/-tíC' «T" WHI y- ¥ EIGENTUM DES I INSTITUTS ! FUR WELTWIRTSCHAFT KIEL riEK i i'ú. í : t*. '' VÍ Ä:;-' I L*.; W ' r-v» .4^ IS¿V .'/■ V ■ ^-: ( » ■' afT • , -s U '■ V THE Socialism of To-day. BY EMILE DE ^AVELEYE, MEMBER or THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF BELGIUM, ETC., "ETC. Translated into English by GODDARD H. OR PEN, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND BY THE TRANSLATOR. Uoniion : FIELD AND TUER, THE LEADENHALL PRESS, E.C. SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO. ; HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO. im 'KT cP C3 Bibliothek iä nle\ FIELD & TUER, THE LEADEN H ALL PRESS, E.C. (t. 4183) CONTENTS. Translator’s Preface (ix.) INTRODUCTION. THE PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM. Ubiquity of Socialism (xiii.)—What is Socialism? (xiv.)—Causes of the origin and growth of Socialism (xv.)—Christianity and Socialism (xvi.) —Socialistic utterances of the Fathers of the Church (xviii.)—Darwinism ­ the logical antithesis of both Christianity and Socialism (xix.) How religious Socialism became political (xx.)—The French Revolution and social equality (xxi.)—Changes in the methods of production (xxii.) —Mediaeval craftsmen and modern factory-hands (xxv.)—Mediaeval society stationary but stable (xxvii.)—Competition the cause at once of progress and instability (xxviii.)—“ The iron law of wages ” (xxix.)— Internationalism (xxx.)—Summary of the situation created by economic progress (xxxi.)—Macaulay’s prophecy (xxxii.)—Effect of the decay of religious faith (xxxiii.)—Political Economy, the arsenal of Socialism (xxxiv. ) Socialism gaining ground with the upper classes (xxxv.)—and promoted by Militarism (xxxvi. )—The true and the false in Socialism (xxxvii.)—The demands of Socialism (xxxix.)—Effect of Socialism on Political Economy (xlii. )—Fundamental errors of Socialists (xliii.) CHAPTER I. CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM IN GERMANY. Coercive measures against Socialists (i)—Two Socialistic Associations formed in Germany (2)—The Congress of Gotha, 1872, and its programme ­ (3)—Wide diffusion of Socialism in Germany (4). IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. THE FORERUNNERS : FICHTE AND MARLO. Recent origin of Socialism in Germany (6)—Socialistic views of Fichte (7) —The writings of Weitling (8)—Professor Winkelblech (Mario) : his conversion to Socialism (9)—His contrast of the Pagan and the Christian ­ principle in Political Economy (ii)—His theory of property (n) —His views on the population question (12)—Diffusion of comfort the best preventive of over-population (13). CHAPTER III. RODBERTUS-JAGETZOW. General character of German Socialists (14)—Rodbertus, “ the Ricardo of Socialism” (15)—His theory of wages (16)—and of rent (17)—His project of a system of exchange (18). CHAPTER IV. KARL MARX. Das Kapital: its faulty method (20)—Biographical facts concerning Marx (21)—His writings (22)—His aim, to prove capital the result of spoliation (23)—His theory of value (24)—The measure of value (26)—His account of the origin of capital (27)—The capitalist’s methods of increasing profits (30)—“ Surplus Value,” the materialization ­ of unpaid labour (31)—Maurice Block’s attempted refutation (32) —Fundamental error of Marx (34)—Value really springs from Utility (35)—True theory of the value of labour (37)—Error of Marx as to machines (38)—German and French Socialists contrasted (39)— Superiority of Christianity as a factor of social reform (40). CHAPTER V. FERDINAND LASS ALLE. Lassalle, the “ Messiah of Socialism” (42)—His early years (43)—Heine’s estimate of Lassalle (44)—The Countess of Hatzfeld’s law-suit (45)— The insurrection at Dusseldorf, 1848 (46)—Lassaile’s political views (47)—His juridical and political writings (48)—Lassalle and Schulze-Delitzsch (49)—Lassalle’s project of marriage (51)—His tragic death (53)—His theories : the “iron law of wages ” (54)—How far true (57) —Economic laws differ from cosmic laws (59)—Is it want or plenty that tends to increase population ? (60)—Lassalle’s views regarding the antagonism between capitalists and labourers (62)—His remedy : State-aided co-operation (64)—Bismarck’s connection with Lassalle CONTENTS. V (67)—Difficulties in the way of co-operative production (68)—Working ­ men’s Congress in Paris, 1876, and co-operation (71) Conditions of successful co-operation (74)—Lassalle’s views as to the ulterior transformation of society (75)—Lassalle and Marx contrasted (78)— Essential weakness of Lassalle’s proposals (79). CHAPTER VI. CONSERVATIVE SOCIALISTS. Einseitigkeit (81)—The Conservative Socialist, the Economist, and the Democratic Socialist (82)—Germany the typical ground of the war between classes (83)—Rodbertus contrasted with Lassalle (84)—President ­ von Gerlach and the Zunfireaction (85)—Professor Huber and Councillor Wagener (87)—Prince Bismarck a type of the Conservative Socialist (89)—His relations with the Katheder-Socialisten (91)—Views of Rudolf Meyer, the most learned of Conservative Socialists (93)— Aristotle and Montesquieu on the evils of inequality (94)—For whom does machinery create leisure ? (95)—Impracticable proposals of Conservative ­ Socialists (96). CHAPTER VH. EVANGELICAL SOCIALISTS. Jlerr Stocker and the two associations founded by him (97)—Programme of the party (99)—A Socialist Monarchy (loi)—Prussia, a soil suited to State Socialism (103)—Proposed revival of trade-corporations (104) —Herr Stocker’s views as to the duty of the Protestant Church (106) —Johann Most’s attacks on the clergy (107)—Massenaustritt aus der Landskirche (108)—The Evangelical Socialists and the Anti-Socialist Bill (109)—Herr Todt’s book: “Radical German Socialism and Christian Society” (no)—M. Laurent and school-saving (113)— Christianity, a living force (115). CHAPTER VHI. CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. The Red and the Black International (116)—Militant Catholics in France (117)—Is the Gospel an authority for Socialism? (118)—Scientiñc Materialism and Christianity (120)—Bishop Ketteler’s Book: “The Labour Question and Christianity” (121)—His sympathy with Lassalle (122)—The theory of the “ Labour-Commodity ”( 123)—Why demagogues ­ preach Atheistic Materialism (125)—Bishop Ketteler’s remedy (126)—Canon Moufang’s electoral address, 1871 ; programme of Catholico-Socialist reforms (129)—Christlich-sociale Blaetter (132)—In- VI CONTENTS. fluence of the Ultramontane Socialists (133)—The Catholic working men’s clubs (134)—Kolping’s Vereine (137)—Assembly of German Catholics at Mayence, 1871 (139)—Relations of the Catholic Socialists with the Social Democrats (140)—Associations due to Catholic Socialism (141)—Double object of the movement (143)—The scarlet-coloured beast of the Apocalypse (144). CHAPTER IX. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. Facts which gave rise to the International (146)—Communist Manifesto of 1847 (148)—Visit of French working men to the London Exhibition of 1862 (149)—Foundation of the International, 1864 (150)—Its Manifesto (151)—First Congress at Geneva, 1866(153)—Constitution of the International (154)—The International begins to make its power felt (155)—Congress at Lausanne, 1867 (156)—Congress at Brussels, 1868 (158)—Collectivism (161)—What is the Collectivity ? (164)—The Slavic zadruga (165)—How the International gained adherents (166) —Congress at Bâle, 1869 (168)—Autonomous Co-operative Associations (170)—Abolition of hereditary succession (171)—Bakunin appears on the scene (172)—Spread of the International in 1870 (173)—Protests against the Franco-Prussian war (174)—The International and the Paris Commune (176)—Conference in London, 1871 (179)—The schism in the International and the Congress at the Hague, 1872 (180)—Two Internationals face to face, 1873 (182)—General Assembly of the Autonomists at Brussels, 1874 (184)—Congress at Berne, 1876 (185)— Congress at Ghent, 1877 (187)—Causes of the decline of the International ­ (189). CHAPTER X. BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. Amorphism (192)—Cosmical and social Palingenesis (193)—Biographical sketch of Bakunin (196)—Foundation of “ the Alliance of the Socialist Democracy” (198)—Bakunin and the Commune {199)—Constitution of the Alliance (200)—Its programme (201)—“ Holy and wholesome ignorance” (203) — “Pan-destruction” (204)—The Revolutionary Catechism (205)—Netchaieff (206)—The assassination of Ivanoff (207) —Romatioff, Pugatcheff, or Pestel? (208)—Influence of the International in England (209)—in America (212)—in the Scandinavian countries (213)—in Switzerland (216)—in Belgium (218)—in Holland (220)—in Austria (220)—in Hungary (221)—in Italy (221)—“The Social Revolution ­ ” at San Lupo (222)—Lady Internationalists (224)—Mazzini and CONTENTS. Vil the International (225)—Garibaldi and the Commune : Bakunin and Italy (226)—The Socialistic press in Italy (228)—Socialistic manifestoes (229)—Authoritarian Collectivists and Revolutionary Anarchists (230) —The International in Spain (231)—Influence of Bakunin in Spain (233)—The Insurrection of Carthagena, 1873 (235)—La Mano Ñera (236)—The International in Portugal (239)—Force no remedy (240) —The sources of Nihilistic Socialism; the Hegelians (241)—Herzen (242)—Russian Nihilism distinguished from Western Anarchism (243). CHAPTER XI. COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. Different forms of Collectivism (244)—Colins, the Belgian Collectivist : sketch of his life (245)—His philosophical {246)—economical (247) and historical views (249)—His idea of the definitive organization of society (250)—François Huet (253)—His views of social organization ­ : “the right to patrimony” (254)—Henry George: his “Progress ­ and Poverty ” (226)—Universal Collectivism: Schæfile’s “Quintessence ­ of Socialism” (260)—Three Socialist groups in France (263) —The programme of the Possibilists (264). CHAPTER XH. THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. Are the Katheder-Socialisten really Socialists? (265)—Their statement of the orthodox Economy (266)—and criticism thereof (267)—Their view of the functions of the State (269)—The social question a question of distribution (270)—Ethical side of Political Economy (271)—The Old Economists contrasted with the New (272)—The Congress of Economists in Germany (273)—Forerunners of the new school (275) —First Congress of the new school at Eisenach, 1872: Professor Schmoller’s address (276)—“ The Association for Social Politics” (277)—Recent writings by the New Economists (278)—Professor Wagner’s ­ theory of economic development (279)—Property not an immutable right (280)—The opinions of the New Economists not uniform (281) —Professor Nasse's summary of the work of the new school (282)— Its future (283). SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. Three Socialistic movements in England (287)—Land Nationalization ; J. S. Mill’s proposal (288)—Henry George : biographical sketch (289) His statement of the social problem (291)—His answer (292)—His vin CONTENTS. critics {293)—Mr. Wallace’s proposals (294)—His views as to compensation ­ (295)—“The right to choose a home” (296) The Land Nationalization Society (297)—The Land Restoration Leagues of England, Scotland, and Ireland (298)—Prospects of the movement (299)—Christian Socialism : Maurice and Kingsley {300)—How they differed from the Socialists of to-day (30t)—Their connection with the co-operative movement (302)—The Guild of St. Matthew (303)—The Church and Socialism (304)—The Bible and Socialism (305)—Political Economy and Christian Socialism (306)—“ Socialism by Taxation ” (307)—The dwellings of the poor (308)—Government workshops (309)—The Social Democratic Federation (31 i)— Mr. Hyndman’s book: “The Historical Basis of Socialism in England” ­ (3I2>—The theory of value (313)— Surplus value (314) — Machines (315)—The Manifesto of the Social Democrats (317)—No compensation (318)—The Collectivist State (321)—Revolution a condition ­ precedent (323)—Social Reformers (325)—The co-operative movement (327)—Profit-sharing (329)—Socialism by evolution (331). TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE. No apology is needed for bringing before English readers a translation of a work by so eminent a writer and so profound a thinker as M. de Laveleye, upon so important a question of the day as Socialism. The term Socialist is an exceedingly elastic one. It has been used to include a revolutionary anarchist, like Bakunin, who seeks to destroy, by any and every means, all States and all institutions, and to eradicate utterly the very idea of authority, as well as a constructive statesman of the conservative type, like Prince Bismarck, whose aim is to concentrate much power and many functions in the hands of a paternal government. There are Tory and Radical Socialists, State and Communal Socialists, Christian and Atheist Socialists, Socialists who are Collectivists, Communists, ­ or Anarchists, Socialists of the Chair, and “ Socialists of the Pothouse.” Other shades and subdivisions might easily be added, but under one or other of its numerous forms. Socialism is daily gaining fresh adherents in almost all civilized countries. 1 he recruits of even the more extreme sections are, moreover, no longer confined to the ranks of the uneducated ­ or the non-propertied classes. Even in England, among persons whom it would be misleading to call Socialists, there is an increasing dissatisfaction with our present industrial system, a growing feeling that the old principle of laissez faire X TRANSLATORS PREFACE. has in some cases been pushed too far, and that the conflict of individual self-interests cannot always be relied upon to produce the welfare of the whole. These ideas are more in the nature of a feeling or sentiment than of a reasoned conviction. A critical survey of the socialistic thought of Europe, such as M. de Laveleye has made, is certainly well calculated to assist the formation of a rational judgment. There are, however. Socialists of several types in England too, and, accordingly, I have ventured to add to M. de Laveleye’s account of European Socialism, a chapter on contemporary ­ Socialism in England. In this chapter I have endeavoured to give a faithful account of the three main socialistic movements at present stirring amongst us, viz. the movement for the Nationalization of the Land, which has taken more forms than one, but which is mainly associated with the name of Henry George ; the Christian Socialist movement, of which the Guild of St. Matthew, marching far beyond the position taken up by Maurice and Kingsley, represents the van ; and the thorough-going Collectivist agitation of the Social Democratic Federation, which aims at the complete overthrow of the existing social, economical, and political order, and the concentration of the land, and all the instruments of production of the country in the hands of a democratic State. These movements may as yet be small in comparison with some of those on the continent described by M. de Laveleye ; nevertheless, as a German writer, speaking of another matter, once said, “ Sirius may be larger than the Sun, but he does not ripen our grapes,” and in the same way to English readers, an account of what is going on, perhaps without their knowing it, in their midst, comparatively slight as the movements may be, ought to be of some interest. The time is indeed at hand when England, as well as other democracies, if she is in any way to control her destinies, must make up her mind not only as to the true goal of social TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. organization to be kept in view, but also as to the best and urest V ay of reaching that goal ; and every citizen who cares or the good of his fellow-men, who wishes to form an intelligent opinion on the political proposals of the day, who desires to exercise, in however humble a way, a wholesome influence on the social development of his country, should endeavour to understand at least the bearings of the problem. Beside this problem, all questions touching the extension of the Franchise, the abolition of the House of Lords, or even the reformation of Ae House of Commons, sink into insigniflcance. The decision of these latter points will merely answer the question, what sort of servants shall the nation employ? The more undamental questions are : what sort of duties shall the nation entrust to its servants? what sort of commands shall the nation give ? GODDARD H. ORPEN. I, Stone Buildings, Lincoln’s Inn, f'i: . n ííi i R ÜÉMi INTRODUCTION. THE PROGRESS OF SOCIALISM. W HEN Louis Reybaud, in 1853, wrote the article in the Dictionnaire de 1 Économie Politiqueos “Socialism” a term to which he first gave currency—he believed that we had heard the last of the disordered hallucinations of Socialists. “ Socialism is dead,” he exclaimed ; “ to speak of it is to pronounce ­ its funeral oration.” This was, in fact, the general opinion some years ago. Systems of Socialism were then studied only as curious examples of the aberrations of the *^0 human mind. To-day we have fallen into the opposite extreme : we see Socialism everywhere. The red spectre haunts our imaginations, ­ and we fancy ourselves on the eve of a social cataclysm. What is certain is, that Socialism has recently spread, under various forms, to an extraordinaiy extent In its violent form, it is taking possession of the minds of almost all mining and manufacturing operatives, and at this very moment it is beginning to invade the rural districts. The agrarian movement ­ which lately agitated Ireland, which has just been suppressed in Andalusia, and which is brewing in other places, IS plainly inspired by socialistic ideas. In scientific garb. Socialism is transforming political economy and is occupying the greater number of professorial chairs in Germany and Italy. Under the form of State Socialism, it sits in the council-chamber of sovereigns ; and finally, under a Christian lorm, It IS making its influence felt in the hearts of the Catholic clergy, and still more in the hearts of the ministers of the different Protestant denominations. b XIV INTRODUCTION. In the debate which took place on the 23rd May, 1878, in the German Parliament, when the Anti-Socialist Bill was introduced by the Imperial Government, Deputy Joerg, one of the most distinguished orators of Catholic Germany, very justly said, “ A movement almost imperceptible at its outset has spread with unprecedented rapidity. This extraordinary development of Socialism can only be accounted for by considering ­ it as the consequence of the profound modifications which have taken place in economic and social conditions. Yes, modern civilization has its dark side, and that dark side is Socialism. It will not disappear so long as civilization continues to be what it now is. Socialism is not a plague peculiar to Germany. It has taken up its head-quarters here, and has received in our country its philosophical and scientific education, but it is to be met with everywhere, it is a universal evil.” England alone seemed to be free from it ; but the extraordinary ­ success which has attended the schemes for the nationalization of the land, and the publications of Mr. Henry George and Mr. A. R. Wallace, prove that this immunity is a thing of the past. What is Socialism ? I have never met with either a clear definition or even precise description of the word. Every one is a Socialist in somebody’s eyes. Since his agrarian legislation for Ireland, Mr. Gladstone is considered by the Irish Conservatives ­ as a Socialist of the worst type. Prince Bismarck, the friend of Lassalle and Schæffle, the author of the terrible proposal for establishing, by means of the tobacco monopoly, a superannuation fund for invalid workmen, can hardly defend himself from the charge of being a Socialist; and, for the matter of that, he readily avows that he is one. The statesmen in France, who recently wished all the railways to be taken up and worked by the State, were assuredly Socialists. Finally, since the famous pamphlets of Bastiat, every out-and-out freetrader ­ and every rigid economist is firmly convinced that whoever does not admit the wisdom of full freedom of commerce ­ is infected with Socialism and Communism. Proudhon, far from wishing to strengthen the action of the State, called for its abolition under the name of “ Anarchy.” Was he not. INTRODUCTION. XV then, a Socialist ? After “ the Days of June,” in 1848, Proudhon said to the magistrate who examined him, that he went to contemplate ­ “the sublime horrors of the cannonade.” “But,” said the magistrate, “are you not, then, a Socialist?” “Certainly.” ­ “ Well, but what, then, is Socialism ? ” “ It is,” replied Proudhon, “every aspiration towards the improvement of society.” “But in that case,” very justly remarked the magistrate, ­ ‘we are all Socialists.” “That is precisely what I think,” rejoined Proudhon. Proudhon s definition is too wide ; it omits two characteristics. ­ In the first place, every socialistic doctrine aims at introducing greater equality into social conditions; and secondly. It tries to realize these reforms by the action of the law or the State. Socialism is an equalizer and a leveller; and it does not admit that mere liberty can usher in the reign of justice. All sensible economists recognize the existence of many evils and iniquities in society ; but they think that these evils will decrease under the influence of “ natural laws ” and t e beneficial results of laissez faire. Christianity condemns ric es and inequality with all the vehemence of Socialism ; but It is not to the State that it looks for the establishment of the reign of justice. The Socialist is a pessimist. He places in full relief the bad side of the social state. He points to the strong crushing the weak, the rich making gain out of the poor, inequality becoming harsher and more pronounced. He aspires to an ideal where well-being will be allotted in propor-Ijtion to desert and to services rendered. The economist is an optimist He does not go so far as to pretend that all IS perfect; but he thinks that man, in pursuing his individual interests, advances the general weal as much as possible, and at rorn the free play of all his self-regarding instincts there wi resu t a better order of things. Consequently, according o im, the only thing to be done is to get rid of all shackles, o reduce the action of the State to a minimum, and to interfere m the way of government as little as possible. Let us endeavour to point out the causes of the origin and growth of modern Socialism. As soon as man had attained sufficient culture to be XVI INTROD UCTION. impressed with social evils, and at the same time to rise to the idea of a more perfect order of things, dreams of social reforms must have arisen in his mind. Accordingly, in all epochs and in every land, after primitive equality had disappeared, ­ socialistic aspirations are to be met with, now under the form of a protest against existing evil, now under that of Utopian plans of social reconstruction. The most perfect example of these Utopias is that wonderful work of Hellenic Spiritualism, the Republic of Plato. But it was from Judæa that there arose the most persistent protests against inequality and the most ardent aspirations after justice that have ever raised humanity out of the actual into the ideal. We feel the effect still. It is thence has come that leaven of revolution which still moves the world. Job saw evil triumphant, and yet believed in justice. Israel’s prophets, while thundering against iniquity, announced the good time coming. In the Gospel, these ideas are expressed in that simple penetrating language that has moved and transformed all who have heard and understood it. “ The Glad Tidings ” (EûayyeAiov) are announced to the poor : the last shall be first and the first last; blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall inherit the earth ; woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation ; the kingdom of Heaven is at hand ; this generation ­ shall not pass away till ye shall see the Son of Man coming with power and great glory. It was on this earth that the transformation was to take place. The early Christians ­ all believed in the millennium. Instinctively, and as the natural consequence of their faith, they established a system of communism ; and in the Acts of the Apostles may be found the touching picture of the disciples of Jesus living at Jerusalem “ with all things in common.” As time passed, and the idea of a “ kingdom ” on earth had to be abandoned, men turned their eyes towards “ another world ” in Heaven ; nevertheless, that love of justice and equality common to the Prophets and the Gospel still found ominous utterance in the writings of the Fathers of the Church. Whenever the people ^have taken up the Bible, and allowed their minds to be thoroughly imbued with its teaching, they INTRODUCTION. XVll Z "«T Ae spirit of reform and equalizan. Whenever the religious sentiment involves a belief in lyine justice, and a longing to see it realized here below, u leads of necessity to the condemnation of the iniquity which ZlT ""d' by a natural conse-?he wà ñ T”“°"i! “ »«dalistic. During mmsm. m “ Martyn, die deutsche Loy verleit Dat van onrechter Gewelt , Eygendom is comen.” vio.Ltownerthip'^"^ """«bteous Further on Maerlant exclaims :— “ Twee worde in die werelt syn : Dats aliene myn ende dyn. Moeht men die verdriven, Pays ende vrede bleve fyn ; I let ware al vri, niemen eygin, Manne mellen wiven ; Het waer gemene tarwe ende wyn.” XVlll INTROD UCTION (“ Two words in the world there be, these simply rrnne and thine. Could one take them away, peace there would be and freedom. All then would be free ; none enslaved, nor man nor woman ; both corn and wine would be in common.”) Whenever these ideas, borrowed from Christianity and monasticism, reached the masses at a time when their sufferings ­ had become intolerable, they provoked risings and massacres, such as those of the Shepherds and the Jacquerie in France, the insurrection of Wat Tyler in England, and that of John of Leyden in Germany.* Let us now examine how Socialism, abandoning the mystical region of communistic dreams and aspirations after equality, has become the creed of a political party. Ideas and microbes are in this respect alike, that they must find favourable surroundings before they can thrive. These favourable ­ surroundings have been produced by a variety of causes, chief among which are the beliefs and aspirations of Christianity, ­ the political principles embodied in our constitutions and laws, and the changes in the methods of production. Of all the influences favourable to the development of Socialism, the most potent has been the religious influence j for it has produced ­ in us certain sentiments which have long formed part of our very nature, and in these sentiments the claims of Socialism find at once a kind of instinctive origin and a rational justification. No one can deny that Christianity preaches the raising up of the poor and the down-trodden. It inveighs against riches as vehemently as the most radical Socialist. Need we recall words graven in the memory of every one ? Even after her alliance with absolute monarchy, the Catholic Church uttered these words by the mouth of Bossuet “ The murmurs of the poor are just. Wherefore this inequality of conditions ? All are made of the same clay, and there is no way to justify inequality unless by saying that God has commended the poor unto the * See The History of Socialism, Die Socialisten, by M. Quack, unfortunately ­ not finished ; also that by M. B. Malón. , . , t See his sermon, “ Sur les dispositions relativement aux necessites de la vie." INT RO D UC TIO N. XIX rich, and assigned to the former the means of living out of the abundance of the latter, ut fiat equalitas, as St Paul says.” * Bossuet has merely reproduced what may be read on every page of the Christian Fathers. “The rich man is a thief” r rich are robbers ; a kind of equality must be effected by making gifts out of their abundance. Better all things were in common” (St. Chrysostom). “Opulence is always the product of a theft, committed, if not by the actual possessor, by his ancestors” (St. Jerome). “Nature created /q, ^ ’ private property is the offspring of usurpation ” to strict justice, everything should belong Clement) created private property” (St. 8 2 Corinthians viii. 14. INTRODUCTION. let them go on as they are doing.) In free competition the most able succeed, and this should be our desire. Nothing could be more absurd than to endeavour, by misdirec e charity, to preserve those whom nature has condemned to disappear, and thus place obstacles in the way of progress. Yield place to the strong, for might makes right. Christianity and Socialism hold quite another language. They declare war against the strong, that is to say, the rich, and aspire to raise up the poor and the down-trodden, d rey subordinate these so-called natural laws to the law of Justice. Let there be full liberty, but only under the guidance of right. In the words of the Sermon on the Mount, “ Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” It is impossible to understand by what strange blindness Socialists adopt Darwinian theories, which condemn their claims of equality, while at the same time they reject Christianity, whence those claims have issued and whence their justification may be found. At all events, we may conclude that the religion which has shaped us all, advocates as well as adversaries, has formulated in the clearest terms the principles of Socialism, and that it is precisely in Christian countries that socialistic doctrines have taken deepest root Let us now consider the way in which religious Socialism has become the political Socialism of our day. When the Declaration of Independence in the United States, and t e French Revolution, proclaimed the sovereignty of the people, and inscribed the equality of men among the articles of the constitution, the principle of the brotherhood of man descended from the heights of the ideal and from the dreams of Utopia to become thenceforth the watchword of the radical party in every country to which the ideas that triumphed in America and Paris have spread. Equality of political rights leads inevitably to the demand for equality of conditions, that is to say, the apportionment of well-being according to work accomplished. Universal suffrage demands as its complement universal well-being ; for it is a paradox that the people should be at once wretched and sovereign. As Aristotle and Montesquieu ­ so continually insist, democratic institutions presuppose INTRODUCTION. XXI equality of conditions, for otherwise the poor elector will use his vote to pass laws for the increase of his share of the good things of life at the expense of the privileged classes. M. Paul Janet, in his Origines du Socialisme, and M. Taine, in his book on the Revolution, show how, after 1789, as with Rousseau, the idea of political equality led to that of a greater social equality, even without any reconstruction of society after the manner of Babœuf. The excellent Abbé Fauchet exclaims, “Where is the wretch who wishes to see a continuation of this atrocious régime, where the miserable are counted by millions amid a handful of arrogant persons who have done nothing that they should possess all ?” In the “ Four Cries of a Patriot,” the question is asked. What is the good of a constitution for a nation of skeletons? and “a terrible insurrection of twenty mdhon indigent persons without property is announced.” Chaumette says, “We have destroyed the nobles and the ^^apets, there remains still an aristocracy to overturn, that of t e rich. Chalier of Lyons, whose enthusiasm was so seductive to Michelet, says, “All pleasure is criminal as long as the sans-culottes suffer.” Tallien desires “an equality full and complete,” and he proposes to send “to the bottom of the dungeons” all proprietors, whom he styles public robbers One member of the convention, Fr. Dupont, reproduces the doctrine of St. Paul, and maintains that “ no individual in the Republic should live without working.” “ Oblige every one to equal share m the advantages of society.» Already Meeker ■msãrãmi XXll INTRO D UCTION. sessions by virtue of an agreement only.” Elsewhere he thus sums up the conflict between the rich and the poor ; “ It is an obscure but terrible combat, in which the powerful, shielded by the law, oppress the feeble, and where property crushes labour by the weight of its prerogative. The capitalists have the power of giving only the minimum salary in exchange for labour. They always impose the law ; the labourers are obliged to receive it. ’ 1 he idea which Montesquieu borrowed from Aristotle, namely, that democracy should have for basis a grand equality of conditions, is reproduced on all sides. Rabaud Saint Etienne desires that equality of wealth should be established, not by force, but by law, and should be maintained ­ by laws calculated to prevent future inequalities. “ In a well-ordered republic, no person would be without some property” (Report of Barrère, 22 Floréal, year IL). “ Wealth and opulence should both disappear before the reign of equality ” (Order of the Commune of Paris, 3 Frimaire, year III.). “A real equality is the ultimate aim of social science ” (Condorcet, Progrh de LEsprit Humain, II., 59). “ We wish to apply to politics the same equality that the Gospel grants to Christians” (Baudot, quoted by Quinet, Revolution Française, IL, 407). “Opulence is infamous” (Saint-Just). “The richest Frenchman should not have an income of more than 300 livres ” (Robespierre). “ Ut redeat miseris, abeat fortuna superbis," is the motto of Marat’s paper, d he idea of the French Revolution, freed from the extravagances ­ of the contest, is exactly summed up by the philosopher Joubert, when he says, “ Men are born unequal. It is the great benefit of society to diminish this inequality as much as possible, by granting to all security, a competency, education, and help” {Pensées, XIV., Du Gouvernement et des Constitutions, ­ XXXVIIL). At the very time that equal rights were granted to all men, a change in the methods of production brought about a profound ­ alteration in the condition of the workers. By losing their ancient guarantees they became more dependent ; and while raised to the rank of sovereign in the political régime, in the economic order they fell to the condition of hirelings. introduction. xxiii ■ immunity had .heir p.r.J:L XXIV INTRO D UCTION. tion of certain fixed duties. The commune was far more than a mere political division of the territory. It was an economic institution administered by those who constituted it In the towns, his trade guild was to the handicraftsman what the commune was to the peasant ; it assured him work, a market, and the means of making his living. The administration ­ of their joint interests, their social gatherings, and their festivals formed a strong bond of union among workers of the same trade. For them also “ their to-morrow ” was assured. In the city as in the country the producer retained in his own hands the instruments of production. It was labour that then owned capital. Such a thing did not then exist as a mere wage-earner, a man without bonds of interest either with his fellow-workmen or with the land, without guarantee or security of any kind, living from day to day on what capital might grant him. Today ­ this is the typical form under which labour, the principal factor of production, appears. In short, while formerly the condition of those whose arms create all wealth was guaranteed by custom, it depends to-day on the fluctuations of the market and on the force of competition, ­ that is to say, in appearance at least, on the will of landowners and capitalists. We live under the régime of complete freedom of contract ; but in every contract, he who supplies that which is essential to a man to live by labour, namely, the land and the capital, will dictate the terms of the bargain and will cause rent to be brought to a maximum and wages to a minimum. Now that all those traditional and customary barriers, which once protected the weak and helpless, have fallen, the Darwinian law of the “ struggle for existence ” reigns supreme in the economic world. The strongest wins the day, and the strongest, in this case, means the richest. Now if we consider the changes which industrial progress has introduced among social conditions, we see that the same economic influences which make men more equal, create, at the same time, an antagonism between master and workmen, and that thus the causes which bring about the triumph of INTRO D UC TI O N XXV Democracy are likewise favourable to the advance of Socialism. ­ Consider how the industrial work of the Middle Ages was ^rried on. Take, for example, the woollen trade, which in England and in Flanders exported its produce to all parts of the world, and which created powerful and populous towns. We can see the home life of the artisan with the help of some graphic records. Seated at the loom, he weaves the cloth while his children prepare the distaff by his side, and his wife spins at her wheel. In this way the wl^ole work was performed at his domestic hearth. The master worked with his own hands, aided by his family and some apprentices. He needed ^ capital. The education, the social position, the way of living and thinking of the master and his men were very 2'^:, Th« privileges of the guilds might produce some ■ XXVI INTRO D UCTION possess great technical knowledge, and have the will necessary to make himself obeyed by his numerous employés ; he must know the needs of foreign countries, the extent of the market, and the vicissitudes of commerce, not only in his own immediate ­ neighbourhood, but over the entire globe. For to-day all countries are mutually dependent, and a crisis occurring even over the seas, in either hemisphere, re-echoes everywhere in ruins and failures. By his education, his position, his way of life, by the very necessity of exercising his authority, the head of a factory belongs to quite another world from that in which the operatives move. His Christian feelings as a man may lead him to regard them as brothers ; nevertheless, he has nothing in common with them, they are strangers to each other. In vain he may wish to increase their wages or improve their condition, he cannot do it. Competition forces him, in spite of himself, to reduce the cost of production as much as possible. The relations which the present industrial system has established between capitalist and labourer have been detailed with perfect exactness by the celebrated mechanical engineer and manufacturer, James Nasmyth, in his evidence before the committee appointed in England to inquire into trades-unions. He showed that it was for the advantage of trade that large numbers of workmen should be seeking employment, because the price of labour is thus lowered and with it the cost of production. He added that he had frequently increased his profits by putting apprentices to work in the place of grown-up workmen. When asked what he supposed had become of the workmen thus dismissed, and their families, he replied, “ I do not know j I can only leave it to the action of those natural laws which govern society.” In speaking thus, Nasmyth formulated the purely economic doctrine. Christianity, ­ however, would have used other language. Thus, while perfecting its methods and extending the use of machinery and division of labour, the large system of manufacture has improved the condition of the lower classes by giving them cheaper goods, but at the same time the gulf that separates capitalist and labourer has been increased. The iiyiKuuucriON. xxvii #È5âm#ë #### ■ ##Êm mmrnm / INTRO D UCTION xxviii isüiüil ..una iS* own destiny; there are no longer close trades nor classes, equality of right is complete; but inequality of fact remai , to irritate all the more because nothing is beyond the aspira tion of anybody. There are more deceptions because more ""ro"m”n were not so tormented by the desire to tT Vt;rf!reÄra:^io:ft: dstnorT^^ for riches, because all this was beyond their reach Ihe destiny being settled here below, it was towards *e other wmMf^Ltdiey^nic^idienh^^^ T^&^dx^wishWbe happy in this world, and are bent on destroying everything which offers an obstacle to the realization of the equal distribution ­ of terrestrial blessings. At the same time, men nowadays seek after wealth with far more avidity than formerly, because it forms the principal class-distinction and procures far more enjoyment than heretofore. Wealth supplies home comforts as well as the most refined luxury, the pleasure of travelling over the wide world, summers spent on breezy Alpine heights, and winters by the enchanting shores of the Mediterranean ; all this instead of the monotonous existence of the feudal xxix INTRODUCTION 1 XXX INTRODUCTION. the workman merely to live and perpetuate his kind, comes too often into operation. As soon as this law, formulated by economists, began to be understood by working men, they said, “ Since our wages depend upon the supply of our labour, let us cease to work until we get higher wages.” Hence those strikes and coalitions on the Continent, in America, and especially in England, which almost daily interrupt work and interfere with every trade. Masters and men are in a state of constant warfare, having their battles, their victories, and their defeats. It is a dark and bitter civil war, wherein he wins who can longest hold out without earning anything ; a struggle far more cruel and more keen than that decided by bullets from a barricade ; one where all the furniture is pawned or sold, where the savings of better times are gradually devoured, and where, at last, famine and misery besiege the home, and oblige the wife and little ones to cry for mercy. In the course of this volume it will be seen how freedom of trade with foreign countries, joined to free competition at home, gave rise to the International League of labourers. As a consequence, this struggle between capital and labour is extending everywhere. It may be said that among the industrial nations, who now form one vast market, two armies stand facing each other ; on the one side, the capitalists, on the other, the labourers. The International, no longer in existence as a regular organization, still finds devoted and fanatical apostles to spread its doctrines. It is due to their propaganda, either secret or avowed, that Socialism has invaded all countries. It has become a kind of cosmopolitan religion. It oversteps frontiers, it obliterates race-antipathies, and, above all, it eradicates patriotism and tries to efface the very idea of it. Fellow-countrymen are enemies if they are employers, foreigners are brothers if they live by wages. From the moment that the Republic was proclaimed in France, the German Socialists declared against their own armies, and working men of London, Pesth, Vienna, and Berlin applauded the struggles and excused the crimes of the Commune. Economic conditions ­ being nearly the same in all countries, Socialism finds 2NTR0D UC TIO N. xxxi mmmm m XXXll INTRO D UCTION. on Democracy, in his study of it in America did not perceive this danger, which, in truth, did not then exist ; but anot er French writer, M. Dupont-WTiite, who unites profoundness of thought with a brilliant and original style, makes the danger clearly appear by citing a letter of Macaulay’s, which reads h e a prophecy. In this letter, dated the 23rd of May, 1857, and addressed to an American, Macaulay says, that though for the moment the immense tracts of unoccupied land in America may serve to stave off the evil day, yet the time would come when the rapid increase of population would produce the same economic conditions there as here, the same crises, stoppages of work, lowering of wages, and strikes, and that then the democratic institutions of America would be put to the test. What will the issue be ? “ It is quite plain,” he says, “ that your Government ­ will never be able to restrain a distressed and discontented majority, for with you the majority is the Government, and has the rich, who are always a minority, absolutely at its mercy. And then he adds :— “The day will come when, in the State of New York a multitude of ■«11 preferred by the working man who hears his children crying for more bread? I seriously apprehend that you will, in some such season of adversity as I have described, do things which will prevent prosperUy from returning. Either some Cæsar or Napoleon will seize the reins of Government with a strong hand, or your Republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth ; with this difference-that the Huns and Vandals who ravaged the Roman Empire came from without, and that your Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within your own country and by vniir own institutions. Macaulay wrote this twenty-seven years ago. We must not forget that the Greek democracies passed through similar trials and perished. INTRODUCTION. XXxiíi The right of inquiry which questions and doubts everything, IZe lr“ r.-Tr'’' »"d the shattering of aid r “"thined to embitter the social conLt, and to destroy everything that could moderate it. Broken by i Montigny, Mémoires de Mirabeau. XXXIV INTRODUCTION. its ruins may arise a new world.” Thus would be propagated the Nihilists’ creed. If those who foment violent revolutions try to extirpate every religious sentiment, it is because they know that the best way of arousing a people is to take from them the hope of finding in another world the justice denied to them on earth. It is not that the workers are worse off than formerly. But, on the one hand, as capital constantly accumulates under the form of stocks, bonds, or interest, paid by municipality or state, the number of idle people rapidly increases, while, on the other hand, it is precisely as men leave the extremest misery behind them that they become most clamorous. As De Tocqueville so admirably expresses it, nations revolt, not when they are most oppressed, but, on the contrary, when the yoke which weighed them down begins to grow lighter. In speaking of the end of the eighteenth century, he says, “According as prosperity began to dawn in France, men’s minds appeared to become more unquiet and disturbed ; public discontent was sharpened * hatred of all ancient institutions went on increasing, until the nation was visibly on the verge of a revolution. One might almost say that the French found their condition all the more intolerable according as it became better. Such an opinion might cause astonishment were it not that history is filled with similar spectacles.” * Is not this an accurate picture of what is going on under our own eyes ? It was at one time imagined that the means of combating Socialism would be found in the teachings of Political Economy ; but, on the contrary, it is precisely this science which has furnished the Socialists of to-day with their most redoubtable weapons. Instead of rejecting the conclusions of Economists as was done by their predecessors, they accept them without reserve and make use of them to demonstrate that present social conditions are at variance with the principles of justice and right. Economists have proved that all value and all property are derived from labour ; it clearly follows, say the Socialists, that wealth should belong to those who by their labour created it, and that the entire value, that is to say the * L'Ancien Régime, ch. xv¡. -JW INTRODUCTION. ^XXV im ■ :### XXXVl INTRODUCTION. to obey.” * In the Middle Ages, the teachings of Christianity being still misunderstood, the feudal lord saw in the serf a beast of burden divinely predestined to work for him. Now that the principle of the equality of all men according to nature and right has penetrated men’s hearts and minds, we must shut ourselves up in inhuman egoism or profound ignorance, if we would remain unmoved by the claims of the labouring classes. The great difference between the actual position of affairs and anything history shows us, lies in the fact that the diffusion of Socialism is enormously favoured by the press and by schools. Education offered to all, even forced upon them, schools everywhere ­ open, and cheap books, pamphlets, and newspapers spread throughout the country ideas of radical reform. In the Middle Ages the revolts of the peasants against oppression were merely local and passing events ; and the same may be said of those of the sixteenth century. Once they were crushed, these aspirations towards equality disappeared as thohgh drowned in blood. To-day, however, this is no longer the case. The energetic repression of the Revolution of June, 1848, and of the Commune of 1871, served only to spread far and wide the principles sought to be extinguished, and to make them sink deeper into the hearts of the working classes. Socialists of all countries celebrate the i8th of March, the anniversary of the proclamation of the Commune. If Socialism is to be exterminated, it must be attacked in its origin and in its methods of diffusion. It will be necessary to proscribe Christianity, burn the Bible, teach with the ancient philosophers that natural inequality justifies slavery; above all, no more primary education and no newspapers. If the existing inequality ­ of conditions is permanent and necessary, then to spread the Gospel, to open a school, to establish a printing press, and to extend the suffrage, are in so many ways to attack the social order. The rivalry, the wars, and the enormous armies of our continental states hasten the progress of that very Socialism which they were specially intended to combat ; and this they do in two ways. In the first place, they maintain and increase * Polit. \. 3. INTRODUCTION. XXXVll inequality both by devouring a large portion of the produce which might go to improve the lot of the labourers, and by enabling an increasing number of independent persons to live on the interest of loans necessitated by wars and armaments. In the second place, forced service draws into the large towns, always more or less active centres of socialistic ideas, all the pung men from the country districts, and through them these Ideas penetrate into the hamlets where lately the feelings and beliefs of the past were preserved intact I do not believe that, up to the present, the majority of soldiers have anywhere been gained over to Socialism ; far from it ; but evidently here les the great danger for the existing order of things, which depends, after all, upon the support of bayonets. If this last rampart were carried, frightful convulsions would inevitably ensue. ^ Let us now endeavour to separate what is true in Socialism trom what is false. The foundation of all socialistic claims is the assertion that present social system is to increase inequality, Jï labourers becoming daily worse, while the a ote capitalists and landowners is always augmenting. •.ble Ibafe™.'".™'’' '' '*■ ™ doubt, incontest-■ INTRODUCTION. xxxviii and their food is more varied. Their diet has, however, become almost everywhere too exclusively vegetarian, because, the increase of animals fit for food not having kept pace with the increase of the population, meat has become too dear. We can no longer say of our working classes as Cæsar said of the Germans, “Their food mainly consists of milk, cheese, and meat” * What is, unfortunately, well founded among the grievances set forth by the Socialists, is that the condition of the labourers has not improved in proportion to the increase of production, that the share obtained by them in the unexampled ­ development of wealth during this century is too small. In support of this assertion I shall cite only three witnesses, whose evidence is unimpeachable and who belong to the country where capital has increased most rapidly. Mr. Gladstone ­ said in the House of Commons on the 13th February, 1843, “ It is one of the most melancholy features in the social state of our country that a constant accumulation of wealth in the upper classes, and an increase of the luxuriousness of their habits and of their means of enjoyment” should be accompanied ­ by “ a decrease in the consuming powers of the people, and an increase of the pressure of privation and distress” among the poorer classes. Professor Fawcett uses language to the same effect : “ Production has been stimulated beyond the expectations of the most sanguine, and supplies of food have been obtained from even the most distant countries in much greater quantities than could have been anticipated ; still, however, so far as the labourer is concerned, the age of golden plenty seems as remote as ever, and in the humble homes of the poor a not less constant war has to be waged against penury and want From the bitter disappointment thus engendered there has not unnaturally arisen a feeling of deep distrust of the fundamental principles on which society is based.” t Professor Cairnes speaks even more forcibly than Mr. Fawcett : “ The conclusion to which I am brought is this—that, unequal as is the distribution of wealth already in * De Bel. Gal. vi. 22. t “Essays and Lectures on Social and Political Subjects,” by Henry and Millicent G. Fawcett {1872), p. 5. INTRODUCTION. XXXIX this country, the tendency of industrial progress, on the supposition ­ that the present separation between individual classes is maintained, is toward an inequality greater still.” * When, viewing from a distance and without bias the distribution ­ of the good things of this world, one sees, on the one side, the workers reduced to the bare necessaries of life—not obtaining even them at the least crisis—and, on the other, the Idle and independent classes, in increasing numbers, enjoying more and more refined comfort, it is impossible to pronounce this state of things conformable to justice, and we are forced to eimlaim with Bossuet, “The murmurs of the poor are just. Tierefore, O Lord, this inequality of conditions ? ” Doubtless It may be answered that it has always been so, and cannot be otherwise ; but this argument satisfies those only whose privileges are thus confirmed. ^ SodaHsm demands that the labourer should reap the whole ru.ts of his labour, and nothing seems more just. Still, if the ranhT '7'?f help of two other factors, land and Jital, and if these do not belong to the labourer, he cannot retoin the entire product. Each factor must be rewarded, othemise it will refuse its aid. The solution consists in uniting he three factors m the same person mm " of Poliliral Economy " (1874), p. 340. xl INTRODUCTION. appropriate means, it can only be by contravening natural law, and owing to certain artificial laws, which allow some to live at the expense of others. This appears evident ; but these facts are the consequence of private property and the right of inheritance, and, until better are found, these institutions are indispensable for stimulating industry. What must be discovered ­ is how to bring it about that, according to the desire of St. Paul, and conformably to right and the ordinary course of nature, the well-being of every individual may be in direct ratio to his activity, and in inverse ratio to his idleness. Machinery, say the Socialists, should emancipate the labourer, and shorten his hours of work. The contrary is nearer the fact. Machines enrich those who own them, but render harder and more enslaving the task of those whom they employ. The larger the capital sunk in the modem factory, the more urgent it is that there should be no stoppage of work, for, when work stops, interest is eaten up. Formerly night brought sleep to all, and Sunday brought rest. Now, on the railway, on the steamer, in the mine, the factory, or the office, work admits of hardly any truce or intermission. In the words of Hamlet : ‘ ‘ What might be toward, that this sweaty haste Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day ? " Machinery will not fulfil its promises, nor bring men more leisure, until it belongs to the workers who set it in motion. On this point Socialists may quote the opinion of J. S. Mill, who says : “ It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.” Socialists maintain that the means of production are already great enough to furnish all men with a sufficient competency, if only the produce were more evenly divided ; and indeed, if the number of things are reckoned up which are either useless or superfluous, or even harmful, but which monopolize so large a portion of the working hours, it may well be thought that were those hours exclusively employed in the creation of useful things, there would be enough to satisfy largely the needs of all. Inequality gives rise to superfluity and luxury which divert INTRODUCTION. xli (^pital and labour from the production of necessaries ; hence the destitution of the masses. “ Were there no luxury,” said Rousseau, “there would be no poor.” “The fact that many men are occupied in making clothes for one individual, is the cause of there being many people without clothes ” * Supported by the rent theory as set forth by economic science, Socialists reproach the actual system with having poured into the hands of the landowners all the advantage accruing from social improvement, in violation of the principle generally admitted, that labour is the source of property. Here again, they could cite the opinion of J. S. Mill, for he asks does not result from the shnnM K Owner—the unearned increment, as he calls it— should be handed over to the State Wi¥m m * Montesquieu, Esp. des Lois, vii. 6. I xlii INTRO D UCTION and only really efficacious incentive to all productive activity, all good economic administration, and, above all, all improvement. ­ No doubt laws and regulations might modify the conditions under which competition acts, so as to place competitors ­ more upon an equality, and to effect that, each man possessing the requisites of production, no one should be obliged to accept insufficient wages through fear of starvation. True freedom of contract in that case existing, competition, which is the indispensable mainspring of the economic world, would be freed from the greater part of the disastrous effects now laid to its charge. Ranke, the historian, has shown how Protestantism, by its very attacks upon the Papacy, provoked a reform in the bosom of the Romish Church whereby new life was infused into her. In the same way, the wisest Economists of our time have recognized ­ that the exaggerated, but often well founded, criticisms passed upon our social system by Socialists, have been the means of producing undoubted progress in Political Economy. Thus Economists used to affirm that our social organization was the result of “natural laws,” and itself constituted “the natural order of things.” It followed, as Cairnes observes, that the well-to-do classes gathered from the writings of the Economists ­ the comfortable conviction that the existing world was not far off from perfection, and were thus led to reject without examination any idea of a better organization as chimerical. Nowadays most Economists recognize that everything concerning ­ the distribution of wealth is the result of laws and customs which have varied at different times, and that, consequently, ­ a more strict application of justice might introduce a great improvement. Formerly Economists occupied themselves ­ principally with the increase of production, while they merely described the distribution of wealth without examining if it was conformable to justice, and studied labour merely as the natural agent of production. To-day we recognize more and more that the question which overshadows all others is that of distribution, that every problem must be considered, especially in its moral and juridical aspect, and that the just reward of the workman is what is most important when con- INTRODUCTION. xlíü Sidering labour. Professor Schœnberg, one of the most distmgmshed Economists of Germany, says, “Socialism has obliged Political Economy to recognize that it is not merely he natural science of human egoism, but that it should formulate ­ a system of moral administration (Ethische Wirthschaft) lor the interests of society.” ' The fundamental error of most Socialists is not taking ufficient account of the fact that individual interest is th! ismsimm xliv INTRODUCTION. established among men ; but social transformations are not to be accomplished by violence. Attempts at assassination and insurrections can have but one result : that of provoking a desperate repression, and restoring despotism. What an amount of harm have the German regicides, Hcedel and Nobiling, not done to the cause of which they professed themselves ­ the champions ! If Socialists would set forth their ideas persistently but moderately, using those powerful arguments which economic science has placed in their hands, as was done by J. S. Mill, and the former Austrian minister, Albert Schæffle, the governing classes would listen to them, for they cannot divest themselves of the sentiments of even-handed justice planted in their hearts by the Gospel. The Irish Land Laws wrested by Mr. Gladstone even from the House of Lords, show what decisive victories Socialism may obtain by peaceable means. It is probable that it may be gradually introduced into our laws by the increasing influence of what we call State Socialism. Its weakness results from the fact that, being chiefly confined to the labouring classes, it seldom finds exponents among enlightened men such as Lassalle and Marx undoubtedly were. If, as formerly in Israel, there should arise prophets burning with a righteous thirst for justice, Christian Socialism, taking possession of men’s minds, may bring about profound changes in the economic world. But the enduring triumph of a violent Socialist revolution is impossible. Nevertheless, as Nihilism, like burning lava, seethes throughout the underground strata of society, and there keeps up a sort of diabolic destroying ­ rage, it is possible that in some crisis, when authority is powerless and repressive force paralyzed, the predictions of the poet Hegesippe Moreau and M. Maxime du Camp may be realized, and we may see our capitals ravaged by dynamite and petroleum in a more ruthless and a more systematic manner than even that which Paris experienced at the hands of the Commune. the socialism of to-day CHAPTER 1. CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM IN GERMANY. B B rY^ 2 the socialism of to-day. of the Minister of the Interior, no one rose to vote in favour of the proposed clause. The shorthand report shows that this result was received by the assembly with laughter. Since then the two attempts against the life of the Emperor, repeated one after the other by Hœdel and Nobiling, forced the hand of the Imperial Parliament, and an exceptional law of draconic severity was put into operation against Socialism. During the course of the debate. Count Eulenburg, Minister of the Interior and Prussian Delegate to the Federal Council, in order to defend the object of the law, explained very clearly the ideas actually held by the Socialist party in Germany. As he was not contradicted by those members of the Diet who represented that particular shade of opinion, we may assume that he advanced nothing which was not correct on all points. Before 1875, there existed in Germany two powerful Socialist associations. The first was called the General Association of German Working Men ” {der allgemeine detitsche Arbeiterverein). Founded by Lassalle in 1863, it afterwards had for president the deputy Schweizer, and then the deputy Hasenclever. Its principal centre of activity was North Germany. ­ The second was the » Social-democratic Working Men’s Party ” {die Social-democratische Arbeiterpartei), led by two well-known deputies of the Reichstag, Herr Bebel and Herr Liebknecht. Its adherents were chiefly in Saxony and Southern Germany. The first took into account the ties of nationality, and claimed the intervention of the State in order to bring about a gradual transformation of society ; the second, on the contrary, expected the triumph of its cause only from a revolutionary movement. These two associations existed for a long time in open hostility towards each other ; less, however, from the difference of the aims they had in view than in consequence of personal rivalry. Nevertheless, in May, 1875, at the Congress of Gotha, they amalgamated under the title of the “ Socialist Working Men’s Party of Germany ” {Socialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands). ­ The deputy Hasenclever was nominated president ; but the union did not last long, or was never complete, for as early as the month of August following a separate meeting of CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM IN GERMANY. 3 the “ General Association of German Working Men ” was held at Hamburg. The congress of Gotha adopted a programme which very concisely sums up the aspirations of German Socialism. The following are some of the principal clauses ; Labour IS the source of all wealth and civilization. Since ceneral proactive ateur is rendered possible only by means of society, the entire produce of labour belongs to society, that is, to all its members, by the ° according to his reasonable needs, all being bound “ I" existing society, the instruments of production are the monopoly of dLi„ri,h.;;orce„'fS:r”‘ “■* » i“* Starting from these principles, the German Socialist working men’s isti ^ establish, by every legal means, a free State and a socialth ^ ^°^'ety, to break in pieces the iron law of wages by doing away with e system of working for hire, to put an end to methods of making gain qualit^ {exploitation), and to abolish all political and social ine-“The German Socialist working men’s party will act in the first place on the lines of nationality, but it recognizes the international character the working men’s movement, and is resolved to fulfil all the duties imposed ­ upon working men by the solidarity of their interests in order to ealize the brotherhood of all men. ’ ’ This programme is almost the same as that formulated in j ranee, m 1848, by the Socialist group who tried to apply ^uis Blanc's ideas to the factories of the Luxembourg. Even he famous formula, “To each according to his needs," reap-^ars here, although the experiment tried in France, in the case associations well adapted to ensure its success, had clearly proved that distrust and discord were sown where the reign of peace and brotherly love was to have been established, fa ^ ho^how discuss this programme; I merely note the g. German Socialist party does not confine itself to ating general principles. Now that it has gained foothold on THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 4 political soil, and sends representatives to Parliament, it endeavours to make known the means by which it hopes to realize the reforms it has in view. This is what it claims :— “ The German Socialist party demands, in order to pave the way for the solution of the social question, the creation of socialistic productive associations ­ aided by the State, under the democratic control of the working people. These productive associations for manufacture and agriculture should be created on a sufficiently large scale to enable the socialistic organization of labour to arise out of them. As basis of the State, it demands ­ direct and universal suffrage for all citizens of twenty years of age, in all elections both of State and Commune; direct legislation, by the people, including the decision of peace or war ; general liability to bear arms and a militia composed of civilians instead of a standing army ; the abolition of all laws restricting the right of association, the right of assembly, the free expression of opinion, free thought, and free inquiry ; gratuitous justice administered by the people ; compulsory education, the same for all and given by the State ; and a declaration that religion is an object of private concern.” This programme of practical politics does not contain anything ­ very subversive of order. All that it demands is found either in Germany itself or in the neighbouring country of Switzerland, except the aid to be given to productive associations, ­ an experiment made in France in 1848, without any success. With regard to the final object, “the Socialistic organization of all labour,” the terms are extremely vague. What is the precise meaning of the word “ Socialist,” which recurs so often, and what is this new organization they have in view ? We shall endeavour to determine this by examining the writings whence these ideas have come. It is a remarkable thing, as was affirmed by the deputy Bamberger, that nowhere have socialistic ideas found a more cordial welcome than in Germany. That, according to him, is owing to the speculative character of the nation, which is easily seduced by ideal visions of Utopia. Not only do these visions allure almost all the working men, but even the middle classes cannot resist them \ and one often hears, “Well, perhaps all would be better so ; why not try?” Furthermore, Socialism has penetrated to the upper classes ; it sits in academies ; it occupies professorial chairs in universities, and it is scholars who have originated the party cries which working men’s associations now repeat ; it is CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM IN GERMANY. 5 6 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. CHAPTER II. THE forerunners—FICHTE AND MARLO. S ocialism, as a political party, is of very recent origin in Germany. It dates only from 1863, when Lassalle excited and organized the labourers’ agitation. The profound socialist movement which stirred the labouring classes in France, during the last years of Louis-Philippe’s reign, and particularly after 1848, had raised but a feeble echo beyond the Rhine. No German state, except Baden, was at all prepared to comprehend ­ it. The institutions of the old régime had in part disappeared, but its spirit and influence were still dominant. The artisans were maintained and kept in check by the trade guilds. The great factory system was still in its infancy, while the rural labourers were as much under the influence of the nobles as the serfs from whom they had sprung. The modern proletarian was almost unknown. The lower classes had no idea that one day they might obtain the suffrage and play a part in politics. Never imagining that their fate could be other than what it was, they resigned themselves to it as in the Middle Ages. The French working men were full of the memories of the French Revolution. Their fathers had been masters of the State, why should not they become so? They were the sovereign people—the only true and real sovereign—why live in misery? The life of the German working man was far harder, but was not that his allotted destiny ? He remembered neither the equality of condition, based on collective property, of primitive Germany, nor the peasant revolt of the sixteenth century, so soon drowned in blood. He still felt the leaden THE FORERUNNERS—FICHTE AND MARLO. J yoke which weighed upon Germany since the Thirty Years’ War, and had hardly opened his eyes to modern life. He was agitated by no spirit of revolt, no aspiration towards a better order of things. The saying of Lassalle was true : while English and French working men dreamed of reforms, the German working man had to be awakened to the fact that he was miserable. Therefore the first socialistic writings made but little stir when they appeared. It was from France that came the first ideas of social transformation and revolution. This was recognized by Karl Marx, the most learned of German Socialists. “ The emancipation ­ of Germany will be that of all humanity,” he wrote in a review, some numbers of which appeared in Paris in 1844 ; “ but when all is ready in Germany, the insurrection will only wake at the crowing of the Gallic cock.” • To find the first manifestations of modem Socialism in Germany, we must refer back to Kant’s most famous disciple, Fichte, who was inspired by the ideas of the French Revolution, ­ as he himself declares. In his “ Materials for the Justification of the French Revolution,” he writes : “Property can have no other origin than labour. Whosoever does not work, has no right to obtain the means of existence from society.” In 1796 he proclaimed “the right to property.” He says in his “Principles of Natural Right,” “ Whosoever has not the means of living is not bound to recognize or respect the property of others, seeing that, as regards him, the principles ­ of the social contract have been violated. Every one should have some property ; society owes to all the means of work, and all should work in order to live.” In his book on “The State in Accordance with Right” {Rechtstaat), he foreshadows a collective organization which would realize what he understands by right: “Labour and distribution should be collectively organized ; every one should receive for a fixed amount of labour, a fixed amount of capital which would constitute his property, according to right. Property * Vide the Review Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, published by Arnold Ruge and Karl Marx, assisted by Hess, Engels, Ilerwegh, and Kruno Bauer. 8 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. will thus be made universal. No person should enjoy superfluities, ­ as long as anybody lacks necessaries ; for the right of property in objects of luxury can have no foundation until each citizen has his share in the necessaries of life. Farmers and labourers should form partnerships, so as to produce the most with the least possible exertion.” The essential ideas of the Socialism of to-day, as regards both the notion of right and its realization, are contained in embryo in the foregoing lines, which were manifestly inspired by Rousseau and the eighteenth century philosophers. After Fichte must be mentioned the tailor Weitling, who was deeply imbued with the ideas of Fourrier and Cabet. Fox some years he endeavoured to promulgate them throughout Switzerland and Southern Germany. In 1835 he published his first work, entitled “ Humanity as it is, and as it should be.” * In 1841, at Vevey, he issued a German paper in which he urged the working men to establish a democratic republic. Finally, in a book published at Zurich (1842), entitled “The Guarantees and Harmonies of Liberty,” j" he preached the Communism of Babeuf and Rousseau. “Absolute equality,” he asserts, “ can be established only by the total destruction of the existing State organization. It can admit of administration only, and not of government. Property, when first instituted, was endurable ; it did not then take away from anybody the right and the means of becoming a landowner, for there was no money, while there was vacant land in abundance. From the moment, however, that every free man could no longer appropriate ­ a part of the soil, property has ceased to be a right. It has become a crying evil, and the cause of the misery and destitution of the masses. I bid you open your prisons and say to those shut up there, ‘ You know no more than we what property means ; let us combine our efforts to overturn these walls, these hedges, these barriers, in order that the cause of our enmity may disappear, and that we may live together as brothers.’ ” This is, in the main, the language of Rousseau on the origin of inequality. * Die Menscheit, wie sie ist und sein solle. t Garantien und Harmonien der Freiheit. THE FORERUNNERS—FICHTE AND MARLO. 9 The writings of Weitling attracted but slight attention. Possibly they helped to spread in Southern Germany the revolutionary leaven which burst forth in the insurrection at Baden in 1848, but there was then no German Socialist party.* After the revolutionary movements of 1848 had resulted throughout Europe in a period of reaction, the march of socialistic ideas, completely arrested in France, at least in all publications, began to assume a scientific character in Germany. Under the name of Mario, Professor Winkelblech published, in parts, an important work, which was still incomplete at his death in 1859. This work is entitled “Investigations on the Organization of Labour, or System of Universal Political Economy.In a striking passage of the preface he relates how he came to interest himself in social questions. He was visiting the north of Europe in 1843, in order to study the progress of manufactures there. One day, just as he was leaving the factory of Modum in Norway, he turned to take a last look at the Alpine-like valley in which it is situated. While he was contemplating the lovely scenery, a German working man came up to him and begged him to carry home a message for him. They engaged in conversation. The workman ­ related his history, and showed how small were his wages, and what privations he had to undergo in order to live upon them. This made Mario reflect How comes it, he asked himself, that this charming valley, which seems a corner of Paradise, should conceal such misery? Is the fault in man or in nature? “Until now I have been admiring the power of machinery and the marvels of the factory, without ever inquiring into the lot of those employed therein. I have been calculating the amount of the products, without ever seeking to know how * Among the German socialistic writings prior to 1848 may be also cited, Destruction and Reconstruction, or the Present and Future.” by Michael (Stuttgart, 1846) ; “ The Condition of the Working Classes in England, by Frederick Engels (Leipzig, 1845). This latter work contains ­ some interesting facts taken from the English inquiries into the subject, and is in part the source from which Karl Marx drew his ideas. t Untersuchungen über die Organisation der Arbeit oder System der iVeltœkotiomie. IO THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. many had no share in them.” From that moment he took the resolution to fathom this problem, and it left him no more peace. First he studied the condition of the different classes in the civilized countries, and everywhere he found poverty, embarrassment, ­ unrest ; suffering among employers as well as employed, in the large towns, where dwelt luxury and opulence, as well as in the peasant’s cabin ; in the fertile plains of Belgium ­ and Lombardy, no less than on the mountainous regions of Sweden and Bohemia. Seeking afterwards for the causes of this wretched state of things, he convinced himself that it resulted not from nature and her laws, but from the laws and institutions of man. He therefore came to the conclusion that the only way to remedy the evils from which society suffers, is to reform and improve social organization. His researches convinced him that industrial improvements, however great they might be, could never result in making comfort general. The ulterior progress of civilization depended, therefore, upon the advance of Political Economy, and accordingly he considered this science as the most important of our day. Nothing can be more true ; the economic question is at the bottom of all our discussions. It is the claims of “those who have not” which alarm “ those who have ” and imperil liberty. Plato said that in every city there were, face to face, two hostile nations, the rich and the poor, and modern democracies are disclosing a similar situation. The Communists of Paris detested “ the Versaillists ” far more than the Prussians; and in 1870 the German Socialists expressed wishes in favour of the triumph of the French Republic, and against the success of their own country. How comes it that in modern communities, with all their opulence, there should be so much want and wretchedness? How is it that England, who weaves cloth enough to put a girdle round the globe, should have so many poor in need of clothes ? Science subdues the forces of nature, the power of machinery is unbounded ; how is it, then, that so many families lack the very necessaries of life ? Is it because labour does not produce enough, or because the products are badly dis- THE FORERUNNERS—FICHTE AND MARZO. II tributed ? Must the cause be sought for in the vices of individuals, ­ or in the imperfections of the social system ? It was to the elucidation of this problem that Mario dedicated fifteen years of his life, and the three big volumes of his unfinished work. It cannot be said that he was altogether successful but his book contains some original views. He draws a sound comparison between what he calls the pagan and the Christian principle in political economy. The pagan principle sacrifices the masses in order to insure the pleasures and the splendour of a restricted aristocracy, as in the ancient cities. The Christian principle knows only equals, and demands that each should have a share of the produce in proportion to his useful work. The pagan method of making a profit out of the labourer has taken several forms: at first slavery, then serfdom, forced labour, the rights of the feudal lord. To-day there are practical monopolies, “ cornerings,” privileges, and gambling speculations. The Christian principle, on the contrary, according as it permeates ­ our customs and laws, will inaugurate the reign of equity upon earth, and will raise up the down trodden classes, sacrificed of old under the ancient régime. The theory of property laid down by Mario is remarkable. According to him, this right should be so established as to insure the most profitable working of the forces of nature, and at the same time to enable each individual to enjoy the fruits of his own labour. Property based upon slavery is, therefore objectionable; in the first place, because, while withholding from the labourer the incentive of personal interest, it offers no other inducement to him to extort from Nature all she can give; and secondly, because it does not insure to the slave the enjoyment ­ of the fruits of his labour. Large feudal estates, fettered by the bonds of primogeniture and entail, may in certain respects be favourable to the progress of agriculture, as asserted by the English; but they have the great defect of excluding the majority from all ownership in the soil, and, consequently, from the enjoyment of the total produce of their labour. The ancient collective ownership of the Germans, which was indivisible and inalienable, had the advantage of assuring to each the possession of the means of labour, but it was little favourable to produc- 12 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. tion, because it lessened the force of individual interest as an incentive to work, and it did not lend itself to the varied combinations ­ which arise from the modern organization of trade. “ Associated ownership ”—that is to say, the same as exists in the modern joint-stock companies—is, according to Mario, the form which best suits intensive production. It unites the permanent ­ character and the powerful means of production of corporate ownership, to the advantages arising from the capability ­ of division and transfer, and the individual nature of parcelled-out private property. Hence the ever-increasing part assumed by commercial and industrial societies in the economic world. Mario sets forth, with remarkable analytical force, the advantages offered by associated ownership, as well for the increase in the productivity of labour as for the improvement of the condition of the labourers. He did not, however, foresee all the obstacles which, in the present state of things, prevent its becoming as general as might have been hoped, if only the best side, which the author throws into such bold relief, were taken into consideration. The solution which he reaches is in reality borrowed from Fourrier ; the Utopia of communistic phalansteries appears from time to time as the ideal. Nevertheless, ­ he has studied Political Economy most profoundly, and in his deductions, often very ingenious, he scarcely ever ignores economic principles. Unlike most reformers, he insists, as strongly as J. S. Mill, that the population question in reality governs all others. Like Mill, or J oseph Gamier, he says : accomplish the best imaginable reforms, spare nothing in order to better the condition of the lower classes, adopt laws the best calculated to further the growth of wealth and its equitable distribution, ­ yet all your efforts will be in vain, if the population increases faster than the means of subsistence. Industry will in vain multiply her manufactured articles ; they are merely accessories. The essential thing to know is whether each year agriculture can obtain from the soil sufficient produce to enable everybody at least to be fed. Mario is entirely right on this point, but he relies too much upon preventive measures, which, as experience has shown, THE FORERUNNERS—FICHTE AND MARLO. 13 encourage immorality, without arresting the increase of the inhabitants. The only way to attain this object is to aim at making education and property the inheritance of all. The man who enjoys a little comfort, and has received some education, ­ at once becomes provident He does not wish, by a premature marriage, to devote both himself and his family to certain misery. It is in France that population increases most slowly—so slowly, in fact, that some are alarmed at it ; and it is in France that land is divided among so large a number of persons, that those who do not possess any form the minority. Enlightened families in easy circumstances have so few children that they are in danger of extinction. In Ireland, on the contrary, ­ the peasants plunged in misery and ignorance swarm with children. The more a man leads an intellectual life, the less powerful does the animal nature become in him. The majority of great men have left no posterity. The progress of enlightenment ­ and comfort is therefore the best antidote against a too great increase of population, and, by a kind of social harmony, the advance of civilization dispels the principal danger that threatens its future. H THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. CHAPTER III. RODBERTUS-JAGETZOW. G erman Socialists of note have not drawn up the plan of a new society. Unlike Sir Thomas More, Babeuf, Fourrier, or Gäbet, they do not present us with an ideal, a Utopia, a perfect city which would be a Paradise on earth. They have a profound knowledge of Political Economy and of the facts proved by statistics. They have studied history, law, the dead languages, and foreign literature. They belong to the well-to-do class, and are scholars by profession. They do not allow themselves to be led astray by the chimeras of others, nor ^by those to which their own imagination may give birth. They content themselves with criticising the classical works on Political Economy, and with placing in strong relief the evils of existing social conditions. Their works have thus the same characteristics as those of Proudhon ; but though less clear and brilliant, they have more coherence and solidity. To disentangle their mistakes, sustained attention and profound ­ knowledge of economical principles are needed. After Mario, there comes a writer little known outside Germany, and seldom quoted, but whose few and brief writings contain, as Dr. Rudolf Meyer very justly says,* all the ideas * See Dr. Rudolf Meyer’s remarkable work : “ The Struggle for the Emancipation of the Fourth Estate.” {Die Emamipations-kampf des vierten Standes.) The second edition has lately appeared. Hermann Bahr, Berlin, 1882. [An abstract of the opinions of Rodbertu^, translated from the above work of Dr. Rudolf Meyer, will be found in the appendix to Mr. Hyndman’s book, “The Historical Basis of Socialism in England.” London, 1883. 7V.] RO DB ER TUS-J A GETZOW. 15 which Marx and Lassalle have since unfolded, and which, through them, have reverberated throughout the world. This writer is Rodbertus-Jagetzow. Minister of Agriculture in Prussia in 1848, who immediately after that epoch retired to his estates and occupied himself with farming and with historical and economical researches. He published no large theoretical treatises, but only articles in the Reviews and Journals. His system is expounded in letters addressed to his friend. Von Kirchmann.* The famous agitator, Lassalle, was in regular correspondence with Rodbertus to the end of his life, and Marx borrowed from him the foundation of his theories. This writer’s small and too little known volume is certainly one of the most original works that Germany has produced in the matter of Political Economy, although the basis of his deductions is, in my opinion, entirely erroneous. Rodbertus was not, it is true, a Socialist, but, like Ricardo, he prepared the scientific arsenal from which Socialism has obtained its weapons. We cannot give here a complete analysis of the ideas of Rodbertus, but can only indicate their leading points. As he himself rightly says, his system is only the rigorous application of the principle laid down by Adam Smith, and still more rigorously formulated by Ricardo, that all wealth ought to be considered economically as the product of labour, and as costing labour alone. Poverty and commercial crises, those two great obstacles to the regular progress of well-being and civilization, have, according to him, only one cause, which is this : As long as the exchange of commodities and the division of produce remain subject to laws of historical origin, and not to those of reason, so long will the wages of the working classes form a relatively smaller part of the national produce in proportion ­ as the productivity of labour increases. Rodbertus arrived at this conclusion by the study of the economic influences which regulate the rate of wages and of rent. The working man, he says, brings on the market a perishable * These letters were collected and published in 1875 under the title, Zur Beleuchtung der socialen Frage. Rudolf Meyer has also recently ( 1882) brought out at Berlin (A. Klein, publisher) some letters and fragments of Rodbertus that are worth reading. i6 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. merchandise, namely, his labour. If he have neither land nor capital to employ his labour, he must offer it to those who can make use of it How much will they give for his services ? Forced by competition to produce at the least possible cost, they will give no more than what is strictly necessary. But what is strictly necessary is what is needed to enable the labourer to subsist and to perpetuate his kind. This is the necessary wage of which Ricardo speaks, the standard minimum towards which, amid the oscillations induced by supply and demand, wages actually gravitate. Suppose labour became more productive. The workman would produce more commodities ­ in the day. It would follow that each of these commodities would have cost less labour and would sell cheaper. The workman who lives by the consumption of these commodities would thus be able to maintain himself at less expense, and consequently content himself with lower wages. Rodbertus endeavours to render this clearer by an example. A proprietor obtains from his land, by employing a labourer, i6o bushels of wheat. Of this he gives eighty bushels to the labourer, representing his necessary wage, and can keep eighty bushels for himself. If by means of improved processes he can gather in 240 bushels, he will have for his share 160, and in this way the wage, which at first formed half the total produce, will be, when the labour has become more productive, only one-third. As a matter of fact, since the invention of steam, the aggregate of products created in civilized societies has increased threefold, perhaps fivefold, while wages have not been augmented in proportion. This remark of Rodbertus is just ; but the fact which he criticises cannot be otherwise under the rule of our present laws and institutions. If products have increased to such a degree, it is due to the fact that two or three times as much capital is employed to-day as in the last century. This capital must be remunerated, and thus it engrosses the surplus production of which it is the source. When corn was ground by means of hand-mills, almost all the produce was distributed in wages. If, owing to the erection of a steam-mill, only a third of the hands previously employed are needed, their remuneration will absorb only a third of the produce, and the RODBER TUS-J A GE TZOIV. 17 Other two-thirds will go to capital. The hands thrown out of work by the introduction of the machine will find employment " elsewhere, and as consumers they will in part profit by the lowering in price of the products, consequent on the employment ­ of mechanical contrivances. It cannot be denied that the working man is better fed, better lodged, and better clothed to-day than formerly. If, then, it is true that the aggregate of wages bears a less proportion to the national produce, because fixed capital, the source of the increased production, engrosses an increasing share, the position of the labourer is, on the other hand, improved, because competition, by bringing down the selling-price of commodities to a level with the cost of production, ­ causes all consumers to profit by the progress of manufacture. ^ Rodbertus criticises in a very specious way the theory of Ricardo that rent arises from the necessity of bringing into cultivation more and more refractory land. According to him, rent arises ^simply from the increased productivity of labour, and there would be rent even if all lands were equally fertile. If a man by cultivating the soil can draw from it more than is necessary for his subsistence, he can give up the surplus to somebody else, and, if he does not own the land himself, he will be obliged to give it to the owner. The landlord will ask all he can get ; the amount which the tenant can pay will depend on the quantity of produce, the price of this produce, and the necessary cost of its production. Rent will increase accordingly, if more is produced per acre, if the produce is sold at a higher price, or if it is produced more economically. Once more, it follows from this that the more productive agricultural labour becomes, the more the landlord’s share increases, while that of the labourer, remaining the same, will bear a less proportion to the total produce. These deductions contain a portion of the truth. In fact, in order that there should be rent, it is enough that land should be the subject of a monopoly and should produce more than suffices for the maintenance of him who cultivates it. But Rodbertus has not paid attention to the fact that if agricultural labour, by becoming more productive, brings. c i8 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. more commodities into the market, the price of these commodities ­ will fall, consumers will profit thereby, and rent will not rise. Mill, indeed, believes that in such a case rent would be lowered. Ricardo was perfectly right in maintaining that the cause of the rise of rent is the increase of population, which, by requiring more food, brings about a rise in its price. On the other hand, when there is no want of land, as is the case in new countries, rent is almost nil, however productive labour may be. The reason of this is evident; the farmer will not consent to pay a high price for the enjoyment of a farm which he can get almost for nothing elsewhere. What remains true in the statement of Rodbertus is that every invention, every process which lessens the cost of production, permits of an increase of rent. This is a very important point, which has not been clearly perceived, and which escaped even Ricardo and Mill. The capital mistake of Rodbertus, borrowed from him by the other German Socialists, is that he makes labour the sole source of value. He concludes from it that all commodities ought to be exchanged on the footing of the amount of manual labour each of them has exacted, and on this basis he has sketched the project of a Loan Institution, which closely resembles Proudhon’s Bank of Exchange. The workman deposits a commodity at the central depot ; this commodity is valued according to the number of hours of labour normally and on the average necessary to produce it. This is its natural price. He receives in payment a credit-note representing these hours of labour, and with this credit-note he can buy in the common emporium any other commodity the price of which is fixed in the same way. This, as may be seen, is putting into practice the idea of Adam Smith, that labour, and not coin, is the best common measure of values. In the multitude of exchanges which take place, hours of labour would,always be bartered against hours of labour, or, as Bastiat expresses it, services against services. The well-being of each person would be proportioned to the part he had taken in the national production, without any deduction to the profit of anybody. The power of buying would be in proportion to RODBERTUS-JAGETZOW. 