  as  their  ablest  writer,  Mr.  Belfort  Bax,
says,  “  in  industry  as  Co-operative  Communism,  in  politics  as
International  Republicanism,  and  in  religion  as  Atheistic
Humanism,”—a  world  which  they  fondly  hope  will  be  brought
forth  “after  the  agonized  throes  of  Revolution.”  This  group  of
persons,  of  whom  Mr.  William  Morris,  the  famous  poet  and
artist,*  and  Miss  Helen  Taylor,  step-daughter  of  J.  S.  Mill,  were
*  Mr.  Morris  has  written,  in  his  usual  charming  style,  a  little  pamphlet