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 Com 
munistic 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 middle- 
class reformer, believing in the virtues of free contract and com 
petition ; ” 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