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