SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND.
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well that it should be so, for “wherever competition is not,
monopoly is ; ” but if the present organization of the Co-operative
Societies be continued, with such modifications as changing
conditions may suggest, there is good reason to expect that it
will supply such a regulative principle as will prevent, or at
least largely mitigate, the evils which spring from the present
economic anarchy : such as the general instability of individual
traders, and the recurrent crises resulting from relative overproduction.
The Central Committee might, for instance, give
accurate statistics as to the amount of produce, and forecast
approximately the demand, in the various departments of consumption.
If it be said that this is Socialism, be it so ; but it
is a Socialism which will have grown up spontaneously from
within, in a form suited to its environment, not one suddenly
imposed from without on unprepared soil ; it will retain, while
it will control, “ the motive power which has hitherto worked
the social machinery ; ” it will be dependent upon Self-help
not State-help ; and it will, as the Bishop of Durham puts it,
make “ self-reliant men,” not “ spoon-fed children.” It is an
advantage of Co-operation, not a drawback, that “ it cannot
advance further than the minds and morals of the people
engaged in it, nor faster than honest and competent men and
women can be found to manage its concerns.” For this very
reason, every advance will be sure, will pave the way for
further advance, and need fear no retrogression. Whereas,
were the most ideally perfect socialistic State even such as
“ the idle singer of an empty day” might dream of--put into
operation to-morrow, it would inevitably collapse and lead to
anarchy and despotism, because “the minds and morals of the
people ” would not have been prepared for it.
THE END.
