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 sove 
reign 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).