19 the produce created, which amounts to saying that the producer would be able to buy back his own product We shall find similar ideas in the writings of Karl Marx, In order to avoid repetition, we shall postpone the discussion of them until after having seen under what new form this wTiter expounds them. 20 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. CHAPTER IV. KARL MARX. ARL MARX is, beyond dispute, the most influential Socialist writer of Germany; and his principal work, Z><2i Kapital, is considered even by his opponents as an original and remarkable book. However, it is not to this work that Marx owes his influence, for it was not written to be read by the people. It is as abstract as a mathematical treatise and far more irksome to read. It is a regular puzzle, because the author uses terms in a peculiar sense, and builds up, by deduction after deduction, ­ a complete system founded on definitions and hypotheses. It requires a constant tension of mind to follow his reasonings, in which certain words are always diverted from their usual significations. As Mr. Clifle Leslie has very truly remarked. Das Kapital is a striking example of the abuse of the deductive method, so often employed by many Economists. The author starts from certain axioms and formulas which he considers rigorously ­ true. From these he deduces the consequences which they seem to involve, and thus he arrives at conclusions which he presents as being as irrefutable as those of the exact sciences. Nothing is more deceptive than this method, and it has beguiled the best minds. In the moral and political sciences language never succeeds in rendering with precision the infinite variations of facts. Mathematical science alone can do this, because its speculations are confined to abstract and rigorously determined data. In Political Economy, as in morals and politics, definitions serve to give an idea of the subjects under discussion ; but they cannot describe those subjects with sufficient exactness KARL MARX. 21 to enable conclusions to be drawn from them with certainty. As M. H. Passy justly remarks, if too short, definitions are false, because they do not take exceptions into account ; if too long, they perplex and serve no purpose. The best plan is to use words in their usual sense, to employ concrete terms that everybody understands, and to avoid as far as possible abstract and general expressions which give rise to frequent mistakes and bootless discussions. Thus contests are always arising among economists as to what is to be understood by “capital” and “rent” Why not simply say, food, machines, tools, money or income, and the produce of land ? It would take a little longer, but it would be much more clear. Bossuet and Pascal did not employ vague abstract terms ; they always expressed themselves in an incisive and intelligible manner. To confine one’s self to the language of the seventeenth century would suffice to put an end to most of the misunderstandings ­ and idle discussions which encumber Political Economy, and to render impossible such mistakes as are to be found in Das Kapital. What made Karl Marx one of the leaders of European Socialism was that he was the founder and organizer of the International. There is nothing of the .revolutionary agitator either in his writings or in his life. His books have the pretension ­ of being purely scientific, and his life, after some stormy incidents, was .that of a scholar pursuing his favourite studies in peaceful seclusion. Marx was born at Trêves, on the 2nd May, 1818. His father, a baptized Jew, was an inspector of mines. Karl studied law with great success at the university of Bonn, and after returning to Trêves, married, in 1843, Jenny von Westphalen, sister of the Count von Westphalen, who had been a member of the Manteuffel ministry, and who had recently died. He refused the advantageous posts held out to him in the service of the State in order to give himself entirely up to studying Political Economy, and in particular the social question. Prosecuted by the Prussian Government for his extreme opinions, he took refuge in Paris, and there published, jointly with Arnold Ruge, the Deutsch-Französische yahrbücher^ 22 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. and with Heinrich Heine, the journal Vorwärts (Forwards). Expelled from France in 1844, and from Brussels in 1848, he returned to Germany, and took advantage of the liberty gained there through the revolution of March to bring out, in company with his friend Wolff, a journal in which he roughly handled the bourgeoisie. Prosecuted anew, he fled for refuge to London, where he subsequently lived, dividing his time between economical studies and the secret direction of the International.* As early as 1847, in a manifesto drawn up with the aid of his friend Friedrich Engels, in the name of the German Communists ­ in London, Marx formulated the two principles which still rule German and indeed European Socialism. He there maintains, in the first place, that the interests of the working classes in their struggle against the capitalists, being everywhere ­ the same, rise above the distinctions of nationality ; and, in the second place, that working men should acquire political rights in order to break the yoke of the capitalists. We shall not follow Marx throughout his active career ; to do so would be to write the history of the International, which we shall approach later on. It is only his ideas that we wish to make known here. His writings are not numerous. In 1847 he published a very trenchant and often very just criticism of Proudhon’s Contradictions Économiques, under the title. Misère de la Philosophie, Réponse à la Philosophie de la Misère, par M. Proudhon (The Want of Philosophy, A Reply to M. Proudhon’s ­ Philosophy of Want). Marx disliked Proudhon, although he came near to him on many points. In 1859 he published “ A Critique of Political Economy,” a large part of which was reproduced in his last work. Das Kapital, which appeared in 1867. t Marx’s whole system and the 830 pages of closely printed * [Marx died on the 14th March, 1883.—7>.] t The second edition came out in 1873. M. J. Roy’s French translation, ­ which was revised and completed by the author, appeared in parts in 1875. The work has been translated into Russian. [The third German edition was brought out by Friedrich Engels in 1883. An English translation ­ is promised shortly, which will include the unpublished second part.—7>.] ATÂ/ÍL MARX. 23 matter which his book contains have for their aim to prove that capital is necessarily the result of spoliation. The conclusion ­ is, at bottom, the same as that summed up in the famous aphorism of Brissot and of Proudhon : “ Proj^erty is Robbery.” Still, whatever bitter words Marx may from time to time address to manufacturers and financiers, he does not mean to apply them to individuals ; it is the system that he attacks. As he says in his preface, “It is not a question of persons, except so far as they are the embodiment of economic categories. From my point of view, according to which the evolution of the economic system of society may be likened to the evolution of Nature, still less than from any other, can the individual be held responsible for social conditions, whose creature he must remain, however he may strive to free himself from them.” Marx evidently here gives utterance to those materialistic doctrines, so widely held to-day, which deny the freedom and responsibility of individuals and of societies. Every event, every individual action, is only the result of inevitable forces. The influence a writer can hope to exercise is, therefore, very small ; for “ even when a community has succeeded in discovering the course of the natural law that regulates its advance, it can neither avoid the phases of its natural development nor abolish them by decree, but it can somewhat abridge their periods and diminish the evils that come in their train.” Whatever reservations one may have to make as to this doctrine of fatalism, which is not even carried to its logical conclusion, it nevertheless gives a very just warning to revolutionary dreamers and enthusiasts who, like those of the eighteenth century, imagine that a few laws would suffice to suppress all the evils from which society suffers, and that a benevolent decree alone is needed to establish the Golden Age upon earth. We shall first of all state the ideas developed in this strange book. Das Kapital, without discussing them in detail. It is only when one has grasped the theory as a whole that one can understand the sophisms upon which it rests. Marx bases his system on principles formulated by economists of the highest authority, Adam Smith, Ricardo, De Tracy, Bastiat, and the 24 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. multitude of their followers. As we know, in reaction against the physiocrats who used to derive all wealth from nature, Smith asserts that labour is the sole source of value. He even wishes to make labour the measure of values. “ Labour alone,” he says, “ is the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared—equal quantities of labour, at all times and places, may be said to be of equal value to the labourer.” This is precisely Bastiat’s idea, when he affirms that in societies it is services that are always exchanged for services. Almost all economists, including M. Thiers, who on this point is the mouthpiece of the generally received opinion, maintain that the legitimate source of property is labour. Admit this premiss, and Marx will prove with irrefutable logic that capital is the product of spoliation. In short, if all value proceeds solely from labour, the wealth produced ought to belong entirely to the labourers, and if labour is the only legitimate source of property, working men ought to be the only proprietors. Those Economists who look upon labour as the source of value and property cannot but admit the reasoning of Marx. Like Proudhon, he builds up his deductions on a definition of value. Let us follow his chain of syllogisms, in which one may recognize a disciple of Hegel. It is worth while trying to understand these abstractions in their mathematical ­ dress when we reflect that, translated into common language in petty socialist journals, they have become the working man’s catechism throughout Germany. The wealth of communities, under the régime of capitalist production, appears in the form of an immense accumulation of merchandise. Wares, that is to say products intended for exchange, are the elementary form of wealth in modem communities. ­ Every article which possesses any utility has two kinds of value. It is valuable in so far as it answers by its properties to any human need. That is its “value in use,” which ends in the consumption of commodities. It is also valuable in so far as it permits ■ its owner, by giving it up, to obtain some other article which he desires. That is its “value in exchange.” These two values are far from always KARL MARX. 25 corresponding. Value in use depends solely on the intensity of the need. A loaf of bread which can feed me for a day has a constant value as an article of consumption, but as an article of exchange it varies with the amount of the harvest and the price of grain. Glasses which suit my eyesight may have a high value for me, while perhaps they would have no value in exchange, because they might not suit any other eyes than mine. As regards value in use, all articles differ from one another by reason of their qualities and the wants they are intended to satisfy. As regards value in exchange, all articles have in common the capability of being bartered one for the other or for a certain sum of money. In respect of use, it would be difficult to establish a relation between the sheep that we eat and the horse that we ride ; in respect of exchange, however, we may say that a horse is worth twenty sheep, if for a horse we get;¿’40, and for a sheep In primitive communities, as in India, according to Sir Henry Maine, or during the Middle Ages, it is value in use that is principally considered, for as each group of families produces almost all they consume, there is very little buying and selling. Take a hamlet under Charlemagne, or a village community in Russia or Servia : the men procure the articles of food and the textile materials, make the tools, the agricultural implements, and the house furniture, while the women prepare the food and the clothes, spin the wool, hemp, and flax, and even make the boots. There is almost no exchange. In communities, ­ when division of labour and of trades has taken place, value in exchange is the principal thing ; for as nobody produces ­ what he consumes, each must sell in order to buy. Every product becomes an object for the market, and the important point to discover is what it is that gives value to these objects intended for exchange. To this question Marx does not hesitate to reply, with Adam Smith and Ricardo, that it is labour alone.* * For an account of the theories of Karl Marx, the following writers may he consulted :—Heinrich von Sybel, Die Lehren det heutigen Soctaltsmus ; Fugen Jaeger, Der Moderne Socialismus ; Schæffle, Der Socialtsmus und 26 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. In respect of value, says Marx, commodities intended for exchange are merely crystallized labour. The unit of labour is an average day’s work, which varies in different countries and at different times, but which may be considered a fixed quantity in a given community. More complicated labour, or work which demands the higher faculties, must be considered as simple labour raised to a higher power. A useful article, then, possesses value only because it represents labour. The things most necessary to existence, air and water, have in general no value, because they can be obtained without labour. How, then, is the quantity of values represented by an article to be measured ? By the quantity of “ the substance creative of value,” that is to say of labour, that it contains. The quantity ­ of labour is itself measured by the duration of the labour, by days and hours. Here Marx makes a correction in the theory of Smith and Ricardo, and forestalls an objection. It might, in fact, be said that, if it is the duration of the labour that creates the value of the products, a coat which took a tailor twice as long to make as was necessary, would therefore be twice as valuable. Not so, replies Marx ; the measure of the value of things is the duration of the labour on the average requisite, ­ performed with the average amount of skill and diligence, ­ and in the normal industrial conditions at any given time. If with the aid of a sewing machine a shirt can be made in one day, that will be the measure of the value of a shirt, and not the two or three days that were formerly necessary. Even thus amended, the theory which makes labour the source of value is entirely erroneous, as will be shown later on. We may here remark that, like all abstractions, these averages are wanting ­ in scientific exactness. In truth, each kind of labour has its own value, its own particular character. Is the day’s labour of a mason of precisely the same value as that of a carpenter, a painter, a carver, a plumber, or a common labourer ? Clearly not. How, too, can they be compared unless by the wages that each of these workmen receives ? It must be admitted, der Kapitalismus ; Rud. Meyer, Der Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes ; and in French, the short but solid study of M. Maurice Block, Les Théoriciens du Socialisme en Allemagne. Aví/?Z MARX. 27 then, that all wages are in exact proportion to the value of the work done. But this is precisely what Marx disputes. From these premises, our author concludes that labour becomes more productive and creates more utilities all to no purpose, it does not produce more values. In fact, if labour measured by time is the sole source of value, articles manufactured ­ in greater quantity in the same lapse of time, all put together, represent no more value, because each individual article is worth less. By the strictly logical chain of these abstractions we arrive at this singular result, that all the inventions ­ of science, all the improvements of manufacture, produce more utilities, without increasing the sum total of values. Bastiat had expressed a similar idea. Let us now see how capital arises. According to Marx, it is by no means from thrift or abstinence, as “the common Political Economy ” asserts. Nor is it any more from exchange, as idle people, seeing how merchants make rapid fortunes, are apt to imagine. In fact, exchange is normally made on the footing of equality, values against values ; and if by artifice or skill Paul sells to Peter for a commodity worth only ^^4, Paul, it is true, gains but as Peter loses it, the community is none the richer, no new value is created, no new capital formed. This opinion, developed with great precision by J. B. Say, is held by the greater number of Economists. Nevertheless, ­ in my opinion, it is not well founded. Condillac was right when he asserted that in every exchange both parties gain, because each obtains the object which suits him best.* A lady, he says, sells some acres of land in order to purchase a cashmere shawl, and is astonished at obtaining such a magnificent ­ article in exchange for such an ugly piece of meadow. Each party gets what he wants, and is thus better satisfied. Marx and J. B. Say look only at the value in exchange, which, perhaps, does not increase in the act of exchange, though an object, on the approach of those who have need of * See “ Commerce et le gouvernement^' by Condillac, Guillaumin’s edition, ­ p. 267. This little work, like the majority of those of the eighteenth century, contains many just remarks, expressed with great clearness and intelligence. ï 28 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. it, does, in general, immediately acquire an extra value ; but in my view, what it is especially necessary to consider is the value in use, the utility, for ultimately everything comes to that. Consumption is the final aim of the production and circulation of wealth. Exchange brings everything to the place where it answers the most intense needs—“ the right ware in the right place ”—and thus it creates utilities which are real values. To return to the system of Marx, capital, according to him, comes into being in this way. The future capitalist presents himself on the market of commodities provided with money. First of all he buys machines, tools, raw materials, and then, in order to work up the materials, he purchases the workman’s “ labour-force,” arbeitskraft., the sole source of all value. He sets the labourer to work to change, by means of the tools and machines, the raw materials into manufactured articles, and sells them for more than they cost him to make. In this way he obtains a greater value, “ surplus value ” {mehrwerth). The money, temporarily transformed into wages and merchandise, reappears under its original form, but more or less increased in amount ; it has brought forth young—capital is born. This would seem to conflict with the principle laid down above, that exchange does not create new value. The manufacturer ­ has only made exchanges, and yet he finds himself in possession of a greater value. The explanation of the mystery is as follows. The capitalist pays for labour its exchange-value and thus obtains its value in use. Labour-force has the unique characteristic of producing more than it costs to be produced. He who buys it and sets it to work for his gain, enjoys then the source of all wealth. The capitalist pays for labour its value. What is the value of labour ? Like all other merchandise, it is worth what it costs in time and trouble to be produced, that is to say, its cost of production. The cost of production of labour is the food and different commodities necessary to support the labourer and the children destined to succeed him. The value of all these commodities is measured in its turn by the time that it takes to produce them. In short, then, according to Marx, the value of labour is equivalent to the sum of hours required to create what the maintenance of the labourer demands. This KARL MARK. 29 is what the capitalist has to pay according to the principles of exchange. In reality, Marx merely explains here, in other terms, Ricardo’s law of wages. According to the English economist, wages on the average always tend to approach that which is indispensable ­ for the existence of the labourers and for keeping up their number. If wages fall below this level, the less fortunate working men die of privations, and then the demand for hands causes wages to rise to the normal rate. If wages exceed this level, the number of labourers increases, and the increased , supply of hands causes wages to fall The average cost of the maintenance of the labourer varies in different countries, and according to the degree of civilization, but, whatever it is, it constitutes the natural price of labour, its cost of production. Let us now disclose the mystery of iniquity whence flows, according to the German Socialist, the terrible contrast of IX)verty and opulence, pauperism gaining ground as capital is amassed. To produce the commodities necessary for the existence of the labourer and his family during a day, a whole day’s work is not needed. Marx supposes that five or six hours would suffice. If, then, the labourer worked for himself, he could obtain all he needed in a half-day, and the rest of his time he might devote to leisure or to procuring superfluities ; but the slave of antiquity, the .serf of the Middle Ages, when gaining his freedom in the existing social order, did not at the same time acquire property. He is therefore obliged to place himself in the service of those who possess the land and the instruments of production. These naturally require him to work for them the whole day of twelve hours or more. In six hours the labourer produces the equivalent of his subsistence ; this is what Marx terms “ the necessary labour ; ” during the remaining six hours he produces the “surplus value,” the mehrwerth, to the profit of his employers. The capitalist pays the labourer for his labour-power at its value, that is to say, by giving him the amount of money which, representing six hours’ labour, permits him to buy the necessaries of life ; but as he thus obtains the free disposal of this productive force for 30 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. which he has paid, he acquires everything it produces during the entire day. He therefore exchanges the produce of six hours against the labour of twelve hours, and puts in his pocket, as net profit, the produce of the six hours beyond the “necessary labour.” From this surplus, pocketed by the employer, capital comes into being. The capitalist has different methods of increasing his profits. The first consists in multiplying the number of his workmen. In fact, as many workmen as he employs, so many times does he pocket the product of the six supplementary hours of labour. If he employs only one workman, by deducting ­ for himself the product of half a day’s labour, he would obtain only the bare means of living, like the workman himself. If he employs two, he would have for his own consumption the equivalent of what two workmen consume. The second method is to lengthen the working day. The longer the labourer works beyond the necessary time which represents his wages, the greater the profit he brings to his master. Marx here shows by detailed examples borrowed from the history of manufacture and industrial legislation in England, that capital and machinery necessarily tend to prolong the working day, and that in order to arrest them in this course, the State has been obliged to interfere with successive enactments limiting the hours of labour. The third method consists in diminishing the duration of the “ necessary labour.” If the workman could produce in three hours what he needs for his subsistence, the cost of his labour-power would be diminished by one half. The capitalist would then obtain the full value of the labour of twelve hours, in return for a sum of money equivalent to the labour of three hours, that is to say, for half the wages. This also seems to accord with Ricardo’s law : if the workman’s cost of maintenance be lowered, wages would fall proportionately. But how is the reduction in the cost of maintenance to be attained ? By rendering the labour which creates the articles of the labourers’ consumption more productive. As hours of labour obtain the same price, no matter what they produce, if twice as many articles can be made in the hour, each article will cost one half less, and the labourer will have one half less ^A/ÍL MAUX. 31 to spend on his living ; he will therefore be able to sell his labour-force for a remuneration reduced by one half. All these deductions appear to be irrefutable, and we thus arrive at this singular conclusion, that the more the employment ­ of machines and of improved methods increases the productivity of labour, the lower wages fall and the greater the profits of the capitalist become. Capital of itself does not create value, says Marx. The work of manufacture only reproduces the value consumed. If in order to make i cwt. of cotton yam 5 qrs. are wanted, because i qr. goes in waste, in the cost price the i cwt. will be set down at the same price as the 5 qrs. If five shillings represents the wear of the machine and ten the fuel, these sums must also be added, and the selling price must be such as to cover them completely. “ The machine does not produce value ; it merely transmits its own value to the articles which it serves to fabricate.” The profit must then proceed exclusively ­ from labour, the sole source of all value. If after a bad harvest the price of cotton or corn increases, although the labour employed in their cultivation remains the same, the reason is that the cost of this same amount of labour, being divided by a smaller number of bushels, gives for each bushel a larger expenditure of labour. If, for example, by means of a thousand days of labour I obtain a hundred bushels of corn, each bushel will have a value equivalent to ten days of labour ; if I get in only half that amount, each bushel will have a value equivalent to twenty days of labour. In short, all “ surplus value ” {mehrwerth), under whatever form it is crystallized, whether as interest, rent, or profits, is only the “materialization” of a certain duration of unpaid labour. “The mystery of productive labour resolves itself into this fact, that a certain quantity of labour is employed without being paid for.” “ By itself capital is inert : it is dead labour which can revive only by sucking, vampire-like, the blood of living labour, and which lives and thrives with all the tnore vigour the more blood it absorbs.” According to Marx, the capitalist régime is of recent origin. It dates from the sixteenth century, when the large proprietors. 32 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. encroaching little by little upon the lands of the small farmeis, drove the surplus population into the towns, free indeed, but deprived of the means of labour, and, consequently, forced to place themselves at the service of those who had the means of labour at their disposal. The suppression of individual handicrafts and the invention of machinery have favoured the development of the large industrial system, in which a few capitalists, becoming more and more powerful, employ an everincreasing army of proletarians. Every augmentation of capital calls for a proportionate increase in the number of workmen. “ The accumulation of wealth at one pole of society advances step by step with an accumulation, at the other pole, of the poverty, servitude, and moral degradation of the class which, out of its produce, brings capital into existence.” As we read Marx’s book and feel ourselves shut up within the iron bars of his logic, we are, as it were, a prey to a nightmare, ­ because, having admitted his premises, which are borrowed from the most undoubted authorities, we know not how to escape from his conclusions, and because, at the same time, his wide and solid learning enables him to quote in support of his theses striking extracts from a crowd of authors and numerous telling facts, drawn from Parliamentary inquiries and from the industrial and agricultural history of England. And yet, when we go to the bottom of the matter and look around us, we perceive that we have been enveloped in a skilful tissue of errors and subtleties, intermingled with a few truths. Nevertheless, ­ it is not easy to release ourselves, and if we admit the theory of value circulated by Smith, Ricardo, Bastiat, and Carey, we cannot do so without contradicting ourselves. M. Maurice Block has tried to refute the chief basis of Marx’s system, which consists in the assertion that the labourer produces his subsistence by the work of only a part of the day, while the other part is monopolized by the employer, who keeps the fruits of it for himself without compensation. The fact alleged by Marx is, however, incontestable. It is perfectly true that the employer does not give and cannot give to the employé the full value of the product, for if he did, where could he obtain the means of paying the interest on his capital, the rent Ä'AÄL MARX. 33 Of his land, and his profits, or the remuneration for his risks and ^ long before him. maintained ha the destitution of the lower classes proceeds from the fact that the labourer cannot purchase with his wages what he produces. ­ The remark is true, but the fact cannot be otherwise unless the labourer, like the peasant proprietor, should work his own property, being at the same time owner of the land the machines, the provisions and the materials necessary for production. If he has to borrow these different agents he must deduct from what he produces the means of paying for them, for nobody will lend them to him for nothing. If it is the manufacturer who provides them, he must take from the total produce of the workman’s labour what will pay interest on Ijis advances. Who would accumulate capital or employ a single labourer, if he did not reap any profit thereby? Like Proudhon, Marx then arrives, but without admitting It, at the often refuted chimera of gratuitous credit The history of the social organizations of different periods proves that the deduction of a portion of the fruits of labour by those who have the indispensable requisites of productions at their disposal, has always taken place under one form or another. Under the system of slavery, the slave-owner received the entire produce of the labour, and, giving to the slave what was necessary for his support and to enable him to perpetuate his race, kept all the rest for himself. It was as though the slave worked part of the time for himself and the rest for his master. Under the régime of the conjé,, the peasant worked two or three days on the land of his lord and the rest of the Ume on his own. He was half enfranchised, but a part of what he produced was levied on behalf of the signorial demesne. With the méíaycr system, it was no longer the labour that was divided between master and labourer, but the products ot Ubour, which comes in the end to the same thing. Modern farming, in its turn, is only a transformation of the mé/ayer system, with this difference, that the farmer pays the landowner’s ­ share in money. Still he works part of his time for ois own subsistence and the remainder for that of his landlord, o has given him the land. In the wage-earning classes the 34 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. same fact reappears. For part of the day the workman works to obtain the equivalent of his subsistence, viz. his wages, and during the remaining time for the capitalist. The fact stated by Marx is, then, quite true ; but it is not by economic subtleties about the “ surplus value ” that an attack is to be made on a partition of produce which results from the laws of the state and from the whole existing social organization. You can rob a man of his property, but you will never induce him to give up the enjoyment of it without receiving in exchange either services, or products, or money. If, like Proudhon, you wish that the producer were able to purchase his product, or to keep the whole of it, make him a capitalist. Already in France, and to a greater extent in Switzerland, unlike the case in England, a great number of men, possessing land and instruments of labour, can thus sit under their own vine and keep for themselves ­ all the fruits of their labour, won from a soil which owes nothing to anybody. Advance this movement by spreading education and the habit of thrift, and the time will come when all will have a share in property, either landed or industrial, and when all will be freed from the tax paid to capital, because the capital will be their own. Rent is a natural fact and interest a necessary one. You cannot therefore abolish them, but the labourer, by acquiring ownership, can claim them for himself. In the Middle Ages, in the trade-guilds, the artisan working with his own hands was owner of the trade-capital, the instruments ­ of his labour. Accordingly, he retained the whole produce. Some similar organization should be revived, but under a different juridical form. The fundamental error of Marx lies in the idea he conceives ­ of value, which, according to him, is always in proportion ­ to labour. He has certainly made the theory of Smith and Ricardo much more plausible by saying that the value of an article depends on the amount of labour “ socially necessary ” to produce it. Thus, a chair has cost you three days’ labour ; but, on the average, it can be made in two days. It will therefore be worth only the equivalent of two days’ labour. Even thus amended, the idea is false. We must ÁTA/ÍL MARX. 35 ns st on th,s pent : ,t .s the essence of the matter. A little tatience in foUowing these discussions, sometimes dry enough f™ L K r f"" 'hat they concern the ver^ They are the produce of equal efforts during the same period • have they the ^me value? No; the roebuck will feed me fr : :: a .otde, Ä :^f % former has not required twice as much labour as the latter that IS to say ordinarily and always, less labour. Butter sells at eighteenpence per pound, and yet it is the almost spuntaneous product of the grass that the cow grazes. Thus we sometimes obtain for the same amount of effort very unequal values, and sometimes equal values for unequal quantities of labour. Value, then, is not in proportion to labour. Beyond question, labour is an essential element of value but wherever scarcity, that is to say natural or social monopoly’ dlZnT^'""' “ ""''-hibour is not the sole In reality, value springs from utility. We estimate things according to the advantages that they obtain for us. An The word '^alui^" rtt%ok^c%c!^la%r.Cl%r'' osely, we shall see that rarity is only a form of utility. The useful ir "" uT' more ' """ 1)« “a possession. If, on the other hand, I 36 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. can easily replace it, because it is found everywhere, the utility of possessing it will be very small ; it will be equal, in fact, to the trouble involved in procuring a similar article. Water, it is said, is of the highest utility, and yet it has no value ; therefore it is not utility that makes value. This objection, always repeated, depends on an ambiguity of language which has never been exposed, because it sounds very plausible. The mistake lies in this : by water in the first sense is meant water in general, the element, and in this sense it is of the greatest utility, but it is also of the greatest value ; for a person lost in the desert, a besieged town, a country ruined by drought, would give anything to obtain some water. When it is said that water has no value, a specific portion of water is intended ; and in this sense it has also very little utility. What is the value of a pail of water at the river bank ? Nothing beyond the trouble of fetching it At the fourth story of a house it is worth, perhaps, a penny or two, representing the pay of the servant who has carried it up. In the middle of Sahara, to the traveller who cannot at any price obtain it elsewhere, it would be worth all the money in the world. Thus its value would increase in the measure of its scarcity or in proportion to the difficulty of replacing it. We may say, then, using words in their usual sense, that an article has so much the more value the more useful it is, whether as answering to an existing want, or as dispensing with the expenditure of money or labour necessary to procure a similar article. All value presupposes some labour, for a man must at least gather the fruit that nature offers to him ; but the value is not in proportion to the labour, for if he picks a nut he will have a much less valuable article than if he detaches a branch of bananas. Marx asserts that the value of the labour-force {arbeitskraft) of the wage-earner is equal to the cost of its production, that is to say to the maintenance of the labourer, and consequently to the hours of labour “socially” necessary for the reproduction ­ of this maintenance. If that be so, it is not easy to see why Marx should attack capital, inasmuch as it pays labour at its just value in giving it the “ necessary wages ” of Ricardo. A'^/?Z MARX. 37 l'he truth is that the value of labour is like that of everything else, in proportion to its utility. In a glass manufactory the stokér receives three shillings a day, the glass-blower five, six, or eight shillings, the skilled engraver ten to twelve shillings • diamond-cutters at Amsterdam gain twenty to twenty-four shillings. The cost of maintenance of these different classes of workmen is pretty nearly the same ; but the value of their labour, and consequently of their produce, differs greatly, and it is the higher in proportion as their abilities are more scarce and in greater request. Suppose I want to get up from the bottom of a well a chest containing two cwts. of silver. Alone, I cannot do it Somebody comes, but will not help me except on condition of sharing the contents of the chest If I cannot get aid elsewhere I will consent to the bargain, for I still find in it a great advantage. In this case, the produce of a day's labour would have been for each of the partners one cwt of silver. The value of labour for the employer is then equal to the profit he makes out of it, and if he is compelled ­ by the scarcity of hands, that is also what he can give as wages ; but, on the other hand, if the workman is forced by the competition of his class to give his labour at any price, he can content himself with what suffices for his maintenance! The remuneration of wages, then, will fluctuate between a maximum equivalent to the value of what it creates, less interest and rent, and a minimum corresponding to the necessary ­ cost of maintenance. The law of supply and demand will determine the oscillations between these two extremes From what has gone before, it results that, the more productive labour becomes, the more its remuneration may be raised, if the supply of hands does not lower wages. When this surplus value, resulting from an increase of production, does not remain in the hands of the wage-earner, it is not, as Marx says, the capitalist who “pockets it." Competition soon reduces his profits by lowering prices as much as possible, and in the last analysis it is the consumers who benefit by industrial improvenients. ^ One of the odd things about Das Kapital is that it never iscusses the influence exercised by competition, that ever 38 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. active equalizing agent for profits, wages, rent, and interest. This is reserved, it appears, for the second volume, never published ; but this method of successive analyses, admissible in mathematics, ­ where one speculates about abstract data, gives entirely false results when applied to Political Economy, which is concerned ­ with facts. To affect to give a just idea of economic phenomena, without speaking of competition, which is in general their impelling force, is like attempting to explain the terrestrial system while omitting gravitation, which is its moving power. Another error of Marx consists in asserting that capital is dead labour, which revives and grows fat only at the expense of living labour. Without doubt the products of former labour applied to a new production—for instance, machines—are not endowed with life. In themselves they are inert ; but if, owing to them, the same muscular efforts can produce more articles of utility, may we not say that they are productive ? A man armed with a steel axe will do ten times more work than a savage with his flint axe. Both tools are evidently inert ; but if with the former we obtain much more produce than with the latter, ought we not to put it down to the superiority of the steel instrument ? In order to prove that capital does not produce value, Marx shows that if by means of a new machine one can manufacture twice as many articles, each of these articles being worth only half as much as before, the total value remains the same. This is plausible, but false ; for the goal to attain is the multiplication of useful articles quite irrespective of their money value. The value in use is the important point. If with a better instrument I obtain twice as many goods, I am really twice as rich ; for my comforts being doubled, I have produced a double amount of real value. As Bastiat well remarks, whenever we change “ onerous values for gratuitous values ” humanity is enriched. If all the necessaries of existence were as abundant as air and water, their intrinsic value, that is to say, their capacity to satisfy our wants, would be in no way diminished. They would exchange, it is true, against very much less money, and their money value A'AHL MARX. 39 would almost entirely disappear ; but what of that ? Capital and machinery operate in this way. They multiply useful objects and diminish the cost of their production. They thus contribute enormously to the growth of well-being; they are then essentially productive of wealth ; for, as Voltaire has very well said, “ Wealth consists in the abundance of useful or agreeable things.” What is it that has freed man from want and made him the master of the world? Not muscular strength. The savage who wallows in the most degrading destitution wields as much strength as the civilized man. No; it is intellectual power which, embodied in machines and in scientific processes, creates twenty times more utilities for the same sum of effort. Marx, measuring all values by the average amount of labour that they have cost, would keep the whole product for the labourer, leaving nothing whatever for the person who brings to the joint work capital and intelligence, that is to say, the principal producer. See to what flagrant injustice and manifest absurdity an imperfect analysis leads ! If you do not remunerate ­ the head of the business exceptionally well, you will have a man who will turn out dishonest or incapable, and you will lose your property. Whenever co-operative societies have failed, it has always been through the fault of the managers. In fine, we may say that the mighty and pretentious attempt of Marx to overturn the foundations of existing society, while relying on the very^principles of Political Economy, has failed, because he has only strung together a number of abstract formulas, without ever going to the root of things. Nevertheless, all those—and they are still numerous—who admit the theories of Ricardo and Bastiat on labour, will be unable to escape from the conclusions of the German Socialist without inconsistencies. His deductions are perfectly logical ; it is the starting-points of his reasonings, which he has borrowed from the most orthodox economists, that are false. If we compare the theoretical Socialists of Germany with those of France, what a contrast we find ! The former are incomparably more learned. As Lassalle said of himself, they are armed with all the science of our times ; but they use it to 40 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. demonstrate dry abstractions. They lack the great spiritual breath of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They never invoke, like the heroes of the Reformation or of the French Revolution, those great principles of truth, right, and justice which touch the hearts of men. It is not by splitting hairs with dialectics, razor-sharp though they be, that the way is to be prepared for a social transformation. Bound to the earth by their materialistic doctrines, they present us with no ideal to be realized. All that exists is, for them, the result of necessary laws which govern human societies as immutably as celestial bodies. The French Socialists are often ignorant, simple, and tricked by their own fancies. Proudhon himself, in spite of his vigour of mind, had received only an incomplete and ill-digested education. But they are all human ; they dream of universal happiness in their own way. They are, in fact, mistaken philanthropists. In spite of their errors, or even their insanities, they have a noble aim : to bring about the reign of brotherhood among men. They are Utopian dreamers who have always condemned the violent acts of the Jacobins, which the German Socialists, dry and hard as a syllogism, are ready to renew. How superior is Christianity, considered merely from the point of view of a social reform, to all these systems, in which either true charity or a just appreciation of facts is wanting ! An infinite tenderness for the oppressed pervades the Gospel, together with a sublime sentiment of social justice. The essential truth which rises from the whole teaching of Christ is that no improvement is possible without first making man himself ­ better. Moral renovation ! There is the source of all true progress. It is not by the criticism of economic doctrines, however keen it may be, nor by a new form of association, be it phalanstery or co-operative society, that we shall heal the maladies of the existing social system. It was by spreading throughout all ranks of society more light and a higher morality that Christianity burst the bonds of slavery. It will be through the same moral influences that poverty will cease. No doubt, “ the poor shall we always have with us,” because there will always be some incorrigibly idle /¡TA/ÍL MARX. 41 people, and, as St Paul says, “ if a man work not neither shall he eat ; ” but as the upper classes learn to know their duties better and to fulfil them better, as the working men, becoming better educated, more moral, less slaves to their senses, attain by labour and thrift to the possession of property, as science goes on increasing the productivity of the agricultural and industrial arts, pauperism and the extreme forms of destitution will disappear—so far, at least, as they reach a whole class of families and form one of the sores of our social order. 42 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. CHAPTER V. FERDINAND LASSALLE, ERDINAND LASSALLE is looked upon by his disciples as the Messiah of Socialism. During his life they listened to him as to an oracle, and after his death they venerated him as a demi-god. To them he is the object of a real worship. In 1874 they celebrated the tenth anniversary of the day upon which he was taken from them, with ceremonies ­ which seemed like the rites of a new religion. They do not hesitate even to compare him to Christ, and they believe that his doctrines will transform existing society as Christianity has renovated the ancient world. Lassalle did not, indeed, reveal to the world any new truth. He only popularized ideas borrowed from Louis Blanc, Proudhon, Rodbertus, and above all, Karl Marx. But it is incontestable that it was the energy of his style, the rigour of his polemics, and to a still greater degree his eloquence and personal influence, which brought Socialism from the regions of dreamy philanthropy and obscure books, little read and understood, ­ to throw it like a firebrand of strife and dispute on the public streets and into the workshops. In two years his burning words and fiery pen had stirred all Germany and created the democratic socialist party. He exercised a fascination ­ like Abelard, charming women and inflaming crowds. He traversed the country, young, handsome, and eloquent, “ drawing the hearts of all after him,” and left everywhere enthusiastic disciples and admirers who formed the nucleus of working men’s societies. There is no example in our times of FERDINAND LASSALLE. 43 an influence so great and so extended, acquired in so short a period. Ferdinand Lassalle, like Karl Marx, was of Jewish origin,* and was born at Breslau on the nth of April, 1825. His father, a wholesale dealer, wished him to follow the same business. After having brilliantly terminated his classical studies at the college of his native town, he was sent to the commercial school of Leipsic ; but utterly disgusted with this class of study, he entered the university and occupied himself with philology, philosophy, and law. His attention was early attracted by economic facts ; for he relates in his book, Bastiai-Schultze, that at the age of twelve he was astonished to find his mother and sister buying in retail shops the same goods his father sold wholesale. At the university he became an enthusiastic admirer of Fichte, and above all of Hegel, who was his master in the high regions of thought. In politics he adopted the ideas of Young Germany, and ranged himself on the side of the most radical democrats, already known by the name of “ revolutionaries.” His university studies finished, he took up his abode on the banks of the Rhine, and continued the works he had begun. He had conceived the project of writing the history, of the Ionic school of ancient philosophy; and in order to collect materials, and also to breathe the air of the great city * The Jews have been nearly everywhere the initiators or the propagators ­ of Socialism. The reason is plain. Socialism is an energetic protest against the iniquitous basis of the actual order of things, and an ardent aspiration towards a better system where justice would reign supreme Now this IS precisely the foundation of the Judaism of Job and th¿ i rophets, and of that aspiration towards a Messiah whence Christianity aro^. M, Renan shows this clearly in the preface of his recent translation ol Rcclesiastes. “ The Jew is not resigned like the Christian. To the Christian, poverty and humility are virtues, while to the Jew they are misfortunes o be avoided. Abuse and violence, which hnd the Christian calm, enrage the Jew. Hence it is that the Israelite element has in our time become an innuence of reform and prepress in all countries where it is to be found. The pamt-bimonism and the industrial and financial mysticism of our days are, ^ part at least, derived from it. In the revolutionary movements of f ranee, the Jewish element played an important part.” In the Jewish conception of the world, it is here below that the greatest possible amount of justice should be realized. From which it follows that present social arrangements should be at all hazards radically changed. 44 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. where at that time all the new ideas took their rise, in 1845 he visited Paris. He was cordially received by Heine, who was greatly drawn to him from the similarity of their origin, their thoughts, and the turn of their minds. Nevertheless the poet, whose sharp penetration went to the bottom of all characters, perfectly judged his brilliant countryman in a letter of introduction to Varnhagen von Ense : “ My friend, Herr Lassalle, who is the bearer of this letter, is a young man of the most remarkable intellettual gifts. He joins a strength of will and a dexterity of action which are fairly astonishing, to the profoundest learning, ­ the widest knowledge, and the quickest penetration I have ever met with. He is a true child of thq new era, knowing nothing of that modesty and self-abnegation which we of the old school affect with more or less hypocrisy. He belongs to a new generation who desire to enjoy and to rule." Heine compares Varnhagen and himself to grave-diggers charged with the burial of the past, and to poor hens who, having hatched duck’s eggs, are amazed to see their ducklings take to the water with such joy. At Berlin,‘*where Lassalle wished to establish himself as a privat docent^ he became acquainted with all the literary and scientific world, which received him most cordially. Humboldt in particular took him into especial friendship, calling him the “Youthful Prodigy” (^Das Wunderkind). He recommended ­ him to his colleagues of the Institute of France, when Lassalle made his second journey to Paris, Meantime, Lassalle continued his book on Heraclitus, which, however, did not appear until nine years later. About this time, towards the end of 1845, he met at Berlin a person who exercised a decided influence over his fate. The Countess Sophie von Hatzfeld, n'ee Princess von Hatzfeld, was engaged in a lawsuit with her husband. After some years passed quietly in their hereditary chateau on the banks of the Sieg, or in their house in Dusseldorf, the incompatibility of their tempers had brought about a separation between them, and the countess was suing for a pension proportional to her rank and fortune. She was extremely quick-witted and elo- FERDINAND LASSALLE. 45 quent, and had great independence of character. She eagerly occupied herself with the political and social questions of the day, not shrinking from the boldest ideas, Lassalle, who resembled her in more than one respect, attached himself to her from the first, and swore to obtain her rights for her. Here must be related a strange incident, whiclr his enemies have often cited against him as a crime. The Baroness Meyendorf, who was very intimate with Count Hatzfeld, had just left him and was stopping at Cologne. She had with her a casket, in which Madame Hatzfeld believed were enclosed certain documents of great importance in her lawsuit Two friends of Lassalle, Mendelssohn and Oppenheim ­ by name, got into Madame Meyendorfs room at the Hôtel Mainzer Hof, and carried off the casket, which, as it turned out, contained only jewels. When prosecuted for this abstraction, Mendelssohn was condemned and Oppenheim was acquitted. Lassalle being tried as accomplice and adviser, pleaded his own defence in an eloquent speech wherein Socialism clearly transpired. Found guilty by the jury, but only by a majority of seven to five, the magistrates, who in this case had to pronounce judgment, acquitted him, on the ground that the abstraction of the casket had not taken place by his orders, but only as a consequence of his suit against the baroness. This happened in August, 1848. As he belonged to the Dusseldorf bar, he continued to conduct the Hatzfeld case, but it was only in 1854 that he brought it to an end on terms very favourable to the countess. During the same time he threw himself eagerly into the political ­ movements of,this stormy period. He wrote in Karl Marx’s paper, the Mue Rheinische Zeitung, along with Engels, Freiligrath, Schapper, Wolff, and other less noted writers. These literary labours, however, were not enough for him ; his ardent temperament urged him to action. On the occasion of the conflict between the Prussian Chamber and the Minister Manteuflel at Berlin, he endeavoured to organize resistance at Dusseldorf against the coup d'etat by uniting the working men and the bourgeoisie ; and when a few representatives did refuse to vote the taxes, he tried to affix seals to the coffers of the 46 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. State. With several other influential citizens of that town, he formed a committee of resistance, and issued proclamations calling on the people to collect money and arms in order to oppose the government In November, 1848, when General Drigalski proclaimed a state of siege in Dusseldorf, he was arrested along with Cantador, head of the citizen guard, and tried for having instigated civil war. It was not until the 3rd of May, 1849, that he appeared before the Court of Assizes, when he defended himself with a boldness and an eloquence that made a deep impression upon the jury. He fearlessly invoked the principle of the French Revolution, the sovereignty of the people. “ I have neither the desire nor the right to be acquitted,” he exclaimed, “ unless you admit a resort to arms as the right and duty of the people.” Like Robespierre, he scorched with his burning irony the partisans of “passive resistance.” “ That is the act of men who feel clearly the duty of resistance, but at the same time are too cowardly to imperil their lives in the matter. The crown conflscates the liberties of the entire nation, and what does the National Assembly of Prussia decree? Its displeasure I It is impossible to understand ­ how an assembly composed of the people’s representatives ­ can descend to such puerilities.” He was acquitted at the Assizes, but was prosecuted in the police court for resistance to the police, and condemned to six months’ imprisonment. He employed the time in going deeply into social questions. Almost every evening a workman ­ named Kichniawy used to come, after his day’s work, and talk with him on these subjects till far into the night. When liberated, he threw himself eagerly into the study of the epoch of the Reformation in Germany. He wished to understand ­ how it was that the religious wars had weakened his country by dividing it, and thus to discover the best means of reconstituting its unity. There resulted from these studies a drama entitled Franz von Sickingen, mediocre as far as literary merit goes, but curious as a political essay. He there unfolds the idea, afterwards reproduced by Prince Bismarck, that great historical changes are always accomplished by “ fire and sword.” He was a fanatic on the subject of German unity. FERDINAND LASSALLE. 47 In 1859 he published a pamphlet entitled “The Italian War and the Mission of Prussia.” In it he exhibited to the democracy of Germany the very plan of campaign that Prince Bismarck submitted to the King of Prussia, and, as Chancellor, put into execution seven years afterwards. Alarmed by the victories of the French arms in Lombardy, the King of Prussia, it may be remembered, was on the point of marching an army on the Rhine in response to the urgent appeals of the Emperor of Austria. “Absurd policy ! ” exclaimed Lassalle. “ Let not our hatred of despotism blind us. Napoleon ­ III. is fighting the battle of democracy and of Germany. In favouring the construction of Italian unity he is hastening the birth of German unity. Austria is the deadly and irreconcilable foe of a united Germany. Prussia should therefore ally herself with France against Austria, and should profit by this alliance to gather all the German nations together under her hegemony.” Lassalle even made a journey to Italy, in company with the Countess Hatzfeld, in order to see Garibaldi and to urge him to march on Vienna, so that Italian and German unity might both arise on the ruins of Austria. The King of Prussia, faithful to his ally of the Confederation, did not relish these ideas, although they were urged upon him by Bismarck ; and Napoleon III. was forced to make the peace of Villafranca. In 1866, however. Lassaile's programme was realized step by step. His friends the democrats opposed him, understanding him no better than King William understood Bismarck in 1859. About this time he left Dusseldorf for Berlin. As, however by reason of his condemnation, he was forbidden to live there he entered the town disguised as a carter. Subsequently, through Humboldt, he obtained from the king permission to reside there, in spite of Manteuffel’s opposition. His devoted friend. Countess Hatzfeld, followed him there, and they both set themselves seriously to work, while enjoying at the same time the society of scholars, men of letters, and philosophers. Lassalle was elected member of the Society of Philosophy on account of the merits of his work on Heraclitus of Ephesus, and to him was assigned the duty of delivering an address on the occasion of the fêtes given in honour of Fichte. He drew a THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 48 picture of modern philosophy in Germany, and endeavoured to prove that the theories of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel were only the logical development of the same system. The form of his discourse ­ was too abstract, and did not please the public at all, although he was careful to recall the fact that Fichte had prophesied ­ German unity, and had announced that one day the German people would enjoy the liberty and equality proclaimed by the French Revolution. He had a sort of worship for the men of that time, and especially for Robespierre, often carrying a cane given to him by his friend Forster, the historian, which had once belonged to Robespierre. Like his model of ’93, he affected great elegance, and one of his critics said of him, that he liked to have a chased handle to his Jacobin poignard, and lace on his Phrygian cap. In 1861 he published a literary study of Lessing, and a very learned work on jurisprudence in two volumes, the “System of Acquired Rights " {Systetn der Envorbenen Rechte). Radical ideas of reform obtrude themselves through the purely scientific dissertations, as, for instance, when the existing system of property and inheritance is severely criticised. In two political pamphlets which appeared shortly afterwards, “ The Essence of a V Constitution” ( Ueber Verfassungswesen), and “ Might and Right ” {Macht und Recht), he takes up his favourite idea that in human affairs it is force which always decides in the last resort. All constitutional problems are summed up in this : Who is the strongest? If the Chambers cannot command efficacious means of resistance, they lie at the mercy of the sovereign. This theory, which has since widely spread, because certain contemporary events have appeared to justify it, is open to objection. It is true bayonets decide, but what puts bayonets in motion if not ideas? Is it not the abstract principle of nationality which has completely changed the map of Europe ? Cavour created the unity of Italy, and Bismarck that of Germany, because they carried out this idea, while Napoleon I., with all his prodigious victories ahd amazing genius, created nothing durable, because he ignored and disregarded it ; and unless Austria will frankly accept this principle, sooner or later she will fall before it. £ FERDINAND LASSALLE. It was only towards 1862 that Lassalle became the champion of Socialism It was the epoch of the struggle between the Prussian Liberals and Prince Bismarck on the subject of the reorganization of the army and the military estimates, which the Chainber obstinately rejected for several years in succession, i he Liberals endeavoured to gain the support of the working classes. Herr Schulze-Delitzsch had acquired an immense influence over them by organizing throughout North Germany mutual loan societies, co-operative societies for consumable stores, and for the purchase of raw materials. He wished to found them entirely upon the principle of “ self-help,” utterly rejecting all aid from the State. Lassalle threw himself into the movement in order to propound and defend those Socialist ideas which we shall examine, and to the propagation of which he gave himself up with an absorbing energy. During the three years of his active apostleship he devoted his days and nights to organizing meetings, delivering addresses, and writing parnphlets. In this short period he succeeded in making of Socialism, hitherto vaguely diffused among the masses, a compact ­ political party, having its recognized place in the electoral arena. He alone accomplished in Germany what the Revolution of February had done in France, In the “ Working Man’s Programme” {Arbeitcr-programm * ) he endeavoured to show that, just as the middle classes had succeeded to the territorial aristocracy, so the “ fourth estate ” the working class, by means of universal suffrage, were destined eventually to become the ruling power in the community Prosecuted for having excited hatred between the different classes of society, he defended himself with great skill in a pamphlet entitled “ Science and Working Men ” (die Wissen Schaft und die Arbeiter). “ In 1848,” said he, “the working men were at the mercy of ignorant agitators. We should bring science within their reach and instruct them, so that they may learn where their real interests lie, and know how to act in consequence.” In showing that, by the laws of historic evolution, democracy must ultimately triumph, he had only maintained— ço THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. SO he averred—a thesis which was perhaps amenable to criticism but not to the penal code. A general assembly of German working men was to take place at Leipsic in 1863. He took the opportunity to expound his views in an “open letter, addressed to the central committee, which was answered in a remarkable manner by Rodbertus-Jagetzow. Soon afterwards he expanded them in an address delivered at one of the sittings of the congress. . . Far from retracting, he emphasized his views still further in two writings which he published relative to the prosecutions directed against him.* His last publication, directed against Herr Schulze-Delitsch,t is the most remarkable he ever wrote. In it he developes his theories more at length than elsewhere, and, at the same time, wields with amazing energy the bitter weapon of irony. Sophistries are not lacking, but they are concealed by the originality of his historical and econotnical views. Proudhon himself never wrote anything more cutbng ; and Lassalle had a far greater knowledge of history and political economy. He was not altogether wrong when he boastingly said “ For every line that I write I am armed with all the science of our times.” Nevertheless, this publication is merely a pamphlet and not a scientific book. His great works on “ Heraclitus ” and on “ Acquired Rights,” however, lead one to believe that he was capable of producing something o durable value, but he had not the time. Lassalle was killed in a duel in the month of August, 1864. Bernhard Becker, formerly one of his disciples, has pubhshe all that is accurately known about this event, and he just y remarks that if Lassalle had lived more in conformity with his democratic doctrines, he would not have ended so like an adventurer. Nearly every year he used to go during the summer to rest and recruit, sometimes to the seaside, sometimes ­ to Switzerland, and usually accompanied by his faithful friend the Countess of Hatzfeld. In 1863, after having founded the “ General Association of German Working Men, he pro- FERDINAND LASSA LIE. ,|sr 'i'SSrr” address at a popular meeting in Frankfort. Having been con June at Ems with the countess. In July she left for Wildbad while he went to the Rigi-Kaltbad, a favourite spot of his’ There one day he was visited by an English lady, who was accompanied by a young girl he had met in Berlin, Helena von Dœnniges. women, and was far from indifferent to them. Fräulein von œnniges was of ruddy hue and very romantic, which was to IS taste. After a second interview at Wabern, near Berne at the house of the English lady with whom Helena was living they vowed to marry each other in spite of all obstacles i-raulein von Dœnniges foresaw some very serious objections »*«■ eg the socialism OF TO-DAY. On the 3rd of August, Helena returned to her father’s house at Geneva. Lassalle intended to go and see him, but the Bavarian diplomatist absolutely refused to receive him, and when his wife informed him that there was a marriage in view, his anger knew no bounds. He cursed his daugh^r, and swore that he would never consent to such a union. Helena, in despair, escaped from her father’s house and threw herself upon the protection of Lassalle, telling him to take her where he would ; but he, not caring to enter the Dœnniges family, as it were, by the back door, brought her back to her mother. With her ardour somewhat cooled by this deed of discretion, and overcome by the entreaties of her whole family, the young girl allowed herself to be taken away from Geneva, “ despairing, but resigned.” , , •, At this unexpected event Lassalle became utterly beside himself. He was wounded in his vanity, always excessively strong. That he, the idol of women of rank, should be forgotten ­ by a girl of twenty, who but yesterday swore eternal feith to him, and who had given herself up to him utterly! Impossible ! It was her cruel father who had carried her off and shut her up in spite of herself. The question was how to free her by any and every means. He called to his aid the Countess of Hatzfeld and his friend Colonel Rüstow, and they did everything they could to move Herr von Dcenniges. Lassalle hastened to Munich in order to get the minister for foreign affairs to act on his behalf, and he promised to do so. The countess herself went to Ketteler, the Archbishop of Mayence, to beg him to interfere. The account of the interview ­ is amusing. The archbishop highly praised the Socialist agitator ; he took the deepest interest both in his scientific labours and in his propagandist efforts, although he doubted the possibility of applying his theories to practice. But how could he, archbishop as he was, encourage the marriage of a Catholic with a Jew ? If even Lassalle would be converted, there might perhaps be some hope of success. After all, it was too late. Overcome, as she says in her memoirs, by the entreaties of her family, and in obedience to a veritable moral compulsion, Helena suddenly decided to marry. FERDINAND LASSALLE. 53 almost immediately, a young Wallachian Boyar, Baron Janko von Racowitza, and she herself announced the fact to Lassalle. The rage and despair of this haughty man were thus excited to the utmost. Nothing can better depict the agitation of a fierce and passionate nature than the letters which he wrote, during this critical month of August, to his friends and to the ¿rl who was deserting him. Feverish telegrams despatched at every instant, extraordinary proceedings, frenzied appeals, fits of passion, journeys post-haste in all directions—it is a veritable picture of modern life, nervous and overheated to excess. ^ssalle returned to Geneva towards the end of the month bearing a letter from the Bavarian Minister of Foreign Affairs,' which he hoped might induce Herr von Doenniges to grant im an interview with Helena. He was certain she would never resist the power of his voice and personal influence • but she absolutely refused to see him. Enraged beyond all bounds, he demanded satisfaction in insulting terms from Herr von Doenniges. Racowitza presented himself to answer the challenge. ­ His two seconds. Dr. Arndt and Count Kaiserlink, who was to marry Helena’s sister, demanded the return of all her letters. Colonel Riistow and the Hungarian, General Bethlen, who acted for Lassalle, absolutely refused. The duel was then desired by both adversaries. It took place on the 28th August, 1864, in the neighbourhood of Carouge. Lassalle fell at the first shot, mortally wounded. Three days later he died at the Hotel Victoria in Geneva.* The Countess Hatzfeld brought his remains back to Germany ^ way of the Rhine. It was like a triumphal march. At Mayence a most imposing ceremony was arranged, principally by the care of the Catholic clergy. In order to put an end to these manifestations, which were moving the Socialist body in same subject, Im Amchlnss an die Memoiren tnand Lassalle, trad, dal russo de Z. E. Florence, 1878. THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAV. 54 all Germany, the police seized the coffin at Cologne in the name of the family, and sent it to Breslau, where the body was interred in the Jewish cemetery. In the principal towns the working men’s associations wished to honour his memory by funeral ceremonies, at which he was represented as the martyr and saint of Socialism. The impression ­ was so profound that numbers of the people believed, and still believe, that he did not die, and that he will come again in his glory, to preside over the great revolution and reorganization of society. A Lassallian party arose, which has continued in spite of all efforts to extinguish it, and which has never been completely amalgamated with the International Socialism of Karl Marx. We shall try to exhibit the ideas of Lassalle as a whole, without attempting to analyze his numberless publications, all of which relate to special circumstances. Can the working man, under the present social system, by his own efforts better his condition, as asserted by Schulze-Delitzsch? No, replied Lassalle, the “iron law” of wages stands in the way. What is this “ iron law,” das eherne Udingesetz, which is the foundation of all his deductions ? It is the law by virtue of which, in existing society, and under the action of supply imd demand, the average wages of the working man are reduced to the minimum necessary for existence and reproduction. That is the level towards which wages, however they may fluctuate, inevitably tend, without being able to remain, for any length of time, either above or below it. Wages cannot long remain above this line, for then, in consequence of the greater comfort and ease of the working classes, the number of marriages and births among them would increase, with the natural result that the number of hands seeking employment would likewise increase ; and by their offering themselves for work in competition ­ with each other, the rate of wages would be brought back to the same fatal point. Neither can they fall much below this level, for then want and famine would bring in their train increased mortality, emigration, diminution of marriages and births, and, in consequence, a reduction of the number FERDINAND LASSALLE. 55 seeking work. The supply of labourers being diminished, their wages would be raised by competition among employers, and in this way would soon be brought up again to the normal rate. Periods of prosperity and of commercial crisis, which constantly occur in trade, produce these oscillations ; but the “ iron law ” always brings the labourer’s recompense down to the minimum upon which it is possible for him to live. This minimum may, indeed, be modified in consequence of the progress of industry. The standard of life of a working man, and the wants which he deems absolutely necessary, have certainly changed. Thus, in the Middle Ages, he wore no underclothes and went barefoot, while to-day a shirt and a pair of shoes are deemed indispensable. He uses more manufactured ­ articles, but eats less animal food. It is a question, then, of the minimum of any given epoch, which will be that below which the labourer would cease to marry and have children, or be able to rear them. “ The iron law ” of wages is simply a particular application of the general law which governs the prices of goods, and which is one of the commonplaces of Political Economy. In this connection a distinction must be made as to three classes of objects. In the first place, there are certain articles which cannot be reproduced at will, such as antique statues, the pictures ­ of the old masters, and natural curiosities. The price of these articles is determined, not by the cost of production because they cannot be reproduced, but by what amateurs choose to give for them. Other articles, again, may be multiplied ­ within certain limits, but with increasing difficulty. In this case it is the cost of production of those obtained under the most difficult conditions which determines the general price. Such, for example, are agricultural products. Finally, there is a third kind of article which may be multiplied almost at will, such as manufactured articles. The price of these will be governed by the cost of producing them under the most favourable ­ circumstances, that is, with the least outlay. Labour, viewed as an article of merchandise, belongs clearly to this t ird category, for the number of hands increases generally in proportion to the demand. The price of labour, that is to say, THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 56 wages, will be determined by the minimum which it costs to maintain the labourer, a minimum which, in this case, answers to the least cost of production of this particular merchandise, the productive force of the labourer. If such, concludes Lassalle, be the general law, those institutions extolled by Herr Schulze-Delitzsch can succeed no better than the old methods of Charity and Patronage, in permanently ­ ameliorating the condition of the labouring classes. The reason is this : so long as it is merely a question of a limited number of working men, these will clearly derive an advantage by obtaining the commodities they require, at a cheaper rate and of a better quality, from a co-operative society ; but if the majority of working men profited by these institutions, ­ the consequence would be that they would live in the same way as they now do, only with less expense ; the minimum cost of living, that is, the minimum cost of production of labour, would be lowered ; and since this minimum is the level towards which competition tends to reduce all wages, it follows that wages would be lowered in proportion as the cost of maintaining the labourer became less. It is thus that Lassalle endeavours to show the futility of the efforts of Herr Schulze-Delitzsch and other bourgeois philanthropists, who hope to better the condition of the labouring classes, without altering the actual organization of society. All those attempts, inspired by the goodness of their hearts, come to grief against the “ iron law.” This reasoning, based upon the generally accepted principles ­ of orthodox Political Economy, brought upon Lassalle the most virulent attacks from the national Liberal papers. He replied to them no less violently.* He had no difficulty in proving that the theory of wages described by him, however disheartening it might seem, was merely that of the masters of Political Economy, of Adam Smith, J. B. Say, Ricardo, J. S. Mill, Rau, Roscher, Zachariae, and of all their disciples. Even before them, Turgot had formulated the same idea in that wonderful language, clear as a crystal, of the eighteenth * Zur Arbeiterfrage, Rede zu Leipzig, am 16 April, 1863. Rede zu Frankfurt, am 17 und 19 Mai, 1863. FERDINAND LASSALLE. 57 century : “The simple working man,” he says, “ who has only his two hands, possesses nothing unless he is able to sell his labour to others. He may sell it cheap or dear, but the price, more or less high, does not depend on himself alone; it is the result of the bargain he makes with his employer. ' This latter pays as little as he possibly can, and since he can choose from among a vast number of labourers, he prefers the one who will work at the lowest rate. The labourers are thus obliged to lower their prices in competition with one another. In every kind of labour it must therefore result—and such is actually the case—that the wages of the labourer are limited to the exact amount necessary to keep him alive.” These few lines contain the whole system of Marx and of Lassalle. Let us now examine how far the famous “iron law” is conformable with truth. But first, there is a preliminary remark to make. The majority of modem economists maintain ­ that the influences which govern wages are natural laws which are as immutable as those which rule physical phenomena, ­ and that it is therefore useless and even absurd to try to change them. I hat is, however, an entirely erroneous way to view the matter. True it is that, given the present social organization, with the existing manners and customs, results merely of our past history, the laws which govern wages are their “ natural ” consequence. But these facts and institutions, of which they are the consequence, are contingent facts, proceeding ­ from the free-will of man. The men who are their authors can alter them, as they have so often done in the course of ages, and then the “ natural ” results would be quite different. There is, therefore, in Political Economy, no necessary chain of facts over which we have no control, as is the case ‘n the physical world in the midst of which we live. We submit to the cosmical laws, we make the social laws. The former are unchangeable, and find their causes in the constitution ­ of the universe; while the latter alter from age to age, according as the march of history gives birth to new types of civilization. This being admitted, it remains to be seen if, in the present ocial state, the “ iron law ” is realized with that fatal strictness 58 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. described by Lassalle, following in the footsteps of Ricardo, Smith, and Turgot. In the first place, it is clearly true that the rate of wages cannot long remain below what is indispensable ­ to enable the labourers to live and rear children, otherwise their numbers would be rapidly diminished. It is not that we see them die of starvation, as in the famines of the Middle Ages, and even under Louis XIV. ; but, as Friederich Lange says, they die of the same causes as in ordinary times, only they disappear more rapidly.* Now it is a woman in childbirth who succumbs to the cold, and now an infant who perishes because the milk it takes is not sufficiently nourishing. Diseases become rapidly fatal, since they fasten on constitutions ­ already enfeebled ; and thus the mortality increases without being noticed. This is precisely what occurred during the siege of Paris. Scarcely any one literally died of hunger, because charity increased in proportion to the suffering, and yet the number of deaths considerably increased, while that of the births diminished. Prolonged industrial crises, and displacements or transformations in any particular trade, act in the same manner, when they bring about a reduction of wages. From this side, then, “ the iron law ” is a stern reality. But, on the other hand, is it true that wages can never rise above the minimum indispensable for existence, and that, in consequence, all the efforts of philanthropists to- better the condition of the great masses are, as Lassalle asserts, a delusion or a sham ? Mill was so convinced of the truth of this principle, that he did not wish agricultural labourers to be given even a strip of land where they might grow a few vegetables by working in their spare hours. The only result, he maintains, would be that, after his day’s work was over, the labourer would dig in his own garden in the evening, by moonlight, and on holidays, and that by thus obtaining some increase of food he would be able to sell his labour all the cheaper. Hence increase of work and lower wages would be the effect of a * Friederich-Albert Lange, Die Arbeiterfrage (The Labour Question), third edition, Winterthur, 1875, p. 164. FERDINAND LASSALLE. 59 measure which, at first sight, would seem such a good thing for the rural day-labourers. If “ economic laws ” acted, as is affirmed, with the same inexorable rigour as cosmic laws, then the reasoning of Mill and Lassalle would be unassailable ; but man is a free agent, obeying various motives, and his conduct varies according to his beliefs and hopes, and according to the ruling ideas and the institutions in vogue around him. A greater amount of comfort among working men will bring about a decrease in wages only if they avail themselves of it to increase exceptionally ­ the number of their children. Now this result is so far from being necessary that the greater proportion of observed facts would seem to warrant the opposite conclusion. Want and misery carry off many children, but, indirectly, they also cause a large number of births. Easy circumstances, on the contrary, by inducing foresight, retard marriages, and render them less prolific. Is not the proof of it to be found in Ireland, where, forty years ago, the population swarmed in the midst of the most abject destitution, and in the very word prolétaire itself, which signifies at once miserable and procreator ­ of children ? It is not observed that those working men whose condition has been improved by the philanthropy of their masters have larger families than others. In Flanders, where, in consequence of the density of the population, wages in the country districts have fallen to an average of seven shillings a week, many labourers draw a supplement of food from a few perches of land which they rent at a price which is often excessive. Now, whatever Mill may say to the contrary, ­ those who obtain these strips of land are subject to less privations than those who have none, and it is not observed that they have any more children. When employers build houses for their operatives, and let them at a moderate rent, they cannot profit thereby to reduce wages, for the number of hands is not, in consequence, increased. Better still, let •arge hotels * be built, where labourers can find food and * As examples, we may cite the Familistère of Guise, established by M. Godin-Lcmaire, and the Hôtel Louise, organized by M. Jules d’Andri-*nont, director of the colliery of Hasard, near Liège. This latter institution. 6o THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. lodging with innocent amusement for a half or a third of wha they earn per day. It follows that they would enjoy greater ease and comfort than their comrades in the same category, that they would acquire better habits, would lay up a small capital, and thus would not be in such haste to throw themselves into the miseries of a too early marriage. In drawing nearer to the middle classes, they would acquire their instincts of order and prudence. As those Economists have seen who have best analyzed this difficult problem. Mill in England and Joseph Gamier in France, it all comes back to the question whether it is want or plenty which urges on the increase of population. If greater comfort leads necessarily to a corresponding increase in the number of labourers, then there is no salvation. The “ iron law ” will act in all its rigour. The minimum of subsistence ­ will be the eternal destiny of the greater number. For, as Mill puts it, you may adopt institutions, the most favourable to the labourer; you may devise whatever division you please of wealth and products, the time will come when the earth will be no longer able to support all those upon it. If, on the contrary, the acquisition of property, and the greater degree of comfort resulting therefrom, retard marriages and diminish the number of births, then it may be affirmed that the measures taken in favour of the labouring classes will end in the permanent improvement of their condition, and will the good results of which I can closely observe, obtained the medal of honour at the Universal Exhibition of Vienna in 1873. For i fr. 50 c. a day, the labourer can have two breakfasts, a dinner, and a supper ; he gets his lodging, heating, and lighting, and has his washing done for him. In the hotel he has a café, a reading-room, and a casino where there is music, and where the evenings may be spent. He can take whatever meal he likes at a separate table, there being no common board. The labourer thus preserves a complete independence, and is in no wise treated as if in barracks. The collier gets from four to five francs for a day of eight hours, even more if trade is brisk. Thus he has two-thirds of his wages at his disposal for his accessory needs. He is consequently not reduced to the minimum necessary for existence. See Philanthropie sociale à I Exposition ­ de Vienne, hy Léon d’Andrimont. [As to “the Familistère at Guise,” see a lecture by M. Godin, translated into English by Mr. E. V. Neale, and issued as a pamphlet by the Central Co-operative Board, M anchester.—Tr.] FERDINAND LASSALLE. 6l thus lead to the solution of the problem. Observed facts in France would lead to this conclusion. In fact, France, along with Switzerland and Norway, is the country in which property is distributed amongst the greatest number of holders, and well-being is most equally divided, and It is also the country in which population increases most slowly. During the last twenty years, notwithstanding the most terrible convulsions, wealth has increased there more than anywhere else, while the population has remained almost stationary. In Germany there is much less comfort among the people; the labourer, especially in the rural parts, is far worse paid. Notwithstanding ­ the great progress of industry and of agriculture, which have had to struggle against a naturally sterile soil, the country is still poor ; and yet the population is doubled every fifty-four years. It increases at the same rate in England, where the number of landowners is small and that of the labourers very large. When Arthur Young travelled in France, and saw the soil divided amongst a vast number of holders, he predicted the country would be transformed into a rabbit-warren. The very reverse has occurred. The population increases so slowly that now and again there come cries of alarm. M. Léonce de Lavergne was himself startled at it. Nevertheless, he who had so well analyzed the writings of the eighteenth century economists, ­ should not have forgotten Quesnay’s profound maxim, which sums up the whole question in two words : “ Be less anxious for the increase of population than for the increase of incomes.” That Napoleon should reply to Madame de Staël, when she asked what woman he most admired, “ The one who has most children,” is perfectly comprehensible ; for what a conqueror needs is plenty of food for powder; but what an Economist should have in view is the happiness of men, and not their number. Far better there should be a few families, thinly peopling a district, and living in abundance, than compact ­ masses swarming in squalor. France fulfils in a wonderful way the hopes of Malthus, of Mill, and of Joseph Gamier, and she offers the most striking refutation of the “iron law” of Lassalle. 62 THE SOC/AL/SM OF TO-DAY. Let US follow still further the exposition of the ideas of the German agitator.* Nowadays, he says, in order to produce with success, large capital is needful. The small manufacturer, the petty shopkeeper, the artisan, vegetate only, crushed by the competition of the great manufacturers. The labourer, unable to be an independent producer, is obliged to sell his labour for the means of subsistence ; and in consideration of wages, the employer obtains the entire product of the labour. This product is constantly increasing, according as processes are perfected, and as science is applied to the working of natural resources ; but the labourer, the source of all wealth, does not profit from it. It all goes to the capitalist, who reaps the entire benefit of industrial progress. The labourer is, then, deprived of almost all the fruits of his labour, and necessarily so, for he does not possess the capital which would enable him, by working on his own account, to keep the product of his labour for himself. Economists point out that the relations established between capitalist and labourer must be perfectly equitable, since they are established by a free contract concluded between the parties. Not so, replies Lassalle ; the contract is free only in appearance ­ : the labourer, not being himself able to employ his hands, must hire them out for any price that may be given him, being constrained by hunger. He is no more free than the drowning man who gives all he possesses to one who merely reaches him a pole to pull him out of the water. But, replies the Economist, capital itself is merely accumulated ­ labour : even if it is true that it obtains an ever-increasing portion, this is only the fair remuneration of intelligent labour, united to forethought, abstinence, and thrift True, answers Lassalle, capital arises from the accumulation of the products of previous labour, but it was the labour of those who have not obtained the capital, namely, the workers, and not the labour of the capitalists who have obtained it. The existing * See besides the numerous writings of Lassalle, Die bedrohliche Entwickelung ­ des Socialismus (The Dangerous Development of Socialism), by Rudolf Meyer, a lucid and substantial production; Dermoderne Socialismus (Modern Socialism), by Dr. Eugen Jaeger ; Die lehren des heutigen Socialismus ­ (The Lessons of Modern Socialism), by H. Von Sybel. FERDINAND LASSALLE. 63 social order is the direct result of the ancient régime which, by keeping all property in the hands of the privileged classes, forced all others, directly or indirectly, to give up to the rich and the strong the best part of their gains. Liberty was proclaimed ­ only after they had monopolized everything. The working man, while politically free, is, economically considered, as dependent as the serf of the Middle Ages. Like him, he is obliged to deliver up the ever-increasing product of his labour in exchange for the strict necessaries of life, and it is thus that his employers have been enabled to accumulate their capital. Their wealth being the fruit of the labour of others, “ property " should to-day be called “ altruity.” Eigenthum ist Fremdenthum. But at least, replies the Economist, you would not deny that the head of a business has a right to some reward for his skill, his care, and his management, and at the same time should have a premium to cover his possible losses. The profit of the manufacturer is, in reality, merely a higher salary than that of the others, and it is such because it is the reward of the most essential service, because the success of the concern depends upon it, and because it is only contingent That is true, says Lassalle, management should have its wages; but in great companies is it the directors who enjoy the greatest benefits? No, it is the shareholders, who do nothing. In private enterprises, the remuneration of the owner is quite out of proportion to the service rendered. As regards the risk that is to be covered by a premium, it exists for Tom, Dick and Harry, but not for the entire class of heads of firms, considered ­ as a whole. What Tom loses Dick gains ; and statistics prove that the total of profits is increasing and is enormous. The class of capitalists, therefore, receive a premium for a risk that does not really exist. And besides, the fact that there is a risk proves a defect in the industrial organization. What should be done, then, is not to pay a premium, but to obviate the necessity of paying one. This would result from a better organization, and what this is Lassalle proceeds to show. Nowadays the labourer is completely at the mercy of capital. It is the world upside down. Properly, asserts Lassalle, 64 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. capital should be at the service of labour. Man created capital to help him in his work ; it is not necessary that he should work for the benefit of capital. It is well for him to make capital, but not to have “ capital made out of him.” Instead of wages, always reduced to the minimum by the “ iron law,” the labourer should get the entire produce of his labour. Capital and labour should cease to make war upon each other; they should live in peace and act in unison. The solution ­ is plain : let them be united in the same person. In order to obtain this result, which would effect the transformation of existing society, there is no need to seek what is new, nor to rush into Utopias. It would suffice to favour the development of institutions already working under our eyes in different countries. These are co-operative societies of production. The labourers are there the owners of the capital ; they direct the enterprise and receive all the profits. Thus, capital is the servant of labour, and the workman receives as remuneration the entire product of his work. Societies of this kind, which have been founded in Paris and England, and of which those established by the “ Equitable Pioneers of Rochdale ” are the best known, prove, beyond doubt, the possibility of success for these combinations. But the only way of insuring their progress, and of thus changing the face of society, is to largely increase their number ; and for that purpose the intervention of the State is necessary. When Schulze-Delitzsch rejects such intervention, says Lassalle, he has “ a mere night-watchman's ” idea of the State. * According to Lassalle, the rô/e of the State is not merely that of maintaining order, but also of furthering all the great enterprises of civilization. And this, he declares, is what the State has always done. Is it not to the intervention of the State that we owe our roads, harbours, canals, postal and telegraph ­ systems, and our schools ? When the construction of a railway is in question, does not the State frequently grant a * [Lassalle calls this a night-watchman’s idea, or a policeman’s idea, “ because it represents to itself the State from the point of view of a policeman, ­ whose whole function consists in preventing robbery and burglary.” Arbeiter-programiHy Peters’ translation, p. 53.—Tr.'\ F FERDINAND LASSALLE. 65 subsidy, or guarantee a minimum interest to the company ? It would require a smaller advance for co-operative societies than for railways. Lassalle estimated that one hundred millions of thalers would suffice for Prussia, and added that it would cost the tax-payers nothing. According to him, there should be one pand central bank established, having a monopoly of the issue of notes, so that it could easily circulate three hundred million thalers upon a reserve of one-third. Thus it would hav^ for the purpose of loans to co-operative societies, two hundred millón thalers, which would have cost it nothing. I hese societies should first be established in the districts best adapted to them by reason of the nature of the trade carried on in them, the density of the population, and the disposition of the labourers. Gradually other societies would be founded m all branches of labour, and even in the rural districts. Agriculture, when conducted on a large scale, yields a larger net produce ; but it has this drawback, it is incompatible with small properties. Agricultural co-operation would reunite he advantages of the petite and of Úiq grande culture, and thus transform the entire agrarian system to the advantage of the whole community. With one hundred millions of thalers, the necessary industrial capital could be supplied to four hundred thousand working men, and with the annual interest, at five per cent., namely, five millions, the benefits of the association might be annually extended to twenty thousand new working ­ men and their families. These societies would establish among themselves relations of joint responsibility and credit, Which would insure to them great solidity. Thus, after the apse of a short time, instead of offering a spectacle of capimiists and labourers hostile to each other, the nation would be tirely composed of working-men capitalists, grouped together to n? ‘"u would by no means have play the part of director or contractor of industry: far less, eed, than it does at present in the case of the railways ch It works. All It would have to do would be to examine conf statutes of the societies, and to exercise a week ° Kthe funds advanced. Each e workmen would receive the wages usual in the 66 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. locality, and, at the end of the year, the profits would be distributed as a dividend. Risk and the chances of loss would disappear, because manufacture, instead of producing haphazard, would proceed on a combined principle in response to known wants. What a contrast there is to-day between the admirable order which reigns in every factory, and the anarchy which desolates the industrial world ! In each factory, the master sees that nothing useless is made ; in order to make fifty four-wheeled waggons only two hundred tires are prepared. But if it is a question of supplying the general demand, which is unknown, each manufacturer produces according to guess, and then tries to sell his whole stock in competition with others. There follow, of course, monetary and commercial crises from overproduction, ­ and thus equilibrium is restored. This is secured, however, only at the cost of immense losses to the masters, and of stoppages of work, yet more disastrous to the operatives. These crises, this suffering, would be avoided if, the demand being known, by means of statistics, the various associations would come to a mutual understanding in order to meet it. The activity of the various branches of production would be regulated with as much precision as are the different kinds of work in one of our present factories. Already there are great metal foundries in which a whole series of technical operations is performed, linked together into one organic whole, which extracts the ore and the coal from the ground, and turns out completely finished locomotives, ships, and machines of all kinds. Krupp’s works in Germany, those of Le Creusot in France, and of Seraing in Belgium are examples of these admirable combinations, I his is the system which should be extended to the whole community. Then the productive capital and all the instruments of production would belong permanently to the different societies grouped in trade corporations. Newly invented methods of production would become the property of the societies, private individuals, as such, not having the working of them. On the other hand, all articles of consumption, or their price, would be divided among those who had contributed to produce them, exactly as FERDINAND LASSALLE. 