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 labour- 
force 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).