320

SOCIALISM  IN  ENGLAND.

education  and  partial  maintenance  paid  for  them,  they  would
of  course,  on  “  the  bare  subsistence  ”  principle,  lose  in  wages.
I,  however,  am  inclined  to  think  that  Mr.  Hyndman’s  proposal
might  be  temporarily  adopted  in  the  case  of  the  very  poor  with
a  balance  of  advantage.  The  chief  danger  would  be  the
weakening  of  the  parents’  sense  of  responsibility  for  the  proper
bringing  up  of  their  children  ;  but,  seeing  how  very  weak  this
sense  of  responsibility,  in  the  class  in  question,  already  is,  and,
under  existing  conditions,  necessarily  must  be,  I  believe  that
the  danger  alluded  to  would  be  out-balanced  by  the  great  gain
of  having  a  new  generation  rising  up  amongst  us  better  taught
and  better  fed  than  their  fathers,  and  having  therefore  a  higher
“  standard  of  comfort.”  As  to  the  eight  hours  normal  working
day,  this  is  of  course  a  perfectly  legitimate  object  for  working
men  to  combine  for,  and  it  would  no  doubt  be  extremely
beneficial  if  it  did  not  result  in  driving  trade  from  the  country.
To  obviate  this,  the  rule  should  be  made  an  international  one.
Until  that  can  be  secured,  a  legislative  remedy  might  be  worse
than  the  disease.
It  is  unnecessary  to  examine  the  lemaining  “  stepping
stones.”  Were  the  consummation  ever  so  devoutly  to  be  wished
—which  it  is  not—there  is  a  preliminary  question  to  be  asked  :
Is  the  nation  or  are  the  workers  prepared  to  usher  in  any  new
régime  at  the  cost  of  wholesale  plunder  and  rapine—plunder
and  rapine,  too,  not  only  of  the  rich  and  of  the  much-abused
middle  classes,  but  of  hundreds  of  thousands—nay,  millions—
of  the  so-called  “wage  slaves”  themselves?  The  working  men
who  have  invested  their  hard-won  savings  in  Building  Societies,
in  Savings  Banks,  in  Friendly  Societies  of  all  kinds,  or  who
have  sums  standing  to  their  credit  in  the  Co-operative  Stores,
will  find  themselves  expropriated  equally  with  the  Rothschilds.
The  small  proprietor,  the  tenant  farmer  who  has  invested
capital  in  his  holding,  must  go  the  way  of  the  Duke  of
Westminster.  Every  one  who  has  anything  to  lose  must  lose
it,  and  be  no  better  off  under  the  new  régime  than  if  he  had
been  an  idle  beggar  all  his  days.  To  put  it  on  no  higher
ground,  will  all  these  consent  to  the  suggested  confiscation  ?
Apart,  however,  from  the  great  and  indelible  moral  wrong,