67 takes place to-day, only upon a more equitable basis The general welfare would be much greater, not only because distribution would be more equitable, but also because production ­ would be on a much larger scale. One of Lassalle’s disciples, Baron Schweiter, gives the leading principles of the scheme in a small pamphlet published after the death of the master, under the title of “The dead Schulze against the iving Lassalle. ’ * Losses at present arising from works undertaken ­ at haphazard, and consequently often useless, would be avoided; efforts which now merely result in ruining competitors would then be directed towards ends profitable to all • the labour of workmen would be more productive, because, since the whole product would belong to them, they would try, in emulation with one another, to render it as large as possible; and finally, the idle, not being able to live without work would enter the ranks of the great army of producers, which henceforward would comprise all citizens. Lassalle succeeded in winning over to his ideas two of the ost eminent men, in their different ways, of contemporary ermany—Ketteler, bishop of Mayence, and Prince Bismarck, in the sitting of the of September, 1878, the Imperial Chancellor spoke of his connection with Lassalle ; he said that «e had never met a more agreeable talker, and that he should ^ve been delighted to have him for a neighbour in the country. We appears still to share the faith of the celebrated agitator in eo-operative societies endowed by the State. At this same sitting, he said, “ I did, in fact, consult with cassalle upon the subject of the aid to be given by government o co-operative societies ; and even to-day I cannot think that it ould be a useless thing. I do not know if it was the effect of ssalle’s reasoning or the result of my own experience in t gland, during my sojourn there in 1862, but I have always o ught that by organizing co-operative societies, such as in fh country, a real improvement might be effected . condition of the labourers. I conferred with His the ^ interest in the working classes, and i^mg gave a sum of money large enough to make an experi-* Schulzegegen den lebenden Lassalle. 68 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. ment. I am amazed that I should be reproached with having interested myself in the solution of the social question. The real reproach to which I am exposed is that I have not persevered ­ and conducted this work to a successful issue. But it did not belong to my ministerial department, and time failed me. War and foreign politics demanded my attention. These attempts at co-operative societies failed for want of sound practical organization. As far as production was concerne all went well; but on the commercial side it was otherwise, and the difficulties were so many that they have hitherto proved insurmountable. Possibly the cause may have been in the workmen’s want of confidence in their managers and superiors. In England this confidence does really exist, and co-operative societies flourish. At all events, I cannot understand why I should be reproached for making some experiments which His Majesty has paid for out of his private purse.” It will be seen that Lassalle’s plans of social reform did not imply any violent revolution. It was, in fact, the idea developed ­ as early as 1841, by Louis Blanc, in his work. The Organization of Labour,” but with this difference, that instead of attacking the principles^of Political Economy, the German reformer invoked them in aid of his demand for the transformation ­ of the existing order of things. If Lassalle’s object is considered, namely, the multiplication of co-operative societies of production, it may be affirmed that no one would object to it. The solution would be perfect, since capital and labour being united in the same hands, all hostility between these two factors of production would disappear.* But is the gASBEES### University of Edinburgh, very clearly explained the advantages of operation: Capital and labour are indispensable ; but if represented by two classes, capitalists and labourers, they will be in constant strife. If there be but one class, possessing both factors of production, antagonism is no longer possible. Mr. Hodgson hoped to see co-operation take the place of trade-unionism. Trade unions are machines of war, co-operation is a.n advance towards peace in the centre of the factory. Mr. Holyoake affirmed fhit the sympathy of “unionists” for co-operation was becoming more “säS “if S'hli rÆ FERDINAND LASSALLE. 69 instrument of the social renovation, dreamed of by Lassalle and Louis Blanc, viz. the co-operative society of production, really practicable, and can it be hoped that, even if generously and, if needful, gratuitously aided by the State, it could compete ­ successfully with private enterprises so as to supplant them ? This is the essential point on which everything depends. In a small article, entitled “ The Delusions of Co-operative Societies” (1866), M. Cemuschi, who, in order to study this question better, had worked three butchers’ shops, points out, with that clearness which characterizes all his writings, the grave difficulties in the way of the application of the system. These are, firstly, the great complexity of the accounts ; and secondly, the difficulty of looking after the managers and ensuring their honesty and activity. M. Cemuschi quotes the following extract from an English pamphlet, “ Checks on Cooperative ­ Storekeepers:”—“ Among the difficulties encountered by the co-operative movement, none has had more disastrous consequences than that of finding an efficacious means of superintending the accounts of the co-operative stores.” The selection of managers, however, is really the great difficulty. The head of a private business is directly interested in the good administration of his affairs, but the manager is only indirectly ­ interested. The former, in that he receives the profits, will be far more active than the latter, who has a fixed salary. There is one essential truth which reformers should never forget, namely, that the incentive to production has always been, and will always be, personal interest and responsibility. Self-devotion has its own place, and a very large one, in life ; charity, duty, and patriotism have their heroes and their n^artyrs; but, in the factory and in the sphere of material interests, these virtues would soon get wearied at seeing idleness ­ and selfishness taking advantage of them. The monk, it IS true, works for and enriches his monastery; and communism, —See the admirable work of George Howell, “ Conflict of Capital and pn» ,1"^' 1878. [See also a little book, full of information on the subject, nuued Working Men Co-operators," by Arthur H. Dyke Acland and Lond!^'" members of the Central Co-operative Board), THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 70 called impracticable, is practised under our very eyes and with such success in Catholic countries that, if the civil government did not take precautions, the religious bodies would speedily absorb everything. But here, again, self-interest is brought into play, only the object it seeks after is situated in heaven. In joint-stock companies the same difficulty exists with regard to the choice of managers as that encountered by co-operative societies. The incentive of private interest is weakened, but the directors are well paid. They usually have a share of the profits, and they may be changed if they manage the business badly ; hence they are interested in doing well. Furthermore, as the most capable men are chosen, they are almost always superior to manufacturers who work on their own account, and thus their greater capacity compensates for the more feeble action of personal interest. The majority of co-operative societies have succumbed, on the contrary, through the shortcomings of their managers. The reason is evident. Co-operation as compared to individual enterprise is republican ­ government succeeding to despotic rule. History, and even contemporary facts, prove that many qualities are needful in a people before republican institutions can succeed among them. In order to conduct a commercial or industrial enterprise ­ properly, certain special aptitudes are indispensable ; and if working men were to choose one of their number, these aptitudes would frequently be found wanting in him. His authority would be disputed, and his equals would not obey him properly. Enthusiasm for the work undertaken would keep the co-operators to their duty for some time ; but sooner or later they would tire, devotion to their principles would cool down, incompatibilities of temper would manifest themselves, and dissensions or the incapacity of managers would finally lead to the dissolution of the society. In order to have a capable director, it would be necessary to pay him well ; he would straightway become a bourgeois, living like a bourgeois, a fact which would at once excite the jealousy of his comrades. His salary would be about equal to the profits of the single owner, and thus no saving would be effected. This draw- FERDINAND LASSALLE. 71 back does not exist in large enterprises operating in hundreds of thousands, because the salaries of the directors form only a small fraction of the total transactions ; but co-operative societies, founded on the savings of working men, would almost always be very small undertakings. These objections, inherent to the co-operative system, were clearly pointed out even by its partisans at the debates of the working men’s congress, which met in Paris in October, 1876 ; at the same time a remarkable progress in the economic education of the French labouring classes was put beyond a doubt. Thus the congress at once admitted the payment of interest and even a dividend upon capital, thus abandoning the chimera, so long cherished, of gratuitous credit. Citizen Nicaise, reporter to the sixth commission, uttered some very sensible words on this head : “ Cabet’s maxim, from each according to his strength., to each according to his needs, does not suit us because it is unjust If I must work, I who am sober and industrious, for him whose laziness is as great as his appetite is enormous, I should be tempted, unless I were a saint, to conceal my power of working in order to satisfy that desire of better living which is inherent in human nature. Saint-Simon, in the midst of errors which do not here concern Us, enunciated a far superior principle : To each individual according to his capacity, 'to each capacity according to its works. We accept this rule.” The principle upon which Louis Blanc wished to found the co-operative factory is here distinctly repudiated, while the efficacy of individual interest as an incentive ­ to action is placed in a clear light. That is the necessary foundation of all economic work, of all administration, ­ and of all political organization. Everywhere human affairs will be well or ill carried on, in proportion as the responsibility of each is well or ill defined. “ We believe that we shall be more in unison with the general opinion of working men,” continued Citizen Nicaise, “in founding our associations upon the principle of paying interest and even dividends upon capital. If the savings of the working men do not find an advantageous investment in the associations, they will continue to take a direction more to their interest, and the 72 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. associations must recommence their race for capital, or must accept the money of capitalists.” Citizen Nicaise, and another working man, Citizen Masquin, who belonged to the “ Co-operative Society of Printers,” showed that the principal cause of the frequent mishaps encountered by these associations was the bad choice of managers. “ The prime cause of their ill success,” said the former, “is the inexperience of the associates and their inaptitude ­ for business. Their great anxiety has always been to produce, without even knowing how the products were to be sold off. Hence the endless mistakes in the choice of managers. Generally the best workmen were chosen, which deprived the factory of useful hands, and confided to them a business for which they had none of the required qualities. “ The society is formed and the factory opened,” said Citizen Masquin, “ then the difficulties begin. A capable man is wanted as manager, but the capable men have already got situations, and it is in vain you offer them the same salaries ; they hesitate because they dread the responsibility, and are afraid that the business may not succeed. In many societies the first comer has been chosen, and they have smashed.” In this same congress the working men recognized and proclaimed a fact of experience, which is the death-blow to Lassalle’s great plan for social renovation, namely, that loans from the State are the ruin of working men’s associations. If it really only needed the few millions of pounds demanded by the German Socialist to transform all the working men into capitalists enjoying the integral product of their labour, where is the parliament that would not vote them gladly? Forty millions of pounds, nay, twice that sum, even without interest, would be little to accomplish this happy and peaceful revolution, ­ which would avoid the risk of bloody and far more costly revolutions in the future ; but it is an established fact—money advanced by the State brings misfortune. In this same working men’s congress of 1876, the citizen Finance, a positivist and opponent of even the principle of cooperation, ­ showed, statistics in hand, that, of all the associations ­ which were subsidized by the State in 1848, only one FERDINAND LASSALLE. 73 still existed* The partisans of co-operation also recognized that, in order to succeed, their system must develop itself without ­ State aid “ The subsidies of the State,” said Citizen Nicaise, “ were disastrous to the associations which accepted them. Their failure has demonstrated that the system of subsidies ­ is bad, and that only the energy and perseverance of the associates, depending upon themselves alone, can solve the problem. Money one has not earned slips easily through the fingers ; one takes it less into account than that which, saved out of necessary expenses, represents privations endured in order to make up the contribution to the society.” Carelessness ­ in the preservation of borrowed money is not the only cause of the shipwreck of all subsidized societies ; there is another and a still more serious one. In order to manage capital well and make the best use of it, there is wanted, in the first place, the same qualities of order and economy as for its creation, and others in addition more rare and more difficult to practise. He who has been unable to amass capital out of his savings will be still less able to keep it and turn it to account. It is precisely by exerting themselves to collect the capital that the associates will acquire the commercial experience indispensable to their success. It is not by lending money to those whom it wants to help that the State can instil into them the ability to use it advantageously, ­ in the midst of the numberless difficulties of the industrial struggle. Thus, then, facts interpreted by their * These facts, especially as they were stated by working men, are so instructive, that it is worth while reproducing them in detail. In 1848 the Constituent Assembly voted, in July, that is after the revolution of June, a ^Dsidy of three millions of francs in order to encourage the formation of working men’s associations. Six hundred applications, half coming from aris alone, were made to the commission entrusted with the distribution '^^'ch only fifty-six were accepted. In Paris, thirty associain n ‘'^®"‘y-seven of which were composed of working men, comprising of fh f.H ^ociates, received 890,500 francs. Within six months: three re«i^ associations failed ; and of the 434 associates, seventy-four In I I ’ fifteen were excluded, and there were eleven changes of managers. twJ“^’ u ^^hteen associations had ceased to exist. One year later, be^n vanished. In 1865 four were still extant, and had that successful. In 1875 there was but a single one left, sen, 9 file-cutters, which, as Citizen Finance remarked, was unrepre-»cnied at the congress. 74 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. causes have demonstrated that Lassalle was wrong in demanding ­ State aid for the multiplication of working men’s associations. It would have been to condemn them to inevitable ruin. Every reform which aims at suddenly transforming the social order will fail, because the very elements of the transformation are lacking. Must we, then, despair of the future success of co-operative societies ? I do not think so. According as working men understand better what is necessary to their success, we shall see more and more of them arise and prosper.* The working man, on becoming an associate-capitalist, and receiving a proportional ­ part of the profits, will work better than a mere wageearner. The produce will therefore be greater—a most vital consideration. But there remain three difficulties to overcome. In the first place, good managers must be found, and to enable this to be done they must be well paid. Secondly, co-operation ­ associates not only sums of capital, but also men ; it is, therefore, essential that a spirit of mutual support and good understanding should reign among them. Finally, since cooperation ­ is republicanism applied to industry, the virtue which enables republics to live must be there, namely, obedience to established law and authority. I here is, therefore, a whole economic education to be achieved, for which time is necessary. * In America, where the working men are paid higher wages, they are better prepared to take part in the direction of industrial enterprises, and frequent examples of successful co-operative societies of production are met with. Thé following are a few taken from ScnbneYj Monthly Magazine, ^d from M. Limousin’s paper. Bulletin du Mouvement Social : The Beaverfall Co-operative Foundry, in Pennsylvania, was founded in 1872 u|X)n a small capital of 4000 dollars (about ;(^8oo). It now has 16,000 dollars (¿32W) capital,and pays upon each share an annual dividend of 12 to 15 per cent. The society comprises twenty-seven members. The Somerset Co-operative loundry Company, in Massachusetts, was established in 1867, with thirty associates and a capital of 14,000 dollars (;^28oo). Now, its fifty-three members have a capital of 30,000 dollars (¿6000), with a reserve fund of 28,000 dollars, and the dividends occasionally rose to 44 P^r cent. The Equitable Cooperative ­ of Rochester, in New York State, b^an in 1869 with 20,000 dollars (/^Sooo), now it has 100,000 dollars (425,oc)o), ilerived from accumulated profits. Some co-operative societies of production have succeeded in England, Germany, Italy, and Belgium. See the annual renorts of Herr Schulze-Delitzsch ; “ History of Co-operation, by G. Holyoake ; and M. Leond 'Andrimont’s book. Le Mouvement Co-opératif en Belgique. FERDINAND LASSALLE. 75 The object to be attained is evidently that capital and labour should be united in the same hands, under the system of production on a large scale, as was formerly the case in the corporations, or as is the case to-day with the peasant proprietor. ­ This may be accomplished by means of the jointstock company, provided the capital be represented by shares of a very small value. Suppose, for example, a great mill worth thousands of pounds, but with shares of the value of four pounds only : the workmen, and the employés of every grade might acquire these shares out of their savings j they would thus become shareholders, and, as such, owners of the mill. Would not such a joint-stock company become thenceforth a true co-operative society ? It would have all the advantages of one, without presenting the same difficulties. It would be, above all, an association of capital. The men would be associated ­ merely voluntarily and temporarily, in the character of shareholders, and it is easier to hold capital together than men. The joint-stock company would thus serve as a stepping-stone to co-operation,* but this, however, need not prevent select workmen from at once trying the latter. The mere attempt will do them good. Even in the event of failure, they will have acquired experience, habits of order and economy, familiarity with business, and a practical knowledge of economic questions, no less desirable in their own interest than in that of social order. Lassalle did not believe that co-operative societies would of themselves bring about “ the solution of the social question.” “ I have never used that expression,” he says, “ because the transformation of society will be the work of centuries, and of a whole series of measures and reforms which will be evolved organically out of each other. I have approved of co-operation ­ merely as one means of improving the condition of the * It is stated in the report of an English society, “ The North of England ­ Industrial and Coal Comply, Limited," that several co-operative societies are large shareholders in the concern, which possesses blastfurnaces ­ and rotatory puddling ovens at Carlton, coal mines in Durham, and smelting works at Cleveland. Here is the stepping-stone between the joint-stock company and the co-operative society. 76 THE socialism'OF TO-DAY. labourer.” According to him, property, as at present existing, is only a passing “historical category.” Property as at present constituted, he asserts, consists in drawing an income, without working, from land or capital which the law attributes to you. Property according to natural right, on the contrary, should have no other foundation than labour. Far from wishing to abolish property, his only aim, he says, is to establish real individual ownership, proportional to useful services. He invokes, for the support of his system, the theory of Smith and Ricardo, which makes all wealth spring from labour alone. He says, with Bastiat, that what should be paid for in the product is not the forces of nature, but the labour of man. The services of natural agents are, or should be, gratuitous. Thus Bastiat, through ignoring certain truths established by his predecessors, actually furnished arms to Socialism, which he considered it his special mission to combat. According to Lassalle, when productive societies shall have embraced all citizens, they will become proprietors of both land and capital, and the working man, on taking his place in the factory, will obtain a life-interest in the instruments of his labour, or of such portion of the social wealth as shall correspond to his work. This work will be suited to his ability, and his remuneration will be equal to the product of his labour. This, as may be seen, is nothing else than the famous formula of Saint-Simon, invoked at the working men’s congress in Paris in 1876: “To each individual according to his capacity, to each capacity according to its works.” Lassalle respects no more than Saint-Simon the principle of hereditary succession as it exists to-day. It is, he says, no longer a living institution, having its roots in the moral and juridical sentiment of the time, but rather a dead tradition, which at every moment is being disturbed by the legislator or restricted in its application. The Romans created testamentary succession, ­ because they believed the will of the deceased passed into the person of the heir thus designated. The Germans, from whom we derived the law of succession ab tníestaío, looked upon the patrimony as belonging, not to the immediate successor, ­ but conjointly to the whole family, and thus the son, on FERDINAND LASSALLE. 77 the death of his father, only took into his hands the administration ­ of goods of which he was already co-proprietor. The ideas of the Romans and those of the Germans have become utterly foreign to us, and the principle of hereditary succession is no longer rooted in our beliefs. Herr H. von Sybel replied to Lassalle that it is with hereditary succession as with royalty. Nations no longer believe in divine right, and nevertheless they still keep their kings, because experience has shown that constitutional monarchy ­ guarantees in a convenient way public liberty and prosperity. ­ Hereditary succession is no longer the object of a superstitious worship, and accordingly statesmen can restrict the degrees of inheritance and impose duties upon succession ; but it is an excellent means of stimulating work and the formation of capital, and it is upon this ground that it is preserved. Lassalle thought with the Saint Simonians that the golden age lies before us. His pantheistic conception of history led him to believe that, in consequence of an inherent law, humanity is destined to reach, step by step, a state in which the working man will enjoy all those advantages possessed today ­ by the bourgeoisie., and in which, consequently, there would be but one class, obtaining, by the aid of science, ample satisfaction ­ of all its needs through moderate and wholesome labour. Every man could thus attain all the intellectual and moral development of which nature had made him capable. The social organization would no longer be a hindrance to any one, but would be for all a support and a means of advancement. As may easily be believed, the ideas of Lassalle do not present any very great originality. His views of social reconstruction ­ are borrowed from Saint-Simon and Louis Blanc, his criticism of Political Economy from Karl Marx. Nevertheless, the study of his writings is not devoid of utility, because in more than one point he has shown that the generally received economic theories are superficial, badly formulated, or even entirely erroneous. Thus, his discussion upon the mode in which capital is formed is very remarkable, and so is his picture of the origin and economic development of society. 78 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. As regards the means of attaining the realization of that social transformation of which he dreamed, Lassalle completely ­ separated himself from Marx. As Dr. Rudolf Meyer very justly observes, Marx considers all Europe, Lassalle sees Germany alone. The former is international and cosmopolitan, the latter national and German. Marx held that no social reform was possible in an isolated state ; it was only after a universal revolution had overturned every throne and every altar that equality could be established. Lassalle, on the contrary, ­ wished to introduce reforms peacefully into a single state, to serve as a model which others would be obliged to imitate. This State was to be United Germany. He even hoped, like the physiocrats of the eighteenth century, that some sovereign or some great minister would perceive that he had every interest in gaining the affection of his people, by bettering their condition. ­ It is the Utopia of Imperial Socialism, such as Louis Napoleon imagined in his prison of Ham, and such as, they say, Prince Bismarck dreams of to-day. Lassalle held, and not without ­ reason, that a bourgeois republic would be less ready than a monarc'hy to accept radical reforms, since such reforms would necessarily diminish the preponderance of the leisured classes, while they might increase the popularity and authority of the sovereign. Lassalle was a clear-sighted politician with a keen historical sense. As early as 1859 he foresaw and hastened by his wishes the struggle between Prussia and Austria, and, though he died in 1864, he predicted the war between France and Germany. He was by no means an obstinate doctrinaire, as republicans often are. He understood that the same institutions, even if republican, could not be equally suitable to all the peoples of the globe, different as they are in manners, social condition, and intellectual development. Fanatical as he was about cooperation, ­ he believed it would take at least two centuries— Rodbertus said five—to bring about the complete transformation ­ of society and the suppression of the system of working for wages. It was not, therefore, by means of any violent revolution that he believed his projects might be realized. In this respect he separated himself completely from his FERDINAND LASSALLE. 79 pet heroes, the men of the French revolution. Hegel had taught him the theory of organic evolution, and of those successive “ moments ” through which the historical “ process ” must pass. He had a lively sympathy for Prince Bismarck, who was, in fact, soon going to execute his political programme by founding German unity upon the humiliation of Austria, and by introducing direct universal suffrage for the elections to the central parliament Some time before his death, in 1864, he endeavoured to see him, and he even made his partisans vote in favour of the man who as yet only represented the principle of monarchical authority, founded upon a Spartan military system which embraced the entire nation. Up to the present his dream has not been realized. Prince Bismarck has approached Socialism, but he has not yet put down the principle of wages. Lassalle understood, better than those Socialists from whom he borrowed his plans of reform, that society cannot be transformed with the stroke of a magician’s ­ wand ; nevertheless, he expected too much from the initiative of the State. The essential truth, which must be repeated to the working classes, and which is slowly penetrating them, is, that changes in the organization of society never are and never will be accomplished otherwise than slowly, and that it is impossible to achieve a social revolution by decrees in the same way as a political revolution. Give to Karl Marx or to Lassalle full power to dispose of the land, the capital, and all the wealth of the country at their pleasure, and to make them “ collective property,” yet the corporations of working men or the social factories to whom the instruments of labour would be entrusted, would not be capable of organizing and directing production. Even picked working men succeed only very exceptionally in making co-operative productive associations prosperous, while they always fail when the working men do not themselves form their own capital. No doubt those economists are mistaken who imagine that the laws which now govern economic facts are immutable, because they are natural laws. History and geography demonstrate that human societies have lived and still live under conditions very different and very variable. Humanity has probably not reached the final end 8o THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. of its career, and in a thousand years laws and institutions will be very different from what they are to-day. The visible and universal progress of democracy enables us to foresee that there will be more equality. But just as in geology we have abandoned the theories of great cosmic revolutions and successive ­ epochs of creation, in order to admit that those amazing changes of which our globe has been the theatre were accomplished ­ slowly and insensibly by the constant action of the ordinary forces of nature, so in sociology, we are coming to believe that profound modifications can and will introduce themselves into the social organization, but that they will take place slowly and insensibly, according as men acquire more intelligence, more learning, a higher sense of right, and a more complete knowledge of the conditions of economic production. ( 8i ) CHAPTER VI. CONSERVATIVE SOCIALISTS. ^HE words “ Socialist " and “ Conservative " seem to clas ■mmmm m G g2 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. for their good, he is convinced ; but it is their good as he understands it, and realized by him and not by them. Existing society, in the period of transition through which we are passing, also presents some striking contrasts. No doubt science, as applied to production, astonishes us with its marvels. Each international exhibition, more magnificent than its predecessors, exhausts our admiration more and more. The rich are infinitely richer than formerly, the well-to-do classes are far more numerous, and the labourer himself is certainly better provided with comforts than heretofore. Nevertheless, the misery in the manufacturing centres cannot be denied. What want, what suffering, whenever a prolonged crisis restricts the demand for labour and lowers the rate of wages ! It is the description of these evils, attributed to competition, which forms the starting-point for all shades of Socialism. The greater part of Karl Marx’s famous book. Das Kapital, is nothing more than an abstract of the miserable and even revolting facts which are proved by English parliamentary documents. The Conservative Socialists accept as exact this sombre picture of our present social state, while they refer its cause to industrialism and “ bankocracy. In order to remedy these disorders three systems are advocated. The Economist says ; Let natural laws have their course. Liberty cures the wounds she causes. Open a free career to individual initiative, and all will be for the best in the best of all possible worlds. The Democratic Socialist asserts that happiness and justice will be established as soon as the instruments of production shall be made collective property. Finally, the Conservative Socialist sees salvation only m the return to those institutions which, under the old régime, guaranteed order and quiet to men. tree trade, free competition, ­ free usury; these, according to him, are the plagues that bring evil to all societies upon which they fasten themselves. ­ , • ^ One of the leaders of the Liberal party in the German Parliament, Herr Ludwig Bamberger, justly points out a singular CONSERVATIVE SOCIALISTS. 83 buttT France, in England, in Italy; gentlemen attack capital, no doubt to improve their farming mmmwi m THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 84 of his correspondence with L#assalle, published by A. W agner, he shows in what respect he may be called conservative. “ Our ways of understanding law and the philosophy of history, he writes, in speaking of Lassalle, “ were similar, in that we did not consider the succession of social and political forms as exhausted by the establishment of the constitutional or the representative system. We were both convinced that, by placing ourselves at the point of view of a philosophy of law more ideal and rigorous than that received to-day, we should observe imperfections in property as at present applied to land and capital, and we should discern a form of appropriation purer and more equitable, by virtue of which the share of each would be proportional to services rendered. In practice we were unable to agree," adds Rodbertus. Lassalle, as we know, wished to change the condition of working men in a short time, by making them join associations of production, founded by means of State aid. I wished to preserve the principle of wages, while supposing a reform to be undertaken by the State. Lassalle wished to make a political party out of the Socialist party, and for this purpose he demanded universal suffrage. I wished to confine its action to the purely scientific and economic ground.” Lassalle was an ardent agitator who believed the goal would soon be reached, while Rodbertus understood so well the slowness of social transformations, that it was only after the lapse of five centuries that he looked for the realization of his ideal—property in proportion to labour. Rodbertus approached the present “ Agrarian ” party in that he defended energetically the agricultural interests, which he maintained were sacrificed to the financiers. As he himself farmed his property at Jagetzow, he, like Von Thuenen, understood thoroughly all questions relating to rural economy, but, unlike the “ Agrarians,” he did not hope to re-establish the régime of times past. The most retrograde shade of Conservative Socialism was * Briefe von Ferdinand Lassalle an Karl Kodberíus-Jagetzow mit einer FinUitunz von Adolph Wagner. Berlin, 1870 (Letters of F. Lassalle to K Rodbertus-Jagetzow, with an introduction by Adolph Wagner). CONSERVAT/VE SOC/AL/STS. 85 represented by President von Gerlach, who, under the name of Rundschauer (Spectator), treated the social question in the Kreuzzeiiung (Journal of the Cross), the organ of the feudal party. He endeavoured to show that landowners and labourers are alike sacrificed to the errors of economic liberalism and to the art of usury ( Wucherkunst), which characterize our times He wished, above all, to maintain the land system still in vogue in Eastern Prussia, where the peasants live and work as formerly, under the rod of their seigneurs; and he demanded that the artisan class, at once workers and owners of the instruments of their labour, should be protected against the encroachments of the large system of industry, which is dividing the world of production into two distinct and hostile classes, capitalists and wage-earners. One of Marx’s principal arguments consists in showing how competition for low prices brings about the fatal triumph of g eat establishments, which, rising upon the ruins of small manufactures, reconstruct a feudalism of finance and industry a-Ä s,Äx.i r-% but he draws a different conclusion from Marx. The only ' beheve that if it should be necessary to THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 86 subject all industries to this strait-waistcoat, any nation would submit to it. Lassalle, replying to Gerlach, shows clearly how chimerical are these dreams of restoring the past. “ Given, he says, “ the organic force of the large industrial system, it is as impossible to arrest its course as to stop streams from flowing into a river and helping to swell it. But, just as we may possess ourselves of the force of the stream and take advantage of it, so we may utilize the very development of the large industrial system in order to reconstitute a middle class of working-men capitalists, as in the old corporations, though founded upon another basis. It is more in conformity with the philosophy of history to make use of the forces resulting from the natural evolution of civilization in order to attain our ends, than to attempt to put on the drag, which would moreover be quite useless.” The Gerlach group has been designated under the name of Zunftreaction—“reaction in favour of corporations. Two well-known writers, who defend the same general ideas, Professor ­ Huber and Councillor Wagener, separate themselves from Gerlach upon this point. If there is a social question, says Professor Huber, it is because wages are too often insufficient j and why is this ? Because the lowering in the price of manufactured articles, resulting from diminution in the cost of production, is always obtained by the reduction of wages. In point of fact this is far from correct It would be better, adds Huber, to arrive at the same result by a diminution of profits. It is not by virtue of any moral, rational, or economic law that one of the parties who joins in the production of wealth should always be sacrificed to the other. The remuneration of labour should not be fixed in an arbitrary manner, but by equity. Now equity demands that, when capital has received its interest, and labour its wages, the surplus profit should be divided between the two parties in proportion to their services. But who shall fix this share ? It could only be by a sort of jury of true men, in which masters and workmen should be equally represented, and the decisions CONSERVATIVE SOCIALISTS. 87 OÍ which should have legal force. The distribution of wealth would thus be regulated, no more, as nowadays, by the rude conflict of interests, that is to say,' in reality by the law of the strongest, but as in the ancient corporations, by a principle of justice. Of course it is not proposed to re-establish the trade guilds, with their monopolies and restrictions, but to subject the whole economic world to an industrial bureaucracy, and to a collection of tribunals, which would be new organs of law. This system is clearly inspired by a love of justice, only It would be very difficult of application in the existing economic world. Professor Huber is dead, but Councillor Wagener still lives, and has even become a most influential personage ; for, it is said, the Imperial Chancellor gladly consults him in economic matters.* ^ This is what President Gerlach wrote in reply to Councillor \\ agener, who must not be confounded with another wellnown Economist, Adolf Wagner, the eminent professor of the University of Berlin : “Nothing can arrest this potent solvent which we see at work under our eyes and which is sweeping away all ancient institutions. The trade guilds of olden times cannot be re-established, but the labour question really consists in discovering an industrial organization which shall guarantee, as of old, the rights of the labourer, who is at 88 7'HE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. present too much isolated. Upon the solution of this question depend the future of States and the fate of civilization. It remains to be seen whether the different classes of society have enough forethought, energy, and wisdom to contribute to the constitution of a new order of things. If they give proof of these qualities, they will be governed by free institutions and elected rulers ; if not, they will be kept down by the iron hand of Cæsarism.” Herr VVagener, like Prof. Huber, advocated the immediate formation of trade councils, in which working men should have their representatives, and which should be invested with the right of settling wages. In England it is well known that, in cases of strikes, masters and men often submit their differences to arbitration. The proposal, then, is to create a body of permanent arbitrators, and to give an executive force to their decisions. From 1866 to 1870 foreign affairs absorbed all attention, and orthodox Political Economy was all-powerful in the councils of the Government and in the Chambers. It was there represented by distinguished men, such as the Minister Delbrück, the Deputies Lasker, Braun, Bamberger, Julius Faucher, etc. It is to their influence that are due the abolition of laws against usury, a policy of free-trade shown by the reduction or suppression of certain custom duties and the monetary reform, upon the basis of a gold standard, necessitating the forced sale of silver. The Imperial Chancellor did not interfere, because “ it did not belong to his department.” But his ideas are not by any means those of the orthodox economy. The Protectionists have always placed their hopes in him, and he recently proved, by bringing about an increase of the custom duties, that he is on their side.* * In 1876 I was present in Eisenach at the “ Social Science Congress” of the Kathedersocialisten. In the first sitting Herr Rudolf Meyer rose to propose that the question of German industry, and of the means of remedying the intense crisis through which it was passing, should be placed on the orders of the day. As Herr Meyer was a friend of Councillor Wagener, it got noised about that he had been sent to Eisenach by the Chancellor in order to obtain a vote in favour of protection. To escape the danger it was ruled from the chair that, since the question was not on the programme of the congress, it could not be discussed. We may add that this supposition was unfounded, for shortly afterwards Herr Meyer CONSERVATIVE SOCIALISTS. 89 Prince Bismarck is, in’ reality, a type of the Conservative Socialist It were superfluous to prove in what respects he is Conservative ; but his Socialism consists in his admitting that there is a social question, and that an effort must be made to solve it Now, everything is contained in this. The orthodox Economist does not, indeed, say that everything under the sun is perfect, for statistical science is too strong for him ; but he pretends that all the relations of human life are best adjusted by allowing the utmost free play to the activity of individuals’ actuated by motives of self-interest That being the case, the State has nothing to do but to strike off the last shackles which still fetter universal competition, both at home and abroad. But that IS by no means Bismarck’s opinion. Not in vain did he listen with such relish to Lassalle’s conversation, that he would have liked to have him as his next door neighbour and daily companion in the country. Lassalle’s red mark has eft a visible stain on Bismarck’s white uniform ; and, believing that It IS just and right to improve the condition of the labouring classes, he thinks it is the duty of the State to assist and relieve them. Lassalle asked the State for 100,000,000 thalers for the purpose of reconstructing the existing social foundation of productive co-operative societies. ïpÎpSiHiF «Üi fled abroad. one of the be carefully THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 90 bettering the condition of the working man, to solve that question which, though usually called Democratic Socialism, I should prefer to speak of simply as the social question? The only reproach that could be urged against me for not having pursued this course, is that I have not persevered till I reached a satisfactory result. But I have not had time enough to devote to it ; for foreign politics have engrossed the whole of my attention. But the moment I have time and opportunity, I am resolved to renew these efforts, which, however people may blame me for them, I claim some credit for attempting. In this speech he is defending himself against the charge of having, in furtherance of his designs, employed certain Socialist agents. But he recognizes the existence of a great problem, the greatest, perhaps, of the present day, and he is not disinclined to accept the ideas of Rodbertus and Lassalle. In another speech he says still more distinctly that the function of the King, that is, of the State, is to elevate the labouring classes. In 1865 he introduced to the King a deputation of working men from Wustegiersdorf, in Silesia, who wished personally to lay their grievances before their sovereign. Being attacked on this score, he replied, in the very midst of the Prussian Parliament, “ Gentlemen, the Kings of Prussia have never aimed at being the kings of the rich. Frederick the Great used to say, ‘ When I am king I will be a true beggars king,’ meaning, from the first, to stand up for the protection of the poor. Our kings have remained true to this principle. They have promoted the emancipation of the serf, and have thus created a prosperous class of peasants. Perhaps too— they are, at any rate, making it the object of their serious efforts—they will succeed in contributing something to the improvement of the working man’s condition.” These words sum up the programme of the party of Monarchical Christian Socialists, which has just appeared on the scene with a grand display of learning and eloc^uence. Again, Prince Bismarck’s socialistic proclivities were displayed in the question of the purchase of all railways by the State. The arguments advanced in support of this proposal may be applied to many other industries ; for the successful working of CONSER VA TIVE SOCIALISTS. 91 a great net-work of iron roads is one of the most complicated of industrial enterprises. It requires special knowledge, not only for the maintenance of the line, but also for the choice and construction of the rolling-stock. It needs administrative capacity to organize the staff of officials, and get them to work together, as well as sound commercial judgment to regulate the scale of charges. In a word, all those qualities must be combined which go to make up at once the manufacturer and the merchant Consequently, if the State is to undertake this i duty, which is one of the most difficult to be found in the whole sphere of industry, it might, ã fortiori, be intrusted with the working of the mines of Saarbrück or of the Harz Mountains, 1 the cultivation of lands, as in the case of the State farms, and, ■ in fact, the production of all the principle articles of commerce, ; whether in the shape of raw materials or manufactured goods. There is no reason for stopping short anywhere in this direction. 1 he only logical conclusion is, that we should place every industry under the direct control of the State, which is, in fact, the ideal of the extreme Socialist. Latterly, Prince Bismarck’s socialistic tendencies have become still more marked, and he now chooses his advisers in economic matters from the extreme left of the Katheder-socialisten (“ Socialists of the Chair”). In the spring of 1877, during his solitude at Varzin, it is said that he employed himself in profoundly ­ studying social questions. One cannot help admiring the resolution of this statesman, who, in the midst of the painful preoccupations of a foreign policy so full of difficulties, devotes months and years to the search of means for the amelioration of the condition of the labouring classes. I know no more decisive proof of the actual importance of the problem. Besides ­ his private secretary, Herr Lothar Bücher, the Chancellor has several times consulted Herr Adolf Wagner, Professor in the University of Berlin, whose theory of property is fundamentally ­ the same as that of Rodbertus and Dr. Schæffle, former minister in Austria, whose recent work, the “ Quintessence ­ of Socialism,” places him in the ranks of Socialists. We all know that, as a result of his meditations and conversations, i'rince Bismarck presented to the Prussian Parliament a pro- 4 92 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. ject for the creation of a general insurance fund for disabled workmen, to be supported by the proceeds of the tobacco monopoly and by subscriptions levied from employers. The tax upon tobacco would thus become the patrimony of the poor, according to Herr Wagner’s expression. There could not, in fact, be a better tax than that which hits a harmful substance ; and since in France a fund and a palace have been founded for disabled soldiers, and, in England, one for disabled sailors, it is not easy to see why Germany should not do as much for disabled labourers ; for he who has passed his life in using some tool, or following the plough, is surely as worthy of interest as he who has devoted his days to the carrying of a gun or the loading of a cannon. I think the Chamber was wrong in rejecting Bismarck’s proposal, but those who maintained ­ that the measure was essentially socialistic were perfectly ­ right. In a lengthy speech delivered on the 3rd January, 1882, Bismarck said: “I have already explained the system which I am come to uphold, according to the instructions of His Majesty the Emperor. We wish to establish a state of things in which no one can say, ‘ I exist only to bear social burdens, and nobody takes thought of my fate.’ Our dynasty has for a long time been endeavouring to reach this object. Frederick the Great already described this mission in saying, ‘ I am king of the beggars,’ and he realized it in administering strict justice. Frederick William HI. gave freedom to the peasants. Our present sovereign is animated by the noble ambition to put a hand, in his old age, to the work of assuring to the least favoured and weakest of our fellow-citizens, if not the same rights that were seventy years ago granted to the peasantry, at least a decided amelioration in their condition, in order that these poor fellow-citizens may, in the future, feel assured that they can count upon the help of the State.” The whole theory of State Socialism and of “ a Socialist monarch ” is summed up in this passage. During these last years the camp of the Conservative Socialists has been broken up. Some have gone to swell the ranks of the “ Agrarians ; ” others, terrified at the progress of demagogic Socialism, have become retrograde Conservatives ; CONSERVATIVE SOCIALISTS. 93 and, finally, others have rallied to the group of Evangelical Socialists, with whom we shall soon become acquainted. Nevertheless, the most learned among them, Herr Rudolf Meyer, whose curious work, the Emancipations-kampf des vierten ­ Standes, we have already cited, summarizes in this book the programme of his shade of thought, which he had in part explained at the Congress of the Kathedersocialisten, in 1872, at Eisenach. Herr Meyer declares, first of all, for the maintenance ­ of universal suffrage. It is, he says, the best way to initiate the Fourth Estate, the people, to the realities of political life, and to preserve them from hopeless chimeras. The example of the Third Estate in France is highly instructive upon this point. Unable to take any part in the direction of public affairs, of which they had no experience, they dreamed of absolute reforms, conceived by the imagination, and deduced to their logical conclusion. The idea of Herr Meyer is correct. It is borrowed from De Tocqueville, who expands it admirably in the chapter of his Ancien Regime, entitled “ How, about the middle of the eighteenth century, men of letters became the principal politicians of the country, and the effects which resulted therefrom.” It cannot, however, be said that in Germany universal suffrage has preserved the labouring classes from the spirit of revolution. It is, nevertheless, true that it has brought them down from the golden cloudland of Utopia in order to marshal them upon the battle-field of private interests. This, however, is neither more convenient nor more reassuring to their employers. The Conservative Herr Meyer invokes the opinion of Rodbertus in order to demonstrate that the State should regulate the distribution of wealth according to justice. Heretofore ­ all efforts have been directed to the increase of production. ­ At a certain point, however, the question of distribution becomes the more important. When the development of trade results in creating, on the one side, an extremely wealthy class, and, on the other, a numerous class of proletarians, it may be said that the true order of things is disturbed. The consequence and characteristic symptom of this disorder is the appearance of demoralizing luxury, pushing the privileged few who revel in 94 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. it into sensuality, and exciting, among those deprived of it, envy, hatred, and the spirit of revolt. Herr Meyer here joins hands with Montesquieu, who recurs again and again to the idea that excessive inequality should be prevented from dividing the nations, as it were, into two hostile peoples ; and he devotes the sixth and seventh chapters of the fifth book of the Esprit des Lois to the elucidation of this point. “ It is not enough,” he says, “ in a good democracy that the portions of land should be equal ; they must also be small, as among the Romans.” One might add, as in France to-day. A rural democracy, if only it were an enlightened one, would give to Europe a solid base upon which to found free institutions, and would save it from social upheavals. Montesquieu ­ borrowed his maxims from antiquity, for Aristotle continually ­ recurs to it. “ Inequality,” he says {Pol., b. v. ch. i.), “ is the cause of all revolutions, for no compensation can make up for inequality.” “ Men, equal in one respect, wished to be equal in everything. Equal in liberty, they demanded absolute equality. Not obtaining it, they imagine themselves cheated of their rights, and they rise in rebellion.” The only means of preventing revolutions, according to Aristotle, is to maintain a certain amount of equality. “ Cause even the poor to have a small inheritance.” That is precisely what was done, in great measure, by the laws of the French Revolution. “ A State,” once more says the Stagyrite, “ according to the wish of nature, should be composed of elements which approach as near as possible to equality.” He then shows that in a State where there are but two classes, the rich and the poor, conflicts are inevitable. “The conqueror,” he adds, “looks upon the government as the price of victory, and uses it to oppress and despoil the vanquished.” Therefore, when Rudolf Meyer and Rodbertus demand that laws should favour equality and maintain ­ it, they only reproduce the thesis of Montesquieu and Aristotle. But how is this great object to be gained without sacrificing all liberty? Here lies the grand problem. For want of solving it, the ancient democracies perished in anarchy. Rodbertus admits that slavery was legitimate in ancient times. In order that the highest culture should be developed, CONSERVATIVE SOCIALISTS. 95 it was necessary, he thinks, that the forced labour of the greater number should afford leisure to the free men. At that period the quantity of produce was always in proportion to the means of production, as this consisted solely of the hands of the slaves. If the number of these was increased, consumption increased in proportion, and thus the surplus which maintained leisure remained at a minimum. To-day work is done by iron workmen, consuming coal and not wheat ; their power is unlimited, and they will never call upon the rights of man to demand their enfranchisement. When the water-wheel, coming from the East, was introduced for the first time into the Western world, towards the end of the Roman Republic, a Greek poet, named Antiparos, composed ­ some verses which the Anthology has preserved for us, and which recount, in a most charming manner, the cause of the economic progress accomplished in the last two thousand \ years : “ Slaves who turn the millstone, spare your hands and sleep in peace. In vain the shrill voice of the cock shall announce the daylight ; sleep on. By order of Demeter, the labour of young girls is performed by the Naiads, and now they | leap, shining and light, upon the wheel as it revolves. They i drag around the axle with its spokes, and put in motion the ! great stone which turns round and round. Let us live the happy life of our fathers, and enjoy, without labour, the blessings ­ the goddess showers upon us.” Thus machinery creates leisure; but who shall enjoy it? That is the point Three cases might occur. Either this leisure will liberate from all work a larger and larger number of persons, the working day of those who continue to labour remaining the same • or no one will have increased leisure, as the idle hours will be employed ­ in making objects of luxury ; or, once more, as Antiparos fancied, machinery will benefit the labourers by lessening their task, and an increase of leisure will accrue to all, even to the workers. In the interest, not of the increase of production, but of the progress of civilization, it was to be hoped that this latter hypothesis would be realized. But in reality it is usually either the first or second case which happens. The Conservative, like the Catholic Socialists, develop THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 96 general ideas of a very elevated character, and sometimes most just ; but, upon the ground of concrete reforms, the two groups appear equally confused and impracticable. Herr Meyer asks that heavy taxes should be imposed upon all profits from trade and banking. He calls for the re-establishment of the laws against usury ; he would even limit the interest payable upon all capital not worked by its owner. He appears not to see that in thus limiting the free scope of industry, he would hurt the interests of the landed proprietors which he desires to protect He also wishes that the functions of the State should be vastly extended. The State, according to him, should first of all oblige all manufacturers to build houses for their men. It should itself house all its employés. It should pay its own men well, in order that this rate of wages should be forced, so to speak, upon individuals, and it should regulate the length of the working day in proportion to the difficulty and fatigue of the work. The acquisition of property by those who now possess none should in every way be facilitated. As M. Thiers said, upon every acre owned by a peasant will be found a gun ready to defend property. Each trade should be obliged to have a superannuation and a relief fund, and the employer should be bound to contribute a share equal to the united contributions of all his workmen. There should, finally, be a “ council of experts,” to reconcile differences arising between masters and men, and a court of arbitration to decide disputes not settled by means of compromise. Some of these measures are good ; but others are impossible of execution, such as the restriction of the interest of capital employed in banking and trade. Taken as a whole, the programme appears mean, especially side by side with the recital of motives which precede it. This is not to be wondered at ; for it is far easier to point to the ideal to be attained, than to indicate the means of reaching ­ it. ( 97 ) H CHAPTER VIL evangelical socialists. party of Monarchical Christian Socialists is of recen X date. It was formed by the energetic action of th( leader of the anti-Semitic movement, Herr Stöcker, one of the court preachers, and a clergyman of the conservative anc orthe^ox type. It seems clearly to have been the example o the Catholic clergy that led the Protestant ministers in thi< direction.* They, too, wished, on their side, to acquirt influence over the labouring classes, by concerning themselves with their grievances and making themselves the mouthpiece of some of their ideas. The main difference was that, while the Catholic clergy acted with a view to opposition and tc mmmg Ä1S1Ä hims( has mssmMi THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 98 of Parliament. The Evangelical Socialist party resembled the French Legitimists, in that they held up to admiration, as the type of government, the reign of Frederick II., and still more that of his father, the brutal churl whom Carlisle admired so excessively, who kept his kingdom and his family under the rod, but who was very pious after his fashion, and an excellent Economist Stöcker founded two associations : first of all, the Central Union for Social Reform,”* and then the “Christian Socia Working Men’s Party.” t Although the same ideas and nearly the same persons had directed the formation of the two groups, their aims were very different The Union for Social Reform was to be composed of well-to-do and educated men, such as ministers of the Church, professors, manufacturers, and landowners, who would join in seeking for means of conciliating the anarchic classes through reforms inspired by the spirit of Christianity. Hitherto the partisans of corporations, the “ Agrarians,” all who demand protection for national labour, not only were unable to agree so as to combine their efforts, but even opposed and neutralized each other’s action. It was necessary, then, to show how these tendencies harmonize wuth one another, and to point out the superior principle that justifies them and binds them together. What is called cultivated society is so far from comprehending ­ the true mission of Christianity that, when Minister Stöcker first took up the Social question, all the liberal and progressist papers protested against this Mucker-socialismusy this “ sham socialism.” It was therefore imperative to combat the materialism of the upper classes and the atheism of the people, and to renew the religious conception of the world and society. It was necessary, in the first place, for the clergy to extend a helping hand to the labourers, in order to rally them to Christianity, and this was to be the work of the Christian Social Working Men’s Party; while, in the second place,it Vras incumbent on the friends of the people, among the upper ranks, to combine in order to forestall revolution by reforms. * Central Verein für Social-reform. t Christlich-sociale Arbeiterpartei. 99 E VANGELICAL SOCIALISTS. At the same time a newspaper was established, Der Staats-Socialist, which had for its epitaph these words : “ The social question exists, and it can only be solved by a strong monarchical State resting on the moral and religious factors of the national life ; " meaning, apparently, “ with the aid of the evangelical clergy.” The existence of danger to society in Germany certainly cannot be denied. It seems to menace the public order • for the two attempts at regicide by Hoedel and Nobiling are generally laid at the door of Socialism. Three means of dealing with it present themselves; firstly, to ignore the danger altogether and lull one’s self in an imperturbable optimism while repeating, “toir« faire, Mesez passer, the world will get along all right by itself "—this is the advice of the Economists : secondly, to repress to the utmost, to prohibit eThv thus try to extirpate the il by force—this is what the government desires: or, lastly llpStii method recommended by the Staats-Socialist srMspis? constitute a peaceful organization of labourers, in orlr to t«i lOO THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. decisions shall have legal validity.—Compulsory creation of provident funds for widows, orphans, and disabled workmen. The trade corporations shall defend the interests of the workmen ­ in their relations with their employers. Prohibition of all labour on Sundays.—Prevention of the employment of children and married women in factories. The normal day of labour to be fixed according to the nature of the work. These rules ought to be made the object of international conventions. Until this has been done it is advisable to protect labour against the competition of countries where similar measures do not exist. Stringent rules against insanitary condition of factories.—State and Communal property should be worked in the interests of the labourers, and should be extended so far as can be done with economy.—A progressive income-tax, to replace the indirect taxes which fall mainly upon the labouring classes.—Heavy taxes on luxuries.—A progressive succession duty, according to the extent of the inheritance and the distance of relationship. The programme calls upon the clergy to take an active and earnest part in all efforts made for improving the lot of the labourer in its material, intellectual, moral, and religious aspects. It adjures the well-to-do classes to hold out a helping hand to the proletarians, to support all laws which are favourable ­ to them, and to aid in augmenting their welfare by giving them good wages and reducing as far as possible the hours of labour. Every one should aid in the creation of the new trade corporations, which are destined to supply the place of whatever ­ good there was in the ancient guilds, and should endeavour to induce the labourers to observe all honourable conduct, to shun coarse pleasures, and to put Christian sentiments into practice in their family life. It cannot be denied that the articles of this programme are inspired by the love of humanity. Hut would it be possible to apply them to the complications of modern industry without creating disorganization ? The principal proposal is the re-establishment, under another name, of the old trade-guilds. But the difficulty already pointed out immediately arises : are these to be close corporations, and are they to enjoy a mono- EVANGELICAL SOC/AL/STS. lOI poly ? For instance, are the drapers to have the sole right of manufacturing cloth? If you grant them this privilege, the master will no longer be able to recruit his staff from whatever source he chooses. What then becomes of freedom of trade ? How are these monopolies to be reconciled with the constant progress of the methods of manufacture and the varying number of workpeople required? If, on the other hand, the law maintains liberty, these trade corporations become simply the English trades unions, which are certainly powerful machines of war for organizing strikes and coalitions, but which do not contain the elements of a new organization of labour. At any rate, this programme contains one very just observation, namely, that all these measures of protection in favour of the working classes ought to be enacted as part of an international agreement Thus, England, France, and the majority of European States prohibit the labour of children in factories, while certain countries, under pretext of respecting liberty, still refuse to do so. Is it not too bad that the English and t rench manufacturers should be the victims of the equity o their country’s laws, and that others should take advantage of the inhumanity of the legislation under which they live to emp oy young children, and thus doom them to untimely infirmities in order to be able to sell cheaper than elsewhere ? tinn if f to the facility of communica--aiSEzS: one country will cause disturbance in all the others As the mutual relations of economic interests become continually continually embrace lb. imbued with the Socialistic ideas that he had developed "Titings, wished to play the part of Emperor of the 102 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. peasants and working men. In ancient Greece, the “ tyrants,” that is to say, the dictators, usually got possession of power by placing themselves at the head of the poor against the rich. It was thus that Cæsar, at Rome, hoped to establish absolute power. In the Middle Ages, in France, the king was looked upon as the protector of the people and the communes against the feudal lords. To-day the Monarchical Socialists invite the sovereign to fulfil a similar mission, but this time against the financial and industrial middle classes who exercise the privileges of the landed aristocracy. They invoke the authority of Lorenz von Stein, the eminent professor at Vienna : “ Every monarchy,” he said, “ will be no more than an empty shadow, and will give place to a republic, or be transformed into a military despotism, unless, imbued with the moral dignity of its rôle, it takes the initiation in the matter of social reforms.” What good can a constitutional sovereign do, when he is at the mercy of the parties who in turn dispose of the majority? And what are these parties ? Coalitions of interests, groups oí cliques, representatives and agents of selfish class interests, who make use of power only to work to their own advantage the making of the laws and the framing of the budget. The king alone can rise superior to this conflict of ambitions and greedy desires, so as to represent the permanent interests of the nation ; he alone can take in hand the cause of the oppressed, because he alone draws no profit from their degradation. ­ Such is the language of the Christian Socialists in Germany. This ideal of a good despot, assuring to each his share of terrestrial happiness, has a certain Messianic charm about it, which may allure, especially when the parliamentary machine becomes effete or breaks up. But who will guarantee that the despot shall not be a fool, an idiot, or a vicious wretch? Cæsarism was too unsuccessful to induce men to return to it, at least voluntarily. However, the Christian Socialists certainly express very well the idea that the Emperor William himself has conceived of his mission. He has a horror of government by majorities; he readily listens to the grievances of the labourers ; and, as we have seen, he spends money out of his EVANGELICAL SOCIALISTS. 103 private purse in making Socialistic experiments. It is also the long-cherished dream of Prince Bismarck, who, it is said, is preparing to realize it soon (December, 1882). It must, moreover, be added that Prussia is a soil admirably prepared for the growth of State Socialism. No modern nation reproduces more completely the type of the Greek cities, in which the welfare of the individual is subordinate to that of the civic State. Under the energetic rule of Frederick II., the Prussian State has become a vast political machine which 4kes possession of its subjects from childhood, at first in the schools, and then in the army, in order to mould them according to its wants. The Prussian civil code already sanctions some of the articles of the programme of the Christian Socialists. The following clauses are found in the Preussische Allgemeine Landrecht (Tit. xix., 2nd part) :— § I. It is the duty of the State to see to the food and maintenance ­ of those citizens who cannot provide it for themselves, nor obtain it from those who are legally bound to provide it! § 2. To those who cannot find employment, work shall be assigned suitable to their strength and ability. § 3. Those who from indolence or taste for idleness, or from any other VICIOUS disposition, neglect to provide themselves with the means of subsistence, shall be obliged to execute useful works under surveyance. § 6. The State has the right and is obliged to create institutions for restraining at once both paup^^ngmdrm^lig^k^ §7- E^^^migth^c^k^ed^ efiRxzt o inducing Idleness, espechdly in the lower classes, or that IS likely to divert people from labour, is absolutely forbidden. ­ § 10. Communal authorities are bound to maintain their poor § n It is their duty to inquire into the causes of destitution, and to notify them to the higher authorities, in order that a remedy may be applied.» Might not all this be mistaken for the text of the law of a “Christian Salentum»? he precept of St I^iul, " If any vdll not wcirlq neither shall he ea^ hiliere transfornued into r r" ^ misdemeanour. The ght to relief, as in the law of Elizabeth, and the right of abour, as in 1848, are equally recognized, and the tutelary THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 104 rôle of the State is clearly confessed. The Socialistic bearing of the Prussian code cannot be mistaken. The main object to attain, according to the Social Christians, who agree in this respect with the “ Social Conservatives,” ­ is the organization of trade corporations. It is in this way alone that the present wage-system can be modified. Privy Councillor F. Reuleaux, who at the time of the Exhibition ­ of Philadelphia pointed out in so inexorable but so useful a way the imperfections of German industry, also believes that the organization of corporations is indispensably required for the training of skilled apprentices. He is anxious that the corporations should form themselves freely and without monopoly, ­ but under State patronage. The Staats-Socialist demands, on the other hand, that the organization should be compulsorily imposed on all trades ; in this way alone, it thinks, can the labourer be enabled to defend his interests effectively. The trade corporations would have their representatives in parliament, and the intervention in politics of the workmen thus organized would be more useful than it is at present, when it takes place under a party badge. Sismondi also spoke highly of this system of representation which existed in many of the mediaeval towns. In the same way, in England still, the universities have their special members. When the com» position of the Senate was being discussed in France, it was proposed to introduce into it representatives of the great public bodies—those, for instance, of trade and commerce. Although this idea is foreign to our present forms of government, it should not be lightly rejected. If it is true that the government ­ ought to be the expression, not of the arbitrary will of the majority, but of the lights, the wisdom, and the true interests of the nation, the representation of great bodies and great industries, ­ in at least one of the Chambers, would offer inestimable advantages. The Siaats-Socialist proposes, as a model, the American association of engine-drivers. This association counts 192 branches and 14,000 members. It is based on Christian sentiment. Its motto is, “ Do to others as ye would that they should do to you : such is the fulfilment of the law.” Its EVANGELICAL SOCIALISTS. 105 meetings commence with prayer, and the Bible lies on the table of the council. Those addicted to drink are inexorably excluded. The association possesses an insurance fund which pays 3000 dollars to the widow or orphans of a deceased member, and in this way more than a million dollars have been distributed. It has not taken part in any strike, but the number and union of its members constitute a force with which the railway companies have to reckon. The corporate spirit, and the sense of honour resulting therefrom, are guarantees of good behaviour and good work. The engine-drivers, the public, and the companies themselves have only to be congratulated on these happy results, and it would be a good thing if similar results could be obtained in all trades. This, however, is a free association, founded on the initiation of its members. If the State were to try to found similar associations by authority it would probably fail, and by giving them a monopoly it would quickly disorganize the present working of industries. Some attempts at establishing trade corporations have actually been made in Germany. Thus, at Osnabrück, the artisans formed a corporation under the inspiration and patronage ­ of the burgomaster, Herr Miquel, and the Staats-Sodalisi of the 5th October, 1878, published their statutes. According to the report of Councillor F. Reuleaux, the watchmakers of all Germany formed an association represented by a central committee ­ of delegates, and formulated regulations for the admission of apprentices. At the present time they are occupied in introducing the methods of manufacture employed in the United States. The engravers, the potters, the tinsmiths, the engineers, all followed this example. Their principal aim is to tram up good workmen and to arouse the corporate spirit. Councillor Reuleaux praises these efforts, because he sees in them a means of raising German workmen to a level with those of England or America. Recently, however, the greater number of these associations were dissolved by virtue of the new Anti-Socialist law. The “Central Union for Social Reform” obtained the adhesion ­ and even the co-operation of several well-known economists, ­ such as Professor Adolf Wagner, of Berlin University ; io6 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. Dr. Schæffle, former Minister of Finance in Austria, and author of Socialismus und Capitalismus ; Herr Adolf Samter, banker at Königsberg ; and Professor von Scheel.* But in order to influence the masses, as the Catholic Socialists have done, the assistance of the clergy was needed ; and it was to gain this assistance that the founders of the movement, Herren Stöcker and Todt, directed all their efforts. According to them, the duty of ecclesiastics, and even of the Protestant Church as a body, was to take part in discussions on the social question. This question, they said, embraces the whole of humanity. The Social Democracy rests on materialism and propagates atheism, while Liberalism and so-called Positive Science, by endeavouring ­ to eradicate the religious sentiment, supply it with weapons. Who is to defend this precious treasure, if not the pastor? Christ came to bring the “ glad tidings ” to the poor ; His disciples and apostles ought to do likewise. They ought to search out the causes of the ills of the lower classes, in order to find the remedy. Political Economy can alone throw light upon these difficult questions, and it must accordingly be sedulously studied. The clergy ought unceasingly to remind the State and the upper classes of the duty imposed upon them by the law of the Gospel in respect of their destitute brethren. The passion for accumulating riches is becoming more and more the characteristic of our age. This “Mammonism” is the enemy of Christianity, and must be unwearyingly combated. ­ The people are turning away from the Church, because it offers them only barren abstract formulas. Let her descend to the sphere of reality, let her speak to the people of what occupies their thoughts, and she will regain her influence. Why should the workman hearken to the atheist demagogue who brings to him a cheerless doctrine, hostile to righteousness, rather than to the priest who offers him the Gospel ? But in order to counteract the demagogic agitators, the clergy must have some knowledge of the questions they discuss and the arguments they invoke. They ought, therefore, to follow the * See Herr von Scheel’s excellent book, Unsere sociale politische Parteien (“Our Social Political Parties”). EVANGELICAL SOC/A LISES. 107 course of Social Science at the universities. Theology and Political Economy are mutually connected by the closest ties.* It is only by means of Social Economy that the full scope of Christianity and its power of healing the ills of modern society can be properly appreciated. The higher dignitaries of the Evangelical Church held aloof from the movement, or indeed were hostile to it; but the common clergy were stirred by it More than seven hundred ministers sent in their adhesion to the “Central Union for Social Reform. Dr. Kögel, one of the Court preachers. Dr. Biichsel, the superintendent-general, and Dr. Bauer strongly urged the Protestant clergy to take up the Social question. Dr. Stöcker displayed wonderful courage. He attended public meetings at Berlin, where he confronted the most fanatical elements of the Socialist Demagogy, and sometimes, by sheer force of eloquence, he won cheers from the hostile crowd. He was attacked with extraordinary violence by Herr Most, one of the leaders of Berlinese Socialism, and a deputy to the Imperial Parliament. It is not easy to form any idea of the tone of these philippics, which were one long series of invectives ­ against Christianity and its ministers, ending with the glorification of atheism. “The Social Democracy will not recede, cried Herr Most in one of his speeches; “it will pursue its course and accomplish its designs, even though "all priestdom"(^^f«a;«;;//fV3^«/^^;;f) should rise against It, like a cloud of locusts, thick enough to darken the sun The Social Democracy knows that the days of Christianity are numbered, and that the time is not far distant when we shall say to the priests, ‘Settle your account with Heaven for your hour IS come.'" Inasmuch as Herr Stöcker and his friends were making an appeal to religious sentiments, and were endeavouring to show that it was in the principles and sentiwould be found. Deputy Most organized an agitation for the I08 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. purpose of inducing working men formally to renounce the Church {Massenaustritl aus der Kirche). “ It is long,” he said, “ since you have placed foot inside a temple, and since you have had anything to do with these gentlemen of the black frock. But that is not enough. They still number you amongst their flocks, and on this ground they claim to shear you. An end must be put to this. Declare openly that you leave the Church. Array yourselves under the banner of Science, which absolutely rejects all superstitions.” At the close of these meetings, manifestoes declaring that they abandoned the Established ­ Church were presented for the signature of those present. As a type of these reunions, we may take the meeting of women, which was held on the 6th February, 1878, in the salon of Madame Renz. Men were relentlessly excluded from the audience. The room was crowded. Madame Hahn, who had previously founded an association of working men’s wives, which was dissolved by the police in 1875, acted as president. Near her sat Dr. Wangemann, who had come to defend the ideas of the Social Christians, and Deputy Most. Huge red placards affixed to the wall bore the words, Massenaustritt aus der Landskirche (“ Secession in a body from the State Church”). An address from Deputy Most opened the proceedings. ­ He was glad to see the women taking up the social cause. Their support made the future sure. “ Women, far more than men, are the slaves and victims of capital. Now, when it is clear that nothing can resist the progress of democracy, ­ Court preachers and other ecclesiastics are insinuating themselves into our ranks in order to found a new party and divide our forces. The best way of putting a stop to these manoeuvres is to leave the Church in a body.” The next speaker, Madame Hahn, enumerated all the infamies of the priesthood. “ My religion,” she exclaimed, “ is Socialism, and it alone is truth, morality, justice, and brotherhood. Down with the priests of every robe and every hue ! The first reform to be accomplished is to change all churches into good habitations ­ for working men.” Dr. Wangemann replied that Christianity had elevated woman. In the course of his missions, ­ he had found abundant proof that religion alone ensured EVANGELICAL SOCIALISTS. 109 happy marriages and inspired the husband with respect for his wife. After he had developed these ideas, Most replied to him : “ I do not deny the good effect of Christianity on savages, and therefore I would urge many missionaries and court preachers to go and deliver their sermons to Hottentots. With civilized people they can only produce weariness and annoyance.” The meeting broke up half an hour after midnight, ­ when the ladies left, singing the Marseillaise of Audorff. The formation of the Social Evangelical party was received ­ by the Liberal press in almost as hostile a way as by the demagogue papers. “We prefer,” said one newspaper, “socialists in blouse to socialists in surplice.” The official and Conservative press, on the other hand, praised the attempt. “We are glad,” wrote the ¡Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, “ to see men who are enlightened, patriotic, and devoted to the monarchy, bravely confronting the atheistic and anarchic movement which is daily gaining ground. It is a mistake for the upper classes to shut their eyes to the danger. Let them support the efforts of these men, who are placing themselves in the van in defence of all that we hold dear. It would be well if local societies, animated with the same spirit, were formed in all parts of the country.” This was, in fact, what the evangelical party of social reform were endeavouring to do. They showed the most praiseworthy activity. Besides frequent and well-attended conferences at Berlin, when the different points of the programme were discussed, they sent missionaries into the provinces to convene meetings, explain the objects to be pursued, and found local associations. In this way they succeeded in forming, in many districts, groups of well-to-do persons, who were disposed to take up the social question in both its theoretical and practical aspect But they had much less hold on the lower classes than the Catholic areles had. Obedient to the word of command, all the Catholic priests were engaged in the work, while the Protestant pastors acted in an isolated way and in accordance with their own convenience and convictions. The attempts against the life of the Emperor and the presentation ­ of the Anti-Socialist Bill placed the Social Evangelical I IO THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. party in a most delicate and difficult position. Its founders were court preachers. How could it refrain from applauding the employment of the most stringent means against savages who were impelled, by a barbarous and stupid fanaticism, to commit a crime, abominable in itself and, in any case, useless for the furtherance of their designs ? The Staats-Socialist had proclaimed itself monarchical and conservative. Could it reject a law presented in the name of the very principles which it had undertaken to defend ? It actually did so, nevertheless ; and in so doing it showed both foresight and courage. It saw in the outrages a proof that it had not exaggerated the danger to be apprehended from the Socialist demagogy ; but it rejected the Anti-Socialist law, because, without removing the evil, it would cause it to disappear from sight, and thus postpone the application of a remedy, and because it would have the disastrous ­ effect of hindering the upper classes from doing their duty to those dependent on them. It may be questioned if the Staats-Socialist and the Social Evangelical party, in spite of the ties connecting them with the Court, will escape the rigorous measures which are striking in all directions associations ­ and papers concerned with the social question. The object pursued by the Government is, apparently, to enforce complete silence on this subject, in order that the police may be able to boast that they have established order and peace. Silentium pacem appellant. To get a complete idea of the tendencies and principles that presided over the formation of the Social Evangelical party, one should read Herr Todt’s book on “ Radical German Socialism and Christian Society.” * It has had a great success, and two editions of it were sold off in a few months. It would be interesting to compare it with the book of M. François Huet, Le Hègne social du christianisme, published in 1852, in the same spirit and on a similar plan. Herr Todt places the following epigraph at the head of his work : “ Whoever would understand the social question and contribute to its solution must have on his right hand the works on Political Economy, * Der radikale deutsche Socialismus und die Christliche Gesellschaft, by RoclolfTodt, Wittemburg, 1878. E VANGELICAL SOCIALISTS. 11 I and on his left the literature of Scientific Socialism, and must keep the New Testament open before him.” Political Economy, he adds, plays the part of anatomy : it makes known the construction ­ of the social body. Socialism is the pathology which describes the malady, and the Gospel is the therapeutics which apply the remedy. Is it not remarkable that the Christian countries are precisely ­ those which have evolved Socialism ? What is the reason of that? According to Herr Todt, it is because Socialism has its root in Christianity : only it has gone astray from it. It is the fruit of the Gospel, but it has become corrupt In reality, according to Herr Todt, Socialism springs from the sentiment of revolt, produced by the sight of the contrast between the existing economical constitution of society and a certain ideal of justice and equality. Hence arises the desire to remove this contrast by a radical reform of the social order. Christianity also condemns the present world, where selfishness and evil passions prevail, and announces the “new kingdom” where the first shall be last, where charity shall make all men brothers, and where the earth shall belong to the peaceful and lowly. The true Christian endeavours to correct himself and reform his surroundings according to the divine command. Whoever then asserts, like the Positivist or Economist, that the actual course of events is necessary, fatal, and conformable to natural laws, places himself in opposition to the teaching of Jesus. He, on the other hand, conforms to that teaching who aims at improvement and perfection in everything. Moreover, according ­ to Herr Todt, every Christian who is in earnest with his faith has a Socialistic vein in him, and every Socialist, however bitter his hatred of religion may be, has an unconscious Christianity ­ in his heart. Radical Socialism, however, preaches atheism and communism, and in so doing is far off from the Gospel. We must, not, however, deceive ourselves, says our author : Socialism IS not, as is commonly supposed, a mere passing malady which will disappear as it came. It will grow and spread. There have been outbursts of Socialism at different epochs, when the sufferings of the people became intolerable. II2 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. as at the time of the Jacquerie in France, of Wat Tyler in England, and, in the sixteenth century, of the peasants’ war in Germany. To-day the lot of the lower classes is much improved, and yet it is at this moment that the disease is showing itself. It appears even in countries where easy circumstances are general, as in the United States. Poverty, then, is not its cause, but rather the contrast between the ideal and the actual. What will make it spread and endure is, in the second place, the diffusion of a certain amount of natural science and political ­ economy ; and lastly, the constant and rapid means of communication between man and man—the railways, the post, and, above all, the press. When a revolutionary movement starts from a few leaders, it is possible to put an end to the danger by suppressing them. But when a profound fermentation takes hold of the masses, it is of no use to get rid of the leaders : others will always be found to fill their places. It is too late in the day to suppress all liberties. People will put up with an exceptional régime during a critical period, but no civilized State in the West will any longer submit definitively to absolution and a state of siege. We may see, moreover, by the case of Russia, that security is not to be obtained in this way. According to Herrlodt, Christianity alone can reconcile the antagonistic classes, the rich and the poor, by filling their hearts with brotherly love and the sense of justice. Examining in succession the several articles of the programme ­ of Radical Socialism, our author compares them with the principles of the Gospel, and points out in what they agree with it and in what they differ from it. This study of the social bearing of Christianity indicates clearly the close relations which exist between Political Economy and religious ideas. We cannot discuss here the numerous questions raised by this comparison. We believe it may be said that the fundamental ­ idea of the Social Evangelical group is correct, d'o disarm ­ popular animosities, the upper classes, commencing with the leaders of the State, must concern themselves with ever)-thing that can better the lot of the masses. Christian charity must be translated into facts. Formerly, this duty was thought EVANGELICAL SOCIALISTS. II3 to be performed by almsgiving, and no doubt the giving of alms will always be indispensable in certain cases ; but if too easily attained or too abundant, alms degrade the recipients, and if transformed into an institution, they encourage idleness. Economic science proves that it is not so easy to do good. What is wanted is to put the labourer in the way of bettering his condition by means of his own efforts, and with this object to multiply those institutions which raise and civilize him, such as working men’s clubs, free libraries, savings banks, schools for adults industrial schools. The energy of philanthropists and Lns taaTlirectioTs ■ 1 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. I 14 pass book. Five years afterwards, in 1871, out of 10,671 pupils, the number of pass-books was 8000, and since then the proportion ­ has increased. This may be the beginning of a transformation in the social situation. Once the working man attains to the possession of capital, he becomes immediately converted to ideas of order, and the enemy of any revolutionary movement which might take away from him his hardly won savings. This result can only be arrived at by teaching him thrift from his childhood, so that he may form the habit of saving. Afterwards, when he has acquired the habit of useless or harmful spending, better counsels will remain without fruit The only capital that will be preserved is that which the labourer has himself created. It is in vain to make loans to working men, as Lassalle demanded ­ should be done, or as the German Emperor, under I the inspiration of Prince Bismarck, actually did; they would be soon swallowed up, because the aptitude for making a good use thereof would be wanting. He alone who knows how to create capital will be in a position to manage, preserve, and increase it. The working men’s societies, to which the French Government, ­ in 1848, made advances, soon collapsed. The only ones ‘ ^ that can maintain themselves are those which, like the pioneers of Rochdale, have formed their own capital by means of order ■ and economy. The system of school saving, as may be seen , in the reports of M. de Malarce, has been introduced into T ' many towns in different countries, and notably in France. I ÿ it can be made general, the benefits which will result from h ' are incalculable. What is most distressing, when one considers ¡ the condition of the labouring classes, is not so much the in* ' sufficiency of wages, as the bad use which is too often made o 1 them. An increase in remuneration results, for the most part, j ' in merely increasing the amount spent in drink, and thus io | further degrading the workman. It is in vain to preach - economy to grown men. Thrift is a virtue of habit, and it 1® I , I ;• from childhood that it must be inculcated. j L ' Through the initiation of M. Laurent, there were also established at Ghent working men’s clubs, where the factory 1 ‘ operatives could assemble to listen to debates, to go throug j EVAÄrCELICAL SOCIALISTS. 