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).