115 reaTft* '"/kg ™ chofuses. to act plays, and to fonr »ko established ;Ä-=]ÄS=Uurent, ¿»ÄÄ ouvriires de Gand, must be consulted for the of Christ,an economy, such as Herren Stöcker and Todt recommend. lîiiÂfa THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 116 CHAPTER VIII. CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. I N former chapters we have given an account of the doctrines of the masters of German Socialism, Lassalle and Karl Marx. But in order to understand the power of this great movement of ideas against which the German Empire, in / the midst of all its triumphs, deems that exceptional measures are necessary, it must be studied in all its varieties, and these varieties are numerous. There are Democratic Socialists, In- ; ternational Socialists, Christian Socialists and Social Christians, Catholic Socialists, State Socialists, Socialists of the Chair, and many more besides. It is the Catholic Socialists whose ideas i we shall now endeavour to make known. An Italian diplomatist, Baron Blanc, a man of great penetration, ­ and one who had constant intercourse with Cavour, often told me how this great and far-seeing patriot had predicted that one day Ultramontanism would ally itself with Socialism-M. Blanc himself confidently believed this. Prince Bismarck, too, has many a time spoken of the union of the Red with the Black International, and in its good as well as its bad sense the saying is true. The two doctrines, Catholicism and Socialism, do, in fact, both place their ideal above and beyond the father land, and dream of the establishment of a new order of things in which the same principles shall reign everywhere. Whether it be a virtue or a fault, both are ready to sacrifice nationality to universality. The predictions of Cavour and Bismarck seem , to-day to be realized. In Germany the Catholic Socialistic movement can now count fifteen years of existence. At the last elections for the Imperial Parliament, Socialists and Ultra- ! CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. II7 montanes voted together wherever they were in a minority, and at the second ballot they came to an understanding among themselves to get in that one of the candidates of either party who had received the largest number of votes. The Catholic papers declare openly that rather than come to terms with the Chancellor they will support the most extreme parties, and in the debate upon the Anti-Socialist law the Ultramontane centre declared at the outset that it would not accept it under any form, no matter how amended. Bismarck may well maintain ­ that the alliance of the two Internationals is an accomplished fact ; it is even said that his object in entering upon relations with Rome was to break up their union. In France it would appear that the militant Catholics, the only ones who really constitute a political party, are entering upon the same course. Recently the paper which wields the peatest influence among them, and which is at the same time looked upon with most favour in Rome, published a complete plan of social reforms, destined to put an end to the “ disorder of the existing industrial régime.” The general idea was indicated ­ in the book of a distinguished Economist, M. Périn,* professor at the Catholic University of Louvain ; but up to this they seem to have conflned themselves to a Platonic aspiration towards a return to the economic institutions of the Middle Ages. Now, on the contrary, the question is to devise a programme of practical reforms which will rally the labouring classes around it. M. Périn and the Count de Mun both said as much, with all the eloquence which the subject inspires at the congress of Catholic labourers lately assembled at Chartres Everywhere, under the most various forms, working men's clubs and associations are founded, where these ideas are made known and spread. As, however, in France, Democratic Socialism hghts in the front rank of the great anti-clerical army. Catholic Socialism can scarcely borrow anything from it, or grant it any mort. But in Germany, where every shade of Socialism bZwIved'' most important evolution may 118 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. Already in 1863, at the Munich Congress of Catholic savants, the illustrious theologian Dœllinger maintained that Catholic associations should grapple with the social question. Soon afterwards, an eminent prelate, the Bishop of Mayence, Monseigneur Ketteier, published a book upon the same subject, which made a great stir, and which was entitled Die Arbeiterfrage ­ und das Kristenthum (“ The Labour Question and Christianity”). He showed that, upon certain points. Socialism ­ and Christianity were in accord. In reality the idea was not altogether new. In the Middle Ages, the Jacquerie in France, and the revolted peasantry of the sixteenth century in Germany, invoked the Gospel. The men of the French Revolution, ­ who dreamed of something more than the establishment of liberty and civil equality, did the same ; and, in his cynical language, Camille Desmoulins called Jesus the first of the sans-culottes. After 1848 French Socialists frequently cited the Christian Fathers in support of their doctrines; and a Communist, Villegardelle, who was not wanting in intelligence, compiled a whole volume of extracts from their writings to prove that private property should be unhesitatingly abolished.* In 1852, twelve years before the Bishop of Mayence, François Huet, a Catholic philosopher of rare merit, issued a volume. Le Règne Social du Christianisme, where may be found explained, with greater clearness, method, and science, those ideas which are to-day promulgated by the Catholic Socialists. It is beyond question the best book upon the subject which has yet appeared. When the Gospel is appealed to in favour of Communism or Socialism, this is at once right and wrong. If it be intended that Christianity enjoins any particular social or political organization, ­ this is a mistake. What Christ preached was a change of heart, internal reformation. He did not dream of modifying surrounding institutions ; they were about to disa])-pear in a cosmical revolution of which the Evangelists have left us a terrible picture. It was “ in another world and under * Histoire des idées sociales avant la Revolution, bv F. Villegardelle. See also, for the same period and style of thought, VEvangile devant le siècle, by Simon Granger. CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. II9 another heaven” that the ideal He announced was to be realized. “ My kingdom is not of this world,” Christ used to say. The element of truth in the assertion is that the Gospel, like the prophets of the Old Testament, is full of a spirit of brotherhood and equality. The “ glad tidings (cvayycA.iov) of the kingdom ” is announced to the poor. In the “ kingdom ” the first shall be last. “ Blessed be they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” What profound words, overflowing with that tender love for the afflicted which has been called charity ! Whatever the enemies of Christianity may say, it is beyond question from the gospel that the movement for the emancipation ­ of the lower classes has come, which, after having little by little abolished slavery and serfage, proclaimed equality first by the American and then by the French Revolution. All that is done to elevate the lowly and to lighten the burden of the poor is conformable to the teachings of Christ; and thus Socialism, in its general tendency, and in so far as it only aspires, according to the St. Simonian formula, “ to ameliorate the moral, intellectual, and material condition of the greatest number,” proceeds evidently from Christian inspiration. No more can it be denied that those words in which Christ preached charity, brotherly love, and indifference to the world, when interpreted by absolute idealism and excessive asceticism, have resulted naturally in communism; a communism not merely such as was practised in Jerusalem by the immediate followers of Christ, but such as may still be seen under our very eyes in the thousands of convents that fill with increasing numbers both town and country. The Church has never condemned that social régime from which private property is banished, and even the idea of mine and thine proscribed as an outrage on brotherhood. On the contrary, even its most politic doctors, such as Bossuet, have seen therein the ideal of the Christian life. No doubt they were only thinking of a communism voluntarily practised. But if such be the ideal, is not the wish to make it adopted by all reasonable? At all events, it is certain that if those who attack the actual organization of our society wish to seek arms in the writings of the Christian Fathers, 120 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. they will find there an inexhaustible arsenal. Upon this ground Catholicism and Socialism may easily meet ; it is sufficient if they merely remember their antecedents and return to their principles.* There is no stranger aberration than that of the levelling Democrats who attack Christianity and adopt the doctrines of scientific materialism. If the existing social organization is to be changed, it must be by invoking certain rights that have been ignored, and by showing another ideal to be attained. It is a spiritualist philosophy alone that seeks, among abstract ideas of justice and rational order, for the notion of a right superior to any recognized at present, and one to which all existing rights ought to be subject. It is Christianity which has put into the minds of the Western world the idea of the “ kingdom,” that is, an ideal world completely different from this world of ours. Socialism and Christianity both aspire to so change things that justice shall reign everywhere. Scientific materialism will say, after the manner of Pilate, What is justice? It cares only for the facts it verifies; and when these facts recur with regularity and sequence, it calls them natural laws which must be submitted to. How can a right be conceived which is contrary to facts, that is, to natural laws ? In the struggle for existence the best armed succeed ; the feeble disappear leaving no posterity, and thus progress is attained by natural selection. The Economist, who confines * In the sermons of Bossuet there are numerous passages which Socialists might take as a text for their demands. For example, in the Sermon sur la dignité des pauvres dans P Église, he says, “ God has sent me, says the Saviour, to preach the Gospel to the poor—Evangelisare pauperibus misit me. The rich are tolerated only in order that they may assist the poor. This is why, in the primitive Church, everything was in common, so that none should be guilty of leaving any one in want. For what injustice, my brethren, that the poor should bear the whole burden, and that the whole weight of misery should fall on their shoulders ! If they complain and murmur against Divine Providence—Lord ! let me say it—it is not without some colour of justice ; for, as we are all kneaded of the same lump, and there cannot be much difference between clay and clay, why do we see, on the one side, joy, honour, and affluence, and, on the other, sorrow and despair, extreme want, and, more often still, contempt and servitude ? Why should one lucky individual live in abundance and be able to satisfy his every little useless fancy, while some unfortunate wretch, a man as much as he, cannot maintain his poor family, nor allay the pangs of hunger that devour them ? ” CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. I2I himself to merely noting facts without having any ideal in view, holds similar language. Throw down all obstacles, establish liberty in everything for everybody, and, among individuals given over to universal competition, the most skilful must succeed. They will become the richest and most powerful. This is what the welfare of society demands, and that constitutes justice. Malthus was the precursor of Darwin, who, indeed, fully recognized the fact. When Malthus speaks of those for whom there is no place at the banquet of life, and whom nature is not slow to eliminate, he is applying, in advance, the theory of the struggle for existence. Christianity reaches out a hand towards the unfortunate and demands a place for the disinherited. ­ Darwinism and the orthodox economy tell them that they are in the way, and that their business is to disappear. Darwinism submits to the actual, in the name of natural law and necessity. In the name of the ideal, Christianity rebels against the actual, and hopes to subordinate it to the dictates of reason and justice. We shall see, in analyzing Bishop Ketteler’s book, how it is that the Social Democrats prefer atheistic materialism, which logically justifies the enslaving of the people, to Christianity, ­ which calls them to freedom. 'I'he Bishop of Mayence was looked upon as the mos eminent prelate of the Catholic hierarchy in Germany. Hi recent death has left a blank which has not been filled since In his book, “The Labour Question and Christianity” ii order to paint the evils of existing society, he borrows th colours and even the expressions of Lassalle. Like him h considers Liberalism and the Political Economy of Manchestei aas Manchesterthum, responsible for these evils. The Frene Ultramontanes of to-day express the same ideas and hoi Thusat Charms, mtheCong«, o the Catholic unions. Count de Mun spoke of the “ socii aims of the Catholic labourers,” and of a return to th ancient organization of labour.” He depicted moder ciety precisely as the Socialists do: “The thirst of spec, on consumes everything; a merciless struggle has take 122 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. the place of healthy emulation, the small crafts are being crushed out, professional work is decaying, wages are being disgracefully ­ lowered, pauperism is spreading like a hideous leprosy, the oppressed labourer feels his heart swelling with an implacable ­ hatred, and he has no safety but in resistance, no help but in war. Coalitions and strikes take the place of organized labour. Laissez faire, laissez passer ; this is the decree of Liberalism, this is revolutionary liberty ; and it has but one name—the liberty of might.” * These lines seem borrowed from Bishop Ketteler’s own book. The Bishop of Mayence did not conceal his sympathy for Lassalle, at the time even when he was founding and organizing ­ the Socialist party in Germany. When the Countess Hatzfeld visited him to solicit his aid in removing the obstacles which stood in the way of the marriage of Lassalle, a nonconverted Jew, with the daughter of a Bavarian diplomatist who would not hear of it. Bishop Ketteler highly praised the speeches and enterprise of the famous agitator. The social question, said the prelate, is far more serious than these political questions which fill newspapers and parliaments with their endless debates. I'hese latter interest the bourgeois alone ; the other concerns the very existence of the masses. For the working man, the question is to find the means of living. This idea is continually repeated in the German Socialist papers under this “ realistic ” formula : “ The social question is a stomach question ” {^Dic sociale Frage ist cine Magenfrage). Upon what does the condition of the labourer depend ? * As it is important to show to what point the French Ultramontanes use the same language and tactics as the German, we may cite another passage from the speech of Count de Mun ; “ Liberty, gentlemen ! Where is it ? I hear it spoken of on all hands, but what I see is people confiscating ­ it to their own profit. And if I look for it in what touches you most keenly, in what you have most at heart, in this great labour question, which contains all others, and which has given rise to the social as well as the political battle of our days, if I look there for the traces of lil)erty, I discover more than anywhere else this revolutionary counterfeit. I hear the absolute liberty of labour proclaimed as the very principle of the enfranchisement of the people, and, in practice, I see it result in the slavery of the labourers ! Gentlemen, you are artisans and tradesmen ; tell me if I am mistaken ! . . .” CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 123 Evidently upon the rate of his wages. And upon what does the rate of wages depend? Upon the law of supply and demand, replies the prelate with the Economists, that is upon the iron law, the eherne Lohngezetz, as Lassalle expresses it. Formerly, says the bishop, the future of the labourer was guaranteed by the trade guilds. Labour constituted a property ­ which the regulations of the guild preserved from the fluctuations of the market and the strife of competition. Today ­ this is no longer so ; labour is now treated as a commodity ­ in the market {DU Arbeit ist eine Waare), and, as such, it is subject to the laws which govern other commodities. The price of commodities rises and falls according as they are in greater or less demand ; but it tends to approach the level of the cost of production. In order to get ahead of his competitors, the manufacturer is therefore obliged to reduce this cost as much as possible so as to be able to offer his wares cheaper than others do. The cost of production of this labour-commodity is the food and maintenance of the labourer. There would consequently be a universal and necessary tendency to reduce to the minimum the cost of the labourer’s maintenance. The employer who can obtain from his workmen the largest amount of useful exertion at the least expense will carry the day. In the present state of things this is a mathematical or mechanical law which destroys at once the good intentions of masters and the resistance ­ of men. Hence, concludes the Bishop of Mayence, it cannot be denied that the whole existence of the labouring population—who constitute the greater part of humanity—the daily bread of the father and his family is subject to the fluctuations of a market, disturbed by endless crises. “ This IS the slave market open all over modem Europe, fashioned according to the model sketched by our enlightened and anti-Christian liberalism, and our humanist freemasonry.” Is it not curious to And at the head of Monseigneur von ^tteler’s book the theory of “ the labour-commodity,” Arbeit •^aare, which, expanded with a vast display of seien tiñe analyses and algebraic formulas, is the very basis of Karl Marxs nious book. Das Kapital., the Gospel of German Socialism ? 124 TUE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. What are the causes of the intolerable condition of the labouring class ? According to the bishop, there are two principal ones. In the first place, the utter suppression of all organization of labour. Formerly a sort of contract existed between society and the labourer ; the artisan satisfied the needs of society, and society, in exchange, guaranteed to him, by means of the guild regulations, both work and wages. 1 oday he is abandoned without hope to the mercy of the capitalist. ­ In the second place, the more and more general use of machinery and the development of the large system of manufacturing are always lessening the number of artisans who can dispose of a small private capital, and increasing that of the wage-earners who depend entirely upon the evervarying demand for their work. Having indicated the causes of the evil, Monseigneur von Ketteler seeks the remedies. They will never be found, he says, in liberty, as is often imagined. For the labourer, liberty consists in offering his labour at a discount and in dying of hunger, if his labour is not needed. Free trade merely subjects ­ him to the competition of countries where wages are lowest. You speak of “ self-help,” and you expect the working man to raise himself by his own efforts. That is all very well for a few, the fortunate and best endowed, who may be able to make for themselves a place in the ranks of the masters ; but can the others cease to be wage-earners, and are not wages governed by the “iron law,” as demonstrated by Lassalle and Ricardo? All the fine speeches of infidel Liberalism will not persuade ­ the working men that they should resign themselves to living in privation, while those who make profit out of them enjoy all the refinements of luxury and sensuality. Christianity alone can reconcile the lower classes to that inequality of condition which is inevitable here below. The true believer will accept without bitterness and even with joy the heaviest trials of a life of labour, because he expects them to ensure him eternal happiness. Christianity inspires a spirit of self-sacrifice, of obedience, of order. It condemns drunkenness, evil ways, debauchery, and rebellion. CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 125 The Christian workman will therefore be hardworking, submissive ­ to his masters, sober, always satisfied, and respectful towards all in authority over him. This perfectly correct idea of Bishop Ketteler makes it clear why demagogues preach atheistic materialism. The natural instinct of man impels him to seek his own happiness, and if the hope of finding it in another world, where justice reigns, is taken away from him, he will seek it here. If matter is all that exists, then, at all cost, he must have material and immediate enjoyment. The working men will say. We have heard enough of your promised heavenly joys. We will cash no more of these bills upon another world ; it is in this world, the only real one, that we wish to have happiness. Right is an empty word ; might decides everything. We are the most numerous, and if we can come to an understanding among ourselves we shall be the strongest, and thus we shall be in the right Royalty, magistracies, creeds, armies, parliaments— all these institutions were created by our masters in order to enslave and exploit us. Everything must be overthrown, even by fire and sword, if needful, in order that we may taste these pleasures in which capitalists, enriched with our spoils, have too long rioted. On the one hand, as we have seen, atheistic materialism, by denying the ideal and all abstract right, deprives the claims of the proletariat of all sound basis, and on this account the friends of the people should reject it ; but on the other hand, by annihilating all hope of a future life, where unalloyed bliss would compensate for the fleeting trials of this world, it instigates ­ the masses to overturn the established social system, in order, amidst the general ruin, to gain possession of wealth and the material joys that wealth can provide. It is, therefore, evident that those who desire a violent social revolution are interested in spreading atheism, and that those who spread this doctrine are furnishing the revolutionary Socialists with arms. Christianity preaches the common brotherhood of all men, the mutual love and equality of all ; it honours labour, because abour alone gives man a chance to live ; it reinstates the poor 126 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. man and denounces the rich idler. There is, therefore, no more solid foundation for the demand of reforms on behalf of the disinherited classes. And yet Social Democracy repudiates it, and tries to crush it, because, by opening up the prospect of a future life, it tends to make men resigned to the ills of the present one. No doctrine is more calculated than atheistic materialism, to inflame ­ the hearts of working men with rage and hatred against the system of society which determines their present condition, ­ and therefore it is that the apostles of anarchical revolution adopt and propagate it as their gospel. Accordingly, ­ in Russia, we see that Atheism gives birth to Nihilism, which arms itself with the dagger, and avails itself of incendiarism, ­ and all those perfected means of destruction that science invents. So long as his object is merely to show the beneficent influence ­ which the application of Christian principles to social problems would effect, the Bishop of Mayence writes pages of eloquence and pathos. But as soon as he is obliged to come down to the lower regions of Political Economy, and point out the practical means of improving the condition of the working men, he becomes involved in difficulties. He even has to borrow from Lassalle the idea of productive co-operative associations, ­ by means of which that Socialist agitator promised to effect a complete transformation of the social organism. The danger of the actual situation comes from the antagonism ­ between capital and labour. But if the same individual is at once capitalist and labourer, harmony is established. If the present wage-earner could but own a part of the mill, the farm, the railway, or the mine, where he is employed, he would receive a share of the profits, over and above his wages. The war between classes would cease, because there would be only one class, every capitalist working, and every working man possessing capital. The ultimate object, therefore, is to collect all the instruments of production in the hands of co-operative societies, in order to establish, in the great industries of modern times, organization of labour, similar to that of the trade-guilds of the Middle Ages. To attain this object, the Bishop of CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 127 Mayence, like Lassalle, thinks that the “ self-help ” of Herr Schulze-Delitsch, that is to say, the savings of the working men themselves, will not be sufficient. But, while the Socialist agitator demands a hundred millions of thalers from the State to reform the existing order of things, the Catholic prelate appeals to Christian charity. The social question, he says, is closely connected with Christianity. Is not the first and great commandment of the Gospel to love our fellow-men and aid those who suffer? Should we not sacrifice everything in order to fulfil it ? But how is this duty, which Christ imposes upon us in such pressing and even menacing language, to be performed? Experience has shown that it cannot be done by alms alone ; and, inasmuch as economic laws always reduce wages to an insufficient minimum, ­ the end can only be attained by putting the labourer in the way of bettering his condition by the utilization of capital belonging to him. “ May God in His goodness,” cries Von Ketteler, “ bring all good Catholics to adopt this idea of co-operative associations of production, upon the basis of Christianity ! Thus alone can salvation be brought to the labouring classes. The freedom promised by Liberalism is like Dead Sea fruit, fair on the outside ­ but dust and ashes within. Liberalism proclaims freedom of contract ; but for the labourer without capital, it is merely freedom to die of hunger ; for how can he live, if he does not accept whatever conditions may be imposed upon him ? Freedom ­ to go where he likes, Freizügigkeit, is another meaningless phrase ; for is not the working man who has a wife and children tied to the spot where he is settled? How can he seek employment elsewhere, when he lacks the means of satisfying his first needs? Freedom of labour; what is it, except the competition of labourers reducing their wages to the lowest point ? Free trade ; what other result has it except to enable the rich to buy what they want in the cheapest market, and to reduce the working man to the level of those who can u sist upon the least? Christianity, practically applied, can alone bring it about that these liberties, of which capitalists ow reap the entire profit, may also benefit the labourers. J28 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. Catholic charity has already established countless institutions of every kind : convents, schools, refuges, hospitals, succour for all needs and all infirmities ! To-day it is the labourers to whom aid must come. This is the special mission of Catholicism.” Monseigneur von Ketteler ends his book with the most earnest appeals to the rich manufacturers and nobility. “ Formerly ­ it was the nobility who enriched the Church and the monasteries. Nothing now could be more pleasing to God and more conformable to the spirit of Christianity, than to constitute an association which should have for its object the founding of co-operative societies of production in those districts ­ where the condition of the labourers is the worst.” It is evident that the Bishop of Mayence believed, with Lassalle, that to insure the success of co-operative societies, it was sufficient ­ to advance them funds. Like Prince Bismarck, who has lately acknowledged it in the tribune of the German Parliament, ­ Von Ketteler had been completely gained over to this idea by the brilliant Socialist, “ one of the most intelligent and most charming men I ever met,” added the Chancellor, who still has faith in co-operative societies. In a former chapter, when discussing the plans of reform of this seductive agitator, I pointed out the difficulties which this kind of association has to encounter. The French labourers described them accurately in their Congress in Paris in 1876. Such elevated thoughts, uttered by so eminent a prelate, and moreover developed with undeniable eloquence, were bound to produce a profound impression upon the German Catholic clergy. Christian charity, no doubt, prompted thena to receive the new doctrine kindly ; but as they soon preache it to the electors of universal suffrage, it may well be thought that they saw in it the means of gaining allies among the labourers in their struggle against the government 1 he Kulturkampf and the May laws having driven the clergy to extremity, they did not hesitate to hold out a hand to the Socialists. An entire programme of Catholico-Socialist reforms was elaborated. A canon of the cathedral of Mayence, ^ learned priest and a clever orator, the Dom capitular K CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 129 Moufang, explained it at an electoral meeting, on the 27th of ebruary, 1871. His address is a regular exposition of econoico-rehgious principles, and as it is the creed of the party, it IS important to study it in some detail. Canon Moufang starts from the facts which he looks upon as proved by his bishop. The wages of the labourers are inurticient, and their condition is not such as either humanity or ^bristianity requires that it should be. The evil comes from application of Ricardo’s “ iron law.” “ Self-help ” is poweress to remedy it, and even Catholic charity does not suffice R f V. ^ gigantic task. The State must therefore intervene, thp 1 eure evils which appear to result from e laws of economy? The canon does not hesitate to name thf* protection of the law, by pecuniary aid, by pains each of these points, which, at first sight, do not fail follo^s^î. somewhat to disturb Economists, as cTi. to organize labour by means of a g neral law. It is for the labourers themselves to form associations, ­ to draw up regulations and a constitution of labour in every trade and every industry. The State should then in-Middle rgef" f"“ “f as in the m# ‘™nge of r„t r machine. He is made in the , w om he should learn to know and to serve : the socialism of TO-DAY. #mm ■ CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. I31 midst of the immoral surroundings of the factory, is to destroy the Christian family. The union of all these measures should constitute the “Labour Code,” just as there is a commercial code, a maritime code, and a civil code. It should regulate the relations between apprentices and masters, manufacturers and workmen. The existing anarchy would then cease. A social order, not exactly identical with that which formerly existed, but based on the same principles, would be reestablished. ­ Is it to be wondered at, adds the orator, that the demands of the people are sometimes unreasonable, and their accusations often too violent, when we reflect that nothing whatever is done for them ? (2) Like Lassalle, Canon Moufang demands that the State should advance money to working men’s societies. When rich capitalists make a railway, the State often guarantees them interest or subsidizes the undertaking. Why should it not give the same advantages to working men ? They have even a better claim ; for, with them, it is not a question of aggrandizement, ­ but of life. “ I am no partisan of M. Louis Blanc’s Workshops,” said Herr Moufang, “ but when a sound association ­ of working men is in need of aid, I cannot see why the State should refuse to grant it. What is equitable for the rich is equitable for the poor also.” The Canon of Mayence cathedral omits to mention in what respect his associations differ from those of M. Louis Blanc. The difference probably consists in the fact that the associations proposed by the canon would be founded on a ground work of Catholic principles ad niajorafu Dei gloriam. ’ (3) The State ought to reduce the taxes and military burdens which weigh so heavily upon the labourer. The independent gentleman, with thousands in his purse pays Hardly any taxes, while the worker, who has only his scanty J^age, sees it still further reduced by direct and indirect axation, to say nothing of the fact that the best years of his for ^Grvice in the army. Distributive justice calls radical reforms on this point. Militarism is the curse of '-»ermany. 132 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. (4) Finally, the State ought to place restrictions on the tyranny of capital. I attack neither wealth nor the wealthy, says the canon, for Holy Scripture says wealth and poverty come from God; but what I condemn is the methods by which these owners of thousands and millions enrich themselves ­ to-day. Whence come these tens of thousands so rapidly acquired by those who toil not ? They are deducted from the produce of the labour of the workers, who have to pay the incomes of these huge fortunes obtained originally by gambling on the Stock Exchange or by dishonest speculations. In thus speaking. Canon Moufang was plainly inspired and embittered by reminiscences of the Schwindeljahre, the years of mad speculation which followed 1871 ; but in this case, too, it would have been well if he had not confined himself to eloquent tirades against “the tyranny of capital,” but had indicated the means of putting an end to these iniquities. Such is the programme of the reforms which the Canon of Mayence calls for from the State. It hardly differs from that formulated by the Socialists, except that Herr Moufang more often invokes the Holy Scriptures. He is quite right to praise the Christian ideal. But what is to be done if the co-operative societies consume the capital advanced to them, and if the manufacturers cease producing when they are unable to meet the wages imposed ? The reforming canon does not concern himself with these details. A paper founded under the inspiration of Herr Moufang, Die Christlich-sociale Blaetter, has developed this programme more exclusively on the economical side. Like the Socialists, it vehemently attacks the Political Economy of the Manchester School, Das Manchesterthum. We must have done with these economical theories, says the Catholic journal, which exercise so grievous an influence on the public and private life of our times. These “ Manchestrists ” classify labour, the principal factor of civilization, under the same head as the natural agents. According to them, it is only a manifestation of the powers inherent in matter, like the attraction or gravitation of bodies. They speak of the laws which regulate the production and the distribution of wealth in the same way as of the neces- CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 133 sary laws which determine the sequence of natural phenomena. The consequence is that it is impossible to apply the notion of justice and right to the relations of capital and labour. These relations are, they say, regulated by the fatal law of supply and demand which it is vain to seek to modify. What would be the good of invoking an alleged right which it is absolutely impossible to apply ? Labour is a commodity, the price of which is fixed in the same way as that of all other commodities by the free bargaining of the two parties. Christianity or Catholicism have no more business here than if it was a question of physics or astronomy. This is the way in which Liberal economics come to deny any rights to the workers. The Catholico-Socialist print further accuses Economists of having completely misunderstood the principle of property in deriving it from labour. Property, it asserts, is a principle {moment) which is subordinate to labour neither in its origin nor in its importance. Liberalism has, then, falsified all the bases of a true civilization, labour, property, liberty, right, and justice. The influence of this pernicious doctrine must be broken and annihilated. It leads to revolution. The first thmg to do is to re-establish the corporations, to regulate industry, to fix wages by law, while creating a special macis ^rec^t)^ articles of the “Labour Code” (Arääts-It is easy to understand the success which doctrines of th\. sort must have met with among that portion of the labouring class which was not yet completely won over to the a C religious and atheistic movement preached by the democZL agitators. They were simply the ideas of Marx and Lassalle "we^ed^mh a s^^^(:^h^ic v^nWi,and «mn«:ted bv^ few quotations, with the teachings of the Fathers of the Churrh converted to Socalism, gained the adhesion of two veri numerous classes that the Social Democrats were unable to reach. In the first place, they won over the rural proprietors, and especially the petty aristocracy of the country districts, the squireens, who, not sharing in the growing wealth of 134 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. the large towns, saw, with bitter jealousy, influence and money passing to the large manufacturers, bankers, shareholders, promoters ­ of joint-stock companies, and all those Stock Exchange speculators who thenceforth, throughout “ industrialized " Germany, began to take the lead. The denunciation of the abuses of capital was much to the taste of this party of “ rurals,” who thus imbibed a sort of reactionary and feudal Socialism. According to them, not a line that Marx had written against capital was too violent. Of course, this “Agrarian” party had no idea of an Agrarian law, unless it could be applied exclusively to the funds of the Stock Exchange and to the Jews, whom they especially detested. The second stratum of adherents to which the Ultramontane Christlich-socialen penetrated was composed of the Catholic peasantry. The generals of the Kulturkampf, who persecuted the priests and the beliefs of the peasants, were Liberals and Economists. The Catholic country folk were therefore pleased to see Liberalism and Political Economy attacked. They found the burdens of taxation and military service overwhelming, and Canon Moufang had inscribed in his programme that they must be largely reduced. As to the “ iron law ” and Ricardo, they probably accepted their bishop’s teaching on trust. We shall now proceed to show that the words of Canon Moufang and Bishop Ketteler have not fallen upon stony places, but, like the seed that fell on good ground, they have brought forth fruit an hundred-fold. We shall principally follow the information collected with extreme care in a book, replete with facts, by Ur. Rudolf Meyer, “ The Struggle for the Emancipation of the Fourth Estate.” * The first reunion of the Ultramontane Socialist, or—as they used to call themselves—Christian Social (Christlichsociale) ­ clubs, took place at Crefeld, in June, 1868. Only three clubs were represented. They adopted as their organ a journal edited with considerable skill by Herr Schings, a clergyman at Aix-la-Chapelle, Die Christlich-sociale Blaetter. By the next year the number of clubs had considerably * Der EmancipcUionskavtpf des Vierten Standes. CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 135 increased. In the general assembly, which took place on the 9th of September, 1869, it was decided to form a special committee for the purpose of founding Christian Social clubs, having for their object “ the moral and economical improvement ­ of the working classes.” This committee was composed of Herr Gronheid, a vicar of Munster, Professor Schulze of Paderborn, and Baron von Schorlemer-Alst, one of the most influential leaders of “the centre”—i.e., the Ultramontane party—in the German Parliament. In the first manifesto of this committee it placed itself under the patronage of the Conference of the Catholic Bishops of Germany which was held at Fulda, in this very month of September, and which had specially occupied itself with the social question. The report presented by one of the bishops at the conference ­ of Fulda defined the attitude to be taken by the clergy on this question. Doubtless, it said, the clergy cannot directly and officially engage in the foundation of working men’s associations ; but it is the duty of the Church to awaken the sympathy of the ecclesiastical body for the labouring classes. The clergy are too often indifferent, because they are not aware of the imminence and gravity of the danger to which social sufferings give rise. They do not appreciate the full importance of the social question, nor do they see clearly the remedies. In the training given to members of the clergy, in philosophy, and in matters touching their pastoral mission, the labour question must no longer be omitted. It is highly desirable that some ecclesiastics should devote themselves specially to the study of Political Economy. It would be well to give them travelling funds, in order to enable them to study, on the spot, the wants of foreign labourers, and the means employed to provide for them. They ought, above all, with this object in view, to visit France, where, it would appear, the scope of the religious and moral “ moment ” is better understood ­ than elsewhere. Certain Economists affirm that there is no social question \ but the bishops hold other language. Most assuredly there is a social question, they say, and a very serious one ; our priests must study it, and make it the means of extending the influence of their ministry. Is it necessary 136 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. to ask whether the bishops or the economists will exercise the greater influence over the people ? The Christlich-sociale Blaetter soon published the principles which were to preside over the organization of the Catholic Social Associations. These statutes are in several respects worthy of attention. No member of these associations can belong at the same time to a Social Democratic club. Every Christian Social Association must cleave closely to the Church : extra Ecclesiain nulla salus. It should place itself under the patronage of St. Joseph, and should celebrate the anniversary of its foundation with religious festivals. A priest ought not to be selected as president, but some sound person who has the full confidence of the clergy. Persons of property, and even employers of labour, may be appointed honorary members, ­ but must not have any voice in the management of the association. Even the appearance of being “ taken in tow by capital ” {im schlepptau des Kapitals) must be carefully avoided. Coalitions and strikes should not be absolutely condemned, for that would involve the loss of all influence over the working men. Moreover, in the existing industrial system, working men have no other means of defending themselves and of making their rights respected. It is best to exclude politics, except when the interests of the Church are at stake, when the associations should throw themselves into the contest with all their strength. Meetings should be convened on Sundays, for , the discussion of all matters concerning the social question. Associations of journeymen, those of factory operatives, and those of rural labourers, form the three main branches of the grand social confederation, and between them a close alliance should be established. This, as may be seen, opened up an ambitious prospect. The idea was nothing short of combining in one general federation, submissive to the Church, the living forces of the labourers in both workshop and field throughout all Germany. It was something more than an imperium in imperio ; it was society itself, brigaded and drilled by ecclesiastics, who were to be versed at once in theology and political economy. The central committee fixed with great wisdom the limit of CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 137 action of each group. Local autonomy with unity of action in the interests of the Church, such is the principle. No one of our associations, said the committee, is to imagine that it can bring a ready-made solution of the most difficult problem set before the modern world, or to presume to enjoin upon others, as a Messianic revelation, the particular organization which it may have thought the best. Each Christian Social association ought to be allowed full freedom of action within the sphere which it has chosen for itself It is its business to look after the wants of its members and the local necessities. To impose the same regulations upon all would be to shut out the future, and to cut the roots of all independent growth. These associations ­ will not be the instruments which the Church will employ to solve definitely the difficulties in the way of the organization of a better and truly Christian society. When the hour shall have come, the Head of Catholicism will himself designate the ministers into whose hands this duty may be assigned in all confidence. Ihese mptical hopes please the masses. Moreover, it was a splendid idea, and one which certainly cannot injure the influence of the clergy, to entrust to the Pope the economic transformation of society. The holy father is here presented as a new Messiah, who will fulfil the promises of the millennium, by precipitating into the abyss Ricardo, Malthus, “the iron law Ramberger, and the whole of f.iberal “ Manchesterdom," he Catholic Social party succeeded in gaining, all at adherents by adopting Kolping s Catholic journeyman clubs " (Katholische Gescllvcreine). of seventy thousand members Peasant clubs (Bauernverein,) 138 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. rights of the country folk and to obtain a reduction of military service and of the taxes that burdened the land. Among the resolutions passed at the general assembly of the peasant clubs of Bavaria, held at Deggendorf, in October, 1871, may be found the following passage : “ We detest with all our soul the military system which is looked upon as the principal thing for which all else should be sacrificed. It absorbs the living forces of labour, even when they are most indispensable for production, as at harvest-time. Yet the army exists for the nation, and not the nation for the army, just in the same way as the government for the people, and not the people for the government." In the general assembly of Christian Social Associations, held at Essen, on the 29th June, 1870, Herr Witte, one of the delegates, thus enumerates the forces at their disposal : “ Fifteen ­ thousand Catholic peasants are already federated in Bavaria. Fifteen thousand farms form a solid basis of operations ­ from which to obtain possession of the country districts. We shall soon have as many, or even more, in Westphalia and in the Rhine country. A hundred thousand master-workmen range themselves under our flag, and eighty thousand gallant journeymen of the Kolpings-Vereine offer us their services. Our societies will soon count their members by hundreds of thousands. We have already a goodly army, and it is only the commencement. Thirty thousand German priests have just put their hands to the work. I foresee a brilliant future.” All this army, of w^hich the orator spoke, was sent forth to the ballot by the clergy, and at the elections by universal suffrage for the Imperial Parliament, in 1870, it gained more than one victory. Thus, at Elberfeld, it beat the Social Democrats, although the latter were on their own ground. In 1871 a ministerial rescript pronounced the dissolution of the peasant clubs of Westphalia, as constituting illegal political associations. They were, however, immediately reconstituted under the name of “ Union of Westphalian Peasants " ( Westfalische ­ Bauernverein), and, under the presidency of that member ­ of the Ultramontane Centre whom we have already mentioned, ­ Baron von Schorlemer-Alst, the number of members CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 139 rapidly increased. It was the declaration of war against the “ laws of May ” and the policy of Prince Bismarck. The Bishop of Mayence did not abandon his work. He urged his clergy to study unremittingly the social question. In 1871 he sent a monitorial circular to all the priests of his diocese, directing them to prepare exact statistics as to the condition of the working men of their respective parishes. In the general assembly of German Catholics which was held at Mayence, in September, 187 r, under the inspiration of Monseigneur ­ von Ketteler, the labour question was considered at length. The following are some of the resolutions passed on the subject :—It is necessary to determine, by means of a committee of inquiry composed of workmen and employers, the exact moral and material condition of the labouring classes, in order that the legislature may be able to enact a code of labour (Arbatsrecht). Landed property, trade, and commerce enjoy juridical protection, and yet the rights of labour are not recognized, although labourers form ninety per cent, of the population. The assembly urgently calls for the establishment of Christian Social Associations for master-workmen, factory hands, young men, women, and young girls, and it reminds the well-to-do classes that it is their bounden duty to come liberally in aid of these institutions. The assembly deplores the condition of labourers’ dwellings, which are a scandal for a Christian country, and it insists energetically that societies should be formed for the erection of healthy and cheap habitations. A proposition censuring strikes was rejected by a large majority. The foregoing account will suffice to show the spirit that animates the Catholic Socialist movement The work commenced ­ by Monseigneur von Ketteler has made considerable progress in these last few years. The clergy have everywhere devoted themselves to it with ardour, because it affords a means of gaining adherents, in the struggles of the Kulturkampf, to the profit of the Church and against the government. Among those who march in the first rank, may be mentioned, at the head Herr Schings, a rector, and Herr Kronenberg, a vicar, at Aix-la-Chapelle; Herr Laaf, vicar at Essen; and Herr E. Klein, the Dom-capitular of Paderborn. Their efforts tended to bring ;w • ‘«’y.-WWWíWk' •i* 140 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. the party nearer and nearer to the Social Democrats. For the purpose of marching together to the poll, the two parties would come to an understanding; but when it was a question of organizing societies, the conflict of principle inevitably arose. Thus, in February, 1878, a general meeting of delegates from the miners’ associations was held at Essen. The formation of a vast federation, which was to unite the miners of all Germany, was under discussion. An oratorical combat of the most lively kind soon began between the vicar Laaf and the Socialist agitator Herr Hasselmann, whose burning words and incisive manner are always enthusiastically received at meetings of working men. “ Since you have taken the ‘ Destruction of Christianity ’ for your watchword at Berlin,” said the vicar I.aaf, “ we can no longer act with you.” Herr Hasselmann replied by citing the example of Monseigneur von Ketteler, who had acted in a very friendly way towards an association of working men in the cigar trade, though founded by the Social Democrat Fritsche.* The following day Herr Hasselmann's paper, Die Volksstimme, declared that the miners had got the scent of the tricks of these intriguers in the black robe, and that they would not stand any “ Chaplainocracy.” On their side, the Catholic Socialist journals of the province, the Tremonia of Dortmund, the Essener Blaeiter, the Essener Volkszeitung, the Rheinisch-Westfalischer Volksfreund, flred all their artillery on the Social Democrats. The two parties disputed the balance of electoral power held in this district by the working men, who were employed in large numbers in the coal-mines and iron-works there. “ Miners, follow not the flag of the Democrats,” exclaimed the Christlich-socialen in chorus ; “ it will lead you to your ruin. Range yourselves in a body under the banner of the Cross. Therein lies salvation.” We have sketched the main features of this debate, because r,, Twh hecn elected a deputy. It was on his testimony ­ t t err Bebel relied, in a debate in the German Parliament, when fPr L of the advances made by Prince Bismarck to the Socialist party. ^ of knowing Herr Fritsche,” replied the Chancellor. But he IS a deputy, several members exclaimed, amid shouts of laughter. ** If he IS a deputy, continued Prince Bismarck, “he is incapable of telling an untruth, and I adjure him to prove that he has had any relations with CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. I4I it depicts the situation. A real understanding is impossible between the Social Democrats, who preach atheism with a view to upsetting the throne, the Church, and all established authority, and the Ultramontane Socialists, who desire to strengthen authority with a view to concentrating it in the hands of the bishops and the Pope. But both parties address themselves to the working men, tell them their grievances, propose remedies for the ills from which they suffer, and put the responsibility for all their wrongs upon the shoulders of the Liberal middle classes, “who exploit the people without pity or mercy.” They are thus found together in opposition and give their votes for each other. The associations created under the influence of Catholic Socialism are veritably innumerable, without, of course, counting convents, which are their ideal type. Dr. Rudolf Meyer has taken a great deal of trouble for the purpose of obtaining, not full statistics, but merely an enumeration of their different species, and he avows that he has found it impossible to draw up a complete list. Nevertheless, his classification, as it stands, is of considerable length. It embraces the following institutions :—Catholic journeyman associations {^Katholische Gesellenvereine) after Kolping’s model. They count more than eighty thousand members, and exist in almost all Catholic towns. Their meetings take place on Sundays, and aim at intellectual and moral culture. They sometimes include savings banks, and, at Berlin, they have founded an academy for the cultivation of taste in artistic manufactures.—Catholic apprentice associations. They are connected with those of the journeymen. They have usually schools on Sundays ; that of Cologne, for example, having more than six hundred pupils. —Catholic associations of master-workmen. For the'purpose of keeping up good feeling, these are pledged to take the sacrament together at least once a month.—Catholic associations ­ of factory girls, under the patronage of St. Paul.—Catholic associations of mining operatives. These are very numerous in the coal-basin of the Roer. They usually possess a mutual aid fund. Meetings take place for the discussion of their interests. The object is the cultivation of religious and social 142 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. sentiments.—Peasant associations. They are divided into two principal groups : that of Bavaria, whose organ is the Bauernzeitung, and that of Westphalia, whose paper is called the Westfalischer Bauer. The Bavarian group must count twenty thousand members. In the reunion of the Westphalian group, held during the summer of 1878, under the presidency of Baron von Schorlemer-Alst, the total of twelve thousand members was reached, including two thousand adhesions obtained that year.—Christian Social associations. They receive members from all classes, as their object is simply to discuss the social question and to propagate the movement. They have spread everywhere, and the number of their members is very large.—Catholic aid-associations for working men. They make loans without interest.—Catholic associations for maidservants and workwomen. — Catholic savings and credit associations, under the patronage of St. Joseph or St. Boniface, framed on the model of those of Herr Schulze-Delitzsch.—Working men’s associations for production. These are not numerous.—Associations for diffusing literature on the social question from the Catholic point of view.—Building societies.—Catholic associations for the wives and daughters of working men, etc., etc. The whole movement is represented by a great number of newspapers. The two best and most influential are, for Northern Germany, the Christlich-Sociale Blaetter, published at Aix-la-Chapelle under the management of Herr Sellings; and for Southern Germany, the Arbeiter-Freund, which appears at Munich under the direction of Herr Schimpf. If we enter into somewhat minute details, it is to show the power of the Catholic Socialists. The strength of this party in the Imperial Parliament increases at each election, and it has become one of the principal factors of German politics, the effects of which are felt throughout Europe. Its influence will enable us to understand better why Prince Bismarck, if he has not yet “gone to Canossa,” has at any rate permitted the Pope’s nuncio to come to Kissingen. The alliance of Democratic and Catholic Socialism is evidently the principal danger that threatens the whole work of the chan- CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 143 cellor. These two sections, labouring side by side, enemies when they contend for their cohorts of working men, but allies when they lead them to the poll, are both rapidly gaining ground. With the democrats, no understanding can be thought of ; their hostility is absolute. But with the Catholics, an accord is not impossible, by means of concessions on both sides. As Bismarck has very justly remarked, in politics, the do ut des is always concealed at the bottom of every compromise; ­ only the policy of Rome has never failed to exact much and to yield very little; while Prince Bismarck is not in the habit of treating on this footing. It is difficult to utter an impartial judgment on this extraordinary ­ movement that we have endeavoured to describe. It would, I believe, be unjust to assert that the commiseration for the lot of the labourers and the socialistic ideas expressed by the clergy are only a comedy enacted with the object of gaining power. A charitable priest must be sincerely touched with the evils which the working classes suffer in the crowded industrial centres. If he has read the Fathers of the Church, he will mark with indignation how little their precepts serve as a guide- amid the facts of modem life. With the ideal of Christian charity in his heart, what must he think of the economic world, ruled, as it is, by this hard law of competition which is no other than the animal struggle for existence? From the pulpit, the good pastor must say to us, “ Treat thy brother as thyself.” But the manufacturer replies to him “ If I do not reduce the cost of production and wages to the lowest point, I shall not be able to sell either in the home or the foreign market, and we shall all lose our livelihood.” No doubt Bishop Ketteler has been touched with the grace of Socialism through reading Lassalle, as Prince Bismarck was by listening to his words. But yet, when we see the vast masses of these innumerable associations guided and inspired with a view to the poll, and the clergy unhesitatingly allying themselves to these Democrats who have sworn, against Christianity, a Hannibal’s oath, we can no longer believe that this whole campaign, so skilfully planned, has no other inspiration ­ than love for one’s neighbour and no other aim than 144 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. to come to his aid. Clearly the supreme end is the triumph of the Church \ the rest is merely the means. This is a great end, and for those who are persuaded that the happiness of societies here below and the salvation of men in the life to come are bound up in it, it is the greatest of all ends. We can then conceive how it is that everything should be sacrificed to attain this end : nationality, fatherland, liberty, political institutions, economic prosperity—all these secondary good things to which usually so much value is attached. The Apocalypse tells us of a woman seated upon a scarlet coloured beast, and herself arrayed in a robe of purple and scarlet, “ having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness ; and upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of the abominations of the Earth.” “ And the woman which thou saw est,” says the Apocalypse, “ is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” The city designated in the Revelation is evidently Rome ; but, according to Protestant interpretations, it was Papal Rome that was meant. Certain modern mystics add a new interpretation. The woman arrayed in purple is the Papacy, which, in order that it may reign over peoples and kings, is taking up Socialism ; and the scarlet beast on which the woman is seated is the Red Democracy, which the Pope will make use of to overcome all resistance. It is not necessary to invoke the Apocalypse in order to prove a plain fact, namely, that the Church will not renounce, without a supreme struggle, the universal domination which it exercised in old times, and which it still hopes to regain. Inasmuch as the bourgeoisie, proud of its liberties, will not willingly resign them into the hands of the clergy, the Church must draw to itself the labourers in field and factory. How is this to be done? By speaking to them of their ills and promising them, as Socialism does, to apply a remedy in the shape of a more equitable distribution of the good things of this world. Nothing can be more easy for the Church : she has only to return to the traditions of the first centuries. Even in the Middle Ages, did not the mendicant monks, all imbued with communistic ideas, draw the people after them CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS. 145 m all parts ? It seems as though a new evolution were being prepared under our eyes throughout the entire world, namely, the alliance of Catholicism and Socialism against the Liberal bourgeoisie, their common enemy. As long as the clergy retain hopes of regaining power, they will stand by the principle of authority; but if they are forced to believe them selves definitively deprived of political influence and menaced m their privileges, they will do as in Germany, ask arms of Socialism. What a strange power is the Church ! In its origin It was a levelling and even communistic democracy, and now It presents at Rome the most perfect type of theocratic 146 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. CHAPTER IX. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. W E often speak of the International, and generally without ­ knowing either its constitution or its history. We fancy that we see the hand of this terrible society in all the acts of violence of Socialism : strikes, insurrections, incendiary fires in our cities, as in Paris; bombs, as at Florence and Pisa; attempts at regicide, as at Berlin, Naples, Madrid, or St. Petersburg. ­ It is the red spectre everywhere present, everywhere threatening, and secretly undermining the fabric of the society in which we live. The International, however, never was a secret society. Its head-quarters were well known. Its proclamations ­ were signed and published; and, m s ort, it is t e form to which the present Socialistic movement must logically come. Is not everything in our days becoming international Have we not international exhibitions, banks of international credit, international tariffs for the post, the telegrap s, an t e railways, international treaties for the extradition o crimina s, for commercial law, for certain usages of war, for exc ange, and international financial societies without number “Internationalism” is the natural consequence of the grea process of assimilation which is taking place t roug out t e world. Nations are becoming more and more 1 e e^ ot er, and their mutual relations more and more close. e same economic and religious problems, the same commercia an industrial crises, the same class antagonisms, the same strugg es between capitalists and labourers arise in all civilized countries, whether their form of government be republican or monarchica. The “ solidarity” of nations is no longer an empty phrase. So 147 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. real is it, especially in economic matters, that a purely local occurrence may have far-reaching results in both hemispheres. Germany adopts a gold currency, for example, and immediately the miner in the Rocky Mountains finds the value of his produce diminished ; the English officer, quartered near the Himalayas, can no longer remit his savings to London without suffering an enormous loss ; and the trade of England with India and South America is profoundly disturbed. Again, the spirit of enterprise awakes in America, and instantly, in spite of a bad harvest, European trade revives, prices mount up, factories, which had long stood idle, recommence work, and the crisis, which for five years had paralyzed production, gives place to a new era of activity and prosperity. As different nations tend to become one single family, all forms of social activity must consequently take an international character. The International owed its origin to the following series of facts and inferences. Owing to the cheapness of transport and the lowering of custom-duties, the western countries form only one single market, in which, through the action of competition, prices are maintained nearly on a level. Production takes place on similar conditions : the same processes, the same machines the same raw materials. It is, then, only by reducing the rate of wages that the cost price can be diminished. The manufacturer is naturally led to this, in order to gain a foreign outlet for his goods. But then, other manufacturers, menaced by the importation ­ of foreign merchandise, are obliged, in their turn to lower the price of labour, in order to avoid loss of custom Ind having to cease working. In vain the workmen try to resist by coalitions and strikes. The manufacturer can present to them this incontrovertible argument: “If I do not reduce your wages, one of two things will happen : I may either keep up the selling-price of my goods, in which case there will be no sale for them, as my competitors, who pay lower wages, can offer their goods cheaper; or I may lower my prices, and then I shall be selling at a loss, my capital will gradually be eaten up, and I shall be ruined and have to close the factory. Where then will you find work ? I am therefore forced, in spite of ^tiyse , to reduce wages to the rate paid by my competitors.” 148 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DA Y. The conclusion to be drawn from this reasoning is that the working men of one country, in order to resist a lowering of wages, must enter into an understanding with those of other opposition must be made, and if it takes place in a foreign country, then in that foreign country resistance must be organized. It is therefore easy to see how the cosmopolitan character of capital, the facility of transport and exchange, and the identity of manufacturing processes naturally lead to an international association of working men. Another circumstance of a more special character led in the same direction. Sometimes English employers, when their workmen refused the conditions offered to them and went out on strike, imported foreign workmen—Germans, Belgians, or Danes—who were ready to take less wages. They even threatened to introduce Chinese coolies, who, subsisting on rice can live in comfort on sixpence a day. How were the workmen to escape from this competition imported from without ­ > Obviously, by forming an understanding with foreign workmen, by proving to them that the interests of all labourers are mutually dependent, and by inducing them accordingly to refuse any offers that employers of another country might make to them. Clearly the International grew, at the outset, on economical ground and under the influence of the new conditions ­ of modern industry. This is proved beyond question by the fact that the International ­ came into being immediately after the holding of the International Exhibition at London, in 1862. At least it was then that it took bodily shape, for the idea, m its theoretical form, dates from much earlier. In 1847 there was held m London an assembly of German Communists under the di^c tion of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who had just published his book on the condition of working men in England, manifesto was printed in several languages. The programme adopted may be summarized as follows ; Abolition of private property ; centralization of credit in the hands of the State y means of a national bank ; agricultural operations on a large scale to be carried on according to a scientific plan, and industry Tim RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 149 to be handed over to national factories. It was, however, added that the transformation of existing society would not take place according to the preconceived ideas of any reformer, but on the initiation of the entire labouring class. The manifesto closed with the appeal : “ Proletarians of all countries, unite ! ” This idea of uniting all associations of working men into one universal interdependent federation has been attributed to a Frenchwoman, Jeanne Derouin. It was decided to call an International Congress of working men at Brussels in the following year; but the revolutionary movements of 1848 and the subsequent reaction prevented this from being done, and the idea remained in abeyance for fourteen years. In 1862 certain manufacturers, such as M. Arlës-Dufour, and certain newspapers, such as Le Temps and L Opinion Nationale., started the idea that it would be a good thing to send delegates from the French working men to the London Exhibition. “The visit to their comrades in England,” said L'Opinion Nationale, “would establish mutual relations in every way advantageous. While they would be able to get an idea of the great artistic and industrial works at the Exhibition, they would at the same time feel more strongly the mutual interests which bind the working men of both countries together; the old leaven of international discord would settle down, and national jealousy would give place to a healthy fraternal emulation.” ­ The whole programme of the International is summed up in these lines; but the manufacturers little foresaw the manner in which it was going to be carried out Napoleon III. appeared to be very favourable to the sending of the delegates to London. He allowed them to be chosen by universal suffrage among the members of the several trades and, naturally, those who spoke the strongest on the rights of labour were chosen. By the Emperor's orders, their journey was facilitated in every way. At that time Napoleon still dreamed of relying, for the maintenance of his Empire, on the working men and peasants, and of thus coping with the liberal middle classes. At London the English working men gave the most cordial welcome to “ their brothers of France.” On the 5th of August THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 150 they organized a fête of “ international fraternization ” at the Freemasons’ Tavern. The speeches were by no means violent. On the question of wages, it was said, working men should combine ; but, to smoothen difficulties, they ought also to enter into some arrangement with their employers. According as machinery was improved, there would be a smaller demand for labour; a proportionate reduction of wages would therefore be threatened. How was a sufficient remuneration to be secured to the labourer ? It was a difficult problem, the solution ­ of which required the attention of historians, philosophers, statesmen, employers, and labourers of all countries. Finally, they proposed to create committees of working men “as a medium for the interchange of ideas on questions of international ­ trade.” The conception of a universal association appears here in embryo. Two years afterwards it saw the light. On the 28th of September, 1864, a great meeting of working men of all nations was held at St Martin’s Hall, London, under the presidency of Professor Beesly. M. Tolain spoke in the name of France. Karl Marx was the real inspirer of the movement, though Mazzini’s secretary. Major Wolff, assisted him—a fact which has given rise to the statement that Mazzini was the founder of the International. So far was this from being the case that he only joined it with distrust, and soon left it. The meeting appointed a provisional committee to draw up the statutes of the association, to be submitted to the Universal Congress, which was expected to meet at Brussels in the following year. In this committee Fngland, France, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and Germany were represented ; and afterwards delegates from other countries were admitted. They were fifty in all. They adopted none of the ways of a secret society. On the contrary, it was by publicity that they hoped to carry on their propaganda. Their office was in London : No. 18, Greek Street, Soho. The statutes that were drawn up were, after all, by no means revolutionary ; indeed, it might have been supposed to be a society for the study of social questions. A general council was appointed, with Odger for president ; Wheeler, treasurer ; Cremer, secretary ; and includ* THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 151 ing Le Lubez for France, Wolff for Italy, Marx for Germany, Holtorp for Poland, and Jung for Switzerland. In order to cover expenses, a fund was opened. They raised, it is said, sterling : a small sum to shake the world. Mazzini, by his secretary,Wolff, proposed a highly centralized organization, which would entrust the entire management to the leaders. Marx took the other side, arguing that such a system might suit a political conspiracy, plotting to overthrow a government, ­ but that it would not avail for combining a very large number ­ of working men’s societies established in different countries and under different conditions. In order to succeed, they must be satisfied with a lax federal tie, and above all must respect local independence. Far from acting in the dark, their success depended ­ on the greatest possible publicity. Mazzini was a mere politician, and did not understand social questions. Having passed his life in hatching plots, he could not see anything outside ­ of “ Carbonarism.” Marx, who had a profound knowledge of Political Economy, had no difficulty in showing that, if a few barricades and a bold stroke might sometimes be sufficient to overthrow a dynasty and proclaim a republic, that was not the way to introduce modifications with regard to the holding of property, the organization of labour, or the basis of the distribution ­ of wealth. Marx carried the day. Soon, in his turn, he too was to be opposed and cast off as too dictatorial. Mazzini and his followers seceded. The very skilful and comparatively moderate manifesto, drawn up by the general council, embodied the ideas of Marx. In a speech in Parliament on the 16th of April, 1863, Mr. Gladstone had said that during the last twenty years the condition ­ of the working man had hardly improved, and that in many cases the struggle for existence had become more difficult for him, while the growth of the national wealth from trade and commerce had been unprecedented, and that, for example, the exports had been multiplied threefold. The manifesto cited this speech and drew from it the conclusion that means must be adopted for increasing the share of labour. The normal working day must, in the first place, be limited to ten hours, in order to give the labourer some leisure for the development of 152 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. his faculties, and also to avoid over-production and a glutted market. The success of certain co-operative societies proves that working men can manage even a large concern without the direction of an employer. The conclusion may therefore be drawn that wage-earning is a transitory form of labour, and that it will soon give place to the system of association. This system, by securing to the workman the entire product of his labour, will stimulate his zeal and conduce to his welfare. To attain this end, an understanding amongst all workmen is required. Hence the establishment of the International Association. ­ This manifesto contained nothing alarming. Michael Chevalier or J. S. Mill, who had both spoken of the principle of association in similar terms, might have signed it. The International also affirmed that “ the emancipation of the labourers must be the work of the labourers themselves. This idea seemed an application of the principle of “ self-help ; ” it enlisted for the new association, even in France, the sympathies of many distinguished men who little suspected how it was to be interpreted later on. This affords a new proof of the fact, frequently observed, that revolutionary movements always go on increasing in violence. The originators of the movement are quickly left behind. They are thought lukewarm and are soon looked upon as traitors. They are replaced by the more fanatical, who, in their turn, are pushed aside, until the final abyss is reached to which wild revolutionary logic inevitably leads. The progress of the new association was at first very slow. A few English working men’s societies joined it ; but the Italians established in London, though at first giving in their adherence, soon afterward, by the advice of Mazzini, withdrew. The delegate Lefort, sent by the general council to Paris, was badly received. Tolain and Fribourg, who had come to London to explain the situation, could not agree with Le Lubez, who sent in his resignation. Harmony was aimed at, and the result was discord. The congress which was to have met at Brussels did not take place, but, in its stead, an ordinary conference ­ was held in London, in the month of September. The the rise and fall of the internat/onal. 153 delegates from the Continent brought discouraging news. Except in Switzerland, adhesions were rare. The Belgian delegates complained of the apathy of their countrymen ; the French, of the vexatious.interference of the police ; the Italians, of the hostility of Mazzini’s followers. It was determined to hold a General Congress next year at Geneva. The first sitting did, in fact, take place on the 3rd of September, ­ 1866, at Geneva, under the presidency of Jung, who represented the General Council. There were in all only sixty delegates, seventeen of whom were French. Besides Jung, the General Council had sent Odger, Cremer, Eccarius, and arter. 1 he statutes drawn up in London under the inspiration ­ of Marx were adopted almost without change. They were very skilfully conceived. They presented a well-planned application of the federal system and of voting by several stages. Local initiative was respected, while the central authority, emanating from the several federated groups, was to direct the whole. These statutes were framed so as not to alarm Governments and to avoid the risk of suppression by the law. The association is founded, says the first article, to provide a centre of communication and co-operation between working men of difierent countries who have the same end in view, namely, “ the joint action, the advancement, and the complete emancipation of the working class.” The Association, and all societies and individuals joining it,"recognize truth, justice, and morality as the basis of their conduct, and take for their motto “No duties without rights and no rights without duties.” These were golden words. How could the tribunals think for a moment of prosecuting such an association ? The unit of the Association is the section. A section is composed of the working men of a particular locality or trade who become members and unite in order to study and defend their common interests. All the sections of a region are grouped so as to form a federation. Lastly, the statutes say, “as the utility of the General Council will be the greater in proportion as its action is less diffused, the members of the International Association ought to make every effort to estab- 154 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. lish, in each country, a National Association of all Societies existing therein.” Thus the International was to be constructed like a pyramid, founded on the territorial division of existing Society : at the base of all was the commune ; then, from the grouping of communes, ­ the province ; from the grouping of provinces, the nation ; and, to crown all, from the grouping of nations, humanity. It was a grand idea, recalling that of the Catholic Church ; but for want of the principle of authority and obedience, the national grouping of sections was never accomplished, ­ even in France or Germany. Each section and each federation names a committee, which is connected with the General Council. Every month each committee sends a report on the position of the Associations ­ within its jurisdiction. The General Council is elected by the representatives of the federations. Each congress determines the time and place of the next congress, while the General Council settles beforehand the questions for discussion, and presents a report on the proceedings of the year. It also issues a circular concerned with everything likely to interest working men : offers of, and demands for, labour ; wages ; the progress of co-operative societies ; the situation of the working classes in different countries. It is in permanent relation with local societies. It chooses from its members the president, the secretary, and the treasurer of the association. To meet the ordinary expenses of the staff and of publications, a subscription ­ is called for. The members pay, in the first place, from the time of joining, half a franc a year for the general fund, and, in addition, from one to two francs for the local section or federation. To assist strikes, further resources must be obtained. By a very cleverly conceived rule, every society that wished to affiliate itself was allowed to retain its own organization. In this way working men’s societies of all kinds could be absorbed, provided they simply declared their adhesion to the principles of the International. The debates and the resolutions of the first congress were moderate. The more radical motions were not carried. The French group represented “ the left,” and the Germans “ the THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 155 extreme left” The English kept to what was possible under existing circumstances. Should all religions be condemned as hostile to the emancipation of the labourer? The congress refused to pronounce upon the question, the subject not entering into the circle of their inquiries. Ought only working men to be admitted? The French wished to exclude inexorably ­ “ the brain-workers,” the lawyers and the Journalists, “ all those fine talkers” who make a trade of agitation. The English and the Germans opposed this. It would, in fact, have been to expel all those who had created and were directing the International. The congress also refused to adopt any particular plan of social reorganization, and limited itself to formulating general principles. It thought that, by means of free co-operation, power and capital would at length pass into the hands of working men. However, it urged trades unions not to content, themselves with seeking higher wages, but to unite in order to obtain “ the complete emancipation of the labourer.” A wish was expressed in favour of the independence of Poland ; but a motion “ to stigmatize Russian despotism ” was not admitted. It was also decided to aim at the general reduction of the normal working day to eight hours. Children’s labour could not be entirely prohibited, but it must not exceed a few hours a day, the rest of the time being devoted to education, which the employers were bound to provide. A portion, however, of the children’s wages might be deducted to pay their teachers Finally, resolutions were voted in favour of direct taxation and the suppression of standing armies. This was a reminiscence of the Peace Congress. In 1867 the International began to make its power felt Its victories date from this epoch. The Parisian workers in bronze had formed a union since the year 1864, immediately after the abolition of the law forbidding coalitions. In February, 1867, they struck work, and the employers resolved on a “ lock out,” which threw five thousand workmen out of employment. Three of their delegates went to London to ask aid of the International. The assistance they obtained was scanty enough ; but the employers, thinking that money was THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 156 abundant, gave in. This victory obtained for the association a large number of adhesions throughout France. In England other measures brought in recruits. In certain trades, the employers, threatened by strikes, brought workmen over from Belgium and Germany. The International immediately set to work. It succeeded in arresting the departure of further detachments of workmen, and as to those already employed, it induced them to return to their own country on having their expenses paid and getting something over for themselves. A whole batch of Germans, warned at the moment of landing, returned home on the first opportunity. The trades’ unions, which hitherto had confined their operations exclusively to England, now understood the object of the International, and a certain number of them joined it. Recruiting recommenced in Germany, where it had been arrested in the preceding year by the war between Austria and Prussia, and was carried on to a considerable extent in Switzerland, especially in the French cantons. Several Socialist newspapers, too, placed their services at the disposal of the International.* The second congress held its sittings at Lausanne, from the 2nd to the 8th September, 1867. Radical ideas began to find utterance, though as yet they did not prevail. Neither the abolition of hereditary succession nor the adoption of collective property was voted, but only the taking up by the State of the railways, “ in order to destroy the monopoly of the great companies, which, by subjecting the working class to their arbitrary rules, attack at once both the dignity of man and the liberty of the individual.” Except for this curious clause, which looks as if it had been drawn up by a dismissed engineer, there is nothing very revolutionary in this motion. Indeed, Governments vie with each other in putting it into practice. I'he congress did not even approve of gratuitous education. * Among these were : in France, La Fourmi, PAssociation, Lc Congrès ouvrier, La Mutualité ; in Germany, the Sozi al-Demokrat and the Deutsche Arbeiter-Zeitung of Berlin, the Nordstern of Hamburg, the Correspondent of Leipzig ; in London, the Workman's Advocate, edited by Eccarius, and the International Courier, written both in English and in French ; in Belgium, La Tribune du peuple. The International also found organs in Italy, Spain and America. the rise and fall of the international. 157 It decided that the first duty of parents being to instruct their children, the State should only pay for them when they cannot pay for themselves. The most orthodox economist, even the most opposed to State intervention, could not ask for anything better. Contrary to the opinions expressed at Geneva, the Congress of Lausanne showed much distrust in respect of co-operative societies, “ because they tend to create a fourth estate with a fifth estate below them more miserable still.” The objection appears a strange one. If the working men co-operators are in a better situation than the others, is that a reason for proscribing ­ the Association ? Is it not rather the reverse ? Must we condemn all reform which is only partial, and can we in practice obtain any other ? The congress, however, wished to persuade the proletariat, “that the social transformation could not be effected in a radical and permanent way, except by means acting on society as a whole and conformable to reciprocity and Justice.” It was agreed that “in order to prevent the associations from contributing to the maintenance of inequality, it was necessary to abolish, as far as possible, the levy made by capital on labour, that is to say, to introduce the idea of mutuality and federation.” This appears to mean that interest should be abolished; but then, the co-operators getting no advantage by increasing their deposits, would give up saving, and all increase in the means of production would be arrested. So long as the formation of capital remains the result of a voluntary act, inasmuch as that act constitutes a sacrifice, it will not take place without reward. On the field of battle men will die for their country. In the workshop they will not deny themselves that others may enjoy. Heroism and self-abnegation are sublime virtues ; but they will never be the moving forces of the economic world. An important question arose : Ought the International to confine itself exclusively to economic ground, or was it its interest to make common cause with that party of the bourgeoisie ­ who aim at political reforms and the establishment of a republic, if need be by means of revolution? Karl Marx would have wished to limit the activity of the association to 158 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. the labour question; they would thus have more chance of escaping repression and of attaining some practical results. After much discussion, it was decided that “social emancipation ­ was inseparable from political emancipation ; ” and they accordingly sent delegates to the Congress of Peace and Liberty, which was at that moment sitting at Geneva. The old revolutionary spirit, which believes that everything can be settled by a few bold strokes, and which has no idea of the difficulties presented by social questions, predominated at this congress. These old-fashioned Jacobins let loose the storms, provoke reactions, and thus retard the economic progress, that is to say, the improvement of the lot of the greatest number, which is the important thing to attain. The rapid extension of the International in France alarmed the Imperial Government, and prosecutions were commenced. In March, 1868, a certain number of the leaders were condemned, ­ but only to a fine of one hundred francs, for the offence of having joined, not a secret, but an unauthorized society. The speech of the public prosecutor was full of indulgence and even sympathy ; for the Imperial Government still hoped to rally the working men to its side. The only effect of this appearance of repression was to attract attention to the International and to make it more popular. “ Government ­ persecution," said the Council-General a short time afterwards, ­ “ far from killing the International, has given it a new impetus, by putting an end to the unwholesome coquetting of the empire with the working class." In Germany, too, the Association made rapid progress at this period. A great many trades unions (Gewerk-Vereine) were established there. In the month of August an assembly of the representatives of one hundred and twenty working men’s societies took place at Nuremberg, and they decided to affiliate themselves to the International. It also penetrated into Spain. In Switzerland its popularity spread widely, because it had enabled some bricklayers at Geneva to obtain increased wages. The third congress met at Brussels, at the Circus Theatre, from the 5th to the nth of September, 1868. Ninety-eight delegates ­ represented England, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 159 Spain, and Switzerland. A full report of the proceedings was published in a Socialist newspaper of Brussels, Ze Peuple Belge. Upon each question on the order of the day, a report was presented. ­ The discussions were in general brief and not very animated, and the resolutions drawn up by the central committee ­ were carried without modification. It was only on the question of property in land that differences of opinion arose. The first question that occupied the congress was that of war. The incident of the cession of Luxembourg, prevented by the veto of Prussia, and the attitude of the ministers of Napoleon III., caused apprehension of a collision between France and Germany. The formula circulated by the Peace Societies, “ War against war ! ” served as the text of several speeches, in which the French delegates energetically affirmed that the people in France rejected all idea of an attack upon Prussia. On their side, the Germans proposed a resolution that a war between France and Germany would be a civil war for the benefit of Russia.* The congress had even the simplicity to believe that working men could put a stop to any fresh war. T. heir scheme was as follows :—“ The social body cannot live if production cease for a certain time. It would be sufficient, then, for the producers to stop producing to render impossible the enterprises of personal and despotic governments.” Thus when war is threatened, a universal strike is the remedy. Alas *1 It cannot be applied. In existing conditions it is capital and not labour, that commands. If the labourer ceases to work society, it is true, will perish, but the labourer will be the first to die, for he lives from day to day. The idea of a universal strike, which reappears from time to time, is an impossibility. * The preamble of this resolution is worth notine • wmmm. i6o THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. On the question of machines, the discussions were somewhat ­ confused. The delegates could not, like ignorant labourers, condemn the use of the improved machines that discoveries ­ of sciences were placing at the service of industry. On the contrary, they prided themselves on having no other religion than that of science. To proscribe machines logically involves breaking up the plough, the shuttle, the spade—in a word, all tools, and returning to the age of stone. Nobody called for the suppression of machines ; but the majority of the congress appeared to be convinced that the employment of machines diminishes the demand for labour, and consequently reduces wages, though all the facts hitherto ascertained prove the contrary. Finally, the following resolution was adopted :— “ That it was only by co-operative societies and a system of mutual credit that the producers could become themselves the owners of machines ; meanwhile, as matters were, working men, constituted into societies of resistance, might interfere with advantage to prevent the introduction of machines, without certain guarantees and compensations to the labourer.” The principal end aimed at by the International appears clearly in the debate on the question of strikes. Graglia, the delegate from Geneva, showed that the masons’ strike had succeeded ­ because the employers believed that considerable funds had been sent from England, France, and Belgium. Working men in every countiy should, he said, combine in sections and form provident funds, which might on occasion become defence funds. In every town groups should be formed, and should be all united by an international tie, and the whole labouring class should come to the aid of those who resist, “ in order to defend the rights of labour.” In this way there would be no more strikes, for employers, convinced beforehand that they should have to give way, would yield before there was any need of having recourse to strikes. Such was the original idea of the International, but the later adherents considered it narrow and mean. It was, in fact, the idea of the English trades unions, which, accepting wages as a fact, simply endeavoured to raise them as high as possible. According, however, to the continental Internationalists, the object to aim M the rise and fall of the international. l6l at was, not the increase of wages, but the abolition of the wages system by a radical transformation of the social order Combinations and strikes were only makeshifts, while awaiting someAing better. The following were the declarations adopted on this subject “ Strikes are not a means of completely eman cipatmg the labourer, but they are often a necessity in the existing conflict between capital and labour. It is therefore advisable to subject strikes to certain conditions as to organiza tion, opportuneness, and propriety. With regard to the organization ­ of strikes, in those trades which have not, as^vet judge of the opportuneness and propriety of impending strikes ” This, as may be seen, was a complete plan of campaign. The mw J52 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. principle was applied to mines and quarries, to forests, and even to arable land. The grounds of this resolution were stated as follows:—“Considering that the necessities of production ­ and the application of agricultural science call for cultivation conducted on a large scale, and require the introduction ­ of machines and the organization of combined labour in agriculture, and that, moreover, economic evolution itself tends in the same direction,—that, therefore, property in the j soil and agricultural labour ought to be treated on the same footing as mining labour and property in the subsoil; that, ; moreover, the productive quality of the soil is the original ^ material of all products, the primitive source of all wealth, without being itself the product of anybody's labour ; that the alienation to individuals of this indispensable original material | makes all society pay tribute to those to whom it is alienated ;— i the congress thinks that the course of economic evolution will ¿ make the collective ownership of arable land a social necessity, and that the land will be granted out to companies of labourers, ¡ under conditions of guaranty for society and for the cultivator, ç analogous to those necessary in the case of mines and railways.” á Observe how this language differs from that of revolutionaries 1 of Jacobin traditions. The influence of the positivist school, ■ which prides itself on preaching respect for natural laws, is ; plainly felt. It is not revolution, but “ evolution ” which will j lead society to “ collectivism ; ” not the decrees of a convention, but “ social necessities ” that will bring about the trans- | fornlation. The congress, moreover, retains the reserve of / philosophic doubt ; it does not affirm, it “ thinks ” that matters , will thus come to pass. The declarations of the congress, ’ although reduced to a mere expression of opinion, were not carried without vigorous opposition. M. Tolain urgently defended private property in land, at the risk of seeming reactionary. The idea of the collective ownership of arable land had been readily adopted by many Englishmen, under the name of “nationalization of the land. As a few aristocratic families own almost the whole extent o j the British Isles, to assign property in land, there, to the State seems to be a measure which does not offer insurmountab e the rise and fall of the international. 163 difficulties, and which, in appearance, would have some analog es to the confiscatton of the property of the Emigrh and of I S Mm h ■ a" I received from )■ S Mill, he explained to me that the working classes in re more than five millions of small proprietors, well knew that collectivism, applied to agricultural land, would excite there ■ 104 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. evolution” in the midst of free Communes and autonomous be done is “to fire the towns," so as to .Ilumínate the ''"'it was the Congress of Brussels that explained with the greatest detail the economic programme of the Interna lonal. What does this word include ? Inasmuch as the division into separate States is to disappear, it probably means t e human collectivity,” the whole of humanity. I shall then be co-proprietor of the land of the Zulus and of the Esquimaux, as they will be of the field I cultivate. Will this dominium of humaaiity be inerely nominal, like that which the snvere^^i stm possesses in Einglarid overall the sod of the British .fies? If this be so, matters would be left as they are, with one fiction added Will it, on the contrary, be an effective dominium with receipt of revenue and selection of occupants ? We are, then, brought to a conception hardly intelligible and absolutely unworkable. When we read their statements of reasons, we so; but then, what inequality between those who, wth equal labour, obtain from fertile land eighty bushels of «^eid, and those who extract from refractory soil only forty bushels rye? In short, assign the property in land to the collectm y, whatever it may be, and you will thus have secured neither justice, nor equality, nor happiness for all. . ^ The Economist cannot, like the Physicist, check the truth of his conceptions by experiments in a laboratory, ut e ca judge of the effect of certain institutions by the study of com-Lltive legislation. There are countries where the system belongs to the State, for it draws nearly the whole net produc . the rise and fall of the international. I6s In Italy, too, the reform is half accomplished ; for the State, the Provinces, and the Commune levy, by way of taxes, thirty, forty, and even fifty per cent, of the land revenue. It is, therefore, the same as if they had got possession of half the property , Is the tiller of the soil in these countries any the happier ? No ; the poverty of the rural districts is extreme. To give the ownership of land to the State would simply be to impose a single tax, as was formerly advocated by the Physiocrats and recently by MM. de Girardin and Menier. The general character of our societies would not be in the least modified, ent, consumed to-day by landowners, would then be swalofficials. This is precisely what the Proudhonian Anarchists, the desperate opponents of the State-Divinity,” fought against. They, accordingly, proposed to entrust the land to rural associations. But here also experience, that supreme authority which the Sociologists always quote, gives serious warnings on the subject of “ the natural laws of social evolution.” The system of which the International Anarchists dream is not a Utopia. It was formerly general in France, and it still exists to-day with the Slavs of the Danube and of the Balkans. There the land is worked and owned by autonomous associations, which are very justly termed by Austrian writers Hauscommuniomn, “House or Family Communities.” When I visited the zadrugas of Servia and Croatia, I too, like M I e Plav and like the great apostle of Danubian Slavism, Monseigneur Strossmayer, was beguiled by the charms of this rural life so group, men and women, working in common in the fields or preparing the hemp and the wool for their clothes, in the ¡ate evening, the nausic of tl^¿7»iA, acconqxmymgthe song of the Servian romancero, one might fancy one's self transported among the nymphs and swains of the Golden Age* “Natural Evolution,” however, is undermining these fraternal insti- 166 the socialism of to-day. tutions, based though they are on family ties and immemorial traditions. When what we call progress comes to shake this patriarchal life from its torpor, and new wants come into being, the associates no longer care to labour for the common weal ; they demand a partition. Little by little the spirit of individualism is destroying the Slavic zadruga, as^ before, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it brought about the disappearance of the communities of ancient France. hen isolated, are the families happier ? Far from it. Often they have to sell their properties and lapse into poverty. Still they wish for freedom and independence, even at the price of the responsibilities and disappointments thereby engendered. Before another half-century, when railways and modern industry ­ shall have developed the wealth of Southern Slavonia, the ancient equality will have given way to the opposition between capitalism and wage-earning, as in our western countries. We may regret the fact, but it cannot be denied j existing tendencies seem fatal to rural communities. They endure only when they rest on a religious sentiment of a perfervid type, as at Oneida or among the T rappists. During the year 1869 the International spread with extraordinary rapidity. There was a great ferment among the working classes throughout Europe, and particularly in France, where, after the May elections, the Government, doubtless with the object of rallying the middle classes to its side, had given complete liberty to the violent language of the clubs. Strikes took place all over Europe, and in many parts, notably at Seraing in Belgium, and at Creusot in France, they ended in skirmishes and bloodshed. All these strikes brought recruits to the International in the hope of getting aid. Usually they did not succeed, for the great association was not rich ; but in the early days of excitement it was supposed to be powerful, and it caused employers to make concessions, just as if it were really so. How adhesions to the International were made may be clearly seen from the answer of the prisoner Bastin, at the time of the trial of May, 1870. “ I am accused,” he said to the president, “ of having joined a secret society. I deny it expressly. 1 rue, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 167 I am a member of the International ; but it is not a secret society. The circumstances under which I joined it are as follows :—At the time of the strike of the ironfounders, one of our friends said to us at a meeting, ‘ We have formed a society of resistance, but we have something more to do, and that is, to join the International.’ He then read the statutes to us, and we recognized that they were good, and that there would be no harm in joining. The matter was put to the vote, and to the number of 1200 we joined the International.” Another prisoner, Duval, the future general of the Commune, repeated a similar case : “ Thirty-six of our masters, out of forty-seven, refused our claims. Several of them replied, ‘ We shall wait until you are starving.’ In the face of this contemptuous treatment, the next meeting voted and signed a strike à outrance. We swore on our honour not to take work until our claims had been admitted. A motion was made with regard to the International. The eight or nine hundred members present joined in a body, signed their adhesion during the sitting, and straightway appointed four delegates to represent them at the federal council of Paris.” In the month of July, 1869, the silk-winders of Lyons went out on strike. Their committee wrote to the general council of London, to signify their adhesion to the International in their own name, and in that of the 8000 members of their body. They added, “ that in order to keep within the French law, the new adherents would not constitute any organization in France. They would simply send their annual subscription as a lump sum to the general council.” In Belgium the woollen operatives of Verviers, the cotton-hands of Ghent, the miners of Hainault, and the workers in a large number of the trades of Brussels joined in the mass. A Flemish journal, the Werker, was started. Holland was invaded in its turn. The German associations assembled at Nuremberg were affiliated. In Italy, as in France, prosecutions only drew the attention of working men to the International. It gained a footing in Vienna, where the Wiener Arbeiter-Zeihing was established, also at Pesth, and in the principal towns of Spain, while it extended Its ramifications in America as far as California. The reports THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 168 read at the first sittings of the Congress of Bâle stated all this progress. The Times wrote on the subject : “ We must go back to the origin of Christianity or to the epoch of the barbarian invasions to meet with a movement analogous to that of the working men to-day, and it seems to threaten existing civilization with a fate similar to that inflicted by the northern hordes on the ancient world.” It was, in truth, the moment of expansion, soon to be followed by a no less rapid decay. The Congress of Bâle, which held its sittings from the 5th to the 12th of September, 1869, had nothing fierce about it. It borrowed from the beautiful country, which it had honoured with its choice, that idyllic character which all its meetings spontaneously took. The delegates, eighty in number, were received by the members of both town and country sections in Bâle at the Café National. A procession of about two thousand persons marched with music and banners across the town to the garden of a brasserie, where each took his place while the society of the Griitli sang. The address of welcome to the delegates was pronounced by citizen Bauhin, who was at the same time president of the Bâle sections and attorneygeneral of the canton—a combination of functions which appears to have caused no astonishment. After hearing the reports, the congress took up again the questions already decided at Brussels, namely, the question ot landed property and that of societies for strikes. They were naturally determined in the same way by fifty-four ayes against four noes, and thirteen abstentions. The following resolution was adopted ;—“The congress declares that society has the right of abolishing individual property in the soil and of assigning ­ it to the community.” It is a strange thing that no congress of the International ever yet concerned itself with houses and industrial capital, factories, buildings, machines, floating capital. In the speeches it is often said that the labourer ought to be the owner of the instrument of his labour ; but how, by virtue of what arrangements, and of what industrial organization ?— this seems never to have troubled them at all. M. Tolain spoke in favour of individual property. Your the rise and fall of the international. 169 collectivity, he said, is an unknown abstraction, and yet you seek to impose it on us. The individual is the only concrete thing, and everything inconsistent with his free development IS bad. We find in everybody the wish to be his own master and to enjoy his independence. In attributing all the evils of humanity to the right of property, you are taking effect for cause. Will the collectivity have more intelligence than the individual in directing profitable works? Is it not to individual initiative that all progress is due? M. Tolain was only a “mutualist,” not a “collectivist.” Another Frenchman, named Langlois, a former disciple of Proudhon, and delegate of the metal-turners, while claiming t at rents should belong to the State, uttered some prophetic words: “Socialism will be ruined, through alienating all the country populations, if the decisions taken at Brussels, in their absence and without consulting them, are to be maintained. We shall see once more, as in 1848, the peasants rising in a body against the town labourers and rendering illusory the triumph of the revolution. If you were masters would you be ready to effect any work likely to live ? The State as collective proprietor of the land, would mean a State that would force everybody to work, that would enrol armies of labourers bv squads under the command of engineers and overseers, and that wou d create a hierarchy of forced labour. Is this result so desirable that to attain it we ought to sacrifice liberty ? " from Communism. In.hecZclkt^mSrZ;^;; Pect to the remuneration of labour. Communism desires lyQ the socialism of TO-DAY. equality, or even the application of the maxim, “to each according to his needs;" while Collectivism claims to assure to every one the integral enjoyment of the product of his labour. Thus the true and, in reality, the sole incentive to economical activity, namely, personal interest, which is entirely abolished by the first system, is in some degree maintained by the second. Phe principle of Communism leads to consumption in common, as in the family, or rather as in the convent or the barracks; while Collectivism is consistent with the separate existence of families. Communists would absolutely abolish the right of hereditary succession ; whereas Collectivists preserve it as to everything not belonging to the State. The question of the right of succession was keenly discussed at the Congress of Bâle. The Collectivists, represented chiefly by De Paepe, invoked the very strong arguments habitually made use of in favour of the hereditary transmission of property. Suppose a person makes himself a fortune by deductions, not out of the produce of another person’s labour, but out of that of his own, and by depriving himself of certain pleasures ; is it not fair that he should be able to transmit his savings to his children? Will not this power evidently be an incentive to work and a check upon squandering, and therefore a gam to society as a whole ? If everybody receives a thorough education ­ and the means of production, individual inheritance cannot violate rational equality. Although there was a strong current of Communism in the congress, the abolition of the right of inheritance obtained only thirty-two votes out of sixty-eight, and consequently it was treated as rejected. It would interrupt this rapid sketch of events too much to discuss thoroughly the theoretical ideas admitted by the Inter national. I shall limit myself to two summary remarks. The new social organization, longed for by Collectivism, supposes that agricultural and industrial enterprises would pass into the hands of autonomous co-operative associations. But will these associations be able to subsist on an exclusively republican and elective basis, without the principle of authority and of the hierarchy at present represented by the master? In the factory, as on board ship, discipline and obedience are indis- tue rise and fall of tile international. 171 pensable. How are they to be preserved among equals? To-day the employer expels the workman who does not work : this is the stimulus. In the new social organization expulsion can hardly be included ; must recourse, then, be had to the prison ? At present the proprietor is interested in preserving his capital and in improving his apparatus. The co-operative members will be much less interested, since they will be only usufructuaries, and the responsibility for deteriorations will fall on society in general. At bottom the economic problem is nothing but the organization of responsibility and of justice. The Collectivists are ready to swear by Darwin : they ought, then, to admit that, in the struggle for existence, the best constituted ­ organisms will at last prevail. Let instruction be given to the working man, and every possible facility for forming productive ­ societies: when they shall thus have “fair play " if Collectivism is worth more than Individualism, their associations will supplant private enterprises, and the new régime will be established by a gradual and slow evolution, just as all economic transformations are made. If, on the contrary, their principle IS inferior in respect of the stimulus to activity of labour, to the formation of capital, and to industrial progress, even should they succeed in establishing it by a forcible revolution, it would not last : it would disappear, as every inferior organism succumbs ­ when placed in contact with a superior organism The Communists demand the abolition of hereditary suc-; it already been tried. In the Middle Ages there was no succession in the case of the serfs in mortmain. In order to defeat the claims of the superior lord, they formed themselves into corporations. These c^^,emtives^^:ri^, p^^^al d^l tinned in possession without interruption, and thus there was the collective property of groups in which deaths never cause a succession. Is not this the ideal that certain Collectivists " *'>« it has vanished at the touch ttviliaation, and that it is even now disappearing in 172 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. those distant countries where it had been kept up ? Is not this another application of the Darwinian law ? It may perhaps ­ be objected that monasteries, where reigns not merely Collectivism, but absolute Communism, have grown prodigiously in numbers and in wealth. This is true; but there we find celibacy in this world and a vision of heaven in the next, facts which make all the difference. Moreover, is it to monasticism that the Congress of Bâle wished to lead humanity ? It was at this same congress that Bakunin, who was going to launch the International on a decidedly revolutionary course, first appeared on the scene. The Russian agitator represented at once the silk-winders of Lyons and the machinists of Naples. This was Internationalism in practice. He did not trouble himself in seeking after new forms for the society of the future. The sole end to pursue was, he said, the destruction, root and branch, of the existing social order. Out of the ruins there would arise, by virtue of spontaneous generation, a better organization. “ I desire,” he added, “ the application of the collective principle, not merely to land, but to all kinds of property, by means of a universal social liquidation ; and by social liquidation I mean the abolition of the political and juridical State. The individual depends upon the collectivity, and individual property is nothing else than the iniquitous appropriation of the fruits of collective labour. I call for the destruction of all national and territorial States, and, upon their ruins, the foundation of an international State composed of the millions of workers. It will be the role of the International ­ to constitute this State by the “ solidarization ” of the Communes throughout the world, and this presupposes a reorganization ­ of society from top to bottom.” Thus there are to be no more nations, no more States, no more political or judicial institutions, no more private property, no God, no religious worship, not even any free and independent individuals. ­ Total destruction of all that exists, and, in the new world, as the organic cell and primordial element of reconstruction, ­ not, as before, the human personality, but the “ amorphous ” (shapeless) Commune, and thus humanity is to be rendered like a confused mass of confei-vœ, or a nebula in fifil»« tue rise and fall of the international. 173 process of formation. This, it appears, is Nihilism. Here we can,detect the origin of that theory of the autonomous Commune ­ which appeared at the time of the revolution of the i8th of March, nobody knew from whence. Foreigners, and notably Prince Bismarck, thought they saw in it the demand of greater independence for the Communes, a thing which appeared to them very much wanted in France, where centralization is pushed to an extreme. Was it not, moreover, the reform desired by Economists, by admirers of America, by neo-conservatives, ­ in a word, by all the opponents of State omnipotence ­ ? In truth, it was quite another matter. If we are to find any meaning in the acts and manifestoes of the Commune of the 18th of March, we may discern there, it seems, the refiex of the theories of Bakunin. During the year 1870 the International continued to grow and to spread. It penetrated to the extreme ends of Europe, into Denmark, into Portugal, and even across the Atlantic. Cameron, delegate of the National Labour Union of the United States, had brought to the Congress of Bâle the adhesion of 800,000 “ Unionists.” A Russian section was established in Switzerland. At Pesth the Gazette universelle des travailleurs appeared. Socialist newspapers multiplied on all sides,* and seemed to spring out of the ground. Whenever a section was formed, it immediately obtained the adhesion of the existing working men's societies, whatever their nature might be. In Europe and America the number of simple adherents was probably to be counted in millions. The vacil lating policy of Napoleon III., which seemed to announce the tottering and the fall of the Imperial régime, stirred the revolutionary ­ party to activity. Of the two ideas which had given birth to the International, the one aiming at the raising of wages by combinations and strikes, the other seeking the 174 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. transformation of the social order, if necessary, by means of revolution, it was the latter which, from 1869, got the upper hand, and, as always happens, under the most marked and violent form. Meanwhile the International protested energetically against the war of 1870, both at Paris, at London, and in Germany. On the 12th of July the Parisian federation published a manifesto ­ addressed to the workers of all countries, but principally to their “brothers of Germany,” of which the following is an extract :—“ To the bellicose cries of those who are themselves exempt from the blood-tax, or who find in the public misfortunes ­ a source of new speculations, we oppose our emphatic protest, we who wish for peace, labour, and liberty. War is the indirect means by which Governments stifle the liberties of the people.” The general council, in its turn, addressed a manifesto to the members of the International in Europe and in the United States. It was probably drawn up by Marx, and contains some noteworthy passages. “ The people of Paris have protested against the war with so much energy that the Prefect of Police has forbidden all expression of opinion in the streets. Whatever, then, may be the issue of the war, the funeral knell of the Second Empire has already sounded in Paris. ... If the working classes of Germany permit the present war to lose its purely defensive character and to degenerate ­ into an offensive war against the people of France, victory or defeat will be equally disastrous. All the miseries that desolated Germany after its war of independence will be reproduced with accumulated force.” The general council then quoted several addresses to the French working men published by German sections. At Chemnitz 50,000 Saxon working men sent words of sympathy to their French brothers. The Berlin section, replying to the Paris manifesto, said, “With heart and hand we adhere to your proclamation. We solemnly vow that neither beat of drum, nor thunder of cannon, nor victory, nor defeat shall divert us from our efforts to establish ­ the union of the workers of all countries.” The manifesto added, “ The single fact that, while official France and Germany are rushing into a fratricidal war, the German and French THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 1/5 working men are interchanging messages of peace and brotherhood—this ­ grand fact, without precedent in the history of the past, enables us to foresee a brighter future. It shows that a new society is arising whose International rôle will be peace, because the basis of nations will be everywhere the same, namely, labour.” After Sedan and the fall of the Empire, a movement of sympathy in favour of the French Republic took place in all the sections of the International, even in Germany. On the 5th of September the German Social Democrats, assembled at Brunswick, published a manifesto containing the following passage :—“ It is Germany’s interest to conclude a peace which France can accept with honour. It is asserted that the annexation ­ of Alsace and Lorraine will preserve us for ever from a war with France. It is, on the contrary, the surest way to transform ­ into a European institution and to perpetuate in United Germany the system of military despotism. Peace on such terms will be only a truce, until France shall be strong enough to reconquer her lost provinces. The war of 1870 bears in its train a war between Germany and Russia, as certainly as the war of 1866 bore that of 1870. Unless a revolution breaks out in Russia beforehand, which seems improbable, the war between Germany and Russia may be looked upon as a certainty. ­ If we take Alsace and Lorraine from France, she will ally herself to Russia. It would be useless to point out the deplorable consequences.” These warnings by no means pleased the general in command, Vogel von Falkenstein, who, by virtue of the state of siege, sent the leaders to dream of the coming peace in the casements of Königsberg. I have endeavoured by these extracts to throw light on the cosmopolitan tendency of the International. It is, in fact one of the characteristic traits of modern Socialism. It is clearly derived from the ideas of the Manchester school and ultimately from the teachings of Political Economy, which always considers the good of humanity and readily forgets the existence of separate States. Establish universal free trade, say the Economists, abolish custom-houses and standing ­ armies, make the laws everywhere identical, and soon THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 176 all nations will form only one single family. Capital and labour will pass indifferently from one country to another in search of the best remuneration. Already many English people, taking the lead of other nations, look upon the whole globe as their country, and pass the summer in the Alps, the winter at Nice, or Cairo, or Madeira, choosing the best climate and the pleasantest places. There is no illusion about it. We are drawing towards cosmopolitanism. Patriotism is everywhere becoming less exclusive and consequently less intense. How many people are now ready to say. Ubi bene^ ibipatria! But if, in this respect, the International is inspired by the present economic movement, and if it execrates war between nations, we must not forget that it substitutes the universal strife of labour against capital. The enemy is no longer the foreigner, but the employer, the factory lord.* This is the reason why these brotherly effusions, that one would imagine were borrowed from the speeches, suffused with Christianity, of the Peace Congresses, are often accompanied ­ by language of rage and hate which calls to mind the death-chaunt of cannibals. What was the part taken by the International in the revolution ­ of the 18th of March ? M. de Molinari, who watched from near at hand the Socialist movement at Paris, affirms that the association, as such, took no part in it,t and all known facts • To quote one extract in illustration of this phase of thought : “Fatherland, a phrase, a folly! Humanity, a fact, a truth. Invented by priests and kings, like the mythical God, the fatherland has only served for penning up human cattle within separate enclosures, where they may be shorn and bled under the very hands of their masters, for the greater profit of these latter and in the name of the unclean fetish. “ To-day we have had enough of it. Nations are brothers. Kings and their hangers-on are the sole enemies. Enough of bloodshed, enough of imbecility. Nations, countries are no longer more than words. France is dead. Humanity takes her place. The Utopia of Anacharsis Clootz is becoming a reality. Nationality, the result of birth, is an evil. Let it perish. To be born in this place or that, the result of pure chance, decides whether we are to be friends or enemies. Let us repudiate this stupid lottery of which we have hitherto been the dupes. Our country is everywhere, ­ where we can live and work in freedom. Peoples, workers, the light is spreading. Open your eyes I Down with the Despots ! Away with Tyrants! France is dead. Long live humanity!” (Jules Noslag, alias Ruffier, in the Rh'olution politique et soríale, i6th April, 1871.) t Le Mouvement socialiste et les réunions publiques, by M. de Molinari, N the rise and fall of the international. 177 seem to bear out this opinion. A certain number of Internationalists ­ figured among the members of the Commune, notably Amouroux, Avrial, Beslay, Dereure, Frankel, Malón’ Bindy, Varlm, Serailler, Theisz, and Vaillant ; but they had joined It on personal grounds. The ties which bound the different sections of the International together were too lax for the requirements of revolutionary action. hrom the official reports of the proceedings of the Inter national during the siege of Paris and the Commune, I glean the following. In the sitting of the 15th of February, ,871, Frankel said, “The events since the 4th of September have dispersed the International. We have still a certain moral t^e w-in,"?* ” 8“'''“'')'’ in Paris; but for the want of organization we lack material force. Many mem-7 f ?, ^ntsp the aim of the association.” On the THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 178 credit, free, secular, and compulsory education, the right of public meeting, freedom of association, liberty of the press, and the organization of public services by municipal authority. The general council, in its proclamation of the pth of September, ­ 1870, urgently advised the labourers to respect the government which had been established, in order to save at least the republic and liberty. “ The situation of the French labourers,” it is there stated, “ is most difficult ; any attempt to overthrow the present government, in the middle of this terrible crisis, and while the enemy is at the gates of Paris, would be a detestable piece of folly.” Marx did not believe in the triumph of the Commune, and he said as much in his letters to his French friends. On account of this, the more violent roundly accused the “German Jew” of having sold himself to Bismarck. About this time, Becker, a friend of Marx, wrote the following “ The organization of the proletariat' ­ is not sufficiently complete, and the principles of the Socialist democracy are not sufficiently spread and understood to enable a red republic to be firmly established. The radical transformation of the old society and the inauguration of a new historic epoch require time; it will be the work of successive generations.” After the fall of the Commune several branches of the International, and even the general council in London, sent forth manifestoes attesting their sympathy and admiration for “the glorious vanquished.” The address of the general council, published on the 30th of May, under the title U Guerre civile en France, is a long statement of the facts which brought about the revolution of the i8th of March. It is n curious apology. What the Commune wanted, it said, vs as to establish a government founded on truly democratic and above all economic principles, by restoring to municipal authority the too numerous functions exercised to-day by the State. We are, then, asked to believe that it was simply a question of imitating the system at work in the United States and in Switzerland. If public monuments were burned, it was as a means of defence, just as is done in all wars. The absolute incapacity of the Commune in the matter of socia the e,se and fall of the INFEENATIONAL. ,79 ■ i8o THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. different nationalities and influenced by divergent currents of thought. The signal for revolt was hoisted at Neuchâtel. Certain sections of working men at Lode and at Chaux-de-Fonds, under the direction of an active leader, James Guillaume, ­ revolted against the excessive authority claimed by the general council, and, separating themselves from the other groups of French-speaking Switzerland, established the Federation of the Jura. They were called Federalists or Autonomists. The Blanquists, representing the Jacobin tradition, also rose very vehemently against “the German Jew’s theory of historic evolution.” Lastly, the most ardent in their opposition were the Anarchists who followed Bakunin. At the Congress of the Peace League, which met at Berne in 1869, under the presidency of Victor Hugo, Bakunin had proposed a vote approving of atheism and communism. Beaten by a large majority, he then founded the “ Alliance of the Social Democracy.” ­ On the other hand, the general council forbade the sections of the International to take any particular name, and reserved to itself the right of suspending or dissolving any sections disobeying this order. The Congress of the Hague (from the 2nd to the 7th ot September, 1872) was the battle-field where these opposing tendencies clashed together. There were sixty-five delegates, of whom four represented Holland, eight Belgium, two Denmark, eight Germany, seven Switzerland, eleven France, four Spain, one Portugal, one Hungary, ten England, one Ireland, six America, and one Australia. The fight arose on the question of the powers of the general council, the Autonomists wishing to reduce it to a mere committee 0 inquiry. Guillaume attacked Marx to his face. 1 h^^ are some,” he said, “ who assert that the International is t e invention of a clever man, endowed with infallibility in n social and political matters, whom nobody has any right to oppose. Our association would therefore have merely to oW; the despotic commands of a council formed to maintain t new orthodoxy. According to us, on the contrary, t ^ International sprang spontaneously from the economic cir cumstances of the times, and we want no Pope to ju g the rise and fall of the international. l8l our heresies.” Marx carried the majority with him ; and the general council, far from being suppressed, was given the right of suspending sections and even federations, saving appeal to congress. This decision excited the warmest protests. The Blanquists, including, Ranvier, Coumet, and Vaillant, left the congress. Then followed an inquiry into the case of Bakunin and Guillaume. Both were declared excluded, as having been shown to belong to "the Alliance,"a secret society founld on statutes completely opposed to those of the International. Marx also obtained a decision that the seat of the general council should be transferred to New York. He hoped thus to take It away from the causes of division which threatened it in urope. The reason he gave was that this would be a means of gaming over the working men of the United States, who in ^mo^rncr^mM^vm^dbeaMew^^p^^^^m^ the power, and thus give practical effect to social reforms. 1 he Congress of the Hague gave the death-blow to the Inter-IT i82 THE SOCIALISM OE TO-DAY. “The International Federation of the Jura,” summed up the grievances of the Autonomists. The general council replied by excommunications. It excluded in succession the women’s association founded in New York by Mrs. Woodhull and Mrs. Clafflin, the two priestesses of Free Love, the Belgian federation of Brussels, the Spanish federation of Cordova, and that ot London, all of which had decided to reject the decisions of the Hague, and it refused to recognize an Italian federation which had not conformed to the statutes. The International of Marx thus lost, little by little, all influence in the Latin countries. There only remained a few of the faithful in England, Germany, and America. In order to rally its scattered forces, it convoked a general congress at Geneva, for the 8th of September, 1873. On their side, the dissenting Autonomists decided to assemble in the same town, on the 2nd of September. We have, therefore, ­ two Internationals face to face. Twenty-eight delegates attended the congress of Autonomists. ­ They commenced by reading reports on the situation in the different countries. The representative of Spain, Farga Pelissier, was the only one who could give favourable news. There were, he said, more than seven hundred different associations there with flfty thousand members, and soon the working men in the large towns would rise en masse to bring about the triumph of anarchy. It was evident that Bakunin was the apostle of Socialism in Spain.* The news from other countries was discouraging. The divisions among the leaders had arrested the propaganda. The debates in the congress were uninteresting. The Autonomists had no difficulty in making their ideas prevail, and the general council was abolished amid the enthusiastic applause of the assembly. No more authority, no more directorship, such is the ideal. Each * As early as 1871 and 1872, such an active socialistic propagandism was carried on in Spain that the Minister for Foreign Affairs of King Amadeo sent to all the diplomatic agents a circular note, dated the 9th of February, 1872, proposing that the Governments should take common action to suppress the movement everywhere. Lord Granville in reply pointed out, as an objection to this proposal, that the laws of England admitted the right of asylum, and the project of a crusade fell through. The disturbances ­ of which the peninsula was soon afterwards the theatre, prove, however, that the danger was not imaginary. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL, 183 congress is to fix the place where the next congress shall meet, and the federation there shall take charge of the correspondence, ­ serve as intermediary and prepare questions for discussion. No contribution shall be demanded. In short, no government, no budget. They almost attained the absolute perfection which consists in abolishing everything. Van den Abeele raised an objection. “ We Hollanders,” he said, “ are partisans of the experimental method. A central power is a bad thing. Let us try the formation of three committees. I admit the principle of anarchy; but are we strong enough to apply it forthwith ? ” “ What ! ” replied the French delegate. Brousse, “ you wish to destroy this authoritarian structure ? Anarchy is your programme, and yet you shrink before the consequences of your principles ! Another blow, and the whole pile will tumble.” They worked, in fact, to bury their association. Their principles were about to produce the natural results. From impotence they were going to pass to non-existence. Eccarius, the former lieutenant of Marx, from whom he had recently separated, and the only person of any weight among the “ autonomists ” present, summed up the history of the International ­ in a few words of his closing address. “ The old International, the first stone of which was laid at St. Martin’s Hall on the 28th of September, 1864, and the building of which was completed at the Congress of Geneva in 1866, has ceased to exist. That which we now establish is entirely distinct from it. The initiative came from the trades unions of London, who wished us to concern ourselves with politics, and the Proudhonians, who wished us to have nothing to do with them. The former desired to apply the principles of trades unionism, that is to say, the rising of wages by means of combinations and strikes ; whereas the latter sought to realize their theories of social reconstruction. At Bâle, the Proudhonians succumbed, but at the same time the unionist element was destroyed by personal rivalries among the members of the general council. At Paris, on the other hand, the unionists carried the day over the heads of the Proudhonians. In 1870 a reconciliation might perhaps have been brought about, but the outbreak of 184 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. the war put obstacles in the way. Already, before the Congress of the Hague, the council was divided into two hostile parties, and when it obtained the right of exclusion, it gave the deathblow ­ to the old Association.” The International of the Marxists held its session from the 8th to the 13th of September. Marx himself took no part in it. There were only about thirty delegates, representing Germany, France, England, Switzerland, and Holland. The fact that Germany, where Socialism was making such prodigious strides, was represented by only one delegate, Burckhart, proves what little influence the association exercised. Two principal questions were debated : first, ought the working classes to take part in political contests, or to abstain and silently prepare the way for the social revolution? It was decided, as had been done before, that they ought to engage in politics, and, if need be, unite with the middle classes to obtain any reforms useful to the workers. Secondly, it was resolved that working men ought to associate everywhere in trade corporations, ­ which should form national federations, these federations ­ themselves uniting so as to keep up a universal league in each trade. It would be the part of this league to give constant information as to the state of labour, and to defend the interests of labour in the different countries. This, as may be seen, is the parent idea of the International, reappearing in a specialized form and applied to each trade. This congress was the last organized by the Marxists. Their leader, the author of the famous book. Das Kapital., seems since then to have retired completely from active life, in order to prepare, in his retreat in London, the second volume of his work.” * The Autonomists convened a general assembly at Brussels on the 7th of November, 1874. From the official report it appears that the assembly was international in name alone. There were only about twenty delegates, all Belgians, except Gomez for Spain, Switzguebel for the Federation of the Jura, * [This had not l)een published at the time of Marx’s death (14th of March, 1883) ; but it IS believed that he had practically completed the second volume and had commenced the third. These two volumes will, it is said, be brought out by Friedrich Engels.—TV.] TUE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 185 and Eccarius for the Bethnal Green branch in London. The report contains a remarkable address from the “ Italian Committee ­ for the Social Revolution.” This address gives a faithful picture of the peculiar character of the Socialist movement ­ in Italy, and it further proves that it is not well to exclude such a movement from common rights, by depriving it of the power of acting openly. The address contains the following extracts :—“ The Italian masses, being inclined to conspiracy, accept the International only with great distrust . . . this organization in the light of day is absurd. . . . Freedom of speech, the right of assembly, liberty of the press, and all the other liberties inscribed on the Italian Statute-book, are so many snares of which our enemies know how to make use. Therefore, from all parts the demand arises for a radical change of system, and already a vast and solid revolutionary Socialist conspiracy is beginning to push its roots down to the lowest stratum of the Italian proletariat. . . . Wholesale suppression, ­ decreed by the government, has led us to an absolutely ­ secret conspiracy. As this organization is far superior to the former one, we may congratulate ourselves that persecutions ­ have put an end to the public International. We shall continue to march along the secret path that we have adopted, as the only one which can lead us to our final goal, the Social revolution.” Suppression tried in Germany has had similar results. Socialism, instead of acting openly, has been transformed ­ into a conspiracy, the advance of which is equally rapid, as the recent elections have shown, and the danger of which is far more real. Liberty has a double advantage : it soon reveals the impotence and the nothingness of false doctrines ; and, on the other hand, it warns Conservatives to keep on their guard and to introduce reforms demanded by justice and the general weal. The eighth congress, which met at Berne, on the 26th October, 1876, was no more International than the preceding. It was composed almost exclusively of delegates from the Federation of the Jura, to whom were added a Belgian, two Spaniards, two Frenchmen, and some Italians. The reports from the different countries stated that the International saw THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 186 its numbers diminishing on all sides. The void was coming. The famous Association was dying. To save it, it was resolved to convoke for next year, at Ghent, a universal congress of Socialism. It was hoped that in this way they might regain lost ground. In the report I find nothing worth mentioning except a discussion between the Belgian delegate, César de Paepe, who defended the State, and the Italian delegate, Malatesta, who in the name of the “ anarchists ” demanded its abolition. It is curious to observe how far the anarchist ideas resemble those of the rigid economists. “ Society,” says Malatesta, “is not an artificial aggregation brought about by force, or by the contact of individuals by nature mutually repellent. ­ It is a living organic body, of which men are the cellules, contributing individually and collectively to the life and growth of the whole. It is regulated by laws which are immanent, necessary, and immutable, as are all natural laws. There is no social pact, but there is certainly a social law. What, then, is the State ? An excrescence ”—the economists say a canker—“ which lives at the expense of the social body, and which has no other object and no other effect than to organize and keep up the exploitation of the workers. This is our reason for wishing to destroy the State. How, then, shall society be organized? We cannot know. We utterly distrust all Utopian solutions. Nor do we want any artificial, fantastic, anti-scientific Socialism, nor any “Socialism of the study,” and we shall oppose such Socialism as reactionary. Our single aim must be to destroy the State. It will then be for the free and fertile action of the natural laws of Society to accomplish the destinies of humanity.” This is an expression ­ of the ideas which tend more and more to predominate among Socialists in France, Italy, and Spain. The influence of positivism and Herbert Spencer is manifest. Before attending the universal congress at Ghent the Anarchists assembled in Belgium, at Verviers, from the 5th to the 8th of September, 1877. To this assembly, which included in all about ten foreign delegates, the pompous name of the “ Ninth General Congress of the International Working Men’s Association ” was given. The questions discussed display a THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 18/ curious simplicity. For instance : “ In whatever country the Proletariat triumph, it is absolutely necessary to extend this triumph to all other countries.” It is not said how. “ What are the best means of realizing as quickly as possible revolutionary ­ Socialist action?” They pass to the order of the day. “ What are the methods of propaganda for /es compagnons d'Egypte i ” The point remains open. At Ghent, on the 9th of September, 1877, the “Universal Socialist Congress” opened. A procession of about four thousand working men marched across the town to the sound of “ the Marseillaise,” with the red flag borne in the van. The police did not interfere, and the public looked on indiflferently. Nobody was alarmed, and order was not disturbed for a moment The sittings were declared public, but nobody attended, not even the working men enrolled in the International. ­ There were forty-six delegates belonging to different nationalities, but the majority represented only insignificant groups. It was hoped to reconcile the Anarchists and the Authoritarians, but a conflict soon arose on the subject of the State, and of the part to be taken by working men in politics. Liebknecht, deputy of the German Reichstag, and César de Paepe maintained that the functions of the State should be extended ; that it ought to become the proprietor of all the requisites of labour, and that in the meantime it was the working men's interest to take part in political struggles and to obtain successive improvements in their lot. James Guillaume, the founder of the Federation of the Jura, defended the thesis of the Autonomists. Capital and productive wealth ought to belong to societies of working men, that is to say to trade corporations. This ideal can be attained only by revolution. Working men have nothing to expect from political parties, even the most radical ; they have always deceived the people and used them to their own advantage. The parliamentary ­ system and universal suffrage are a snare and a delusion. As to improvements in detail, they are only a danger. By giving a certain amount of satisfaction to the people, they deaden revolutionary sentiments. De Paepe, in replying to James Guillaume, reproduced a 188 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. profound thought, admirably expressed by De Tocqueville, in the seventeenth chapter of L'Ancieii Régime: “ When the people are overwhelmed with misery, they are resigned. It is when they begin to hold up their heads and to look above them, that they are impelled to insurrection.” When the votes were taken, the Anarchists found themselves in a minority. They then declared that the principles of the two schools were too opposed for common action, and the schism was definitively established. The anarchical principle had accomplished its work of dissolution. The second International ­ disappeared like that of Marx. The word is still frequently employed to designate certain groups of aggressive Socialism, but there now no longer exists any universal association ­ to which this name can be applied. Its ghost, however, survives and continues to act as if it still had some reality. It is true, indeed, that the International was never more than a shade, that is to say, an idea which was unable to take bodily form. Let us now sum up this sketch of the rise and fall of the International. As one of its leaders, Eccarius, said, it was born of the union of two tendencies : that of the English trades unions, aiming at an increase of wages by means of combinations ­ and strikes, on the practical economic ground, and that of French and German Socialism, looking forward to a radical change of the existing social order. The first of these tendencies ­ predominated up to 1869. Since then, and especially after the fall of the Commune, the revolutionary element got the upper hand. What made the success of the International so rapid and, in appearance, so alarming, was that it answered to that sentiment of discontent and revolt which has gradually spread among the labouring classes of all countries. The same irritations, the same aspirations everywhere fermenting, it was not difficult to establish among them a bond of union ; but the real power at the disposal of the Association was always insignificant It never knew, even approximately, the number of its adherents. As M. Fribourg, one of its former members, said, one affiliated oneself to the International “ as one takes a glass of wine.” From i866 to 1870 the greater number of THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 189 Working Men’s Societies and of individual Socialists declared their adhesion, and that was all. Thus, as we have seen, Cameron, delegate of the United States at the Congress of Bâle, brought the adhesion, in a body, of 800,000 working men, but these adhesions were absolutely platonic. They brought to the Association neither authority nor money. It is generally supposed that the International played an important part in the strikes which became so numerous for some years. This is a mistake. Very often, no doubt, those on strike belonged nominally to the International. But, in the first place, the leaders of the International looked upon a strike only as a makeshift ; secondly, they feared to advise it, knowing ­ that a defeat would greatly injure their credit ; and lastly, they were absolutely deficient in resources.* It was not the International which fomented the strikes; it was the strikes that developed the International. The causes of the rapid decline of the famous Association are easy to discover, and they are instructive. First of all, as the organizer of strikes, its principal and most practical end, it proved itself timid and impotent. The various bodies of working men were not slow to perceive this, and gave it up. Next, it had taken for motto, “ Emancipation of the workers by the workers themselves.” It was intended, then, to do without the bourgeois-radicals, “ the palaverers,” “ the adventurers,” ­ who, when the revolution was made, would step into power and leave the working men as they were before. The majority of the delegates were nevertheless bourgeois ; but, in reality, the sentiment of revolt against the aristocratic direction of the more intelligent members always persisted, and it fastened principally on Karl Marx, the true founder of the International, and the only political brain that it contained. But to keep in existence a vast association embracing very numerous groups * Some curious details on this subject may be fouud in thefworks of M. Oscar Testut : V Internationale au ban de ! Europe and II Internationale (Paris, Lachaud, 1873). On every occasion the general council either avowed that it had no money, or sent altogether insignificant sums. The poorest English trades union has a better filled treasury. In every congress, means of collecting the subscriptions, which were only ten centimes a year, were sought in vain. ^90 THE SOC/A Z/SM OF TO-DAY. of different nationalities, and influenced sometimes by divergent currents of ideas, to make use of publicity as the sole means of propaganda, and yet to escape the repressive laws of different States, was evidently no easy task. How could it possibly have lasted after the only man capable of directing it had been ostracized ? The cause of the failure was not accidental ; it was part of the very essence of the attempt. The proletariat will not follow middle-class radicals, because political liberties, republican institutions, and even universal suffrage, which the latter claim or are ready to decree, do not change the relations of capital and labour. On the other hand, the working man is evidently incapable of directing a revolutionary movement which IS to solve the thousand difficulties created by any complete change in the economic order. Revolutionary Socialism thus leads to an insoluble dilemma and to practical impotence. A further cause contributed to the rapid fall of the International, ­ namely, personal jealousies. As in the midst of the Commune of 1871, there were divisions of opinion, there were suspicions and hard words, and soon followed final secessions No authority was set over it; all understanding became impossible; ­ the association fell to pieces in anarchy, and, to use a vulgar but expressive word, in a “mess.” There is yet another warning. What ! you want to abolish the State and suppress the industrial head, and you count upon order arising spontaneously from the free action of federal corporations? But if you, who constitute apparently the pick of the working class, if you were unable to come to a sufficient understanding with each other to keep going a society which demanded from you no sacrifice, and which had only one aim desired by all war against accursed capital,” how do you suppose that ordinary working men will remain united, when, in their daily life, they shall have to regulate constantly opposed interests and to take decisions touching each other’s remuneration? You were unwilling to submit to a general council which imposed no task upon you ; how, in the workshop, will you obey the orders of your chiefs who will have to determine your duties and direct your labour ? The International is dead, not through the severity of the TUE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. I91 laws nor the persecution of rulers, but from anæmia. Nevertheless, ­ its career, short as it was, has left in the life of to-day traces that will not soon disappear. It has given a formidable impetus to aggressive Socialism, especially in the Latin countries. It has made of the antagonism of employés against employers a chronic evil, by persuading the former that they constitute a class hopelessly destined to misery and want through the unjust privileges of the latter. We shall see this more clearly still by following the development of the International in the different States.* • For the history of the International, the best book, beyond contradiction, is the Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes, by Rudolf Meyer, a Conservative ­ Socialist. See also Histoire du Socialisme, by B. Malón (Veladini, Lugano, 1879). [For the later developments and present position, in the several European States and in America, of the Socialistic movement to which the International gave rise, see the recent work of Dr. Zacher, Government Assessor in Germany, entitled Die Rothe Internationale (Berlin, 1884).-7r.] 192 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. CHAPTER X. BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. W HEN Dante descended through the circles of the Inferno and reached the lowest depths of the “ city without hope,” he found himself face to face with the awful sovereign of the revolted angels : “ Ü Imperador del doloroso regno." So, when we penetrate to the lowest stratum of Revolutionary Socialism, we meet Bakunin, It is impossible to go further, for he is the apostle of universal’ destruction, of absolute Anarchism, ­ or, as he himself terms his doctrine, of “ Amorphism.” He it was who, borrowing the name and the organization of the International, spread Anarchic Socialism throughout the Latin countries. His were the ideas which, as we have shown, prevailed in the Commune of Paris, and it is his ideas which to-day form the basis of the programmes adopted by the majority of Socialist Associations in Italy, in Switzerland, in Belgium, in Spain, and even in France. What are these ideas, whence do they come, and who is Bakunin? It is worth knowing, for this is the foe that for many a day existing society will have to combat. Proudhon was a brilliant dialectician, but he had clear ideas upon nothing, and consequently he is full of contradictions. ­ On the one hand, he abolishes private property and leaves to individuals possession only ; what possession—for life, for periods of years, or revocable at any moment?—he does not say, but in any case the State will be the collective owner, and all the requisites of production will be concentrated in the State. On the other hand, pushing the hostility of O 193 BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. Economists to State intervention to an extreme, he ends by crying up “anarchy,” that is to say, the suppression of the State. He extols individualism and liberty. Order will result he asserts, from the initiative of individuals freed from the shackles of all kinds which at present impede and crush them. Bakunin reproduces these ideas, but he clothes them in Russian garb. He demands the collective ownership of the soil and of the instruments of production, but he confers it upon the Commune in like manner as such ownership exists with regard to land in the villages of Great Russia. He desires “ anarchy,” but with a sort of mystic enthusiasm quite foreign to Proudhon. He dreams of the total destruction of all existing institutions, and the formation of an “ amorphous ” society ; that is to say, â society without any form, which means, in reality, a return to the savage state. To attain this end, there is wanted a revolution ­ knowing no pity—a revolution which, by fire and sword, will extirpate to the very last traces the old social order. Thé final aim, then, is Collectivism, or, better still, “ Amorphism,” and the means of attaining it “pan-destruction.” It might be supposed that these were the ideas of a raving lunatic, but they are not without precedent in the history of human thought. At certain troublous epochs the souls of those who yearn for the ideal bemoan and are indignant at the evils and iniquities that afflict the human race. They catch a glimpse of a better order where justice will reign supreme, but they believe that it can never be attained by slow and successive reforms. They, therefore, look for the destruction of the old order, so that from its ruins the regenerated order may arise Such was the idea of primitive Christianity. In order that the Kingdom of Heaven might come, this perverse world must perish ; not, it is true, by a political or social revolution but by a cosmical catastrophe. Everything was to be consumed not by the torch of the incendiary, as certain Anarchists wish to-day, but by fire from heaven. “ Dies iræ, dies ilia Solvet sæclum in favilla.” * • The idea of palingenesis arose from the problem of evil. The just 194 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. The early Christians for a long time expected the “ pandestruction ­ ” and the coming of the Kingdom. But as the suffer, the wicked triumph, the world is full of strife : whence does this arise if God is good and just? The question is profoundly treated in the splendid poem of Job, as M. Renan has so well pointed out. The nev^-ending controversy between optimism and pessimism was taken up by Voltaire and Rousseau, with reference to the famous poem on the earthquake ­ at Lisbon. The belief that the world, fundamentally bad, must perish in flames, in order to make way for a new heaven and a new earth, is found in all the old religions. In Mazdeism the successive cycles of the development of humanity on earth end in a general conflagration, followed by a universal renewal. In the Wolospa of the Eddas the palingenesis is conceived almost exactly as in our Gospels:— {Signs of the Doom.) ‘ ‘ The sun shall grow black. The earth shall sink into the sea. The bright stars shall vanish from the heavens. Smoke and fire shall gush forth. The terrible flame shall play against the very sky.” ( The Sibyl of the world to come.) “ I can see earth rise a second time, fresh and green out of the sea. The waters are falling, the erne hovering over them. The bird that hunts the fish in the mountain streams. The fields unsown shall yield their fruit ; All ills shall be healed at the coming of Balder. The Anses shall meet on the Field of Ith, And do judgments under the mighty Tree of the world. [I have taken this translation of the Sibyl’s prophecy from the reconstructed version of the Wolospa in the admirable work of Messrs. Vigfusson and Powell {Corpus Poeticum Boreale, vol. ii. 625). These learned editors think that the lines, “Then there shall come One yet mightier. Though 1 dare not name him,” evidently alluding to the coming of Christ, belong to a separate poem, the shorter Wolospa, which they have also pieced togeth^. — TV.] In the splendid lines of Virgil’s fourth Eclogue are to be found the echo of the aspirations after a new world met with in all antiquity and especially in the Sibylline songs :— “ Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo. Jam nova progenies cselo demittitur alto. . . . ae toto surget gens aurea mundo. . . . omnis feret omnia tellus.” Virgil depicts the regeneration of Nature ; the Edda and the Gospel dwell rather on social regeneration and the triumph of Justice. Courier has also his palingenesis with its anti-lions, its anti-whales, and its ocean of lemonade ­ • but we may prefer the Wolospa and the Gospel. Pierre Leroux, >0 his book IJHumanité, ii. 6, has well pointed out how the ideas of paljdgenesis, common to all antiquity, are connected with astrology and with certain theories about cosmical periods. BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. I95 end of the world did not come, those who persisted in these hopes, the Millenarians, were declared heretics. The Anchorites ­ and the Ascetics, too, fled from a world hopelessly given up to evil Finally, the same thought inspired Rousseau in his famous Essays on Letters, and on the Origin of Inequality. Jean-Jacques was struck with the evils and iniquities of the social order. Civil institutions consecrate inequality and property, ­ whence spring the servitude and misery of the masses. Science, art, and literature, of which we are so proud, are they not the agents of demoralization ? Civilization is the source of all evils. What is the remedy ? Rousseau sees only one, and that he believes impossible : a return to the primitive state. We must, then, as Voltaire put it, return to the woods and go on all fours. The Revolutionists of to-day reproduce the same train of reasoning. Formerly they called for universal suffrage and the republic, as the panacea against the social disorder. These institutions exist in America, together with commercial autonomy ­ and complete liberty; nevertheless, the progress of civilization is bringing about the same situation there as in monarchical Europe. The Utopian systems of Robert Owen, Fourier, Cabet, and Louis Blanc have been tried, and have failed. The difficulty of economic reforms has been demonstrated ­ by science and by facts. Must we wait until the gradual development of education and of equality brings about a better situation ? But then we shall have to endure, perhaps ­ for some centuries, the hell that at present exists. No it is too much. Accursed be society ! Down with its institutions ­ and its laws ! Let us overthrow all that is, and, according to Rousseau’s wish, go back again to the savage state. This genesis of the extreme revolutionary idea in the West takes, in the case of Bakunin, a peculiar tone of exaltation and mysticism that springs, I believe, from the Russian character. ­ Whether it is the effect of race or of social surroundings, we see social phenomena produced in Russia which would seem impossible with other nations. Thus, as one knows, there is in Russia a considerable sect who, in spite of severe penalties, practise systematically the self-inflicted mutilation of THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 196 Origen. I visited at St. Petersburg, near the corn-market, a street almost exclusively inhabited by small bankers belonging to this eccentric sect. The determination, the self-forgetfulness, ­ the audacity of the Nihilists, compared with whose conspiracies ­ the plots of Carbonarism are merely child’s play, are a fact so foreign to our nature that we can hardly understand it Yet it is with these sentiments, which seem so contrary to nature, that Bakunin has succeeded in inspiring his partisans, as well in western countries as in his native land. Is it not strange that this Muscovite, whose intelligence and learning are by no means remarkable, should have succeeded in originating a movement of ideas which plays so important a rôle in the march of contemporary events? Not only is he the father of Nihilism in Russia, but he has been the apostle of International Anarchic Socialism throughout the south of Europe, and it is the substance of his doctrines that we meet in those of the Paris Revolution of the i8th of March. Michael Bakunin was born in 1814, in the government of Twer, near Moscow. His family belongs to the Russian aristocracy. ­ One of his uncles had been an ambassador under Catherine II., and he was cousin by marriage of the General Muravieff, whom the Poles call “ the hangman of Poland.’ He studied at the School of Artillery in St. Petersburg, and entered the service as an officer. Quartered with his battery in the Polish provinces, the sight of the régime of absolute repression to which these provinces were subjected filled his heart with the hatred of despotism. He resigned his commission ­ and went to reside at Moscow, where he studied philosophy with Belinski. Towards 1846 he went to Germany, where Hegelian ideas captivated him, and he threw himself into the extreme left of that school of thought in which a powerful revolutionary leaven was then fermenting. In 1847 he went to Paris, where he met George Sand and 1 roudhon ; but he was soon expelled from France, probably on account of the violence of his speeches. Returning to Germany, he took an active part in the insurrections which at that time burst forth in many places, and in the spring of 1849 he was one of the leaders of the rising at Dresden, when the revolutionary party BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 19/ occupied the town for three days. He was taken prisoner and condemned to death. This sentence was commuted for perpetual ­ imprisonment, which he at first underwent in an Austrian fortress, but afterwards, having been claimed by Russia, he was shut up in the fort of Petropavloffski, at St. Petersburg. There he remained for eight years. Imprisonment produced the same effect upon him as upon Blanqui. It transformed in him the revolutionary idea into fanaticism and a kind of religion. He actually compared himself to Prometheus, the Titan benefactor of men, chained to a rock in the Caucasus by the orders of the Tsar of Olympus. He even thought, they say, of making a drama on the subject, and he used sometimes, later on, to chant the plaint of the Ocean Nymphs coming to console the victim of the vengeance of Zeus. Bakunin, of course, was the modem Prometheus, who brought to men the light of truth. Alexander 11, commuted the perpetual imprisonment for exile in Siberia, where Bakunin arrived in 1857. He found there, as governor, Muravieff-Amurski, a cousin of the other Muravieff, and consequently his own connection. He thus enjoyed, it appears, exceptional favours and complete liberty. Katkoff, the famous journalist of Moscow, and former friend of Bakunin, has alleged that he has letters of Bakunin which prove that he used to take money from tradesmen on the understanding that he would recommend them to the governor. He obtained leave to visit the whole of Siberia, in order to make known its resources. Having arrived at the port of Nikolaieffski, he succeeded in getting on board ship, and in 1861 reached England, by way of Japan and America. He wrote in the famous newspaper, the Kolokol (the Bell), edited by Herzen and Ogareff. At the time of the Polish insurrection in 1863, he wished to go to Lithuania to raise the peasants there, but he was unable to get further than Malmöe, in Sweden. Soon afterwards, about 1865, we find him in Italy, fomenting and organizing Socialism. He then for some time placed his activity at the service of the International, but he never admitted its expectation of a brighter future from the reform of existing institutions. What he longed for was their destruction. THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 198 At the Congress of the League of Peace and Liberty, which assembled at Berne in 1869, under the presidency of Victor Hugo, Bakunin with some of his friends attempted to carry resolutions in favour of Communism. He obtained only thirty votes against eighty. Indignant at the imbecility and cowardice of the bourgeois democrats, he founded a new society which was to carry out his ideas, “ the Alliance of the Socialist Democracy.” One extract from its programme will suffice to enable its tendencies to be understood : “ The Alliance declares itself atheistic. It desires the final and complete abolition of classes, and the political, economical, and social equalization of the two sexes. It wishes that land, instruments of production, and all other capital should become the collective property of society as a whole, and should only be utilized by the workers, that is, by agricultural and industrial associations. It recognizes that all political and authoritative States actually existing must disappear ­ in the universal union of free associations.” How to realize this radical change? Evidently by force employed without truce and without mercy. The Bakunists did not disguise the matter at all. One of them, Jaclard, exclaimed in this congress intended to establish universal peace, “You wish to preserve existing institutions in order to reform them ? Vain endeavour ! They can only be the instruments ­ of tyranny and spoliation. We, we alone are logical ; we wish to destroy everything. We separate ourselves from you, and warn you : War you shall have, and it will be a terrible one. It will array itself against all that exists. Yes, we must away with the bourgeoisie and its institutions. It is only on their smoking ruins that the definitive Republic can be based. It is on the ruins smeared, I will not say with their blood—it is long since they have had any in their veins—but with their accumulated ­ filth, that we shall plant the standard of the Social Revolution.” The Alliance resolved to join the International, but the general council of the latter refused to admit it, on the ground that the Alliance, which also proclaimed itself International, could not, as such, enter into its ranks. The Alliance accord- BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 199 ingly pronounced its dissolution, and its sections were separately admitted into the great association. Settled at Geneva, Bakunin started there the journal Egalité. By his articles in the Progrès of Lode, he induced the Socialists of the Jura to separate themselves ­ from the radicals of French-speaking Switzerland. He thus created there the group of “ Autonomists,” in opposition to the Authoritarians, or followers of Marx. His ideas, brought by members of the International to Spain, spread there with extraordinary rapidity. The “Anarchists ” gained ground also among the French Socialists. On the 28th of September, 1870, Bakunin organized an insurrection ­ at Lyons, which failed through an accumulation of folly. He had prepared the decree which was to pronounce the abolition of the State, but, as his opponent Marx said, two companies of bourgeois National Guards were sufficient to send him flying to Geneva. In a pamphlet entitled “ Letters to a Frenchman” (September, 1870) he set forth the line of action that he wished to see adopted by the Revolutionists in France, and which the revolution of the i8th of March was in fact about to follow to the letter. The principal points of this programme are the following “ The insurgent Capital forms itself into a Commune. The federation of the barricades is maintained in permanence. The communal council is formed of delegates, one for each barricade or ward : deputies who are responsible and always revocable. The council chooses from its members separate executive committees for each department of the revolutionary administrative of the Commune.” “ The Capital declares that, all central government being abolished it renounces the government of the provinces. It will invite the other communes, both urban and rural, to organize themselves ‘ revolutionarily,’ and to send, to a place to be named, delegates with imperative and revocable mandate, in order to establish the federation of the autonomous communes and to organize the revolutionary force necessary to triumph over the reaction. This organization is not limited to the insurgent country. Other provinces or countries may join in it. The communes which pronounce for the reaction shall be excluded from it.” Except that he ignored the principle of nationalities, that 200 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. factor of ethnographical units which, far from being played out, is in full activity to-day, the regime here proposed by Bakunin is no other than that which is in full force in Switzerland and in the United States. By a singular change, the revolutionaries of to-day desire to push federalism even to the subdivision of a country, the very crime against “ France one and indivisible ” which sent the Girondists to the guillotine. As we have seen, in 1872 Marx caused Bakunin to be expelled from the International. The next year, when the Federation ­ of the Jura had constituted a new universal association, Bakunin retired from militant life and lived near Locarno, in a little villa given to him by his old friend Cañero. His health was thoroughly shattered. He went to Berne so as to be under the care of his friend Vogt, a physician, and on the 2nd of July, 1876, he died there. His writings are neither numerous nor important. The two principal ones are entitled LEmpire Knouto-germanique ct la Révolution Sociale, and La Théologie politique de Mazzini et VInternationale. Like all apostles, it was by oral propaganda, by the enthusiastic disciples which he made, and by the institutions which he created, that his influence made itself felt. Let us see what were these institutions, and what were the doctrines they were to spread. The Alliance of the Socialist Democracy, founded by Bakunin in 1869, was a society half public, like the International, ­ and half secret, like Carbonarism. It was composed of three sections. The first was formed by the “ International brothers” to the number of one hundred. They were the leaders of the movement ; they were known to each other, but they were not made known to the uninitiated. “Their only country was the universal revolution, their only enemies the reaction.” They must accept the programme in all its conquences, theoretical and practical, unite with intelligence and discretion the most absolute revolutionary passion, and be regular “dare-devils.” The second section was composed of the “ National brothers,” who were appointed by the International ­ brothers, whose duty was to prepare the revolution in their respective countries, independently, and who were to be kept in ignorance of the very existence of an International 201 BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. organization. The third section embraced all the simple adherents who enrolled themselves in local Socialist associations, ­ figured in the congresses, and constituted the grand army of the insurrection. The Alliance starts from the idea “that revolutions are made neither by individuals nor by secret societies. They come, as it were, of themselves, produced by the movement of ideas and events. All that a secret society can do is to spread among the masses ideas which may instigate them to revolution, and a,fterwards to constitute a revolutionary directorate, capable of guiding the insurrection when it breaks out. For the international ­ organization of the Revolution, a hundred devoted and closely united men are sufficient.” By a flagrant inconsistency, Bakunin, who preached anarchy and who rebelled against Marx and his General Council, because they arrogated to themselves too much authority, here returns to the ideas of Mazzini, and creates a highly centralized organization, on the model of the Society of the Jesuits, having, like it, the hilt of the sword in the hands of one man and the point everywhere. All appointments ­ and all initiatives were to come from the head centre. The International aimed at the raising of wages and social reform by means of discussion, propaganda, the press, in a word, by means of publicity. Bakunin, on the contrary, returned to the old methods of conspiracy. This system may succeed in a country despotically governed, where the object is to substitute a better political régime ; but in free countries, which, like Switzerland and France, govern themselves and where it only remains to introduce economic reforms, who is to be overthrown? ­ Is it those chosen by universal suffrage? In place of anarchism, then, it is a dictatorship that you are going to establish. You may have discovered the most perfect social system, for example, absolute amorphism and unlimited collectivism, ­ yet you would not be able to establish it or make it work, if the masses who are to practise it have not even an Idea of It. A dictator, were he all-powerful, would lose his labour. of the Alliance is no other than that of Nihilism. “ The Association of the International brothers,” it 202 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. declares, “ desires a universal revolution, at once social, philosophical, ­ economical, and political, in order that the existing order of things—which is founded on property, on exploitation, on the principle of authority, whether religious, metaphysical, doctrinaire after the manner of the bourgeoisie, or revolutionary after the manner of the Jacobins—may be absolutely overthrown, ­ so that not one stone of it shall remain upon another, first throughout Europe, and then in the rest of the world. Raising the cry of ‘ Peace for the workers ! Liberty for the oppressed ! ’ and ‘ Death to tyrants, exploiters, and patrons of all kinds ! ’ we wish to destroy all States and all Churches, w ith all their institutions and laws, religious, political, juridical, financial, ­ magisterial, academical, economical, and social, in order that all these millions of poor human beings, who are cheated, enslaved, overworked', and exploited—having been at last delivered from their masters and benefactors, whether official or officious, whether associations or individuals—may henceforth ­ and for ever breathe in absolute freedom.” This is plainly Rousseau’s idea, expressed with the emphasis of the Oriental and the violence of the Tartar. Man, especially the worker, is crushed by the immense superstructure of the social edifice which the centuries have piled up. How to free him ? There is only one way : to hurl it all down and level it even with the ground. Everything must be swept away so as to produce “perfect amorphism ;” for if one single ancient form be preserved, “ it will become the embryo from which all the old social iniquities will spring up again.” Still, however perfect this amorphism may be, to whatever extreme the work of destruction may be pushed, there will yet remain some men living and working beside each other. What political tie will unite them ? How w ill property and the distribution ­ of products be regulated ? In the programme of the Alliance, we can find only vague indications on this head. The ideal of the future is evidently borrowed from what exists in Russia to-day. Land will be the collective property of the Commune, which will distribute it among the inhabitants. Industrial workers will be associated in “ artel,” that is to say, in co-operative societies. But it is a crime to attempt at pre- % BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 20] sent to forecast the organization of the future. “ All reasonings about the future are criminal, because they hinder destruction pure and simple, and fetter the progress of the revolution.” In his Paroles addressees aux Étudiants, Bakunin, like Rousseau, attacks science and education, and cries up “ holy and wholesome ignorance.” The Russian people, he says, are now in the same condition as in the days of the Tsar Alexis, father of Peter the Great, when Stenka Razine, the Cossack Chief of the Brigands, placed himself at the head of a formidable ­ insurrection. The great mass of our young men without any defined position (déclassés), who already lead the life of the people, will form a sort of collective and, consequently, invincible Stenka Razine, and will bring about the final emancipation. But they must leave the schools and universities ­ and live with the people, in order to promote their deliverance. “ Give no thought to this useless knowledge in the name of which men try to tie your hands.” “ The brigand is the true hero, the avenger of the people, the irreconcilable enemy of the State, the true revolutionist in action, without phrases or rhetoric borrowed from books.” It is evident that Bakunin had read Schiller and had some recollection of Karl von Moor. Marx, who used to laugh at his opponent’s bombastic rhetoric, remarked that as regards brigands, there were none in Russia—outside the Government at least—except some poor devils who carried on the trade of horse-stealing, to the profit of certain commercial enterprises which paid, moreover, very good dividends. Nevertheless, it is true that, when the social mechanism drives the masses'to despair, brigands multiply and become popular, as has been the case for some time in Sicily and Calabria. But in Russia it is the middle class, and not the people, who feel themselves oppressed ; and it is revolutionists, and not brigands, that the bourgeoisie supply. In another fly-sheet, printed at Geneva, in Russian and for Russia, entitled “The Principles of the Revolution,” Bakunin indicates the means to be employed for overthrowing everything ­ and establishing amorphism. “ Admitting,” he says, “ no other activity than that of destruction, we declare that the 204 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. forms in which that activity should express itself may be widely varied : poison, poignard, running noose. The revolution ­ sanctifies all means without distinction.” These means will appear somewhat superannuated to-day, but ten years ago petroleum and dynamite did not yet occupy, in the revolutionary ­ arsenal, the position now assured to them by their proved efficiency. To attain to “ pan-destruction,” the first requisite is “ a series of outrages and of audacious and even mad enterprises, ­ striking terror into the powerful and arousing the people, till they believe in the triumph of the Revolution.” Does not this infernal programme seem like a hideous dream ?—and yet the various attempts at assassination which take place almost daily in Russia and elsewhere prove that it is being carried out to the letter. It is incomprehensible how this frightful work of pan-destruction can inspire persons belonging to the well-to-do classes with that savage fanaticism which leads them to sacrifice their own lives in order to kill those whom the Vehmgericht condemns to death. In the West, regicides are not wanting, and they act under the sway of this same hatred of the social order, but they have no accomplices, and the criminal idea springs from a sort of sickly fermentation in disordered brains : the two regicides of Berlin, the two of Madrid, and the one of Naples all displayed the same characteristics. In Russia the assassins are intelligent, well-informed, determined persons, and they act in obedience to a vast association which is everywhere present, but which, nevertheless, baffles the most persistent efforts of the police. There must be a force of mystical exaltation ­ in the Russian character which has disappeared elsewhere. To find a similar phenomenon, we must go back to the partisans of the “ Old Man of the Mountain,” in the thirteenth century. The organization of the party has not remained unknown ; it was formulated by Bakunin in the “ Revolutionary Catechism,” ­ written in cipher, but read by the public prosecutor at the trial of Netchaieff, on the 8th of July, 1871. The following are extracts from it :—“The revolutionist is a man under a vow. He ought to have no personal interests, no business, no feelings, no property. He ought to be entirely absorbed in one single BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 205 interest, one single thought, one single passion—the Revolution. ..He has only one aim, one science—destruction. For that, and for nothing else, he studies mechanics, physics, chemistry, and sometimes medicine. With the same object, he observes men, characters, the situations and all the conditions of the social order. He despises and detests existing morality. For him, everything is moral that helps on the triumph of the Revolution, ­ everything is immoral and criminal that hinders it Between him and society there is war—war to the death, incessant, ­ irreconcilable. He ought to be ready to die, to endure torture, and with his own hands to kill all who place obstacles in the way of the Revolution. So much the worse for him if he has in this world any ties of relationship, of friendship, of love ! He is no true revolutionist if these attachments stay his arm. Nevertheless, he must live in the midst of society, feigning to be what he is not. He must penetrate everywhere, among the upper classes as well as among the middle—into the merchant’s shop, into the church, into the Government offices, into the army, into the literary world, into the detective force, and even into the imperial palace. ... He must prepare a list of those who are condemned to death, and despatch them in the order of their relative misdoings. A new member can only be admitted into the Association by a unanimous vote, and after his qualities have been proved, not by words merely, but by deeds. Each ‘ companion ’ should have under his control several revolutionists ­ of the second or third degree, not wholly initiated. He should consider them as part of the revolutionary capital placed at his disposal, and he should expend them economically and so as to abstract the greatest possible profit out of them. . . . The most valuable element are women who are completely initiated, and who accept our whole programme. Without their aid we can effect nothing.” Bakunin’s instructions have been followed out to the letter in this respect, in Russia. As a matter of*fact, in all the conspiracies ­ there we find rich and cultured women, even daughters of State functionaries, of military officers, and of nobles. The secret is so well kept that when the police lay hands on the Nihilists they never succeed in tracking out the main body of 206 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. the association from the fragment that they seize. The Nihilists ­ penetrate everywhere : they shrink from no means of executing the sentence of the secret tribunal. When they are shot or hung, they die without repenting, and they defy both judge and executioner. A real dread of them weighs upon the upper ranks of society in Russia, especially since the terrible death of the Emperor Alexander. The life of the present sovereign is in constant danger. It is hard to say which is the more astonishing, the audacity of the Nihilists or the impotence ­ of the police. The trial of Netchaieff also enables us to learn how the association enlisted its partisans. Netchaieff was Bakunin’s lieutenant. Ogareff had dedicated to him, in Herzen’s Kolokol, a poem entitled “The Student,” which has exercised a great influence over the revolutionary youth of Russia. Each of them learned it by heart, and it is the model they endeavour to realize. In this little poem the student devotes himself to science and to the redemption of the people. He is hunted down by the police of the Tsar and by the hatred of the Boyars. He adopts the poor and nomad life of a vagabond {skitanie), saying to the peasants from morn till eve, “ Arise, in union and with courage ! ” He was condemned to penal servitude in Siberia, where he died repeating, “The people must win land and liberty : Zemlia e Volyia.” This watchword became the title of a newspaper secretly published, up to quite recently, by the Nihilists. In September, 1865, Netchaieff, whom Ogareff’s poetry surrounded with the halo of an apostle and a martyr, arrived at Moscow. There he entered into relations with the students at the Academy of Agriculture. He made some recruits and formed a committee, which he called “The Russian Branch of the International Working Men’s Association.” He gave them some instructions on the organization of the Secret Society. The document was taken and read at the trial. The following is a remarkable extract “ The organization is founded on confidence towards the individual. No member knows in what degree he stands from the centre. Obedience to the orders of the committee must be absolute, without hesitation BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 20/ or demur.” Four of the young men initiated received orders to enlist fresh adherents and to form each a small independent section. Among them was a student of the Academy of Agriculture, ­ named Ivanoff, who was devoting himself to works of charity with the exaltation of a saint He was much esteemed by his fellow-students and had great influence among them. He had organized aid funds for poor students ; he used to devote all his spare time to teaching the children of the peasants, and he habitually stinted himself in order to give to others. He believed, however, that individual beneficence could only assist a few unfortunates, and that nothing but a social revolution could put an end to the misery that exists. Netchaieff and Ivanoff did not long pull together. Netchaieff had some revolutionary proclamations posted up in the cheap boarding-houses that Ivanoff had organized for poor students. These were in consequence shut up, and the managers sent into exile. Ivanoff was much distressed at this, and announced his intention of quitting the Association. Then, in fear lest he should betray the secret, Netchaieff and two other members, Pryoff and Nicolaieff, though hitherto friends of Ivanoff, enticed him one evening into a quiet garden, under pretext of digging up a secret press, and then they shot him dead with a revolver and threw his body into a pond. To take another instance of a similar nature. The Congress of the International, which was going to unite at the Hague in 1872, wished, under the inspiration of Marx, to exclude Bakunin, ­ and in order to convict him of having founded a secret society with statutes contrary to those of the International a Russian exile, Utin, was commissioned to draw up a report on the Netchaieff affair. Utin, in order to perform his task took up his abode at¿Zurich. One evening, as he was walking about near the lake, he was attacked by eight persons who spoke the Slav language. These men, after having, as they believed, beaten him to death, were going to throw him into the water, when he was rescued by the arrival of some students of the University. We may therefore conclude, not only from the statutes of the Alliance, but from its acts, that it does not shrink from the assassination of its members. 208 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. When Alexander II. decreed the abolition of serfdom in 1861, Bakunin was in hopes that he was going to be the Tsar of the peasants, Zemsky Tsar, a name which he gave him in the Kolokol. Alexander was to break with the traditions of Peter the Great, who had introduced into holy Russia the hateful institutions of the West, and to substitute for them the equal laws of the Slavs. “ Unhappily,” said he, “ Alexander is German, and as such he will never understand the Russia of the peasants, Zemskuiu Rossiu.” In a pamphlet entitled Romanoff, Pugatcheff, or Pestel (1862), he says, “Whom shall we follow? Romanoff, that is to say, Alexander II.; Pugatcheff, that is to say, a military chief, such as he who directed the insurrection of the Cossacks against Catherine ; or Pestel, that is to say, a conspirator who would have killed the Emperor ? ” Pestel was one of the leaders of the conspiracy against Nicholas I., in 1825. He was arrested and hung. Bakunin explains with savage enthusiasm the programme of Panslavism. “ Oh ! war against the Germans,” he cries, “ is a good work and one indispensable for the Slavs. We must restore liberty to our brothers of Poland, of Lithuania, and of the Ukraine, and march in a body to the deliverance of the Slavs, who groan under the yoke of Teutons and Turks. Alliance with Italy, Hungary, Roumania, and Greece against Prussia, Austria, and Turkey. Realization of the cherished dream of all Slavs : the constitution of the grand free Panslavic Federation.” At this time Bakunin was still imbued with the narrow idea of nationalities. It was afterwards that he rose to the higher conception of the suppression of States, to be henceforth replaced ­ by the amorphism of federal autonomous Communes. Still hatred for the Germans was, so to speak, in his blood. It was never extinguished, and, in particular, it disclosed itself, bitter and implacable, in the struggle with Marx. It was Bakunin who took the lead in the International from 1870, and when it lost all its influence, through the divisions of parties, it was the Bakunist Alliance that organized in Europe the propaganda ­ of revolutionary Socialism. It is in the two countries where the working classes are best organized for the struggle, England and Germany, that the bajcunlv the apostle of nihilism. 209 International has had least influence. It was founded in l^ondon ; it included in its general council some of the leaders of the working men's movement in England ; among others, Odger, Applegarth, Lucraft, and Hales; many trades unions expressed their sympathy for the Association, and several even joined It. But they did not furnish it with much money, and they have not borrowed from it the revolutionary spirit This IS well shown in a letter of one of the members of the International, Eugene Dupont, dated the ist of January, 1870. The initiative of the revolution,” he writes, “must come from France, but it is in England that it will be accomplished P ons Industry is carried on by the concentration of large capitalism has developed most a ge y, and has thus prepared the causes of its own destruction; TK foreigners who will have to set the ball rolling he English have all the material necessary for the social revolution, but they lack the spirit of generalization and révolutrast between trench and English, as it was manifested in and to found a society in which justice shall reign.” “ As for '<> an understanding with those 210 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. of Other countries ; and that the principles of the International will lead to a lasting peace between the nations of the world. The principle of collectivism as applied to land, adopted at the Congresses of Brussels (1868) and of Bâle (1869), was included in the programme of the advanced party of Land Reform. “ Seeing that the monopoly of landed property is the source of all the evils, social, moral, and political, from which society suffers; and that the only remedy is to restore the land to its legitimate heir : the land shall be held by the State, which shall grant the use of it on conditions to be hereafter determined. The existing proprietors shall receive by way of indemnity Government stocks. The abolition of the standing army, the profits of the national bank, and a direct progressive tax, replacing all other taxes, shall furnish the necessary resources for this reform.” Even in these extreme propositions the juridical spirit of the English is seen. On the Continent, when it is proposed to confiscate property, there is no question of indemnifying proprietors. What ! these bandits, who have been robbing the people for all these ages, are we to pay them more ! They may think themselves lucky if we leave them their skins. In England respect for property survives even at the moment when it is being abolished, and an equitable indemnity is accorded in consols.” * At the Congress of Bâle, Applegarth, president of the General Association of Carpenters, announced that the eighl hundred thousand members of the trades unions were a devoted to the International. In 1870 it was affirmed that two hundred and thirty working men’s societies, with ninety five thousand members, were affiliated. But these pure y platonic adhesions brought little resources or power to the association. It tried to found sections directly in the manu factoring towns, and in a congress held with this object a Manchester, in July, 1873, under the presidency of the red flag was adopted for the Britannic federation, red flag,” said the preamble, “ is the symbol of blood shed ♦ [The Land Reformers of the present day in England are no long_^ ^;=tinp-uished by this respect for property.—See tnfra^ bociahs all distinguished by England.”—Tr.\ 211 BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. the people for liberty. Adopted by Socialists of all countries, It represents the unity and fraternity of the races of men, while the national banners represent hostility and war between the different States.” Up to the present John Bull, “this stupid animal,” does not seem to have grasped the beauty of this theory of colours. When the red flag appears in meetings and processions in England, it is almost always borne by foreigners. After the schism of the Hague, Eccarius and Hales abandoned Marx. The most violent became Bakunists. The great mass of the working men, limiting their views to the present time and to the horizon of their island, remained within the local movement of their trades unions. The International has, however, instilled into them a sympathy for revolutionary agitations abroad, and the idea of collective ownership of the soil at home. It is said that they are now becoming more Socialistic, and that they are rising to “ the synthetical idea ; ” but it is not easy to measure the strength of this underground evolution. “The Annual of Socialism” {Jahrbuch der Sozialwissenschaft), of Dr. Ludwig Richter, in reviewing the progress of Socialism in civilized countries in 1879, makes no mention of England, “because there is nothing to tell about it.” • ® Although the International was the outcome of German Socialism, since it was Marx who formulated its principles and created its organization, its influence in Germany has been still less than in England. In speaking in former chapters of Lassalle and Marx, we have sketched the growth of Socialistic ideas in Germany ; we therefore need not recur to it again The movement was too independent and too powerful to obev the action of an association which had neither its head quarters nor its roots in the country. Many working men’s societies sent to the International good wishes and even adhesions but they took from it neither their doctrines nor tneir watchwords, f founVa^peSSiÂrÎ'r" """""" >" E.gkW will b. t [In a book. Die Rothe Internationale, by Dr. Zacher. Government 212 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. The case was otherwise in America. The introduction and the progress of militant Socialism there were due in great part to the International. Long previously various systems of social organization had been tried there, some proceeding from Protestant sects, as the Mormons and the Communists of Oneida; others from French sects of 1848, as the Icarians of Cabet and the Phalansterians of Considérant. But these attempts at reform aimed at giving an example of a more equitable social order, and not at organizing the struggle of labour against capital. This was what the International did. A general federation of working men’s societies was formed under the name of the “ National Labour Union.” It entered into relations with the general council of the International, and sent delegates to its congresses. German emigrants spread the ideas of Lassalle and Marx throughout the States of the Union, and created sections of the International at San Francisco, Chicago, and other places. The National Labour Union, in its fifth congress, held at Cincinnati on the 15th of April, 1870, resolved to adopt the principles of the International; and the American federation of the section of the International, which assembled in congress at Philadelphia ­ in April, 1874, declared that they accepted the resolutions of the Hague. Grievous strikes, the intensity of the industrial crisis, arid above all personal disputes among the leaders, led to a rapid Assessor in Germany (Berlin, 1884), an account is given of the two con gresses held by the German Social Democrats since the passing of the Anti-Socialist law. The first was held at Wyden, near Ossingen, Switzerland, from the 20th to the 23rd of August, 1880, and is remarkab e for the definitive schism which then occurred between the radical group» represented by Johann Most and Hassehnann, and the so-called moderate party, headed by Bebel and Liebknecht. The second congress assembled at Copenhagen on the 29th of March, 1883, and was attended by sixty delegates. They congratulated themselves that, in spite of the Lxccp" tional Law and persecution of all kinds, they could look forward wit 1 hope and confidence to the future ; and they passed a resolution to the effect that they had no confidence in the ruling classes, but were convince that the so-called social reform was only a ruse to divert the working classes from the right course. Dr. Zacher says that the Anti-Sociabs legislation has entirely suppressed all overt agitation, and that the sccre agitation which has taken its place “ can hardly be said to be really formidable. ”— Tr. ] BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 213 decline of the power of the International. The general council, which, in accordance with the decision of the Congress of the Hague, had fixed its seat at New York, exercised no influence there and soon ceased to exist. Nevertheless, the seeds sown by the International grew apace. The struggle of labourers against capitalists is organized everywhere to-day, and the Labour newspapers constantly notify strikes. In the late elections in California a large number of Socialists were returned. Macaulay's famous prophecy of the barbarians that will one day appear in the midst of the American cities does not seem so improbable as it did thirty years ago. The remarkable book, “ Progress and Poverty,” recently published by Mr. Henry George, at San Francisco, graphically describes the circumstances that are bringing these “ barbarians ” into existence. The only efficacious preservative against revolutionary Socialism is the diffusion of property. A new proof of this IS presented by the fact that, in the Scandinavian countries, e International was the less successful in proportion as the agrarian system was the more democratic ; that is to say not at all in Norway, to a small extent in Sweden, and more in Denmark. The International penetrated into Denmark in the spring of 1871, a short time after the fall of the Commune 1 he apostle of the association was Pio, a retired militant officer. He found a devoted lieutenant in Paul Geleff who used to write in an Ultramontane newspaper, Heimdal. Geleff went through the different towns preaching the “ glad tidinirs ” amihesm:ceak:d infoumffi^rs^^rionsinriie gmakr number of them, at Aalborg, Randers, Aarhuus, Skanderborg, Horsens Cklem.,, ^id Nakskov: /Lt the beginning of 1872 thele section: already counted eight thousand members, of whom five thousand belonged to the capital. Many women joined the 1 tookiflace fi-om this time forth. . ..:z, 214 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 87 of the Code, interdicted the “ International Association of Labourers ” in Denmark. The measure proved illusory. The Socialists constituted themselves under the name of the “ Democratic Association of Working Men,” and found in a cabinet-maker, named Pihl, an energetic and dexterous leader. Numerous meetings took place from time to time in the open air after the English fashion. On the 5th of June, 1874, more than fifteen thousand working men belonging to the different sections of the International assembled at Diirgarten, in the suburbs of Copenhagen. Trade banners and twentytwo red flags floated to the wind. Universal suffrage exists in Denmark, but there is only one large town, the capital, and the peasants, of whom many are proprietors, form in the Chamber the democratic party. They demand the strictest economy and simplicity of manners, and they object to the expenditure made in the towns. They constitute a solid barrier against sudden and violent innovations. The Liberal party has also endeavoured to gain influence with the working men. MM. Rimestod and Sonne have favoured the establishment ­ of working men’s associations, similar to those founded in Germany, under the inspiration of Schulze-Delitzsch and Max Hirsch. There are already more than a hundred of them scattered throughout the country. The Socialist party was rudely shaken by the dishonesty of its two chiefs, Pio and Geleff, who, under pretext of founding an experimental colony in America, embezzled the funds of the Association. A female writer, Jacquette Liljenkrantz, stands at the head of the labour movement, to which she has devoted her pen, her time, and her resources. In many parts, following the example in Russia, women are beginning to take an active part in Socialist intrigues. In Sweden the ground is still less favourable for the development ­ of Socialism, for eighty-five per cent, of the population ­ inhabit the country, and the families of the cultivators still manufacture many of the articles which they require, such as utensils, tools, farming implements, cloth, and coarse stuffs-The large system of industry exists only in some districts. BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 21$ The country is admirably administered ; education reaches all classes, and well-being is real and widely diffused. Sweden ^d Norway have seemed to me to be the happiest countries in Europe, and the most worthy of being so. No' doubt Socialistic ideas have penetrated there as everywhere else, and from time to time strikes break out, especially among the miners ; but the International has been unable to take deep root Axel Krook, a rival of Schulze-Delitzsch, has brought about the establishment of co-operative societies both of production ­ and of distribution. In Norway the famous association has had still less success. ­ In September, 1873, Jansen, a working saddler from Copenhagen, went to Christiania to preach Socialism. Nobody would let him a room, not even the innkeepers. At last, in the environs of Tyreholmen, he was able to hold an open-air meeting, at which thirty persons were present. Hagen, a Norwegian ­ carpenter, joined him in spreading Socialistic ideas, while basing them on Christianity. Some students followed them, and a society was founded. Nevertheless, these propagandist ­ efforts met with no support. A German Socialist newspaper at Hamburg thus gloomily sums up the results of this campaign : “ It becomes more and more evident that Norway is a very ungrateful field for any efforts for the improvement ­ of the lot of humanity.” The examples of Switzerland and Belgium prove that nothing is more efficacious for attenuating the dangers of Socialism than liberty. It was in these two countries that the International used to hold its congresses ; its propaganda was in no way interfered with ; it enjoyed the most absolute liberty of assembly, of the press, of association, and of speech, and yet order was never seriously disturbed. In France, where there was no right of assembly or of association, and where the International was twice prosecuted and finally interdicted, matters ended in the Commune. In Italy, prosecutions, trials’ convictions, exceptional measures, have not, been wanting, and there have been disturbances, insurrections, and frightful assassinations. ­ In Spain, where there has been still more rigorous suppression, the majority of the large towns fell into the hands 2i6 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. of the insurgent Cantonalists. In Germany there have been repeated attempts at regicide ; finally, in Russia, where all freedom is suppressed, there have been unheard-of crimes and a situation worse than a revolution, for it is Society itself that is in a state of siege. In every country there exist two parties : that which wishes to conserve what is, or even to re-establish what has been ; and that which seeks to reform, and sometimes, in its impatience, ­ to destroy everything. Just as the motion of the earth is the resultant of centripetal and centrifugal forces, so Society moves on under the combined action of the spirit of conservation and the spirit of reform. Try to suppress them, and you will provoke alternately revolutions and reactions. Give them free play, and progress will be fulfilled by means of a series of compromises and reforms, as in England, Belgium, and Switzerland. Switzerland seemed to present a soil admirably prepared for Socialism. As early as 1843 Weitling had preached Communism ­ there. The refugees of the insurrections of 1848 had founded associations there, amongst others those of the “ German Brothers ” {Deutsche Brüder). The Grüíliverein, which had a newspaper, the Grüttianer, and sections in the majority of the cantons, was gained over to the ideas of the Socialist democrats. The Russians Bakunin and Utin, the Italians Rosetti and Ghalino, and agitators banished from all countries, arrived in Switzerland, the only asylum which remained to them on the Continent. Johann Philippe Becker, a friend of Marx, was here the apostle of the International. In 1864 he succeeded in founding the first section of the Association, and soon sections were established in the majority of the towns and industrial centres. At one time there were thirty-two in Geneva alone. Becker also published a journal, der Vorbote, and attached to it a central committee whose action was not confined to Switzerland. In the French-speaking cantons the sections grouped themselves ­ under the name of the Fédération de la Suisse romande ; but soon the contest between Marx and Bakunin found its echo among them. The sections of the Jura pronounced for BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 21/ Bakunin, and the majority of those of Geneva against him. Thus two federations were constituted. The working men’s societies of German Switzerland assembled in general congress at Olten in 1873, and at Winterthur in 1874. The programme ­ adopted was very moderate. There was no question of collectivism, but merely of the regulation of labour in the manufactories, and of the means of intellectual and technical culture. The Socialists of the Jura, however, guided by James Guillaume, adopted the extreme ideas of Bakunism. It was in this centre that the Avant-garde was published, a paper which was condemned at Geneva on account of an article on regicide by a refugee named Brousse. For this group, to destroy and to kill appear to be the sole means of improving human affairs. On this point I may quote a curious passage from the number of the Bulletin of the Federation of the Jura, which appeared on the 4th of March, 1876. A group of French refugees resident at New York, calling themselves Authoritarian Revolutionists, demanded, in a manifesto, that in future all reactionaries should be killed without mercy. The Bulletin replied that hatred is a bad counsellor, that the reactionaries were to be counted by millions, and that they consisted not only of magistrates, priests, officials, and proprietors, but also of the great mass of the people, who did not at all understand humanitarian collectivism. Universal suffrage, said the Bulletin, would hardly give us half a million of votes : we should accordingly have to cut the throats of all the rest, which would be impossible. The essential point is to rid ourselves of the leaders : for this a few thousand heads would suffice. Violent language of this kind causes little uneasiness in Switzerland. No repression or interference is attempted. New Socialistic journals and societies come and go. The best of their forces is employed in self-destruction, and the social order seems in no wise imperilled. It is true that society there rests on a very wide and very democratic basis. Not only is there universal suffrage in Switzerland, but there is also direct government ­ by assembly of the whole people {Landsgenieinde), as in f e primitive cantons, or by the Teferendum or plebiscite, as in the other cantons. In the revision of the Federal Constitu- 2I8 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. tion of 1874 as many as 535,000 electors, or ninety per cent. \ of the whole number, recorded their votes. The collective property of the Commune is also to be found in existence under the old institution of the Allmends. There is no standing army, hardly any taxation, and few police. The Commune is ^ autonomous, and the Canton is formed by the federation of the Communes. What more could “ Anarchism ” require ? It is true that they have not yet got Bakunin’s “ Amorphism.” * The International gained a footing in Belgium in 1865 ; but it was not until December, 1866, that the first section was f constituted, at Liège. We see in the report of the delegate, „■ De Paepe, at the Congress of Lausanne, that a very active j section had been founded at Brussels, and that the working men’s societies of Ghent and Antwerp were connected with ^ it. At the Congress of Brussels in 1868 the delegate Frère ’ announced that several very large sections had been formed I in the coal-basin of Charleroi, and that at Verviers “ the free | labourers ” had joined and had even started a newspaper, the rj Mirabeau, which, strange to say, still exists. At Bruges a j section was formed with a journal called the Vooruit, and soon afterwards there appeared at Antwerp the Werker, which exercised ­ a great influence over the working men in the Flemish ¡ towns. In December all the sections formed a federation. j A general council of sixteen members was chosen and a journal J started, the Internationale. The sections were grouped according to the coal-basins, and were all to send delegates to the \ general congress held every year. It was almost a reproduc- | tion of the parent association. The strikes and conflicts which i resulted therefrom, in the neighbourhood of Charleroi and J: * [In Switzerland, according to Dr. Zacher rothe Internationale), the entire body of Socialists of all shades, in 1880, hardly numbered 15,000 out of a population of three millions. They have been unable to organize their ^ forces owing to internal dissensions between the various sections, the split between the Most-Hasselmann and Hebel-Liebknecht groups of Germany finding its counterpart in Switzerland. In September, 1883, a congress (Allgemein Schweizerischer Arbeitertag) was held at Zurich, at which 17^ delegates were present, and an executive committee was formed with the object of uniting the several groups, viz. the Griitlianer, the Gewerkschaftler, the German Working Men’s Unions (Deutsche Arbeitervereine), the Swiss Social Democrats, and the German Social Democrats. By the middle of November, 1883, it had, however, enrolled only 3680 members.—Tr.\ BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 219 Seraing, attracted a great deal of attention to the International. The leaders, however, were unwilling to encourage strikes, for fear they should fail. Thus, at the second National Congress of Antwerp, which sat from the ist to the 15th of August, 1873, it was resolved that the federations should make every preparation ­ for the universal strike, but that it was necessary to give up entirely partial strikes, except “ in a case of legitimate defence.” At the time of its greatest diffusion the International counted eight federations : those, namely, of Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, Liège, the Vesdre, the Borinage, the Centre, and Charleroi. As to the number of members, it has been variously estimated from one to two hundred thousand ; but as membership ­ is acquired by a purely platonic adhesion, exact statistics are impossible. However, the organization has been more complete here than anywhere else. After the schism of the Hague, the Belgian Internationalists pronounced against the exclusion of Bakunin, without however adhering to his doctrines. Since the Universal Association has ceased to operate, the Belgian Socialists have attempted to reconstitute it on a national basis. Two tendencies exist : some, like the German Socialists, wish to obtain power by means of the elections, and they call for universal suffrage and common action with the bourgeois radicals ; others, represented by the newspaper Le Mirabeau, assert, like the Nihilists, that it is necessary to begin by destroying ­ everything. “ Whoever,” says this journal, “ has not borne the rags of wretchedness cannot desire the true revolution. ­ The labourer alone can bring it about. All weapons are employed against him ; be it so : an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Let us put in operation fire, sword, poison, and petroleum. Let us make a tabula rasa. Let us level to the ground this rotten society based on our misery and our ignorance. As conquerors, we shall build up a new society founded on labour and justice.” Prosecutions on account of these appeals to violence having only given them a notoriety that they would not otherwise have possessed, all interference with them has ceased. During the past few years Socialism does not appear to have gained 220 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. ground. Nevertheless, Belgium presents conditions exceptionally ­ favourable to its development. The number of working men is very considerable, and as the population is the most dense in Europe, wages are lower than in the other western countries. The International did not penetrate into Holland until towards 1869. A section was constituted at Amsterdam with a paper. De Standaari des Volks. It soon began to radiate and to found other sections in the principal towns—at Arnhem, Utrecht, Haarlem, Leeuwaarden, and Rotterdam. A general association, Ifet Nederlandsch IVerklieden-Verband, was established ­ with the intention of grouping all the working men’s societies of the country. But the local spirit of individuality, which is very pronounced in Holland, put numerous obstacles in the way. After the first period of expansion and enthusiasm, the International, even before its disappearance, lost a portion of its conquests. The Socialistic movement is still, however, represented by a few groups and by the newspapers Oosi en JVesl and Heekl voor alien. Here, too, complete liberty has prevented any explosion. Socialism percolated from Germany into Austria as early as 1866. The International endeavoured to organize it as early as 1868, principally by means of the apostolate of Bernardt Becker. In order to demand universal suffrage, it instigated, on several occasions, meetings at which thousands of working men were present. Its organ was the Arbeiter Blatt. In January, 1869, the number of members was at least twenty thousand, of whom Vienna supplied ten thousand. In February of this same year the great association of Tehee working men joined it and extended its ramifications to Prague. In February the Socialists convoked a great gathering in which about thirty thousand persons took part. On the 13th of December, the day of the opening of Parliament, more than a hundred thousand working men congregated in front of the palace where the Parliament ­ met, and eleven delegates were admitted to present a petition ­ to the president of the council. Count I'aafe. This caused alarm. Prosecutions were ordered and some sentences pronounced. ­ The police left the Socialist journals and associations BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 221 no longer in peace. The two leading papers, Gleichheit and Volkswille, after having been frequently seized and suspended, at last ceased to appear. In Hungary, where there is greater liberty, a propagandist committee was formed, and a newspaper, the Allgemeine Arbeiter Zeitung, was published in German and in Magyar. In June, 1871, a great demonstration was held in honour of the Commune. The workmen, leaving work, marched through the streets of Pesth bearing crape and black flags. Prosecutions for high treason followed, and the ringleader, Sigmund Polliker, was condemned to six months’ imprisonment. Nevertheless, Socialistic propaganda penetrated into all the towns of the empire, and, what is very unusual, at one time it seemed to make head even in the rural districts. Socialist societies of peasants were formed in the villages of Carinthia under the name of Freie Bauernvereine; they had an organ, der Bauernwille, edited by Karl Achar, a farmer’s son ; but the animosities and reciprocal accusations of the two principal leaders, Oberwinder and Scheu, checked their progress. The ideas spread by the International have still a considerable number of partisans among the working men of the different provinces of Austria-Hungary, but their attitude has latterly become less revolutionary. The conflict of races, always so fierce, effects a diversion. What is called the labour movement is very active in Italy When I visited the country in 1879 I found in the towns a great number of working men’s societies : people’s banks under the direction of the well-known Deputy Luzzatti the “ Italian Schulze-Delitzsch ; ” aid societies, often under the patronage of a great name, such as Pepoli at Bologna, and Teano at Rome; co-operative societies; societies for the study of social subjects; trades unions, to say nothing of republican ­ circles, secret societies, and the famous Circoli Barsanti.* asserted that he had nothing to do with it, seeing that he was absent from the barracks; and in order to rehabilitate his memory, the revolutionists created associations bearing his name—CWf Barsanti. Their aim was to attract soldiers and non-commissioned officers, in order to enrol them in tneir party. 222 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. Socialism is invading the country parts ; an exceptional thing in Europe, save perhaps in Spain. The peasantry are reduced to extreme poverty through excessive rent and taxes. Wages are entirely insufficient. The agricultural labourers live crowded together in straggling villages, and obtain only an intermittent employment Thus a rural proletariat is formed, more miserable even than that of the industrial centres. Shut out from ownership by the latifundia, they become the enemies of a social order which is crushing them. Elsewhere, and notably in France, in agricultural gatherings, in assemblies and in the army, the country folk are the mainstay of the existing régime. In Italy a serious danger will arise when revolutionary ideas shall have been carried into the army by the sons of the peasantry. Some recent trials show clearly the two aspects of Socialism in Italy, namely, the rural Socialism produced by poverty, and the cosmopolitan Socialism of Nihilism. The first occurrence was as follows: At the beginning of April, 1877, some thirty persons, who came nobody knows whence, used to meet every evening in a house which they had hired at San Lupo, a village in the province of Benevento. On the night of the 6th of April the carabineers who were watching the house are fired at, and two of them fall, severely wounded. After this exploit the band advance towards the neighbouring village of Letino, with a red and black fiag at their head. They take possession of the town-hall. The councillors demand their discharge ; it is given to them in these terms : “ We, the undersigned, hereby declare that we have seized the municipality of Letino by armed force in the name of the social revolution." Then follow the signatures. They carry out to the market-place, to the foot of the cross that stands there, the cadastral surveys and civil registers, and set them on fire. The peasants quickly crowd around, while one of the insurgents makes a great speech. He explains that the movement is a general one, and that the people are free. The king is fallen and the social republic proclaimed. Applause follows. The women demand the immediate partition of the lands. The leaders reply, “You have arms, you are free. Make the partition for yourselves.” BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 223 The curé, Fortini, who was also a municipal councillor, mounts on the pedestal of the cross and says that these men, who are come to establish equality, are the true apostles of the Lord, and that this is the meaning of the Gospel. He then places himself at the head of the band and leads them to the neighbouring village of Gallo, crying, “ Long live the Social Revolution.” The curé of Gallo, Tambur ini, comes forward to receive them and presents them to his flock. “ Fear nothing,” he says, “ they are honest folk ; there has been a change of government and a burning of the registers.” {Buona gente : non temete. Cambiamento di governo ed incendio di carte.) The crowd appear delighted. The muskets of the national guard are distributed among them. The registers are carried out to the public square and make a great blaze. In the mill the people destroy the hated instrument for calculating the tax to be paid for the grinding. The enthusiasm reaches its height The vicar embraces the leader, who wears a red belt The women weep for joy. No more taxes, no more rent; everybody equal ; general emancipation ! But soon they hear that the troops are approaching. The band flies for safety into the forest of Matesa. Unhappily, the elements are less merciful than the peasants. Everything is buried in snow, and the cold is intense. The liberators die of hunger. They are taken, and, in the month of August, 1878, they are brought up at the Assizes of Capua. The leaders were Count G , of Imola, C , a doctor of law, and M , a chemist. The two curés were included among the thirty-seven prisoners. The upshot of the adventure was not the least extraordinary part. The counsel for the accused pleaded that the matter was a political offence, and was covered by the amnesty granted by King Humbert on coming to the throne. The jury acquitted them. Meanwhile one of the carabineers had died and the other was crippled for life. Was it not like a page of romance ? It gives food for reflection, however. It proves how readily the idea of a social revolution, even when presented under an almost burlesque form, is accepted by the rural populations and their clergy. Small agrarian insurrections. 224 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. causing bloodshed, are constantly breaking out both in the north and in the south. In 1882 that of Calatabiano, in Sicily, threatened to extend. As Marquis Pepoli, speaking of the troubles of Budrio and Molinella, said, it is empty stomachs that revolt The captain of carabineers who put down these disorders replied to the prefect, questione di fame “It is a question of hunger.” It is not uncommon to see municipal ­ authorities favouring these risings. To take one characteristic ­ incident from many others, at San Giovanni-Rotondo, in La Puglia, the mayor used to give Socialistic conferences, and the municipality used to have the reports printed and circulated at its own expense. At San Nicandio and at Lezina the mayors urge the peasants to divide the lands amongst themselves. ­ When property is the privilege of the few, spoliation becomes the wish of the many. Next, with regard to the cosmopolitan and Nihilistic Socialism—a case against an association of Internationalists was recently tried at Florence. The prisoners, to the number of fifteen, were almost all very intelligent working men. They had been enlisted by two ladies, one of whom, Madame Kulischoff, is a Russian, and the other, Madame Pezzi, is an Italian. Madame Kulischoff is very well informed. She speaks several languages, pursues scientific studies, and has been through the course of the university of Pisa. At the court of Assizes she was full of witticisms. When the indictment ­ was being distributed, “ Quite right,” she said ; “ hand round the libretto before the performance begins.” She boldly proclaimed her Communistic theories on all subjects. Madame Pezzi was at the head of the Florentine section of Lady Internationalists. ­ Natta, the principal prisoner, is a very able engineer. He developed the programme of the Socialist party to which he belongs. He desires anarchy, collectivism, the destruction of the juridical family, and the abolition of all official religions. It is easy to recognize the teaching of Bakunin. In all parts of Italy I was informed that Socialism is gaining over the working men and the youth of the nation. At Naples the students said to me, “The most advanced of us are no BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 22$ longer mere republicans. Of what avail to overthrow a king more devoted to his country than the best president ? Many of us, however, are Socialists.” At Bologna, the Prefect, Marquis Gravina, said to me, “ I do not think that there are more than five hundred working men regularly affiliated to the International, but almost all of them have adopted its ideas.” In the working men’s societies visited by me I heard repeatedly, “ Those who do nothing live in opulence ; we labour and yet we are in extreme want That cannot last” The first working men's societies in Italy, dating from 1848, were founded under the inspiration of MazzinL In 1863 they numbered 453 with 111,608 members, and in 1875 more than 1000 with about 200,000 associates. A good many of them— over 300—were federated so as to constitute the “ Fraternal Union of Working Men’s Societies ” {^Società operaie italiane affratellate). They have a managing committee sitting at Rome, where a congress is held almost every year. Mazzini, after his secession from the International, became more and more hostile to it in proportion as the influence of Bakunin over it increased. He reproached it, in the first place, for denying the notion of God, the sole basis of right in the name of which the labourers could demand justice ; secondly, for suppressing the Fatherland, the essential form of human brotherhood ; and lastly, for abolishing property, the sole incentive to the production of more than men require for their immediate wants, and consequently ­ the sole agent of economic progress. He did not reject social reforms. On the contrary, he sought for a system which would ensure the union of capital and labour, and would transform property without abolishing it ; but he had a horror of Communism. He condemned with indignation the Commune ­ of Paris, just as, in 1848, he had cursed “ the days of June.” The Anarchists reproached him bitterly for doing so ^Mazzini was not an Economist. He looked for salvation to • Published in 1871, without name of printer or place of publication. Q 226 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. the elevating influence of Republican institutions. His disciples have inherited his hatred against the International Alberto Mario, one of the best known leaders of the Republican party, never misses an opportunity of violently attacking the Internationalists, ­ whom he calls incendiaries and assassins. Garibaldi ­ was less attached to the Republic, and more inclined towards Socialism, without connecting himself with any particular system. He regretted the fall of the Commune. In a letter published by the Gazettina rosa in 1873, he says, “ The defeat of the Commune of Paris is a misfortune for humanity, for it leaves us the burden of a standing army, which every party that wishes to gain the upper hand will make use of. ... I say it with pride ; I am an Internationalist, and if an association of demons were constituted to fight the priests and despotism, I would enrol myself in its ranks.” After the death of Mazzini, Mazzinians and Garibaldians united in order to found a vast association which was to embrace all the democrats of the peninsula. They took the name of / jranchi cafoni. Their journal was the Spariacns. This grand project could not be realized^ and the cafoni have almost all drifted towards Socialism. It was Bakunin who brought the International into Italy-In 1865 he formed there a group of very active Socialists, who published the newspaper Libertà e Giustizia, and formed the Neapolitan section of the International. In 1867 sections were established at Genoa and at Milan. The “sons of labour” at Catania affiliated themselves in 1868. In 1869 a central section was formed at Naples, which addressed an appeal to the other sections to constitute a national federation; ­ but the police interfered with prosecutions. In 1870 and 1871 numerous sections were established in the Romagna, and were federated under the name Fascio Operaio. On the 12th of March, 1872, they held a congress at Bologna, at which thirteen towns were represented. On the 6th of August the delegates of the Fascio Operaio assembled again at Rimini, in order to declare, “in the face of the labourers of the whole world,” that the Italian federation broke away from the general council of the International. The Italian Socialists separated BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 22/ themselves definitively from Marx, and pronounced in favour of Bakunin, who had been, in fact, their Messiah. Even since the International has ceased to exist the name has continued to be given to all Socialistic associations in Italy, and, for that matter, they call themselves “ Sections of the Italian federation of the International Association of Labourers.” Their number has not ceased to increase, and they may be said to exist in all the towns. Latterly, in order to escape the severity of the police, they have taken the name of “ Circles tor Social Studies.” From time to time they issue manifestoes, and occasionally they assemble in regional congresses. They carry on an active propaganda. Although the Italian Statutebook did not proclaim liberty of association at the same time as the other essential liberties, the exercise of the right has ecome customary, and is recognized in practice as guaranteed hy the constitution. To attack the associations called international, ­ jurisprudence has been obliged to look upon them as associations of malefactors preparing crimes against common right, such as assassination and robbery. It is on this ground that they have been dissolved and their members prosecuted. In 1874 proceedings were taken to arrest all the provincial commissions, to dissolve by force all the sections, and to sequester their registers and papers. The juries, however, often brought in an acquittal. The prosecutions served only to transform the associations into secret societies—a transformation ­ which greatly augments their prestige, their influence and their popularity, for they thus answer much better to the habits of conspiracy engrained in the people. * In a letter written from Locarno, on the 5th of April 1872 to Francesco Mora, at Madrid, Bakunin thus described the Socialistic movement in Italy: “You are doubtless aware that the International and our dear Alliance have lately taken a great development in Italy. Hitherto it was not revolutionary instincts that were wanting, but organization 228 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. and the revolutionary idea. Both are now established so thoroughly that, next to Spain, Italy is perhaps the most revolutionary country in the world. There is in Italy what is wanting elsewhere : a youth, ardent, energetic, without career, with no outlet, and which, in spite of their bourgeois origin, are not morally and intellectually worn out as in other countries. To-day they throw themselves headlong into revolutionary ­ Socialism with our whole programme, the programme of the Alliance. Mazzini, our ‘ genial ’ and powerful antagonist, is dead, and the Mazzinian party completely disorganized; while Garibaldi allows himself more and more to be drawn along by this youth of Italy, who bear his name indeed, but who go ahead infinitely faster and further than he.” As Bakunin says, the elements of revolution exist in Italy ; but what renders a revolution almost impossible there is the want of a revolutionary capital. The Americans were well advised to place the head-quarters of their States in small towns. The French Republicans, with less foresight, have made a great mistake in bringing back the Chambers to Paris. The malaria, which renders Rome uninhabitable during part of the year, will preserve it for some time longer from the danger of becoming the seat of a new Commune. Socialist newspapers have swarmed in Italy, thanks to the complete liberty of the press. But they are short-lived, for want of subscribers : they die as soon as they have devoured the small funds provided by some enthusiastic group. Plebe of Milan is, however, an exception ; it has been in existence for fifteen years. Signor Cusumano, a young and learned professor of the University of Palermo, has made a list of the “ red ” journals which have come and gone. The total exceeds eighty.* I borrow from Rudolf Meyer some extracts from newspapers ­ which show the tendencies of extreme Socialism. In * Some of the names of these papers are characteristic : for instance, II Communardo, of Fano ; Satam, PAteo and II Ladro (the Robber), oj Livorno ; La Canaglia, of Pavia ; II Lticifero, of Ancona ; Spartaco and La Campana., of Naples ; L'Eguaglianza and La Giustizia, of Girgenti J II Petrolio, of Ferrara ; It Pavero, of Palermo ; VAnticristo, of Milan ; and It Proletario, of Turin. BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 229 the first place, war to the whole religious idea : “ God,” says the Proletario, “is the people’s greatest enemy; for He has cursed labour.” “ No more faith nor obedience to the supernatural,” ­ says the Almanaco Republicano ; “ it is only on this condition that materialistic democracy will be able to construct a new society.” “ One’s country,” says the Campana, “ is an empty abstraction, in the name of which kings instigate peoples to cut each other’s throats.” Speaking of the cosmopolitan ­ idea, the Plebe is indignant at the Italia irredenta movement : “ What ! ” it says, “ you want to go to war with Austria to take from her a part of Tyrol and Trieste? nay, iook at our terra redenta, our freed territory : people die on It of pellagra and hunger.” No more government, no more authority, nothing but anarchy ; such is the final aim. “ The ^ew era,” says the Campana, “ will establish the free expansion of all human aspirations. All authority, human or Divine, must disappear, from God down to the meanest agent of police.” The following are extracts from socialistic manifestoes. In that of the Internationalists of La Puglia, dated August, 1878, we read : “ The end to be attained is to assure to men the most complete happiness possible, by the full development of all their faculties. The woman ought to be the companion of the man, not a slave or an instrument of pleasure. Love ought to be free and relieved from all codes and rituals. Every one ought to receive a complete education, so as to enable him to select the function for which he is suited. The free federation of individuals, of groups, of associations, and of communes, forms the confederacy of the human race. The revolution is not a conspiracy which seeks to change the face of society in a day, but a permanent struggle, material, moral, and intellectual, agginst the existing organization, in order to put in its place free association.” On the 6th of May, 1877, the lady Internationalists of the female sections of the Romagna and of Naples addressed a manifesto to all the working women of the peninsula : “ Our wages,” they said, “ being insufficient, we have to depend on men for subsistence. The emancipation of women is at bottom the emancipation of working men ; both are the victims of capital. Existing society says to us, ‘ Sell 230 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. yourselves or die of starvation.’ The society of the future will say to us, ‘ Live, work, love.’ ” The Circle for Social Studies of Rome published its programme (July, 1878), containing the following principles—(i) Abolition of all privilege ; (2) Productive ­ labour the only legitimate source of wealth ; (3) The instruments of production to be the property of the labourer ; (4) Emancipation and “ reintegration of the individual and collective man.” In June, 1878, the Internationalist federation of Rimini sent forth a manifesto, saying, “No more privileged property, but collectivism, that is to say, possession in common of land and of all instruments of production ; bread, wealth, education, justice, liberty for all. The land to him who tills it, the machine to him who uses it, and the house to him who inhabits it.” Confused amalgam of communism and individualism. ­ In a manifesto of the Internationalists of Montonero, Antignani, Ardenza, and San-Jacobo, the theory of anarchism is clearly formulated. “ The State is the negation of liberty ; for, no matter who commands, all serve. Authority creates nothing and corrupts everything. Every State, however democratic, is an instrument of despotism. The best government ­ is one which succeeds in rendering itself useless. Merely to change the political régime is of no use. A man has a thorn in his foot ; he thinks to ease himself by changing his boots, but he suffers all the more. It is the thorn he must get rid of The free man in the free commune ; and throughout humanity nothing but federated communes—that is the future.” Among Italian Socialists, as everywhere in Europe to-day, there are two parties : that of the “Authoritarian Collectivists,” who call for State Intervention ; and that of the “ Revolutionary Anarchists,” who desire the destruction of the State and the abolition of all authority. I borrow from M. B. Malon’s “ History of Socialism ” two extracts which sufficiently describe these two varieties. The following are, in the first place, the principles of the Collectivists, originally published in the Fovero, and afterwards adopted by the Plebe of Milan (1877). (1) Collective ownership of land and of the means of production ; (2) Substitution of a free and equal family for the moral oppressive family in which the wife and children are the slaves of the husband and father ; 231 BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. (3) Substitution, for the existing State, of a social organism based on the most absolute autonomy of groups and of federal communes, ­ with a view to the organization of the public services, the thorough cultivation of the land, the beautifying of the globe, and the happiness of all ; (4) Civil, political, and economical equality of all human beings, without ­ distinction of sex, colour, race, or nationality ; (5) Guarantee of individual independence by enabling each producer to possess the surplus value obtained by his labour on the raw material worked up by him ; (6) The assurance that each member of society shall receive, at the collective cost, both a general and a professional education on a level with the sum of the knowledge of his times. In the programme of the “ Federation of the Marches and of Umbria” may be found an indication of the object aimed at by the Anarchists :— “ Seeing that the emancipation of the labourer ought to be the work of the labourer himself : that, inasmuch as he does not wish to be led by any superior authority, the labourer is essentially anti-authoritarian and anarchic; that the emancipation ­ of the labourer has for aim equality of rights and duties and the abolition of classes; that this emancipation is impossible ­ with the existing organization of the State and of property ; that the destruction of the State, in all its forms, is the grand aim of the social revolution, which strives to transform society on the basis of anarchy and collectivism . . . ’’—Except for the idea of pan-destruction the rest is very vague. An anarchist, Costa, explains the matter in a letter to the Egalité of Paris (1878) : “As to doctrines, we may say that we have few of them. We are anarchists, that is all. We wish that every one should have the opportunity of making known his wants and the means of satisfying them ; in a word, that every one should be able to do as he likes.'’ Nothing, in truth, is more desirable than this universal liberty; but how to realize it? Destroy everything—that is the sole practical plan suggested. These extracts suffice to show that the programme of militant Socialism in Italy is, at bottom, no other than that of Bakunin. The same is the case in Spain. The history of the International in Spain is as tragic as it is instructive. Although there are few working men engaged 232 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. in large factories, the Alliance made rapid conquests there. At one time, as the result of successful insurrections, it had several large towns in its hands, but it soon succumbed in the midst of the disorder and anarchy it had created. Up to about 1867, the labour movement, directed by the newspaper the Obrero, was in no way revolutionary; it aimed at the establishment of societies for mutual aid, for savings, and for production. After the overthrow of the throne of Isabella the International sent delegates to Spain, who were well received. On the 2ist of October, 1868, the general council addressed a manifesto to the Spanish working men, urging them to demand social reforms. “ Without economic equality,” it said, “the political liberty offered you is a snare. Without the overthrow of existing civil institutions, even the republic will profit you nothing. What you must aim at is the social revolution.” At the congress of the International, which met at Brussels, a Spanish delegate. Sarro Magadan, of Barcelona, was present. On the 2nd of March, 1867, in this great industrial ­ town, the first section was founded, and a newspaper, the Federación, published. Soon a central section was established at Madrid. The principal leaders were Morago and Francesco Mora, who also edited a newspaper. La Solidaridad. The police commenced prosecutions ; but nevertheless, the number of the sections rapidly increased, and at the close of 1869 there were 195 of them, with more than twenty thousand members.* Curiously enough, a very active section was established at Palma, in the island of Majorca, with its organ. La yusticia Sociale. The agricultural labourers took part in the movement, and formed groups, especially in Andalusia, where the latifundia exclude the cultivators from the possession ­ of the land, and reduce them to an insufficient wage. In February, 1872, the minister Sagasta, frightened at the * yisiting Spain in 1869, I was present at several sittings of these Socialistic clubs. They were usually held in churches erected for religious worship, r rom the pulpit, the orators attacked all that had been previously venerated there: God, religion, the priests, the rich. The speeches were at white heat, but the listeners remained calm. Many women were seated on the floor, working, suckling their babes, and listening attentively, as to a sermon. It was the very picture of ’93. BAKUyiN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 233 rapid progress of the association, sent a circular to the pro vincial governors, directing them to extirpate it at all costs, and he even made proposals to foreign governments with a view to organizing a European crusade. The leaders of the International were obliged to seek refuge in Portugal. At the same time the split took place in the Socialist camp, d he adherents of Bakunin’s Alliance wished to obtain the direction of the movement. They established a newspaper at Madrid, El Condenado, the programme of which was summed up m these three words : Atheism, Anarchy, Collectivism. After the schism of the Hague, between Marx and Bakunin, the great majority of the Spanish Internationalists declared for the latter. A regional congress was convened at Cordova, in December, 1872. It resulted in the formation of an independent ­ federation, which issued a manifesto addressed to " its brothers throughout the whole world,” invoking their a.id. It concluded with these words:—“The Social Liquidation for ever ! Long live the International ! All Hail Solidarity, Anarchy, and Collectivism ! ” The partisans of M^x, his son-in-law Lafargue, and Farga, founded the New e era tion of Madrid,” to which they endeavoured to rally their troops, who had been thrown into confusion by the anathemas and accusations of the two contesting parties. The Marxists "ished, however, to remain on economic ground, while the Bakunists joined the bourgeois radicals for the purpose of overthrowing ­ King Amadeo and establishing a republic. At the time of the repression of the insurrection of 1872, at Madrid, the Enmncipacion, the organ of the Marxists, thus expressed Its opinion: “We know enough of the personnel of the republican ­ party to assert that this movement is only one of a series of revolutionary attempts by which the rank and file of the bourgeoisie are seeking to look after their own interests, and which cost the workers so much bloodshed, without enabling them to gain any benefit. We can only repeat to our Iriends ; The emancipation of the labourers must be the work of the labourers themselves. Every revolution conducted by the bourgeoisie can be useful only to the bourgeoisie." These words were not heeded. After the abdication of King Amadeo, 234 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. which took place on the loth of February, 1873, tbe Anarchist party induced the labourers to enter into an alliance with the Radicals, in order to prepare for a new revolution. The report of the Spanish delegate, Garcia Vinas, to the Congress of Geneva, in September, 1873, informs us of the strength of the International at that time. It counted 270 regional federations, comprising 557 trade-sections and 117 sections of independent working men, making a total of 674 sections with about 300,000 associates. There were several Socialist journals, all of which advocated Bakunin’s programme. Anarchy or Communalism, that is to say, the absolute independence ­ of each commune. Their attacks on religion were of extraordinary violence.* Most of them spoke of rekindling the flames of Paris, as may be seen in the following peroration taken from an article in the Petróleo :—“ And if force prevents us from attaining our object, which is to sit in our turn at the banquet of life, then the avenger, dreaded by the privileged classes. Petroleum, will come to our aid, not merely to accomplish ­ the work of destruction, but at the same time to perform an act of holy and supreme justice. A levelling even with the ground, if need be by means of axe and fire, this is what the dignity of the proletariat, for so long trampled under foot, imperatively demands.” In Andalusia, in the Estremadura, and in the province of Badajoz the peasants made a partition of the lands. Cantonalist insurrections broke out. It was a counterfeit Commune of Paris. On the 13th of February, 1873, thirty thousand working men assembled at Barcelona, proclaimed the Federal Republic, and fixed, by authority, the duration of labour and the rate of wages. On the 8th of March there was a rising at Malaga, the * The following is an extract from the journal, Los Decamisados :— “ Deliver us at last from that phantom called God, who is good only for frightening little children. Religions are only trades intended to enable those mountebanks of priests, as Dupuis calls them, to grow fat at the people’s expense. That is our programme. Moreover, before putting ft into execution, there will be needed a good blood-letting, brief but copious. The rotten boughs must be lopped off the social tree in order that it may develop. Tremble, ye bourgeois who have fattened on our toil 1 Give place to the shirtless, the decamisados. Your tyranny is nearly done. Our black flag is unfurled, and it will lead us to victory.’’ BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 235 garrison allowed itself to be disarmed, and the barracks ^sre set on fire. Meanwhile newly installed republicans governed the Spanish Republic. Castelar, Sunar, Pi y Margall, and Salmerón were in power, but they were denounced as traitors. On the 7th of July there was a general strike in the industrial town of Alcoy. They came to blows. The Alcade and some gendarmes defended themselves for some days in the buildings of the municipality. The insurgents took as hostages some priests and some manufacturers. The Alcade and the gendarmes ­ were made prisoners and then put to death by the crowd, and six public edifices were burnt to the ground. On the 12th of July the great insurrection of Carthagena broke out. The sailors and marines fraternized with the Socialists, and the ironclads fell into their hands. General Contreras put himself at their head and bombarded the town of Almeria. He would probably have got possession of the other seaports, had it not been for the intervention of the foreign fleets. By the 20th of July, the Cantonalists, with whom the gendarmerie and the troops had fraternized, were masters of the province of Castellón. A committee of public safety ruled at Seville. The duration of the working day was limited to eight hours. The relations between masters and workmen were to be regulated on the principle of “absolute liberty. In order to prepare for the “social liquidation," all rents were reduced by one-half, the property of the churches was confiscated, ­ and all pensions were abolished. All closed factories and workshops, as well as all uncultivated lands, were assigned to those who could turn them to account. At Granada the Cantonalists resolved that the churches should be sold, that the bells should be melted and the metal made into coins, and that an overwhelming tax should be levied on the rich. At Carmona there was a battle in the streets which lasted the entire day. Cadiz, Murcia, San Fernando, Valencia, and Salamanca also joined the Cantonalist movement It seemed on the point of being everywhere triumphant; but these revolutionists, who proclaimed anarchy, through anarchy were destined to fall. Amid the general disorganization, the orders of the leaders were not obeyed. The insurgents had no real 236 THE SOCIAL/SM OE TO-DAY. force at their command. General Pavia had only to collect some faithful troops and lead them to the attack from the outside provinces, in order to gain the submission, in a very short time, of all the insurgent cities. At Seville the Anarchists defended themselves with great determination, and in order to imitate in everything their brothers of Paris, they “ fired,” by means of petroleum, the buildings which they had to abandon, ro regain Carthagena, a very strong place, the naval arsenal of which supplied formidable means of defence, a regular siege, which lasted up to January, 1874, was found necessary. The last episode of the drama, during the same month, was a bloody conflict in the streets of Barcelona, in which the Cantonalists fought with the energy of despair. The movement closed, as usual, with an “ i8th Brumaire.” General Pavia, after subduing the Cantonalists, acted in concert with General Serrano. He sent a note to Salmerón, President of the Cortes, begging him to dissolve the assembly. The deputies appointed Castelar dictator amid transports of indescribable ­ enthusiasm, and swore to die in their seats. A company ­ of fusiliers entered the hall; shots were fired, and the confusion reached its height. Half an hour afterwards, all was over : Serrano was dictator, and soon King Alphonso mounted the throne of his ancestors. This episode is instructive. It shows once more how anarchy leads to a coup (Pétai. Suppressed for some years in consequence of the bloody executions of 1873, Socialistic propaganda before long recommenced ­ their subterraneous work, and above all made many recruits in the rural parts of Andalusia, where there are the same agrarian grievances as in Ireland. The recent discovery in February, 1883, of the Secret Society, La Mano Neva (“The Black Hand ”), disclosed the aim pursued by the anarchists. Their principles are those of the International, but their means of action are evidently borrowed from Russian Nihilism. The number of members appears to be very considerable in all the towns of Southern Spain. It will be useful to sum up here the details given by the Spanish journals. The principal centres of agitation are Xeres, Grazelema, Ubrique, and Arcos de la Frontera. There have been more than fourteen sentences of BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 237 death pronounced by the Mano Ñera and executed in the same way as the agrarian murders in Ireland. It is asserted that in Andalusia and the neighbouring provinces of Estremadura, Jaén, and Murcia, without counting the rest of Spain, there are 130 federations with 34® sections and ^2,000 members in the rural parts. The organizers of the Black Hand declare in their statutes that the society has for its aim the defence of the poor and oppressed against their robbers and executioners who exploit them and tyrannize over them. “ The land, they add, exists for the common welfare of mankind, all of whom have an equal right to possess it It was created by the productive activity of the labourers. The existing social organization is absurd and criminal : it is the workers who produce everything and the rich idlers hold them in their clutches. It is impossible, therefore, to feel too profound a hatred against all political parties, for they are all equally contemptible. All property acquired by the labour of another is illegitimate, whether it proceeds from rent or interest, and none is legitimate except that which results from direct personal labour usefully employed. Consequently, the Society declares the rich outside the law of nations, and proclaims that in order to fight theni as they deserve all means are good and necessary, not excepting sword or fire or even slander.” * The association affirms that it acts in concert with all those of similar character established in other countries. The Organic statutes are short and categorical. The general sane-* In the fourteenth century Socialism m England expressed similar ideas, with the exception of the appeal to force. The following are the words that Froissart puts in the mouth of John Bull, ‘‘the mad pnest of Kent, speaking in the name of the peasants Good people, things wil never go well in England so long as goods be not in common, and so long as there be villains and gentlemen. By what right are they whom we ca lords greater folk than we ? Why do they hold us in serfage ? If we all came of the same father and mother, of Adam and Eve, how can they say or prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gam by our toil what they spend in their pride ? They are clothed in velvet and Warm in their furs and ermines, while we are covered with rags. l hey have wines and spices and fair bread, while we have rye, thin oats, and straw, and water to drink. They have leisure and fine houses ; and we have pam and labour, the rain and tne wind in the fields. And yet it is of us and < toil that these men hold their state.” am our 238 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. tion of the decisions of the association is the penalty of death. The association is essentially secret. Whoever reveals, through imprudence or bad faith, any of its acts within his knowledge, is held in suspicion for an unlimited period or put to death, according to the gravity of the matter revealed. Every order given to a member must be performed, and whoever avoids any work entrusted to him is looked upon as a traitor. Every member must regulate his public conduct so as to conceal his relations to the association and his sympathies with it. Every member must undergo a noviciate, he must furnish positive proofs of his sincerity, and it is only after trial that he is allowed to present himself before the initiated of the group of which he is to form a member. All these precautions are taken to avoid treachery. After hearing the new member, the vote is taken. No one is admitted a member except on a unanimous vote. The statutes of the “ popular ” or secret tribunal resemble those of Nihilism. They commence with the following preamble :— “ Whereas bourgeois governments, by putting the International ­ beyond the pale of the law, have prevented the peaceable ­ solution of the Social question, it is advisable to establish a secret revolutionary organization. Victory is still far distant. The bourgeois continue to commit their crimes ; they must therefore be punished ; and as the confederates are determined to carry out this purpose, they have commissioned a popular tribunal to condemn and chastise the crimes of the bourgeoisie. The members of the revolutionary tribunal must belong to the International, and must be capable of carrying out the duty that they accept. The bourgeois shall be punished by all possible methods, by fire, sword, poison, or in any other way.” The ordinary meetings of the tribunal take place on the first of each month. Their object is to receive reports of the reprisals made by the several members against the bourgeoisie, and of the advantages offered by the several modes of execution adopted; to examine what reforms might be usefully introduced into the association, and to give instructions to the members. Every member of a group is bound to submit to it, without delay. BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 239 Ws ideas and views on the best r ^ethods of incendiarism, assassination, ­ poisoning, and in general on every means of injuring the bourgeois. Every member pays a subscription of five centimes a week for the costs of correspondence. Heavy disbursements are recovered by means of an assessment, and in the case of extraordinary expenses recourse is had to the federation. Punishment must only be inflicted at the propitious moment, and the member must know how to profit by favourable opportunities. Reprisals ought to be directed against property whenever it is impossible to reach persons. No one is bound ^o act in case of physical impossibility or personal incapacity ; ^^ut whoever accepts a particular duty must accomplish it under penalty of death. Whoever permanently abstains from acting declared to be “ fallen,” and is expelled from the Society, is placed under the strict supervision of the tribunal, and on the first sign of treachery incurs the penalty of death. No consideration of friendship or relationship can stay the putting ^0 death of a traitor. The life of a brother or a father, if it puts a considerable number of persons in danger, must on no Account be respected. Whenever the group of one locality cannot execute the sentence of death pronounced against a baitor, the members of other localities are charged with its execution. They surprise their victim and kill him without pity. 'i'he International penetrated into Portugal about 1872, and since then it has counted there a considerable number of lections and several organs, among others the Jornal do traf^alho, the Tribuna and O Rebate at Lisbon, the Clamor do poio and O Protesto at Oporto. Dr. Anthelo de Quental, revolutionary Socialist candidate of Circle 93, has recently (1880) published a manifesto adopting collectivism. The Portuguese Socialists ­ assemble in congress every year. Their programme is anarchism ” of a mild kind, without any threats of expropriation, ­ massacre, or petroleum. Several causes explain this less aggressive attitude. The Portuguese are less violent than the Paniards, the economic situation of their country is better, and, finally, a very large measure of liberty has prevented c explosion of rage elsewhere exasperated by repression. 240 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. The absolute impotence ¿'nd sterility of the Communes at Paris and in Spain clearly pi ove that Socialism, though it may snatch a victory by surprise, is unable to draw profit from its momentary triumph. A polIdeal revolution is often an easy matter ; social evolution is inevitable ; but a Socialistic revolution ­ is impossible, for the simple reason that the economic face of society cannot be changed in a day, or by force. Nevertheless, ­ many governments certainly act exactly as if they wished to provoke a terrible overthrow. In fact, on the one hand, evergrowing ­ military systems and more and more crushing taxes are reducing the people to ruin and driving them to despair ; while, on the other hand, every manifestation of their sufferings and all their wishes for reform are mercilessly suppressed. Socialism, even in a militant form, exists to-day, as we have seen, everywhere ; but while in free countries, such as England, Switzerland, or Belgium, it organizes congresses and banquets, where it speechifies, sings, drinks, and smokes, in States where it is persecuted to the death, as in Russia, it has recourse to the dagger, to incendiarism, to poison, and to dynamite. A government ­ which refuses to grant liberty has against it all those who claim liberty, from the best citizens to the worst scoundrels. Let it grant liberty, and its only enemies will be those who deserve the hulks, that is to say, happily still, a very insignificant ­ number. Intelligent revolutionists see clearly that coercion gives them weapons. On this subject. Citizen Brousse, author of the article in the Avant-garde, which was condemned at Geneva in 1878, says as follows :—“ Our aim being the destruction of the State, we ought not to wish for the Republic which would give to the State a solid foundation, such as it has in Switzerland and in the United States. The form of government most advantageous to us is that which we can most easily destroy, that is, the restoration of the legitimist monarchy. . . . Relying on the results of Sociological science, we maintain that the Conservative Republic, which is about to be established in France on the ruins of radicalism, being the final advance which the State can make, will cement, to the great detriment of the proletariat of Europe an indissoluble alliance between all the elements of the R BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 241 bourgeoisie. The return to the régime of a bygone age would, on the contrary, perpetuate the divisions of the bourgeoisie and their intestine struggles, thus reopening to our profit the era of revolutions.” * Nothing could be more true. Socialism, when isolated, is not to be dreaded ; but in the event of a political revolution or a great reverse in a foreign war, the anarchists will be ready once more to profit by the collapse of power. If the sovereigns of Europe wish to disarm Socialism, they "'ill not succeed in doing so by exceptional laws, as in Germany, nor by casemates and Siberia, as in Russia. Let them put an pnd to this detestable antagonism of State against State, which is the curse of our times ; let them reduce their armies and diminish their taxes, and then they may fearlessly give complete liberty to a happier people. The vision of Utopia will not disiippear, for it is older than Plato, and Society will continue to be transformed as has been the case since prehistoric times ; but the Utopia will no longer be a dream of universal destrucbon, and the transformations will take place peacefully. If, now, we endeavour to reach the sources of Nihilistic Socialism, we shall meet, on the one hand, the levelling philosophers ­ of the last century—Jean Jacques Rousseau, Morelli, ^ably, Rrissot, Helvetius j and the Socialists of the present century—Owen, St. Simon, Fourier, Proudhon, Louis Blanc; on the other hand, the German philosophers, Hegel, Feuerbach, and Schopenhauer. Marx and Lassalle, Herzen ^ud Bakunin, were at the outset enthusiastic Hegelians. In a '"cry strange book, which dates from 1845, Der Einzige und sein ^Jsentlmm (“The Individual and his Property”), written by Max ^tirner, one may see Hegelianism ending in the deification of ^-goisni, and absolutely denying everything else. Stirner takes ^or his epigraph the following verse of one of Goethe’s songs : babe meine Sache auf nichts gestellt (“I rest my hopes nothing ”). His doctrine is summed up in the following lourds of the preface : “ My affair is neither the divine nor the human, neither the true, nor the good, nor liberty, etc., but my ; myself and my interest, nothing more.” In the case of I État à Versailles et dans P Association des Travailleurs, by Brousse, noon, 1873, without the name of the publisher. 242 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. Herzen we can perceive better than anywhere else the nexus of ideas that leads to Nihilism. Before 1848, after escaping from Russia, he was intoxicated with aspirations after equality. When the revolution of February, which had seemed about to realize his aspirations, also became as bourgeois as that of 1830, he raised a cry of rage against Society in a writing entitled Aprh la tempête. “Perish the old world! Welcome Chaos and Destruction. Give place to the future.” * In another publication, also dating from the close of 1848, “ The Republic One and Indivisible,” he shows that the new form of government is “ the last dream of the old world,” and that it will do nothing towards realizing the grand principle of social justice, namely, that the labourer ought not and cannot work for another. “ The end of cannibalism is at hand. What delays it is that the working man is not conscious of his strength, and the peasant is still more behindhand. But when peasant and working man join hands, then good-bye to your luxury, to your civilization; then the exploitation of the masses for the profit of the few shall have seen its last days. Already now the exploitation of man by man is drawing to a close, for nobody any longer believes it just” He hoped then that, as in the palingenesis, on the ruins of the condemned social structure a new humanity would arise free and happy. “ The s¡)ring-time will come. A fresh young life will grow on the tombs of the dead generations, the victims of iniquity. Peoples full of energy, incoherent indeed, but healthy, will arise, and a new volume of the world’s history will be opened.” Towards the close of his life, Herzen understood that it was not enough to destroy institutions or reduce the monuments of the past to ashes, but that it was men’s sentiments that must be changed. In the last letter that he wrote to Bakunin, he disputed the formula which they had both formerly believed true. Die zerstörende ­ Lust ist eine schaffende Lust (“ The spirit of destruction is the spirit of reconstruction”). “We dash forward,” he said, “ foi' * The bitter contrast to be met with in Paris between the expansion of wealth and the sufferings of poverty inspired Hegesippe Moreau, as early as 1833, with a paroxysm of savage hatred, which made him desire to see the great capital given over to the flames. See his poem entitled L'lltveff (See also an article by M. Mangin, Econ. Français, 22nd of April, 1882.) BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 243 lowing the unknown God of Destruction, and we stumble over broken treasures, rolling confusedly amid the ashes and ruins of all things. But even when the powder shall have blown up the bourgeois world, after the smoke shall have cleared away «tod the ashes shall have been removed, the world will appear %ain, modified perhaps, but still bourgeois. And why ? I^ecause we are not ready; because neither the constructive ^ind nor the new organization are sufficiently prepared.” The character of the Russian Nihilists has been, as we know, depicted in Turgenieff’s novel, “ Virgin Soil ; ” and afterwards oiore closely in that of Tchernicheffski, “ What’s to be done ? ” ^ut Russian Nihilism must not be confounded with our western ^ype. M. Arnaudo, in his book on “Nihilism and the Nihilists ” (1881), analyzes very clearly the elements which make up the revolutionary party in Russia. It is at bottom only a bitter and desperate protest against despotism, and, if we may believe the Solemn manifesto published by the press of the Narodnaya ^olyia, on the 24th of March, after the tragical death of the Emperor Alexander, what the Nihilists demand is the summonof a Constitutional Assembly, to the decisions of which they promise to submit In Western Europe neither revolutions, nor constituent assemblies, nor republics change in the smallest degree the capitalistic organization of Society ; it is, therefore, the social prder itself that anarchism wishes to annihilate with all its ■ institutions and all its organs. But for that, there is wanted inpre than the flames of petroleum and the explosions of dynaiiiite ; more even than the fire from heaven announced in the Gospels ; it is the heart and mind of man that must be raised. John Stuart Mill said in his “Chapters on Socialism,” favourable as they are to the claims of the labouring classes, every organization better than that which at present exists fapposes, on the part of those who will be charged with putting 11 mto practice, a higher spirit of justice and a better appreciation ­ of their true interests than are commonly to be found to-day. 244 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. CHAPTER XL COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. HE word Collectivism is quite modern, but the idea forms part of every system of Radical Socialism. Radical Socialism would either abolish altogether, or restrict within narrow limits, the right of hereditary succession, even in the direct line, because its effect is to increase inequality, and to give to the heirs the enjoyment of property which they have not produced themselves—an effect contrary to the principle of distributive justice, which derives property, and consequently the right to its enjoyment, from personal labour. If the right of hereditary succession were abolished or limited, the property thus left without an heir would lapse, as it does at present, to the State, or through the State to the Commune, and in this way collective property would necessarily arise. Collectivism may be conceived more or less completely applied, according as the State is endowed with the ownership of the soil alone, as is proposed in England in the schemes for “ land nationalization ; ” or also with the ownership of all fixed capital ; or even with that of circulating capital as well, in this case leaving to individuals the power of acquiring objects of enjoyment only as the immediate product of labour. The St Simonians went deeper than anybody towards the root of this problem. Without stopping to trace the plan of any ideal organization, as Fourier, Cabet, or even Louis Blanc did, and without relying on the doctrines of political economy, as Marx and Lassalle have since so skilfully done, they at once attacked the principle of hereditary succession, upon which, io point of fact, everything depends. COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. 245 Wliat constitutes Collectivism will be better understood if we analyze the system as presented by the writers who have niost clearly explained it M. Louis Blanc, in his book “ The Organization of Labour,” advocates a kind of collectivist system, according to which the State should take possession of all the means of production—the land, mines, factories, etc.—in order to entrust the working of them to associations of labourers, ßut Louis Blanc's ideal was Communism, with the formula, ‘ To each according to his wants ; from each according to his strength,” while the Collectivists admit that recompense should ^0 proportioned to work done, which is the principle of indi-''idual responsibility. Moreover, Louis Blanc did not attempt to determine what form the society of the future should take. in the writings of Colins, a Belgian Socialist, and still more m the developments of his theories by his disciples, Agathon Potter, Hugentobler, and Borda, Collectivism takes a form oasier to grasp, especially in all that concerns agrarian organization, ­ The following is a summary of their theories, preceded a short sketch of their master’s life. Jean-Guillaume-César-Alexandre-Hippolyte Baron de Colins Was born at Brussels on the 24th of December, 1783, and was the son of the Chevalier Colins, of Ham. He was, it is said, descended from Charles the Bold, as St Simon was from Charlemagne. He was brought up exclusively by his mother until he was seven and a half years old, when his father sent him for education to an old friend of his, a former Jesuit, and '’tear at Dison. He was enrolled as a volunteer in the French army at the time when the descent on England was about to take place, and he won all his steps on the field of battle. In tSig he settled at Havana as a doctor. He returned to h ranee immediately after the revolution of 1830. The sight of the tricolour flag recalled to him his youth, and he became associated with the Bonapartist conspiracy. He continued '’ery intimate with Joseph Bonaparte, whom, it appears, he won uver to his ideas of reform. In 1833 he took up again his scientific studies, attending courses in Paris in all the faculties, ^ud published in 1835 his first work, entitled Le Pacte Social. u it he already formulated Collectivism, and one of the articles THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 246 of his scheme of reform is, “ Immovable property belongs to all.” In 1848 Colins was accused of having participated in the revolution of June, but was pardoned. He died at Paris on the 12th of November, 1859, after having published a great number of works and leaving numerous manuscripts afterwards brought out by his disciples.* Colins and his disciples attach great importance to their philosophical views, on which they assert their whole system, which they call “ Rational Socialism,” is founded ; but here the want of special study is clearly felt. They admit the immortality ­ of our spiritual being, which they call, by a strange abuse of language, “Sensibility,” while they deny the existence of a Deity. They are eager to prove that our notions of morality, justice, and equality of rights are based solely on the permanence of the human personality, but they fail to perceive that the pursuit of a rational order implies an ideal and an origin outside of ourselves. They are, then, at once Spiritualists and Atheists. All men, they say, are equal, as being all formed by the union of a “ sensibility ” to an organism. All men are brothers, as having all the same origin. Man alone, among all animate beings, is responsible for his actions, for he alone is a conscious * The following are his principal works :— Le Pacte Sociale, 2 vols., 8vo, 1835. L'Économie politique source des r'evolutions et des utopies pretendtus Sociales, 3 vols., i2mo, 1856-57. Qu’est-ce que la science Sociale ? 3 vols., 8vo, 1851-54. La Société nouvelle, sa nécessité, 2 vols., 8vo, 1857. La Souveraineté, 2 vols., 8vo, 1857-58. La Science Sociale, 5 vols., 8vo, 1857. La Justice dans la Science, hors V Église et hors la Révolution, 3 vols., 8vo, 1861. Colins also wrote in 1848 in certain journals : La Révolution démocratique ­ et Sociale, the Tribunal des Peuples, and the Presse. He left numerous manuscripts, the publication of which has been commenced ­ by his disciples. In this way the Philosophie de Pavenir, the organ of the Rational Socialists, has published, among other works, the fourth volume of Colins’ L'Économie politique ; two volumes of his the sixth and the eleventh ; different minor works, such as the Choléra moral. Qui donc est peuple I Examen critique de la décadence de V Angleterre, ­ by Ledru-Rollin, L'impôt pratique confirmant la théorie, etc., etc. The editors of the Philosophie de Pavenir announce that they will publish in succession all the manuscripts left by the master. COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. 247 intelligent and free agent. In opposition to the physical order, where necessity reigns supreme, there is a moral order, an order of justice and freedom. As man is a responsible agent, his every action must infallibly ­ and inevitably be rewarded or punished according as it does or does not conform to the rules imposed by his conscience ­ ; and this sanction, in order to be inevitable, must take place in a subsequent existence. The aggregate of indisputable reasonings constitutes “ impersonal ­ reason,” which, when looked upon as prescribing a rule of action, may be called “ sovereignty.” From the “ immateriality of the sensibility ” flow, according to Colins, other consequences touching man’s relations to the material world, that is to say, touching his social economy. Man alone, he says, works ; man alone is an agent, properly so Called. The material world is the patient on which man acts with the aim of producing something. Originally there existed only man and the earth on which he lived : on the one hand, labour ; and on the other, the soil or raw material, without which all labour would be impossible. But from the joint action of these two elements of production there soon came into being wealth of a peculiar kind, in which labour was, as it were, accumulated, which was movable and separate from the soil. This was capital. It assists production and is the handmaid ­ of labour, but in order to make use of it, a material to which it can be applied is indispensable. From the necessity to which man is subject for a material on which to expend his labour, there results, according to Colins, the following important ­ consequence : Labour is free when the raw material, the soil, belongs to it ; otherwise it is enslaved. Man therefore can, in fact, only exercise his energy with the permission of the owners of the raw material j and he who requires the authority of another before he can act is clearly not free. In order, then, that all the members of the community should become permanent ­ proprietors of the national soil, the soil must be collectively appropriated. The collective appropriation of the soil implies, in the first place, that it should be at the disposal of all who wish to THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 248 Utilize it ; and secondly, that the rent, paid by the tenants to the community, should be expended for the common benefit of all. According to the Belgian Socialist, there are only two entirely distinct methods of holding land : first, that adopted at the present day, in which the soil is given up to individuals, or to certain classes of individuals, and labour is enslaved ; secondly, the system of the future, under which the soil will be collective property, and labour will be free. The above relates to the production of wealth. Let us now consider the way in which Rational Socialism regulates its distribution. When labour is free—as is necessarily the case when the land is accessible to all—every one can live without being obliged to accept wages from anybody. In that case, a man would work for others only if they offered him, as wages, more than he could gain by working for himself. This situation is expressed in economic terms by saying that then wages would tend to a maximum, and when it exists, the distribution of wealth is so affected that the larger share of the product goes to labour and the smaller to capital. But when labour is enslaved, the labourers are forced, under pain of starvation, to compete with one another in offering their labour to those who possess land and capital ; and then their wages fall to what is strictly necessary for existence and reproduction ; while if the holders of wealth do not need labour, the unemployed labourers must disappear. Wages, then, tend to a minimum, and the distribution ­ of wealth takes place in such a way that the greater part goes to the landowners and capitalists, and the smaller to the labourers. When labour is free, every man’s wealth increases in proportion to the toil he has expended ; but when labour is enslaved, his wealth grows in proportion to the capital he has accumulated. From these two opposite modes of distribution flow, according ­ to Colins, the two following consequences, each of which has reference to one or other of the two systems of holding land above described. When land is owned by individuals, the wealth of one class of the community and the poverty ot the other increase in parallel lines, and in proportion to the COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. 249 growth of intellectual power ; but when land is collectively appropriated, the wealth of all increases in proportion to the activity of each, and to the advance of civilization. Colins has also developed some original views on the history of communities, which have been reproduced by M. L. de Potter in his Dictionnaire Rationnel. At the first, the supremacy of brute force is established : the father of the family rules, the strongest of the tribe commands. ­ But in a tolerably large community, this kind of supremacy can never long endure, for he who is at one time the strongest cannot always remain such. What does he do, then ? In order to continue master, he converts, as Rousseau '’^ys, his strength into a right, and obedience to him into a duty, ''^ith this object in view, he asserts that there exists an anthropomorphic ­ almighty being, called God ; that God has revealed ^ules of action, and has appointed him the infallible lawgiver and interpreter of this revelation ; that God has endowed every ^an with an immortal soul ; and, finally, that man will be rewarded or punished in a future life, according as he has has not regulated his conduct by the revealed law. It is not enough, however, for the legislator to assert these dogmas ; he must further preserve them from examination, and ^his is done by maintaining ignorance and repressing thought, theocratic sovereignty, or the divine right of kings, is thus established, and a feudal aristocracy arises. This is the historic period, called by Rational Socialism “ the period of social ignorance and of compressibility of examination.” After a longer or shorter interval, in consequence of the growth of intelligence, the discoveries thereby made, and the Increasing facility of communication between nations, it becomes impossible to repress all examination entirely. Then the superhuman ­ basis of society is disputed, and its authority falls to the ground. The divine right of kings loses its theocratic mask, ^ud the government is transformed into a mere supremacy of force—that is to say, of the majority of the people. Aristocratic society becomes bourgeois, and enters upon the historic period “ ignorance and incompressibility of examination.” Society, then, becomes profoundly agitated and disorganized. 250 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. The principles which used to insure the obedience of the masses lose their sway. Everything is examined, and scepticism prevails, ­ This unfettered examination ends in the denial of all supernatural sanctions, of the personality of the Deity, and of the immortality of the soul (to mention only these points), and leads to the affirmation of materialism. Then, personal interest becomes a stronger force, with an ever-increasing number of individuals than ideas of order and of devotion to principle, and a situation is brought about thus defined by Colins : “ An epoch of social ignorance, in which immorality increases in proportion to the growth of intelligence.” As pauperism simultaneously increases in the same proportions, ­ it follows that the bourgeois form of society cannot last. In one way or another it soon falls to pieces, and the supremacy ­ of divine right is restored, until a new revolution ushers in once more the triumph of the bourgeoisie. Society cannot escape from this vicious circle in which it has revolved from the first, until, as the result of the invention and development of the press, and of the absolute impossibility of restricting the examination of old beliefs consequent thereon, all reversion to the theocratic form of government has become radically impossible. ­ When that time comes, humanity must either perish in anarchy, or organize itself conformably to scientific reason. It is then that humanity will enter on the last period of its historical development, the period of “ knowledge,” which will endure as long as the human race can exist on the globe. According to Colins, then, a theocratic régime is order founded on despotism, a democratic régime is liberty engendering anarchy, while the rational or “ logocratic ” régime would secure, at the same time, both liberty and order. Hereafter, according to the Belgian Socialist, society will be definitively organized as follows :—All men being by right equal, they ought all to be placed in the same position with regard to labour. Man is free, and his labour should be free also. To effect this, matter should be subordinated to intelligence, ­ labour should own both land and capital, and then wages would be at a maximum. All men are brothers, for they have a common origin ; hence, if any are unable to provide for them- COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION 25 I selves, society should take care of them. In the intellectual world there should be a social distribution of knowledge to all, and in the material world a social appropriation of the land and of a large portion of the wealth acquired by past generations, and transformed into capital. Society should give, at the expense of all, a thorough theoretical ­ and practical education to the young, who would thus be enabled to learn, by means of the physical sciences, how to act upon matter, so as to turn it to the best advantage, and, by lueans of the moral sciences, how to behave towards their fellow-men. When they leave the establishments of public education, on coming of age, the youths should go through a sort of probation or apprenticeship for active life, by passing a certain period in the service of the State, thus repaying for the protection accorded to them during their minorities. When those of full age enter into society as active members, each of them should receive as a portion a sum of money taken from the State surplus. At this time three different careers would open before the worker : he could either work on his own account, or in association with others, or, if he should wish to avoid all risks, he could hire himself to another worker who Would direct the enterprise. If he should choose either of the first two careers, society should give him either land or capital to turn to account. For this purpose, the land would be divided into farms of greater or less dimensions according to the locality, the wants of the inhabitants, and the requirements of agriculture. The farms, with the plant necessary to work them, should be let to the highest bidder, who should be forhidden to sublet Society should also lend capital, so as to oblige private capitalists not to exact a higher rate of interest than that fixed by law. Colins further designed certain other measures intended oither to assure the predominance of labour over capital—in other words, to raise wages as high as possible—or to stimulate the activity of each individual member of society to the highest degree. Measures of the former kind were, the abolition of perpetual interest, and the substitution of annuities during the life of the creditor as a means of repaying debts ; the prohibi- 2 52 THE SOC/AL/SM OE TO-DAY. tion of associations of capitalists, those of labourers being alone permitted ; and competition of the community itself with individual ­ trading. The chief measure of the latter species consisted ­ in the limitation of the right of hereditary succession to the direct line (the power of making a will being preserved), the diversion to the public use of all other successions ab intestate, and the imposition of a heavy tax on all testamentary successions. By means of all these measures taken together, society would put into practice the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and, at the same time, would render impossible all “exploitation” of labour by private capital. The disciples of Colins assert that in such a social system there would be complete harmony between intelligence and property. All would have an inalienable share in the land ; all would at least have the necessaries of life, would enjoy some leisure, and would possess the intellectual and material means of happiness on earth. A society, thus founded on principles unquestionably just, need not fear the freest examination. Being conformable to reason, and guaranteeing to each individual ­ the maximum of well-being compatible with his nature, if any of its members should be miserable, he would have but himself to blame. Who, then, would dream of overthrowing a system which would injure nobody and would give satisfaction to all ? Although the disciples of Colins have succeeded in giving some precision to the idea of Collectivism, there are many points in their system, and those the most important, which remain obscure. The land and part of the capital are to belong to “the collectivity;” but what part of the capital is to be collective, and what is the collectivity—the Commune, the State, or the human race ? The farms in the country districts are to be let for thirty years. Very good; that would be to apply generally what the State does at present in Prussia, for example, where it possesses numerous domains, which it lets on the best terms in the interest, first, of good husbandry, and, secondly, of the public treasury. But how are mines, manufactures of all kinds, and railways to be managed? COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. 2$] Every individual on attaining majority is to be given a portion to enable him to work independently and exclusively for his own profit ; but will not this portion, paid probably in money, be foolishly spent, to the injury of the young generation and of the whole community? If Collectivism is to be anything more than land nationalization, and if it is to be applied to manufacture, it assumes the success of co-operative societies in winning the business of manufacture from the capitalist régime. But in that case the difficulties already pointed out in analyzing Lassalle’s projects of reform will inevitably arise. In a charming book, entitled Le Règne Social du Christianisme., ­ François Huet has expressed ideas very similar to those of the disciples of Colins, but he has borrowed them directly from the lofty moral teaching of Platonism and Christianity. This work, every page of which glows with a burning love of justice, contains a complete theory of society—a sociology based on Christianity, which has not met with the attention If deserves, because it is too full of Christianity for Socialists, and too full of Socialism for Christians. François Huet was born in 1814, at the town of Villeau, in Beauce, and died at Paris in 1869. When a pupil at the Stanislas College he obtained by hard work amid the keenest competition the most unprecedented success. At the age of twenty-twa he was appointed Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ghent, a post which he retained up to 1850. He was the disciple of a spiritualist philosopher, a man of very vigorous intellect, Bordas-Demoulin, and, through him, of Descartes and Plato. Protesting to the last against Ultramontanism and its new dogmas, they were the last Gallicans of the school of Pascal and Bossuet. About the year 1846 bis philosophical studies led Huet to approach social quesfions, as has been the case with most of the philosophers of nur times : for example, Jules Simon, Janet, Caro, in France ; Herbert Spencer in England ; Fichte and the followers of Hegel in Germany ; Rosmini and Mamiani in Italy. At Ghent, Huet collected around him a group of pupils, among ''’horn was the author of this book, and from before 1848 we thoroughly studied, each with his own preferences, the various 254 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. systems of social reform. It was in the discussions which took place among this band of friends, all of them imbued with their master’s ideas of equality, that the author formed his convictions on the social question, which have varied little since then, and which contemporary events have served only to confirm. Huet also published, in 1864, La Science de VEsprit. He presided over the education of Prince Milan, now King of Servia, and even followed him to Belgrade. Having returned to Paris to undergo treatment for a severe disease, he died from the effects of a surgical operation. His friends have erected a monument to his memory in the cemetery of Mount Parnassus. I shall here mention only those views of Huet which relate to social organization. For the basis of his system he takes the principles of 1789, and endeavours to realize in everything the motto, “ Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” His ideas, on this point were, without his knowing it, similar to those of Fichte as contained in the book already mentioned, “ Materials for justifying the French Revolution.” The following is a summary of them ;—Men are by right equal. The individual ought to be able freely to develop himself ; but property is a necessary condition of liberty. Property is, therefore, a natural right, and as such should belong to everybody. “ Either words have no meaning, or to place property among natural rights implies that the original investitive title to the good things of the earth is the quality of humanity ; that the quality of humanity gives rise in itself to an immediate right to a determinate share in these good things ; an original property which would become for everybody the source, the foundation, and the means of obtaining all the rest. This is the direct consequence of the right to live. Is not this right the same for all, and do not all equally need the means of living? Has not everybody, born in the image of (Jod, a right to his original patrimony, to this magnificent present from God ? 13y reason of his place in the series of the generations of men, has not every man also a right to the capital handed down by his forefathers, the joint acquisition of men ? Nobody ought to live at another’s expense. Every man who has not forfeited it has the right to live free. It is his right that his subsistence, his labour, should not be dependent on the good will of others ; and however free he may be in his person, if he does not possess, of natural right, anything in advance, any capital, COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. 2$$ if he is not a proprietor, by virtue of his being a man and a worker, he can produce, he can live, only by the permission of his fellow-men ; he must fall into a veritable slavery. It has been said, and it cannot be said too often, property is an absolute condition of freedom. Why, then, out of a general right, build up a monstrous privilege ? Why refuse to recognize ­ in humanity the first, the most sacred title to the possession of things ?” * According to Huet’s system, the natural right to property would be realized in the “ right to patrimony,” by virtue of which every person in a position to labour would obtain a share in the general wealth. “ Every year a division should be made of the patrimonial property left ownerless through deaths. All the young people of either sex, who during this year reach the age of either fourteen or twenty-five years, should obtain a share, the share of each person of full age being double the share of each minor.” The right of hereditary succession is abolished, but gifts by will or infer vivos are authorized. Each person, however, can dispose only of property ­ acquired by his own labour, and not of that received by Way of gift or legacy. This goes to increase the common patrimony. “ Continuously fed from an inexhaustible source, ^be general patrimony would be composed, at any given time, of all the ancient patrimonial property and of all the subsequent accumulations of capital ; for as these accumulations could only once change hands by way of gift, at the deaths of the donees they would go to swell the mass of the original patrimony. Levelling Socialist as Huet is when he claims for all an equal right of accession to property, he is a thorough individualist ­ on the question of the organization of labour. He rejects all State intervention; he does not like even corporations ­ holding industrial capital The individual, put in possession of “his patrimony,” may work by himself, or in partnership with others, provided he do so freely, without any privileges or close corporations. * In support of his thesis, Huet cites numerous authorities, and amongst others, Chateaubriand. “ Wages are only a prolonged slavery ” (Ess. Hist. ^ I-iti. Angl., t. ii. p. 392). “Without individual pro¡)erty nobody is uee. Whoever has no property cannot be independent. Property is Nothing else but liberty ” (Mémoires doutre-tombe). 256 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. In a very simple society, depending principally on agriculture, ­ it would not be impossible to put in practice “ the right to patrimony,” In my book La Propriété et ses formes primitives* I have shown how this actually takes place in the Russian mir, in the dessa of Java, in the Swiss allmend, and in the periodic partition of Communal lands which existed everywhere in the infancy of agriculture ; but how is this system to be applied to our present social state, without the intervention ­ of permanent trade corporations or co-operative societies ? This is what neither Huet nor Colins enables us to understand. ­ The merit of his book. Le Régne Social du Christianisme, consists, not in this summary scheme of social reorganization, which I have often discussed with him without his ever being able to formulate it clearly, but in the principles of justice, which he explains in a luminous way, while connecting them closely with the traditions of the Old Testament and the Gospel. The system of “Land Nationalization,”according to which the collective principle is applied only to land, has found a certain number of adherents in England, even among very distinguished minds, as, for example, the eminent naturalist, Mr. A. R. Wallace.f It has never been explained in a more brilliant style than in the book of an American writer, Mr. Henry George, called “ Progress and Poverty.” Numerous editions of this work have been sold both in the United States and in England, It has been translated into several languages and discussed in almost all the English and American reviews and newspapers. It produced so great an impression that the author has been asked to explain his theories before an assembly of some of the clergy of the Established Church, and dissenting ministers and university professors have presided at conferences and organized meetings to spread his ideas. In this book, animated with the spirit of levelling Christianity and written with great talent, Mr. George proposes “ to seek the law which associates poverty with progress, and increases wane * This book has been translated into English. London, Macmillan, 1878. t See his “Land Nationalization: its Necessity and its Aims,” London, 1882. s COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. 2$/ with advancing wealth ” in all civilized communities. Thirty years ago, he says, he saw California in its infancy. There was little capital, no machines, no good roads, no large cities ; the settler inhabited a log-cabin ; but every one could make a living, and there were no beggars. To-day San Francisco is a wealthy town, where dwell millionnaires, and where their palaces rise in all directions. Capital is abundant and is accumulating with unprecedented rapidity ; meanwhile wages have fallen more than one-half, and in the streets lined with princely mansions, lit with gas, and thronged with liveried equipages, beggars wait tor the passer-by, and “the more hideous Huns and fiercer Vandals,” of whom Macaulay prophesied, become every day uiore numerous. Go where you may, the same contrast will strike you : where capital is most abundant, there also is the deepest poverty—look, for example, at London or Paris. In primitive communities, reckoned as poor, and where, in fact, capital is scarce, there is no great wealth, indeed, but there is no destitution. Economic history presents similar facts. Formerly, when all works were carried on by hand, Society, considered as a whole, was poor, but the labourer had work assured to him by which he could obtain a living. To-day machines produce useful articles in abundance and with marvellous ­ ease. The forest-tree is sawn into planks and transformed into doors or window-frames, without the touch of the hand of man, save to guide the engines which do the work. In cotton or woollen factories, the mule-jenny, tended by one workman, spins as much yarn as fifteen hundred workwomen could formerly have done. Cyclopean steam-hammers forge huge masses of steel, while mechanical contrivances of extreme delicacy make watches at a wonderfully small cost Augers "'ith diamond-points pierce the rocks. Gas, petroleum, electricity, light us for almost nothing. Highly finished engines perform all agricultural operations ; while railways and steamships bear to us from the slopes of the Himalayas and from the far West the harvests of virgin soils. It is beyond dispute that human labour, aided by these powerful and marvellous machines, amply suffices to assure to ‘til the inhabitants of civilized countries the full satisfaction of 258 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. all their material wants. How is it, then, that poverty continues in our midst and reaches the very producers of all this wealth ? Has the progress of civilization for its inevitable result the creation of pauperism ? Mr. George tries to show that economists are mistaken in attributing this excessive inequality to what they call the law of wages and the law of population. They maintain that if wages are insufficient, it is, firstly, because there is not enough capital destined for the support of labour ; and next, because the too rapid increase of population reduces the share of each labourer to the bare necessaries of life or even lower. Mr. George disputes ­ both these propositions. The labourer, he maintains, lives on the product of his labour and not upon capital ; if, then, a portion of his product was not taken away from him, he would be better off in proportion as labour became more productive ; and as to the law of Malthus, it is inapplicable to man, for of all living beings he alone can augment without limit the production of all that is necessary for his subsistence. Extreme inequality proceeds, according to Mr. George, solely from rent, which swallows up all the advantages of economic progress. There are three factors of production : land, labour, and capital. Each is remunerated by a part of the produce which is called, in the case of land, rent J in the case of labour, wages ; and in the case of capital, interest. The produce is, therefore, equivalent to rent, plus wages, plus interest. If rent increases, wages and interest will be less ; for the produce minus rent is equivalent to wages plus interest. In proportion as population and wealth increase, the price of food rises, and consequently the rent of land which produces the food also rises. Improvements ­ in the arts which diminish the cost of production also contribute to increase the profits of the farmer, and, soon afterwards, ­ the income of the landowner. The rise in rent may be checked by improved methods of agriculture, which create more produce, or by the cheapness of means of transport, which enable food to be brought from a sparsely peopled country to & densely peopled one ; but these checks to the rise of rent are only temporary. The general increase of population causes them little by little to disappear. The clear gain from all COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. 259 improvements and from all progress finds its way at last into the pockets of the landowners. The labourer gains no advantage ­ therefrom, and as living becomes more difficult as the price of food rises, there results privation for the working classes and destitution for those least well off. When in California, to recall Mr. George’s illustration, there was land for any one who wished to take it, rent did not exist, and the labourer enjoyed the entire product of his labour. To-day, in order to obtain access to the natural agents and raw materials upon which to work, he must abandon to rent everything beyond the bare necessaries. To prevent poverty from increasing side by side with wealth, Mr. George sees only one remedy, namely, to make over the ownership of the land to the State. To accomplish this reform, he says, it is not necessary to have recourse to expropriation ; It will be enough to raise the land-tax so as to absorb rent, as IS done in certain provinces in India where the State is, in consequence, ­ looked upon as the proprietor of the land. All other taxes might then be abolished, and trade, freed from all shackles, would receive such an impetus that general well-being would result. This idea of a rent-tax is at bottom the same as that of the Physiocrats, a single tax on land. Towards the close of his life, J. S. Mill proposed that the State should take the whole increase of rent which was due to the collective progress of society and not to the individual efforts of the proprietor. A French landowner, M. Edgard Baron, in his “ Protest against the Abusive Extension of the Right of Property,” has uttered ideas similar to those of Mr. George. I believe that it is a mistake to see in rent the principal cause of inequality. In so far as it levies the exceptional produce of the more fertile land, it establishes, on the contrary, equality among the cultivators of lands which differ in productivity. Were it not for rent, the cultivator of fertile soil would obtain for the same effort a much greater remuneration than the man who worked refractory land. It is capital, ever growing, which engrosses a larger and larger share of the total product Formerly the principal factor was labour. Now, in proportion 26o THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. as the means of production have been improved, there is need of more capital ; this capital, represented by mortgages, shares, and bonds, permits its holders to live, not on rent, but on profits and interest. The rate of interest tends to diminish in proportion as the amount of capital increases, but the total amount of interest is augmented. It follows, as Rodbertus has shown, that the total share of wages diminishes relatively to that of rent and interest. Collectivism applied to land only, and having no other effect than to make rent payable to the State, would be of comparatively easy application, for it would leave the present organization of Society entirely intact. But it would be by no means the same thing with Collectivism universally applied, as demanded by most contemporary Socialists. An outline of this system was presented by M. de Paepe to the Congress of the International at Brussels in 1868, and also to that at Bâle in 1869 ; but, so far as the author is aware, the only publication in which the scheme has been explained and treated in a scientific way is a little pamphlet entitled Quintessenz des Socialismus.* It is an extract from a large work on Sociology : Bau und Leben des Socialen Körpers, by Dr. Albert Schæffle, former Minister of Finance in Austria, and one of the most eminent of German economists. Let us endeavour, with the aid of Dr. Schæffle’s analysis, to get a true idea of the Social state desired by the thorough-going Collectivists. We must beware of confounding this system with the ancient communistic Utopias, the ideal of which was a Trappist monastery, with common labour, common living, and the common enjoyment of produce quite irrespective of individual work done, as, in fact, takes place in family life-Collectivism, on the contrary, admits of the breaking up of the community into families, and, by apportioning remuneration to produce obtained, it seeks to preserve the incentive of private interest. In a Collectivist State, there would be as many co-operative societies as there are principal branches of labour : agricultural societies, transport societies, and manufacturing societies of all kinds. Farms, mines, railways, factories, work-* Translated into French by M. B. Malón. C0LLEC7VV/SM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. 201 shops, in theory the collective property of the State, would, in practice, be handed over to corporations of working men, who would manage them in the same way as joint-stock companies do to-day. Workmen would be paid in proportion to the amount and the quality of their work. They would, therefore, have the same incentive as at present to bring to their labour the virtues of energy and carefulness. The difference would be that, on the one hand, they would obtain the full product of their labour, as nothing would have to be deducted for rent, interest, or profits, and, on the other hand, everybody would be obliged to work, as the means of production, having ceased to be private property, would no longer furnish private incomes, such as at present permit people to live in idleness. In primitive societies, where every man owns the instruments of production, his plot of land, his loom, or his tool, private property realizes the aim of justice, which consists in allowing every man to enjoy the entire fruits of his labour. But under the régime of industrial production on a large scale and large anded estates, with their concomitants of wage-earning and tenant-farming, the remuneration of labour is reduced to a minimum by the competition for land or for employment, that IS to say, by the tolls levied by the possessors of land and capital Collectivism, by means of the system of co-operative production necessitated by the employment of machines, aims at realizing the results of generalized private property, namely, the assurance of the full enjoyment of the produce to the producer. Everything relating to the means of transport and to the circulating medium, whether money or credit, would become a public department. Dr. Schæffle even supposes the realization of a general scheme of remuneration and exchange, like that suggested by Proudhon and Marx, and which would be of the following nature. In accordance with the theory of those economists who consider labour the exclusive source of value, the workman would receive for each article the price of as many hours of labour as, “on the average," were required for the manufacture of he article. The price would be paid in labour-notes exchangee or goods. 1 he goods for sale would be deposited in public warehouses or co-operative stores, where they would be ex- 202 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. changed for the labour-notes and the labour-notes for them. This mechanism of exchange is ingenious. The larger co-operative ­ stores in London give some idea of it, though they do not form an integral part of Collectivism. A more accurate conception ­ of the system would be gained by supposing that the “ Equitable Pioneers of Rochdale ” had been so successful that everything had passed into their hands—lands, houses, shops, factories, and working establishments of all kinds—and that all other districts had followed the example of Rochdale. Collectivism does not involve the complete abolition of hereditary succession ; but as all immovable property would belong to either State, Communes, or Corporations, and as every man would be obliged to live henceforth by the trade he exercised or by the function he fulfilled, it would follow that the power of accumulation would be very much reduced, and that the right of inheritance would be limited to movables. Dr. Schæffle seems almost to believe that such an ideal might be realized in the future ; at any rate, he points out clearly the condition of ultimate success. No Socialist reform, he says, can succeed which ignores the psychological fact on which the individualistic system at present rests, namely, that private interest is the great incentive to production. It is not by formal rules, nor by appeals to sentiments of duty and honour, that we can secure the care and zeal necessary for producing as much as possible at the lowest cost, without waste of time or material. The main difficulty lies in the efficient management of large industrial enterprises. It is through the want of good management ­ that so many co-operative societies have failed. Collectivism ­ assumes that bodies of working men are capable of carrying on collective industries with as much success as enterprises ­ based on private property. Once they have given proof of this, the triumph of the new organization will only be a question ­ of time ; but so long as the labouring classes do not show themselves capable of doing without the guidance of masters, all attempts at hastening, by revolutionary means, the advent of the new order of things will only end in lamentable failure. Collectivism, also called by its advocates Communisme libertaire, ­ has become the watchword of revolutionary Socialism COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION 263 throughout all Europe, as is shown by the manifestoes and programmes occasionally published; but among Collectivists there are several degrees, and, as usually happens, those most nearly related hate each other the most cordially. According to information that I owe to the courtesy of M. B. Malón, the author of a good history of Socialism, and himself one of the leaders of the movement in Paris, the Collectivist party in France may be approximately divided as follows :—At the extreme left are the Anarchists or Nihilists, of whom Prince Krapotkine may be taken as the ideal type. Their idea of “ Anarchy ” resembles that of Proudhon, but they are more directly connected with Bakunin, who, by means of secret societies formed from the remnants of the International, has spread the ideas of Russian Nihilism throughout all Socialist circles. The Anarchists are not numerous, but they are very fanatical, and their extreme members shrink from no means petroleum, fire, bombs, dynamite, even assassination, as has recently been shown in Andalusia, Their creed does not, however, make much progress in France, because the French genius likes clear ideas and a programme carefully thought out, and containing a plan of reform easy to grasp. The Collectivists, properly so called, may be themselves divided into two groups, especially since the Congress held at St. Etienne in September, 1882 : (i) the Irreconcilable Collectivists, ­ who look for a revolutionary movement like the Jacobins of old; and (2) the Evolutionist-Collectivists, who are beginning to accept as a truth the doctrine of science, that changes in the social order, as in nature, are only brought about slowly and by a process of evolution. These latter are called “ Possibilists,” because they are anxious to make their claims in a legal manner, and to take part in elections, not merely as a protest, but also with the aim of making their ideas prevail in Parliament and in the Municipal Councils. In this they follow the course adopted by the German Socialists, who have thus succeeded, not only in sending representatives to the Reichstag, but also in inducing the Government—partly, no doubt, out of consideration for the large number of Socialist votes—to take up the question of social reforms. 264 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. The Evolutionist-Collectivists or Possibilists are much the most numerous among the Socialist working men, and they are continually gaining ground on the Irreconcilables, the Anarchists ­ and Jacobins, who look upon them as traitors and cowards. In order to give a more precise idea of their principles, I shall here reproduce the most important passages from one of their programmes issued at the National Congress at Havre in 1880 :— “Whereas the emancipation of the productive classes is the emancipation ­ of all human beings irrespective of sex or race, and whereas the producers can never be really free until they possess the means of production, and whereas there are only two forms under which the means of production can belong to them . (i) the individual form, which has never existed as a general fact, and which is being more and more circumscribed by industrial prepress ; (2) the collective form, the material and intellectual elements of which are furnished by the very growth of capitalistic society : the French Socialist working men, while announcing, as the aim of their efforts regarding the economic order, a return to the collective ownership of all the means of production, have decided to take part in elections with the following programme :— “ Economic Progra7nme. ‘ (i) One day of rest in the week ; reduction of the labour of adults to eight hours per day ; prohibition of the employment of children under fourteen years of age in factories. (2) A minimum rate of wages to be fixed by law every year according to the local price of food. (3) Equal wages for the two sexes, for equal work. (4) General, scientific, and professional education of all children, who should be maintained at the cost of the State and the Communes. (5) Maintenance by the Community of old people and disabled workmen. (6) Liability of employers for accidents. (7) Workmen to have a voice as to the speeial regulations of factories. (8) Revision of all contracts that have alienated public property (e.g. banks, railways, ­ mines), and the management of the State workshops to be entrusted to those working in them. (9) Abolition of indirect taxes, and the substitution ­ of a progressive tax on all incomes exceeding 3000 frs. (;¿'i2o). Suppression of all hereditary succession, except in the direct line to the extent of 20,000 frs. {£^qo). (io) Reconstitution of Communal property, (il) Application by the municipalities of funds at their disposal to the construction on Communal lands of buildings of various kinds, such as working men s houses, stores for the deposit of goods, etc., to be let to the inhabitants without profit to the municipalities.” ( 265 ) CHAPTER XII. THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. HIS Study of contemporary Socialism would not be com-X píete without some account of the Economists of the new school called Kaiheder-Socialisten* or Socialists of the Chair. Like Socialists, they admit, in the first place, that the distribution of wealth ought to be regulated more than it is by principles of equity, and in particular that the labourers ought to receive a larger share ; and, secondly, that this result cannot be obtained as the effect of liberty and what are called natural laws, but only through the action of the legislature and the State. If the wish to see greater equality reign amongst men, and the conviction that this ideal can only be realized by the intervention of the Legislature constitute Socialism, then the Economists of the new school are Socialists. The Socialists of the Chair differ from the Economists of the old school in their view of the foundation, the method, the mission, and the conclusions of economic science. Let us see how they themselves explain the points which separate them from the orthodox doctrine.f * This name was given in Germany to the Economists of the new school by their opponents, and notably by M. Eras, because they professed, in the Chairs of the Universities, doctrines with Socialistic tendencies. t We shall here mainly follow : Adolf Held, Ueber den gegenwärtigen Principienstreit in der Nationalœkonomie ; Gustav Schönberg, Z>/(f Voîkswirthschaftslehre ; Gustav Schmoller, Ueber einige Grundfra¿n des Rechts und der Volkswirthschaft ; Contzen, Die Auf^e der Volkswirthschaftslehre; Wagner, Die Sociale Frage; L. Luzzatti, Die Nationalcekonomischen Schulen Italiens und ihre Controyersen ; Vito Cusumano, Le Scuole econovtiche della Germania; Dr. Moritz Block, Die Quintessenz der Kathedersocialismus ; Friedrich von Bœrenbach, Die Social Wissenschaften ; Oppenheim, ­ Der Katheder-socialismus. Lastly, an unpublished study of Professor Eheberg, for which I have to thank him specially. 266 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. The successors of Adam Smith, such as Ricardo, McCulloch, J. B. Say, and the whole “ English School,” followed the deductive ­ method. This school starts from certain views regarding man and nature, which it announces as axioms, and from which it draws all its conclusions. Rossi put this method in a clear light when he said that “ Political Economy, in so far as it lays down general propositions, is a science of reason rather than a science of observation. It has for its aim reasoned knowledge of the relations which flow from the nature of things. ... It seeks for its laws, while relying on the general and constant facts of human nature.” * In this system, man is treated as a being who pursues at all times and places his individual interest. Actuated by this motive, which is good in itself, since it is the principle of his preservation, each man seeks what is useful for himself, and what this is nobody can discern better than he. If, then,'he is free to do as he chooses, he will succeed in procuring for himself ­ all the happiness which it is given him to attain. Hitherto the State has always placed restrictions on the full expansion of economic forces ; but remove these restrictions, and, all men advancing freely to the pursuit of well-being, the true order will be established in the world. Universal competition, free from restraint, brings each individual to the place which suits him best, and enables him to obtain the appropriate reward for his labour. As Montesquieu says, “ it is competition that fixes the proper price of merchandise.” It is the infallible regulator of the industrial world. It is a sort of providential law which makes order and justice reign in the complicated relations of human societies. Let the State refrain from all interference in human affairs, let entire freedom be given to property, capital, labour, trade, and callings, and the production of wealth will reach the highest pitch, and thus the general welfare will become as great as possible. The legislator should not trouble himself about the distribution of wealth ; it will take place conformably to natural laws and to free conventions. A single phrase, uttered by Gournay in the last century, sums up the whole doctrine : Laissez faire, laissez passer. * Cours d’économie politique. Lesson IL, year 1836. THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. 267 With this theory, the problems relating to the government of societies are wonderfully simplified. The statesman has only to fold his arms. The world will go on of itself to its appointed end. It is the optimism of Leibnitz and of the eighteenth century transported into Political Economy. Relying ­ on this philosophical doctrine, Economists declare certain general principles applicable in all times and to all peoples, because they are absolute truths. Political Economy was essentially cosmopolitan. It took no account of the division of men into separate nations, nor of the diversity of interests that may arise therefrom, any more than it busied itself with the particular wants and conditions resulting from the history of the different States. It saw only the good of humanity considered as one large family, just as every abstract science and every universal religion, particularly Christianity, had done. Having thus expounded the old doctrine, the new Economists ­ proceed to criticise it. They accuse it of taking a onesided ­ view of things. Without doubt, they say, man pursues his own interest, but more than one motive acts on his mind and regulates his actions. By the side of egoism there is the sentiment of collectivity, the gemeinsinn, the social instinct, which is manifested in the formation of the family, the Commune, and the State. Man is not like the brute, that knows only the satisfaction of its wants ; he is a moral being, who understands obedience to duty, and who, from his religious or philosophical training, is often induced to sacrifice his satisfactions, ­ his welfare, and even his life, for his country, for humanity, for truth, and for God. It is, therefore, a mistake to base a series of deductions on the aphorism that man acts solely under the sway of a single motive, self-interest These “ general and constant facts of human nature,” from which Rossi would deduce economic laws, are imaginary. In different countries, at different epochs, men obey motives which are not always the same, seeing that they spring from different ideas of well-being, right, morality, and justice. The savage procures the wherewithal ­ to live by hunting and devouring, at need, even his fellows ; the citizen of antiquity, by reducing them to slavery. 268 THE SOC/AL/SM OE TO-DAY. in order to live on the fruit of their toil \ the modern man attains the same result by paying them wages. Inasmuch as, at different stages of civilization, men have different wants, different motives, and different methods for the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth, It follows that economic problems do not admit of these general and à priori solutions which economic science is called upon to supply, and which it has too often ventured to offer. The question must always be examined relatively to a given country, and thus it is necessary to summon statistics and history in aid of Political Economy, Hence the historical and realistic " method, as the Katheder-Socialisten call it, that is to say, a method founded on facts.* Similarly in politics, It IS generally admitted that the question is, not to discover ari ideal constitution suitable to man in the abstract, but the forms of government most in harmony with the traditions, the lights, the temperament, and the wants of this or that particular country. According to the Katheder-Socialistcn, it is a further mistake to allege, as Bastiat has done in his “ Harmonies of Political Economy,” that the general order results from the free play of personal interests, and that consequently the mere removal of all fetters will suffice to distribute welfare in proportion to the efforts of each individual. Personal interest leads men to iniquity and spoliation ; it must, therefore, be restrained and not given free scope : and this is the proper mission, in the first place, of morality, and then of the State, as the organ of justice. True, if men were perfect and desired only what is right, liberty of itself would secure the reign of order ; but, taking men as they are, their unrestrained self-interests lead to antagonism, not to harmony. I'he employer wishes for a fall in wages, the workman for a rise. The landowner endeavours to raise the rent, the farmer to get it reduced. Everywhere the strongest * Although in h ranee no new school of economics has been formed as 1? h-ngland, and Italy, yet many writers adopt the historical and realistic method with a soundness of learning and a wealth of knowledge unsurpassed. It will suffice to mention the works of MM, Léonce de Lavergne, Wolowski, Victor Bonnet, and Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. 269 or the most dexterous prevails, and in the struggle of conflicting interests, nobody troubles himself with the dictates of morality and justice. It is precisely in England, where all restrictions have been abolished, and where the most absolute industrial liberty reigns, that the war of classes, the antagonism of masters and workmen, is seen in the most glaring form and under the most alarming aspect It is also in this country, for so long the home of laissez faire, that, latterly, the intervention ­ of the State has been most frequently invoked to suppress the abuses of the powerful and to protect the weak. After having disarmed the central power, new duties are every day conferred upon it. Is not this a proof that the economic doctrine of absolute liberty affords no complete solution of the problem ? The new Economists do not profess that horror of the State which led their predecessors to call it, at one time, a canker, at another a necessary evil. For them, on the contrary, the State, representing the best of the nation, is the supreme organ of right and instrument of justice. Emanating from the living forces and intellectual aspirations of the country, it is charged with favouring their development in all directions. As history proves, it is the most powerful agent of civilization and progress. The liberty of the individual ought to be respected and even fostered, but it should be subordinated to the rules of morality and equity, and these rules, which become more and more strict in proportion as men’s ideas of the good and the just become purer, ought to be enforced by the State. Industrial liberty is an excellent thing. Free trade, free labour, and freedom of contract have largely contributed to increase the production of wealth. All obstacles to liberty, if any still exist, must therefore be overthrown ; but it is the duty of the State to interfere whenever the manifestations of individual interest come into conflict with the humane and civilizing mission of political economy so as to bring about the oppression and degradation of the lower classes of society. The State has, therefore, a double mission ; in the first place, to maintain liberty within the limits marked out by law and morality ; and secondly, to lend its assistance wherever the 2/0 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. ultimate aim, which is social progress, can be better attained with such assistance than by individual efforts, whether it be a question of the improvement of harbours, the facilitation of means of transport, the development of education, the encouragement ­ of the arts and sciences, or the promotion of any other object of general utility. The intervention of the State ought not to be always rejected, as the rigid Economists wish, nor always admitted, as certain Socialists demand; each case ought to be separately examined, having regard to the wants to be satisfied and the resources of private energy. Only it is a mistake to suppose that the rôle of the State will be curtailed as civilization advances. It is of a different kind to-day from what it was under the patriarchal or despotic régime, but it is ever extending according as new paths open out to human activity, and as the appreciation of what is lawful and what is not becomes clearer. This opinion has also been expounded in France with great force by M. Dupont-White, in his book L'Individu et /’État. The Katheder-Socialisten also blame orthodox Economists for confining themselves too exclusively to questions touching the production of wealth, and for having neglected those concerning its distribution and consumption. They assert that the strict Economists have looked upon man as a mere productive force, without sufficiently considering his destiny and his obligations as a moral and intelligent being. According to them, thanks to the wonders wrought by science, industry could already produce enough for all, if all labour were usefully employed, and if so many human efforts were not wasted in satisfying spurious and even vicious desires. The great problem of our times, what is called the social question, is primarily a question of distribution. The labouring classes wish to better their lot and to obtain a larger share of the wealth created by the joint operation of capital and labour. The important point to discover is, within what limits and under what conditions this is possible. In view of the evils which disturb and threaten the social order, three systems have been proposed: first, a return to the past THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. 271 and the re-establishment of the ancient régime ; secondly, Socialism, which looks for a radical change of the social order ; and lastly, the orthodox economy, which believes that everything ­ will be set to rights by means of liberty and the action of natural laws. According to the Katheder-Socialisten, none of these three systems will resolve the difficulties which trouble the present epoch. A return to the past is impossible, a general and sudden modification of society is equally impossible, and to invoke liberty is, on this point, to cheat one’s self with empty words j for it is a question of right, of the statute-book, and of social organization. Distribution is effected not only by virtue of contracts, which ought, of course, to be free, but mainly by virtue of the laws of the State and the moral sentiments, of which it is necessary to estimate the influence and judge the equity. ' If fias been a mistake to investigate economical problems from an isolated standpoint ; they are closely connected with psychology, religion, morals, law, customs, and history. It is, therefore, necessary to take all these elements into account, and not to be contented with the uniform and superficial formula of laissez faire. The class antagonism, which has been from all time at the bottom of political revolutions, reappears to-day with more serious features than ever. It seems to imperil the future of civilization. There is no use in denying the evil ; it is far better to study it under all its forms, and to endeavour to apply a remedy to it by means of successive and rational reforms. It is to morals, to the sentiment of justice, and to Christian charity that we must look for inspiration. Political Economy ought to be an ethical science. The Socialists of the Chair differ altogether from the old school in their view of the nature and limits of the right of property. The orthodox Economists speak of “ property ” as if it were an absolute right, perfectly defined and always identical. ­ The new Economists assert, on the contrary, that this right has assumed very different forms in relation to the modes of production of each epoch ; that in like manner it is called upon to undergo new changes ; that it can never be considered as absolute, since it exists only in the general 2/2 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. interest ; and that, consequently, it should be subjected to such limitations and forms as the progress of civilization, which is the purpose of its existence, may from time to time require. In short, while the old Economists, starting from certain abstract principles, believed that they could attain, by the deductive method, to conclusions of absolute truth and universal ­ application, the Katheder-Socialisten, basing their science on the facts of experience, past and present, draw from them, by the inductive and historical method, only relative solutions which have to be modified according to the state of society to which they are to be applied. The former, convinced that the natural order which presides over physical phenomena must also govern human societies, assert that, when all artificial fetters are removed, there will result, from the free play of inclinations, a harmony of interests, and from the complete enfranchisement of individuals a better social organization, the fullest well-being, and the most equitable distribution of wealth. The latter think, on the contrary, that, in the economic field as amongst animals, in the struggle for existence and in the conflict ­ of selfish interests, the strongest will crush or exploit the weakest, unless the State, as the organ of justice, intervene to secure to each what is his due. They add that the State ought to contribute to the progress of civilization, and to accept, as its chief mission, the amelioration of the moral, intellectual, and material condition of the labouring classes. Finally, instead of declaring, with the orthodox Economists, that unlimited liberty is sufficient to put an end to social conflicts, they assert that a series of reforms and improvements, inspired by sentiments of equity, is indispensable, if we are to escape from civil dissensions ­ and from the despotism which they inevitably bring in their train. They admit that Socialism has rendered a real service by calling attention to the evils and iniquities of the existing social order, and by awakening in the hearts of all good men the desire to apply a remedy. It is especially in Germany that the new school has developed. The reason is that Political Economy has been there included among the “ cameralistic ” sciences, that is to say, those which have the State for their object. It has, there- THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHA IE. 2/3 fore, never been treated as an isolated branch of knowledge, regulated by special laws. Even the orthodox disciples of the English school—as, for instance, Rau—have never ignored the strict ties which bind it to the other social sciences, and notably to politics, and they have readily invoked facts and history. Ever since the ideas of Adam Smith and his disciples commenced ­ to spread in Germany, they have met with critics there, such as Professor Lueder and Count Soden, who regarded as important, not the mere growth of wealth, but the general progress ­ of civilization. Next have followed Von Thünen, Adam Müller, Charles Bernhard!, List, Lorenz Stein, Roscher, Knies, Hildebrand,.Hermann, and to-day their name is legion : Nasse, Schmoller, Brentano, Schoenberg, Roesler, Dühring, Wagner, Schæffle, Cohn, Von Scheel, Samter, Engel. The principles of the orthodox economy have had in Germany, as their organ in point of practical application, the Congress of Economists ( Volkswirthschaftlicher Congress), which assembles each year in a different town, and exercises considerable influence at first on opinion and then on legislation. ­ It is to this influence that is due the abolition of the greater number of restrictive regulations and, consequently, the establishment of freedom as to professions, domicil, loans at interest, the subdivision of properties, and also the successive custom-house reforms in the direction of free trade. Owing to the scientific and technical knowledge, widely spread by public educational establishments, owing also to the easy and abundant ­ production of coal in Westphalia, providing a cheap motive-power, the large system of industry has taken such rapid strides, that soon Germany will vie with France and even with England. But, as an inevitable consequence, the labour question is coming to the front. We have already seen how Marx and Lassalle caused the Socialist movement to arise out of the same economic conditions. One section of the Economists have remained faithful to the principle of natural laws and non-intervention of the State. Others, on the contrary, were struck with the contrast presented f>y the extraordinary increase of wealth side by side with the simultaneous development of the proletariat. They were T 274 THE SOC/AL/SM OF TO-DAY. finally persuaded that notions of morality and right ought to preside over the distribution of wealth. They gave up the belief that free competition, even if pushed to its final limits and applied to international trade, would suffice to establish amongst men a rational and equitable order. Without admitting ­ the exaggerations and the conclusions of the Socialists, and especially their appeals to a revolution, they accepted the principle which is the foundation of the Socialists’ claims. In conceding that, “in the struggle for existence,” the free play of conflicting interests does not bring about a division of wealth conformable to justice, and does not assign to the labourer a reward proportioned to the part he takes in production, they were logically led to call for the action of the State and the Legislature, not exactly in the same way as the Socialists—in order to effect a radical change in the civil laws, and especially as regards the rights of property and of inheritance—but in order to protect the weak and to fight against the hard consequences ­ of the new industrial régime. The opponents of the new school were, therefore, not wrong in saying that their doctrine was only a timid Socialism which shrank from its logical consequences.* Moreover, some of the adherents of the new doctrine, and those not the least considerable, approach closer and closer to what may be called scientific Socialism, as opposed to Utopian or revolutionary Socialism. Amongst these may be mentioned Adolf Samter, Lange, Diihring, Von Scheel, Wagner, Schæffle, and, in Italy, Loria. It is true that at the other extremity, towards the right, are * At the Congress of the Socialists of the Chair, which met at Eisenach in October, 1875, orie of the professors whom I met there told me that Bismarck was also of this opinion. This professor was a member of a deputation that went to the Chancellor to explain the wants of the university. ­ Prince Bismarck received them in the most cordial manner, and invited them to dinner. Among the guests were several “ Excellencies. “You will allow,” said the Chancellor to them, “that for to-day Science takes precedence of everylxjdy. Monsieur Professor, be so good as to offer your arm to Madame de Bismarck.” During the repast, he said to Professor X , “ You are, I suppose, a Katheder-Socialist ? ” “ Yes, your Excellency.” ­ “And why not simply Socialist? I too am a Socialist; but, unhappily, I have not time to take up the question. Certainly, however, there is much to be done for the labourers.” The Chancellor then, a* Professor X told me, explained his ideas on the subject in a few vigorous and fresh words, going to the very root of the social problem. THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. 275 found scholars whose authority is even less contested, such as Roscher, Nasse, Conrad, and Von Sybel. It is none the less true that the members of the new school pass by insensible shades—descensus Averni—from the borders of orthodoxy to the confines of Radical Socialism. The Socialism of the Chair may be said to have taken bodily form, and to have been established as a special doctrine in the annual reunions of the Association for “ Social Politics ” {Sozial Politik), the first of which took place on the 6th of October, 1872. It is hardly necessary to say, however, that similar ideas had been previously expressed in Germany, France, and England. We may mention in particular Godwin’s ­ “Political Justice,” 1793; Sismondi’s Nouveaux principes ­ dkconotnie politique, 1827 ; and his Études sur Véconomie politique, 1836; A. '^mxqí's La Misère des classes laborieuses en France et en Angleterre ; Lorenz Stein’s Der Socialismus des heutigen Frankreichs, 1842 ;* also the “ History of the Petty Crafts in Germany during the Nineteenth Century,” f by G. Schmoller, Professor at the University of Halle, then of Strasburg, and now of Berlin, in which book he has well brought out the relative character of economic phenomena; and another work by the same author, in which, while examining ­ a tax on income, he has admirably indicated the influence of morals on Political Economy. Again, G. Schönberg, Professor ­ at the University of Tübingen, in his much-discussed works on the industrial régime in our epoch and in the Middle Ages,J admitted the necessity of protective interven-• I may also mention an article that I published in 1848, in a Belgian review, the Flandre Libérale, in which I came to the conclusions now held by the Extreme Left of the Socialists of the Chair. It is a critical examination of the letters then recently published by Michael Chevalier on the organization of labour. M. Chevalier, in order to bring about the solution of the social (¡uestion, recommends thrift, property, and association. I replied, “ Thrift is an excellent thing, but to render it possible for the labourer, there must be a more equitable distribution of produce ; property is a still better thing, but it must be made universal ; association is perfect, but it ought to be based on the recr^nition of the natural right of appropriation ­ common to all.” I was inspired by the “ Natural Right ’ of Ahrens, by Fichte’s book on the French Revolution, and, above all, by the ideas of our eminent professor at the University of Ghent, François Huet. t Zur Geschichte der deutschen Kleingewerbe im xixten Jahrhunderte. $ Arbeitsämter and Deutsche Zunftwesen im Mittelalter, 1868. 2/6 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 afterwards ­ 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 professors ­ 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, statesmen, ­ 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 proletarians, ­ 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. THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. 277 doubts to arise as to the truth and definitive triumph of the economic doctrines represented by the congress of Economists ; and on all sides it is questioned whether absolute freedom of labour and the complete abolition of the antiquated regulations of the Middle Ages will bring about that perfectly happy situation which the believers in laissez faire have so enthusiastically ­ predicted.” While separating himself from the old optimism of the Manchester party {Das Manchesterthum), Schmoller was careful to show that he did not accept the conclusions ­ of the Socialists. “Though by no means satisfied,” he said, “ with existing social conditions, and convinced of the necessity of reforms, we preach neither the upsetting of science nor the overthrow of the existing social order, and we protest against all socialistic experiments. All the great advances shown in history have been the results of the work of ages. The existing economic legislation, the present methods of production, ­ the psychological conditions of the different classes, ought to be the basis of our reforming energy. We demand neither the abolition of industrial freedom nor the suppression of the wage system ; but we do not wish, out of respect for abstract principles, to allow the most crying abuses to become daily worse, and to permit so-called freedom of contract to end in the actual exploitation of the labourer. We do not desire the State to advance money to working men in order that they may make experiments on systems inevitably destined to fail, but we demand that it should concern itself, in an altogether new spirit, with their instruction and training, and should see that labour is not conducted under conditions which must have for their inevitable effect the degradation of the labourer.” During the session of 1872 three papers gave rise to profound discussions : one, by Brentano, on Factory Legislation ; a second, by Schmoller, on Strikes and Trades Unions ; and a third, by Engel, on Labourers’ Dwellings ( Wohnungsnoth). In the session of 1873 the Socialists of the Chair formed themselves definitively into an “Association for Social Politics” ( Verein für Sozial folitik), which has met, generally at Eisenach, almost every year since. The way in which the papers to be THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 2/8 read at the meetings are prepared may serve as an example for scientific institutions of a similar kind. The questions to be treated are selected beforehand, and those who have specially studied them are chosen to make reports upon them. Each question gives rise to a report and a counter-report, which form complete works on the subject The association has, in this way, been able to publish twenty-two monographs, which have enriched economic literature with studies of a permanent value, to say nothing of the oral discussion and polemics to which they afterwards gave rise. The partisans of the classical doctrines did not treat the innovators tenderly. They reproached them with not appreciating ­ the pure truth of the science which they were called to profess, and with separating themselves from radical Socialism only by reservations which their principles did not justify. Political Economy, by deducing its propositions from certain axioms, and maintaining that order results spontaneously from the free action of natural laws, enabled a very clear and simple science to be formed without any great effort, and one which solved all difficulties by the uniform receipt of laissez faire. The new school, on the other hand, admitting only relative solutions, and such as are justified by the study of history and statistics, required wide research. It is easy to understand that the orthodox, disturbed in the peaceful possession of what they had asserted to be absolute truths, would be very much irritated with the heretics. The conflict still continues ; but it may safely be said that, except in France, the Socialism of the Chair is almost everywhere predominant to-day. The doctrines of the new school have lately been expounded in a masterly work, published under the direction of Herr Gustav Schönberg, and entitled Handbuch der politischen Œconomie {^^M.a.nvi3i\ of Political Economy”). It is a collective work, in which each of the different subjects is treated by some Economist of repute who has made it his special study. In order to properly understand the ideas of the heretics, it is necessary to read also a pamphlet * by Professor Schmoller, * Ueber einige Grufidfragen des Rechts und der Volkswirthschaft (“ On Certain Fundamental Questions of Law and Political Economy ”). THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. 279 which is a sort of programme, published in reply to the attacks of Deputy Professor Treitschke ; also an outline of the course of lectures of Professor Adolf Held, so prematurely and in so tragic a manner lost to science ; and finally, the great work of Professor Adolf Wagner, Lehrbuch der politischen Œkonomie, of which a single octavo volume of 775 pages, devoted to the exposition of principles {Grundlegung), has appeared. The three concluding chapters treat economic problems from the juridical side. The titles they bear indicate their importance : “ Economic Organization,” “ The State and its Economic Influence,” ­ “ Law considered in so far as it regulates Economic Relations.” Wagner considers, in the first place, man seeking to satisfy his wants by means of labour. But man lives in society, and society cannot exist unless the State preserves order therein, and establishes a juridical basis for the mutual relations of men. This juridical basis is the civil law, from which results the economic organization of society. The old Economists strongly protest against all artificial organizations. They seem to forget that the law which rules us is the result of a reasoned elaboration of the primitive Roman law, developed during a thousand years, by successive generations of jurisconsults. ­ The so-called natural order of which they are always speaking, so far from being the effect of nature, is the result of human, and consequently artificial, laws. According to Professor Wagner, the economic development of a people depends in part on the progress of the technical processes of the different industries, and in part on the state of the laws which serve as the basis and measure of the economic activity of individuals. The great juridical institutions, the influence of which in political economy it is necessary to study, are, says the learned professor of Berlin, individual liberty, property, and the right of contract, hereditary succession, and the consideration due to vested rights. The principles according ­ to which these institutions are regulated are not immutable ; they have given way to transformations and historical developments. ­ Changes in technical processes lead almost always to a change in juridical institutions; thus the development of 28o THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. trade has produced an entirely new industrial law. In the same way, modifications of the law produce modifications in the processes \ so that Signor Minghetti could say with truth that every great period of economic progress rests on a corresponding ­ juridical system. In a profound study on Liberty and Property, Professor Wagner shows the decisive influence exercised on the production ­ of wealth, and to a still greater degree on its distribution by the different forms with which history has successively clothed these two rights. We may thus see the intimate relations which bind Political Economy to law, especially in the details of the different agrarian systems in operation in different countries and at different periods. Professor Wagner here brings out an essential truth, too often forgotten, namely, that property is not a right presenting always identical, and, so to speak, necessary characteristics. It has varied at all times, according to the social surroundings in the midst of which it is recognized, according to the processes of labour in vogue, and even according to the objects to which it is applied.* So long as men live on the produce of the chase or their flocks, and even so long as agriculture is essentially “extensive,” the soil belongs in common to the whole tribe. In proportion as methods of cultivation improve, become more “ intensive,” and consequently require the employment of more capital, and as, at the same time, cattle occupy a smaller place in the rural economy and meat in food, private property successively extends until it swallows up altogether the communal property of the villages, both pasture and forest, and thus leaves nothing for the collective use. The benefice, the fief, the mensal lands of the Church, the domain of the convents, the holdings of the coloni, the possessions subject to mortmain, property under all its forms, in the feudal system, had a precarious character, either for life or at least in some way limited, which radically distinguishes it from * I have m^elf endeavoured to demonstrate this fact in my book, La Propriété et ses formes primitives, Adolf Samter, a banker of Königsberg, who found time to write some excellent books, expounds similar ideas m a work recently published under the title Privai-Eigenthum und gesellschaftliches ­ Eigenthum (“ Private Property and Social Property”). THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. 281 the absolute and exclusive quiritarian ownership adopted by modern law. Property in articles of consumption is quite a different thing from property in instruments of production. To the latter ought to be applied in all its force the reservation imposed, even by the Roman law, on the right of using and abusing (^us utendi et abutendi re suâ, quatenus juris ratio patitur), in so far, that is to say, as is permitted by the very considerations which originated the right, namely, considerations of general utility. While as far as articles of consumption are concerned, the old regulations, ­ such as the imposition of sumptuary laws and restrictions as to dress and the fixing of prices by authority have disappeared, ­ limitations set to the free use of immovable property tend to multiply and become more strict. Thus, more and more stringent laws are everywhere made concerning the clearing ­ of woods, the employment of machines, the using of rivers, the organization of labour in factories. In towns, proprietors are not allowed to build until their plans have been approved by authority ; they may be compelled to pull down buildings pronounced dangerous to life or health, and they are not allowed to carry on any trade which is a nuisance to their neighbours. Property in mines is subjected to still more numerous restrictions. ­ Finally, owners are expropriated, not only for works of public utility, but even, as in the expropriation by means of the taxation of districts, in order to permit the Commune or the State to cover the cost of an improvement. These are some applications of the Roman formula, Quatenus juris ratio patitur. The Economists of the new school are far from holding the same opinions on all subjects. On the contrary, they are much more divided among themselves than the classical Economists, for the very reason that they reject the uniform creed as to natural laws and universal laissez faire. Thus, Adolf Wagner calls for limitations on private ownership, and an extension of collective ownership that few of his colleagues accept. In the session at Bremen, when the resumption of the railways by the State was discussed, A. Wagner and A. Held declared in favour of it. Nasse and Brentano against it. 282 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. Schmoller advocates a system of corporations of working men that many of the others attack. Two points, however, are to be found in the programmes of all : first, the increased intervention ­ of the law or of the State in the economic world ; secondly, the intellectual and material elevation of the labouring ­ classes. “When men of science,” Held truly remarks, “ concern themselves warmly and in an entirely disinterested way with the good of the labourers, ought not their action to be taken in good part, especially in the face of the indifference or even hostility of public opinion? It is too common for the privileged classes to consider the labourers as born to serve them, and to nourish in their hearts the sentiments of the Brahmin towards the Pariah. From want of thought and from never trying to look at the matter from the labourer’s standpoint, ­ employers are apt to be hard and unjust. Have we not done a useful thing in showing that there is nothing immoral nor revolutionary in the desire of the labourers to get an increase of wages and a diminution of the working hours ? ” At the opening of the session of October, 1882, Professor Nasse, an Economist whose learning and moderation are recognized throughout the scientific world, sums up the work of the new school in the following terms :—“ Ten years have passed away since the ‘Association for Social Politics’ assembled for the first time at Eisenach, in order to devote itself to the study of the social question. Its object was to oppose the tendencies which had theretofore prevailed, in the press and in public opinion, on economic subjects. The formation of our Association was a protest against that narrow individualism which thinks that the most difficult problems of economic legislation may be solved by simply invoking the most complete freedom of action to individual interests, and which ignores the mission of moral culture incumbent on the State in the region of Political Economy. The Association was specially directed against that optimism which shuts its eyes to the urgent necessity of examining this formidable problem known as the social question. ­ It was an appeal and a warning which issued from the juridical and moral conscience of almost all Germany, and which, I think I may safely assert, has completely modified the ten- THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. 283 dencies of public opinion. The change has, indeed, been so profound that many of those who had risen up to fight the exclusive theory of the entirely beneficent action of. competition ­ now feel obliged to attack the confidence, which is becoming more and more widespread, in the omnipotence of legislation and the State.” The new school is called to render great services. Neither the classical economy nor Socialism can serve as guide in the difficult work of bettering the condition of the labouring classes, and in gradually introducing a more equitable distribution of wealth. On the one hand, the orthodox economy, by persuading ­ the ruling and well-to-do classes that the existing social order is as perfect as it can be, and that in any case unrestricted liberty will answer every need, gives them ground for denying that there is any social question, and induces them to reject as chimerical all aspirations towards a régime more conformable to justice. On the other hand, the scientific Socialism of St. Simon, of Marx, and of Lassalle has clearly pointed out the evils of modern society and the feebleness of all attempts at disputing their reality ; but when, going beyond criticism, these Socialists give utterance to their views of reform and reconstruction, they fail, because they do not take sufficient account of the teachings of history and the innate sentiments of humanity. Seeing in existing society nothing but evil, they are blindly optimistic as to the future. They do not sufficiently realize that, in order to arrive at a better order of things, the men who are called to establish and maintain it must themselves be made better, and that the first step is to purify and elevate current ideas as to duty and right. This is a work of long duration, reserved for the Socialism of the Chair. It will undertake it, armed with an accurate knowledge of the facts proved by history and statistics, and animated with the desire to aid in establishing amongst men that reign of justice and that kingdom of God, of which Plato caught a glimpse, and which the prophets of Israel and Jesus have announced to the world. IM, _ /'V; ^ : ' 'AV-#- V ■ ' Imh : wr- R/' ' -A üggys , 1 ■. ■ f¿ . 'S"; } ij- tí, '• ^ s K: ' ß IL # fi'i f-> r. I m# «ÉP iîi'lÉi» SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. BY GODDARD H.^RPEN. y -f-' • • fr* Ä Tf’ í 1 ' f ‘ . wn I Ir k 1 \ ' ''-JÄ it hwf: aa SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. For good or for evil, England no longer enjoys an immunity from Socialism or socialistic propaganda. I do not allude to what has been called the socialistic tendency of recent legislation,* ­ important as that tendency is as showing the growing confidence of democracy in officialism. I allude to more active and further reaching, if for the moment less effective, socialistic movements. There is, in the first place, the movement for the “ Nationalization of the Land,” which has recently received a great impetus from the writings of Mr. Henry George. Secondly, there is the movement of “ Christian Socialism,” which is to-day advancing far beyond what Maurice and Kingsley, who were the first to call themselves Christian Socialists, ever had in view. Finally, there is the out-and-out Collectivist agitation conducted by the members of the Social Democratic Federation, who may be looked upon as the disciples of Karl Marx in England.t There are, no doubt, some individual Anarchists in this country, but they are not an organized body. There is every reason to • Mr. Herbert Spencer, the great apostle of Individualism, has recently inveighed against this tendency in articles in the monthly reviews on the “New Toryism,” the “Coming Slavery,” etc. These articles have lx;en collected and published as a book : “The Man versus the State” (1884). A society also has been formed, called the Liberty and Property Defence League ^ “ for resisting over-legislation, for maintaining freedom of contract ­ and for advocating Individualism as opposed to Socialism, entirely irrespective of party politics.” Central offices, 4, Westminster Chambers. f Miss Eleanor Marx, one of the daughters of Karl Marx, is a prominent member of the Federation. She contributes to To-day, its monthly magazine, a “Record of the International Popular Movement.” 288 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. suppose that the explosions of dynamite which have recently occurred in England were the work of Irish-American Revolutionists, ­ who are actuated by a special hatred of England and English rule in Ireland, and not by any general anarchic idea such as was preached by Bakunin throughout Southern Europe. Of Anarchism in England, therefore, I happily have no occasion to speak ; but I propose to give an account of the present aims and positions of the three socialistic movements to which I have made allusion. The idea of land nationalization as a remedy for some of the evils of modem times is not a new one. According to the late Mr. Arnold Toynbee, it originated with James Mill, who was led to it by his observations on the systems of land tenure and revenue in India ; but there is reason to believe that the idea is much older.* As a practical proposal, land nationalization in a modified form first attracted attention when put forward, in 1870, by the Laud Tenure Reform Association, of which John Stuart Mill was the moving spirit. The fourth article of the programme of this Association was as follows :— “ To claim, for the benefit of the State, the interception by taxation of the future unearned increase of the rent of land (so far as the same can be ascertained), or a great part of that increase, which is continually taking place, without any effort or outlay by the proprietors, merely through the growth of population and wealth ; reserving to owners the option of relinquishing their property to the State at the market value which it may have acquired at the time when this principle may be adopted by the Legislature. ” Mill defended this special taxation of land mainly on the ground that land is a natural monopoly ; that in every prosperous ­ community, quite apart from any efforts of the owners, it tends to rise in value ; and that this rise in value, being due to the community, ought to accrue to the community. The Association did not, however, propose to disturb landowners in their past acquisitions, but only to tax future unearned increases * Mr. Hyndman (“Historical Basis of Socialism,” p. 448) mentions a pamphlet by Thomas Spence, of Newcastle, published a hundred years ago, which formulated a complete scheme of land nationalization by the action of parishes and municipalities. SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 289 of rent, and it offered to any landowner, w^ho might prefer to relinquish his land, its full selling value. This would still be advantageous to the nation, “ since an individual never gives, in present money, for a remote profit, anything like what that profit is worth to the State, which is immortal.” * Whatever may be thought of the practicability of this proposal, it is not nearly so open to the charge of injustice as most of the schemes of land nationalization which are propounded to-day. All that can be said against it is, that unearned increment is not a peculiarity of property in land ; it occurs, for instance, in rail-' way shares, which often increase in value solely “ through the growth of population and wealth.” We hear little, however, about this particular proposal to-day, partly because far more drastic measures are being pressed upon our attention, and partly, perhaps, because agricultural land in England has recently been falling in value—receiving, in fact, an unearned decrement—and its early recovery is a matter of doubt. The publication of “ Progress and Poverty,” early in 1881, gave a great impetus to the land nationalization movement. Its author, Henry George,f was born at Philadelphia, on the 2nd of September, 1839, of American parents. His father was desirous of giving him a thorough education, but the lad was self-willed and preferred to study in his own way. “ They teach nothing at the Academy that I don’t know or think I know already,” he said, and accordingly he was not sent to school after his twelfth year. When he was sixteen he went as cabin boy in a sailing-ship to India, because “ he had read so much about that unhappy country ” and wished to investigate for himself the state of affairs there. For some years he led a roving life without any settled employment In 1858 he worked his way on a merchant-vessel to San Francisco, and spent the next three years in unsuccessful mining enterprises. Finally, in 1861, he settled down in San Francisco, where he was successively * See J. S. Mill’s papers on Land Tenure in the fourth volume of his “Dissertations and Discussions.” t I have gleaned most of these biographical facts from a recently published sketch of Mr. George’s life by Mr. Henry Rose, editor of the //«// Express. U 290 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. connected with more than one newspaper, first as a compositor and afterwards as managing editor.* As early as 1869 Mr. George made the land question his special study, and in 1871 he published a pamphlet entitled “ Our Land and Land Policy.” Many of his peculiar economic theories—those, for instance, on the laws of wages, interest, and population—are, perhaps, largely due to a hasty generalization from what he saw going on in California, where there was originally fertile and even gold-producing land to spare, but where small settlements were rapidly developing into towns and cities, and “ the tramp was appearing with the locomotive.” In 1878 a minor official position gave him leisure to develop his theories in his great work, “ Progress and Poverty.” In October, 1881, Mr. George came to this country as correspondent of the Irish World, a paper which represents the revolutionary Separatists among the Irish-Americans. In June, 1882, he lectured in the Rotunda, Dublin, on the Irish Land Question ; but as he advocated the abolition of private property in land as opposed to a peasant proprietary, the aim of the Land Leaguers, he did not succeed in making many converts. Early in the present year (1884) Mr. George again visited England in order to undertake a lecturing campaign under the auspices of the Land Reform Union. A large meeting was held in St. James’s Hall, London, on the 9th of January, when the chair was taken by Mr. Labouchere, M.P. Mr. George also addressed meetings in Plymouth, Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, ­ Leeds, Oxford, Cambridge, and other places ; but although he frequently carried his audience with him, the lecturing tour * About this time (1865) Mr. George drew up a set of rules for his future conduct in the form of a little essay, which is published by his admiring biographer as “throwing so much light” on the character and career of his hero. In it he says :—“ I am constantly longing for wealth. . . . Wealth would bring me comforts and luxuries which I cannot now obtain ; it would give me more congenial employments and associates ; it would enable me to cultivate my mind, and exert to a fuller extent my powers ; it would give me the ability to minister to the comfort and enjoyment of those whom I love most; and therefore it is my principal object in life to obtain wealth, or at least more of it than I have at present.” He then expresses disgust at the little progress he has made in the past towards attaining this end, and makes the good resolution to amend his ways in the future. SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 291 excited less attention than might have been expected, and was a financial failure. Mr, George’s book, however, has been an undoubted success. Its author appears as the prophet of a new revelation. His calm assumption of infallibility, his brilliant bursts of eloquence, his keen sympathy for the poor, his religious fervour, and the very audacity of his proposal are exceedingly attractive to many minds. The book, too, is one which can be read by the people. They may not follow all Mr. George’s scientific or unscientific analyses, but they are touched by his moral enthusiasm and burning eloquence, and they can appreciate the apparent simplicity of his proposal. For he is not over-revolutionary. He does not propose, as the Socialists do, to overthrow the existing order of society. He is not, properly speaking, a Socialist at all. Who would not welcome his “ simple yet sovereign ­ remedy ” if, as he says, it “ will raise wages, increase the earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give remunerative employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human powers, lessen crime, elevate morals, and taste, and intelligence, purify government, and carry civilization to yet nobler heights ” ? Mr. George proposes “to seek the law which associates poverty with progress, and increases want with advancing wealth.” Even in thus stating his problem, Mr. George begs an important question. Poverty persists indeed, but, according to all the best statistical authorities, it is diminishing. Mr. Giifen, for instance, the president of the Statistical Society, comparing the present time with fifty years ago, calculates that the workman now gets from fifty to one hundred per cent more money-wages for twenty per cent, less work,* while, with the exception of meat and house-rent, the main items in his expenditure have decreased. The inference that the working classes are much better off is, he says, “ fully supported by statistics showing a decline in the rate of mortality, an increase of the consumption of articles in general use, an improvement in general education, a diminution of crime and pauperism, a vast increase of the number of depositors in savings banks, and * See his Inaugural Address to the Statistical Society (1883). SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 292 other evidences of general well-being. Finally, the increase of the return to capital has not been in any way in proportion, the yield on the same amount of capital being less than it was, and the capital itself being more diffused, while the remuneration of labour has enormously increased.” It is quite true, however, that a vast amount of want and misery exists side by side with a general increase in well-being. We have not to do merely with averages, important as they undoubtedly are as showing the general tendency. As long as there are two or three millions of people in extreme want, it is poor satisfaction to think that vast numbers of other people have more than they quite know what to do with. This inequality of wealth, even if diminishing, is certainly large enough to constitute a great social evil. What is its cause, and what is its remedy? If Mr. George has really answered these questions, he has done a great service to humanity. To put his answer shortly, Mr. George finds that rent swallows up the whole benefit of increased production in every progressive community, while the returns to labour and capital are stationary or even diminishing. His remedy is to make land common property, and his mode of applying the remedy is to confiscate rent by taxation. By rent, Mr. George means the whole annual value of land, less “ the clearly distinguishable improvements made within a moderate period.” It appears, then, that the working man has been making a mistake in supposing that “ his master is the enemy,” or at least in thinking that it is his employer who, in the shape of profits, gets the lion’s share of the produce. Of the three elements into which profits are divisible—compensation for risk, wages of superintendence, and return for the use of capital—the first, according to Mr. George, need not be considered in determining ­ the law of the distribution of wealth, as risk is eliminated ­ in the totality of transactions ; the second is rightly called “ wages,” and should, he thinks, be classed with the wages of the ordinary labourer ; while the return for the use of capital is interest which, according to Mr. George, is likewise reducible to the law of wages, rising and falling with the rise and fall of wages. Hence Mr. George concludes that the primary division SOCIALISM IN' ENGLAND. 293 of wealth is dual, not tripartite ; capital is but a form of labour, and the law to be sought is the law which divides the produce between rent and wages. Accepting Ricardo’s law of rent, Mr. George finds as a corollary that wages also depend on the margin of cultivation, but inversely to rent, so that, as the margin of cultivation lowers, rent rises and wages fall. Finally, he finds that increase in population, improvements in the arts, —everything, in short, that augments the productive power of labour—tends to advance rent and not to advance wages. Hence it appears that the employer, whether capitalist or not, and the labourer are not the real antagonists, but factory lord and factory hand are both ground down by the common enemy of mankind, the landowner. It is unnecessary to expose the long chain of fallacies by which Mr. George arrives at this surprising result The critics of his book have been sufficiently numerous. M. de Laveleye has made some remarks upon it in a former chapter, and a more detailed criticism by the same writer will be found in the Contemporary Review for November, 1882. Mr. John Rae’s recent work on “ Contemporary Socialism ” comprises a long chapter vigorously criticising “ Progress and Poverty.” Mr. Mallock has also entered the lists against the prophet of San Francisco.* His other critics include the Duke of Argyle, Lord Bramwell, Professor Fawcett, Mr. Frederic Harrison, the late Mr. Arnold Toynbee, and his fellow-countryman. Professor F. Walker. Mr. George’s last book, “ Social Problems,” perhaps ­ because it has less pretensions to the character of a scientific work, is, in the main, less unsatisfactory and more suggestive than its more ambitious predecessor. It is worth noting, however, that Mr. George is advancing in revolutionary ideas. He now apparently advocates the repudiation of public debts, as resting, like private property in land, “on the preposterous assumption that one generation may bind another.” | Before noticing the societies which have been formed for carrying out Mr. George’s ideas, it will be convenient to give • See his “Property and Progress,” eh. i. (Murray, London, 1884). t “ Social Problems,” p. 154 (Kegan Paul, 1884). 294 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. an account of the rival scheme of land nationalization proposed by Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, the celebrated naturalist. In 1882 Mr. Wallace published his book, “ Land Nationalization ­ ; its necessity and its aims,” with the object of showing that “a properly guarded system of Occupying Ownership under the State ” would afford a complete remedy for the evils of landlordism, and of explaining how the change may be practically ­ effected “ with no real injury to existing landowners,” and “ without producing any one of the evil results generally thought to be inseparable from a system of land nationalization.” In the earlier chapters of his book Mr. Wallace discusses the causes of poverty in the midst of wealth, and illustrates the evils resulting from Irish, English, and Scotch landlordism mainly by quotations or compilations from well-known writers. He then contrasts the system of Occupying Ownership with that of Landlordism, and endeavours to show that “just in proportion ­ as the cultivator of land has a permanent interest in it, is he well off, happy, and contented.” Mr. Wallace’s piethod is an induction from facts, but he claims the support of Mr. George’s deductive reasoning, which, he says, is “ founded on the admitted principles of Political Economy, and the general facts of social and industrial development.” Finally, in his last chapter, after maintaining that Free Trade in land, as advocated by many English Liberals, would merely have the effect of increasing the large estates and intensifying the evils of Landlordism, Mr. Wallace propounds his own solution of the question, which may be summarized as follows :—The State must be the sole owner of the land. 1 he tenants under the State must have a permanent tenure, and must be subject to no restrictions as to cultivating, selling, or transferring their holdings \ but sub-letting must be absolutely prohibited, and mortgages strictly limited. The ownership of the State is not to be merely nominal, as in England to-day, but is to involve the receipt of a perpetual quit-rent in respect of the inherent value of the land. The amount of this quit-rent will be determined in the following way :—An elaborate valuation of every separate plot of land in the United Kingdom will have to be made, and the annual or rental value so fixed must be divided into two parts. SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 295 the one representing the “ inherent value,” which would depend on natural conditions, means of communication, nearness to markets, etc, and the other consisting of the “ additional value ** given to the land by landlords and occupiers, such as buildings, ­ fences, and permanent improvements. The former part will be the “ quit-rent ” henceforth payable to the State, and will be liable to periodic revision ; the latter will be the annual value of the “tenant-right,” as Mr. Wallace calls it, which is always to remain the property of the future holder of the land. As in future no sub-letting will be allowed, the “ tenantright ” of all lands not in the actual occupation of the present landlords will have to be sold. The present tenants will have a right of pre-emption, and, in the absence of agreement with the present landlords, the amount to be paid will be fixed by local Land Courts. When required, this sum will be advanced to the tenant by authorized Loan Societies or municipal ­ authorities, to be repaid by means of terminable rentcharges. Once the “ tenant-right ” has been thus purchased, the purchaser will become the tenant of the State, subject to the quit-rent, and the “ tenant-right ” will thenceforth be freely saleable. Mr. Wallace differs from most other modem advocates of land nationalization in admitting that “ existing landowners and their expectant heirs must be compensated.” * This, he thinks,may be fairly and adequately done by the State securing to the existing landowner and “ to any heir or heirs of his who may be living at the passing of the Act, or who may be born at any time before the decease of the said owner,” an annuity equivalent to the annual value of the portion of his property appropriated by the State, f This proposal evidently springs from a sense of justice in Mr. Wallace which is lacking in Mr. * Nevertheless, Miss Helen Taylor finds it compatible with her sense of consistency to take an active part both in the Society formed for advocating ­ Mr. Wallace’s views and in that which owes its inspiration to the writings of Henry George. She is also on the committee of the Social Democratic Federation. . . t In the programme of the Land Nationalization Society the annuity is restricted to the landlord and “ such of his heirs as may have been alive at the passing of the Act.” 296 SOCIALISM IM ENGLAND. George, who, starting from the premiss that landlords are robbers, does not see why they should be compensated for being deprived of their powers to rob. The only sound principle, however, is that acknowledged by J. S. Mill, who, when advocating a radical change in the Irish Land Laws, said : “ Existing pecuniary interests which have the sanction of law ought to be respected. An equivalent ought to be given for the bare pecuniary value of all mischievous rights which landlords or any others are required to part with.” Mr. Wallace, indeed, labours hard to prove that, with the compensation ­ he proposes, his scheme would do no injury to existing landlords. But no amount of ingenuity can make out that the ownership of an annuity of ^100 for one, two, or three lives is of the same pecuniary value as the ownership in fee of land producing a net annual income of £\oo. The practical difference would be that the owner of the annuity, if he were a prudent man, would capitalize a portion of it, and in this way his net available income would be diminished. Mr. Wallace does not propose that any limit should be placed to the amount of land which an individual may hold, thinking that the prohibition of sub-letting would render all other legislative restriction unnecessary. One of his most distinguished disciples. Professor F. W. Newman, however, would render it illegal for any one person to hold more than five hundred acres. This modern Gracchus is somewhat less tender than Mr. Wallace with regard to vested interests. He compares Mr. Wallace’s proposal to the Sibyl’s offer to King Tarquin. If not listened to, less favourable terms will be offered next time. The most original and characteristic part of Mr. Wallace’s scheme is that by which he proposes to remedy the overpopulation ­ of towns, and draw back the people to the country, by offering to every one a free choice of cheap land. “ Every Englishman, ’ he says, “should be allowed once in his life to select a plot of land for his personal occupation. His right of choice will, of course, be limited to agricultural or waste land ; it will also be limited to land bordered by public roads affording access to it ; it will further be limited to a quantity of SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 297 not less than one acre or more than five acres, and will cease on any estate from which a fixed proportion, say ten per cent, of the whole, has been taken, while it should not apply at all to very small holdings ; and finally, it will be limited by proximity to the dwelling of the occupier of the land, so as to subject him to no unnecessary annoyance.” All questions arising out of this curious, but in many ways attractive, scheme (and they would be numerous) would be settled by local courts of the same character as the Sub-Commissions under the Irish Land Act Mr. Wallace calculates that perhaps, as a maximum, one and a half million families would take advantage of this right of pre-emption, to the extent of three million acres, or one-tenth of the whole agricultural land of the country, within the first ten years. A society called the “ Land Nationalization Society ” has been formed under the presidency of Mr. Wallace, with the object of carrying out his scheme. In his address at the third annual meeting of this Society, held in June, 1884, Mr. Wallace maintained that Mr. George’s remedy—the appropriation ­ of the whole ground-rent for common purposes—would not have the effect of redressing the fundamental wrong, the monopoly of land by the few, nor of securing the fundamental necessity, free access for all to the land. “ It would not,” he said “ give the labourers land, and therefore would not raise wages. It would tend, on the contrary, to intensify the monopoly of land, because the landlords, possessing the houses and other improvements as well as the land, would raise the price of these improvements to recover what they had lost in taxation. And this could not be prevented, because the owners of a necessary of life are masters of the situation, and can command any prices which those who must have these necessaries are able to pay. It is, therefore, absolutely impossible ­ that such a course as Mr. George proposes should produce any good whatever.” Mr. Wallace’s Society has lost some of its most energetic members, who were unable “ to concur with its consideration to landlords or other principles.” These seceders, early in 1883, formed the “Land Reform Union,” a society already 298 SOCIALISM m ENGLAND. mentioned as having organized Mr. George’s lecturing campaign. ­ This society, which has lately taken the name of the English Land Restoration League,” derives its inspiration from “Progress and Poverty.” It has at present only two branches actually formed, one at Plymouth, and one in the borough of Finsbury (London) ; but Mr. Verinder, the secretary ­ of the League, informs me that “ arrangements are nearly completed for branches in Carlisle, and among the English and American residents in Paris.” He further says that kindred Leagues, not actually branches, exist at Hull, Birmingham, Leeds, etc. This League differs from Mr. Wallace’s Society on the question of compensation, by declaring that it “ cannot tolerate the idea that the people of England shall be compelled to buy back the land which is theirs by natural right, or to compensate those who now appropriate their earnings for the loss of power to appropriate those earnings in future.” Following Mr. George, it proposes “ to increase taxation on land until the whole annual value is taken for the public benefit.” A “Scottish Land Restoration League” has also been formed in the present year on similar lines to its English sister. Both Leagues seem to be influenced by the Christian Socialist movement ; but what in the English programme appears as an abstract right, is called in the Scotch manifesto “ a gift fresh from the Creator to each generation whom He calls into being. ’ The Scotch manifesto, too, magnanimously says that it will not raise the question of how much compensation ­ the landlords should pay to those who have been for so long “unjustly disinherited.” An attempt has been made to form a similar League in Ireland, at Belfast, and Mr. Michael Davitt, the original founder of the Land League, though he does not appear to have connected himself with the “ Irish Land Restoration Society,” has long been known to advocate the socialistic system as opposed to the “ reactionary views ” of Mr. Parnell, who has always aimed at the establishment of a peasant proprietary. There are not wanting some signs of a split on this question among the Irish agrarian reformers, but Mr. Parnell has the farmers with him almost to a man. They want to get their SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 299 holdings for nothing, and have no idea of virtually paying rent to the State—not even to an Irish Republic—in aid of, or in substitution for, the general taxation of the community. It is just possible that the labourers, who are beginning to find out that they have gained no benefit from the recent agrarian legislation, and who assert with truth that the farmers are far harder masters than the landlords, may be led to adopt the Socialistic programme; but their present ideal is a better cottage and a plot of land. When they get the franchise they may make their voices better heard; but they lack “the sinews of war,” an essential for any successful agitation in Ireland. Indeed, neither farmers nor agricultural labourers in any of the three countries are likely to swell the cry for land nationalization. ­ In Scotland, the country perhaps most favourable to it, the Highland Land Law Reform Association, which lately (September, 1884) held a gathering of the clans at Dingwall, on behalf of the unfortunate Highland Crofters, is a far more infiuential organization than the Scottish Land Restoration League. Its programme, however, is not socialistic in any proper sense of the term. It merely asks for a law, somewhat similar to the Irish Land Act, to enable the Crofters to recover rights which they have but recently lost. Radical changes in the English Land Laws are pretty widely desired, but there is great divergence of opinion as to the direction which the particular changes should take. In 1882 the Trades Union Congress passed a resolution in favour of land nationalization, but this resolution was rescinded last year at Nottingham; and this year the congress at Aberdeen, while calling for a measure which would “ provide for greater security of tenure, compensation for improvements, and bringing the land within the reach of the people,” rejected an amendment intended to embody the principle of land nationalization. The Co-operative Congresses have given no encouragement to any scheme which does not embody the principle of compensation. Indeed, the question of compensation gives rise to an awkward dilemma : Without compensation, nationalization of the land is flagrantly unjust and quite hopeless ; with compensation, its 300 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. benefits are remote and doubtful. Of course, this does not apply to the case of new countries making grants of land in the first instance. It certainly seems desirable that our colonies, for example, should not part with the fee simple of their lands, and the Land Nationalization movement, which is active in New Zealand and New South Wales, is more likely to succeed with them than with us. There is much to be said, too, in favour of the “ municipalization ” of lands in the neighbourhood of growing towns, where the unearned increment is often enormous, and where it is particularly important not to allow private rights to grow up which interfere with the good of the community. Into this question, however, I cannot now enter, but must pass on to the second socialistic movement which I propose to consider. Christian Socialism may be said to have originated in England in 1848, when Charles Kingsley, Frederick Denison Maurice, Tom Hughes, Mr. Ludlow, and some others started the Christian Socialist newspaper, issued a series of tracts, and formed a society for promoting co-operative associations. The leaders of the movement do not appear to have been influenced by the writings of Lammenais, who was one of the first Christian Socialists of modern times, and whose burning denunciations of the capitalistic system have never been surpassed ­ ; still less can they be connected with the Utopian Reformers, such as Cabet and St. Simon. The idea of introducing ­ Christianity as an active factor and guiding principle in business life, appears to have suggested itself spontaneously to an earnest band of noble-minded and unselfish churchmen, as a means of coping with the wide-spread distress and discontent which existed in England at the time, and which had raised a threatening voice in the Chartist agitation. They had no definite socialistic scheme in view, but they were profoundly impressed with the evils of unrestricted competition, and dreaded above all things the ascendency of the Manchester School with—to use Kingsley’s extravagant language—its “ narrow, conceited, hypocritical, anarchic, and atheistic scheme of the universe.” “ I do not see my way further than this,” said Maurice; “competition is put forth as the law of the SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 301 universe. That is a lie. The time has come for us to declare that it is a lie by word and deed. I see no way but associating for work instead of for strikes.” “ It is my belief,” said Kingsley, “ that not self-interest but self-sacrifice is the only law upon which human society can be grounded with any hope of prosperity and permanence.” They differed from Socialists generally in that they did not look to the State for the regeneration of the social system. Maurice, indeed, had a theory that the State could not be communistic, but was “by nature and law conservative of individual rights and individual possessions,” and that it was only by accident, as it were, and by going out of its own more peculiar sphere, that it was compelled to recognize another principle, as in the case of the factory children ; while the Church, on the other hand, was “ communistic in principle, and conservative of property and individual rights only by accident, bound to recognize them, but not as its own special work,” In the union of Church and State, accordingly, Maurice saw the true fusion of the principles of communism and of property. It is true that Kingsley publicly called himself a Chartist, and in one of his letters, written under the famous pseudonym of “ Parson Lot,” said that his only quarrel with the Charter was that it did not go far enough in reform ; but he immediately explained his meaning by adding that the mistake the Chartists made was in fancying that legislative reform was social reform, and that men’s hearts could be changed by Act of Parliament. At the time, he was, perhaps, prepared to grant all the points of the Charter, but neither then nor afterwards was it to political action that either he or any of those who worked with him looked for the salvation of the labourers. They sought no State-aid for their co-operative societies, but merely a fair field. Even private individuals could do little. They might “boycott” the slop-shops which adopted the “sweating system ; ” they might encourage the growth of associations and deal exclusively with them ; the rich might even provide healthy workshops at a low, fair rent ; but, in the main, the workers must fight their own battle, aided only by “ Him whose everlasting Fatherhood is the sole ground of all human brotherhood.” 302 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. The connection between the Christian Socialist efforts of Maurice and Kingsley and their friends, and the co-operative movement out of which the present co-operative organization has grown up, is very candidly stated by Mr. E. V. Neale, who was concerned in the Christian Socialist movement of 1848, and is now the venerable general secretary of the Co-operative Union. In a letter published by Professor R. T. Ely,* Mr. Neale says that the two movements were “independent of each other in their origin, though they have subsequently, to a certain extent coalesced.” The Rochdale Pioneers, who gave the first impulse to the distributive societies in 1844, were Owenite rather than Christian, and it was not until the beginning of 1850 that the “ Society for promoting Working Men’s Associations ” was started in London under the presidency of Mr. Maurice. Most of the societies formed under the special influence of the Christian Socialists in London failed from one cause or another, and, as Mr. Neale says, “ had it not been for the growth of distributive co-operation in the north, the movement would have been at an end in England.” The efforts of the Christian Socialists were, however, not without fruit. It was mainly through their instrumentality that a most desirable change in the law as to Industrial and Provident societies was effected in 1852, and when the first steps towards the present organization ­ had been taken, the influence of Maurice and Kingsley was undoubtedly felt in the moral and broadly Christian tone infused throughout the movement, f The Christian Socialists of to-day in England maintain that they are but carrying out the teachings of Maurice and Kingsley, ­ though the more advanced add that they are doing so in the light of the economic investigations of Karl Marx, Lassai le, and Henry George. Many of them are far more radical in their aims than their Continental namesakes, whether of the school of Bishop Ketteler or of that of Dr. Stocker. The most extreme section is represented by the “ Guild of St. Matthew,” • See his “French and German Socialism in modern times” (1883), p. 2152. t Seethe “Manual for Co-operators,” edited by Thorny Hughes, Q.C., and E. V. Neale, and pubhshed for the Central Co-operative Board. a 303 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. a society which was started some seven years ago for the purpose of making the Church a more living and potent force among the people. In a letter which I have recently received from the Rev. Stewart D. Headlam, who is the warden of the Guild he says “ Our position towards Maurice and Kingsley is that of enthusiastic disciples. We know that some of their experi ments were failures, but we think we are carrying out their principles more faithfully than those who merely go in for V^^edkdmminga^rmitWn^M^sp^kf^ Christian Socialists generally, Mr. Headlam continues •— ^ Christian Socialist believes that the Church—the whole body of the Baptized—is intended to be an organized Society for the promotion of righteousness, and that when the officers and members recognize that, the distribution of wealth will be absolutely different from what it is at present. Meanwhile, believing in the Sta e as also a sacred institution, we use all our efforts to get such laws made as will tend to bring alwut a better distribution : e.g. to get rid of private property in land eventually ; at once to re-impose the four-shilling ax on present value, and claim all unearned increment ; prc^ressive incometax ; free schools with free dinners, etc. We show to all Christians who would suffer by these measures that they are really measures to help them o live the life of brotherhood, which, in the present complicated state of civilization, it is very difficult for them to do, even if they wish to do so • for we believe that all little societies, whether Co-operative or Communistic’ are really only helping themselves at the cost of those outside, while the present anarchy lasts. ... I always find that the first thing wanted is to convince an ordinary Christian that Jesus Christ was a secular worker and that the Kingdom of Heaven of which He spoke meant the Church on earth. If you can once get rid of the ‘ other worldliness ’ which forms the religion of so many people, half—more than half—the battle is won " * 304 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. Mr. Headlam has evidently discovered what M. de Laveleye has so well pointed out, that Christianity, though containing in itself the germs of socialistic ideas, by inculcating patience and submission, and by pointing to a recompense beyond the tomb, is, as usually taught, antagonistic to the full flowering of Socialism. He, however, instead of endeavouring to eradicate the religious sentiment after the manner of the revolutionary Socialists, tries to arouse “ divine discontent ” by secularizing Christianity. The advanced Christian Socialists call for the Disestablishment ­ of the Church, and its organization on a democratic basis. They think that their principles would gain wide acceptance among the new ministers thus appointed. They believe that in the doctrines and traditions of the Church, properly interpreted, ­ they possess a lever to move the minds of the faithful such as the Secularists with their “ dismal creed ” can never obtain ; they confldently look forward to such a religious revival, ­ imbued with the new social ethics—to such a development ­ of what Mr. George calls a “ deep, definite, intense religious faith, so clear, so burning, as utterly to melt away the thought of self”—that the question of the reconstruction of society on socialistic lines will ere long accomplish itself without ­ the necessity of any physical compulsion ; and they are not without hope that even the stony hearts of many landlords ­ and capitalists will be so softened by the potent solvent of neo-Christian charity, that they will be ready to surrender all their goods to feed the poor. As I have already mentioned, the Christian Socialists of “ the extreme left ” entirely accept the teaching of Mr. George as to Land Nationalization, and reject the idea that the landowners have any just claim to compensation. They say, indeed, that the principle of taxing land up to the full annual value, though pushed on as rapidly as may be, will inevitably be so gradually applied, that the hardship on individual landowners will not be so great as might at first sight appear ; but they do not shrink from answering the question of compensation frankly in the negative, and they even retort the charge of confiscation and robbery on the landowners. To those who use the argu- SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 305 ment that the rights of landlords and capitalists, however mischievous they may be, have had the sanction of the law and at least prior to the dawn of the social revolution, of public opinion, and that therefore the possessors of these rights should not be treated as robbers, and be deprived of their legal property without compensation, the Christian Socialists replv by quoting the precedent of Jesus driving the hucksters and money-changers out of the Temple, where their presence had r^eived the sanction of the religious authorities and did not offend public opinion. In short, the merchants were forcibly f f gleaned from the Report of the Guild of St. Matthew which has recently appeared By way of further elucidating the position of the Guild towards Socialism and Christianity, I take from the same Report the following extracts :— mfmm, i 1 1 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 306 a truly Christian society the food supply of the wilfully idle would be cut off ; in modern society a man is often honoured in inverse proportion to the amount of useful work he does. . . • Secondly, the produce of labour mud be distributed on a much more equitable system than at present. The landlord and the capitalist, say the Socialists, secure by far too great a share of the value created by labour.” This claim, they say, sounds strangely like St. Paul’s dictum: “ The husbandman that laboureth must be first to partake of the fruits ”—a text which was often quoted by the Catholic priests in Ireland in the days of the Land League—and they endeavour to parallel the Socialist indictment against capitalism ­ by the utterances of the Hebrew prophets and the Christian Apostles.* The Christian Socialists do not, as a rule, base their Socialism on Political Economy. A little pamphlet called the “ Grammar of Socialism” represents the somewhat hazy views of the moderate section. Its motto, “Sirs, ye are brethren ; why do ye wrong one to another ? ” indicates its spirit. The general idea is that great riches are a great evil, that it is impossible, consistently with the principle of brotherhood, for the rich man to enjoy his goods while there is so much misery and want in the world, and the practical suggestion is that “ the transforming force of public spirit ” should be so brought to bear upon the rich as to induce them to distribute all beyond their “due share ” among the poor.t The hearts of these men are sounder chargeable to any man.” The words should be translated, neither ^t him eat ” (the bread of charity). The allusion is “ to alms collected in the Church for the poor ” (Bp. Wordsworth). * They quote Jer. ii. 34» v. 26, xxii. 13» Eccl. v. 13, etc. ; i Tim. vi. 9 ; James V. 1-4, etc. . _ t In further illustration of the spirit of the less extreme section, I niay quote the following passage from a sermon on Christian Socialism by the Rev. J. W. Horsley, M.A., Chaplain of H. M. Prison, Clerkenwell, preached before the Guild of St. Alban:—“Do I dream only, and are dreams never fulfilled, when I see the many doing what now only the few attempt, becoming poor for the sake of the poor, and thus more truly becoming ­ rich ? I see the curse transferred from poverty to luxury, from humility to pride. I see the workhouse crumbling to dust, and the prisons tottering to decay ; all hospitals free ; orphanages, almshouses, on every side ; guilds for every profession and calling, but none for any class ; poverty wearing no badge save that of blessing, and riches not distinguished save by honourable ­ deeds of philanthropy, self-denial, and love. ' Mr. Horsley looks forward to a system of State Socialism, but says that Christians should not wait for its introduction. SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND, 30/ than their heads. They discountenance the work of the Charity Organization Society, and virtually justify “indiscriminate charity,” by assimilating it to the sun which is made to shine alike upon the evil and the good. Again, the Church Reformer, the organ of the Guild of St. Matthew, says : “ We learnt our Socialism, not from Das Kapital, but from the New Testament • Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus, and not Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels, were its teachers.” Nevertheless, both the Church Reformer and the Christian Socialist, another paper representing the left wing, read into the Bible the scientific theories of Karl Marx and Henry George. One of the members of the Guild, however, the Rev. Professor ­ Symes, of University College, Nottingham, is a Political Economist of repute. In a paper entitled “ Socialism by Taxation,” ­ read before a clerical audience at Charing Cross Hotel, m January last. Professor Symes very frankly put the question of a more equitable distribution of wealth under the simple formula of “ faking from the rich and giving to the poor.” This is morally justified as follows :—“A man has a natural right to the produce of his own labours, but when he needs the co-operation of others, they have a corresponding right to offer their own terms.” This is precisely what landlords, capitalists and employers of labour say, but the Professor means to put the words into the mouth of the nation. The nation has a right to say to the manufacturer. You may live amongst us and enjoy all the advantages of our civilization, but if you make a large fortune we shall take a considerable portion of it to be expended for “ the victims of our complex life.” If you do not like our terms, there are plenty of unoccupied spots in the world where you can practice individualism to your heart’s content. Such is, in brief, the moral justification of taxing the rich for the benefit of the poor. From the economic point of view, it is necessary to distinguish taxes which fall on rent, interest, and earnings respectively. Taxes on rent are economically ­ unobjectionable. They are mere transfers of wealth. I hey do not of themselves render the land less productive, nor will they cause a rise in rent, unless, indeed, where the land has een previously under-rented (a not unimportant exception for SOCIALISM m ENGLAND. 308 the consideration of tenant-farmers). The Professor, though approving of Mr. George’s scheme of taxing land almost up to its full value as an ideal to be aimed at, utters a wise word of caution against the sudden imposition of so gigantic a land tax. This would not only cause hardship to landlords, but would also shake the sense of security in all kinds of property, and would lead to a great change in the character of the demand for commodities which, however desirable in the abstract, would work great injury to many skilled labourers. As to taxes on interest, the Professor cannot agree with those who speak as if capital was of no assistance to labour. A tax falling on interest would tend to drive capital abroad, and is therefore inexpedient. A tax on the earnings of commercial and professional people is, however, not open to the same economic objection, at least not in the same degree ; for it is far easier to transfer abroad capital than ability. Accordingly, Mr. Symes advocates a progressive income-tax to be gradually increased in severity. The curious result, then, of the teaching of the “dismal science,” even in the hands of a Socialistic clergyman, is that a tax on earnings, the produce of labour, and the reward of the industrious, is advocated, while a tax on the spurious progeny of infamous capital, the result of spoliation and the support of the idle, is acknowledged to be inexpedient. Nevertheless, the Professor’s economical analysis is, in the main, correct ; but the question whether taxation on a large scale on these lines is expedient (apart from all consideration of its justice, the highest expediency) depends on a variety of circumstances, not the least important of which is, what is it intended that the State should do with the vast funds so raised ? Will it in the long run make a better use of them than the private indi* viduals from whom they are taken ? Mr. Symes advocates “ the use of public money for the direct amelioration of the dwellings of the poor and the circumstances of their children.” Differing, however, as we shall see, from the Social Democratic Federation, he would “let the improved dwellings at competition rents,” but he says “ they would cease to command monopoly prices.” To get rid of monopoly or scarcity prices altogether would be impossible with competition SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 309 rents, as there could not be an unlimited supply of houses in the most desirable situations, but probably Professor Symes means that the improved houses should be built in as suitable positions as may be in numbers proportional to the poor in each district The competition rents would no doubt be lowered as the supply of houses increased, but it is certain that the transaction would result in a huge pecuniary loss to the State. Perhaps this is not a fatal objection in Professor Symes’ eyes, for he further believes that “ it would be desirable to incur some pecuniary loss in establishing government workshops which should partly mitigate the uncertainties of modern industrialism.” How State workshops would have this result is not made clear. Of course, if the State undertook to provide work for those out of employment, much of the uncertainty of finding employment would, for a time at least, disappear. But at what cost and with what ulterior consequences? At the immediate cost of the tax-payers, and ultimately at that of the nation as well, for, as Professor Symes admits, “ the expense would, on the average, be greater than the waste involved in the existing industrialism.” But this is not all or nearly all. Just at the moment when, owing to a glut in the market, manufacturers ­ would be lessening their production, labourers, thrown out of employment, would be demanding work at the hands of the State in increasing numbers. The State would be obliged to extend its operations to meet, not a demand for commodities, but the excessive supply of labour ; and the period of equilibrium ­ would be indefinitely postponed. Indeed, to remedy the confusion worse confounded, the cry of the Collectivists, that the State should take into its possession and management all the land, capital, machinery, and credit of the country, would become irresistible. It is impossible to estimate with any approach to accuracy the influence of this movement among the clergy of the Church of England. Mr. Headlam tells me that it is certainly spreading among them, though he admits that he could not name fifty who would call themselves “Christian Socialists.” The roll of the Guild of St Matthew now contains 119 names, of which forty-five are those of clerical members. The increasing atten- 310 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 SOCIALISM IM ENGLAMD. 31I previously the best known, belong to a society called the “ Social Democratic Federation.” This society was originally formed in 1881, under the name of the “Democratic Federation.” It appears to have been suggested by the success of the Irish Land League, and originally ­ it acted mainly in concert with that body. It was not until 1883 that the Federation declared itself openly a Socialist body, and issued its manifesto in the form of a pamphlet entitled “ Socialism made Plain.” The Federation carries on an active propaganda by means of pamphlets, lectures, public meetings in the parks and elsewhere, and conducts a weekly newspaper called Justice, and a monthly magazine called To-day. I have no means of estimating the number of its members. In answer to an inquiry on the subject, Mr. C. Fitzgerald, assistant secretary, writes to me (3rd of Sept, 1884) as follows ‘ We have at the present moment twenty-one branches ; six new ones forming, and there are in addition over twenty pioneer classes, as we call them, composed of young men who are studying Socialism for the purpose of forming the nuclei of future branches in their localities. Since October, 1883, our progress has been remarkable. It is not possible to give any approximate estimate of our numbers, for the reason that thousands who would join us are kept back by the fear of losing employment, as too many have done already. ” Mr. Hyndman, one of the most active members of the Federation, has advocated its programme by voice and pen. He recently engaged in a public debate with Mr. Bradlaugh on the subject, “ Will Socialism benefit the English People ? ” in which Mr. Bradlaugh, by contrast at least, appeared as the champion of the rights of property.* Mr. Hyndman is the called “Art and Socialism,” with much of which it is impossible not to sympathize. He states his claim on behalf of labour thus :—“ It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do ; and which should be done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over anxious.” This is an ideal much to be desired, but is it likely to be realized by the State-marshalled industrial armies which Mr. Morris and his friends wish to enrol by universal conscription ? Mr. Morris says that we gave up Art three centuries ago for what we thought was light and freedom, but that it has turned out to be light and freedom for the few alone. Does he really think that by surrendering such light and freedom as we possess we shall bring about a new renaissance in Art ? The Socialist régime, whatever it may be, >s certainly not calculated to encourage individuality. * A verbatim report of this debate has been issued by the Freethought 312 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. author of a number of pamphlets and brochures, but his most considerable work is a book entitled “ The Historical Basis of Socialism in England,” written to aid the work of the Federation. This book, as its name implies, is mainly historical, but it contains two chapters, one on “ Labour and Surplus Value,” and another on the “ Great Machine Industry,” which are almost entirely concerned with economics. The whole work, especially the economical part, is, as the author acknowledges, largely derived from the writings of Karl Marx, Rodbertus, and Friedrich Engels. The historical part gives a sketch of the social and economical development of England from the fifteenth century to the present time.* It is of necessity a dark picture, but Mr. Hyndman has deepened the shadows and left only such lights as make the shadows by contrast darker still. As a scientific study it is greatly disfigured by the constant ascription of evil motives to landlords, capitalists, free-traders, and generally all persons—and they are many— with whom Mr. Hyndman does not agree. In the economic portion may be found, though somewhat spoilt in the borrowing, all those theories of Karl Marx, of which M. de Laveleye has given an account. First of all there is the Marxist theory of value, which Mr. Hyndman expresses as follows “ Human labour-force applied to commodities reckoned useful in existing social conditions constitutes the basis of exchange-value ; the quantity of labourforce socially necessary to produce such commodities and bring them forward for exchange, constitutes the measure of their relative exchange-value,” this labour-force being itself measured by “the time during which it is exerted.” In Publishing Company, London. Many of Mr. Bradlaugh’s arguments were unanswerable and were, of course, left unanswered. For instance, he put a case to this effect :—“ Suppose I want to start an agitation against your Collectivist system. M/ ill your Socialist State grant me lecture halls for the purpose of clenouncing it? Will it give me a printing press to enable me to publish books and papers advocating a new revolution to overthrow Socialism ? If not, and if all land, machinery, capital, and credit is to belong to the State, what becomes of freedom of speech ? * A very suggestive, though unhappily fragmentary, sketch of the period from 1760 will be found in Mr. Arnold Toynbee’s “Industrial Revolution in England ” (1884). SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 313 somewhat plainer language, labour is the sole source of value, and the amount of time during which labour of average efficiency, making use of the best methods known to the age, must be exerted to produce a useful commodity is the measure of the exchange-value of that commodity. The leading error in this theory is that it ignores the part played by utility in determining value. It admits, indeed, that an article to have any value must be useful, but it asserts that value is in proportion ­ to labour and to nothing else ; whereas, as M. de Laveleye has pointed out, value really springs from utility, including in that term the element of rarity. It is not easy to express the law of value, as usually explained by Economists to-day, in a few words, but perhaps it may be said with sufficient accuracy that where the element of rarity exercises little influence, where the commodity can be multiplied indeflnitely, its normal value will tend to equal the expenses of its production, in which expenses the wages of labour, including earnings of management, are an important but not the sole element ; but even in this case these expenses of production, owing to the laws of increasing and of diminishing return, will be partly determined by the extent of the demand : a gradually increasing demand reducing the expenses of production, where the former law applies, as in the case of those manufactured articles in which raw material is a small element, and augmenting them, where the latter applies as in the case of agricultural produce ; and this demand is itself determined by the relative utility of the commodity ­ in existing social conditions. When, however, the commodity is one that cannot be reproduced, its value will depend solely upon the demand for it, that is, upon its relative social utility. Next, we meet with the famous theory of “Surplus Value,” on which great stress is laid, and which, summarizing Mr. Hyndman's account, may be briefly stated as follows ;—Labourforce, alone of commodities, has the remarkable quality of being the source of additional exchange-value : its consumption, in fact, creating more than its own value or cost of production. I'he labourer, being divorced from the means of production, is obliged to sell his labour-force for what it will fetch. The capi- 314 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. talist, therefore, in the competition of the market, is enabled to buy the labour-force for a starvation wage, a wage just sufficient to enable the labourer to subsist and perpetuate his race. But the labourer in three or four hours’ work replaces the labourvalue represented by his wages, and the produce of the remaining ­ six or seven hours’ labour constitutes the surplus value which “ makes capital breed,” pays the capitalist, the landlord, the banker, the broker, the shopkeeper, the merchant, and in short enables “ idle ” people to live on the produce of unpaid labour. Thus, capital is not the result of saving or abstinence, as the orthodox Economists “ do vainly talk,” but arises from the produce of unpaid labour. “ To the carnal eye,” says Mr. Belfort Bax, who, as far as he goes, is a much clearer exponent of the ideas of Karl Marx than Mr. Hyndman, “ the abstinence of a Nathaniel Rothschild is below the minimum visible." Certainly it is no great merit on his part, but whatever the millionnaire accumulates he abstains from spending unproductively. What is true in this theory of surplus value is no new revelation. ­ Every one knows that the labourer does not get the whole value of the product in his wages. As long as land and capital are owned by some individuals, and not by all, nay, as long as special business abilities are the property of a few, so long will labourers, who are without these requisites of production, ­ have to pay for their use. It is unnecessary for me to discuss the “ iron law ” of wages which is summoned in aid of the surplus value theory. M. de Laveleye has shown what a small element of truth there is in it. There is only one point I need notice. Mr. Hyndman says,“ The higher wages which some workers get than others do not vitiate this (the bare-subsistence theory). Complex labour is at most a multiple of simple labour.” It would seem, therefore, that the “ complex labourer,” who earns thirty shillings a week, requires three times as many loaves to keep him in working order as the “ simple labourer,” who, for the same number of hours’ work, gets only ten shillings a week. And again, as the value of commodities depends on the quantity of labour-force, measured by time, “ socially necessary ” to produce them, the product of SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 315 the complex labourer in the above case will exchange for no more than that of the simple labourer, although the capitalist, who is usually credited with cunning, has expended three times the amount of wages in procuring it. If, as would appear from the corresponding passage in Das Kapital, the meaning is that, in the case of skilled labour, the cost of education or apprenticeship must be taken into consideration, it may be replied that this cost, if spread over the average working-life of the skilled labourer, would by no means eat up the excess of his wages over those of the ordinary labourer. And in the next place, the duration of time of this apprenticeship, added to the duration of the working-life of the skilled labourer, would by no means measure the far greater value of his aggregate product as compared with the value of the aggregate product of the ordinary labourer. As to machines, Mr. Hyndman says that they add no value to the commodities produced beyond the equivalent of the wear and tear of the machine, or, in other words, the amount of labour needed to put the machine in as good a condition as before. Of course, if the same quantity of human labour is employed, he admits that the machine produces a far greater amount of wealth ; but none of it, he maintains, goes to the workers. On the contrary, by aiding in the accumulation of capital, machinery merely serves to rivet tighter their chains. Both the direct and the indirect effect of machines is to depreciate the value of labour-force. Their introduction turns labourers out of employment with less aptitude for work of a different nature, and thus creates a permanent over-population in the face of increasing wealth—“ an industrial army of reserve ” ready to be absorbed by capital “ into the whirl of production during times of expansion only to be thrown workless ­ on the streets in periods of collapse.” There is absolutely no redeeming feature. True, machinery lowers the price of commodities, but, so far as this affects the labourer, wages are reduced by the same amount, leaving a relatively larger surplus value for the capitalist. Much of what Mr. Hyndman says as to the effects of machinery and the large industrial system on the operatives is 3i6 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. perfectly true, but it is misleading, to say the least, to affirm that machinery adds nothing to value. In the first place, wherever there is a monopoly—and quite apart from patents and combinations, the sagacious and enterprising employer, by always adopting the most improved machinery, will have advantages in the nature of a monopoly—machines do add to exchange-value ; and secondly, the important thing to consider is the use-value, the utilities created by the machines, to which, indeed, modern civilization owes most of its increased wealth. While it is true that manual labourers have not shared to the extent one would wish in the increased produce due to machinery, it is not true that they do not share in it at all. They benefit by the cheapening of articles of their consumption, ­ and it is not the case that wages are necessarily lowered in proportion. On the contrary, as we have seen, moneywages have largely increased in the last fifty years, while this cheapening process has been going on. It is unnecessary to criticise Mr. Hyndman’s theories further. M. de Laveleye has already dealt with them by anticipation. But, however false Mr. Hyndman’s analysis may be, however exaggerated his picture of the present, however incorrect his estimate of the future, after making all allowances the fact still remains that our present industrial system is far from perfect. There is a growing dissatisfaction, not confined to the poor and the Social Democrats alone, with the present distribution of wealth ; an increasing conviction that the manual labourers do not obtain the share to which they are justly entitled in the wealth which they help to produce ; an ever-deepening belief, not merely that the profits of the employer are sometimes inordinately high and the wages of the labourer often disgracefully low, but that the present system, which seems inevitably to breed antagonism between employer and employed, and which too often leaves the latter at the mercy of the former, is radically at fault. How to change this system for the better is really becoming a vital question. Let us see what answer the Social Democrats give. The objects of the Federation may be found most concisely stated in their manifesto, entitled “Socialism made Plain.” SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 317 As we have seen, following Karl Marx, they base everything on the fundamental proposition, dealt with by M. de Laveleye, that “ all wealth is due to labour, and therefore,” they say, “ to the labourer all wealth is due.” Thirty thousand persons, they assert, though with considerable inaccuracy,* own the land of Great Britain. They therefore call for the Nationalization ­ of the Land. “We claim that land in country and land in towns, mines, parks, mountains, moors, should be owned by the people for the people, to be held, used, built over, and cultivated upon such terms as the people themselves ­ see fit to ordain. The handful of marauders who now hold possession have, and can have, no right save brute force against the tens of millions whom they wrong.” But, after all, the landlords are not the worst They get only ;^6o,ooo,ooo out of a total ;^i,000,000,000 robbed from the workers, t “ The few thousand persons who own the National Debt . . . exact >^28,000,000 yearly from the labour of their countrymen for nothing ; the shareholders, who have been allowed to lay hands upon our great railway communications, take a still larger sum. Above all, the active capitalist class, the loan-mongers, the farmers, the mine-exploiters, the contractors, the middle men, the factory-lords—these, the modern slave-drivers, these are they who, through their money, machinery, capital, and credit, turn every advance in human knowledge, every improvement in human dexterity, into an engine for accumulating wealth out of other men’s labour, and for exacting more and yet more surplus value out of the wageslaves whom they employ. So long as the means of production, either of raw materials or of manufactured goods, are the monopoly of a class, so long must the labourers on the farm, in the mine, or in the factory sell themselves for a bare subsistence wage. As land must in future be a national possession, so must the other means of producing and distributing wealth. ... * The Parliamentary Return of 1872 gives the total number of landowners in Great Britain and Ireland as 1,173,724. Apart from Ireland, there were in Great Britain (in round numbers) 234,000 owners of between I and 100 acres ; 47,000 owners of 100 acres and upwards ; while there were no less than 816,000 owners of less than one acre. These last must have been mainly owners of town holdings, as their aggregate rental amounts to >¿‘35,000,000. t Apart from the theory involved in the expression “ robbed from the workers,” it is right to state that the figures from which the sum of 1,000,000,000 is arrived at are by no means admitted by the best statistical authorities. 3i8 socialism in England. As stepping-stones to a happier period, we urge for immediate adoption :— “ The Compulsory Construction of healthy artisans’ and agricultural labourers dwellings in proportion to the population, such dwellings to be let at rents to cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone. _ 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 ;¿'300 a year. ^ State Appropriation of Railways with or without compensation.” ­ (Compensation is a detail to be avoided if possible.) “The establishment of National Banks, which shall absorb all private institutions that derive a profit from operations in money or credit.” (The process of absorption is not described.) “Rapid Extinction of the National Debt” (it is not said how, but apparently “ rapid extinction ” is a euphemism for “ repudiation ”). _ Nationalization of the Land, and organization of agricultural and industrial armies under State control on co-operative principles.” Nothing is said about compensation to existing landowners, capitalists, and owners of property generally, because, apparently, none is intended. They are to be expropriated, if not by more summary methods, by means of the cumulative taxation above advocated. This appears still more plainly in the “Summary of the Principles of Socialism,” signed by the whole Executive Committee of the Democratic Federation, where, after explaining rather more fully the objects of the League, they say :— “ But this is confiscation. Far from it, it is restitution. Those who cry for compensation for past robbery, and shriek confiscation because the right to rob in future is challenged, should bear in mind that the men and women whom we would compensate are those who are now stumbling half-clothed and half-fed from a pauper cradle to a pauper grave, in order that capitalists and landlords may live in luxury and excess. The dead have passed beyond compensation ; it will be well if the living do not call for vengeance on their behalf. Our first principle as Socialists is that all should be well fed, well housed, well educated. For this object, we urge forward the Revolution, which our enemies hysterically shriek at, and frantically try to dam back. ” Let there be no mistake about it. The means which they advocate and exult in, to bring about the consummation which they desire, are what most persons call wholesale rapine and SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 319 plunder. It is as they say, “ a class war,” in its literal and terrible sense, to which they are urging the people. I do not propose to criticise in detail all “ the steppingstones to a happier period ” above mentioned. I believe that, so far as they depend for their efficacy on the principle of plunder, they will be rejected, as soon as they are understood, by the overwhelming majority of the working classes of this country. The three first articles of the New Charter, however, are not necessarily revolutionary in any proper sense of the term ; the only question is whether they would be beneficial. As to the compulsory construction of labourers’ dwellings “ in proportion to the population, to be let at rents to cover the cost of construction and maintenance alone,” unless—as, indeed, appears to be intended—the sites are to be obtained as part of the “ spoils of war,” it is by no means certain that the State, with all its inevitable jobbery, incompetence, and extravagance, is the best agency for providing labourers with good houses at low ' rents. In any case, on Mr. Hyndman’s own principle of the bare-subsistence wage, the net result, under existing economic conditions, would be to benefit the “ slave-drivers ” by lowering the rate of wages. All thinking persons, however, are fully convinced that stringent measures are imperatively called for to put an end to the scandalous way in which large numbers of the labourers in town and country are housed. The question is beset with difficulties, but it seems to me that such measures, so far as they require a change in the law, should take the direction of obliging those who profit by the letting of houses, to see that they fulfil certain minimum sanitary requirements, or, in the alternative, to surrender them up at a price to be determined having regard to that obligation, rather than that of calling in an elaborate State machinery for any large constructive ­ effort. Persons should not be allowed “to profit by their own wrong,” but it is better, where possible, to enforce individual responsibility than to supersede it by officialism. As to “ free education ” with “ one wholesome meal a day,” this too, as far as the parents are concerned, would seem, on Mr. Hyndman’s principles, to be equivalent to a rate in aid of wages ; for what the parents gain by having their children’s 320 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. education and partial maintenance paid for them, they would of course, on “ the bare subsistence ” principle, lose in wages. I, however, am inclined to think that Mr. Hyndman’s proposal might be temporarily adopted in the case of the very poor with a balance of advantage. The chief danger would be the weakening of the parents’ sense of responsibility for the proper bringing up of their children ; but, seeing how very weak this sense of responsibility, in the class in question, already is, and, under existing conditions, necessarily must be, I believe that the danger alluded to would be out-balanced by the great gain of having a new generation rising up amongst us better taught and better fed than their fathers, and having therefore a higher “ standard of comfort.” As to the eight hours normal working day, this is of course a perfectly legitimate object for working men to combine for, and it would no doubt be extremely beneficial if it did not result in driving trade from the country. To obviate this, the rule should be made an international one. Until that can be secured, a legislative remedy might be worse than the disease. It is unnecessary to examine the lemaining “ stepping stones.” Were the consummation ever so devoutly to be wished —which it is not—there is a preliminary question to be asked : Is the nation or are the workers prepared to usher in any new régime at the cost of wholesale plunder and rapine—plunder and rapine, too, not only of the rich and of the much-abused middle classes, but of hundreds of thousands—nay, millions— of the so-called “wage slaves” themselves? The working men who have invested their hard-won savings in Building Societies, in Savings Banks, in Friendly Societies of all kinds, or who have sums standing to their credit in the Co-operative Stores, will find themselves expropriated equally with the Rothschilds. The small proprietor, the tenant farmer who has invested capital in his holding, must go the way of the Duke of Westminster. Every one who has anything to lose must lose it, and be no better off under the new régime than if he had been an idle beggar all his days. To put it on no higher ground, will all these consent to the suggested confiscation ? Apart, however, from the great and indelible moral wrong, SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 321 more important than the mere material loss, involved in the means proposed, is the end in view in itself desirable ? Shorter hours of labour, more leisure, a more equal distribution of wealth, the substitution of an “ intelligently ordered co-operation for existence ” for the present “ physically disordered struggle for existence ”—all this sounds very inviting. Let us see what are the probabilities of obtaining it, and, apart from the initial cost, what price must we pay for its maintenance. The Social Democrats never attempt to give any clear notion of the working of the Collectivist State, either because they have formed none themselves, or because a frank statement would expose its absurdity. All they say is that land, mines, and all raw Materials ; railways, shipping, and all means of communication ; factories, machinery, and all instruments of production all the land and capital of the country, in short—is to be concentrated ­ in the hands of a democratic State, and the work of production, distribution, and exchange is to be carried on “agricultural and industrial armies under State control. Competition will, it seems, be merged in the huge State nionopoly, and exchange will be effected, in some undescribed way, without profit. Every article produced will, I suppose, be ticketed as equivalent to so many hours’ labour, and will be interchangeable ­ with labour-notes in some such way as suggested by Rodbertus.* As nobody will have any private capital, everybody will have to enlist in the service of the State ; and to produce the wealth necessary to secure a reasonable competence, something like two hours’ work a day will, they maintain, suffice. 1 here will be a great saving, they say, in the wages of superintendence and in the costs of distribution. The superintendents—including, ­ I presume, the whole hierarchy of State officials who are to organize labour—are to be remunerated on the same basis as that of productive labourers, pure and simple, j This little admission —which is, indeed, only the logical consequence of the Socialist theory of value—enables us to form an estimate of the probable efficiency with which the gigantic task of organization will be * See supra. Chapter III. r t See Mr. Bax’s article, “ The Modem Revolution, m To-day, for July, 1884, pp. 71, 72. 322 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. carried on, and in itself suffices to demonstrate the utter futility and imbecility of the whole scheme. “ It may seem,” adds Mr. Bax, “to those accustomed to the present system, an injustice that the clever doctor, advocate, artist, author, or composer should be able to absorb no more of the good things of life than the man of average ability. This is only one of the countless instances of custom perverting the mental, or rather moral, vision The natural and unperverted moral sense would seem to declare for the very reverse, namely, that inasmuch as the gifted man is placed by nature on a higher level than the ordinary man, .... he should the rather forego a portion of his own legitimate share. The utmost, however, that is contemplated by the Socialist is his being placed on an equal economical footing ­ with his naturally inferior brother.” This principle of remuneration may suit the unperverted moral sense of angels in Dreamland, but it is idle to pretend that, without a moral revolution far more radical than the material revolution of the Socialists, such a principle would promote Invention, Imagination, ­ Science, Art, and Literature, to say nothing of material wealth, amongst ordinary human beings. It appears that, after all, individual production for profit will not be prohibited in the Collectivist state. “ Prohibitory laws,” says Mr. Bax,* “ will be quite unnecessary when private enterprise ceases to be profitable, as it must when the whole of the means of production, distribution, and credit on a large scale are in the possession of the people themselves.” Accordingly, ­ he answers an objection of M. Leroy-Beaulieu, namely, that “ under the Collectivist régime no one would be allowed to mend his neighbour’s trousers or shirt for a monetary consideration,” by the statement that “ all those who desire to make a living by an individualistic mending of shirts and trousers will be allowed full liberty to satisfy their aspirations.” With characteristic confidence he adds, “ We will not vouch for their being much patronized, for the probability of repairs of this character being executed better, more rapidly, and with less expenditure of labour in the State or communal factory is * See his criticism of M. Leroy-Beaulieu’s “ Collectivisme ” in To-day (September, 1884), pp. 297, 298. SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 323 great.” We beg leave to differ from Mr. Bax’s estimate of the relative efficiency of the Collectivist factory as compared with the individualist owner of a needle and thread, but it is more important to observe that, in the absence of prohibitory laws, the old “ profit-mongering, competitive, individualistic system ” will be sure to creep in again. In process of time, even if a counter-revolution does not hasten matters, energetic individuals, in spite of the levelling system of remuneration, will amass capital by working overtime. They will then compete with the State in production, and, unless we read history all awrong, they will in the end prevail. Thus it appears that the Collectivist experiment can only be tried after the sacrifice of national honour j the experiment itself, if workable at all, would deprive life of most of what makes life endurable, and sooner or later it would inevitably f^-il and leave us centuries behind even our present stage of development Moreover, the Social Democrats of England are never tired of asserting—what, indeed, is sufficiently obvious—that a forcible revolution will be necessary before they can try their Collectivist scheme. It cannot, they say, like the systems of Owen and Fourier, be tried experimentally on a small scale. T hey there fore lay themselves open to the strictures passed by J. S. Mil on the Revolutionary Socialists of the Continent in respect of similar schemes proposed by them. It must be acknow ledged,” he says, “ that those who would play this game on the strength of their own private opinion, unconfirmed as yet by ^ny experimental verification—who would forcibly deprive all ^ho have now a comfortable physical existence of their only present means of preserving it, and would brave the frightfu bloodshed and misery that would ensue if the attempt was msisted—must have a serene confidence in their own wisdom on the one hand, and a recklessness of other people s sufferings on the other, which Robespierre and St. Just, hitherto the typical instances of those united attributes, scarcely came up to.” * Unless a great change comes over the workers of England, * “ Chapters on Socialism,” lortnightly Review (April, 1879). 324 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. they will never consent to have the Collectivist experiment tried upon them. They have always shown a jealousy, in the main a wholesome one, of State interference ; and though more inclined of late to trust officialism in some matters, they will never consent to surrender to any government, however democratically constituted, ­ the entire regulation of the whole economy of life. Possibly the Germans, who have long been accustomed to a bureaucratic régime—an excellent one of its kind—may submit to the growth of State Socialism among them, and the experiment ­ will be watched with great interest by many of us ; but the love of personal liberty, with all its accompanying drawbacks, ­ and the sense of self-reliance, are too deeply engraved in the English nature to render possible even the modified form of State help likely to be adopted in Germany. Indeed, the feelings I speak of, though more noticeable with us,* are not confined to Englishmen ; they are shared in a greater or less degree by the whole civilized world ; and a true analysis would, I think, show that it is these feelings which have driven many of those most profoundly dissatisfied with the present social régime to adopt the principle of Anarchism or Amorphism—a principle which Mr. Hyndman justly calls “ Individualism run mad ”—rather than any form of centralized or authoritarian Collectivism or Communism. Bakunin, in fact, bears the same relation to Karl Marx that Herbert Spencer does to the modern State Socialist Though starting with a very different estimate of the present régime, and moving on a very different plane, they each represent a revolt from what they severally think would be an excessive interference ­ of centralized authority. Nevertheless, these two ideas of Anarchism and of centralized ­ Socialism, though separated theoretically by the whole diameter of economic being, if reduced to practice in the * The difference between the English and the French workman was once more brought into strong relief at the Working Men’s Conference held at Paris last year, and attended by Messrs. Proadhurst, .Shipton, and others, as delegates from the Trades Unions. The English official report states that at one time the Conference looked as though it would fail : “The point of difference was the extent to which the State should be asked to protect labour.” SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 325 present stage of civilization, would probably be found not very far apart They have in common the absolute abolition, that is, the forcible destruction, root and branch, of the existing social economical and political order, and it would require the mind of a sibyl to foresee the shape which, after the chaos, the palingenesis will assume. Mr. Matthew Arnold once said, “No individual life can be truly prosperous passed in the midst of those who suffer. To the noble soul it cannot be happy, to the ignoble it cannot be safe.” There are many noble souls, outside the Social Democratic ­ Federation, who feel this truth profoundly. They, however, ­ may be called Social Reformers rather than Socialists. They admit many counts of the indictment drawn against the existing industrialism by the Revolutionary Socialists, but they Say that these latter, by their reckless exaggerations, only obscure the facts ; by aggravating the existing antagonism between employers and employed, only shut the door to the reconciliation of their interests ; and, by urging on a hopeless and hideous revolution, only postpone reform. The position of Radicals who have accepted the teaching of the new Political Kconomy is well stated by the late Mr. Arnold Toynbee, one of its most ardent representatives. “ The Radical Creed, as I understand it,” he says, “ is this : We have not abandoned our old belief in liberty, justice, and self-help, but we say that under certain conditions the people cannot help themselves, and that then they should be helped by the State representing directly the whole people. In giving this State help, we make three conditions : first, the matter must be one of primary social importance ; next, it must be proved to be practicable ; thirdly, the State interference must not diminish self-reliance. . . . We differ from Tory Socialism in so far as we are in favour, not of Paternal, but of fraternal government, and we differ from Continental ­ Socialism, because we accept the principle of private property and repudiate confiscation and violence.” In spite of the efforts of the Social Democrats, the conflict classes is not nearly so bitter as it used to be even a few years ago. Trades Unionism, apart from its action in providing I^Gnefit Societies, is no longer looked upon as other than a Y 3 326 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. justifiable and commendable means of putting workmen more on an equality with their employers in the matter of contracts, and trade disputes are more often referred to Boards of Conciliation ­ or to arbitration than formerly. The well-to-do classes, including even the “ marauders ” and “ slave-drivers ” in Parliament, are beginning to look upon the labour question with far more sympathy for the labourer than either they or their fathers used to do. This is shown, amongst other ways, by the change which is stealing over the old Political Economy, by the growing interest taken in the proceedings of all congresses ­ and societies which occupy themselves with the discussion ­ of social problems, by the increasing space devoted to social subjects in contemporary literature, and by the greater attention given by the Legislature to questions affecting the good of the working classes. As I write, I come across an account in the Pall Mall Gazette (September 8th) by Mr. Frederic Harrison, of a new industrial inquiry set on foot by an anonymous gentleman of Edinburgh, who has given jQiooo “ to make some provision for keeping before the public mind this vital question, namely :—What are the best means, consistent ­ with equity and justice, for bringing about a more equal division of the accumulated wealth of the country, and a more equal division of the daily products of industry between Capital and Labour, so that it may become possible for all to enjoy a fair share of material comfort and intellectual culture, possible for all to lead a dignified life, and less difficult for all to lead a good life." A conference of a large number of representative men is to be held next January for the discussion of this question, and meantime statistics bearing upon it are being carefully collected. Many Social Reformers go one step further with Socialists. Not only do they admit much of the Socialist indictment against the present industrial system, but they agree with the Socialists in thinking that the only ultimate solution of the question will be found in the union of Capital and Labour in the same hands. It is in the method of bringing about this solution, and in the form of its realization, that Social Reformers definitively part company with Socialists. The latter say that nothing short of SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 327 revolution, peaceful or bloody, will be effectual. The labourers must, by force, if necessary, take possession of the land and capital of the country and expropriate without compensation the present holders. Production for profit must be abolished, competition done away with, and the work of production and exchange must be carried on, in some undefined way, by “ industrial and agricultural armies ” marshalled by the State. Social Reformers, on the other hand, say that a revolution of this kind, apart from its gross injustice and accompanying Reign cf Terror, if successful at all, would be ineffectual, and could only lead to anarchy, reaction, and despotism ; that the real revolution, if such it is to be called, must take place in the minds and hearts of men ; that this revolution can only be brought about gradually, must, in short, be an evolution, and in fact, going on at present ; and, finally, that they do not consider production for profit necessarily a crime, nor competition ­ necessarily an evil, while they look upon the vast extension of State action contemplated by Socialists as giving fbe death-blow to progress and substituting comparative slavery ^cr comparative freedom. 1 here is no panacea for the maladies which affect society. They must be subjected to various influences, moral and intellectual ­ as well as material. But of all the influences likely to benefit the social organism on its industrial side, the co-operative ­ movement is the most promising. It is a purely democratic movement which, without revolution and without State-aid, bas for its aim to resolve the discords that exist between distributors ­ and consumers, and between employers and employed, ^nd also to promote the material, moral, and intellectual elevation of the working classes. It is worth considering, for a moment, the wonderful strides "'hich this movement has made in the forty years which have elapsed since the “ Equitable Pioneers ” subscribed their ¡£2^ 3^nd opened their store on the principle of dividing profits on fbe amount of purchases. According to the Registrar’s returns Ibr 1882, there were then in the United Kingdom 134b Cooperative ­ Societies, doing an annual trade of ;¿^2Ó,ói6,ooo, out of which they were making a profit of ^2,100,000. Ihese 328 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. figures include the productive and the wholesale societies as well as the distributive stores, but, as yet, the productive societies bear a small proportion to the others. According to the returns sent in for 1883, there were thirty-four productive societies, including ten corn-mills, doing an annual business of over ^1,720,000. Their aggregate capital was a little over half a million, and their profits upon this were ;¿’61,000, or an average, after covering all losses, of twelve per cent. From fifteen to eighteen of these productive societies are known to be based upon the principle of copartnership with the workers in shares, in profits, and in management. Co-operative distribution, useful work as it is in many ways doing, will never of itself create a new industrial order, will never make the workman his own employer. It is, however, a valuable means towards that end. It habituates working men to thrift, it teaches them business habits, it inspires them with mutual confidence, it is an ever-growing moral and intellectual educational agency, and it promotes “ the saving of joint capital by joint action for joint purposes.” One of the most important of these joint purposes is the establishment of productive cooperative ­ enterprises. There are considerable differences of opinion both as to the principles upon which such productive enterprises should be founded, and as to the best agencies for carrying them on. Into these questions I cannot enter here, but I may be permitted to express the hope that whatever plan is ultimately adopted, wherever the distinction of employer and employed remains, the co-operative employers will see their way to giving their workmen a direct interest in the results of their labour, otherwise the most important principle of true co-operation will be infringed. How can working men expect employers to admit them to a participation in profits, if they themselves, in their capacity of employers, “ do not as they would be done by?”* Strictly speaking, the term “ Co-operative Production ” * Why Socialist employers, who express such virtuous indignation at the “ wage-slave” system, and who think that profits are the produce of unpaid labour, do not adopt this principle, if only as a pis-aller, is—for them to explain. SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 329 should be confined to cases where the workpeople engaged not only share in profits, but supply at least a portion of the capital, and have a voice in the management of the concern. But as capital and business abilities are precisely what workmen ­ as a rule lack, it is important to notice an industrial system in which these elements are not essential in the first instance. tmmmA Ub.ïre;:F’by Ihe Kev'.'c^’w.-^Ä „884). 330 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. minster Review * expressed a similar idea. It would hardly augur well for the future of profit-sharing if it were forced upon employers by unionist strikes; but if the Trades Unions pronounced emphatically in its favour, it is probable that many employers would be encouraged to give it a fair trial, and if the system was found to work well, it would gradually win its way to general adoption. Indeed, in more ways than one there is much to be hoped from an understanding between Cooperators and Trades Unionists. The two bodies are to a large extent composed of the same individuals, and they have fundamentally the same end in view, namely, the material and moral elevation of the working men who join them ; though the means which they employ are very different. If Trades Unions would combine with the Co-operative organization ­ and devote some of their capital to promoting Cooperative ­ production and making it successful, they would be doing much towards the emancipation of the wage-earner in the only complete manner, namely, by making him his own employer. There are not wanting indications that the leaders of the Unionists are fully alive to the importance of the Cooperative ­ movement, and are prepared to recommend any assistance in their power to its development. I have introduced this brief notice of the Co-operative movement, in a chapter concerned with Socialism, because I am convinced that in the development of this movement, especially on its productive side, and in the wide extension of the system of profit-sharing, will be found the most promising, the most just, and the most permanently efficacious means of putting an end to the antagonism between employers and employed, and of overcoming the worst of those evils of our present industrial system which Socialism, in all its forms, has arisen to attack. If it be said that when Co-operation becomes general the old evils will arise again under the form of competition ­ between the different societies, I think it may be answered that some competition there will probably be, and in the interest of the consumer, that is to say, of everybody, it is * See the article entitled “ Co-operation or Spoliation,” in the number for April, 1884. SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 331 well that it should be so, for “wherever competition is not, monopoly is ; ” but if the present organization of the Co-operative ­ Societies be continued, with such modifications as changing conditions may suggest, there is good reason to expect that it will supply such a regulative principle as will prevent, or at least largely mitigate, the evils which spring from the present economic anarchy : such as the general instability of individual traders, and the recurrent crises resulting from relative overproduction. ­ The Central Committee might, for instance, give accurate statistics as to the amount of produce, and forecast approximately the demand, in the various departments of consumption. ­ If it be said that this is Socialism, be it so ; but it is a Socialism which will have grown up spontaneously from within, in a form suited to its environment, not one suddenly imposed from without on unprepared soil ; it will retain, while it will control, “ the motive power which has hitherto worked the social machinery ; ” it will be dependent upon Self-help not State-help ; and it will, as the Bishop of Durham puts it, make “ self-reliant men,” not “ spoon-fed children.” It is an advantage of Co-operation, not a drawback, that “ it cannot advance further than the minds and morals of the people engaged in it, nor faster than honest and competent men and women can be found to manage its concerns.” For this very reason, every advance will be sure, will pave the way for further advance, and need fear no retrogression. 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(5) Recent (Books Something ^bout (Them. “ Internally and externally a delightful book.” On A Raft, and Through The Desert: By Tristram J. Ellis. LONDON : Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [Two Volumes, Price Two Pounds Twelve-and-Sixpence. A descrii’TION of an artist’s journey through Northern Syria and Kurdistan, by the Tigris to Mosul and Baghdad, and returning across the Desert by the Euphrates and Palmyra to Damascus, over the Anti-Lebanon to Baalbek and Beyrout, with thirty-eight etchings on copper by the author, and a map. “ Not a book to criticise, but to admire.”—Daily Chronicle. By C. B., with numerous whole-page illustrations by Edwin J. Ellis. LONDON : Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [One Shilling. A CLEVERLY written, interesting, and prettily illustrated tale for children. The text is in a new artistic type, and the book is printed throughout, including the numerous whole-page illustrations, in a pretty shade of blue ink. “A most attractive volume."—The Timei. Bygone Beauties : “ A select Series of Ten Portraits op Ladies of Rank and Fashion,” from paintings by John Hoppner, r.a., engraved by Charles Wilkin; annotated by Andrew W.Tuer. LONDON: Field 6- Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [Large Folio, Twenty-one Shillings. A SUPERBLY got up book, in size large folio. The stippled portraits of “ Ladies of Rank and Fashion ” are those of ten beautiful women of a bygone age, each worthy of a separate frame. Single examples of the original prints fetch at an auction ­ several pounds. Amongst the Shans: By Archibald Ross COLQUHOUN, A.M.I.C.E., P R O S., Author of " Across Chrysê.” With upwards of Fifty whole-page Illustrations. LONDON: Field fi* Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [In preparation. Twenty-one Shillings. ♦ CXße ♦ ÜMbenßafr ♦ :Qwe0 ♦ LOlTC'DOíTsC, S.C. (6) (7) <Hecent (Books ^ Something ^About Them. “ A treat."—Sportsman. Christmas Entertainments, Illustrated with Press, E.C. quaint cuts are faithfully reproduced. “ The interest of the volume is inexhaustible.”—Tfte Ttmes. London Cries : With Six Charming Children LONDON One examples by George Cruikshamk, Joseph Crawhall, &c. “ Contains a wealth of information.”—Tiwes. Bartolozzi and his Works : (Dedicated by perammm Bartoloxxi and his Works see “ Miscei-laneoos. Bewick Memento, Illustrated : see Miscellaneous. CÇí ♦ 32eaben^aff ♦ fireee LOÜ^CDOü^, s.c. Recent (Books Something r^bout Them. HUMOROUS ^ “ Will delight every volunteer." Amateur Tommy Atkins : A Volunteer’s experiences ­ related in the Letters of Private Sam^ Bagshaw to his Mother. Illustrated with many clever silhouettes. LONDON: Field Sr Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [One Shilling. A MOKE or less veracious but distinctly amusing relation of the experiences of a volunteer recruit at drill, in camp, and on the march. “A New Year’s Eve story." The Keys ‘ at Home,’ A New Year’s Eve Entertainment. ByJ. M.L. LONDON: Field6"Tuer, The Leadenhall ­ Press, E.C. [One Shilling. A n account of how the keys—from the door-key downwards —entertained and amused their friends on New Year’s Eve, what they did and said and sung : with many original bon mots, songs, parodies, and vers de société. “Excruciatingly funny.”—The World. English as She is Spoke: or a Jest in Sober EARNEST : Ninth Edition. LONDON : Field Sr Tuer, The Leadenhall ­ Press, E.C. [One Shilling. A MANUAL by means of which the Portuguese author, who has struggled with the difficulties of the English language by aid of dictionary and phrase-book, proposes to teach its complexities ­ to his fellow countrymen. The solemn good faith of the writer crowns the unapproachable grotesqueness of his composition. “ Deliciously humorous."—Detroit Free Press. English as She is Spoke : or a jest in Sober EARNEST. “ Her Seconds Part." (new matter.) LONDON : Field Sr Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [One Shilling. unlimited mine of salt for diners-out. ♦ Diße ♦ HédbénÇaff ♦ firee« + í:os\:‘Z)05\:, s.c. (8) Recent (Books Something ^A-bout Them. “ Sure to be popular.”—London Figaro. You Shouldn’t: Being Hints to Persons of Aristocratic Instincts. By Brother Bob. LONDON : Field «S- Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [Sixpence. A COMPANION to “ Don’t," but of a distinctly more pronounced flavour. The unruffled impudence of the writer must make one either stamp with rape or shake with uncontrollable merriment. ­ There is no middle course. " For those who can read between the lines, most amusing." Don’t: A Manual of Mistakes and Improprieties ­ more or less prevalent in Conduct and Speech. By Censor. UNMVTILATBD and with the additional matter. The only Authorized ­ and COMPLETE Edition. LONDON: Field Sr Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [Sixpence. O F American origin, “ Don’t : A Manual of Manners,” may be taken seriously, or considerably otherwise. In a very short time “ Don’t ” has run through some thirty editions. Midget folio. Half-a-crown. See Title-page, actual size, appended. " An amusing bibliographical curiosity. Will be relished by printers and their patrons ; for the latter a needful glossary of terms is not forgotten.” : for Authors, Editors, Edited by Andrew W. Tuer. Midget io (Royal 304mo.), pp. 160. Measures one by oned-a-half inches. Printed in pearl type on bank-note ner. Enshrined in vellum. LONDON: (i) Quads andDevils. folio and . paper. Enshnned Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C Field 6-KidfMfcUa.] Quads ^uikmn, Ediíên f DniU •diUd by Aitd; W. Tubs. LONDONt PUld k Kmpkia; Hamiltoo. (Demy i6mo. One Shilling.) Will be relished by printers and their patrons : for the latter a needful glossary of terms is not forgotten." (2) Quads [Enlarged Edition with extra matter! for Authors, Editors, and Devils. Edited by Andrew W. Tuer. LONDON : Field é- Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. ♦ ♦ XZeabmßaff ♦ fiwee ♦ LOÜsQfDOÜ^, 6.C. (9) (Recent (Books & Something t^bout Them. “ An amusing and covetable curiosity.” (Demy i6mo. Seven-and-sixpence.) (3) Quads within Quads: for Authors, Editors, and Devils. Edited by Andrew W. Tuer. Bound in extra stout vellum with silken strings. LONDON : Field Sr Tuer, The Leadenball Press, E.C. A n amusing collection of printers’ jokes. A book and a box, or rather two books and a box, and yet after all not a box at all, but a book and only one book. Quads Within Quads is the larger edition of Quads bulked out at the end with extra leaves of paper fastened together, and hollowed out in the centre, and in the little nest so formed reposes a copy of the miniature Quads. Christmas Entertainments ; see Illustrated. THEOLOGICAL ^ “ A book for clergymen and their critics." Decently and in Order : A few hints on the performance of the ©tDerjl fot ^OMIIIIg $ ÔEheitíng Ptapetí, with a brief notice of mistakes which now commonly occur. By a Clergyman. LONDON: Field & Tuer, The Leadenball Press, E.C. [One Shilling. A n outspoken criticism of the slovenly, unthoughtful manner in which the Church services are performed in many of our churches and cathedrals. A chapter is devoted to common mistakes, shewing how grotesque the services become if carelessly ­ performed. Suggestions are addressed to those who do not consider themselves absolutely incapable of improvement. " A collection of sentences, each a valuable sermon in itself." Sermons in Sentences : Being- selected passages ­ from the Sermons of Ralph Brownrig, Bishop of Exeter. By the Rev. A. A. Toms, m.a. LONDON; Field & Tuer, The Leadenball Press, E.C. [Half-a-Crown. A BEAUTIFUL and choice book printed in extra large type : a book over which even minutes may be profitably expended. ♦ Xj.^i * ÏZwbenÇdff ♦ ♦ LOüKfDOüsa, S.c. ( 10 ) (Recent (Books kß Something ^bout Them. “ Possesses a felicitous charm."—Daily Chronicle. Reasonable Apprehensions and Reassuring Rev. Henry Footman, m.a. hall Press, E.C. LONDON I nial aooui»*pvaw»*-t —, ' Field *• Tuer, The I^aden-[One Shilling. Xhe author begins by stating the case 1 than they usually state it themselves, and then go , the case for belief so clearly that twenty high-class r ., , commended the work, and every week brings fresh evi the interest it is exciting, " Adapted to please the eye and refresh the mind. Scotsman. One Hundred and Forty-two Selected Texts »r ' •‘îâW vices add to the manner of a book the matter of whi sally appreciated. - " A grand book, an upheaval of true spirituality. The Theo^^ie The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ — - ’ = ^‘'‘‘‘[fwIrvV-Ähpence: With illustrative diagrams. LONDON i hall Press, E.C. A 7—': potentialities of humanity and their culmination i " Should be read by everybody." "%feJ:orldjame to aji^En^ fjg: Leadenhall Press, E.C. S hews the great number of predictions, sacred ^d this event, their real meaning, the manner of their fulhl ment, and the nature of the new era now beginning. ♦ tüße ♦ XZédhénÇúff ♦ fiwaff ♦ LOÜ^T)Oüs(i, S.C. (Il) Recent (Books Something ^bout Them POETRY " An elegant birthday or New Year’s gift.” Love Letters. By a Violinist. Consisting; A COLLECTION of poems setting forth the eulogies of love. music, and fidelity. The collection is divided into twelve parts, each being a lyric or letter addressed to a beautiful and accomplished lady The arrangement of the lines constitutes what may be considered a new metre. “ As the brightest of poets have passed away! ' ~ Now It s left between Tennyson and James Gay.” T m. Saturday Review has treated “Canada’s Poet” as the thinnest joke of the generation. But the fact is this amusing book is not ajoke at all. The whole point of its publica ­ ion IS, that like “ English as She is Spoke,” it is a serious book, seriously written, and its author, James Gay, is serious in believing himself to be on a level with Lord Tennyson, to whom lywill be obsen'ed his “ poems ” are affectionately dedicated. My Ladye and Others: Poems:’ Satirical, enhall Press, E.C. [Ten-and-Sixpence. SERIES of charmingly written society verses. LOt^QfDOtK, S.C. ( ») (13) Recent (Books Something ^yábout Them. <06 FICTION 9^ " An absurdly amusing book. There are hearty laughs in it."—Judy. Holy Blue f By Alphonse de Florian (traduced ­ into the English by Himself). With an Introduction by James Millington. LONDON : Field «• Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [Two-and-Sixpence ; cloth, Three-and-Sixpence. A n amusingly egotistical quasi-biographical story, wntten in idiomatic French and literally translated into the English language by the author—one of the Frenchiest of French writers, "An interesting and cleverly written novel by a new author.” This Year, Next Year, Sometime, Never. A Novel, by Puck. LONDON: Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [In Two Volumes, One Guinea. A STORY of to-day and of people one constantly meets. Though non-sensational in the sense of not dealing with hair-breadth escapes and striking situations, the interest of a remarkable and well told story is maintained throughout, (Prince Pertinax : see Illustrated.) ^ MISCELLANEOUS * Far more piquant and amusing even than ‘John Bull and his Island, to which it is the companion volume.” John Bull’s Womankind. By Max O’Rell, Author of "John Bull and His Island.” First Edition, Twenty-five Thousand. LONDON : Field 6- Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [Yellow Covers, Two-and-Sixpence ; Cloth, Three-and-Sixpence. I N this volume, which is the continuation of “John Bull and his Island,” Max O’Rell describes, in his happiest vein of wit and humour, the domestic side of English women, London beauties, shop girls, actresses, women’s rights, hallelujah lasses, and so forth. ♦ * iZéabénÇaff ♦ fireea ♦ S.C. (Recent (Books ^ Something ^bout (them. “ Most amusing : John Bull is hit off to the life.” John Bull and his Island. Translated from the French by the Author, Max O’Rell. Fifty-second Thousand. THE book. .4 LL booksellers. LONDON: Field 6-Tuer, The Leadenhall ’[Yellow Covers, Two-and-Sixpence ; Cloth, Three-and-Sixpence. G ood-humoredly satirised, for the first time John Bull makes acquaintance in print with his own weaknesses. Translated into almost every European language, upwards of two hundred thousand copies of “ John Bull and his Island " have been disposed of, and this remarkable book is still selling largely. “ A curious, valuable, and beautifully got up volume.”—Review. Collectors’ Marks. By Louis Fagan. With Frontispiece by the Author. For the use of Print Collectors. LONDON: Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [Twenty-one Shillings. A COLLECTION of between six and seven hundred marks used by collectors of prints and drawings, with brief accounts of collectors, dates of sales, and sums realised, fire. This valuable ­ work, compact and suited to the pocket, could never have been compiled except by one enjoying the extensive opportunities ­ afforded by the British Museum to its author. “ The work of an open-hearted and plain-spoken experienced Conservative of the most pronounced type.” Autobiography of Tracy Turnerelli, “The Old Conservative.” A Record of Work, Artistic, Literary and Political, from 1835 to 1884. LONDON : Field <5- Tuer, The Leadenhall ­ Press, E.C. [Six Shillings. D escribes, with corroborative documents from sovereigns, statesmen, and the press, nearly half a century of the wholly gratuitous toil of a true lover of England, to whom a Lord Chancellor said, “ No one has worked more consistently and efficiently, and with more self-sacrifice than yourself, ' and of whom Richard Cobden wrote, “ You have deserved well of all to whom Humanity is dear.” ♦ txße ♦ ïïéûbénÇafC »Ifiréee ♦ LO!K(DOa^, s.c. ( 14) (Recent (Books kß Something t^bout (Them. “ The typical Frenchman described by a shrewd and keen wiUed critic." Monsieur at Home. By Albert Rhodes. LONDON : Fl.M A" ÄÄrÄalmost every page was gained by a long residence amongs . " Of remarkable interest and value." The Wonderland of Evolution. By Albert hâllpfeTÊ.c"^®"'"'*'*" ^T^^ree-Äshpelce*. T he authors illustrate in an understandable and amusing manner the absurdities of some of the views he y advanced evolutionists, and indicate the perfect h^mony ing between natural phenomena and the true origin and u destiny of man. "The first of a valuable series of historical sporting books." Football; Its Flistory for Five Centuries. (Historical Sporting Series, No. i.) By Montaoub , T T? Vincent. LONDON: i; By MONTAUUd ---AMES E. Vincent. LONDON : Field Sr Tuer, The Press, E.C. . . T N the first place a full inquiry into the antiquity o e 1 winter pastime beloved by English men an Y classes. The authors proceed to shew the manne two forms of rules now in vogue have grown out o at the great public schools. “A masterpiece."—Mag. of Art. ^ Bartolozzi and his Works. (Dedicated by per-Works, see " Illustrated." A COMPLETE guide to the study of old-fashioned prints of the Bartolozzi School. Cheap and revised edition in one handsome volume. ♦ Oße ♦ IZédôénÇaff ♦ iQme * L07^(D07>C S.C. (IS) Recent (Books ^ Something tA-bout Them. “ The first book on social life in China written by a Chinaman.” The Chinese Painted by Themselves. By C^onel Tchenq-ki-Tonq. Translated by James Millington. LONDON : Field 6r Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [Six Shillings. T he truth respecting China and the Chinese, according to a Chinaman who considers he may be allowed to know as much about his country and its people as the more or less veracious travellers who have discoursed thereon. The subject is full of interest, and Colonel Tcheng-ki-tong’s book is destined to dispel many time-honoured prejudices. " A weird and fascinating story which has the rare merit of being true.” The True Story of Mazeppa: The Son of Peter the Great : A Change of Reign. By Viscount E. Melchior DE Vogue. Translated from the French by James Millington. LONDON : Field &• Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [Six Shillings. F ew are unacquainted with the mythical Mazeppa of Voltaire, Byron, Hugo, and Poushkin. Fact, however, is stranger than fiction, and the weird and fascinating story herein related of the hero, who is every year solemnly cursed in Russian churches —with the exception of those founded by himself—will possess an equal interest for the lover of the romantic and the historical, " Should be read by literary aspirants.”—Graphic, John Oldcastle’s Guide for Literary Begin-NERS. LONDON : Field 6r Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [One Shilling. T he title is self-explanatory, and the nature of the book will best be gathered by a perusal of the chapter headings:— “Literary Amateurs,” “Introductions to Editors,” “How to Begin,” “Declined with Thanks,” “Pounds, Shillings, and Pence,” “Journalism as a Career,' (i. The fair side; 2. The seamy side), “ In an Editor’s Chair,” “ A Miscellaneous Chapter," “Ten Journalistic Commandments,” “ How to Correct Proofs.” To the literary tyro “ Oldcastle’s Guide for Literary Beginners ” is full of most useful hints, while to the outside world it wil afford a fund of amusement. ♦ ♦ Hwhenßaff ♦ ZOweg ♦ LOTsÇfDOü^, S.C. ( I6) ( 17 ) (Recent (Books kß Something ^yibout Them. Tree Gossip. By Francis George HeatB. LONDON ; Field &■ Tuer. The Leadenhall Press, E.C- 13 • form of entertaining “ Gossip. "An excellent manual."—XiAemrww. An Essay of Scarabs: By W. J. Loftie, B.A., C ONTAINS an account of the use of the Scarabetu, as an amulet by the ancient Egyptians, , äH'SSS&s a small number remain unsold. “A quaint little yoXurnc."—PM Mall Gazette. Ye Oldest Diane of Englysshe 1 ravel! ^ Being The Leadenhall Press, E.C. rntm told it has not been thought necessary to make any ♦ XX^t * IZédbmÇúff ♦ :Qme * S.C. Recent (Books ^ Something ^bout Them. " Of great value and interest.” A Guide to the River Thames from its source to Wandsworth, together with particulars of the rivers Avon, Severn, and Wye, ë-c. Illustrated. By John Salter. LONDON : Field 6” Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C.; OXFORD: John Salter, University ­ Boat-house. [One Shilling. T he contents of this dependable guide are sufficiently explained ­ in the title, and the position of the author, who is intimately acquainted with every inch of the Thames on which a boat can be pulled, is a sufficient guarantee of accuracy. ” A most thoughtfully considered and valuable treatise.” Socialism of To-day. By Kmile de Lavei eye. Translated from the French by Goddard H. Orpen. Including “ Socialism in England,” hy the Translator. LONDON : Field Sr Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [Six Shillings. S ocialism v. Individualism is rapidly becoming the most pressing, as it is the most momentous, question of the day. An English version of M. de Laveleye’s account and criticism of European Socialism is therefore a welcome contribution to the subject. It embraces a lucid statement of the views of Marx and Lassalle, the founders of German socialism, and a graphic description ­ of the wild theories of Bakunin, the apostle of Nihilism. ­ Mr. Orpen has largely added to the importance of the work by giving the first comprehensive account ever published of socialism in England. He accurately describes and carefully criticises the three socialistic movements conducted by the Land Nationalisers, the Christian Socialists, and the thorough-going Social Democratic Federation, respectively. The book appears opportunely at a time when all Europe is astounded at the electoral victories of the Social Democrats in Germany. " Unique and attractive.”—Newcastle Chronicle. Journalistic Jumbles ; or, Trippings in Type. Being Notes on some Newspaper Blunders, their origin and nature, with numerous examples. By Frederic Conde Williams. [One Shilling. '■^EEMS with laughable examples of typographical blunders. ♦ tXßi ♦ IZidbenfaff ♦ zOtes« - LOU^^OC^C, S C. ( I8) (Recent (Books Something t^ibout ^hem. Throw physic to the dogs." “Fining Down” on Natural Principles witn-BE##### about, and he goes as well, too ! — History of _ the Decline and Pal of the Press, E.C. A AND DUTIES% MARRIAGE: By Dr. J^RE^^jTa^lor, Introduction by the Rev. J. A. Kerr* rTwo-and-Si%pence. The Leadenhali Press, E.C. A •• Mysteries cease to be mysteries^ p 'esääzäs&ä### nT;Í nau„y . thought-reading. . —=r . . ÏZwîténÇaff ♦ :ßw0e= ♦ £05\I‘I>Oí>G ^•^• ( 19 ) A' decent (Books & Something ^A.bout Them. " Amusement and information combined.” Tennis Cuts and Quips, in Prose and Verse, with Rules and Wrinkles. Edited by Julian Marshall, author of “ The Annals of Tennis.” Hon. Sec. All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon. LONDON : Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [Two-and-Sixpence. A COLLECTION of essays, letters, anecdotes, and verses, serious, comic, and serio-comic, by various hands, about tennis And lawn-tennis, with the rules of the latter game. Useful information ­ and critical remarks are mixed with much genuinely amusing matter. ” A true picture of this great actor.”—Herne Bay Press. Henry Irving, Actor and Manager : A Criticai ­ Study. By William Archer. LONDON: Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. Second Edition. [One Shilling. A n attempt at a dispassionate and rational appreciation of the distinguished actor’s merits and defects. Shunning Irving-mania ” and “ Irving-phobia ” alike, the author seeks to moderate the transports of indiscriminating worshippers, while at the same time combatting the prejudice of bigoted unbelievers. ­ Neither a lampoon nor a panegyric, but in short a •“ critical study.” " May be cordially commended.”—Liverpool Daily Post. Are we to Read ? BOA AW >I OA 8 or What is the Best Print for the Eyes? By James Millinoton. With an Introduction by R. Brudenell Carter, f.r.c.s. (Illustrated.) LONDON ­ : Field &• Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. [One Shilling. I N a little compass the author has gathered together much valuable information on the eyesight, and he points out the injurious effects of premature and excessive literary work, and suggests such modifications of paper and print as will enable the greatest amount of work to be done with the least possible fatigue to the eyes. The introduction by R. Brudenell Carter is most interesting and suggestive. LOUSCDOC^C, S.C. ( 20 ) ( 21 ) Recent (Books Something ^yábout Them. The Opening of China. Six Letters reprinted The Leadenhall Press, E.C. ammng. A n exhaustive account of the present condition suggesting means for the opening of that Emp pean commerce. LORD BEACONSFIELD ON THE CONSTITUTION. " WhaTis heV" and " A Vindication of the English Constitution.” By »Disraeli the Younger." " Novel readers and novel writers may advantageously stu y that the line is Ctße ♦ ïteûhénÇaff ♦ iQwee ♦ L0V^T)0V^ s.c. decent (Books Something ^bout Them. Dickens Memento (with Introductions by Francis Phillimore and John F. Dexter.) Catalogue, with purchasers’ ­ names and prices realised, of the pictures, drawings, and objects of art of the late Charles Dickens, dispersed at Christie, Manson <5- Woods in 1870. LONDON : Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. A BEAUTIFULLY printed and luxuriously got-up book of special value to the Dickens collector. In three separate divisions, the text includes primarily a reprint of the catalogue of the Dickens sale, at which it may be remembered almost fabulous ­ sums were realised. Mr. Francis Phillimore contributes a gossipy and interesting introduction, and Mr. John F. Dexter a lengthy, learned, and exhaustive paper on book rarities, subtitled ­ “ Hints to Dickens Collectors.” Bewick Memento {with an Introduction by Robert Robinson). Catalogue, with purchasers’ names and pricM realised, of the scarce and curious collection of silver plate, prints, pictures, wood blocks, copperplates, and Bewick relics, &c., dispersed at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1884. Illustrated. LONDON: Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. A BEAUTIFULLY printed and luxuriously got-up book of special value to the Bewick collector. Mr. Robert Robinson, ­ of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who contributes the introduction, has been connected during the greater part of a long lifetime with the Bewick family, and he writes with a full knowledge of his subject. Of the eighteen beautiful illustrations, printed on separate leaves, twelve embellished the original catalogue, but the six additional at the end, including the humorously treated frontispiece of “ Cows Angling”—all charming specimens of Bewick’s skill with the graver—are first impressions from blocks hitherto not printed from. “ By far the most complete, and at the same time entertaining book on old glass yet published.”—Saturday Review. Glass in the Old World : By M. A. Wallace-Dunlop. With Illustrations. LONDON : Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall ­ Press, E.C. [Twelve-and-Sixpence. A MOST comprehensive and entertaining epitome of what is known about glass in ancient times and in all countries. A treasury of information full of interest and anecdote. ♦ * iZídhênÇaff ♦ZQréee ♦ LOü^T)Oü^, 6.C. ( 22 ) Recent (Books & Something ^A.bout Them. " Thoroughly readable and interesting.”—Lrtrrary World. Business and Pleasure in Brazil : By Ulick Ralph Burke, author of “ Loyal and Lawless, ’ Md Robert taple , Jr. LONDON : Field <& Tuer, The Leadenhall A BOOK of travels, both practical and amusing, Saving the experiences and impressions of two men of the wor ^ their visits to Oporto, Lisbon, Pernambuco, Rio de Janiero, mining districts in the interior of Brazil, and the River a Fluent, unaffected, and full of observation. Full of important information.”—Picfort^^oWd. The Truth about Tonquiii; Being Cl)f CllUES enhall Press, E.C. I-®“® ishiiung. T hese letters should be studied by those who wish to u^erstand the position of affairs in China as regards the 1 on quin difficulty. : Book of lapanese Desig-ns, About 350 in all. Printed on Vellum. [Six Copies only.] At the various times of publication of their Vellum Series, Messrs. Field‘d & Tuer, says the copies of each book printed on fine vellum. remainbeen disposed of at one guinea per volume, an ing four sets of the following volumes thirteen now offered for sale :—“ Reasonable ,,.. <> non’t ” ### curiosity, “ Quads within Quads : two guineas eac ♦ Oße ♦ IZéûbénÇaff ♦ JQreee ♦ L07^T>0tK., S.C. ( 23 ) ( 24 ) (Recent (Books Something tA-bout Them, “ A covetable gift-book.” Echoes of Memory. By Atherton Furlong. With etchings by Tristram J. Ellis. LONDON : Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C. A CHARMINGLY illustrated and beautifully bound volume of gracefully written poetry produced as an edition de luxe in the most fastidious manner. Will be prized alike by bibliophiles and lovers of light and tender verses. “ With Bad Paper, one’s Best is impossible.” 1 he Author S Pnper Pud (issued by the Proprietors of The Leadenhall Press.) Contains, in block form, fifty sheets of paper, fibrous and difficult to tear as a piece of linen, over which—being of unusual but not painful smoothness—the pen slips with perfect freedom. Easily detachable, the size of the sheets is about 7iX 8} in., and the price is only that usually charged for common scribbling paper. The Author’s Paper Pad may be comfortably used, whether at the desk, held in the hand, or resting on the knee. As being most convenient for both author and compositor, the paper is ruled the narrow way, and of course on one side only.— Sixpence each, 5/- per dozen, ruled or plain.—FIELD 6* TUER, Puolishers and Printers, The Leadenhall Press, London, E.C. Field Tuer, ^Printers & ^puBLisHERs, The Leadenhall Press, z,os\;‘D07^. , ;V., 1%; % 4; A-i' 1 .'it m mSsè' 7r ÎTSP-% i; Jf - :S(r' !■: 4J mí:«, ' A- M I iú !!í (3 -1-, .tw; \ ■ f it I ff , ^ Î.V -Xff i4 fît \ÿ: i Mull K ■» m M . : V ' ¡1 ! •I?' fsy; ■r. .;r. r ^ ' ; iV mm 7^''^3. 'pyr « 5% Äi^. ### ## mm ??íís 5* K# ■ví.*í %% %:yi m ■$m ## s«-y W«;» P>5 yw mm 206$07966067 i3« K¿ :x- GD O O Q 25 J3 Q. (C 0 w ? te % & 25 00 DI ; n A Y ■ V_' _ V i